Revised Nov, 18, 2010 with the help of Seducing Reason. (without, this wouldn't have been edited)
"Well . . .?" Her voice was so shaky that it took a moment for him to realize it was hers.
'Not so confident sounding now, are we?' He had lifted his hands up to the first straps of his leather armor when the soft echo of her command began to gain volume in his mind.
Pausing only for a second or two, before her impatience came out in an odd tone of voice. 'Well..?' Again he was stricken with how often her mood seemed to shift. He inwardly grinned. It felt like once again he had the upper hand, even if he was the one disrobing.
Her eyes widened when he didn't continue. Did she expected him to flee? He would if he could. Though he couldn't, so his fingers slowly undid the first buckle. Then the second. All the while the Vaultie stared right at him, still as stone.
With a hunch and hitch of his back he loosened the upper armor completely, over his head it went, with it his anatomy was revealed. With a shuffle the leather hit the floor. Charon was bare from the waist up, the unfamiliar cool air against his 'flesh' caused him to stop a moment before reaching to his belt buckles.
He watched her eyes, not needing to look down to finish disrobing himself. They shifted over his upper half, paying special attention it seemed, to the whites of his jutting collar bones. Those eyelids drooped with something foreign to him, it wasn't lust, but close to it. He began to hear her breathing, soft but audible. She was forcing him to degrade himself and it was turning her on. It couldn't have been because of his body, those days were long gone.
'She's getting off on forcing me.' He repeated that conclusion a few times so it sunk in, he wouldn't get his hopes up so easily. 'That's what she wants anyways, right?' He convinced himself, but even after so many decades a small part of his brain still wanted to believe a woman could want him.
He watched those eyes change yet again, then he heard her speak, just as he had undone the last belt buckle. Thankfully she shouted the word. He could not have heard another whisper from her over her ringing demand against his eardrums. 'Take off your clothes . . .'
"Wait!" It sounded like the whine of a child, fitting since she looked just as scared as one for a moment.
He did wait, his hands remaining onto his undone belt. She looked him over, sucking her bottom lip, in surprisingly, a very non enticing manner. 'What was going on in that little head of hers . . .?' She looked as though she were weighing multiple options in her head, the outcomes and the benefits. He sneered outwardly, a low rumble escaping his throat. That caught her attention.
She looked at him, the focus leaving her eyes. She made a small smile, it was almost beautiful. Almost.
The ghoul couldn't help but tense when he witnessed her leave the wall and he definitely couldn't control the instinct to withdraw from her when she came too close. She got too close. He could smell her breath, and surely she could smell him.
"You really. . . can't say no. . . can you?" He hated the pity in her voice more than anything so far. Even witnessing the blatant skull bashing and the seduction wasn't as bad as hearing her voice then. It made him angry. So much so that he couldn't help his next action, even with the contract's words blazing before his vision.
Quickly without a seconds hesitation his hand came up to her throat, wrapping around the fragile croon of her neck with a deadly grip. Her eyes bulged.
He squeezed her neck.
She didn't have time to make a sound, but she did manage a deep nasally inhale. He saw the fear again, it was a better color on her than sympathy. Another tight squeeze on her neck brought her around the corner, now anger was her color.
As if she had come up with another scheme while almost being strangled, her face changed. She smirked at him. 'She's smirking!'
He quickly eradicated that smirk as he increased the pressure around her neck. Only when he felt her small hands on his forearm did he begin to realize what he was actually doing, so he slowly loosened his grip.
A strangled cough came out her throat and the corner of her eyes began to water. 'Oh how I want to snap her neck.'
She made a gargling sound, and he deciphered the word 'go' which was enough, 'Yes, I will let go.' He attempted to pull his hand back from her but those hands on his arm remained, keeping him like he was, only now he held her neck gently. She just looked at him, waiting.
He hated himself for it, but he couldn't help running his fingers over her skin, feeling its texture. 'Too smooth.' Maybe that's what she was waiting for, for him to prove to her that he wanted some part of her, even if it was just the skin she was wrapped in.
It had been a long while since he'd touched skin, real smooth skin. 'Smoothskin . . .' His eyes glazed over, momentarily forgetting the previous desire to kill her.
"You hurt me." He felt the vibration in her throat as she spoke. Against the previous silence, her words were welcomed by him. He didn't mean to hurt her, he did, but he didn't mean it. He couldn't. The feel of her skin caused only a certain type of thought to gather in his mind. 'No . . . goddammit!'
With a jerk of his shoulder he loosened her grip on his arm, pulling his hand from her and back to his side. He looked down at the arm like it was now diseased, contaminated by her touch, by her skin.
"I did not wish to hurt you . . . forgive me." He mumbled. She had brought her hands to her throat, touching the redness that already showed, there would be bruises in an hour. He knew. He even decided he liked the idea of her skin being covered in purple and yellow blemishes, that he put them there.
Just the idea caused his fingers to twitch, that and the sight of her caressing her neck softly. It was like witnessing her please herself, the way she touched the skin there. For a moment his mouth went dry.
"If your going to touch me it better not be with violence." She spoke quickly, gripping her neck and staring at the floor. The gross, smelly floor.
'So that was her game.' He frowned, "I wouldn't want to touch you any other way."
He hurt her with that, he saw it in her face. Her eyes squinted and her lips thinned, but she removed the look quicker then he thought she could. Maybe she had picked up on his half truth. She made a 'phfft' type of noise, blowing some hair from against her cheek. Her eyes became angry again but she didn't say anything.
Instead of making a comeback she simply took the loss like a 'mature adult' and walked through the door. He watched her disappear past the door frame. The mood didn't leave with her though, and he fucking hated that.
Charon stood where she left him, giving himself a few moments to register what had just occurred. As he buckled up his armor, tightening the leather to his chest, he thought of her. He didn't have long though when the 'bitch' began to shout in the next area. Her voice demanding him to come to her. And come he would.
Behind sandbag cover were two super mutants, crouching, trying to fire at the Vault girl behind a turned over desk. She was to his right in the open room, fresh blood was on the ground besides her. Her body was shaking and awkwardly bent behind the desk. Charon didn't even bother getting into cover. He quickly slung his shotgun from his back against his shoulder. He aimed and shot. Aimed and shot, the repetition continued until the second and last mutant was decapitated. Smoke filled the air from his shots. The ghoul turned to his employer with great difficulty.
In the end Charon could take many more bullets then she could, so when he turned with blood oozing from his body and saw her blood soaked thigh he decided to fix her up before himself. 'Course, if she commanded him to, it wouldn't have been his decision anyways.
She was still behind the desk, but now she was slumped, legs splayed but bent. The clean bullet hole was almost lost in the blood that was leaking, dirt and dust stuck to the bloody mess making it even more contrasting next to the other leg. Despite the desire to hurt her himself just a few minutes ago he became slightly enraged at the thought of someone else harming her.
'It's the contract.' The contract was making him feel the need to keep her safe, of course. His mind relaxed as he reassured himself of that fact. He walked to her, only a slight limp made his strides look unsteady.
'Hasn't she been shot yet?' She was watching him the whole time. He saw the effect that the gun shot had on her. She was in mild shock. It was a common occurrence in the wastes, and if you couldn't handle a couple bullets then you just weren't fit for living.
Her lower lip quivered as she gripped the area around the bullet hole, it probably felt better, but it was only squeezing blood out of her quicker. He knelt down with a grimace of pain, for a moment they made eye contact.
"T-take care of...this, would ya...?" She gave him an order and he followed it.
He grabbed her thigh, bare in his hands. Her words repeated in his head over and over again, like a record on a loop. 'T-take care of...this, would ya...?' He injected her with stimpacks, still the words echoed. He poured a bottle of vodka over the wound, still the command rang loud. Her order in his head even muffled her own shriek of pain, as the alcohol seeped into the hole.
'T-take care of...this, would ya...?' He was quick and not very gentle, the sooner he fixed her up the sooner her words would fade.
He cringed while ripping off the thick hem on her yellow dress, a semi clean length of cloth that he secured around the entry and exit holes. He tied it tight with a jerk which caused her to whimper. He heard that through the repetitive drone, and he liked it. Too much.
'T-take care of...this, would ya...?' He finished the makeshift bandage/tourniquet and the noise in his head began to fade.
'Yeah..' Soon it was just the sound of their heavy breathing.
Her face was pale and sweaty. But she became blotchy in his vision. Quickly he braced the top edge of the desk beside them, bracing himself as his head swam. Darkness began creeping at the edge of his vision, expanding until her face darkened and disappeared. He felt the smoothskin's body against him, hands on his shoulders before he blacked-out.