This is the second chapter in two days, so you might want to check and see if you've caught both of them. Thanks for the new reviews! Also, for whatever reason my spellcheck hasn't worked right since FF retooled things, so if I miss any typos, I apologize.


Charon came back into town when the sun had started to dip back towards the horizon, deciding he had given Cort ample opportunity to unbend herself mentally if not physically, then occupied himself as best he could after reading the note she had left. Having cleaned, rebuilt and organized everything in the house at least twice, he concluded that they would have to leave the town on another mission soon, or both of them would end up going completely stir-crazy. Bored and rather lonely without her, he was already more than half there by the time Cort had appointed him to retrieve her.

Walking into the saloon, he stopped, took in the tableau before him and let out a slow, fatalistic sigh. Cort was slumped over a table, all but hidden behind a forest of liquor bottles, Jericho out cold and sprawled under it at her feet. A handful of Atomites, the only other customers left in the building at this late hour, promptly switched from watching her to staring at him with adulation. Charon wasn't quite sure which was worse.

Gob stood up from behind the bar, froze briefly in reflex at the sight of him, then grabbed up several glasses, tossing a comment over it before bending down to put them away. "Was wondering when you'd show."

Charon gave the space where he had been an evil look, then walked over to get Cort up. It was going to take him more than the usual amount of effort. Her other bouts with intoxication hadn't gone much farther than a severely loopy buzz, more inclined to be mouthy but relatively in control, comparatively speaking. Now, for the first time since she had broken into the liquor cabinet with Butch at sixteen, Cort was blind stinking drunk.

"Cort, how much did you drink?" He waited for her to respond, muffling a curse as a quiet, kitten-like snore rose up from underneath the frowsy lump of hair and crossed arms. "Cort!"

"Whuh!" She jerked up when he shouted at her, bottles flying off the table to skid across the floor as her arms flailed out, focused in on him after a few slow blinks. "Whuh?"

Charon slowly repeated himself. "How much did you drink, Cort."

She gave him a rather frowzy look and spoke in the slurry, sing-song way only the coherently sloshed could, carefully enunciating each word like it was a miniature verbal country with testy borders. "Uuuhhm, we had eight large bottles, but we went equal splits so that's only like...definitely way less than four for him since he passed out first and I was good and finished it all. I need to pee." She belched quietly and worked her face into a thoughtful expression, something that looked like it hurt. "I think I might have inadvertently goaded Jericho into death." Her head wobbled as she tilted to look under the table, and Charon darted a hand out to keep her from crashing to the floor. She peered with her open eye at the retired raider as she balanced her chair on two legs, her cheek mashed into the ghoul's palm. "Thomeone thould turn him ober before he barths. He could thuthocate. Or ith that drownink?"

Keeping her upright, he twisted at the hips enough to round on Gob, who had popped back up at the sound of flying glassware. "You fucking let her drink this much? She's so plastered she could stick to the wall."

"You think I let her do anything? You try telling her not to do something she's got a bend on for. Be sure to get back to me on how not well that turns out." Gob shook his head. "Charon, I tried telling her she'd had enough after Jericho went over, I did. Nova tried after that. We kept up until she started getting pissed off at us. I don't know about you, but I don't like her angry with me." Both ghouls looked down as Cort's sodden voice drifted up.

"Oh I'll be fine. It'th okay ath long as I don't get a concuthion."

"I'll concuss something. Come on, Cort, it's time to go home."

She slid out of his grip and landed with one shoulder against his thigh. "I have a problem with that plan."

Charon sighed and stared at his hand, then wiped it dry on his shirt. "Which is what."

"I can't feel my legs." She raised her arms. "These are still here. Hold on hold on hold on. I can totally figure this out, there's two functioning limbs here'n I'm bipedal."

Not waiting for direction, Charon picked her up in a fireman's carry that placed her head well back. If she sicks up that shit at least it'll go on just me and the ground instead of all over her fucking chest. If all of it gets it out of her, even better. Getting a better grip as she bobbled around, he got something other than vomit.

"Oh my God, your ass looks freaking amazing upside-down."

He shut his eyes briefly as all the female Atomites promptly started giggling. "Sweet fuck, we're leaving." This whole damn mess is making me feel way too damn old.

"Nooo, I like it here." Cort blinked owlishly as he started to move, and then brightened signifigantly. Walking was doing fascinating things to the part of his anatomy she had fixated on. "Oh, it's coming with, right, okay this is good. This is more than good it's flexing now and totally hot." She tried grasping onto it as he walked for the door. "Why did I ever have you change out of your leather pants?" The giggling got louder.

Gob called out, sounding amused. "At least she's a happy drunk."

"You can happily go fuck yourself." He slammed the door shut as Gob snorted back a laugh.

After a quick march through half the town that felt like a solid mile, Charon herded her into the bathrooms, hoisting her up again when she finally stumbled out. "We're cleaning you out if I have to ram all five fingers down your throat in order."

"Oooh, order. Mmm, I order you not to."

"Fuck sakes." He altered his course, intending to take her down to Church's clinic, grinding to a halt again as she continued.

"Uhm. And not let anyone else. I order you to let me expel the alcohol from myself naturally. By waiting for it to." Cort squeezed her eyes shut as he swore again, louder and at length. "Figuring out how to outsmart you is really hard to do upsidedown."

He didn't reply, just kept up a stream of vitriol and profanity directed at everything under the sky until they made it back to the house, only stopping when he unceremoniously dumped her on the couch. Cort groaned happily and tried to burrow inside it. He promptly hauled her back out again, bent on getting an immediate answer.

Cort hadn't told him that he couldn't have an explanation, and for once he dearly wanted one, wanted some reason for her making such a wreck of herself he needed to drag her home, something that was making him feel impossibly, uncomfortably old. Pausing long enough to fish a bucket out from under the sink, he dropped down next to her. "Cort, why did you do this. You're an absolute mess."

Feeling extremely uncomfortable herself and not a little ashamed now that things were starting to sink in for her, including the disappointed look on his face, she ducked her head. "Because I had to test a hippopot...hypothesis."

"Which was?"

"That I can do more like ghouls than just heal from radiation." Cort rubbed the back of her neck, struggling for coherency as he gave her a blank look. "Charon, did I drink a normal quantity to get myself this fucked? In your opinion, as a former bar tenant. Thing. Guy." She blinked slowly. "Wait, quantity. Titties."

Letting out a long-suffering sigh as she started making high-pitched giggles, he mentally flicked his gaze back to the table at the saloon, comparing it with the thousands of other slovenly examples he had collected and cleaned during his enforced tenure in Ahzrukhal's shithole. He was positive she had had no more than six bottles, but not less than five, a more or less standard amount for the way she was acting. "Not as much as some, but yes, you did."

She throttled her laughter under control and agreed with him. "Ahhaha-uhuh. Normal for people in Underworld."

"Yes, normal for people in-" Charon stopped, his eyes widening in sudden comprehension. "Fuck, Cort. You should be dead."

"Eureka. Normal smoothskin girl who kept all that down should be dead as a doornail." She flapped an arm, narrowly missing smacking herself with it. "Best case a brain-damaged idiot. All I feel is really, really nice and fuzzywuzzy. Don't feel sick or like sicking up or nothing. I'm being very good."

Charon thought he could argue against that sentiment, but there were more pressing questions. Things didn't quite add up, and he couldn't decide if he wanted them to or not. If she's doing this like me, what else will happen to her. What if the rest happ-no. It will fucking not. He gave his head a slight shake, forcing the unwanted speculations away. "You tossed your guts up in Rivet City the last time, and you felt like shit then and before, just like you should. You can't be sure."

"Mhmm the second time, when I had lots. I also accidentally a barfight." Charon slapped a hand over his face at this point, and Cort took it as him demonstrating the common variable, sitting up with wobbly excitement. " Yes, exactly! I got whacked in the head both times. I don't do too well when things whack me in the head. I never like getting hurt in my head, things get...slippery. They move around in there." Cort rubbed vaguely at her temple. "I don't think I'll feel pretty in the morning, but it won't be so bad as then."

He didn't reply, only moved his hand back and forth over his forehead, and Cort scrunched her face up, herding her thoughts together with a monumental amount of effort as she kept trying to explain. "It doesn't work as well for me as it does for you. The Med-X and the pills, they uhm. what's a good word for...it's like I got swamped. I don't know how it works, 'zactly, if it has to do with just your immune system or with the renal one or what. But something flushes drugs on out of you, like a little pump that's always going. I think that mine doesn't turn on until there's something flooding in, and it can't handle as much, so when I took that stuff all at once, it was like drowning. I had to try and see with something that was safe, and now I know. It's not fair. Because I can heal all I can do is make myself sick." She hiccuped softly, looking dejected. "The only reason Stim-paks prolly still work is 'cause they're so fast and I've got defective plumbing."

Charon let his hand fall from his face and stared at his palm before looking up at her, his expression going from thoughtful to determined. "So nothing you take will help...that."

"I don't think so. Probably even if this wasn't happening I couldn't, I don't, I don't even know why-" Cort broke off and rubbed at her forehead again, hard. "No, I don't think so. Once I find out how I feel tomorrow I'll know for sure." She tried nodding, gave it up as a bad idea almost immediately, and settled for a rather lopsided wiggle.

"Good."

"Good?"

"Yes. You won't have any fucking excuse to make a wreck of yourself now."

Suddenly furious, Cort opened her mouth to lash into him, how dare he, he couldn't know what she was going through with this every single night, and then stopped herself, continuing on in a normal tone of voice when she was sure she could produce something close to one. "I'm sorry."

He blinked in surprise. "What?" He hadn't expected her to capitulate that easy.

"I'm sorry. I've been selfish. Again. You definitely haven't been, and I don't know how you put up with me night after night. I'm a complete and total shit." She started tearing up, each sentence ending in a high exclaimatory squeak as she tried to hold it in before collapsing into a low, drawling groan. "I'm really sorry! I don't know why I'm crying! I'm sorry I'm doing that, too, I know you don't like it! Oh God, I suuuhuhcknnhg."

Charon sighed for what seemed like the umpteenth time as she collapsed into his chest and blubbered down his shirt, burying a hand in her hair to keep her from nosediving into his lap. "You're doing it because you're crocked." Settling himself in, the ghoul waited for her to settle down, knowing it wouldn't take very long in the state she was in. He had experienced every facet humanity could throw up when soused, literally and figuratively speaking, and all things considered, it was much better for everyone concerned that Cort had turned out to be a harmless, somewhat annoying drunk instead of a mean one. As he expected, she was also fairly capricious; headbutting his chest again to wipe her face clean after only a few short brays, she degenerated into sloppy cuddling.

"All I need is you. I should have known that, I'm so stupid."

He replied with no small amount of asperity. "Yes, you should've." He made a startled noise as the cuddling unexpectedly turned into rather aggressive nibbling, her sharp nails digging into his sides in counterpoint to her teeth.

"God, do I ever I need you." She twisted her hands up in his shirt, then dropped them into his lap and started fumbling with his belt. "Stay still." Charon raised an eyebrow at her as lustful turned to hesitant. "Uhm. Tell me to stop if you don't like this. I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"What? Cort, I like whatever you do, but right now probably isn't..." he trailed off as her hands made for a surprisingly efficient distraction, considering how fouled up her coordination still was, then got himself back on track. "You should be getting that crap out of yourself..." He did it again as she got out what she had been after, then froze at the look on her face. Any reluctance was gone, and she was grinning up at him with a wild look in her eye as she wriggled lower. At this point, Charon belatedly realized that he was stuck with an uninhibited, completely inebriated Cort whose entire track record while even marginally intoxicated consisted of a massive brawl and attempting to throw herself off the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. The masochistic part of his brain also decided now was a perfect opportunity to break through the cloud of hormones the rest of it was soaking in to cheerfully remind him that she also took a particuarly special delight in biting him. Hard.

Ah crap. "Cort, what are you planning to d-shit!" Charon snapped his head back so hard it cracked against the frame of the couch. Her mouth, oh holy fuck her mouth-

He opened his own, sounding half-strangled. "What are you doing?"

She sat up and licked her lips. "I told you there were things I hadn't shown you yet." The hesitant look came back into her face as she saw how completely blank his was. "Do you want me to stop? I don't want to push you again, if this is too fast or making you feel bad, or-"

Everything else -his anger at her, his worry- started dropping away. Charon decided to let it. Voice hoarse, he tilted his head forward to watch. "No. Show me more."


Some time later, Charon laid his cheek against her thigh and sighed, a satiated look on his face. After Cort had finished, he had decided to reciprocate, with wonderful results.

Cort smiled. "Told you I'd test your patience."

"You didn't tell me you'd shred it. Told you you'd crack like an egg."

"You didn't tell me you'd break me wide open." She shivered as he shifted to lay his throat against her and made a deep, pleased rumble, lifting it up into a question at the end.

Bed?"

Cort pointed an arm vaguely upwards. "Yessir. Bedbedbedbedbed." The arm collapsed as he sat up and buckled his belt. "Uh. My clothes?"

"Casualty of war." Gathering her up after stripping his own shirt off and swaddling her in it, Charon found himself becoming more convinced that her theory was correct; she was showing no signs of nausea, even with everything else about her shot to boozy hell. Right now, she wasn't the only one feeling lightheaded. She tastes sweet everywhere. He nuzzled behind her ear and laid a kiss there. "How do you come up with these things."

Cort giggled at the inadvertent double entendre, reining herself in and ticking off the fingers on one hand as he started up the stairs. "You can't give me credit for that, people have been doing it for millennia. But to kinda answer your question, I'm not scared of the human body, know how things work, have a healthy attitude about sex and a really good imagination." She paused for a moment, trying to figure out if she had put the right amount of digits up. "Lots and lots of raunchy romance novels helped, too." She dropped into a conspiratorial whisper. "Between you and me, I think whoever stocked the Vault library was a bit of a perv."

"Will you do it again? Later? Please?"

She grinned at how sweetly hopeful he sounded. "Perhaps." She shook her head slowly. "How did you ever get to be as old as you are and not know about this stuff? I mean, not even a little? You've used it a couple times to rip on folks, I've heard you. I was kinda surprised you never, you know...after we started..."

Charon gave her a distinctly uncomfortable look. "I picked up enough to insult someone, not actually understand it. Whenever someone...you remember. The carrier."

"Yes." Feeling him start to roll his shoulders, Cort let it be. "Tired."

"Well then sleep, jackass."


Twisted up in a rumpled swath of blankets, Charon had his head resting up against the top of Cort's back so he could listen to her heart thump in his ear, her slow, even breathing and soft snores overlaying the steady rhythm. He ran a hand over the smooth expanse of skin laid out before him, tracing down and back up her spine before gently pulling his shirt back down over her. It was marred only by the fading remnants of an old plasma burn and the last bullet wound she had received, emerging in the center of the former like a red island in a rosy sea. She was a map of injury and survival. Turning around, he pressed his lips to the crook of her neck, his favourite spot. It was in between two other very important scars; the one below her right collarbone, and the almost lacy, ladderlike formation that ran from the base of her neck up to her right ear.

Gently tilting her over, he kissed both of these in turn, tugging down the collar of his shirt to find the second, then nuzzled his face into her hair, pulling in the warm, musky scent of her. She would be waking up again soon, and he had chosen to stay up until then to watch her, content for the moment to be still. He had done nothing but watch her since the first time she had woken up, soothing her mind and then carefully cleaning the addiction out of her as she had taught him to. She had been right in her reasoning; aside from that, she had felt perfectly fine. Charon breathed in again, closing his eyes. He knew she did; he had touched every part of her after he had carried her back to bed again.

For now, he was just appreciating the narrow cavern of heated air between them, so hot under the worn wool it felt like a solid buffer. He shifted slightly to nibble below her ear without closing the gap, tasting salty and sweet. She tastes like that everywhere. He kept doing it until Cort finally stretched and spoke, sounding drowsy.

"Mmm. What time is it."

"Mid-evening. About eight."

"Oh, wow." She let out a soft laugh. "Well, neat. It's nice when you can spend the entire day in bed, isn't it? I haven't done it for so long. The last time I did before we came back here was when I first got to Underworld, but I don't think that quite counts, since Barrows wouldn't let me the hell out of it when I wanted."

Charon didn't reply immediately, thinking about the last time he had been laid out. It had been after a particularly nasty raider attack in the same bed Cort had spent her early convalescence in, and as always, he had hated the brief period of weakness; the only satisfaction he had gotten from that particular ordeal was the fact that Barrows had prevented Ahzrukhal from getting anywhere near him for two solid days. He had been more or less fine after one of them, not back to top condition but at least able to stand after Barrows had finished cutting the shrapnel out of him, and Charon thought the doctor had kept him for that extra day out of sheer perverse contrariness, pleased as punch to be nettling the sleazy bar owner. It had been hellish, torn between the compulsive, wrenching need to get up onto his feet and back to serving his employer and wanting to do anything but, including getting shot full of more holes. Unless he had been shot full of holes, or burnt, stabbed, bludgeoned or something equally incapacitating, laying about in bed was something that was never permitted. "What makes you think I'll let you out now?"

"Well, we can't actually stay here all day."

He allowed himself to skirt around the barest edge of wheedling. "Why not? You still have my shirt. I'll get cold."

"Oh you will not, you're toasty enough to make it to another one. I am in an excellent position to judge. Besides, I'm really hungry. I haven't eaten since this morning."

"Really hungry is very good."

Cort yipped as he instantly jumped out of the bed at her prompt for food, then briefly stuck out her tongue as he rolled his shoulders and jerked his neck, making him grin as he produced a series of pops and snaps from various joints. She let her eyes wander over his bare back, wide shoulders tapering down to narrow hips, his exposed muscle tissue contracting and expanding in small waves as he fiddled with four shirts that were all exactly the same. Cort smiled softly. He's beautiful.

Watching as he stood at the desk for a few moments, continually fussing through the tidy stack of clothing he had folded there for himself, Cort got the distinct impression that he was putting himself on display for her, and waiting for a response to it. Well, who'dve thought of that. Positive behavioural changes, indeed. "You're fantastic, you know that?" She got an immediate disgruntled snort and a roll of chalky eyes in her direction as he finally yanked a shirt on and tucked it into his pants, but not before his shoulders moved back for a split second, the chest underneath them puffing out subtly in the only display of pride he ever seemed to allow himself to make.

Turning back, he leaned against the desk and crossed his arms. "When are we going out again."

"I don't know. Things are different out there now." She fidgeted and avoided making eye contact. "I can't really put it off for much longer, can I."

"No." He gave her a searching look, something she no longer tried to avoid or deter. "You're...worried, aren't you."

She let out a bitter laugh. "That's one word for it. Another would be chickenshit."

He gave her a level look. "You don't have to be. I told you; I'll slaughter them all."

"I know." Even with this reassurance, she still hesitated, although she knew procrastinating was pointless. Meeting the Enclave again was inevitable; any newcomers to the town chattered about them constantly, Three Dog was still going on about it on the radio, and the caravans that normally hit Megaton like clockwork were late, out of order, or not even showing due to the distruptions they were causing in people's movements in every corner of the Wasteland, outside of DC. Various raider packs were in such an uproar Crow and Doc Hoff had skipped several stops altogether on their last trip, according to Crazy Wolfgang. She hadn't seen the itinerant tribal for months, now, and trying to use that as an excuse to stay put probably wouldn't impress Charon in the slightest. She sighed. No, I really can't put it off any longer. It wouldn't be the right thing to do. Besides, eventually they might find me here and, and-

Cort practically bolted from the bed. "Okay! Pitter patter, let's get at 'er. We've got music to make." She smiled nervously. Look on the bright side, there's always one, isn't there? "It'll be good, meeting other Vault dwellers, really. I'm looking forward to it."