Games We Play: Revenge
Notes: Everything belongs to Bethesda and Obsidian, I'm just playing with their toys.
I spent a really long time reading about the difference in definition between revenge and retribution and while that sounds lame it was kind of fun.
revenge
noun
the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands
or: a form of personal payback not sanctioned by law, often in larger proportion than the gravity of the wrong initially committed
The Prydwen looms huge above them, all rusted steel and bright lights, and not for the first time, Deacon feels a small voice in the back of his head question this plan, question whether he can truly send Charmer in there. Send her or let her go? Does it even matter?
It's not as if anyone 'lets' Charmer do anything.
He sees Glory again, a faint image burned against the inside of his eyelids, her body unnaturally still, her eyes closed. He sees the blood that spilled from her ponding around her and splattered against the brick.
This was his plan, he tells himself. He should be the one to do it.
She looks the part, though, no denying that. After the battle for the police station she scavenged a uniform, including some official-looking combat armor, and twisted her hair into a knot at the back of her head. With the orange flightsuit and the emblem on her chest, she looks official; certainly more than he and Tom do. The two of them have put on flight suits and jackets and hoods as well, but with Tom's off-centered gaze, he doesn't look military. Deacon's sure he's not any better and so - despite the growing pit in his stomach - he's decided to keep his mouth shut.
The whole ride he's woozy, dizzy, nervous. He's not sure if it's the fact that another woman that he cares out - one he loves - is walking into a death trap, or if it's the fact that he's so far off the ground that even Trinity Tower looks like a toy, but he can barely keep down his bile.
He's going to die, he knows it. Worse, he's going to take Tom and Charmer with him.
Tom can't quite seem to keep the bird steady and Deacon wants to scream, deep in his chest, but instead just asks as calmly as he can if Tom could keep it more steady. Tom's reply is terse, aggravated, and Deacon can feel a bead of sweat roll down his back as he realizes he's in so far over his head he's not sure if he can even fake this.
He looks over at Charmer, although he's not sure why - reassurance? comfort? - and instead of giving him either she looks mildly amused and cool as a cucumber. Nothing about her demeanor says that she's about to go in the Prydwen on a suicide mission.
Somehow - he's not sure how, but somehow - he keeps his voice steady as he calls the main ship, requesting clearance to land. When the flight controller calls back that Claymore is cleared to land on bay three, his heart about stops in his chest.
It's happening. It's really - it's happening. Excitement and terror grip him, warring over his emotions.
When they ask for an update on the police station he bluffs through it, though Charmer raises one slim, dark eyebrow at his tone and for a moment Deacon wonders if he shouldn't have simply given her the radio.
No, that doesn't make sense, he reminds himself. She wouldn't be talking to them. According to her intel, knights - what she is, apparently - don't fly vertibirds. They'd know.
And then the voice on the other end that he can see them, that their docking port isn't open and Deacon knows this is the end. They're all going to die. Worse, first they'll probably be court-martialed or something, which seems infinitely more painful.
His mouth makes up something about technical difficulties before he can entirely engage his brain and then - presto! Like magic, they're invited to dock.
They land, shakily, and Charmer turns away from him to jump down onto the landing bay. He looks at her and her face is somehow amused, as if the whole thing is a big joke. He can see a smile in her eyes even though her lips stay flat, and something about this reassures him.
If they're going to die, at least they'll go down fighting.
He leans forward to kiss her but she scoots back, turning her body towards the landing bay, snaking out of his grasp before he can reach her.
"They might see," she says, gesturing subtly to the power-armored guards standing near a door down the narrow walkway.
"This might be -"
"It won't be. Trust me." She winks at him, her face calm, and pats the explosives on her belt. Before he can think about what he's doing, he lifts his glasses to look at her properly, without the dark reflected lenses skewing his perception. She looks beautiful and strong and serene, every inch a Brotherhood soldier.
She jumps down, landing easily on the metal walkway and walks away without turning back, just another soldier on a mission.
It feels like it takes forever for her to return, and Deacon has just steeled himself to climb down - long drop to the ground if he misses, but don't think about that - and go in there after her when the door to the ship opens and Charmer steps out.
He's never been so glad to see anyone in all his life, and then she pauses, turns to the power-armored guard next to her. From this distance, he can't hear what's happening, but it appears she's talking to one of the human sentry bots guarding the door. She laughs, head tilted back, and he steps back, into the vertibird, wondering at how she looks so smooth, so natural when she knows they've got just moments until the whole thing blows up in their faces. She lets out another laugh and starts down the stairs and his heart is hammering in his chest.
They've got to go, they've got to go, they've got to fly, he thinks. His stomach churns.
She walks back to them quickly - maybe a shade too quickly, the guard seems to raise his weapon and Deacon wishes he could see inside their tin heads, but then Charmer is climbing up beside him and he gives Tom the okay.
The propellers start and he turns to her, turns to the stunning smile on her face, and he asks her. "We seriously didn't raise an alarm?"
She shakes her head slowly as the vertibird rattles around them, preparing for take-off.
"I guess I trained you well," he says, wincing slightly as she swats him on the arm, but then he's kissing her. They're flying away and the ship is going to blow any time, but all he can think about is the way her lips feel on his, warm and yielding and soft. Her tongue is in his mouth and he wraps an arm around her, pulling her close to him, resenting the hard shell of the combat armor on her chest. Tom is talking to himself and Deacon realizes that they're still docked, still waiting to fly away -
"Tom, man, you gotta step on it," he says, ripping his face from Charmer's lips, the nervousness building inside him again.
"I'm trying," Tom wails from the front, and he is - he's flipping switches and pressing buttons and there's a heavy clanging as the guard from the door starts marching down the narrow walkway towards them, weapon held up as if he's getting ready to shoot.
Uh-oh.
But then it doesn't matter - the vertibird lifts, and they're moving away. He can't help himself; he waves good-bye to the guard. It's not a Brotherhood wave, either, all stiff and stern and humorless. No it's a full-fledged Deacon-style wave, the arm that isn't wrapped around Charmer wide over his head and the guard pauses mid-step and for a moment he feels a twinge of guilt.
That guard is a person. They're killing people today. Because of him, because of his plan.
Because of his anger, his rage, over Glory.
He has time for a moment of regret, of wishing he'd done things differently, and he's debating asking Tom to go back so they can warn the Brotherhood, no matter the consequences, because this isn't just murder, it's a massacre and then -
Tom hits the button.
Charmer grips his hand and gives a small squeeze. Deacon looks over and meets her eyes, and her gaze is steady; it makes him feel safe.
"For Glory," she says softly, and they both turn to look out the window.
The explosion is huge, brighter even than the morning sun rising just behind the ship. It's dazzling, brilliant; if it weren't for the fact that he just sentenced so many people to death, it'd be beautiful. The metal gleams in the firelight; the sun reflects off the flames and small particles start falling to the ground, landing in the ocean, on the airport. He thinks of the holotape he saw once of fireworks and wonders if they were something like this: exquisite and dangerous, streaks of flame falling from the sky.
There's a shockwave that takes almost a minute to hit them. The vertibird sways dangerously in the air and he feels his stomach turn over again. Charmer gives his hand another squeeze, and he realizes he's stopped breathing and starts again.
He can hear Glory in his head again.
Take care of yourself.
"Rest easy, Glory," he tells her. He knows she can't hear him, knows that there's no reason to talk to dead people, and yet somehow he feels lighter. Despite the carnage, despite the fact that revenge isn't supposed to make you feel better but instead worse, he does - he feels safe, now.
Safe, and ready to continue forward on their warpath.
It takes them some time to find a safe place to land, and then they have to walk back to Covenant. Along the way the three of them drop their Brotherhood gear and change back into normal clothes, or whatever passes for normal. By the time they return to the interim HQ, it's after dark again and Deacon can feel his ass dragging. The last thing he wants to deal with is getting reamed out, but Desdemona won't wait.
He knows the look on her face. Tightly drawn lips and eyes narrowed, her eyebrows slanted downwards and a cigarette held in a deathgrip in one hand. She's furious.
"You have some nerve sending a Brotherhood scribe here," she says the moment they walk through the gate. For a moment, Deacon is confused; he and Tom look at each other in surprise, but then Charmer steps forward. Her head is held high, her chin up. She's either feeling very righteous or she's faking it well, and Deacon's not sure which it is.
"I felt Haylen would be an asset to us," she says simply.
"Did you?" Desdemona's voice is a snarl. "What makes you -"
"She's sympathetic to our cause. She helped me save a synth that had somehow joined the Brotherhood and I felt it only right to offer her the chance to live."
Desdemona stops, stunned into silence. Finally, "What do you mean, 'to live'?"
Now it's Deacon's turn to speak. "We...well, we may have eliminated the Brotherhood presence in the Commonwealth."
Desdemona raises an eyebrow but he can see her cooling down. She takes a drag on her cigarette and exhales smoke, her face knitting itself into a contemplative expression.
"Really?"
Tinker Tom nods. "Yeah, we went up there and blew their ship sky-high. Or, well, it was already in the sky, but," he shrugs, "you know."
"It was a hell of a thing," Deacon chimes back in.
Desdemona looks between the three of them carefully, thinking. Processing. With a sigh, she finally steps back and allows them inside the walls.
"I should go see Haylen," Charmer says, slipping past them and, when Desdemona points the way, up the hill to the house at the end. Des closes the gate behind them, swinging the heavy latch shut.
"Do you trust her?" The smoke from her cigarette coils around Desdemona's face.
"I don't know her," Deacon admits. From up the hill he can hear a woman crying. "But I trust Charmer. She wouldn't bring anyone in here unless she was sure."
A nod from his boss. "That's what I think, too. I was just - surprised."
There's too many people for true privacy in Covenant, but with a series of houses instead of one large crypt, at least there's more than there used to be. Deacon sits on the edge of a bed, pulling his boots off carefully and taking stock of the collection of new and fascinating blisters on his feet. He thinks of the way Charmer insisted on going into the police station alone. He'd wanted to go with her, as backup, but she'd told him to wait ten minutes and then come.
He wonders how many Brotherhood soldiers she told to get out. Was this scribe the only one? Would more crop up later?
At least ten of them died in the building, and one out front; he saw their corpses, their faces frozen forever in anguished pain. In surprise.
It had made him think of her, of Charmer in her glass box, frozen forever until someone let her out.
Regret again, that furtive and vicious tease, tugs at him and he lets out a groan, shaking his head. He may have assassinated an entire wing of a major military order today, but he refuses to feel bad about it. Betrayal nips in then - why didn't Charmer tell him she spared this woman? What else is she hiding?
The door to the bedroom opens and Charmer steps in, closing it softly behind herself. They're supposed to share this room with another agent who's on watch duty now, but there are people sleeping in the living room, and he's grateful for her consideration of others.
He can't be mad at her for saving this Haylen, he realizes. She did what she felt was right; a scribe, she told him once, was a non-combatant. So, not a fighter - a medic, a healer. And if she was sympathetic -
Regret claws at him again and this time it's harder to force away. He looks at her, at the lovely woman standing before him, rinsing her face and wiping herself with a towel and he has to know.
"Was she the only one?"
Charmer stops; her back goes rigid. He can see her in the mirror, can see the way she's carefully controlling her face. When she turns to him, her expression is still, tranquil, but he saw that moment of doubt. Of scheming.
"No," she says simply. "But she's the only one who fled. The others -"
He believes her. For the first time, he sees the weight this day has taken on her, and he reaches out, taking her hand in his own, pulls her gently towards him so that she stands between the v of his legs.
"How is she dealing with...you know?" He won't say massacre. He won't. It's too honest, too true.
Charmer settles her hands on his shoulders and looks down at him with a shrug. "They were her family. They were wrong, but she still cared about them."
"Is she going to…?" He doesn't need to go on.
"No," she shakes her head. "She's with us now." Her voice is so certain, so sure, that Deacon lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
"Tomorrow -"
"It's not tomorrow yet," she says, one of her hands making its way over the back of his head, her nails light and tickling on his scalp. He closes his eyes and pulls her close, leaning his face in between the soft swells of her breasts. She holds him, her arms wrapped around his neck and shoulders, and he breathes her in softly. There's a feeling of inevitability around her, of predetermination.
Of destiny.
He was always meant to be here, he realizes. With her.
Deacon leans back, looking up at her, and she smiles down at him. He relaxes his grip on her waist, instead using his hands to firmly grip her ass, and pulls her down to kiss him. She lets out a giggle and follows him, her lips pressing against his firmly as her body slides down to flatten against his own. His every nerve seems to be awake and on fire, and he leans back onto the bed, bringing her with him.
If this is the last night before they go into the Institute, he's going to make it worthwhile.
