Pieces of Ahzrukhal slid down the the opposite wall until they game to rest on the floor with the larger, heavier chunks of him. A halo of blood spray painted the pretty colored bottles of the bar, changing their hue ever so slightly. The ghouls around him were shocked, but not terrified. They had pushed back their seats and prepared to run, but no further violence materialized.

Tate's nails bit into the flesh of his palm in order to keep calm.

"Woah, what the fuck was that?" He only just found his voice again. Seven-hundred-and-fifty caps was all it ended up costing Tate for the ghoul in the window. Someone big and good with ranged weapons. Someone who could stop another Springvale School from ever happening to Tate again.

"Ahzrukhal was an evil bastard. So long as he held my contract, I was honor bound to do as he commanded." Charon pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one casually, as if he hadn't fucking murdered his last owner in cold blood in front of a room of people. "But now you are my employer, which freed me to rid the world of that disgusting rat. And now, for good or ill, I serve you."

"Right, I kind of figured that much out from the contract." Tate ran his fingers through his freshly bleached hair, courtesy of Snowflake. Snowflake was a good guy. Charon, well, he hadn't made up his mind yet on Charon. "So, I guess we'll get going in the morning. I've got to install this satellite dish on top of that tower outside." The dish was strapped to the back of Tate's pack. It was kind of heavy, but he could manage it.

"As you command." Charon nodded his head slightly.

Despite the cloudiness of Charon's eyes, the blue was still downright piercing. Tate couldn't imagine what they had looked like when they were clear, human.

"Shit, well, I guess I better make the best of a bad situation."

Tate slid behind the counter of the Ninth Circle and started by going through Ahzrukhal's pockets. After recovering his 750 caps, Tate got to work on the register. "Er, Charon, you're not going to off me for fleecing this joint, right?"

"You are my employer and I will do as you command."

"Right, okay." He finished up with the register and turned his attention to the safe. The other ghouls in the room seemed a little taken by his brazenness, like they had never seen a guy pick through a still-warm corpse's pockets before. For all their apparently advanced age, these ghouls sure seemed like a bunch of fucking amateurs. Hopefully the same couldn't be said of Charon.

Charon stood quietly in front of the bar while Tate worked pilfering valuable items and a couple of nice bottles of vodka.

"Okay, so, this guy got anything else worth taking?"

"He may, in his bedroom. I do not know for certain."

"Lead the way." Tate vaulted over the bar and landed gracefully on the other side. Damn if that ghoul didn't have a face like stone. He didn't look the least bit impressed.

The door on the other side of the Ninth Circle was locked, but Tate had picked up the key off of Ahzrukhal so it wasn't a problem at all. The room was a little sparse, but tidy with a number of containers that might contain things of value. Tate liked small, high-value things best. Cigarettes were always good to trade, so were chems and rare ammunition. From the looks of it, Charon smoked so he'd hold on to a couple of packs for the guy. He may have been a slave, but that didn't mean he had to be miserable. Yeah, Ahzrukhal had insisted on calling it something like brainwashing, like that somehow absolved Charon from being a slave, but it amounted to the same thing. Tate wasn't too bothered either way. He was sick and tired of doing this bullshit on his own.

Springvale.

No.

Stop.

No.

Please.

Tate shoved a couple of choice items into his pack and Charon just stood and watched, his back against the closed door. Puffed on his cigarette until it burned down to his fingertips. There was no skin there to burn.

Yeah, Charon would do real well. He was cold and good with a gun; he was fucking huge and gave off this crazy aura, like he would do anything. And that anything he would do would be all for Tate. Just had to make sure that he outlived the fucker, because Tate was not going out like Ahzrukhal.

"Charon, you'll do whatever I want, right?"

"The contract entitles you to my services in combat. Physical violence on your part invalidates our contract."

"So you fight for me, if I try to fight you…."

"I get to kill you."

"Awesome." Tate took another look around the room. Initially, he had planned to return to Carol's Place to spend the night, but this room was way more private. He already had all of Ahzrukhal's other shit. Had his caps and his vodka and his jet and his bodyguard, might as well take his bed for the night too. It was already coming up on two in the morning and he wanted a fairly early start to get the dish in place.

Why did his Pop and everyone his Pop ever associated with have to be such fucking assholes? He'd never met his mom, but he'd put caps down that she was a royal bitch too.

"I guess we're spending the night here." Toeing off his boots, Tate sat on the bed and was thankful that it gave a little, but not too much. This would be way more comfortable than the mattresses in abandoned subway stations he had been sleeping on for the last several nights.

"You gonna lie down, Charon?"

The ghoul grunted.

"You're making me nervous. No one will get past the two of us. It's fine, sit down or something."

Another grunt and Charon took a chair across the room. That seemed like the best Tate was going to get out of him.

It was an alright bed, in an alright room, in an alright place. Tate knew the Wastes got a lot worse than this.

Because everything was kind of alright, it was all the more sudden the way fear gripped him in the middle of the night, when he had already been fully asleep and immersed in a dream where he was safe back home below ground. He had been below ground again. That basement at Springvale...

"Charon, you awake?"

"I don't require much sleep."

"Define physical violence on my part." The words hung in the air for several seconds. Tate didn't want to ask, not directly, at least.

"You cannot inflict harm on my person such that it causes me substantial pain."

"And define combat services…."

"You ask too many questions."

"Can I use you for sex?"

The room was dark, Charon must have turned off the light when Tate went to bed. Even if there had been light, Tate wasn't sure Charon would have reacted at all. He was a series of inscrutable poker faces.

"That's not a combat service."

"No, I guess not. But it also doesn't constitute physical violence."

"You're not fucking me."

"That's not what I meant."

That silence again. Tate had a feeling he was about to get used to a bunch of silences where what he had really wanted was chatter to fill up his brain with other things.

"No, I guess it's not physical violence on your part."

Close enough to a yes, Tate supposed.

He got out of bed, carefully, though there was no one to disturb. Force of habit meant that he fell asleep fully dressed and with his sunglasses on. The vault suit was a tricky thing, so he removed it on his own as he stalked towards Charon. If it didn't invalidate the contract, it was fair game, and Tate was a pretty creative guy.

Naked by the time he reached Charon in his chair, Tate didn't hear any further objections, though gunfire and explosions and screams may have dulled his hearing between 101 and this dead man's bedroom. Cloudy eyes that saw too much for their own good stared straight on ahead. If Tate called, Charon had no choice but to answer. That was the beauty of it all.

His hands were steady and sure as he worked open Charon's fly. The ghoul just kept his hands on his thighs through the process, didn't budge one inch. Maybe he didn't like this, didn't like men or Tate or something. But what Charon liked didn't matter, now did it?

Tate always seemed to end up with some beautiful fucking cock; just normally it was attached to a prettier face. Charon wasn't much to look at, but he was huge and muscular and smelled like cigarettes. All those things and he would do whatever Tate asked of him. Too bad he couldn't change his face, or grow some skin. Plus side, being a ghoul did some sexy fucking thing to his voice, and Tate could get behind that.

Pressing his back to Charon's chest and sinking down on his cock seemed best. Couldn't see the guy's face but could feel every fucking inch of him, and there were a lot of inches to admire. This didn't count as physical violence.

"Fuck, Charon. You're so goddamn huge."

"I only do what you command."

"Shit." He had to compose himself before moving. Really, he didn't want to move at all. What he wanted was for Charon to move, to fuck him hard and fast and brutal. For him to do all those things and for Tate to like them. That's what Tate wanted, and that's what Tate could take. Take and take and take and he would never have to give any of himself back.

"Talk to me." Digging his fingers into the mangled muscles of Charon's thighs, he started riding. The guy must have been gorgeous as a human, but that was a long time ago.

"What do you want me to say?"

It wasn't the same if he had to feed Charon lines, he'd have to get creative on his own. Charon wasn't mindless, he knew that well enough, but maybe this was part of the game. It was unclear now who was leading who. "Make me feel bad. I like that."

"How bad?"

"Real bad, Charon. Real bad."

"I'm already planning on killing you." Shit. He followed orders real well. Maybe Tate should have hated himself a little by how hard that made him. Charon's hand came around and held his throat, not squeezing, just holding. His fingertips were awful, foreign things, rough and dry and brittle.

"Keep going." Instead of touching Charon, Tate ran his hands over his own body, touching his own flesh, tracing the definition of his own chest and abdominal muscles. He probably looked fucking great like this, with his legs spread and a huge cock up his ass.

"Did you think those glasses and that ugly hair would hide who you are, you piece of communist shit."

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Tate stopped moving his hips, he just froze. Where he stopped, Charon began, thrusting his hips up and into Tate painfully far.

"They taught us to spot you, no matter what the disguise. Two-hundred years and I can still tell. I can smell the Red on you, like dog piss."

Long arms held him in place, held him back from bolting. One arm crossed over his chest, the other still at his throat. Charon was strong, really, really strong. Of course he fucking was, that was why Tate bought him, it wasn't like he was going to buy a bodyguard that was weaker than him. That would be stupid.

"Yeah, well, you're the piece of shit slave that's gotta do whatever I tell him. So I don't think you're in any position to talk, solider." The last line was meant as an insult, but this was some fucked up fantasy right here.

"Can't kill you yet, commie scumbag, but I can fucking tear your ass open."

"Yeah, I'd like to see you try." If only this hadn't made him so painfully hard. He really needed to stop thinking with his dick for one fucking day. But then again, this was supposed to be safe. He owned Charon, could do whatever he wanted with him.

Charon pushed Tate out of his lap and onto the floor. Falling to his hands and knees, Tate had a pretty good idea what was coming next, so he braced himself. Charon's cock punctured him again in a single, brutal stroke.

"Been 200 years since I got commie pussy, this one is a little loose though."

Tate's head slammed into the wooden floor as Charon continued. If only it didn't feel so good. If only Tate wasn't such a fucking mess. Then maybe shit like this would stop happening to him. Maybe he would stop seeking out shit like this only to run away in the end.

Rough, dry, brittle hands flipped him over onto his back. The floorboards were surprisingly cool and smooth. The feeling of Charon's hands on his legs wasn't so bad, the way he folded Tate in two. The soft skin of Tate's calves scraped against Charon's chest and shoulders. His legs barely reached, the ghoul was so tall, giant really. This would have been a pretty picture too.

As long as his eyes were closed behind tinted lenses, Tate could paint any picture he wanted.

Trying to keep up with Charon's pace was a tricky thing. The weight of him was so intense against Tate's body. Charon was big and thick and heavy, strangely alive for someone who looked like a corpse.

"Yeah, tell me what a piece of shit I am."

Close, so close and he hadn't even touched himself yet, just The texture of Charon's armor against his cock and the sensation of being full. It could be enough. Fucking sick in a lot of ways, but it could still be enough.

Tate spat in Charon's face as encouragement. The saliva ran down the hollow of where his cheek should have been and dripped back down onto Tate below him.

"You're lucky my contract overrides my desires." Charon's hand pressed over Tate's neck, pushing down and restricting his breathing in staccato punches. Thrust in and out, he could breathe then he couldn't. Not enough to be dangerous, but enough to threaten. Enough to make Tate light headed. "Because I'd skin you alive and see how Red you are on the inside, you commie cunt."

It was enough.

Tate came against Charon's leather armor and over his own bare chest. His fingers dug into the flesh of his own legs as he thrashed under his slave bodyguard's weight. Yeah, so it turned out Charon followed instructions really well.

"Stop." Tate's voice was firm, assertive. The word was a direct command. As soon as the word left Tate's mouth, Charon had no choice but to comply. His milky eyes were still wild with arousal, if not desire. Brainwashed, maybe, but not an appliance Tate could turn on and off. Interesting.

While Charon had stopped thrusting, his cock held still inside of Tate and the strain to hold back was apparent in what remained of his features.

"Get your dick out of me. I'm done."

There was something slightly horrified there, like maybe Charon couldn't control his emotions as well as he had thought. But there wasn't a choice to make and he withdrew, his hands flying to his cock almost as soon as he was exposed.

"No. You can't come."

Tate left Charon on his knees on the wooden floor. He wiped the cum on his chest off the best he could with his undershirt before climbing back into bed. In the darkness, he could hear Charon breathing, heavy and desperate and unmistakably frustrated with his lot in life.

"Have a cigarette or something. It'll make you feel better."

There was no mistaking the sound of the chair smashing against the wall, breaking apart into brittle pieces. Tate didn't bother to see what the fuss was about. He knew now he was safe.