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Charon stood in the corner of the studio with Dogmeat, watching the scene between Cort and Three Dog play out. The ghoul was tired, and sincerely hoped that whatever punishment was coming his way would be taken care of tonight while the girl was worn out. She would be more inclined to do something uncomplicated, and he was in a perfect position at this point not to care about what happened. Everything hurt already. Glancing down briefly when the dog slumped against his legs, he looked back up to his employer as she wound herself up even higher.

"Do you have any idea what that nutty broadcast did to me? I've got Talon Company after me and you go ahead and proclaim my Goddamned location to everyone!" Cort clenched the back of a chair and glared at him. Wanting to have as much level eye contact as possible, she still needed to hang on to something to keep from wobbling on her feet.

"Hey kid, I'm just spreading word of your aid to the Good Fight. People gotta know to hope!" He smiled and spread his arms, and Cort seethed with the desire to blow the top of his head off. Over a month, over a DAMN month on a stupid goose chase and ten, nine, eight... She closed her eyes an let out a long even breath.

"Tired. Father. Location. Now."

All right kid, all right! You did your part, now I'll do mine. No need to get all snarky, wrong side of the bed this morning? Your father talked about all kinds of crazy science mumbo-jumbo when he sat down with me, mentioned something called 'Project Purity'. Then he talked about meeting up with a Doctor Li in Rivet City, and split in a hurry after that. Know where it's at?"

"I ran with a trader for a while, so yes. He filled in a lot of blanks." Cort mentally thanked Moira and Crow for her not being entirely clueless on geography.

"Whoo, getting busy out there are ya? All right kid, gotta relax somehow in between fights against tyranny."

Biting the inside of her cheek hard, she looked around the room. "I need to sleep again before I set out, me and my friends. That store room still empty except for my stuff?"

Three Dog looked over in Charon's direction, who stared impassively back. "Yeah, I see you picked yourself up your very own Argyle. Great material for a new radio show. And sure kid, but there's beds in the barracks you could take."

Clenching her hands again, Cort violently pushed everything out of her head and smiled, before turning to leave. "No, thanks. I've gotten into the habit of liking a door I can lock behind me."

Walking deeper into the building, Charon trudged behind his employer until she reached a medium-sized room with a lumpy, blanket-covered pile towards one end. Closing the door behind them, he watched Cort dig out more blankets from a footlocker next to it, shaking them out on the floor and mumbling to herself.

"Goddamned radio waves have fried out his brains. Frigging manipulative blowhard. Possible megalomaniacal complex." Stripping the armour off herself and then Dogmeat after slinging her pack in a corner, Cort dragged her fingers through the dog's coat over and over, then flopped onto one of the blankets and sighed. "Tomorrow I am finding their water supply and having a wash. A wonderful, long one." She lolled her head around to look at the ghoul as Dogmeat crawled into his accustomed sleeping place next to her. "Charon, it's bed time. You're making me feel even more tired standing there." He straightened his back and stared ahead. "What the heck is up with you today, anyway? Something's been bugging you since this morning, and I'm sorry if it's cause I-"

"I'm ready to accept my punishment. For damaging you." Charon gestured furtively towards his own neck when she did nothing more than raise an eyebrow and curl her lip at him.

Cort stared for a long moment, eyebrow still cocked, then dissolved into laughter. It wasn't the usual insane gales like she usually produced. To him, this sounded suspiciously like...no, definitely was...giggling. She was even starting to curl up and make little snorts. Charon glared down at her, which only made Cort go off even harder. This was not the expected and appropriate response. What it was was completely mind-boggling. Even the damn dog was thumping his tail and grinning at him.

Finally calming down, she rubbed her hand vigorously over her upper lip and spoke. "You're funny, Charon. And coming out of me that's saying something. Now come on and get to bed."

"I don't understand."

Cort sighed. "This is another contract thing I'm totally not getting, isn't it. Like why you can't take it." He nodded. "Well, for now, just ditch your armour and go to sleep. We can have a nice, long talk about it tomorrow and you can explain everything."

Charon didn't move immediately, flicking his chalky eyes around the room. "But...my punish-"

"Charon." he stopped and looked back to her. "Think about every conversation we've had, then ask yourself if I'm going to punish you for keeping me from asphyxiating to death. Ask yourself if you think I'm going to ever punish you, period. Do that after you've removed your armour and laid down on that blanket, by which I mean the thing you will be sleeping on tonight. There'll be a pop quiz in the morning." Cort curled into Dogmeat and shut her eyes. "Remember to lock the door, too."


Charon fell into his now customary habit of waiting for her snoring to start before moving. It didn't take long this time, barely a minute, and for once she was really kicking it up, probably a result of the dust they had inhaled today. After quietly locking the door he took off his armour and placed it next to hers, then laid down as he had been instructed, folding his arms and staring at the ceiling. I do not want to fucking think. I never want to think again. She makes me think too much already, for fuck's sakes. Swallowing down another surge of panic, Charon did as he had been directed and thought.

Half the conversations he had had with the girl had generally been about trading insults with each other. She had not, as he predicted their first evening, instructed him to remain silent, even after he had been as nasty as he dared to. This had been initially disappointing, if he couldn't talk, he couldn't be questioned without it being a direct order. After being aggravated enough to tell him to shut up, employers rarely showed interest in prying further into him, which was eminently preferable. Not being questioned meant not thinking about the answers or where they led to. He then grudgingly admitted to himself that having someone to talk to was...pleasant. Particularly one who usually dug in as hard as he did. That brought him to three more lines of thought and he swore.

One, he was actually liking it here. Any time he had allowed that to happen, it usually resulted in the rug being pulled out from under him in a very painful way. The thought that the positive feeling was happening again was more horrifying than speculating on the unpleasantness that might follow. Having determined that and not seeing it as relevant to the things he had been directed to consider, he pushed it firmly to the back of his mind.

Two, the girl had done what could only be classified as letting him win in certain verbal sparring matches. She had sulked, been snappish, stuck her tongue out and made ridiculous faces in his direction more than once, but had not become actually angry at him for doing it. Crazily, she became quiet and withdrawn if he genuinely upset her instead of telling him to stop, and only became abrasive again after he had resumed needling her.

Finally, if he directed her to do something, or listen, she had deferred every time without question. Teaching her things she didn't know seemed to make her particularly happy. Generally in his experience, showing employers they didn't know something was a bad idea. Charon had an entire mental list of bad ideas and very bad ideas he had accumulated over the decades. Questioning their actions was also high on that list, but he had been permitted to do that too, and again she either deferred or explained what she was doing instead of telling him to shut up. Employers were supposed to be considered as elevated, to be honorably followed into combat and obeyed, and if he didn't always fear them, there had been a deep-seated trepidation that was never absent. They had the might and were supposed to be always right, as long as they did not invalidate the terms of his contract.

He turned his head towards Cort, resting his ruined cheek against the floor as he looked at her, then rolled his eyes. Here is my mighty and fearful employer. Fuck. Cort's face was mashed into the blanket, drool puddling under her cheek. Dogmeat's muzzle was on top of her head, puddling his drool into her insane hair. One arm was looped over the dog, and with where the other one was, he was certain it would be dead as a doornail by morning if she didn't roll off of it. Charon frowned. He was deviating from his assigned task again. Years of trying not to think apparently resulted in losing the ability to do it in a straight line. He turned his face back up to the ceiling and went over everything she had said to him in detail, picking over it for any phrases and behaviours he thought important enough to consider.

She kept her word, even when it involved great personal discomfort or risk. She could be manipulative when it suited her, but did not seem to be a manipulator. She only became verbally abusive when she felt affronted. She was quite possibly batshit and could go savagely berserk without warning, but to date only towards things trying to harm her. She was patient when needed, emotionally unstable, and she was...she was kind.

'I'm not your previous employers. I'm your employer now. That means I'm responsible for you.'

'I'm not going to punish you. You didn't do anything wrong.'

'I'm sorry, you were right.'

'I'm not strong enough to keep you from falling, so out I go.'

'Shot again getting up here to you, as well as my friends being filled with holes.'

'I need to sleep again before I set out, me and my friends.'

Charon was becoming increasingly frustrated the more he thought, unable to completely understand the picture he had made inside his mind. He was confused with the entire affair as a whole, and hated the uncertainty with a passion. Narrowing his thoughts down to a single line, he thought about the questions that had started it.

'Ask yourself if I'm going to punish you for keeping me from asphyxiating to death. Ask yourself if you think I'm going to ever punish you, period.' Turning his head back to her for the second time, he stared at his employer. She had shifted onto her side and stopped drooling, Dogmeat now upside down with his feet dangling. He spoke as quietly as his raspy voice would allow.

"No, I do not think you will punish me. No, I do not think you ever will." Charon returned to staring at the ceiling for a few minutes, then closed his eyes and slept.