Re: PM questions- I plan everything out way in advance, and generally have about 3-4 different ways the storyline can go at any time. I currently have a note file that's about 30 thousand words of nothing but plot points, fight scenes, death scenes, one liners and interactions/characterizations, and I'm constantly adding or deleting as I think of stuff or use it. I generally know what I want in a chapter, but the actual execution, most of it's sitting down, writing and going "Huh. So that's how you guys want to get from A to B. Okiedokes, then!" Sometimes the story just has a life of its own as well, and I end up somewhere entirely unexpected. Writing chapters like this and things with multiple characters is the hardest, action and gore is easy cheese. One of these notes I'll list the music I listen to get me going, if anyone's curious. And as always, thanks for the new reviews/alerts. ;)
Charon eagerly carried Cort down the hallway, pointedly ignoring anyone staring at them, and glowering at those who looked like they were about to open their mouths. Coming up to their room, he opened the door and looked down to Dogmeat. "Guard it." Grinning up at him, the dog planted himself outside the door as the ghoul walked in and shut it behind him. Moving rapidly to the bed, he sat down on the edge of it and then pulled Cort away from him, far enough to peer into her face. Thank fuck, she's still there. Even with how sad she was looking and how upset he still was over what had happened, he felt positively giddy. "Cort, I-"
"You should've let me die. I wanted to."
...love you. Charon tightened his hands on her shoulders, the euphoria he was feeling being replaced by a sudden surge of anger. "Like fucking hell I was going to let you die. How the fuck could you ever want to do that, how the fuck could you do it, Cort?"
She shrugged and answered in a matter-of-fact tone of voice that set his teeth on edge. "Dad's gone, Charon. I had to go too."
Fuck. He's dead and that asshole is still fucking her up. I'd fucking kill him if he hadn't already done it himself. I'll fucking blow his head off anyway if I ever find his body. Giving her a little shake, he glared at her, feeling his temper coming loose. "Yeah well, you're not gone, and I'm sure as hell not. Everyone else always leaves, you can't leave, ever. I won't let you." Watching a new, sly little smile play over her face, he got even angrier at her next words.
"You couldn't stop me, you didn't stop me from trying. I was just too sloppy this time." She brightened, looking almost sickeningly cheerful. "I'm getting better, though."
Charon snapped, all the anxieties and unanswered questions that had piled up in himself over the last month spilling out in a flood. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Getting better? You're not getting anything, any of it! Did-did you even fucking think about what would happen to me without you? I would've needed to find a new employer, I'm fucking incapable of not having one. If you were gone without me, someone else would have had to take my contract, would have taken it. I don't fucking want anyone else to take it. They would have had to-" His hands tightened again, digging painfully into her shoulder joints and making her wince, as he thought about someone cutting into her to retrieve it. "You said you were responsible for me, would take care of me, how the fuck is abandoning me either?" Voice cracking, he shook her again, hard. "You left me alone, Cort!"
Looking at his frantic expression, Cort felt herself crumpling, the dark impulses that kept circling around the edges of her mind stamped out one by one as she listened to his voice break. Oh Jesus, I did leave him alone. I almost...fuck, what would've happened to him. Anything could have happened. She had gone out of her way to obtain him, to take care of someone else so she wouldn't be by herself, and had nearly deserted a person who was completely dependent on her for his freedom. Someone she loved. The parallels to her own life were not lost on her, and made everything cut even deeper into her heart. What's between him and some fucking asshole's stupid whims? Me. Goddamned me. I made him a promise he'd be okay, and I nearly broke it. Fuck, how do I make this up to him, how the fuck can I? Bitterly chastising herself, she dropped her head. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking clearly." She closed her eyes as Charon gave her yet another shake.
"When the fuck are you ever?"
"Never, okay? I don't-I don't feel right anymore. Something is wrong." She hitched out a sob, starting to cry again. "It hurts so damn much, Charon, it feels like there's a hole in me, and something's in there, and I can't close it up no matter what I do. I just wanted it to stop. Look, I'm sorry, alright? You're right, I said I'd take care of you, and I didn't, I let you down and I left you alone, which was really fucking shitty of me, considering." Oh God I hurt. Make it stop, or make something else...something else hurt. He can hurt me. I want him to, I want to feel it. I deserve it. "You...you can punish me, if you want."
Charon looked down at the top of her head, partially shocked out of his fury by the offer. It was an entirely foreign and somehow perversely attractive concept. "What...how? I mean, no!"
"Yes. I-I don't know how. Pick something that was done to you. Whatever was the worst, do that." He shuddered as an image of Cort coated in broken glass briefly flashed into his mind, the larger pieces deeply embedded in her flesh. He had had to rub his back against a blasted tree to dislodge the pieces he couldn't reach, trying to catch them on the rough wood without driving them farther into himself.
"I won't do that, I can't."
She looked up at him stubbornly, furrowing her face up as she drew her brows together. "Yes you can. I'm yours. Look, do something to me, I order you to."
He stared back at her, backed into a corner and exasperated. "This is completely inappropriate. It's fucking backwards."
"Yeah well, what isn't nowadays. And you sound like an old maid." Cort slumped forward again to rest her head on his shoulder, pressing her face against his neck. "Just do anything. I'm tired, I want to make things right, and I don't know how, but I need to. This is the best I can come up with." She sighed, and he closed his eyes as her warm breath went down the front of his shirt, only to quickly snap them open a moment later as a potentially acceptable solution occurred to him.
Wait. Mine. She's mine. I have her back again. I can have her. All of her, however I want, and she can fucking see me. See what she did to me. Standing up, Charon pulled her loose and set her on her feet, then leaned over to lock the door. If anyone had come near it on the outside, it hadn't been close enough for Dogmeat to make an auditory issue about it, but he didn't want to risk anyone managing to open it before the dog annihilated their hand. Turning back to Cort, he started stripping her Vault suit off, lifting her up to remove it and her boots, then quickly followed it with all of her underwear. Fidgeting nervously, she crossed her arms and looked up at him as he started to undress.
"This is punishing me?" He glanced over as he shrugged out of the last of his clothing, tossing the entire bundle onto the bed. Whatever misgivings he was having were quickly being eradicated by a surplus of frustrated arousal created out of spending too many long nights with her right next to him, but entirely alone.
"You ordered me to do something, I'm doing something. If you don't want me to proceed, then just fucking tell me to stop."
Cort glared at him and wrapped her arms around herself tighter. "I'm not fucking telling you to stop."
"Then stop bitching about what I'm doing." Grabbing her with one arm, he knocked her feet out from under her with his heel, quickly catching her by the back of the thigh with his other hand. Lowering her down to lay on the bare floor, he slid hand between her knees and nudged insistently when she didn't move them apart. Cort pushed up on her elbows and he resisted the urge to back down, seeing her face. It doesn't matter if she looks worried. She ordered me to do something, I'm doing it. Oh God, do I ever want to do it, its been too long, far too fucking long. "Open up."
"Charon, I'm not ready. This isn't what I thought-" He cut her off, nudging harder.
"I am. Open your legs for me, Cort." Moving his thighs immediately in between hers as she hesitantly spread them, he reminded himself over and over that she could stop him whenever she wanted, then roughly pushed his entire length in all at once, groaning at the feeling of sliding back inside her. Hot, so hot. Oh fuck, I forgot how hot she was. How soft. Seeing her flinch and bite her lip to keep from crying out, he almost lost his nerve all over again, only holding onto it when she closed her eyes. "No, you open those too. You can see me now, you see what you've fucking done to me." She did as she was told and he looked into them, grey and soft and wet. "Do you know what it was like, being without you? I've only been alone once Cort, once, when I was shot up and bleeding against that fucking wall. Remember it?" She nodded, and he worked his hands into her hair as she tried to turn her head away, holding it tightly. "I wanted to die then. I tried to let myself go, to bleed out, but that bastard trader found me too soon." Feeling her heat around him, under him, he pulled harder on her hair as he started rocking his hips. "Having you gone was worse than that. You weren't there to tell me what to do, Cort. Do you know what I had to do, what I had to go through for you?"
Cort looked up at him, feeling his hands painfully fisting up in her hair as he slowly started moving inside her, pressing down so hard she felt herself bruising against the floor. His face looked like it had so many times over the last month, grief-stricken, furious and filled with ill-contained panic, something only she had been able to see. He had hidden it from everyone else. She remembered all of it, everything contained perfectly in her mind, like a holotape left for her to review after she returned from being out, and it only got worse the farther back she went. Staring into his pale eyes, she forced herself to go over all of it as he held her down, different things floating to the surface as they came back to her. That hurt her more deeply than what he was doing, so much it was almost killing her inside all over again, and she took both sets of pain as her act of contrition.
They passed two Initiates in the hallway, heading towards the Bailey. She had just started walking again, and he was carefully leading her by the hand. "You think she's actually still in there?" "I don't know, but if he really was fucking her, no wonder she's so messed up. I know I'd want to kill myself." "Christ, maybe he's still doing it. Corpses probably like to screw corpses, she smells like one already." Charon's face was terrifyingly livid for a moment before they went outside, allowing himself the expression where no one else could notice it. He said nothing, but when they got back to the room, he had stripped her naked and burned up a solid hour washing her everywhere, even though he had just done it for her that morning. He spent a long time with his face pressed against hers after finishing, tugging at her hair.
Overhearing threats against him, herself, and even Dogmeat, and the emasculated look on his face when he reached for his shotgun after the worst of them and didn't find it. He fluidly turned the motion into scratching his back each time, swiftly making the expression look like annoyance at an itch. It took him a week to stop forgetting it wasn't there.
He had taken her into the Library, and the terminal he sat her in front of that day was locked. Looking around, he grabbed the attention of the only scribe in the room, who was busily working on another machine. "Hey. Can you open this one? I haven't read this to her yet." A pause. "Please." The scribe looked over, irritated, and then sneering. "I don't have time to humour charity cases, I have work to do. She's probably too much of a drooling idiot for anything to sink in as it is, look at her." He turned away, and Charon clenched his hands into fists as soon as the scribe couldn't see him doing it. Looking back down to her, his face went from angry to stricken, and he uncurled one hand to wipe gently at her mouth and chin before sitting beside her. Taking up a paper and pencil that was next to the terminal, he painstakingly cracked the security code himself, then started reading like nothing had happened.
Nights where she couldn't see anything in the dark, the light turned out, but felt a large hand pressing at the hard spot under her chest and her neck getting wet where Charon's face was resting against it.
He fed her in the room one morning, not wanting to go out again after a particularly bad day, and she choked, the piece of food too big for her to handle yet. Two long fingers reaching into her mouth to retrieve it as he panicked, her lips turning blue and her eyes rolling up in her head by the time he managed to fish it out. He didn't feed her alone ever again. The next time it happened, he was in the Great Hall, and Knight Captain Colvin had simply walked over and hitched his hands up under her ribs, getting her to spit it out instantly. The armoured man returned to his own meal after giving her head a fond pat. The face nobody else saw then was completely humiliated.
Dozens of mornings in perfect succession, him waking up and then hopefully looking into her face as he stroked her hair. Each time there was less hope and more desolation.
Li leaving the first night, and Charon going completely to bits after she was gone, chalky eyes swimming in tears and then spilling over, the first time she's ever seen him cry. "What the fuck am I going to do, Cort? You need to tell me what to do, I need orders. Why did you try to leave, you're the one who's never supposed to leave me, you're mine." If she had been around, she would have felt her heart breaking as he did. "You said it wasn't my fault, but it is, it fucking is. I failed you somehow."
Cort reached up and laced her hands on the back of his neck, bringing him down even closer as she arched up and tightly wrapped her legs around him. "I know what you had to do. I remember all of it. I was still in there somewhere, and I remember every single minute. You never, ever left me alone, and you have never failed me. I failed you, and I'm sorry."
Charon dropped his head to her neck and groaned, moving his hands down to her hips as she started pushing back against his thrusts. "How sorry."
"Very sorry. I can't tell you how much." Squeezing harder, she stroked the back of his neck, smoothing her fingers over his patchy skin.
"Damnit Cort, I've missed you." Rising up and taking her with him, he rocked back and sat on his heels, sliding his hands around her waist and running long fingers up her spine until he gripped her shoulders, pulling her down into him. "So much."
"How much?" Cort gasped, trying to keep from crying out as he licked up the right side of her neck and bit at her ear. "Oh. That much." Crushing her to him, he tugged at her earlobe and growled, moving faster as she let out a breathy squeal and started to roll her hips. Pent up and chasing the pain out of themselves, it didn't take long for them to crash against each other, Charon exploding inside of her first and then Cort following him instantly at the feeling of it, seeing stars as she muffled her cries against his neck. He stifled his own as she bit hard into him to do it.
Moving his hands off her shoulders after a few moments, Charon reached behind his head to grab hers, and gently pried them loose from his neck. Bringing them down between them, he tilted back to balance her as he rubbed his thumbs over the scars on her wrists, the short one on the left and the longer one on the right where she hadn't been impeded by her Pip-Boy. "Promise me you'll never do that again. Or anything else like it."
Cort felt a cold lump settle into the pit of her stomach, replacing the warm euphoria. She wasn't sure if it was out of distress from nearly breaking her earlier ones, or being constrained by a new one a large part of her didn't want to bear. Everything still hurt, and she could feel the chimes in the back of her head, waiting, soothing, warring against the desire to fall back into the ghoul's arms. "How do you know I'll keep it."
"You never break a promise, Cort. You're fucking batshit, but you keep your word when you give it. I've seen you go through hell to keep your word." Still holding her by the wrists, he pulled her in close and slowly placed his forehead against hers. "Keep it for me. Please."
"Tell me why I should. I...I need to hear it." I need you to keep me from flying apart.
Charon put her hands back where they had been and then started sliding his own over her, running them through her hair and down the sides of her neck like he had first done back in Vault 112. "I need you. I want you. I love you. I don't know what the hell you've done to me, but you're my whole fucking world, Cort. Don't make me live without you." Still inside of her, she felt him starting to stiffen again as he talked, trailing his mouth down her jaw.
Closing her eyes to keep sudden tears from spilling out, she clenched her hands into fists on the back of his neck as he moved his lips down to her throat. "I still might get killed, you know. I can't stop people from trying to off me, it's turning into a national Goddamned sport. What then. What if-"
Sighing, he rested his head against her chest, and she shivered, feeling his breath tickling over her stomach, leaving a trail of goosebumps behind as it went lower. "If hasn't fucking happened yet. If it does, I'll make sure whoever got you ends me. I can swallow enough of my pride for that."
Cort buried her face in what was left of his hair as he trailed his hands down her sides and started pushing on her hips,spurring her to move along with him. "I wouldn't let you do that."
"You wouldn't be in a position to fucking stop me."
She smiled and felt like crying while she did it. "And they say chivalry is dead. Fine. I promise. As long as you're around, no, not that word, it's not enough, as long as you're alive, I swear I'll stay that way too. I'll stay for you. But if you die, all bets are off. Same rules apply, I'm checking out."
"I won't let you."
You won't be in a position to stop me." Charon moved his mouth lower and Cort found the stars again, the only thing shining through the new darkness inside of her.
