Dogmeat was happily sitting outside of their current den, pleased to have something to do. His first world was awake again, and his big world was still tending to her as he ought. His opinion of the big one had risen immensely over the last few weeks, noting the dutiful way he heeled to her everywhere they went, even if he was getting the positioning off. Slanting to one side, he lifted up a hind leg to scratch at a clump of loose fur behind his ear, nearly tipping over a moment later as something occurred to him. Since when had the big moon become a big world? He sneezed in surprise, his paw hanging ridiculously in the air next to his face, twitching as his mind stalled over the new hierarchy asserting itself in his mind. The dense giant couldn't even figure out how to scratch his ears, no matter how simply he had spelled it out, how could he rise in status? Thinking about that part of himself again, Dogmeat automatically went back to scratching, digging out the offending tuft of fur he had been after and then dropped his leg back down.

Watching an armoured figure come over to the door, the light-haired woman, he thumped his tail until she reached for the door, then wrinkled his lips back from his fangs, savagely staring her down before returning to a relatively happy grin when she backed off. He stared up at her as she stared at him, and then reached for the door more quickly. This time he let a rippling snarl boom out of his chest and snapped hard enough to make his teeth click together, expertly missing her fingers by a fraction of an inch.

"Jesus fuck, dog. All right, I get it, I give up." Reverting to his normally pleasant demeanor as she finally desisted entirely, Dogmeat went back to thinking. He supposed the new arrangement wasn't necessarily a bad thing. He should have seen this coming, really, once the pair had started regularly mating(the animal was honestly surprised that she hadn't produced a litter yet, considering the frequency with which they normally went at it. It had always happened for him by now, if the stray bitch had been in heat, and his world seemed to normally exist in that state near constantly). Rolling his eyes as he thought about the amount of sleep he had lost because of their noisy conduct, he left that puzzle behind as being relatively unimportant to his personal status, and focused his uncomplicated mental machinery back onto his own concerns. He was certainly still best for his first world. There could be no question of that, ever. And the big world had used the good words on him more than once, even if he was too stupid to figure out the simplest of his requests. As long as the big one was loyal to her, he decided that brains weren't the most important thing. Besides, Dogmeat was smart enough to make up for the big idiot's deficiencies as long as he kept her safe and happy. He was best.


Both people Dogmeat was concerning himself with guarding were sprawled on the floor, Charon not wanting to move since Cort was draped over his right side, and her so completely exhausted she wasn't sure if she could stand quite yet. The ghoul was watching her as she trailed her fingertips over the exposed veins and muscles on his chest, tracing lightly over the remaining patches of skin and their borders and peering closely at his flesh in the relatively strong light of the room. He still had a fair amount of skin left, comparatively speaking, a benefit of his younger age. Like anything about what I am is a fucking benefit. Who gives a fuck if you can heal indefinitely if it's back into this. "What are you doing?"

She yawned and continued moving her right hand, shifting her focus to the side of his neck. "Looking."

"Like what you see?"

Finally stilling in her movements, she grumbled happily. "Always. You're perfect."

Absently pulling on her hair, he snorted. "You're blind."

Grinning, she nipped at his side. "I see exceedingly fine, thank you." Starting to doze, Cort listened to him snort again, comforted by the familiar sound. He tilted his head up farther, and looked down at her curled over him. She was clean, perfect and smooth, and he suddenly found the sight of her against his ruined body unbearable, the contrast between them stark in the fluorescent lighting of the room.

"Cort...why are you like this with me."

"Like what, Charon?" Moving his fingers over slightly, he rubbed behind her intact ear, making little circles on the sensitive skin there. "Oh. Is this a question about why I'm like this with you, or like this with a ghoul?"

"The latter."

"I suppose it's complicated, or not depending on how you look at it. Some of it's because of Gob. He was the first person who was honestly nice to me, and then a lot of people in Underworld were too, just because. And a lot of it...most of it is because of...Dad." Cort pressed her face against him for a moment, the memories around James obviously still achingly raw for her.

Charon widened his eyes, startled. "What? Your father?" The only thing he had gotten from James in regards to Cort was total disapproval or grudging tolerance, which he knew was only given to protect his daughter's feelings. The idea that he was responsible for her being with him in the first place was ludicrous. I hadn't even heard of that jackhole before she found me, how the hell could he have anything to do with it at all? "Fucking how?"

Turning her head so she could look at him again, she rested her cheek on his chest. "First, because he told me it didn't matter what people looked like, it only matters who they are. I think he started teaching me that because my Mom was a different colour. She was dark, you know, like Kodiak is, although you wouldn't know it to look at me. Once, when I was six, I heard Allen Mack call Mister Brotch some...names. I asked Dad what they meant, and holy freaking hell. His face looked like a bomb going off. It scared the bejeesus out of me. He didn't tell me the answer to what I had asked, just to never use them myself, ever. I put the pieces together later on, going through the Vault library. Do you-do you know what I'm talking about? Because I'd really rather not say them now, either."

Charon answered her quietly, feeling chastised over the revelation that James was partially accountable for him having Cort as his own. "I'm close to a century old, Cort, and a ghoul. Trust me when I tell you I've had time to hear the things people can spit out at each other and learn what they mean. Don't worry about it, just keep going."

"Okay. So yeah, anyway. Secondly, because of him, I like being around ghouls, period. It's comforting, because of the things I used to do with Dad. Anatomy lessons, my favourite books. The happiest moments I had growing up were spent looking at them, other things. Dissected corpses. Drawings or preserved pieces of them, learning the names for all the different parts. The smell's even the same." Inhaling, she briefly closed her eyes. "In a weird way, or not, again depending on how you look at it, you're pretty much everything I ever could have wanted. So that's why I'm like this with a ghoul. I just wish you felt better about it." Frowning, he opened his mouth to ask what she meant, then was prevented from getting a word out as she quickly continued. "I know you think I'm gross, but it's okay. It doesn't matter. I know you love me and I can live with that."

Practically jerking out of the remainder of his skin, he stared at her incredulously, completely confused at what she had accused him of. "...What? What the hell are you talking about?"

She sighed and sat up. "Remember I told you I recall everything that happened while I was out to lunch?" Charon nodded. "That really includes everything. Including you agreeing with Sarah that you thought what we do, what we are, is...disgusting."

Wincing at the memory, he propped himself up on his elbows. "I meant that about myself, it had nothing to do with you." Seeing her face worked up into a distressed expression, he tried reassuring her. Fuck, she still doesn't get it. I thought we were past this shit. "It's all right. I deserve that kind of response from people, it doesn't bother me." A split second after the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them entirely. Cort was completely infuriated.

"The fuck you mean it had nothing to do with me? It has everything to do with me! And-and what the hell do you mean you deserve it, are you fucking insane? Don't you dare say that! Nobody deserves that!"

"I'm the one who's a rotting piece of shit, Cort. I know it, I've accepted it, you can't deny it, fucking look at me!" Charon snarled back at her, unhappily wondering how the hell they had gone from laying around contentedly to something approaching a flat-out brawl.

"Don't tell me what I can and can't do." Pissed off and clearly on a roll, her face pale except for two flushed spots high on her cheeks, she snapped at him. "How the fuck can you not care and hate yourself so much at the same Goddamned time? You are not 'a rotting piece of shit'. I told you, you're perfect." Cort started tracking her hand over him again, dragging her fingers sharply down his right arm. "I don't just look at you, idiot. I see you. Everything's where it's supposed to be." She drew back her arm and slapped a raw patch on his wrist. "Brachioradialis." She moved her hand higher and repeated the motion, her face and voice starting to mellow out. "Biceps brachii. Right under the deltoid."

Grabbing her wrist before she could smack him a third time, Charon slowly drew her hand over to a raw patch on his side as he sat up beside her, seeing a way to divert her attention. Fuck's sakes, I'm ending this shit now, I've had enough of it. "What's this one."

She scowled at him. "External oblique."

"And this one?" He moved her fist to his chest, feeling triumphant as her expression cleared even further.

"Pectoralis major."

"And this."

"Trapezius." He slid her fingers up to the side of his neck and squeezed them gently. Cort smiled.

Charon smiled back. Gotcha.

"Sternocleidomastoid." Moving her hand up, he brushed his lips over her palm and she closed her eyes. "Orbicularis oris." Leaning forward, he pressed his mouth against hers, and they kissed for the first time since the night he had tried to wake her with one. He was moving her hand to his stomach, having found the diversion agreeable enough to continue doing it, when a series of savage barks drifted in from the other side of the door.


Cort broke away from him and cursed at the door, extremely irritated at being drawn away from the ghoul and being reminded of where she was. "Ah crap. That probably means someone's after me."

Doctor Li's shaky voice wavered out a second later, confirming her suspicions. "Cort?" Hearing who was calling, she reluctantly yelled back.

"Yeees, I'm here, I'm back. Walking, talking, singing, dancing, top of the apocalyptic world. Just...just give me fifteen minutes okay? I'll come meet you in the Laboratory." Grumbling and hauling herself up as she heard Li's heels firmly and rapidly clicking away, Cort slowly stood and stretched, then moved to her pack and started digging through it. "I want my shirt and cargos, I am heartily tired of that Vault suit. It's comfy, but I've spent enough of my life in it."

"Wait." Cort looked back to Charon and lifted an eyebrow, puzzled. While all she wanted to do was stay hidden away from everything with him, she was more than positive her life wasn't going to let her get away with it. Right now her bladder was insisting rather firmly that it wasn't going to either, unless she wanted to get intimate with one of the buckets in the near future. Giggling at the thought, she answered him.

"For what? Eventually Dogmeat's going to sever something and I don't need to add to my entourage of murderous followers. My cup totally runneth over already."

"After what we just did you'll need a bath before you can go out. You stink." Getting up himself and pulling over one of the filled buckets he kept by the wall, Charon selected a clean rag from a tidy pile next to it, sinking it into the water and then wringing it out.

"Hey! There's some nice post-coitus chitchat, cheers for that." Cort lifted her left arm and snuffled delicately underneath it. "I do not stink." Thinking back, she flushed and hung her head, continuing to talk quietly. "Besides, I know I don't need it. You washed me down yesterday. I remember." He motioned to her, thinning his lips and frowning as he refused to meet her eyes.

"No, you stink like...like me. Fucking stench will be all over you, you can't go out like that." She snapped her head up and glared at him, furious all over again that he was still being caged up by the issues he had with himself and belatedly realizing that he had distracted her from them earlier.

"Since when? Since some assholes noticed I have a particularly unique aroma and turned up their prissy little noses? I like smelling like you, Charon, it's nice. And I damn well know you like it. Makes me feel...well, sexy." Flushing again for an entirely different reason, she rapidly continued. "Nobody's going to force me to change myself or what I want, and they're not going to control our actions by trying to degrade me or you, and don't you dare start that deserving it shit up again, I have had enough. Short form? Fuck. That. Noise. Stink stays." Sighing, she decide to leave the entire affair alone for the moment, her thoughts jumbling up. I'll work on it later. I'm too tired right now for this shit. Why am I so Goddamned tired? I've barely done anything today and I feel like I just tangoed with another Deathclaw. Cort walked over and rubbed up against him as she nuzzled her face into his chest, talking through another yawn while he placed his hands on her neck. "There is entirely not enough stink. Stink stinkity stink."

Grunting contentedly, he moved two fingers up to tug at a tuft of her hair. "You're fucking looped."

"Maaaybe. I'm definitely pretty damned cold. Put that rag away and help me get dressed instead, hmm? I'd like you to." She sighed, thinking about the ordeal ahead as he obeyed, tossing the cloth back into the bucket and taking out what she wanted to wear, laying it neatly beside his own pile of clothing on the bed. The last thing she wanted to do was go out among the people who had been observing her in her catatonia for an entire month. The idea alone was humiliating. "Time to get back in the saddle. Yippie-ki-yay, etcetera, and we'll sally forth, tally-ho. Whoopiedoo." Brightening, Charon looked over to her as she rambled.

"What are we doing? What are your orders for me today?" Abruptly pulled out of her rising melancholia by his suddenly hopeful tone, she smiled at him.

"Same as always, so we'll need to get our weapons back. I miss my repeater, and I know you miss your shotgun."

He snorted, and started dressing himself when Cort flapped a hand at the bed, indicating for him to go first. "No fucking kidding. Durga stored everything in one spot, so that's easy enough. Want to go get them now?"

"No, it can wait until I decide wherever it is we're going. I'm really tired for some reason." She watched him curiously as he tugged his pants up. "Why don't you wear underwear anyway? I've always wondered."

"Chafes and it's too restrictive. I've never liked it." Charon finished buckling his belt and then pulled his shirt on, stretching and popping his shoulders and neck as he did so, smiling when it made Cort produce her gagging face. Finishing, he picked up her bra and then dangled it at her. "Why do you wear the tit-sling?" He smiled wider when she yelped, moving the item away as she made an indignant grab for it.

"The WHAT? Where in the freaking world did you pick up that name for it?"

"Made it up myself."

"Oh, classy. I wear it to keep things from uh, uhm. Bouncing around." Sticking her tongue out as Charon snickered, she started grabbing up her clothes. "Not funny, smartypants." She stopped as two large hands moved over her own, drawing the garment in question up over them and her arms before he nimbly hooked it together in the back.

"No, it's most certainly not. It took me forever to figure this fucking thing out." Spinning her around and pushing her to sit on the bed, he knelt and put his mouth briefly down to one breast, nibbling at it before tugging her bra entirely into place.

Cort arched her back in response, groaning. "Naughty. I'll get you for that, when you least expect it."

"Sure you will."

"Better believe it, mister. There's stuff I haven't shown you how to do yet. I can plan an ambush of epic proportions. Involving wonderfully dirty things." Sliding a foot up the inside of his thigh as he tugged her shirt over her head, she wiggled her toes when she reached the top, making him grunt in surprise. Charon grabbed her ankles, sliding her underwear into place, obviously immediately wishing he was stripping it back down as she darted a hand in to continue what she had been doing. Quickly retrieving her hand with one of his, he reached behind her with his free one for the next item of clothing, nuzzling at her cheek while he did.

"Mmm like what?"

"Like you'll have to wait and see, you insufferable tease. What you get for doing that to me right before we have to go out."

"I can be patient. You however, will crack like a damned Mirelurk egg."

"Oh trust me, I'll be testing your patience, along with a lot of other things." She grinned wickedly, biting her lip and looking up at him. "Now get my pants on so we can get back here sooner to take them off, hmmm?"

"Certainly, right after...this!" Cort squealed as Charon suddenly dropped to his knees and grabbed her left ankle, viciously tickling the foot attached to it, smiling like a fool while he dodged the other one. Letting go, he changed to a serious expression as he focused on gathering up her cargos from where he had dropped them on the floor.

Watching him fussily push them up her legs, she thought about how he could seem like so many different people all at once. One minute he could be talking in a distant and polite formality, and the next completely relaxed and profane. A bitter and ancient old man, and then acting like a teenager, brash and silly. Brutally violent and terrifying, or passionately gentle. Far more mature than she could ever be and in charge, or behaving like some child who was lost and alone, looking to her for comfort and direction. I wonder if he even notices how much he changes. How deep he is.

"You know Charon, sometimes it feels like you're my age, or a lot younger. Like you're a big kid and I'm the grownup." He looked up and glared at her, chalky eyes severe as he jerked her pants up over her rear and finished dressing her. She looked back and gave him a shit-eating grin, waiting for the scolding she knew was now coming.

"I am most decidedly not a 'big kid', and furthermore, I do not recall myself ever being as foolish as you are, even when I was of a similar age. And thanks so fucking much, by the way. That comparison makes me feel just fantastic." Reaching up, he buried his hands in her hair, his thumbs stroking behind her ears, his expression softening. "Jackass."

"I love you too."


Technocide: Aww thanks dude! You're givin' me the warm fuzzies here. Enjoy Cort and Charon's while they last, we're getting close to their shit hitting the proverbial fan. And I mean really hitting it. Honeymoon's almost over, folks, and there are dark days ahead. I suppose this chapter was wanting to give them time to say things and be happy before it's too late.