And here's the beginnings of The Pitt. I'm playing through this quest right now, just so I can get things as accurate as can be managed. Covering all the unmarked quests and such, meeting some of the Pitt raiders in Uptown, you get the idea. I'm fairly certain you're not actually supposed/allowed to bring a companion with you (I don't currently have a companion, so I'm not sure), but whatever. I do what I want.
I'm also getting into a slightly more regular posting rhythm, rather than typing up 1,000 to 2,000 word chapters and throwing them up here within hours of each other. I'm trying to make sure each chapter clocks in at over 4,000 words, at least, before I post them, and I'm sort of hesitant to make them much longer than that. It's all well and good to get long, meaty chapters, but the longer they get, the more I feel like people are going to lose interest - this is probably because I've spent a lot of time in the online roleplaying community, where any post over 1,000 words seems to garner negative attention for being unnecessarily lengthy.
On another note: If anyone would like to do a little doodle or two for this, I'd really appreciate it. Drawing isn't exactly my specialty, and I'd like to be able to have photo references for Sallie, at least.
Charon doesn't get why the fuck they're going so far out of their way now that Sallie's finally found James, but then again, he's never had to look for his father. That was a perk of having dead parents and being fucking brainwashed; If you have family, you don't care. You don't care about anything, really - not your own life, not even the life of your 'employer', nine times out of ten. You just care about the contract. This has been his life for two hundred years, and things are just now changing for him. There's still a large part of him that's confused about feeling; He can't tell if he actually cares for the well-being of his employer, or if the fact that she seems to genuinely care about him and Gob and every other sentient ghoul they've met so far is just colouring his judgment. It must be the latter, because the idea of really caring about someone after two hundred years of fucking mindlessly obeying the same shitbag ghoul is just mind boggling and he doesn't want to deal with that yet, not when he's still adjusting to the freedoms he's been given and the fact that he now has an employer who doesn't give a shit if he sleeps or eats or voices his opinion (which he rarely does, he's still testing the water on that one, even after half a year).
It's strange, to say the least, traversing the wasteland and not having to worry about being attacked by mutated animals; The way groups of them will part like the Red Sea did before Moses in old biblical stories when the vault girl approaches them is strange. He's still expecting them to start fucking attacking the moment there's a few feet between them, but he's fairly certain in his knowledge that it won't happen. Sallie's tried to explain it before, the fact that, for some reason, the animals are drawn to her, listen to her unspoken commands, come to her aid in battle. She's tried it with scientific wording, with simple facts and statements, but it just doesn't click in his goddamn head. It's not surprising - he doesn't get much aside from weapons and armor and combat since the brainwashing. He's working on that, at least, studying the way Sallie interacts with people and the way people interact with her, trying to gain insight into how the mind of a normal person works. So far, he's not making as much progress as he would like, but he has all the damn time in the world to people-watch.
He also doesn't get why they've stopped in Arefu on their way to the destination that the distress signal is coming from. The people there are pleasant enough to her, keep mentioning that she's helped them out, but when they look at him, it's obvious that they would like to push him off this section of bridge than actually let him stay there. Ferals really do give us a bad name. It's damn near two in the morning when he hears footsteps outside of the shack they're staying in - one where a boy by the name of Ian West also resides. He sees the kid practically fly towards the door, and push it open and what he's not expecting is a whole group of people outside. There's a few minutes of quiet chatter before there's any mention of him or Sallie, but he finds himself sitting rigidly at the mention of his smoothskin employer's name. He doesn't know the people here at all, trusts them even less, so when six people file into the shack, grinning, he doesn't know if the people who live here will even notice.
"Ian has informed us that you are the… Employee of Miss Harper." The one who's speaking seems to be in charge. He doesn't like him - there's something about the way he speaks that makes it obvious that he thinks he's more intelligent than everyone around him, especially some lowly ghoul mercenary. If it weren't for the fact that they'd be kicked out of Arefu before he had a chance to blink, he already would have crushed the newcomer's head beneath his boot.
"For good or ill, I follow her, yes." It's the same bland old spiel he gives everyone who asks, the same one implanted in his head. It is, essentially, a segment of an official speech that he gives to each employer. Maybe it's different this time; He doesn't really know. He's learned that he can't ever say something will never happen, because that's when the tables turn and it does happen. It's what got him out of Underworld, it's why he actually has caps. Hell, it's why he has someone around who, for whatever fucking reason, seems to actually enjoy his company. Of course, why there's a smoothskin around who seems to prefer the company of ghouls to the company of other smoothskins still floors him. He's only seen his employer look like she was enjoying the company of two humans in all the time he's been with her: That fucking junkie Leo Stahl and his brother Andy. Charon knows she doesn't like the whore who works at the saloon, or that freakishly cheerful woman who owns Craterside Supply, and he's certain that everyone knew that she had hated Moriarty; There's also the owner of the hotel in Rivet City, Vera Weatherly, and that bastard Bannon who seems to think he's entitled to everything.
Despite the sound of familiar voices in conversation, she continues trying to sleep. All she wants is just a couple more hours, just a couple, and she'll be fine, well-rested. Ever since she left the vault, she hasn't been sleeping all that heavily, unless she was in Underworld. Even in Megaton, she couldn't sleep well - it was all heat and creaking, clanging metal. At least Underworld has fans, even if Winthrop has to fight to keep them working. As she peels open her eyes, vision still clouded with sleep, she squints and tries to match the voices to faces she knows. There's Charon. she recognizes his voice before anyone else's, smiling through her sleepy haze. And Ian. And… "Vance?" It's been months since she's seen Vance or any of the Family - eight months, or something like it, since it was when she managed to convince the Family to protect Arefu, rather than assault it. Her sleep-addled mind must have been playing tricks on her, poking fun at her apparent inability to form bonds with normal people. There's no reason for Vance to be inside the shack - there's not even a reason for him to be in Arefu. She could have sworn that Justin was the one sent to protect the settlement; Maybe, hopefully, Vance is just checking in. It's the only reason she can possibly think of for the cannibal and his entire band of lackeys to be there.
"Why're you here?" She doesn't care if she's being rude; She's tired and she just wants answers. Really, she's hoping it's something simple, because she doesn't think she can comprehend much else right now, and if Vance is here to convince her to do the Family a favour, she's going to seriously consider disemboweling him and taking that fancy-shmancy flaming sword thing that he took with him everywhere, even if it means she and Charon have to gun down all of fucking Arefu to get away with it. "Especially at," she pauses, yawning widely as she squints at the screen of her pip-boy, the green glow stinging her eyes, "two in the fucking morning?"
"I was simply hoping to meet the… Man," it's obvious he struggles with that word like it leaves a bad taste in his mouth, like ghouls are more morally incorrect that people who live on the flesh and blood of other people (because that obviously a highly rational train of thought, right? Cannibals had more in common with the ferals than they liked to admit, she thinks), "under your employ. Justin came to us and reported the presence of both you and someone thus unknown."
They're here because of Charon? God, were cannibals ever fucking weird. Well, maybe they're vampires, technically, but still: was everyone except Robert really necessary here? "Right, well, he's Charon, he's there, right there, he's great, and I would love to go back to sleep. So, if you would kindly shut the hell up and be on your way; It was lovely seeing you again." Really, she just doesn't have time to sit and chat with a bunch of cannibals or any-fucking-one else right now, because it's two and she wants to sleep and get shit done when she wakes up. She hasn't spent time heading in the direction of the distress signal just so she can sit and chat and completely disregard it; If she wanted to speak to Vance right now, she would have headed to the Meresti metro. Charming as he was most times, after all the bullshit she'd just been through, she was not in the mood to deal with someone who treated her like a child in spite of all she'd done. For a few seconds, there's complete silence, and she takes this as a sign that her words have convinced the group to leave or at least shut up; She takes the opportunity to roll over and bury her face in the pillow. The moment she's comfortable and it's apparently obvious that she wasn't joking in the slightest, there's the familiar shuffle of feet on the dirty floor and the sound of the door creaking open.
"Of course, Miss Harper. We were simply… Concerned for your well-being. I do hope you'll take some time out of your busy schedule in the near future and visit. Good night." The Family's footsteps are heavy as they file out of the building, and she can almost hear the hesitation before anyone speaks. "Charon, was it?" The girl fights back the urge to groan and start shouting or throwing pillows and bits of trash, burying her face deeper into the pillow. Leave, leave, leave, just fucking leave already. Kick them out or threaten them or something, Charon, or do what they want and get it over with. This is the first time since she left Megaton that she's slept in a real bed, not on some thin little mat on the floor and she intends on enjoying it; She knows that real beds, not those shitty little yellow things strewn about the wasteland, are few and far between, but she's still a little bit spoiled from nineteen years in a vault. "I would very much appreciate it if you would allow me to speak to you for a few moments. Outside." She hears Charon grunt his acquiescence and then it's comfortably quiet, silent aside from both her breathing and Ian's, and the creaking of the mattress beneath her as she rolls onto her back and throws an arm over her eyes.
He only steps outside to speak to Vance so that Sallie can get some sleep; It's obvious she needs it. There were dark circles beneath the vault girl's eyes, giving the illusion that she'd either been punched pretty solidly, or she was in the middle of a week-long psycho binge; It'd be no good to get moving tomorrow if his employer could barely function under the guise of being well-rested. They may not have wasteland creatures to worry about, but raiders were fucking batshit and slavers weren't going to give two fucks about if she was tired, and if they managed to run into the Brotherhood… Well, he couldn't really know for sure, but since those Brotherhood fucks weren't exactly fond of ghouls, odds were that he'd end up with more than a couple of bullets in his hide before Sallie even managed to get a word in. They were supposedly a group of action, at least, that's what they would probably claim if they shot him: that they were trying to rid the wastes of ferals and had mistaken him for one, or some such bullshit. It wasn't like they were people of action when it mattered, or the Enclave wouldn't even fucking exist anymore. They only take action if they think it will benefit them, and they probably think ridding the Capital Wasteland of ghouls will benefit them. The fucking Outcasts would at least spare a passing glance to figure if he was feral or not, he knew that - they'd run into a bunch of them on the way to the RobCo Facility while working on that fucking stupid survival guide that his employer now refused to get rid of.
"Now, Charon, I'm sure you understand my concern." Yes, yes, he fucking does understand the concern: a pretty little smoothskin like Sallie traveling with a massive ghoul like him, it's bound to look bad, even if they know that he's the employee. What he doesn't understand is why this fuckhead who obviously thinks he's so fucking eloquent is concerned. "I'm simply looking out for Sallie and making sure you have her best interests in mind. She's much like the daughter I never had, you know." Yeah, that's all she fucking needs right now, some other fucking idiot who thinks he's got her best interests in mind. That's what her fuckin' dad thought and look where it landed her. "She's been very helpful to the Family, and I just want to know that she is in good hands if she is with you."
Bullshit, that's all he fucking wants to know. What Vance wants to know is if he can trust Charon not to go feral halfway through the pair's travels and start fucking attacking Sallie. He's been alive for over two centuries and he's been a ghoul for a majority of that time; He fucking knows when someone's lying through their teeth about whether or not they give a shit about him missing fucking skin and hair and smelling to high heaven. Just because he's not much for talking doesn't mean he's stupid, even though that's apparently what everyone he comes across thinks. "For good or ill, I follow her." He's sorely tempted to just leave it at that, leave Vance here to contemplate the meaning of his words and go back inside and lock the fucking door, but when he sees the man open his mouth to speak, he changes his tactics. "That means that I'm under her employ until she fucking fires me, sells my contract, or one of us dies." He doesn't mention that, if she ever asks again, he's going to tell her that he wants her to keep that slip of paper, even if she's essentially freed him from it. "I am honor-bound to serve her, and that means protect her and do as she fucking asks. So, no, you don't have to fucking worry."
Sufficiently irritated and wishing to stop the conversation from going any further, he frowns, clenches his fist and turns away from the man using a flaming sword as a goddamn torch like it's nothing out of the ordinary. All he hears from behind him now is footsteps and angry muttering, and he can't say he's surprised or upset that Vance is finally fucking leaving, just vaguely pleased with himself. At least now, he'd be able to snag a few hours of sleep before Sallie was up and ready to get moving; He may have spent two hundred years napping in spare minutes after restless nights, but that sure as hell didn't mean he hadn't been tired afterward. He'd just learned to function around that; Either way, the door was going to be locked and someone was apparently patrolling outside, so he could snag a few very welcome hours of sleep before his employer decided it was time to leave. Even if he barely fucking fit on this damn bed without laying across it diagonally; If he tried to lay on it in a more comfortable and efficient (well, efficient for springing into action if necessary, anyways) manner, from the middle of his calves down, his legs hung off the edge. That was the problem with being tall, and especially taller than a majority if people: they rarely ever fucking had beds to accommodate you, like they didn't get that people could be taller or shorter or anything like that. The only time, since the bombs dropped, that he'd even had access to a bed that was big enough to comfortably fit his height, was when he'd stayed in Sallie's home in Megaton; She'd gone to talk the screwball Moira and managed to purchase a massive, heart-shaped bed from her and get a few people to help her push it home.
It's nine when her eyes finally pop open. She's momentarily confused by a room that isn't her own and a ceiling that isn't dingy blue skin smeared with puffy white-grey clouds, but she manages to reorient herself after she nearly topples right off of the top bunk. With one leg thrown haphazardly onto the mattress and an arm clutching desperately at the faded fabric, she's trying desperately to keep herself from falling to the floor and causing a ruckus before the other two have even woken up. She doesn't want to be the one to wake them, especially Charon, who deserves all the sleep he can get, when he can get it, for putting up with all her quirks on a day-to-day basis.
"Smoothskin, what are you doing?" She freezes, managing a glance over her shoulder to see Charon sitting at the edge of his bed, rubbing his eyes and looking vaguely amused by her predicament. "That is a bunk bed, not a jungle gym." Her brows furrow at his comment - she's read about a lot of shit from before the war, seen a lot of pictures, and she knows that plenty of shit from way back then was still standing, but she has no clue what a goddamn jungle gym is. Maybe she's seen one before and just not known what it was called? That seemed pretty likely - there are a lot of things out here that she doesn't know the terminology for. She avoids bringing those things up in an attempt to sound like an idiot less frequently. As far as she's aware, that plan works, because nobody ever comments on how stupid she is except Doc Church, and, well… He thinks everybody's an idiot.
Trying to inch her hand closer to the opposite edge of the mattress, she frowns at the ghoul. Despite wracking her brain in an attempt to connect a picture to the words 'jungle gym', she is completely unsuccessful, left still wondering what her mercenary could possibly be talking about. "What in the flying fuck is a 'jungle gym', Charon?" Charon drops his face into his hand, shaking his head, and all she finds herself thinking is how much that would have hurt him if he still had something for a nose other than a hole in his face. It takes her an embarrassingly long few seconds to realize that the ghoul is laughing at her, his shoulders shaking as he stands. "This isn't funny, you, you… You!"
The ghoul obviously disagrees with her, as he simply raises an eyebrow and makes a vague motion to the frame of the bed that she is currently clinging to for dear life. "Not that. It is much like…" He's searching for a word as he strides over and lifts her just enough for her to scramble back onto the mattress. "It looks much like a large cage, but it is for children to climb on." Well, if that was true, then people before the war had fucking sick senses of humour, fashioning things that looked like cages for children to fucking play on; Part of her had to wonder if they made them just to avoid actually caging children up, a way to see the kids in makeshift pens. If so… That was sort of passive-aggressive, but at least it was better than actual child abuse. She'd never been abused, but she thinks it's pretty much the worst thing you can do: physically or mentally fucking with someone who depends so heavily on you. A child will make the conscious decision to keep the abuse hidden, in some cases to protect the person who has abused them and out of fear in others. A child has no chance, if they fight back, unless they get lucky and has a witness. That's the worst part.
"That's sorta sick, don't you think? Making a giant-ass cage for kids to climb all over?" The question is rhetorical, but she still half-expects an answer, just like she always does. She's hoping that, some time soon, Charon will break out of his shell, at least enough to hold a conversation and actually contributing to it, rather than just listening to her babble about God knows what. She'd told him on more than one occasion that he could do whatever he wanted, so she really didn't get why he was so hesitant to stop her from speaking - then again, she hadn't spent any portion of her life under a contract, with a less than pleasant employer. Even all that he's said today is a massive improvement, but aside from snarling war cries at raiders the rest of the distance they had to go, that was probably all he would say. It's not like she can fault him for wanting to stay quiet, she just really wishes that he'd speak a little more, even if it's just to spit insults at her. It'd be preferable to constantly hearing her own voice or one of five songs or a handful of those Daring Dashwood radio programs that Three Dog ever plays, because he's apparently incapable of some fucking variation. Unlike most of the population, she's pretty she doesn't mind the way ghouls talk; Their voices are rough and sort of scratchy, yes, but not in an entirely unpleasant way, especially not after hearing the way some humans spoke. A voice that hasn't been destroyed by radiation isn't as great when all it's used for is screaming foul, foul things.
By the time they've said their goodbyes and are preparing to leave Arefu, it's almost eleven o'clock. He'd suggested leaving earlier, before the heat grew unbearable, but Sallie had wanted to say goodbye to everyone, and apparently weasel some supplies out of Evan King. So there they stand, at the entrance to the small settlement, Charon watching as his employer converses with the smoothskin who is in charge. He sees her subtly lean forward, wet her lips, whisper. Holy sweet fucking hell, she's like a demon, all sweet smiles and shy words when she was all packed and ready; The moment she needs something she's all smirks and moistened lips and promises just made to be broken. The only other time he's seen her like this was when she bought his contract off of Ahzrukhal, and out here in the wastes, it's slightly alarming to see her flaunt herself so boldly just to get what she wants. He blinks as she leans back, suspecting that maybe her ploy didn't work, but then he sees Evan press several stimpaks into the girl's hand, followed by four bottles of softly glowing water. As the girl turns on her heel and walks towards him, she flashes him a devilish smirk that's a little bit disarming when it's directed at him, and glances over shoulder. "I'll make sure to stop by soon, Evan!"
He snorts when, once they're just out of range of vision, the pale-haired vault girl shudders and stops to throw everything into her pack, looking utterly disgusted. "King's a fucking creep." she states flatly as she hauls her pack back onto her shoulders. He rolls his eyes. It's not like anyone forced her to chat up the man to get a few extra stimpaks, and he points it out with a raise of an eyebrow. It earns him a scowl. "It wasn't the stimpaks I wanted, I know there's plenty. It was the water - it's irradiated. Radiation heals ghouls, right? Figure we might as well keep all our bases covered, as far as healing goes." He can tell she's not mentioning something, the way her eyes dart around when she mentions radiation healing ghouls, but he holds his tongue on this one. The ghoul doesn't like the idea that his employer has just shamelessly flirted with another smoothskin, especially one who was at least old enough to be her father. It just doesn't sit right with him, that awkward knot that he hasn't dealt with in so long returning to his stomach briefly.
When they finally reach their destination, it's ten at night, pitch black, and all she can hear is gunfire and shouting. It unnerves her, reminds her of her escape from the vault and the three security officers whose families she tore apart by shooting them - Paul Hannon, Stevie Mack and Jack Wolfe. Wrinkling her nose, she pushes after Charon, watching as a single man takes out four well-armoured raiders with what seems like ease. As they approach, he shoots her a dirty look and saddles the ghoul in front of her with an even dirtier one.
"You could have helped me, you know!"
His name is Wernher, she knows that much from the transmissions. All she learns from asking him questions is that he's from a place called The Pitt, where he'd been a slave, and that there are a fuckton of other slaves there with some seemingly incurable disease. Then he springs the reason for all this on her - he needs outside help, wants somebody else to get into the house of man in charge (someone by the name of Ashur), and steal the cure. She frowns. She's a lot of fucking things, but a thief she is not; She can't just march in and steal something from a living person, and she doesn't know if she's up for murder, even if it will help a whole lot of slaves and allow them to rally together and get themselves free. But because she's stupid and she can't bring herself to say 'no' to helping out slaves, just like she hadn't been able to stop herself from killing Moriarty to free her friend, she agrees to his harebrained plan of going west and saving a small handful of slaves just so she can take one of their outfits (Fuck that, she decides as she pulls the armor from three of the bodies and folds it carefully so it will fit in Charon's pack, I'm taking two and Charon's coming with.)
It's a bit of a problem, really, this sort of hero thing.