I was originally intending on this chapter being much longer, but I'd like to get it posted today, and I've been up since half eleven last night, and it's now around half eight PM, and I've been working on this . And I feel like the introduction of Midea is at least a good place to break this one off without it flowing too awkwardly. I think I have the next chapter mostly planned out as far as what quests/side quests I'll be throwing in there and how Sallie will go through them, and if she'll actually be able to see Charon after throwing a royal hissy fit to bring him with. I'm hoping that the fights in the Hole will be a part of the next chapter, because I'm not even sure how Sallie will deal with that yet - if she'll stick to guns, or if it will force her to deal with her rather... Poor close quarters fighting skills.
As per usual, reviews are very much appreciated, because they let me know if I've gone to out of character with anyone I've brought into the story, however briefly, and if Sallie is, well... Sallie, however much the wasteland changes her. I do have a couple of other characters sort of plotted out for other fics I plan on eventually starting, so I may, without meaning to, be bringing in their personality traits as I write this.
Also: 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.
"I'll give you four hundred caps for the lot." Four hundred caps was a small price to pay for three people to walk free, and, well… She had more than enough to pay for it. If she didn't have more pressing matters at hand, she'd just kill the slavers and be done with it, leave their corpses to bloat in the sun after she'd picked them clean of any valuables. And The Overseer always said I wouldn't amount to anything more than a troublemaker. Serves him right to be proven wrong, the crazy bastard. Granted, she'd been told she would be a troublemaker because of her friendship with Butch rather than any of her own actions, but that was beside the point. She was still out here, making something of herself, saving people, and that was more than she could say about Alphonse Almodovar himself. That man may have meant well, in the beginning, when he'd first become Overseer, but the moment he'd lost his wife, the mood all changed. She'd been just short of two years old at the time, but her father had always said that, despite favouring isolationism, Alphonse was a good man for the job of Overseer. Guess that was yet another thing to add to what seemed like a rapidly growing list of things her father had done wrong, even if they were done with good intentions. Wasn't there some prewar song that said 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'? They were right. Her father was headed straight there, and so was she; The curse of a twisted hero complex.
She can tell by the way the slaver is shifting under her gaze that throwing on the merc charmer outfit again, in lieu of the combat armor she'd been wearing recently, was definitely a good idea. His eyes are drifting down the curve of her throat to her ample chest and darting back up to her face, over and over again. If she didn't think he'd catch on quick (those slavers were always surprisingly smart and she's learned not to underestimate them), she'd be grinning broadly right about now, teeth white against rosy lips. It would give her all away - if people managed to find a toothbrush out here, they didn't use it often, and definitely not with toothpaste; With her teeth glinting in the sun, the same shade as her hair, she'd be dead meat, metaphorically speaking. "Eulogy wants eight hundred." Word obviously hasn't gotten around about Eulogy yet - that, or some godforsaken fuck happened by and saved his sorry ass. She's betting on the latter, and makes a mental note to make sure he's dead next time - she'll probably have to let Charon take care of it.
She lets a disappointed sigh flee her lips, patting at her hips as though searching for more caps. "How about I give you six hundred… And you cover the rest?" Normally, she's hesitant to flirt, flaunt her body more than her mind in an attempt to get what she wants, but… Well, she's been reading an awful lot of old world women's magazines lately, the pages torn and faded, and she hasn't learned anything aside from the fact that flirting works better when you need something from men. In a time like this, she can't really say she disagrees - sometimes, a few sharp words just are not going to do the trick, and it's definitely always good to have a back-up plan of sorts that doesn't involve violence. Instead of doing what she'd normally do and just talking them in circles to confuse them, she's started with the flirting first and the harming later - she's become a bit of a black widow, really; Someone willing to pop that next button open and show off a bit of extra cleavage if it would get her what she wanted. It was a bit odd for her - she'd never wanted to be one of those women to show anything off. Flirting wasn't something she minded, but for her to go that extra mile was a rather large step in and of itself; The wasteland had been changing her this whole time and she was finally realizing it.
"I… Fine. Just give me the caps and take 'em." A knowing smirk curved over her lips and she nodded, counting out the correct amount of caps slowly. She took her time, not wanting to end up handing too many or too few (they'd count them eventually, and they'd come right the fuck after her if she cheated them even a little), but she really didn't like the way these slavers were eying Charon; Like he was nothing more than goods to be moved. Well, she'd be damned if she let them weasel his contract out of her (she didn't even have it on her, anyways, just a sheet of paper in her pocket to masquerade as a copy - she hadn't even put in the time or effort to copy the words, just torn a page out of an old book) or even try. Handing over the appropriate amount of caps, she waited for the slavers to disperse before she moved to open the slave pen, eying the people inside. Well, no way was Charon going to fit in any of those - she'd have to fashion some slave clothes or… Surreptitiously, she eyed Charon. Yes, that would work. After convincing one of the slaves to part with his slave wear and patching it up a bit, she grinned. The tables were about to turn, and she wasn't sure how long this was going to last - she may as well make the best of it, or she'd be… More miserable than she was likely to be otherwise.
To say he tenses up when she kicks the body from the mattress, motions him over and tells him to take a seat is an understatement. All he knows is that he's uncomfortable as the girl slips behind him and runs her hands over the broad span of his shoulders like she's trying to measure them for some reason she has yet to explain to him. Her hands aren't touching skin, just the leather and metal of his recently repaired armor, pressing lightly at his shoulder blades. At this point, he's not yearning for her touch like any other ghoul probably would be, longing for the feel of supple, undamaged skin; He's anxious, expecting her to do… Something, though he isn't entirely sure what. Thus far, the vault girl hasn't been handsy with him, hasn't grabbed at his hands to pull him along. There have been no slip-ups, he is as comfortable around her as he has ever been around anyone - but that's not saying much. He hasn't been fully comfortable around another person since before all of this, and there are times when he wonders just how much he'd actually fit into society if it weren't for the training and the ghoulification. Probably not well - even as a child, he'd been vaguely awkward and abrasive, without meaning to be. Now that he thinks about it, he probably still would have been ostracized - his childhood hadn't been happy or fearless like most, and it only got worse with the training.
"Alright, grumpy guts, up you go!" When he turned to face her once more, she was pulling raider armor from his pack and spreading it over the mattress. "There's no way you're fitting in a slave outfit - those things are barely going to keep the essentials covered on me." If he was capable of paling, right about now is when he probably would have. He knows her words are true - the slave outfits are obviously for people who've spent all their lives in the wastes, malnourished and lacking any real muscle. Neither of them fit the bill, really: she's of average height, sure, but her hips are wider and more rounded than one might expect of someone who is fairly graceful, and she's larger through the chest than most women he's seen, but he supposes the curves to be expected of someone from the vault, not that he really knows; He's taller than most by at least four inches and nearly solid muscle. "So, we're gonna have to, uh… Switch roles for a bit. You'll probably have to take both packs, too, or they'll probably take all of the stuff from mine and we'll never get it back…"
She's babbling again and though it's with purpose, her sentences keep trailing off like she's thought of something better. He hopes she has - the idea of being in command, while somewhat alluring, is also terrifying. "We'll have to put a mask on you, maybe one of those helmets we found on the way to vault one twelve? Because Wernher said that the raiders in the Pitt are worse about ghouls than normal people are," As she talks, he's watching her piece two separate sets of armor together so they'll fit across his back and shoulders, careful stitches with a needle and thread he didn't know she had. When she's finished, the armor looks patched and worn and exactly like it should, and he knows that, so long as he wears a mask, this part of the plan, at least, will work. They'll probably be there a week, at least, and wearing a mask that long will be irritating, but he can deal - not that he'll really have a choice. This whole situation will be one of do or die, and he doesn't intend on getting himself or his employer killed. "We'll… We'll figure out the rest as we go, I guess. Change real quick like."
Then, there's armor being shoved into his arms and he's simply staring at it for a few moments before he finally turns to change. Privacy isn't something you get a lot of when traveling, so it's the least he can do to turn his back to his employer as they both change. For him, it's the creak of shifting leather and the clinking of belts and clasps being undone, the air cool against his broken skin - running hot was a perk of being a ghoul (probably had something to do with the body constantly trying to heal itself), and most days, it made him feel like the weather outside was at least a degree or two cooler than it actually was - before he's back in armor. Behind him, he can tell that for his employer, it's just the unzipping of boots and tops and then the quiet rustle of fabric over skin as she changes. "I do not like this plan, smoothskin." he finally admits as he is given the okay to face his employer. "It is dangerous." After so much time with her, and seeing her now with scars usually hidden beneath clothing, he knows she is no stranger to danger. The are scars from bullet wounds dotting the white flesh of her right hip and thigh, barely visible because she is so pale, but those aren't the ones he takes notice of; The two he is curious about are obviously wounds from a blade, probably combat knives, but possibly a Chinese officer's sword much like the one the girl herself carries. One cuts from her right collar bone, down and to the left, ending somewhere near her sixth rib; The other, a curved line of pale pink starting around the ninth rib, on her back, and moving to directly above her belly button.
"There's no way he can come with. What they'll do to him if they find out he's a," Wernher chokes on the word for a moment before he manages to spit it out, "ghoul won't be pretty." All Sallie does is look at him with a raised eyebrow, like she honestly doesn't understand the reason for him freaking out (which she doesn't, really - she has faith in Charon's ability to act in the manner that's needed, no problem).
Arms crossing over her chest, all she manages to do is tap her toes for a few moments rather than calm herself down. She gets that this man has gone through shit that people shouldn't have to go through, but that doesn't give him license to act like a privileged fuckwit. "Fuck you very much, but if you want my help, he comes with - or you can mosey your ass right the fuck back on into the Pitt and get your cure yourself." Hero or no, there's not a snowball's chance in hell (whatever that meant) of her going to an unfamiliar place full of raiders and slavers alone. Even if she can't actually have him at her side, technically, it'll be sort of comforting knowing that Charon is there. His loyalty may be to his contract, but she'd like to think that, by this point, maybe he's developed enough of a fondness for her that he's not just protecting her because he has to. Probably not. "You asked for help, and nobody else showed up because nobody else in the wasteland gives a rat's ass what happens, even the Railroad. Beggars can't afford to be choosers, asshole. It's both of us, or neither of us." She feels somewhat guilty after snapping at the man and watching him virtually deflate, but, well… If she's the only person who has even bothered to venture out this way and shell out caps just so she can help, she's obviously the only one who's going to - she hates to be so pessimistic, but after nuclear warfare, pessimism is probably more like realism.
"Fine, whatever. Just get on the cart." After a few moments of hesitation, she sighs heavily and does as she's told. She already knows she's not going to enjoy this experience, no matter how much it may improve the state of the world, or this part of it, at least. It's going to be awful and violent and she'll probably have to kill more than her fair share of people, but she knows, hopes, that those people will have it coming, every single one of them. The death of more innocents is something she doesn't know if she can take part in, but if she must, she must. It will be a necessary evil, the death of a handful for the better of an even larger group (of course, people will be dying for attacking her, but she doesn't dwell much on that fact, just continues to justify it with the same old line about the greater good). All she wants to do is help, really, and she doesn't yet know if any killing that goes on will be murder or euthanasia or some sick thing in between. She's nervous as she takes a seat, carefully shifting until she's sitting cross-legged and watching Charon and Wernher get the cart moving, slowly but surely. The moment the cart starts picking up speed, they've been going about ten minutes, most of them in a darkened tunnel. As she flips on the light on her pip-boy, she squints.
Near as she can tell from the map currently open on her pip-boy screen, it's going to be a good four hours before they reach the Pitt, and something tells her the whole damn ride there is in the dark. "'Let us descend now into the blind world'." she quips as cheerfully as she can manage, the words out of her mouth before she's even fully aware of the fact that she's speaking. Realizing that it's not likely that Wernher or Charon will understand her reference, her cheeks heat, and she stares ahead. "It's, uh, a line, from-"
"Dante's Inferno. I read it, once. Many years ago." Screwing up her face, she grins at Charon. Even in the vault, her father had been the only other person who'd ever read the epic (okay, so maybe he'd suggested it to her and given her a copy), and it absolutely thrilled her to know someone else who'd read it. What ruined it for her was that she had only just thought about how little she actually knew about her companion and his past, and how much he knew about her. She'd spoken about her father before they'd finally found him, and the fact that he'd left her in the vault, but she wasn't sure if she ever went much further than that in her rants; It was more his fault than hers that she knew so little about him. On the rare occasion that she asked, he usually answered with an off-handed 'I do not wish to speak of it', or ignored her request to get to know him completely. She's not sure she blames him, as much she half-wants to. She decides that she's going to ask him about his past when they get back from the Pitt - even just knowing vague details would be nice. It's not like she plans on asking him to pinpoint exact emotions and exact scenarios that made him the way he is now (honestly, she's not even entirely sure that Charon really knows what emotions are and what the proper way to express them is).
The cart has barely come to a stop when Wernher hops off of it, telling them to let him do all the talking. Charon just wants to punch him so hard that he spends the rest of his life seeing things that aren't really there - but he's necessary to get them to the gates, at least.
"Charon," the smoky voice of his employer sounds from his side and he stops scanning his surroundings just long enough to look at her and nod, "I don't- I don't like it, but I have to give you orders." All he can do is nod and wait; It's not like he's never been given fucking orders before. The only difference is now, he's getting orders from someone who hates it; Someone who hasn't even given him real orders in the six or eight or however many months they've been together. Saying 'Do whatever you want' hardly constitutes orders. "You have to… God, just do whatever you have to for them to believe you're one of them until we can get out of here, alright? If that means hurting me, do it, okay? If we wanna sell this, you'll probably have to shove me up to the entrance anyways, sell something about catching an escaped slave or something, I don't know, really…"
He doesn't want to. For once, he wants to just say 'fuck the contract, and fuck your orders', but he can't. If he does, it will probably get them killed and then where the fuck would they be? Not even six feet under - who the fuck even knows what they'd do to Sallie's body, and it's safe to guess they'll burn his or something to that effect, maybe even just leave it deteriorate further. "As you wish." The girl's hands clench into tight fists, knuckles going white; He can tell without looking at her hands, the tension in her arms is a dead giveaway. He's gotten to the point where reading her is something he can do exceptionally well - a twitch at the corner of the mouth, a minute raising of the eyebrows, the tension when she's frustrated with someone who is completely oblivious, the darkness in her eyes before she does something she hates but thinks she can't avoid. There's not a single person he's met who he can read half as well as her; He hasn't had time to study them, learn their ways the way he has with her. As a rule, he hasn't liked people, human or ghoul - they've always stared, judged, hated, all without knowing. Sallie is different, treats him as equally as he really allows, the way he's still quiet most times; He knows he doesn't hate her like he hates most people, smoothskins especially, but he's not entirely sure if he actually likes her or if he's just developed a sort of begrudging indifference towards her. There are times when he feels like he would consider her a friend, if he remembered what it felt like to have a friend… Others, he's annoyed with her.
Without a second thought, he's pushing her backwards at the sound of gunfire, tugging an arc-light helmet down over his face. The flimsy, torn fabric of the slave outfit she's wearing is hardly enough to leave anything to the imagination, let alone offer any actual protection. It's later that the second thoughts rear their ugly heads, when he's in the midst of shooting one of the Pitt raiders in the face; He'd touched skin, soft, smooth, pale skin. And he knows he shouldn't have expected it, but no matter what, he's probably always going to be prepared for a smoothskin to try and harm him when he touches them. Despite all her smiles and hugs in Underworld, all her kinds word about everyone there, and about Gob and himself, he can't help thinking that, underneath it all, she's just like the rest of these wasteland assholes: A bigot. He knows he shouldn't be, but he's just waiting for that one day when she finally gets tired of her ruse, of playing saviour of the wastes and a switch flips in her, taking her from this vaultie with either a hero complex or a death wish and turning her into something dark and twisted. Nobody could make it out here without just that happening, because it's not a question of morals; It's a question of what it takes to survive and if you can fucking handle it. If he's completely honest, with himself, at least, he doesn't think she'll last much longer before she goes bad, but there's a small part of him that he currently refuses to acknowledge that hopes he's wrong, so wrong.
The last raider in the area finally cleared, he motions for her to move into the light (he uses the word 'light' loosely) and follow him and Wernher towards the gate. Without all her weaponry and armour, she looks timid, awkward, uncomfortable. Her usual confidence is all but nonexistent, her hands hang limply at her sides, and her expression is that of someone who is completely and totally miserable. He's not sure what to do in a situation like this, really - when he'd comforted her in vault one hundred twelve, it had been a fluke, something said in order to comfort himself more than her, really. He honestly doesn't have the foggiest idea of what is to be done - he figures it's different to comfort a fully grown person than a child, and he only has the vaguest memories of his parents comforting him.
"This is as far as I can go." Oddly, Sallie finds herself relieved. Something about Wernher is off and she doesn't quite trust him, but for a reason she can't quite put her finger on. It's a nagging feeling, really, something pressing at the back of her mind and no matter how hard she reaches, she can't grasp it. She shrugs it off, blames it on the radiation practically seeping out of this place. "And I hope, for your sake, they don't figure him out."
Scowling, she trudges past him, Charon trailing after. "Remember, Charon: Do what you have to. Don't listen to orders I give you until after I've dealt with the cure." She doesn't know why she repeats this - probably to remind herself that she's said it, so when she's struggling to free herself and her arm is twisted behind her back and she's gasping in pain, she doesn't give him any real orders. Her fair share of shouting will be done, but that's probably expected - shouting or the silence that indicates a slave has given up and will probably die before the week is through. "Yes, smoothskin."
That same shaking from when she killed Moriarty is back. Her hands aren't as steady as she would like; She's sure that if she were to pick up a gun at that moment, she would do nothing but outline a human being in lead. "Right, let's go then." A set jaw and racing heart were really the only things that were going to belie her fears, she hoped, because she really couldn't afford to be figured out so early on. Squeaking in protest when Charon caught her arms behind her and pushed her forward as they reached the gate, she was positive there was a frown on her lips. Right, might as well sell this then. "No, let me go!" She wriggled, trying to free her arms from the massive ghoul's grip in what she hoped was a convincing fashion. "Let me go!"
"Caught one escaping." her companion says to the raider clad in metal armour, jerking on her arms as she nearly breaks free from his half-hearted grip. The way he's speaking has her wondering how many slavers he's actually sat down for a fucking conversation with for any length of time, for any reason. It leaves her with a bad taste in her mouth. "Panicked at the sight of all the fuckin' mines, the idiot."
"Hey, fuck yo-"
"You're lucky I don't let him paste you right there. Drag the little bitch downtown." With a sharp squeal of forced terror, she allowed herself to be dragged off, kicking and screaming all the while. Never would she let it be said that she wasn't a good actress, even if it meant enduring a bit of pain. A bit of pain that came roughly ten minutes later when Charon dumped her rather unceremoniously onto the ground. Even though she can't see his face, she glares up at him, lip curling into a sneer when he simply turns and walks away; She can't hide the fact that she's relieved that, for a little while, she doesn't have to keep up with that particular charade. She's going to be tired and a damn nervous wreck by the time she gets out of here. When she finally pushes herself from the dirty ground and scans the area, she catches sight of a woman pacing, and she can only guess at who she is and hope desperately that she's correct as she approaches.
"You must be Midea."