I'm still looking for a beta reader, guys! I know there are mistakes along the way, in both this and Nothing Places, but I don't usually catch them until I scan the chapters later on, and then I'm too lazy to change them. Eventually, I'll go through and make all the necessary edits, but until then, please do bear with me. I think it's mostly additions of extra letters to form other words, anyways.
Either way, we're getting further into things here, and the next chapter... I may try my hand at smuttiness. If there are enough reviews prompting me to do so, that is. It's not something I've ever done in my off-site writing, so it may not be, well... Good.
And I may wrap this up soon so I can plan some sort of sequel... I'm not sure where I'd go with that, or where I should go with that, so do leave suggestions~
Reviews would be appreciated, as would art.
Ladies and gentlemen, listen up, please:
I don't wanna be your hero
Three months have passed since the events in the Pitt, and she still shakes with rage when she thinks about it. The fact that she went in blindly, almost got roped into kidnapping a child, it hurts, makes her realize that she's still more naïve than she thinks she is or even wants to admit. What hurts more is that, for a split second, she seriously considered taking that baby and fighting her way out of the mansion; She just couldn't bring herself to drag someone away from their family like that. A broken family isn't something she'd wish on anyone - even if the baby probably wouldn't remember, in the long run - because it hurts. Turns a normal life wrong and twisted and painful, at least in her experience. A dead mother and a father who bailed to purify some goddamn water, without even saying anything? It kind of makes you think about things. She doesn't want to be bitter, but she feels she's entitled to more of an explanation than 'I wanted to do this because it was what your mother worked towards her entire life'. Sounds like a cop-out, if you ask her. There's a little voice in the back of her head always, constantly telling her that it was for the best, that her father leaving forced her to grow up and learn and change; A much louder voice tells her that she's right to be upset, that if her father was going to leave, the least he could have done was warned her instead of leaving a goddamn holotapes with Jonas. The latter is the one she listens to, and that's why she's stayed in Megaton for the past three months, instead of heading to Rivet City to meet up with her father and the rest of the scientists.
She'd probably be out of practice with shooting if she didn't wander outside the walls, within a mile of the city every day, picking off raiders who get to close. Jericho bitches at her every so often when she comes back, whining about how he'll have nothing to do at the rate she's going; All she does is fix him with a scathing look in reply and slip by. There are bigger problems in the wasteland than some washed up old fuddy-duddy raider who gets restless just like she did in the vault - the Enclave and working up to heading to Rivet City, for instance, and she doesn't have the patience necessary to deal with someone who is twice her age, at the very least, whining like a child anymore. Some days, she just wants to give up and march to Rivet City and tell her father she doesn't give a shit, that it isn't worth it to be chasing pipe dreams; Most, she just tells herself that she needs to help with this because it is what her mother would want, and the least she can do for the woman who gave birth to her is this one little thing. It's the only reason she hasn't considered throwing herself off of the roof of her house yet - that and she'd feel awful, leaving Charon alone (even if she technically wouldn't feel anything, being dead and all). She doesn't know if her dying will forfeit his contract to the highest authority, or if it will set him free, and she doesn't want to take chances of him being stuck in one place for too long. He'd already spent god knows how long in the Ninth Circle, and after having freedom for over a year now, it would probably suck to be right back to that.
Speaking of Charon, she finds herself thinking of him more and more frequently, as of late; It's something she isn't sure she can explain, not even to herself. Really, she's not all that surprised by the development of feelings - he's been there for her (or rather, with her) through a lot of shit, even if it was only because she was his contract holder - she's just surprised that she finds herself pining away during her spare time. If there was one thing she never thought she'd be, it was the girl from some of those shabby, pre-war romance novels, sighing and staring and hoping she'd be noticed because she couldn't quite pluck up the courage to admit anything out loud. Give her a gun and raiders to kill, she can handle it without issue; Give her feelings for someone and good luck trying to get her to admit them out loud, especially to someone like Charon, who, when given what is essentially freedom, took about a year to warm up and start speaking more freely. Her life has officially just become some jumbled mess of radiation and unsure feelings and nervousness and fear, and she doesn't like it one bit. There's not even someone she can confide in out here in the wastes - in the vault, she had Amata, out here… She has only Gob and Charon, and while she loves Gob to death, she figures if she said anything, he'd just gape and keep asking if she was serious. He wouldn't mean it to be offensive, but, well… She'd probably be offended. It wasn't her fault that she'd fallen for the gigantic ghoul in an sense of the phrase - if it were up to her, she would definitely choose someone who would likely reciprocate her feelings.
But it wasn't her choice, and now she was going to be stuck keeping her feelings hidden because she didn't want to scare Charon off. Without him around, she knows she'll die or something - she is surprised she made it four months with out him, let alone got all that she did done. After all the times she's told him he can leave if he wants to, she doesn't want to give him a reason to go; If he finds his own, that's something else entirely. But pushing away the only person she has with her on missions, the only thing that keeps her from going crazy from lack of real contact with another person… She'd lose her mind. That's why she keeps her mouth shut and occasionally shoots longing glances his way when she's sure he's not looking; That's why she gets so flustered when he turns to look at her.
Sallie doesn't know it, but she talks in her sleep - more like shouts, really; Probably tosses and turns, too. He can hear her as he attempts to sleep downstairs, the girl's voice bouncing off the metal walls and seeping into his brain like a sickness. It's usually the same things: "Please, don't leave me", "Come back, please", "I still need you!"…But other times, it's different, completely different: Little whimpers and moans and noises he's never heard her make before, and sometimes there are words, but they are few and far between and he can't quite make them out, even if he moves to stand outside her door. Occasionally, he thinks he hears his name, but shakes his head and retreats down the stairs, telling himself he's crazy, or that if he did hear his name, she's simply scolding him in her sleep. It's the only thing that makes sense in his sleep-addled mind, and it would probably be the only thing to make sense if he were fully awake, as well. He doesn't know much more about the way people work now than he did at ten - just has the understanding required to know where hit, kick, stab, shoot to bring death quickly or slowly. All he knows is how to read people, but not why they may feel that way; It's why he doesn't understand the strange knot of warmth slowly unfurling in his stomach at those noises coming from his employer's room (he at least understands the very basic, more obvious thing, and what he needs to do to… Alleviate it - he has read enough books to know how certain acts work. It's the act itself and the feelings that may lead to it that confuse him even a little bit).
He never brings up her sleeping issues - it's not his place to ask, and if she wanted him to know, he's fairly sure by now that she would tell him. It doesn't stop those noises from wriggling into the back of his mind and replaying when he tries to sleep, like it's trying to figure out why those noises may sound the slightest bit familiar. It isn't until one day, seven weeks into their stay in Megaton that anything clicks - the only place he's heard those noises recently is at the saloon, but before Moriarty died, when Nova was working, and- They're in the saloon when he thinks of it, and he just hangs his head for a moment before turning to stare at the vault girl, eyes widened by just a fraction. If that was what that… And I heard my name. He's not sure how he feels about this revelation - part of him is still absolutely convinced that his initial assumption had to be correct. Why some pristine (if somewhat foul-mouthed) little smoothskin, especially one out of a vault, would want to… Would dream about… He is officially beyond baffled, words and sounds and suddenly mental images shooting through his mind at shocking speed. It's like every educational book or dirty magazine he's scanned over his entire lifetime has combined into a handful of fantasies, the face and body of the white-haired vaultie taking the place of any supposed models, and intensified because he can hear her speak, hear her moan and- He cuts that thought off with a shake of his head, before it goes to far and he's stuck sitting at this bar until everyone's left (who is he kidding? He'd probably just leave and flaunt the sizable bulge in his leathers, though he may not realize he is flaunting it).
Even with this new information (and fantasies that he hasn't had before) in mind, he's still unsure of what to make of that warmth that spreads out from his stomach and into his chest, where it takes root. It's a completely unfamiliar feeling - there's nothing in his mind to connect it to a memory, not even vaguely. There's been anger and frustration and absolute elation, and even some vague sense of satisfaction - those are things he remembers, if a little unclearly, from his entire life - but never this. Never something that makes him feel mildly nauseous, while at the same time making him feel infinitely better. It's confusing, but not completely unwelcome… Yet. It probably wouldn't be long until he grew irritated with the feeling and asked someone about it - probably Sallie, and if she panicked or didn't know the answer, then it would be Gob that he asked. They were really the only people he knew, and therefore, the only people he was comfortable speaking to at any length; His employer had actually had to speak to the sheriff about the bomb worshipers just to get them to leave him alone.
"Charon. Charon. Charon!" Blinking and raising one ruined eyebrow, he turns his head to look at his employer, and there's that surge of something again. The girl is dangling a brand new (well, as new as that shit gets out here, anyways) bottle of whiskey in front of his face, shaking it back and forth as if the movement of the amber liquid is going to catch his attention more quickly. A grin spreads over her lips when she realizes he's paying attention. "You want some? Gob says it's on the house." He grunts in reply, lifting the bottle from her fingers and starting slightly when their fingers brush, something that nobody seems to take any notice of. Thank fucking god. Touching is never expected; Neither is the lack of cringing. It's mildly less strange now, at least, especially after seeing how she is with that bartender sap, all the hugging and touching. And despite the fact that, as a ghoul, a ghoul wouldn't even be his own first choice, he still expects the girl to one day pull herself over the bar and plant on the bartender (who would probably just start stuttering and freaking out and have some sort of panic attack).
It's a week later. They've been at the saloon all day, and up until now, she'd been pacing herself with her drinking - taking short pulls from a bottle of whiskey every once in a while between listening to Gob chatter away about what went on when she was gone (by now, you'd think he'd have run out of things to tell her, but obviously not). Now, she's finished four bottles of whiskey, by herself, over the course of something like six hours; She's hit the point where she no longer filters her speech, and her words are somewhat slurred, not that she notices. The way she's actually having to lean against the bar to keep from toppling over, humming along to the tune of a song that nobody else is hearing. Gob's looking at her like she's sprouted some extra limbs, or just proposed some crazy orgy including herself, Charon, and a small handful of townspeople (which wouldn't be completely surprising, in the state she was in). Managing to sprawl herself out over a couple of seats so she could lean against the wall, she grinned broadly, reaching for her near-empty bottle. It seemed to vanish before her eyes, leaving her staring, perplexed, at the place it had once lain. "I think you have had enough to drink, smoothskin." Squinting at Charon as he pushed the bottle into one of his pockets, she frowned. She'd know when she'd had enough to drink, and she definitely hadn't yet. Her words were still relatively clear, she was not yet leaving words out of sentences… She was just swaying a bit and not filtering a damn thing she said, of that much, she was certain - she didn't really filter much anyways, so that didn't matter in the long run.
"I think I'd know if I'd had enough to drink, Charon," she argues, reaching towards him with one hand on the bar to keep herself steady. Never mind that she hadn't even noticed that her words were somewhat slurred together, and the fact that even in her slight irritation, she couldn't stop smiling. Rarely could around Charon, it seemed, thanks to the bloom of intense happiness and something like love swelling in her chest. He was always there, always watching, waiting, protecting - and though there was something in the back of her mind protesting all of these things, complaining that she wasn't a child... She liked it; Enjoyed the fact that she didn't always have to have her guard up, because Charon was there, and even when 'relaxed', he always seemed to be ready to move at a moment's notice. Granted, most people didn't really approach when he was around - too big, too scary, too threatening. He made her feel safe, even if that was strange, since everyone and their mother seemed to be under the impression that all ghouls were shuffling, brain-eating monsters. She knew that was definitely not case - the sentient ones were generally kind, if a little bit strange... And they were brave, she had to give them that. Even Gob, poor, sweet Gob; One had to be brave to live through all the mistreatment that came with being a ghoul, and he'd definitely gotten the ass-end of that metaphorical stick.
When Charon pulls away from her, she frowns, pushing her lips into a pout. In her alcoholic haze, she really isn't sure what else can be done to convince him, and she's ready to give up when something hits her and she has to bite the inside of her lip to keep from grinning like a fool. This was bound to go horribly wrong, considering her less than stellar luck, but she was hoping that maybe the fact that she was a smoothskin, the veritably unattainable to ghouls, would work in her favour. Fixing her gaze on her knees for a few seconds, she takes the time to bite at her lips then moisten them, the tip of a pink tongue darting out to smooth over the abused flesh. She counts to three in her head before she returns her eyes to Charon's face, eyes half-lidded and lips ever so slightly parted as she manages to inch herself towards the ghoul, over the stools separating them. Perching herself as carefully as she can on the stool nearest Charon, she leans forward, running one hand over his thigh while the other moves to rest at the nape of his neck, playing with the few strands of hair there. Honestly, she'd considered doing something like this, taking it further and further, more times than she could imagine counting, but always in the privacy of her room. The alcohol had simply given her the bravery to do it, even just one of the... Tamer parts of it. Good ol' liquid courage.
Charon freezes, unsure of what to do. The look she'd given him... If they'd been walking, he would have tripped over his feet. He'd seen her give that look to plenty of others, but she'd never him. His eyes almost slide down to her sinfully full lips, but he forces himself to look into her eyes. But then she's touching him and whispering things he can't quite catch. All he can manage is staring at Gob pleadingly as the smoothskin begins brushing her lips over his jaw - he doesn't know what to do in a situation like this, with someone's hands wandering and lips pressing and teeth nipping, and it's fairly obvious that the other ghoul is just as baffled as he. By the time he was able to force himself to react, the vaultie was pulling away from him, grinning as she held up her bottle of whiskey. Oh, that was... Well-played. He couldn't even force himself to be seriously angered at this juncture - it was his own fault he'd fallen for it, vaguely hopefully that she was just going to grab his hand and drag him back to their house, where he would probably not have remained clear-headed enough to allow her to rethink her decision, and it wasn't as though she'd ever given him a reason to think that she would ever want his ruined lips on her skin, his torn hands on her hips, his bitten fingertips brushing over her most sensitive areas. If he'd been less disciplined, he would have let out a strangled groan at his thoughts. This was getting out of hand. He'd gone from routine thoughts to this in something like a six days.
It was obviously the alcohol influencing her actions - he can't even fathom a reason why she would willingly kiss, touch, bite at someone who looks like him, or why she'd look at him the way she had, if she wasn't such a damn lightweight. No matter how hard he tries to comprehend it, it just doesn't make sense - someone who is one of the remnants of pure humanity, this little vaultie, so kind and fucking normal, wanting to be involved with someone, something like him. Something ravaged by radiation and living decades beyond what was normal; Something trained, disciplined, violent, dangerous. Someone who doesn't appear to have a genuinely kind bone in their body, just ties to some shitty piece of paper and the brainwashing to have to follow whoever held it. Granted, the contract only entitled his owners to his services in combat (he was nobody's errand boy), but shit, if a smoothskin asked, you took what you could get (Whatever it was that was going on in his head regarding Sallie probably helped, too).
But that doesn't mean he doesn't want it, at least in this case. If she asked him, once they were home, if he'd remove his armor and fuck her until she couldn't walk right the next day, he'd do it in a heartbeat, no questions asked. God, did he want her, and it hadn't hit him until just then, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from grimacing. If she knew, she'd probably use it against him - just now had been bad enough, her catching him so off guard with her caresses and nips that he hadn't even notice her hand sliding into one of the pockets at the front of his armor. He knows she knows how lucky she was, too; He can see it in the way she smirks as she takes one final swig of whiskey and arches an eyebrow in challenge, like she's expecting him to snatch the now empty bottle away and scold her, drag her home and do unspeakable things. For a moment, just a flash, the blink of an eye... He seriously considers it. Thinks about batting that bottle out of her hand and tossing her over his shoulder to march home, finger tips gently caressing milky thighs as he walks; Thinks about throwing her down on his bed, pushing their clothing only just out of the way and thrusting into her. And fuck, does he ever hope instincts take over for things like that, or he doesn't have a goddamn chance. Fantasies were one thing - in fantasies, you always knew what you were doing, even if you started out fumbling and awkward - but reality was another entirely. Sallie isn't cruel, not really, but he feels like if things ever escalate to that point and she's disappointed or she has a moment of clarity and realizes what's happening... He's gone. His contract will be sold as soon as she can stand and run out of wherever they are and convince someone to take it.
"You need to go home, smoothskin." It's all he can manage through his confusion, voice rumbling from somewhere deep in his throat. Before the girl has a chance to look at Gob, bite down on her lip ever so slightly and ask for more whiskey, he stands and carefully lifts her from her seat. "You're going to end up agreeing to something you'll regret if you stay." And then, there is that look again, but he spins her around, hands on her shoulders, and forces her to march towards the door. The vault girl calls a short, slurred goodbye over her shoulder to the bartender, swaying slightly as she does so. He goes slowly, leading her home, hands, gentle, at her shoulders. Every so often, she stumbles, and he moves to pick her up, only to be met by a rather stern 'no'. Smoothskins. At the door, as he fumbles one-handed with the key, using the other hand to keep his employer steady before him, she presses her hips back against his insistently. To say that this is unexpected is so far beyond an understatement that he just gapes when the door finally swings open and the girl stumbles inside.
It's going to be a long night.