Chapter 28: Bittercunt

"There isn't anything here that hasn't been destroyed or dragged away. You're better off scavenging the dead out in the wasteland ."

The man in front of the small town, known as Dusty, couldn't have been older than me. He flinched at every little thing and couldn't seem to focus on anything else but super mutants.

"Hey, I'm only passing through. I'm not going to hurt anybody. Scout's honor." I held my hand over my heart and the other in the air.

Dusty's eyes flickered back to the wasteland, to Charon, then back to me. He seemed thrown off by him, but didn't say anything about him. "Well, alright. But be on the lookout for mutants and slavers."

Slavers.

The word dug in roughly into my bones. Slavers were the lowest of the low. Disgusting creatures that sold their own kind. Charon had never talked about them, but he didn't need to. And I wasn't about to actually ask him about it.

"We will be leaving within the hour." Charon said from behind me, slightly startling me.

He seemed to have scared the living shit out of the poor kid in front of us. Charon pushed past him and drug me along with him. People stared as we crossed the short bridge over the murky, stagnant water. Was that their drinking water?

A girl dressed all in black with pale skin scowled at me. She seemed to have had something crawl up her ass and die. She kicked off against the wall and stomped towards us. Charon's fingers twitched in response.

"Who are you?" The girl bitched.

"What's it to you?" I crossed my arms over my chest.

"Just wondering since everyone who 'just passes though' is either trying to kill us or sell us. And you don't look like much of a killer." The girl smirked at my expression.

"Sucks you haven't been on the menu. Mutants eat rotten meat, but I guess even they have standards when it comes to foul pussy." I grinned.

Charon snickered and the girl's mouth hung open. "Who the fuck do you think you are coming into my town and starting shit?"

"I'm the bitch who comes into town trying to help your sorry ass waste of living space and gets shit on right from the start when I didn't even say anything to you."

"God, why don't you just go join the rest of town and get fucked?"

Charon shouldered his shotgun and aimed it at her gaping head. "I think you should leave before you say something awfully stupid."

The girl stuttered, trying to say something in response. "Uh, pf. Fine, you'll regret this when I die and come back to haunt you."

"Good, you'll get to see parts of me I haven't even seen." I laughed.

The girl turned around, fuming and stomping back off to the other building. She glared daggers as we walked past her to a building off in the corner.

I opened the door and the smell of infection hit me like a brick. "Oh, god. My great-grandmother is offended by this smell."

"How you think I feel? I ain't even got the rest of my nose to cover. I gotta suffer." Charon joked.

"That's not funny and you know it." I took notice of the unconscious man on the operating chair. "I really wish you'd stop with making jokes at your own expense."

Charon dropped the bag and slouched into a chair with a groan. "You never heard of 'coping'? Some people just gotta do that." He leaned his head back on the top of the chair and stretched. "I make fun of myself so I can get over it."

"There's a difference with coping and being your own bully."

He gave me a crooked grin. "Eleanor, there are no bullies in the wasteland. Just assholes and people trying to see another day. Sometimes, they end up being both in the end."

I dug through the first aid kits and laboratory set after assessing the man's injuries. He was shot seven times and no one had tried to help him. "Yeah, well, I don't like the wasteland much."

"That's because you don't like anything except snack cakes soaked in Nuka-Cola, you little weirdo." He smiled and rubbed my arm.

"I tried to make you see why they taste so great, and besides, you're the one that told me it was normal to have cravings like that. I like those... and I really like you. There, two things that I like."

Dogmeat whined and nudged my leg with his snout.

"And Dogmeat. I can't forget about him. Three things that I like in the wasteland. Save for a very select few others."

"I get it, I get it. So, you like me?" Charon grinned smugly, his hand on my thigh.

I hooked up a blood pack into the man's arm and had started plucking out the bullets with tweezers. "Yeah, I really like you." I could already feel my cheeks start to warm up.

His hand ghosted up my inner thigh. "How much do you really like me?"

I dropped a bullet on the floor with shaky tweezers. It had been so long since someone had touched me like this. It was warm, but brought on that cold, lonely feeling again. "A lot."

His fingers grazed me, causing my breath to hitch. "You really like that?"

I swallowed, trying to get a grip on myself. My throat was dry and ached. "Yeah."

His fingers rubbed in little circles through my pants. My body arched in his hand. The tweezers dropped from my loose grasp. "Shit."

He bent down and picked them up. He twirled them between his fingers."Do you really want these back at this very moment?"

With a shaky breath, I reached for them. "I need to finish."

"Yeah, I agree."