The urge to kick the doors open and march back to The Ninth Circle was growing more in temptation with the more alcohol she drank. He was forced to stand there, like some gargoyle, keeping his eyes focused on the too-close wandering hands that tried to slip past his field of security. If he hadn't been given his current orders, he would've taken the drunk Russian and repeatedly slammed his head into the table until a red river flowed.
Charon, you are to escort her to Dukov's alive and well, and then bring her back the same...I don't care how she gets it, just make sure she does. Don't kill Dukov, or we're going to have a conversation, do you understand?
His palms curled tightly, his fingers digging into the leather of his worn gloves. He hated this, hated watching the casual refill of her chipped mug and the quiet murmuring of words near her ear. It made his job that much more difficult- it was dangerous to travel at night, and coupled with the fact she was inebriated, it put them both at considerable risk. Once she got her end of the deal done, he would promptly dunk her head in the Potomac and shove his boot so far up her ass-
"God, it's so hot in here," she drunkenly complained, her speech heavy and posture considerably much more relaxed. She stripped the leather jacket from her shoulders, tossing it aside on the rest of her crap.
His eyes had followed the motion, returning to the sight of Dukov's quick fingers having pinched the zipper of her suit and slowly pulling it to her breasts. It made her squeak, the flush red of her cheeks darkening.
"There, much better, eh sweetcheeks?" He grinned.
Charon snarled at the breach in containment, coming between their seats to cut her off from view. He slammed a hand on the table, splintering the wood. He dramatically leaned downward, his considerable height towering over the smaller man.
"I advise you to keep your hands to yourself," Charon rasped with a promised threat.
"Oh, come on, clown shoes!" Dukov patted him on the bicep, Charon's head slowly turning to the motion. "We're just having a bit of fun, ha ha! You and me, we've known each other a long time, so, I give you this." He waved to the women whispering to themselves on the couch. "You go and enjoy the party, alright my friend? Hey, Cherry! Get the ghoul some fucking booze!" He winked with a smirk, his hand already sliding past to run along her thigh.
Evelyn removed him before Charon could (and snap it in three places) himself. She stumbled away on unsteady feet, mumbling something about bathroom.
He became her living shadow as she trapezed for a door with a visible toilet, closing her away from the world as she struggled with her suit. The golden stitched numbers 101 on her back were visible to him for the first time, and he felt a ping of recognition from somewhere. He stood guard, eyeing the retired mercenary from across the room with reproach.
When she eventually came back out, her suit was only halfway zipped up, exposing her soft white belly and cleavage of her tits that had been hidden away underneath. Her sweat-stained undergarment was slightly damp; she reeked of booze. She plastered into him, worming her fingers in the straps of his armor and rubbing her face in his jacket. He was momentarily stunned by the unexpected touch and froze in place.
"You're an asshole," she slurred, beginning to tip backward as she lost balance on her feet. She then righted herself and face-planted into his chest. "Yousmellgood."
He awkwardly gripped her by the shoulders and held her away from himself, keeping her propped like a human-sized doll that went limp. Charon snapped his head down as this drunk smoothskin was now beginning to zip her suit farther down, a peek of her underwear band winking out.
She stopped and looked up at him, her skin a light green tint. "I'm gonna throw up."
Alarmed, he shoved her back inside the bathroom, quickly shutting the door as she fell on her ass. She wasn't going to repeat her mistake from the first time.
"Ow!" he heard her yelp from behind the frame.
This was not part of his contractual obligation, so with a quick twist of the handle, followed by a powerful tug, he ripped his side of the knob off the door and dropped it at his feet. The locking mechanism wiggled a few times as she tried to open it, but to no avail. He turned, rolling his shoulders while cracking his neck to the side, and then narrowed his eyes at the Russian sleazeball that was loudly complaining about him 'breaking my shit'!
I don't care how she gets it, just make sure she does.
Charon started across the room; Hell embodied on two legs.
Don't kill Dukov-
Charon was good at hurting people...very good.
-or we're going to have a conversation, do you understand?
Almost as good as following orders.
The sudden drop in the cold water jolted her awake.
Amata's face was behind her eyes, got it from my dad's cabinet in his office, a clear bottle filled with liquid amber, did you remember to lock the door? a taste of fire burning across her tongue, if he finds out, we can say it was all my idea, the giggles, the damp air of the lower floors cooling her brow, you're so lucky to have big boobs, a teasing squeeze, a strange lump in her throat, who do you want to be your first?
She hadn't had a sip of hard liquor ever since that night almost three years ago, just after the G.O.A.T exam, and now she remembered why.
"Grbfghf!" she gasped, flailing her hands about wildly. They met with the side of a grimy porcelain throne, the putrid stench of stale piss and the texture of coarse hair coating her palms. She felt the pressure from the back of her skull release, and she instantly smacked her head up.
She had just been swirlied in a toilet.
"What the fuck?!" she shrieked, scrabbling away on her ass across the cracked tiles. Her eyes darted around, coming to the broad shadow of the retreating perpetrator who had just broken every law in the Geneva Convention. At that moment, everything turned a violent shade of red. "I'll fucking kill you!"
The wet slick surface beneath her feet didn't aid her cause, and she slipped after struggling to stand. Coming to a crash on her hands and knees, it was then that she noticed her entire vault suit was missing...as was her bra.
Another scream, coupled with the slamming of the door.
When it was finally flung open to her disheveled appearance, her soaked hair wild about her face and eyes puffy and bruised, every nasty insult that could come to mind was set at her lips, ready to be fired on this ghoul with the intent to mentally maim.
It died, however, at the sight of him.
A metallic scraping sound filled the empty echo of the room- the ghoul bouncer was swirling a spoon inside an open can of Pork n' Beans while casually seated on the couch, his shotgun propped at his side to be readily available. His eyes were on the closed door they had entered from, but then he roved them to her.
He said nothing, and resumed his watch while finishing his meal.
Evelyn coughed up the itch in her throat, tasting a hint of vile stomach acid on her tongue. It was then she thought back to where they were, and what had just happened. Her body stiffened as though electrified, and she snagged at her things while blabbering profusely.
She had stripped her clothes after being locked in the bathroom, thinking the most perverse thoughts of-of-ew-(was it ew?) apparently not enough, for her hand was still ripe with her musk and her underwear was soaked and the sight of this ghoul she had been thinking unholy thoughts of-
"OhmyGod- holy fuck." Her lips moved a mile a minute, the previous war crime he had committed against her dignity thrown to the wayside as she prepped to leave the awkwardness of the situation. "Nope, never again, oh, Jesus-!"
An emptied metal can was frisbeed at her head, clunking her in the forehead before making a loud clatter on the floor.
"OW!"
"Be quiet," Charon ordered with a flat rasp. He reached inside a pack (her pack!) and pulled out another can. He unsheathed a combat knife from his boot, slammed it into the lid, and expertly sawed a perfect circle. The aluminum top was flicked across the room, and he dove right in.
Any other occasion, and she would have been pissed at this guy going through her things and helping himself to her stash- a quick glance to the trash heap detailed he had an appetite worthy of his size- but she was so flustered that she just lamely went about gathering the rest of her gear. She would willingly venture out into the wastes, job or no job be damned...
A bottle of unopened liquor with the faded label Rosewalda was set beside her jacket on the table...she whirled her head around to the ghoul, and then blinked at the lack of their host.
A garbled groan trebled down the staircase from a ghostly presence- she could spy one of the women from before smoking a cigarette at the top and observing them with careful eyes.
Evelyn sputtered, pointing to the thing as though it was a live bomb. "Did...did you-?" Charon tore his gaze from the door once more, his nonchalant attitude betraying nothing. He didn't finish her accusing statement.
"You know what, fuck this," she spat, that buried anger clawing its way to the surface. She thrust her leather jacket on and began to make for her bag...but his predatory glare made her reconsider. "Fuck it, keep it, I don't care."
She stomped for the back door, halted by a firm grip around her wrist. He was so fast!
"Do not leave," he growled.
"This whole idea was stupid! Bring it back yourself, tell your boss I'm never working for his slimy ass again!" she snarled, going to wrench herself free...except this time, he wasn't letting go. "Hey, hey!" She panicked, beating a fist against his arm. It did nothing, he didn't so much as flinch. "Let me go!"
He brusquely shunted her flush against himself, ignoring the pained yelp drawn from her lips. "You are returning to Underworld. I will carry out my orders."
"What the fuck, are you some kind of fucking robot?!" She grunted as he began to drag her across the floor. "Just give it to him yourself-!"
Her bag was nabbed, the bottle was tucked inside, and it was pressed up against her chest.
"Take it," he commanded, all business. She meekly obeyed. "Do not slow me down."
A lump the size of a golf ball was gulped down her throat, and soon, they were exiting Dukov's Place with the sun slowly climbing over the horizon. She realized she must have been passed out in her drunken stupor, and that he at least had the grace to have let her sleep...even if it was on the bathroom floor.
When they came to the service tunnels, she glanced back to the one building she hoped to never revisit in her travels.
"...did you kill him?" she asked, not really expecting an answer.
He glanced over his shoulder at her before continuing down the tunnel. "No."
They were left in silence the remainder of the way.
The bottle was smacked down on the bar counter, Evelyn's teeth bared along with her resentment. "Here's your stupid alcohol."
Ahzrukhal didn't seem to take offense to her anger, and only gently handled the merchandise as though it was a newborn babe swaddled in fleece. "Very good," he rasped, his decayed cataracts fixated on his prize with great reverence. "Yes...very good."
He then eyed her with a newfound sense of appreciation.
"So, smoothskin, I'm most curious about how you managed it, but I guess it comes with the advantage to have some certain...qualities." He grinned, all of his black rotting teeth on full display.
"I didn't fuck him," she growled, leaning away from the counter. "You can thank Charon for it."
Here Ahzrukhal raised a single brow, and then his eyes went to slits as he looked over her to the hulking bouncer back in his place in the corner. "Oh, really, now? That is...interesting."
She thrummed her fingers on the counter, waiting for her payment. When the ghoul slid the bottle onto the highest shelf of his collection, she impatiently sighed. He then faced her, wiping a dirty rag along the bar surface.
"Is there something I can help you with, my dear?" he asked with false innocence.
"Uh, yeah, my caps?"
"Why, whatever do you mean?" he rasped curiously. "You said it yourself, my employee had retrieved the bottle for me. This being the case, then you didn't do the job I had asked...so, what ever should I pay you for? Keeping Charon company?"
She blinked in disbelief. Was he being serious?
"Unless you're here to drink, then I suggest you leave." Ahzrukhal dismissed her suddenly with a wave of his hand. "I have customers to tend to."
She was about to lunge over the counter when a strong force slammed her into it. Evelyn gasped as the air was knocked from her lungs, and she struggled with a pained whine as she flit her eyes upward.
Charon had her pinned by the back of the head, crushing her into the marble with unrelenting pressure. She let out a cry as she tried to squirm out from his iron grip, but it was akin to moving a boulder.
Ahzrukhal adjusted his patina-stained cuff link, unfazed by the violence. "Don't kill her- Barrows will throw a fit." He then leaned in close, his swampy breath toxic and gross. "It was a pleasure doing business with you, smoothskin. Now get the fuck out of my bar."
Before she could reply with a biting insult, Charon heaved her upright and carried her by the collar to the door, her jacket acting as a noose. He slammed it open, threw her into the balustrades, and then chucked her pack at her, the contents spewing about.
"Do not come back," he rasped before closing her off.
Evelyn went about slowly gathering her things, the multitude of eyes witnessing the scene making her tuck her ballcap down her face, lest someone see her cry.
The trip back to Megaton was long, and painful. Winthrop had attempted to catch her attention before she could run with her tail tucked between her legs, but her bruised tailbone and shattered self-worth made the ground a hotbed of coals. The Museum of History became another marker for places she had no intention of reappearing in; she threw a dirty look at Dukov's Place when she had finally made the journey across the river.
If there was any consolation to be had in any of this, then it was that at least her bag was bulging with valuable wares that she could sell to keep her afloat till her next job. That absolute fuck of a bouncer had practically cleaned her entire inventory of food...and helped himself to the boxes of shotgun shells she had found in a locked trunk.
The entire thing had bubbled her up in such a boiling mess of spite and anger that she was already wiggling the locked handle to her house without even realizing she had made it home. She jammed the key inside and forcefully twisted it just as a shadow overlapped hers on the door.
"Hey kid." Jericho removed the cigarette from between his bad teeth and blew some smoke in her face. Yuck. "Where'd you run off to?"
She waved a hand in front of her, coughing up the secondhand lung cancer. "Why the fuck would you care?" she growled, her previous ire (at the thought of Charon) now being locked and loaded in her arsenal for the ex-raider.
"Whoa, feisty." He propped an arm over her head and leaned in a little bit closer. She could smell his odor, and it reeked. "Just trying to look out for you, doll."
She scoffed, rolling her eyes and finally opening her door. "Whatever, doll."
Her wrist was grabbed, very much the same one that the ghoul had bruised before. It stung, and she winced as he applied some pressure.
"You think just cause you survive a few days out there that you're tough shit now, is that it?" he breathed over her. He puckered his smoke to his chapped lips with his free hand, his eyes making the journey down her suit. "Remember just who it is you're dealing with. The world ain't such a pretty place...much less for your kind."
A kneecap was brought up and slammed down the homestretch of his groin. He instantly released her, spitting his smoke to the side and sputtering curses as she dipped through her door and locked it.
"Madam! It is so good to see you again-!"
"Wadsworth," Evelyn interrupted, spinning her back to the frame and leaning against it. "If anyone comes through this door, you have my permission to shoot them."
The Mister Handy smacked a single claw to its highest optic, the lens lowering into a stern squint. "Yes, Madam! I will see to my duty as guardian and protector, right at once!"
She offloaded her pack on the table, hearing a muttered we're going to die as he floated past to his new post. There was a loud metal groan, and she blinked as she watched the table completely fold in on itself in a heap to the floor, her bag spilling its contents again.
"Oh, my," Wadsworth commented offhandedly. "I do hope I will not be left to clean-"
Evelyn spun on her heel and made directly for the fridge.
The robot continued with its bitter mutterings, the words floating across the room. "-oh, silly me, of course I will."
She ignored it, unzipping her sweaty suit down to her hips and shrugging out of the arms, wrapping the sleeves around her waist as she popped the fridge open and peered inside. A single package of Deviled Eggs was taking sole residence on a shelf. She nabbed it, ripping open the dark-stained packaging with her teeth and sucking down the contents like a famished animal. She propped herself against the counter, smacking her gums in a rude display as her eyes unfocused and she began to see things that were not quite there.
Things that were almost seven feet tall and shrouded under a brooding cloud of anger and resentment.
The emptied package was tossed in a bin, and she 'freshened up' in the sink before retiring to her mattress on the floor; she really should lug it up the stairs and call it a day. Maybe tomorrow...but the next day bore no such thing.
She took her scavenged crap to Craterside Supply, managing to deal a good barter for the looted junk, and then had the idiot notion to ask about another 'research project' that was more than likely to get her killed.
Moira blew a rude sound from her lips and waved a hand at her as though she had insinuated something silly. "This next one should be easy! All I need you to do is...maybe...getasdeathlyirradiatedaspossibleandletmestudytheeffects okay? Now, that doesn't sound so bad, right?"
Evelyn sat out by the giant atomic bomb for hours, soaking in as many rads as she could until she eventually began to puke blood in her hands. When she stumbled up the steps, she was half-surprised she didn't melt right through the flooring. Moira pumped her with so much 'homemade Radaway' (it's a secret recipe!) that she expected it to leak out of her ears and nose. She then left the store, nursing a warm buzz in her spine and a pocketful of caps for her troubles.
She didn't attempt to make her way through the D.C. ruins in search of Galaxy News Radio again...she had barely survived getting to the Museum of History from sheer luck, and she wasn't looking to repeat her chances for a crumb of a trail.
Maybe...maybe you'll come back for me, Dad. It was the only thing she could hope for. I'm just not made for this world.
The table was repaired with three whole bottles of Wonderglue (and an entire roll of duct tape) that was left a complete eyesore not worth the amount of sticky residue Wadsworth had to trim from her once beautiful, long brown hair. She kept frugal with her caps and bought minimal supplies to restock her sparse kitchen, taking up the task of cooking to help spread her rations. In the Vault, the appliances had been immaculate, and she had occasionally deviated from the usual premade box in experimentation for different dishes. They hadn't always come out well...but at least they had been edible. She couldn't necessarily say the same for her attempts with even more limited ingredients, and a single stove that she feared would blow her sky high someday.
As the days continued, the temperatures began to drop just as the nights grew darker at the corners of the world. She reluctantly parted with some caps for a few threadbare, moth-eaten blankets Crazy Wolfgang had found during his caravan travels.
"Consider this a discount, just for you," he told her, giving a not-so-subtle wink after she handed over the money.
He held the same look in his eyes that Winthrop had given her upon asking for a drink. Derailed by her ingrained adolescent chagrin, she politely bid him farewell and then planned to never trade with him again in the near future. All of her life in the Vault had been met with ridicule and flashing hormones. The boys she had grown up with had never expressed their interest- Amata was always the prettier one, and the rumors surrounding Christine's 'talents' drew them like flies to honey. Evelyn was just the awkward, weird, antisocial doctor's daughter. It left her inexperienced and wholly lacking in confidence when it came to bedroom skills...how much that seemed to change out in the wastes. For once, she was looked at, seen, even if she didn't necessarily wish to be. She didn't know how to react positively to it, didn't want to take a chance and somehow fuck it up. It wasn't that she wanted to be the constant center of attention, but it hurt being invisible, too.
None of it seemed to curb the lonely hours of the night, when Wadsworth was powered down at its station and she looked up to the starry sky through the small hole in her roof, a serene moving picture of constellations and galaxies. She would fondle herself and explore the intimacy of her sexual nature without the fear of being overheard by her father in the next room. Sometimes, she would shyly picture Winthrop's fingers instead of her own, feeling shameful and dirty at the thought while being completely ignorant to the fact that he was doing much the same just some odd miles away.
One evening she had dreamt of a set of hands curled around her jaw, holding her steady as she was railed from behind without mercy or tenderness. Only after she had woken up did she briefly remember the face that had been looking down at her; a hard-set mouth drawn in a firm line with a pair of blue coals burning straight through the darkness. Her groin had throbbed and the weak orgasm she forced herself with did nothing to sate that inner hunger she had felt...she thought she had banished that brute from her mind, but her sex most certainly had not.
The passage of time eventually began to twitch her feet and deplete her caps, and she finally succumbed to leaving the safety of the walls once more. She had refrained from snacking on the boxes of Sugar Bombs she had come to collect- that weirdo ghoul in the subway tunnel did say he'd pay her a decent amount of caps for them...but it was a hell of a walk, and she wasn't looking to make the leg up there just yet.
That only left her with one other option.
"So," Evelyn sighed as she tapped her fingers on the counter at Moira's store, trying to ignore the eyes of the mercenary drilling a hole in her spine at her back. "Is there anything else other than getting beheaded and chewed on at the Super Duper Mart? Anything at all?"
The older woman gave a thoughtful tap on her chin. "Hmm, welllllll, there is this one place..."