Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The news of Tenpenny tower shattered Underworld and Azrukhal’s mind along with it. It was all he spoke about, the booze, the purifier and Roy Phillips living it up in that fucking tower. It was sheer dumb luck they made it as far as they did and Charon wasn’t one to argue with a series of bad, short sighted orders that made it easy to let his leash drag in the dirt behind him. Or result in a knife to his employers back, he’s not picky. Though, maybe he’d feel different about it if he carried out the order to put a bullet in Phillips' brain and got to see that view of the wasteland for miles around him. Who’s to say the sheer excitement of it all wouldn’t have stopped Azrukhals' poorly-beating heart and he wouldn’t have to hear about any of this ever again. But he sure as hell hears the gun go off and sees the bullet enter Azrukhals’ skull as easily one would punch through a rotting floorboard.

To think he was damn near gleeful to watch Azrukhal being strangled by that wheeze in his chest and his own ambition, but now all he feels is anger. A vile need to have been the one to do him in. And that was familiar. He could work with that.

 He vaguely registers that the mercenary had begun to speak but he drops the aim of his shotgun and relishes in the weak jolt the dead ghoul gives when he unloads a round into his back. Charon couldn’t imagine a better place for him to meet his end, a stain on the concrete floor of a rotted sewer.

He looks up and expects to find himself looking down the barrel of a gun, but finds the mercenary hasn’t moved an inch. His legs move before his mind catches up, dragging his eyes from the gun that now hung freely at her side up to her empty gloved hands. Her eyes flicker between him and the hole he made in Azruhkals back.

She stiffened at his approach, “I didn’t want to have to kill him alright? This is the only clean water for miles, there was no way I’m letting those people die, not like that." Her words come out fast and breathless the closer he got. In four short strides he was before her and looking down at her with a twitching snarl. She grips the vial she snatched away from the recently-deceased ghoul, its contents fizzing and burning against the leather of her glove.

Charon huffs through where his nose would be, looking down at the surprisingly young woman, her eyes nothing more than dark pinpricks beneath the brim of her hat. Too young, this won’t be for long then, he thinks bitterly. Especially if she was throwing in with Philips’ lot. 

The high of Azrukhal’s death wears down quickly, shoved aside by the buzzing that starts at the nape of his neck and turns into a painful throb against his temples. Live wires flash heat across his skull. They tell him to retrieve his contract, growing more insistent with each hot poker that passes behind his eyes and pushes him into action. It was the farthest he’d gotten yet without obeying. Nearly two minutes of the in-between. He did nothing but count the time, floating in the nothing before being sparked into action. A slate wiped clean again. 

Bile burns his throat as he approaches, Ahzrukhal was a paranoid fuck and kept the contract on himself at all times, tucked into the lining on the left breast. He knew it was there even before his fingers brushed it but he still desperately hoped that by some miracle the stupid bastard had smarted up and left it in the Ninth. The old ghoul was nothing but pathetically predictable at the end of it all. The holotape feels horribly fragile in his hands as he grips it as tightly as he can bear. 

The contract pushes against the inside of his skull, smothering the part of him that should be firing back and getting the hell out of dodge. A horrible pressure forms behind his eyes and it will remain unceasing until he finds another to satisfy the conditions of his contract. This was a different kind of hell, having to wander until he found the first non-hostile to hand over his contract to. The pathetic guilt of hoping it would be some farmer or caravan strangled him worse than any mindless kill to his name. Any luck he had seemed to have shriveled up and died with the rest of him ages ago.

“That fight was between you and him. I no longer have any obligation to be here.” He says, eyes lingering on the pistol strapped to her hip and the wicked looking sniper rifle hanging off her pack.

“I thought you two were partners,” suspicion leaks into her tone. 

“Something like that.” His fingers were already loosening against his will, extending the contract to her. 

“I was employed to Azrukhal by contract, designation X1188,” the numbers embossed on the corner had all but lost their original yellow lacquer and the back panel was a stiff breeze away from falling apart, “that contract now belongs to you. Will you accept?” 

She looks him up and down, his body language isn't hostile but she has a damn hard time not fingering her trigger as he towers over her. Was it a trap? Her eyes flickered down to the beat up holotape he was offering her, so he really was some kind of contract killer.

“Belongs to me?” She echoed dumbly, “what, like some winner takes all situation? I don’t need a mercenary.” 

“I am what you wish me to be, I will follow your orders to the letter and my combat abilities are at your disposal, I will serve you for good or ill.”

“No wonder he kept you glued to his side,” She scowls a bit and hesitantly takes the tape from his outstretched hand, this whole thing reeked of caps which seemed on brand for the old ghouls' tastes, “so what’s your rate?” 

She only gets a non-existent eyebrow raise. 

“What? The caps had to have been good for you to stick around.” She says, turning the holotape over and over in her hands. 

“I do not require payment.” He says and nearly flinches at how quickly her bloodshot eyes shoot to his face, the dim lighting warping her face into something gaunt and haunting. Judging by the scowl that deepened her features, she didn’t find what she was looking for. 

“What do you mean?”

He does not repeat. She waits for him to elaborate, he does not. He hated how she was holding it and had the urge to break her fingers, he ground his teeth in an effort to keep the snarl off his face. 

“Forget it. I’m not in the business of owning people.” Her tone was light and sharp, eyes tracking an exposed muscle in his jaw twitch, “besides, you’re not gonna want to go where I’m headed.” 

“The contract is yours, I wouldn’t go wasting this opportunity for it is worth many caps.” He advised her mechanically. He couldn’t imagine who else was in this town but he’d seen enough to know they weren’t the savory sort. 

“You expect me to sell it?” 

“It is meant as an advantage, but if it is a hindrance I can move on.” He snatches the contract from her limp fingers anyway, bitterness burning on his tongue but he kept it out of his tone. Contract rejected. Move on.

Charon steps around her and starts down the metro, much to his dismay she follows. If she wasn’t going to take it she could at least stay out of his way. 

“I’m just trying to figure out your angle, you were just shooting at me less than five minutes ago and now you’re offering to be my bodyguard.” She jogged to catch up with his long strides, “don’t blame me for being suspicious.” 

Charon steadfastly quickens his pace, determined to lose her as he makes for the exit. Maybe he can make it away in time before any more of the hired mercs get here.

“You go back there and it will be thirteen against one.” She warns, though she figured he might win those odds by the looks of him, “and Masters’ is in the process of eating more lead than he probably expected. Either way the job is off the table.” She is quick to catch up, standing toe to toe with him in the time it takes him to take a breath. 

“We need to make tracks before any more show up, so I’ll watch your back and you’ll watch mine, yeah?  Then we’ll split and you’ll go wherever you need to be.” Her eyes were flint and steel, glaring from under her hat. But she does not flinch when he extends the holotape to her again. 

Charon didn’t argue when it feels like static hands are massaging his brain into something desperate and blind, like when a limb falls asleep and shaking it doesn’t help. He can't get it in her hands fast enough. The relief was instant but overpowered by the disgust broiling under his skin. He doesn’t care, he feels Azrukhal’s blood and gore soaking through the layers under his armor and he does not care.

_______________

Charon realizes it has been less than a half hour since he and Azrukhal entered the sewer tunnel with the mercenary, catching the time displayed on the clunky pip-boy attached to her arm. The dark was heavy and leaves him blind as they leave, only following his new employer by the sound of her steps. Everything else is silent, none of the gunshots or yelling he expected to hear. The way in front of him is suddenly illuminated by oil-slick green light with a static hum, pouring from the portable computer attached to his newly acquired employer’s arm. 

She moves with an odd gait ahead of him, falling into unnatural stillness to her when she stops to listen to the night. She says nothing for a few moments, listening to the silence much like he was but twists a dial and punches something into the Pipboy on her wrist without taking her eyes off her surroundings. He was close enough to see how dilated her pupils were under green light, some flavor of junkie maybe. 

“I’m going back to the settlement,” her voice dry, “Masters’ and the others walked into an ambush, either they’re dead or they ran off.”

He expected as much, seeing that Masters’ obvious relief at the prospect of this particular merc not showing up at all despite the advantage of an added gun,“sounds like the latter, which means we have to move quickly. Masters’ may not be coming back any time soon but Roy will be on the hunt when he finds out what happened here.” 

His response is not required, so he holds himself still and wills himself to melt into her shadow. It does not work, he finds, her eyes pale and cold as they flicker back to him. They were filled with equal amounts of questions and anger and he does not blame her. He feels the same. 

“Do you need anything? We can’t afford to linger.” He sensed there was more she wanted to say.

“I am sufficiently supplied.” He replies.

“Right.” 

She offers nothing more and the silence stretched as she studied him with a furrowed brow. He did the same. His new employer was small and gaunt, hiding it well under layers of armor but not so much the hollows of her cheeks and sunken eyes. The hunting rifle that he had trained on him not too long ago was impeccably kept and the sniper rifle was a pretty little number. It oozed caps, uncommon for someone so young to be so well off. Though he supposed if she wasn’t above working for someone as vicious as Roy, then it didn’t matter if her caps were blood soaked. She seemed to have gauged him in some strange way, enough to turn her back to him anyway, and continue north-west. 

They move quickly and backtrack, steering clear of Warrington by a mile and making a straight shot to the settlement. She is quick but not graceful, exhaustion biting at her heels if he’d have to guess. Her pace slows to a stop once the outskirts of the settlement are in sight. Half fried bulbs hanging in a line were the only indication there was even a settlement at all. A figure paces on a sloppily made barrier and she lets loose a heavy sigh. It takes some convincing to get her legs moving again, muscles tightening painfully as she continues her stride. Her companion seemed more or less unbothered, carefully matching her pace a few feet behind her like any closer and she’d strike at him. Which is fair, she supposes, she did just put a hole through his boss. 

“Looks like they pulled through,” her grin is a pitiful thing and splits her dry lip in the process, “let’s go see what the damage is.” 

Her new companion stays silent and a few feet behind her, slightly to the left. It made her all the more eager to get there instead of standing out in the dunes alone with a stranger who may or may not stab her in the back as an act of revenge. She recognizes Evan King patrolling the side they approach. She lifts her hands and hopes he recognizes her and doesn’t shoot on sight, a lesson learned the first time.

“Keyes! Good, ‘was worried when you didn’t show up with the rest of them.” His relief is palpable as he climbs down the side of the barricade to meet them.

“I got held up. Wounded?"

“Some, we didn't lose anyone though. You should stick around, I reckon you can fish out bullets better than Ken.” His grin all crooked teeth and tobacco.

She nods her agreement but thinks she’ll be lucky if this mentat lasts long enough to do stitches. 

Evan eyes her silent companion, “And the big guy?” 

“He’s with me.” She says, sounding as sure as she could, “How long has it been since they left?” 

“Can’t have been more than ten minutes.” Evan follows as she enters the perimeter of the settlement.

The turret she’d slaved over in the dry heat of the day was nothing more than scrap and smoke much to her dismay, but if that was their only casualty she considered them lucky. 

From the corner of her eye she watches, Charon can feel her gaze like a needle as Evan fills her in on the state of things. Watching and waiting. Did she think he’d start another shoot out? Mow these people to the ground the moment he stepped foot inside? 

“It was just like you said it would be, they didn’t last five minutes before they pulled out.” Another settler had joined their crew and grinned at her victoriously, “we owe you one.” 

She didn't feel the same. She took Roy Phillips caps anyway. So she covers her hands in pure alcohol and digs bullets from weathered skin with a swig of whiskey as thanks. All the while trying to figure out if she could make it to Arlington within the night before collapsing. They offered her a place by the fire for the night but she wanted miles between her and Tenpenny tower. Going back had been like pulling teeth and twice as humiliating. If it weren’t for the fat cap stacks that had been pushed into her hands, she would have been a little disgusted with the amount of faith the paranoid ghoul seemed to be putting in her. The fact she only had six bullets to her name at the time helped things along. She was insurance for keeping the hired help in line, no honor among thieves and all that. 

To think it only took a month of living in the lap of luxury for greed to rip into Roy Phillips, he didn't blink at the violence it would take to control a barely operational purifier. She’d been at this settlement for days already, arming the settlers and finding help, all before she was to meet Micheal and whatever team he pulled together. All for the purifier. It was nearly scrap, only producing five bottles a week, if that, but it was like gold out here in the wastes. She didn’t want to think about how this batch of settlers might have gotten their hands on it so she didn’t, instead she patched their holes and drank their booze with them. It was the closest thing to camaraderie she’d felt in weeks. 

Her new companion merely observed. Though he did hand her the sterilized cotton kept in her med kit when asked, he seemed content to continue imitating a stone.

“What are you waiting for?” She asks when cleaning blood from her hands, tone not unkind but making peace with the fact she would not be getting much rest tonight with a stranger at her back.

Charon blinks, waiting for her to elaborate. 

“Or are you just waiting until I’m asleep to rob and kill me?” She hoped that’s all that would happen.

“I cannot harm the holder of my contract.” His insistence was less reassuring than she hoped.

“What’s stopping you?” 

He hesitated, but whatever was going on inside his head, Keyes had to admit he had a hell of a poker face. 

“There are conditions made to ensure your safety during my employment. My training is unremitting,” he spat the last word like venom and she knew then and there that this was more than some contact killer she was dealing with, “you will not come to harm through any action of mine.” 

“What conditions?”

“Administrative parameters are enforced by nerve correction.“ he says and looks very much like she asked him to chew his own arm off. 

Was she hearing this right? Keyes expected some sort of subservient bullshit, not textbook speak from some wasteland goliath. There was a good chance it was a lie, though she didn’t know anyone to lie while sounding so venomously disgusted by the words themselves. She palms the holotape he'd given her, it was bent and the case was cracked. There was no fitting in her pipboy as it was now. She imagined it was once terms and conditions at one point in time. 

As much as being tailed for an undecided amount of time unsettled her, the thought of selling it and by extension a man gutted her.

“Well, I won’t lie and say it won’t be nice having an extra gun around,” it was her attempt at soothing his ruffled feathers, “you can call me Keyes, your name is Charon right?” 

He nods and scans the horizon, avoiding the intensity in her searching gaze. She pronounced it correctly though. They don’t speak again until Keyes has her pack organized with neurotic efficiency. 

“I don’t know about you but the farther away from Tenpenny tower the better I’ll feel,” Charon is surprised when she gives him the three bottles of water she pulls from her pack, “how do you feel about legging it to Arlington?” 

“Ready when you are.” It doesn’t matter, he knows any rest won’t come easy even if his body demands it. So he opens a bottle and downs it instantly. He can’t remember the last time he drank clean water. Azrukhal had insisted they celebrate last night, which meant making him drink until his vision swam. His version of generosity. He was unsuccessful in his attempt to make himself sick enough to throw up on his boss before passing out on the sticky bar floor. Decades of servitude had turned him into a petty creature. 

Still, she looked just about as tired as he was, they’d be lucky if they made it that far. They say goodbye to no one and leave while Evan tries to scrounge up some food for them, she had enough food to last another three days in her pack and that was probably more than the settlement had combined. There is no way to lose her new companion out here in the flat plains of the wastes, but she’d have a chance in the maze of Arlington eventually. She has less of a problem ditching him than selling the poor bastard it seemed. She turns his words over and over in her mind like a worry-stone and chews the inside of her cheek. 

Even with exhaustion nipping at their heels, they make good time thanks to adrenaline. They move quick and low, the loudest thing for miles being their boots on dirt. Light was a bad idea out in the open like this and Charon was glad not to warn her of this fact as she was content to move in the pitch blackness. It feels horribly unreal, almost dream-like in the quiet darkness and he feels everything, all of it. He was leaving behind a nightmare the more distance between Azrukhals rotting corpse and himself he made. Euphoria drowned out by the migraine pounding behind his eyes.

The silence does not last once reaching the outskirts of Arlington, the smattering of assault rifles lead them right to the raiders who’d set themselves up real pretty on the bridge leading east into Arlington. 

His employer gets low and levels her scope down at the bridge, “somebody’s got a mirelurk problem.” 

She was more than happy to let them have their fun and pick off the rest. She says as much to Charon before a wet chittering interrupts. They were too close to the water and attracted the attention of the locals, three Mirelurks had broken the surface and were quickly picking up speed to their spot on the hill. Now this was more Charons’ speed, embracing the familiar push and pull of combat as he controlled his breath and swung his shotgun down off his back. The first ‘lurk that came within his range was down with the first spray of buckshot. The second is even quicker. 

The sharp crack of a pistol told him his employer had the last one in her sights, it was over with a second pullback of the hammer. Right between its beady eyes. 

“Not bad,” she hummed, coming to hover by his right, it felt uncomfortably close to praise seeing as she had little trouble nailing them like darts on a board, “glad to see that shotgun is as mean as it looks.”

He musters a grunt in acknowledgment, burying the urge to self-flaggulate in his sudden and sharp annoyance. He must wear it on his face though because she merely raises an eyebrow at him. 

“You walk like a wounded animal. They heard us coming miles away.” He grunts out, petty and wanting to push and poke for weakness in his new employer's temper. Keyes thinks it’s the first time he’s spoken a full unprompted sentence since they left the settlement.

She blinks, pushing a half crushed cig between her lips and lights it. The joints in her fingers ache as she offers the pack to him. Whatever, it’s not like he was too far off.

“You smoke?” As good an olive branch as she knew how. He takes one, eyeing the lighter she held between her fingers like it was going to bite him. Who’s the wounded animal again?

She beckons him to follow with a tilt of her head, “not much farther.”

Petulance sours the first cigarette he’s had in months and follows anyway.

Chapter Text

The first few days pass with weary silence, but ends in gradual, hesitant understanding. Keyes, at least semi-convinced he wasn’t about to gut her in her sleep, was left feeling a little haunted. 

Charon silently dogs her steps while maintaining a vigilant orbit and, even if he’s good at pretending he’s not, tracking her every move with enough cold calculation she feels more like a test subject than companion. At least it was familiar, familial, she supposed. As sour as the thought was, comparing this poor man to her father said more about her than it ever could him. 

Besides, she was doing the exact same thing with hopefully more subtlety. 

Her own curiosity wins out over her weariness in the end, silence was the golden currency in the wastes and her battle with it had been hard won. Watching her companion fall into it like a second skin makes her watch her own steps more carefully. It was observation and understanding of when to melt into his surroundings and how long to linger. She thinks of her four-legged companion waiting for her in Megaton and finds them to be similar, both creatures of the wasteland who’ve spent their whole lives listening to its tells. In just a day it was like those first few months in the wastes all over again, watching and waiting for hints and patterns in settling dust and red dawns. So far, she’s passed out significantly less and saved a lifetime amount of ammo. As strange as it felt to travel with someone else, she's begun to see the appeal upon watching him take down a mutant with two shots: leg, rack , head.

Conversation was not a strong point for either of them it seems, and the silence leave no opening to try and ditch him, and it totally wasn’t because she had her doubts about actually slipping away from his watchful gaze. Yeah, it wasn’t unnerving at all. 

The entrance to Marigold station was left open as usual, rusted chains holding open the gate and leaving the gaping maw of the metro open for anyone or anything traveling through. She was planning on the scenic route, looping around and following the Potomac north, but Marigold would save them hours. Charon seemed to be of the same mind, stalking forward and gazing into the mouth to watch for any movement. Marigold was usually a safe bet but going through the white line was always a nightmare. Smaller skies of dirt. Nothing to feel like you're falling upwards. Her skin crawled and fingers curl stiffly.

Her pace slows and Charon shoots her a look over his shoulder, “This way, boss?” 

“Yeah,” Keyes shifts, eyes falling dark under the brim of her hat as she shakes her head, “You come through here often?”

“Only way out of the city in that direction,” Charon waits for her to catch up, “you said we were headed north, right?”

“Yeah, well, the metros and I have never been on good terms.” She certainly didn’t mind taking the extra time, especially after last night. After promptly passing out and waking up without a slit throat left her cheery, but she doubts her companion feels the same. She didn’t see him sleep at all, waiting dutifully outside the door of the room she’d closed herself into when she woke up in a cold sweat. 

“Yeah you and everyone else,” he mutters, disappearing into the blackness below. She runs out of excuses to stall and shuffles in after him. 

It was just as lovely and oppressive as the last time she’d had the pleasure of wriggling around in DC’s underbelly. They fall in line and Keyes flicks on her pipboy light, Charon finds her footsteps quieter than the night before and hopes for the best. He never had much trouble traveling through Marigold before, or any other metro for that matter, when he ran guns for Azrukhal. Mutants and ferals pay him no mind so long as he didn’t get too close but he can’t count on that with a smoothskin in tow. He counts them lucky when they reach the split unheard, white line meeting blue to take them north, but it sours quickly when the junction glows with the illumination of gas lamps and the stench of sweaty bodies.

She pulls her head out of her pipboy when he holds a hand up right in front of her nose, stop . She does and hears uneven footsteps ahead, then muffled conversation too coherent to be supermutants. 

Keyes kills the light and falls a step behind, screen surging as it calculates how many they were dealing with. She holds up all five fingers. Charon acknowledges with a jerk of his head, he can’t remember the last time he’s seen a pipboy, let alone one like this. Clunky and jarring, the computer was alive with dials and buttons and being this close he could hear the motor whirring as the screen flashed in the dark space. Outlines and movement too fast for him to understand, words and numbers popping up only to be gone in the time it took him to blink. Wires twisted from its metal shell and disappeared under her sleeves. It must have cost a fortune. Or the right dead body. Keyes stays behind the overturned barrel as he jogs silently to the corner adjacent, back to the wall and looks back at her expectantly. 

She tucks her rifle to her shoulder in a smooth, silent movement, inhaling and squeezing, the raider on top of the train jolts with the impact and falls limply over the side. The rest on high alert with psycho-fueled roars. Maybe they should have taken a bit more because when faced with a six foot solid wall of angry ghoul they scatter like molerats. She hardly saw him move, a few long strides saw him smack dab in the middle of it all with that terrible shotgun of his. Leg, rack , head. It was like watching a meticulously programmed machine in all of its terrible usefulness.

She joins when the two raider scouts on the high platform had been dealt with, slipping down from her high point at the mouth of the tunnel and scuffing her boots in all the trash and grime. They even left one of their friends' bloated corpse on chains, suspended flat to hold a few teddy bears and empty jet canisters. Maybe she could learn a thing or two about interior design in all this. 

Artificial impulse alight her muscles with liquid fire, hormones balancing her twitchy fingers and flushing her with manufactured calm. The wires buried in her skin pulse with dictation, eyes focusing manually on one target, then the next, like someone was using their fingers to spin them around her skull at exactly the right moment at exactly the right time. It was as natural as breathing at this point, but it didn’t lessen the throbbing in her temples or the sudden weakness in her arms when it was all over.

She’d had locks that took longer to crack by the time things fell silent, more or less seeing as Charon was finishing the man who dared to take a swing at him with a nail board. Keyes busied herself with relieving the dead of their belongings as the manufactured adrenaline dripped from her system like toxic waste. It was probably the fastest she’d traveled through any metro, and the messiest she thinks, trying to cleanly wipe away some bits of bloody entrails from her sleeve from when Charon blew a raiders stomach open with a meanly-placed shot to the gut. Wasters can’t be choosers, or whatever Gob says. 

The light outside the metro makes the pulsing behind her eyes stronger, a wash of gray fuzz taking over her vision and she tries not to stumble while walking up the stairs. Her fathers voice rings in her head more clearly than any of her present thoughts, just because you can push it doesn’t mean you should. Think clearly, that is your most effective means of achievement. It rings just as true now, miles away from that hole in the ground and it still gets on her nerves just as much. She thinks just fine, thank you very much, less cluttered now as they make their way wordlessly to the mouth of the metro. Not long ago such an event would have left her curled up in a ball the moment she reached higher ground and endless sky. Her lungs open again and the air filling them hits harder than any drug she's tried. 

Greyditch was nearly exactly as she left it, rotting corpses of ants left to fester in the hot sun for weeks made for a place that even raiders avoided. Keyes caught the grimace on Charon’s face as she pushed open the gate. It was enough to choke him, acrid vapor lingering and stinging the back of his throat, making his mouth water. 

“I tried to burn them,” she says roughly, gesturing to the charred pit a few yards away, “but it just made it worse, couldn’t breathe it in unless you wanted to be coughing for hours.” 

“What are they?” He knew they were ants, obviously, but they looked different than the ones that hid in holes all over the wastes. 

“Ants juiced up on enough radiation and steroids to kill a grown man,” she glowered at the ground as she kept them on course, “a sick science project.” 

Charon could feel his throat closing. 

“I said it was painless,” Scrapping and dragging, “Not odorless.”

“Are we really contending about the reliability of-’ 

“Shut it, and you- keep digging.” The shovel is splintering in his hands, puncturing his skin and burrowing deep. The lightheadedness is getting to him, don’t they know he could only hold his breath for a minute?

Charon sure as hell makes no argument as they pick up speed, away from the charred settlement. It was a relief seeing the metal walls of Megaton come into focus on the horizon. Though now that she was here, she was even more unsure about what to do with him. Bringing him straight into her home has bad idea written all over it but she doesn't see any other choice. If he'd wanted her dead she figures he would have done something already and not in a settlement surrounded by people. As it stands, he’d done little more than cuss at raiders and steal her pack of cigs. Better than most of her interactions with the wastelands’ inhabitants, truthfully. 

Charon had not been to Megaton in nearly a decade, the new sheriff had put a stop to the open selling of chems which was no real loss as Azrukhal thought Moriarty was a slimy rat. His words of course. Said sheriff was waiting inside as the metal gate closed behind them, looking older and more weathered than Charon remembered. 

“Good to see the wind blow you back our way, Wanderer.” He says on their approach and Keyes clasps the hand offered to her, it felt good to be back within the relative safety of metal walls for once. At least she had a bed here.

“Your beast has been lurking around the Lantern for a while, better get him before Andy does.” Simm’s warning was said good-naturedly, she doubts he would let anything happen to the dog seeing as he does more for scaring away ill-intent folk than Stockholm and his pea-shooter do. The sheriff's attention turns to Charon, if he recognizes him he makes no outward indication. Only looking him up and down wearily, which to be fair, was better than he was used to, the lack of disgust was refreshing for a settlement this isolated.

“New friend of yours?” He asks, tone conversational and it sets Charon’s teeth on edge.

His boss hums but only looks back at him, expectantly. So he gives his name like he’s throwing up the word, and that seemed to be enough as Keyes resumes a leisurely pace with a small wave goodbye to the sheriff. He lets them go with a tip of his hat, his eyes watchful. 

Keyes takes a sharp left and makes for the hill with a metal shack on the top. His steps falter half way up, Charon finds he has to agree with the sheriff's description. At the top of the slope waits a lumbering beast, all long legs and black shaggy fur, the dog was grizzled and haggard looking as it sat obediently before the door. It stood as they approached, shaking dust out of its long and matted fur.

Charon eyes it wearily as it swings its head towards him, maw opening as it smells the air, smelling him and showing off dark yellowed teeth. It's dark eyes are bloodshot and unsettling to say the least, it was practically every raider's dream to have a dog like that at their heel. Standing next to Charon it nearly reached his thigh as it nosed his pants and boots with deep huffs.

“This is my place, we’ll stay here for a day or two.” She crooks her fingers at the dog and he follows on her heel, but not before drooling an excessive amount over Charon’s boots, “don’t mess with the dog.”

He planned on the exact opposite, now that she mentioned it. 

It wasn’t much cooler inside but being out of the sun was enough. It was practically luxurious by wasteland standards, two floors and windows that had been cut out from the metal frame and everything. There was even a powered-down Handy unit sat crouched in the corner like a dusty spider, and spools of half-working string lights were nailed high on the walls. Stacks of books, holotapes and music sheets line the walls, and jars of antiseptic took over the shelves on the far wall by the kitchen. 

“Upstairs, first room on the right is yours,” She says, pushing the wide brim hat off her head and practically falling over to sit down, “well, uh, it’s not much of a room I just use it for storage but it’s yours for however long.” 

The dog nosed at her bare hands once she peeled off her gloves to give him a scratch behind the ear, “ignore all the uh- junk.” She finishes, lamely. The yellowed, sticky table that looked like it had been pulled from a bar booth took up half the kitchen and was piled with unsorted nonperishables. The boarded up windows and heavy industrial chain limp on the floor next to the door told him that only she lived here, prepared to lock up tighter than Azrukhals safe back in Underworld.

“I don’t know about you but I’m starved and ready to sleep for days.” She didn’t quite know what to do with his silence, so she rambled before her stomach could start doing the talking. It was no lie, only convenient, she’d been living off molerat and bread for the past two weeks. 

The mention of food seemed to get his attention well enough. He stood at attention by the door, no longer looking around the house and peeking around corners. She could work with that. The thought of standing again wasn’t appealing and the ache in her feet is worse than before but the promise of the hot meal trumped all. The dog accompanied them this time, seeing as Gob never minded him sniffing at his feet, but seemed as reluctant as they were about going back out into the heat of midday. The darkening sky eased her a bit, the heat won’t last for much longer. A beer would help with that. 

Fortunately meal time for folks meant the Brass Lantern, leaving that saloon the emptiest it would be all night. Her attempts to slip in quietly and largely unnoticed failed on impact, her oversized shadow took up the entire door frame and had every pair of eyes in the joint on them. Gob saw her first, pausing in his furious wiping down of the bar, shoulders falling in surprise.

“Keyes! You said you’d be back weeks- holy fuck .” Charon stepped in behind her, letting the door swing shut with a loud thud. 

“Charon, is that you? It is!” The younger ghoul nearly shouts. Charon tries to keep the cringe from his face when his boss eagerly steers them over to the bartender. Huh, ain’t that cyclical. 

“I take it you know each other?” Keyes sits herself in the stool in front of Gob, he was looking better these days and if she didn’t know any better she’d say he just faced the sun, expression bright. She wasn’t sure she could call whatever twitch seized Charon’s face warm.

“Been awhile.” Charon swallows dryly, he sees no way out of this. Not that he should have any right to but he feels like he’s drowning and Gob looks like he’s been doing fine . Better than fine. 

“No kidding and don’t take this the wrong way but I never thought I’d see you here in a million years. Which, I guess, for us is a possibility.” The laugh that left Gob was high and a little hollow. He wrung the rag in his hands harshly before bringing up a pair of beers for them. 

“You and me both.” he says, irritatingly vague and Keyes couldn’t help but wonder, not for the first time, what this guy's deal was.

“He worked in the bar when I still lived in Underworld,” Gob was a little more gracious in this department, “pretty efficient bouncer seeing as it was the only place a ghoul could get trashed.” 

“Hard habit to break, I see.” Well, it was a little reassuring to see Gob’s reception, if Gob wasn’t worried than neither was she, “Speaking of which, we need grub stat.” 

“You’ve gotten better about begging, now you even sound desperate.” He says, disappearing around the corner with a vaguely disapproving glance. Keyes grumbled a bit, Nova was usually the one who got on her coming in for food instead of the Lantern. Too bad she didn’t like the joint or the people.

Speaking of, Keyes’ raised her voice to call after him, “Where’s Nova?” 

Gob comes back through with two bowls, contents spilling over the edge. She pointedly ignored how the mirlurk meat made the soup kind of gray and with little fanfare, began to dig in. Gob snatches his hand back she was about to bite it off. Her nose crinkles, she’d had enough up close and personal encounters with mirlurks to last a lifetime. That swarm outside of Arlington and before that, the real ballsy one that took down Dukov’s door and made itself at home. Watching that strange little bald man snort something, then pull a pistol out of the waistband of his pajama pants and go balls to the wall was not an image leaving her any time soon. 

“She and Silver went to Rivet City a few days ago, and Jericho went with ‘em.” Gob grumbled, “It’s not going anywhere, take it easy kid.”

Charon had been more hesitant about shoveling food in his mouth but as usual his stomach won out. It was leagues better than that sad bit of scrap he found in the metro while meeting Philips’ gang at Warrington. He swallowed hard and fought to keep it down. 

“Thank fuck, I told her to get all the Abraxo money could buy next time she went.” She says between inhaling her food. It was a little scary to watch so Charon pointedly doesn’t. 

“Before you left you couldn’t afford bullets.” Gob says, elbows on the bar in front of them. 

“Question the theory, not the method.” And with that her bowl was clean and eyes heavy. This crash was going to be bliss, and she wouldn’t even have to worry about being able to fall asleep with someone else in the house. She has a feeling her body would end up making that choice for her. Lucky her. 

To be fair, right at the current moment- she couldn’t afford jack shit. She reached for the duffle bag at her feet and swung it on her shoulder. 

“Speaking of which, I’ll be at the supply shop when you are done.” she says. Charon straightens, he didn’t eat fast enough.

 “Take your time, this will take a bit.” she waves him off, “just put it on my tab.” 

“What tab,” Gob scowls as the door shuts behind her, “ and feeding friends doesn’t count anyway.” 

Charon doesn’t know how he feels about that and instead asks what he’s been thinking this whole time, “How do you know her?” 

“How don’t you? Azrukhal practically kept that radio under lock and key. Heh get it.”

“And?” 

“You must have heard enough about the Lone Wanderer to know her when you see her.” 

“No way.” His barking laugh startled Gob, “its propaganda, the good fight or whatever the fuck.” 

Yeah and he’s pre-war. Nobody is running around this wasteland with that fresh-out-the-vault smell, calling the shots like they were born here in the mud like the rest of them. Especially not some merc who walked around half asleep in the guts of the dead cities. Three Dog laid it on real thick after the Tenpenny incident, it was probably half the reason Azrukhal got that twisted little idea about the purifier and the booze in his head in the first place. Charon could imagine to most, hearing that their caped crusader slaughtered the tower's residence and finishing off Tenpenny personally was a shock to the system. But the ghouls of Underworld were writhing with excitement, the reek of greed and liquor mixed too sweetly. Snowflake had been the most confident about submitting a bloody application for residency, claiming that it was the natural choice given his skills. More like his jet supply. It was all because the Lone Wanderer made them feel like they had a chance, finally a fighter for their corner. And their fighter played judge to her own wasteland theater production, deciding who was defended and who was saved, robbed or maimed.  

“Talk to me when you are halfway across the wasteland knee deep in greenie guts.” Gob frowned at him, “don’t give me that look. Keyes is uh- good people, swear it.” 

“Did you mean for that to sound so unconvincing.” Good people don’t slaughter whole settlements for shits and gigs. 

“Nah it’s not like that,” Something seemed to have settled in Gob’s shoulders and suddenly he seemed taller. “you’ll get along fine.” 

He looked good all things considered, fuller and healthier then when he’d laid him out on the concrete outside of underworld. Charon grimaced behind the neck of his beer. Regret didn’t even scratch the surface, not when that surface was seven feet thick and bottomless. He remembered how the kid’s arm felt as he gripped them too tightly and how his headache blurred the sight of his broken face as he limped away from his only home. He welcomed the familiar dip into white hot anger, refreshing after not feeling much at all since seeing Azrukhal face down bloodying the concrete. Seeing as Gob was content to skip around the swings in a boxing match, Charon beats him to punch before he has the chance to sour his buzz. 

“I get it if you want me out, I don’t blame you.” the words leave him in a rush of air but it still doesn’t come out right, “I didn’t want to-”

“I know it wasn’t- I know alright? I know.” Gob interrupts and deflates into the chair next to the older ghoul, the wind leaving his sails. Charon had no doubt he did, he probably had the right idea that night he caught Charon spitting up the only food he’d had that day after ripping Patches’ arm clean off. It was always nice when his humanity came to pass by and say hello, too bad it made him ill. They sat quietly for a moment and Charon reached the end of his bottle. 

“Is it true then? He’s dead?” 

“Yeah.” Charon was pleased in that moment when his voice didn't carry the usual despondency, “Fifty miles away and rotting in a sewer.” 

“I’ll drink to that,” Gob guffawed, reaching behind the bar for another two beers. “Do you think you’ll stick around?” 

“That is not my choice, I go where she goes.” 

Gob grapples with the bottle caps and makes an uncomfortable noise, “I doubt it, she has that whole….” he tried to think of a word a little less on the nose, “loner thing going on anyway. She’s not like Azruhkal, she’ll turn you loose.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Gone was his sweet buzz, “it isn’t some puzzle at the back of a comic book, it is my head.”

“She can help! She’s good with all that-” Gob waved his hands vaguely at Charons’ head, Gob was never good at doing himself favors. Unfettered by the older ghouls face dropping into a deep grimace he argued, “I mean it, she’s not like that. Because she got rid of my Azruhkal too.”

Charon's mouth pressed into a thin line, taking the second bottle from where Gob had been clutching and sweating nervously on it. He forgot how young Gob was sometimes, even after twenty years he was still the same foolish kid who stuck his non-existent nose too far into things. This time the jealousy burned brighter than the anger and he drowned that particular mindset quickly, with more booze. 

“It wouldn’t change anything.” Nothing changes but hands, in the end it's just him and his head, “it’s better than the alternative.” 

Gob didn’t push, he never did. But he always reached out, even if Charon wanted to bat his hand away. 

“Hey,” Gob catches his attention when he pushes out of the bar stool, “come around once in a while, yeah?” 

The forgiveness burned worse than acid straight to the back of the throat. He nods anyway and hopes he doesn’t look as sick as he feels. 

___________________________

It wasn’t until he was outside the bar and able to breathe again did he wonder where exactly the supply shop was. The atom bomb sitting a stone's throw away from the bar distracted him when Keyes gave him the run down on the way over, to be fair. But after wandering around, the building with thick black smoke wafting out of the second story window was curious and sure enough the sloppily made sign hanging above the door gave him his answer. 

Upon opening the door, thick smog irritated his senses and burned the back of his throat. 

“Ah thanks! Keep that open will you?” A voice calls to him from behind a linoleum countertop, his boss standing in front of it, fanning the smoke out the open window with an old towel. She catches his eye with a tilt of her head and returns to the box of clothes on the counter while the redhead across from her sorted through a seemingly endless amount of 10mm bullets. The shop was filled wall to wall with junk, a ripper held up by some teddy bears and coffee cups holding stimpacks. Not to mention more refrigerators than one person would ever need.

“Well that seems to be the last of them!” The redhead chirped and broke into a grin so wide her eyes pinched shut, waiting expectantly. His boss obliged and hefted the duffle bag onto the counter.

“Guaranteed to blow your socks off ladies and germs,” Keyes heaved and promptly unzipped the large duffle, Charon comes up beside her and peeks subtly inside, rows of deactivated land mines nestled inside. Much to the delight of Moria who motioned for them with wiggling fingers, he doesn’t think he’s seen anyone besides raiders get so excited over explosives.

“Aren’t they some beauties,” Moria’s excitement was contagious, and Keyes was only a little proud because she got all thirty in one night, “I’ve had all the parts for weeks now I can finally put them to good use.” 

Moria began squirreling them away, “It sure didn’t take you that long, care to add a few anecdotes for the minutes?” 

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter.” Maybe avoid places named after explosives, turns out to be on the money more often than not. 

“Straight and to the point,” Moria, rather used to her assistant's colorful commentary, is pleased with the approach and hopes it will make the book sell better, “your contribution is appreciated as always.”  

“Yeah sure, just make sure to hold off on your tinkering until we are at least a few yards away from the building,” Keyes sent an apologetic glance back at Garett, who looked ready to disappear into the wall he was leaning on. 

“You got any more clothes?” she asks and tilts her head at her companion. Moria busied herself with hauling out more boxes of clothes that probably hadn’t seen the light of day in years. Multiple pairs of clothes that were eyeballed, another belt, socks for fucks sake. Pairs of boots were thrown at his feet via Moria. He cringed slightly on the slacks and cap she threw in, then took them away without another word. Charon was still for the rest of the interaction. The dog however looked unconvinced from where it laid, cracking open an unsettlingly bright eye to watch him as he handed over his own pack to be emptied.

“See which ones fit.” she says, motioning to the shoes. The boots fit so he kept them on, unwilling to part with dry footwear now that he’s got it, but was a little mortified at the piles of clothes and even more so the toothbrush and soap she threw in. By the end of it she had loaded his arms up and with a kiss on the cheek to Moria, sweeps them out the door and away from any experimentation with explosives. 

“That was the hard part,” Keyes sighed once they made it down the catwalk, their steps heavy and loud against the metal paneling, “but it's always nice to know your explosives are appreciated.” 

She adores Moria, however the deep aches in her body demanded more of her attention than she had to give. Besides, they made out like bandits thanks to Moria’s limited bandwidth when face to face with her own fixations. She couldn’t bring herself to feel ashamed about the way she dodged some of the locals, especially Nathan, on the way back to the shack on the highest hill. 

It felt good to have enough supplies to last her weeks, then again maybe it would be different for two. Now that they were behind four walls again, Keyes was antsy. She was still living in the vault the last time she’d had to share close quarters with another and even then it was people she’d known all her life, not a random stranger who didn’t seem too inclined to do more than lurk behind her and pull faces at people. Something about locking them in together with no way out settling in her stomach like a stone. What if she needed to get out in a hurry? The lock and heavy chain that was usually placed on the door didn’t seem like a good idea anymore. So she forwent locking up completely, whoever wanted in would have to deal with the dog first and shotgun second. 

Without an order Charon moved to relieve his armful of things and climb the stairs, the dog padding behind him with a series of harsh pants. His door was directly in front of the stairs, optimal position to hear and see the front door and anyone who tried to come in. Scanning the second floor was a quick process, the space bare besides a messy chem station and one other room closed behind its door. The dog sprawled its long limbs on the cold metal floor with a dramatic rattling sigh, right at home with the numerous scraps of paper and glass bottles stuffed with cotton by the chem station. He pushed a booted foot against the door to his room and pushed it open, and what he found instead could hardly be called junk. 

Inside lived a small green couch pressed up against the corner, losing ground to the countless book piles around it. But the rest was crawling with wires and blinking monitors, small whirling fans and the heat rolling off the small battery generators made the room stuffy as day cooled into night. Harsh light illuminates the couch he unloaded his arm-load of things onto it- his things now his brain helpfully supplied. 

The faint static washed out the noise of the settlement outside, he found he hated not being able to hear anyone approaching and swiftly removed himself from the room. Training and instinct has him at the top of the stairs in an instant. It was much darker when he came down but the lower half of the house was awash with warm yellow light, candles burning to chase away the harsh dark of being enclosed so completely on all sides. Charon tried not to think too hard about it, especially after fearing he’d wake up at some point with wires around his neck. The fact he’d been given no standing orders festered in him. 

His boss sat comfortably, legs tucked under her as she tore apart her gun in a way that was deeply unsettling to Charon. Stripped of her outerwear and armor, he saw her plainly for the first time. Hair down, roughly chopped to the shoulders, fell around her shadowed face and shone like pale irradiated sun. Lips pressed into a focused frown as long fingers prodded the lever action of her rifle, cool green eyes narrowed into slits as she hovered over a candle to see better. 

“Hey,” she says without looking at him, “can we talk?” Slotting one piece on another with a firm push, that cool gaze now leveled on him and oil staining her fingers.

“If that is what you wish of me.” He accepts and leans on the wall, arms banded across his chest and his boots a shoulders width apart.

“I would like to ask you some questions about your contract.” He wished her attention was elsewhere again, her pointed stare driving him to stare at the top of her head. 

“As you wish.” 

Her gaze narrows unpleasantly, but she starts off easy, “you mentioned your combat abilities being at my disposal.”

“I am adequately trained.” He confirms.

“I’m well aware,” a wiry smile playing at her lips, “Is that all? To the contract, I mean.” 

“Yes.” He says it with such finality she almost wanted to drop it.

“So an indentured bodyguard.” she says and lets the statement hang in the air, “and outside of combat?” 

“I will follow you until my function is necessary.”

“And just what is your function?” She asks pointedly, getting tired of non-answers, and Charon feels suddenly cornered.

“To follow your orders, applicable to combat only.” Came the compulsive answer after a pause. It was the truth, bleak as it was. The compulsion to follow the will of another was marked by a lightness of the limbs and static of the mind. Only turning painful when the adrenaline of his disobedience catches up to his brain. Keyes says nothing, chewing the inside of her cheek. She overstepped a line she didn’t realize he’d drawn and considered her options. If he didn’t want her to know, she’d keep out his business but this seemed to be more than just pitching in for a fight. Indentured might have been closer to the truth than she guessed. She’d been hopeful seeing him in action, he assessed situations on a glance and had a plan in the works in the time it took her to load a gun. That scrap with the raiders in Marigold was like being back in the training simulations with General Chase breathing down her neck telling her how to move, how to breathe, how to think.

“I remember Ahzrukhal, he owned the Ninth right? I imagine you live there too.” The best she could do was offer him an out. She didn't frequent the establishment often, only a convenient spot to grab a bottle while everyone else minded their own business. She thought she’d remember seeing someone like Red here, though to be fair, the only times she bothered going to the ninth were when she already couldn’t see too straight and was full of holes and needed the liquor to disinfect. 

“Something like that.” Charon can’t remember a smoothskin like her wandering around Underworld in recent years, “You’ve been to Underworld?” 

“Of course, Tulip is the only one who doesn’t stiff me on cigs,” she says, “besides Gob likes to write home sometimes.” 

Her face settles into something more focused, “What do you say to going back? To Underworld I mean. Tell them they are down a bartender and…” she trails off a bit, chewing on the words ‘ hand off your contract to someone else.’

Charon, suddenly an expert on line reading, says, “if that is what you wish.” 

Keyes only looks exasperated, “no, that’s not it. I’m trying to ask if that is what you want, because we can. You can find someone to hold your contract and you can live there again-“ 

“No.” he interrupted swiftly and harshly. 

“Is it because you have to say so, or because you really don’t want to be there?” She pushes.

“Because I said no.” He bites, blood running a little hot, “this is not up for discussion.” 

“If you want me to sell your contract, I’ll sell it. Maybe you’ll find fulfillment or whatever, let me know the secret if you do.” Her insistence wore on his frayed nerves. Charon didn’t really know what to say about that, didn’t know how to feel about his employer willing to give up his contract simply because he asked. He’d spent the last forty years rotting in that place and he was near positive the residents wouldn't be too eager to have him back either. Not after everything, every bone broken over caps or chems or maiming any unfortunate soul to get on Azrukhals’ sawed-off nerves. He thinks it might finally do him in if he has to go back into that bar and stare at those same walls again. Resentment threads deep in him at the fact she was the one to pull the trigger and not him. 

“It does not work like that.” He hisses, her tone nips at his singular last nerve. Because she got rid of my Azrukhal too.

 “Listen, I'm only trying to help you out. I meant it when I said you won’t like where I'm headed, I don't need a guilty conscience on top of being shot at.” She argues. 

“You point and I shoot. That is all there is to it.” Funnily enough that was the first thing she said that gave Charon a glimmer of something that felt like hope. He decides then that she is more foolish than cruel, and that it was somehow worse.

“And I’m telling you that it doesn’t have to be.” Gone was the light tone, all that was left was the mercenary with Azrukhal’s blood on her hands. 

“You know nothing. Your guilty conscience is a liability, so let me do what I was programmed to do.” He bites, coming off the wall to stand over her, “you are entitled to nothing more than my abilities in combat. So leave it at that.” His words hang in the air and needle at her in a way she couldn’t put her finger on. 

“Loud and clear.” she says after a moment, the ice in her voice refusing to thaw. The broken holotapes‘ indent in her jacket pocket mocked her, begging her to crack it open in the way she was unable to with its rightful owner. The man in question looked like he was itching for a dismissal and it made her temples ache. 

“All I’m saying,” She keeps her tone light, the alternative is to start huffing the wonderglue in her hand,“is that if you come up to me and call it quits, no hard feelings. Sorry to have kept you up. The night is yours, so is your time until we leave.” 

She doesn’t look up again as she hears him climb the stairs and walk on the landing above. Disappointment is bitter on her tongue and she sighs heavily, her arms suddenly too tired to continue holding up her gun from where she’d been cleaning it absentmindedly. 

The holotape is in her hands before she even knows she's grabbed it. Fingers already closed around the small tools only good for fine machine work, rolled up thoughtfully in soft leather. That bitterness keeps her hands steady well into the night. 

Chapter Text

Sleep does not come easy to Charon as it seems to have found his boss, nor does he expect it to. Unlike the first time he came into the room, the monitors were dark and offered no continuous hum to dull the sounds outside of the metal building. The silence leaves him exposed as he sat on the worn couch, pushing away a stack of books at his feet to make room. A taped together textbook sat on the top of the pile and shifted dangerously as he moved it, he found it hard to believe that- what was it? Microbiology - was of any use to anyone any more. Might be able to put him to sleep though. 

Like some monster from the cover of a Grognak comic, the shadows of stacked monitors and thick juicy plastic wires bunched together loomed in the corner, staring at him from the dark. He stared back the whole night through, listening to the dog snoring outside his door. He does rest, somewhat. Dozing was too strong a word for it, it felt like floating in the cool black of his mind alone for several blissful minutes before jolting back to reality to gaze blankly around the room. Even so, it was the most uninterrupted rest he’d gotten in months and his aching back thanked him for it. The next day passes much in the same way, his boss sleeps through it all and he snoops around her house. The lingering sour-burnt smell of burnt powder and distilled alcohol permeates the whole place, he gets a gulp of fresh air when opening a hatch leading to the roof. He goes no further than a cursory glance, only mildly annoyed it was left unlocked through the night, and picks his way past the chemical station. Stepping delicately over bottles and tubing he manages his way to the stairs, the dog watching him go from its place guarding its masters door. The first floor is decidedly more organized. Books spilling off shelves, an unsettling amount of keyboards and badly mangled wires. Three Dog fluffs a good story, he wisely left out the chem dealer bit. Charon is coming to his own conclusions, it explains the better than average gear. 

Gob had snickered a little when he dropped by, leaving when he had woken the dog with his pacing. He’d never known an animal to give such a stink eye. 

“Don’t worry, she sleeps like the dead. Heh, you remember how Patches could sleep for days at a time. It’s like that without all the drugs.” Gob paused, “I think.” 

Charon smokes the rest of the pack he’d lifted off of her that first night in Arlington, she never complained and he never offered them up. He found it a better use of his time than lurking in the bar and sizing up the locals. He supposed it might have been because he was flipping the safety on his shotgun on and off in a methodical fidget. The time to make himself scarce was now but going outside was a whole other minefield. Between the priest standing calf high in irradiated water, mooning at him, and the old fossil sitting on his porch leering, Arlington was starting to look like a vacation destination. Or the more reasonable alternative option, perhaps a sack to shove his head in until he was ready to face the settlement head on.  

When Keyes wakes, consciousness brings with it a headache and the taste of salt in her dry mouth. The house was silent, her door closed just as she left it, and the low light coming in through the window by the bed told her it was well past midday. The dog is there waiting for her when she pushes open her door, sitting tall and lanky at the top of the stairs. 

“Sorry baby, have you been waiting to go out?” She rasps, fighting a yawn and reaching down to ruffle the shaggy fur on his head. He follows behind as she makes her way down the stairs, slightly dizzy and ravenously thirsty. Charon was nowhere to be seen downstairs and the Dog is pawing at the door. She pushes it open letting him trot out into the cooling evening. Her stomach makes itself known, loudly, but is ignored in favor of booting up Wadsworth in the corner. His limbs twitch all at once, a rumbling of fuel heating in the tank turns into a boil as he hovers. It would take another five minutes or so before the mainframe was back online but she wasn’t in any hurry, especially not to hear his commentary in general. The jokes were funny though. She quickly gives him a wipe-down, not wanting to hurt is artificial pride when he was back online and covered in months worth of dust. 

Her meal is a small, stale loaf of bread and beans, which she tries to get down her throat as clinically as possible and steadfastly ignores the nausea. She makes her way to the roof, still in the comfort of her sleep clothes and chewing and chewing until the mush is easily swallowed. Rinse and repeat. She finds Megaton just as she left it: hot, broke and loud. With not enough drink to wash it all down. It felt a bit fuller, more bodies filing into the common house this time of day and a constant rotation of folks hanging outside the Lantern. Such liveliness made ironic against the bomb half sunken into the ground behind them. It grows on you after a while. Ideally. Supposedly. She was still wondering how long that would take exactly. 

In the time between chugging a bottle of water and finishing the bread she had made up her mind. She was ready to get a move on and even if Charon did not feel compelled to return to Underworld, it was the only option in her eyes. The community has already been struggling enough as it was, and it was no secret chems and booze paid half the bills, so-to-speak. The sooner they hear about everything the better, as long as they don’t hear about it from Three Dog first. She was doubtful they would at all, seeing as she had been keeping low for the last month, but she had a feeling her lucky streak would only take her so far. Speaking of her lucky streak, she watches the door to Gobs’ swing open and Charon step out, sending an empty carton of cigarettes sailing over the side of the railing behind him. Her good boy was waiting for him it seems, trotting up the metal paneling, she watches amused as they square each other up. A little less on Dogs side, she can tell it's all play for him. She would usually wind him up and watch his tail whip back and forth and tuck his butt in a funny run he did when he was excited. Charon looks less than enthusiastic and side steps him stiffly and cuts across the middle of town back up the hill. She takes that as her cue to wash up and get dressed.

She is still upstairs when she hears the door opening, followed by the excited patter of the Dog coming up behind her. Pulling on her layers before reaching down ruffle his head as he inspects her freshly washed pants like he disapproved. She climbs down to see Charon and Wadsworth locked in some odd stare down where one recipient didn’t have proper eyes to stare with. Her arrival disturbed the peace and they both turned to her. 

“Miss! Miss, there is a brute in the doorway-”

“Not another one-” 

They speak at the same time and stop abruptly. It was enough to clear her post-coma brain fog, snorting as she rubs her face furiously with her hands. “Wads, this is Charon. He’ll be staying with us for a while.” 

Wadsworth’s limbs curl tightly against his chassis, indignation practically rattling his frame, “your pension for strays is worrying, mum.” 

“You are one of those strays, you know.” 

“Yes, but I clean up after you and therefore am the favorite.” 

“Speaking of,” she interjects sharply, “get to filtering please, favorite child o’ mine.” 

“Yes, Miss!” 

When she turns to Charon he notes her alertness with hope. She was reanimated like a corpse and seemed better for it, he had hope for new directives. 

“Up to heading out? I want to make for Underworld.” His hope turned sour and he must have worn it on his face because she continues, “They should know they are down a bartender and up a vacancy, besides I’m headed downtown anyway and it’s on the way.” 

“I will follow.” His agreement is as stale as his gaze but Keyes doesn't argue. Instead she follows the easy, familiar motions of rounding on her chem station. Stimpacks fresh from the hot plate joined dark amber bottles in the hard med case, set aside to be put on the very top of her pack. Clothes and clean bandages nestled against plasma cartridges and nonperishables piled on top. It was a quick process made even quicker by Charon loading their weapons and piling ammo on the counter. She makes a grabbing motion for his pack until he hands it over, starting with filling its outer pockets with stimpaks and then enough food to last a week. Three if he rations. A waste in his eyes, but he doesn’t argue and continues to roll up ammo in rounds of 50. They pack light, but heavy on the ammunition, not wanting to make a stop at Rivet city if they didn’t have to. The dinge of dusk had tinted everything a dull blue when they stepped out. The dog accompanied them, coming to heel at her side with its bright eyes wide and focused on her hands. Moving in the middle of the night is a risky choice to make, especially for a smoothskin but his Boss seemingly has no issues doing so. 

“You ready?” She asks, voice drowning in the scarf she pulls over her nose and mouth. 

He nods. Yes, he was ready to trade the comfort of a settlement for the excitement of being shot at. 

The dog shoots off ahead of them as soon as the gates shut behind them, his boss doesn’t seem bothered by being left in its dust cloud. 

“He’ll find his way back, Dogs’ smart.” 

“Dog? That's his name?” He says. 

She shrugs, “he responds to it.” So what if she was bad with names. Her first and only stuffed animal was named Blue, evidently, her creativity knew no bounds, even back then. He does come back, with the head of an ant in his jaws, but comes nonetheless and sticks close by as they trek north. 

Luck was on their side, for having such a clear night to travel by. A flat quarter moon hung high and distant even in the small hours of the morning. Fat, brown drops of condensation fell on their heads from the slanted, sagging buildings they hugged the perimeter of to get into the Mall unseen. In the back of her mind the holotape was left in pieces on her workbench, just as unreadable and silent as its holder she had thought as she had gutted it with increasing voracity. It was her fathers voice that told her to be more delicate and that is when she gave up for the time being. Even miles away and closing in on the mall fast, she puzzled and turned it around in her mind restlessly.

“This place is crawling with mutants, use caution.” The gravel in his voice shook her out of her head, letting him pass in front of her and crowd the wall looking over the Mall. 

“It would take all the ammo in the world to get rid of them all and I’ve already wasted enough.” She says under her breath, the memory of dragging herself half-dead to the memorial as not a pleasant one. She was lucky the Dog was there to cover her ass, seeing as her pipboy had to manually massage her heart after pumping her full of straight, hair-of-the-dog adrenaline. Points when it did wonders for discouraging the brotherhood standing guard outside to try and chat her up, the blood trail did most of the talking and Three Dog picked up the slack, eager to spread his wings and the good fight woes. 

“Been there, done that.” He says, “rite of passage, or something like it.” 

“I thought it was getting caught with your pants down by a mirlurk.” According to Dukov anyway, which wasn't saying much until it happened to her. 

“One of many.” He shrugs.

The Mall stretched out long and dusty in the dimness of early morning and they stood feet away from the Museum of technology. Dark splotches of blood stained the entrance, dying the concrete suspicously, but it seemed quite and still. A half second later she freezes up, a few meters ahead the sound of mangled and broken flesh dragging itself against gravel reaches them. Mangled hands slap the ground blindly, rotted flesh peeling as its fingers groped the corner she was pressed against. She was closest and logically had dibs, she reasons, putting a hole through its tongue then its head with a satisfying pop. Yards away an unintelligible chatter picks up to a faint roar but they remain still and silent, Charon catches her eye from under the brim of her hat and lets her steer them towards the Museum of Technology. Its stone steps are cracked but startlingly empty, a distinct lack of flesh bags-tourist traps as Willow so cheerily dubbed them-had Charon on edge. 

Next to him Keyes sighs noisily, “We got lucky, I wasn’t about to bet money on it staying clear this long.” her voice echos a bit and Charon fights the urge to shush her. 

“You know what happened here?” He asks anyway. 

“Hm? I needed a satellite from the lunar landing thing so,” she trailed off, eyeing the reddish-brown stain stretched along the ground. She was a little convinced that about half of it was hers. The Dog pushes his wet nose all over it. 

They stick to the shadows, taking the longer way around and climbing through broken windows to remain out of sight. Charon pauses a few paces ahead, and points to the broken window to their right and she needs no more incentive to crawl in with the Dog at her heel. Kneeling in cement dust Keyes stifles a sneeze as Charon saddles up beside her and pushes them into the shadow of a pillar. The stumbling steps of a mutant patrol approach from the right, three by her pipboys' count. The dog bellies up to Keyes, quiet huffs filling her ears and easing her pulse. 

In the dark, movement caught the corner of her eye. He held up two fingers, then four, then six. Counting their steps she realizes. Her eyes catch on missing nails and the deep hollow between his thumb and forefinger. He didn’t have the same prominent skeletal frame about his hands, like Carol or Snowflake had, instead dark and ruddy with thick fingers, or what was left of them seeing as his left ring finger was down to the first knuckle and many of his others the second. His hands would swallow the grip of her .44, the one that rubbed her palm raw, maybe it would be better in his hands anyway seeing as he only seemed to carry that shotgun. 

Charon mutters something above her head, his accent hardening his words in a way she's never heard before, “Their numbers have thinned.” 

“You think so?” She waits until the patrol passes to whisper, but they remain still.

“It explains them roaming outside the cities.” He says, a small concession. They’ve been more mobile as of late and it was a poor deal for everyone involved. More mutants outside the city was bad news but less mutants in the mall meant more Brotherhood. 

“Who should we tell? About Ahzrukhal, I mean.” She murmurs once they are out from under sagging concrete. He thinks for a moment and quickly disregards his idle feelings in the matter, Barrows and Carol would probably be the safe answer but it depends on who they run into first. Seeing him at her heel, they could put the pieces together pretty quick. 

“Barrows, he runs the clinic out back.” get the eggheads together, it would sort itself out that way.

Keyes hums, “Makes sense. He seems the type to be in everyone's business.” 

“Correct.” 

Keyes finally remembers to breathe when the entrance to the metro yawns an inky black before them, and just behind it the museum. Correction, behind it was the barrel of the rifle steadied right at her skull. Charon was a step ahead however, palming his shotgun loudly in the dense quiet of the mall. 

“Easy tourists. Take it nice and slow.” a voice calls to them. 

“Jesus fuck Willow,” Keyes groans, loosening her shoulders, “I don’t know whats worse, mutants or getting jumped by the neighborhood watch.” 

“It’s your own fault, sneaking around. What would Carol say?” Willow shoulders her rifle and gives them an easy grin, Keyes watches it dissolve when Willow focuses behind her. She looked long and hard before breaking first, relighting her cigarette. 

“Is it uh-is it just you?” There was some double meaning Keyes obviously wasn’t privy to, so she stayed silent. 

“Ahzrukhal is dead.” Charon answers, now was as good a time as any he supposed. 

“Not that I think you’d yank my chain about this but there's no way.” Willow blinks at them, face carefully blank.  

“Can confirm with my own bullet.” Keyes’ supplies helpfully, no use in hiding the fact she was the one to do him in if she was just going to own up to it later anyway.

“It was only a matter of time after getting involved with that mess,” Willow sucks in a noisy breath between her teeth, “can’t promise the others will share my opinion, but I take it you wouldn’t gun him down for no good reason.” 

“Something tells me he didn’t have a lot of fans.” Keyes voices the thought she's had since the beginning. Even Betsy had something to say about him, that was enough for her. Even if it meant she’d never step foot back in the Tower. No love lost on her end either. 

“An understatement, but you best take the details to someone who wants to hear them.” Willow waves her off, keeping her nose out of trade business was nearly habit seeing as she hadn’t stepped foot near the Ninth in almost ten years, let alone hear Charon string together a full sentence in her vicinity. Around them the wasteland was waking up, the mutterings of Supermutants sound them getting closer and louder the longer they stayed out in the open. 

“Hey,” She catches Charon’s attention, “Why don’t you take off for a bit? Do what you’ve got to do, meet me out back when you’re done.”

She leaves the pair with a flippant wave over her shoulder and what she hoped was an easy smile at Willow as she passed. The Dog trails at her heels, nothing but a dark shadow melting in with her own. Willow watches her go and slumps back against the metro wall. 

“Never in a million years did I expect you two to team up. So is it true? Does she really work for Roy?”

“Seeing as she ruined the whole plan to begin with,” He takes the cigarette offered, “Probably not.” 

“Probably?” She questions and he only shrugs. 

“Three Dog is full of shit.” He says simply and Willow grins. Everything is easy again and it makes his skin crawl. 

“Stick around for a bit,” she says after he starts glaring at the wall, “Besides, Keyes owes me another round of caravan.” 

“That's not my call.” 

“Hard to believe she’s too keen on keeping you at her heel, doesn’t seem like her style.” So even Willow knew, maybe he went a little heavy on the willing obstacle towards the end. Didn’t change the facts of it all. Her words from that first night in Megaton ring in his ears, it doesn’t mean anything when the last place in DC he wants to be is stuck in Underworld for another fifty years. It was hard to think of anything else when every fiber of his rotting body wanted to stretch his legs, strike out on the road again and ride it long and hard. Maybe if he struck the right caravan he’d make it all the way to Nevada. Nothing more than a fantasy, something to go back to between breaking fingers and staring at walls of booze. 

“She’d let you, you know.” Willow says into the waning dark, “stay here, I mean.” 

“I’m sure.” 

She frowns, “I get it. I wouldn’t want to stick around either, especially after everything that's happened but it’s done. You’ll always have a place here.” It was a nice thought but she continued, “Barrows or I could even hang onto your contract, if that is part of the deal.” 

Not even the cigarette could prevent the knot in his stomach, “You said so yourself, too much bad blood.” 

“Attitudes will change once they see you’re here to help, not harm, just give them some time.” 

“That's not for you to decide.” He snaps, standing straight and throwing his cigarette under his boot, “forgiveness is not something I can ask for, neither should you.” He overstayed his welcome and he hadn’t even stepped into the building yet. He moved to remedy that, taking long strides to the door. 

“You aren’t even going to try?” She felt as if she were talking at a wall, “Not a word in a decade and that's it? You really are running away.” Her accusation wasn’t wrong. He won’t apologize for keeping them away from Ahzruhkal's reach, even if her words held some ring of truth and he held that guilt tight to his chest. He doubts that is the sum of all the anger building behind his ribs. He won’t be chained here again.

“You’ll see me around.” Yet another small concession, but somehow this one leaves him feeling hollow.. He didn’t have to turn around to feel the glare drilling into his back but he could promise her nothing else. He had nothing else to give and he’s done enough damage to last an old-world lifetime. The door shuts with a heavy thud behind him and his ears ring in the sudden quiet. 

The ground level was nearly empty, he imagined most residents were sleeping or had just gone to sleep by the time they arrived. Those still awake seemed to be gathered in the back, heads pressed against the doors of the Chop Shop. She told him to meet him when he was done, a subjective order if there ever was one, so he takes the right staircase two steps at a time. It’s not like he could just walk into Carol’s in the middle of the night so that only left the Ninth. Finding his way back again is like a bad habit he can’t break. The doors are locked up tight and don’t sag when pushed on, Winthrop must have fixed it when they were gone. Technically he had no claim to the Ninth and whatever was left inside but a larger part of him couldn’t find it in himself to give a shit, dropping a knee and fishing out a scant few bobby pins from his pocket. It took him four tries but the old door creaks open for him anyway. With no lamps lit inside only darkness greeted him, the stillness was disquieting but at least nobody was inside. It’s like the room has been holding its breath and released it in a plume of dust and wasteland grime. Everything was just as he left it, even the few dirty glasses in the wash bin were left untouched. Ahzrukhal’s coveted radio sat collecting a fine layer of dust, its antenna bent and near useless. He attempted to fix it before they left, as per his orders, but found it wildly out of his scope of abilities. 

“Ah excuse the presumption, my boy.” Charon could feel him leaning over his shoulder, hands tightening on the handful of screws he’d pulled from the hunk of junk, “Tell you what, why don’t you find Patches for me? We are going to need some extra grease for this little venture.” 

He sits down hard on the barstool on the end, the cushion deflating noisily. He wondered if they would keep the place open as a bar, or maybe set up more cots for the youngbloods adopted into the community. Willow’s words still ran circles in his mind, trading one master for another and still stuck in that damn bar was something he only experienced in dreams and that was where it would stay. If he had any say in it. Keyes could very well place his contract in Barrows’ hand without another word and it would be his reality once again. He regretted not impressing just how much he’d come to hate this place, maybe then she would be less inclined to ask probing questions. 

Dirty clear and green liquor bottles filled the first two shelves, glinting and half empty unlike the full ones at the top. It was damn-near rubbing alcohol but top shelf stuff as any if Ninth could ever boast such a thing in his lifetime. He swipes a vodka bottle from the top anyway, pushing off the cork with his thumb and eyeing the safe on the wall. Last he knew it held the latest shipment of Ultra-Jet Charon had gotten from Murphey, of which he barely sold before they left for the tower, and the sum of his caps. He gets to work, alcohol and vindication burning his throat on their way down. His last bobby pin had the privilege of cracking it open, plastic jet canisters falling at his feet loudly on the dull wood floor. He left the fallen ones where they lay, for Snowflake probably, and cleared the stacks of rolled caps into his pack. Sitting pretty in the corner, a glint of polished silver catches his eye. The bartender's tool of choice, a polished ivory gripped .10 mm. Ahzrukhal treated it like his own child, despite only Charon doing the maintenance on it. He palmed it with a level of familiarity, the weight making it a satisfying weapon to wield. He never raised it against Charon, unwilling to endanger the contract, but he was never without it. Alluringly hanging from his hip with his pinstripe suits and gaudy gold rings. Charon wills the memory and feeling of the recoil into his hands, the weak jolt the dead ghoul gave when he unloaded a round into his still steaming corpse playing out behind his eyes. Holding it as tight as the pistol in his hand, it would be enough.

 _________________________

The walls of Underworld always had a strange condensation to them, making the polished marble shine like a mirror, disorientating on first glance and didn’t get better the longer she stuck around. It feels like being submerged underwater, made worse by the heavy silence of the sleeping settlement. She leaves the atrium behind quickly, linger too long and the ferals start to stir. 

“Long time no see smoothskin,” it was Patchwork that greeted her, ever the night owl, he sat slumped over the staircase leading up to Carols’ place. 

“How goes it Patches.” Her voice low as she drifts over to him, the rest of the ground floor sparse with the exception of a few stragglers and Nurse Graves closing the doors to the Chop Shop. She catches Keyes’ eye from across the room, dipping her head before disappearing around the corner. A warmer welcome than she was used to, from Graves anyway. Too bad it wasn’t meant to last with her latest bit of news. 

“A bit dry,” He says, poorly stifling a yawn and she knows he isn’t talking about the air, “can’t be helped with the Ninth locked up tighter than Greta’s ass.” 

Her responding snort wasn’t flattering as she digs out her flask, only the dregs of week-old whiskey remained and she passed it over, “you know if Barrows is still up?” 

“Huh? Uh prolly. Meat tore off Ethel’s arm so he's been trying to uh-” He belched and handed her empty flask back over, “put it back on.” 

“Thanks Patch.” She says, watching him pull himself up with the banister to hobble to Carols for the night and hoping he doesn’t come tumbling back down. Out of all the residents, she feels she gets along best with Patchwork. Besides begging for booze he tells things to her straight, as straight as he can anyway, and she appreciates the subtle kinship. Afterall, in the vault she was no better than he is. 

Despite watching Graves leave, she finds the Chop Shop doors unlocked. The pungent smell of antiseptic and raw adhesive clears her sinuses before she even makes it through the doors, peering into the darkened clinic. The clinic in the vault was all bright LED light with enough watts to give the sun a run for its money, but the Chop Shop was dimly lit for its residents' comfort. Ghouls had little problem seeing in the dark she discovered after finding Barrows hunched over Patches, sewing a finger back on in pitch blackness one night. Endless black pupils expanding to capture any sliver of light, then shrinking to bloodshot pinpricks in the full force of daylight. Not that they got much in the museum, the brightness coming from fried bulbs reflected in polished marble. 

She finds Barrows easily, back to the door and molesting a severed arm by the observatory window. An armless Ethel stands motionless in front of the window, drooling and trying to figure out why it's right side was suddenly lighter. Not for lack of trying, but with only three fingers on its remaining hand it seems to have very little success in clawing at the window. 

“Should I give you a moment?” 

“Fuck Keyes, I thought you were Graves,” he took a moment to throw a glare her way, “Mind your business.” He tacks on as an afterthought. 

“Happily.” 

“When did you blow in?”

“Not long, and not with the best news.” She says and he turns to face her, but not before tossing the arm in a bucket of irritated water and wiping his hands.

“What- no detached parts? No hangover?” He sounds suspicious. 

“Try not to sound so disappointed, Doc.”

“What’s this about?” He was always irritable when interrupted. 

“Warrington went bad.” Keyes crosses her arms with a small sigh, no easy way to say she put a hole in their bartender and took his goliath of a bodyguard as spoils, “Azrukhal is dead.” 

“I thought you said bad news.” He says and Keyes fixes him with a look and he follows up, “Did you see what happened?” 

“Yeah, seeing as I was the one who put him down.” 

“Shit Keyes.” Barrows’ grumbled, furiously wiping a hand down his face. 

“It was a mess from the start, I caught wind of Masters’ recruiting for a raid and jumped on it. All of it for a half broken purifier that didn’t even last the firefight.” 

“Then why was Ahzrukhal even involved? It’s not a secret half of us are lining up to try and live it up in the tower but he’s no mercenary- keeps his hands clean and makes it a point not to shit where he eats.”

Keyes pulls from her pocket the vial she swiped from Ahzrukhal and the glove it had eaten through when some sloshed out of the tube and onto the leather, “He had this on him, ready to pour it into the settlement's water well.” 

“I take it that is when you stepped in.”

"I did what I was paid to do.” she says stiffly. 

“Hard to believe Roy paid you to take out the only slimy bastard willing to front caps for a little booze.” 

She shrugs, “I got paid either way. Hang onto that for me.” She nods at the vial as he takes it from her. 

“Do you know what it is?” He asks, shaking the veil lightly and watching it foam up. 

“No. I’ve been a little occupied.” She says, turning over the holodisk in her mind. 

The door opening behind her interrupts Barrow’s reply, but he finds his question answered regardless as Charon pushes through into the clinic. Charon always maintained the opinion that Barrows’ was an odd man and seeing his new boss have some sort of affiliation with him doesn’t bode well, her company keeps getting stranger and stranger. He comes to stand by her side nonetheless, looking down at Barrows’ and inclining his head in greeting. 

“The fact you managed to get the drop on him at all is impressive enough,” Barrows huffs with an open up and down look at Charon, “good to see you back.” 

He was in the minority and Charon was glad for it. There was very little doubt that Barrows’ knew next to nothing about what Ahzrukhal had been planning, Crowley maybe, but not the good doctor. He’d be less than enthused to find that Charon had been the one stealing from the clinic's personal stash on the bartender’s request to make whatever vile recipe Murphey cooked up. Though he looked like he was starting to put the pieces together, scrutinizing the corked vial in his palm. 

“It didn’t come out quite right, but it would have gotten the job done.” Charon says, confession and peace offering all at once. Out of everyone in Underworld, outside of Willow and Quinn, Barrows’ might have been the only other soul to understand the extent of his contract somewhat. After forty years of getting thrown at his feet unconscious after a gun run gone bad, you tend to pick up on things. 

“Efficient, sure, but that seems like a lot of work for the payload. Am I wrong?” Barrows’ needles. 

“Half of it was for the settlement, the other was for Roy.” Because of course they would have wanted to celebrate their victory and partnership, to toast the vice itself. 

Barrows looks like he’s about to blow steam out of his ears, or what was left of them, “I told him I didn’t like how this smelt! It was too good to be true and I told them so.” he nods to himself in misplaced righteousness and Charon can’t help but bask in the irony. The former bartender made his greed everyone else's problem. Azruhkal was no stupid man and a smart businessman depending on who you ask, but his cunning made him tricky to deal with. But foolish was an understatement, blinded by his own desires and vice made him an easy target and it wasn’t hard to see that Roy Phillips picked the right one for the job. Keyes peeled herself away, she could respect the move, but can’t admire it.

“Should we be worried about retaliation?” Barrows asks. Charon thinks for a moment, they avoided suspicion well enough and seemingly did what they were paid to do. If anything, his new employer should be the one breaking a sweat over fucking with Roy’s business. 

“We're in the clear.” He answers. She sure doesn’t look worried though, picking through the clinic like she owned it.

“Then we’d do well to keep to ourselves from now on. Snow and the rest can’t be helped but Carol ought to know about this sooner rather than later.” He eyes Charon pointedly, “ you know, we could use the extra pair of hands and I figure you could use the work.” 

“I have more than enough.” he didn’t bother saying he didn’t have a choice in the matter, if he did they wouldn’t be here right now. Barrows didn’t look surprised in the least, only shooting a sideways glance at Keyes as she was refilling their rubbing alcohol supply with a repurposed vodka bottle. 

Barrows’ organized chaos was always fun to poke around in, especially when pretending not to be eavesdropping on the conversation going on behind her. It was the most she’d heard her partner speak ever, let alone in the span of a few minutes. But hearing that he didn’t want to stay was enough to put the option out of her mind, she was stuck with the guy for better or for worse. And after the quickest trip into the city she’d ever had, she was inclined to see it for the better. She picks her way to the desk that served as a vault-grade medicine cabinet. It came free with your permanent stay underground, to help with the crazy and all that. That might be why she liked Underworld so much, the dank and med-x fumes had her feeling right at home. Stimpaks and more med-x found its way inside, and if a few cartons of grape mentats found their way in too she had nothing to do with it. The doctor was the one to find the hubflowers after all. 

Forget eavesdropping, the unconscious woman on the cot against the wall was far more interesting. Not a ghoul and not dead, one surprise after another. She checked all the important spots, chest, liver, neck and found nothing, only steady breathing. A glance at the notes pinned to a cracked clipboard told her it was a head injury, followed by a swift coma. It had already been a full twelve hours, any longer and she probably wouldn’t wake up at all. Nothing a little psycho couldn’t fix, and even if it was optimism over reality, what was the harm? What was a bit of solace in a septic tank? A bit of relief in the reactor? The desk was picked through once again, the mix of white pills in the plastic bottle was her goal and she fished out three of the biggest ones. 

She didn’t realize she’d been squinting but blood rushed to her head, ears ringing and everything seemed too bright in the poorly lit office all at once. She ground harder, crushing the pill into fine chalk and dumping it into the cooling mixture of diluted psycho and saline. The one sided conversation Barrows’ was having with Charon faded into buzzing noise, a sudden and foul smell of stagnant oxygen straight from the tank had her nauseous. 

“Start again, we’re off by three."

"You know just as well as I that VIIC isn't always right, this is the second time already.” She says, clearing the board and beginning the recount of the mentat supply anyway. VIIC, a supercomputer and security system, was in fact correct in this case. She had palmed the missing three earlier that day. 

“You want to play chicken with a computer, be my guest,” Jonas’s laugh had always been bright and clear to her, “but your dad won’t take that answer well.” 

“He did the same thing when Mac ground his hand to mincemeat in the-”

“Keyes.” Jonas interrupted with a disgusted sigh. 

“He ignored VIICs’ suggestion to amputate and it worked out fine. It’s not always right.” She continued anyway.

“You wouldn’t have amputated either?” 

“No, I would have.” She manually overrides the count, the cheery digital vault boy winked at her from the monitor, “and that’s why I’m not a surgeon.” 

Jonas says nothing, lost in thought and gazing at the cork board in front of him. “You know…” he trailed off a bit, waiting for her to catch the look he gave her. She raises an eyebrow. 

“Almodovar is considering you for head mechanic since Mac is out of commission. I overheard him and Brotch talking in the atrium yesterday morning.” 

She didn’t have much to say to that, to Jonas’s surprise, merely shrugging. 

“You’d really consider it? Being a head mechanic?” 

"Why not.” She says, filling the bottle back up and putting the stopper in once again, “at the end of the day putting people back together isn’t so different from putting a computer together.” 

Jonas cringes in her face, “yeah maybe the GOAT got it wrong after all, you shouldn’t be anywhere near healthcare.”

Under her hands, the woman's body lurches and spasms. A dry gasp rattles her poorly-used lungs, like some sort of hard reboot. Pretty sure she hears a telltale sign of fluid build up. It was Jonas’s face flashing behind her eyes that had her gently laying her back and pushing sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes, human or machine he still whispered his sweet-nothings to them. Same software but the hardware is all it's own beast. 

Chapter Text

The woman comes out of her coma hissing and spluttering as consciousness slams through her. Keyes ducks, narrowly avoiding a broken nose. The psycho will do that to you. 

“Take it easy-” Barrows is elbowing Keyes out of the way and hissing in her ear, “what did you do? What did you give her?” 

“Just what you had laying around. “ Codeine and psycho paste to the gums. One hell of a wakeup call.

Barrows eases the woman back down on her back as she gasps air into her lungs to combat her wildly beating heart. the body going into shock is always a possibility but if she were in the strangers shoes, she’d take that chance. 

“She’ll be fine.” She says decidedly and only feels a little bad when her nose starts bleeding. 

“Stay still, you’re in Underworld and have been for the last twelve hours. Give or take.” Barrows says, ignoring Keyes but wordlessly taking the flashlight she offers him. 

“Twelve- twelve fucking hours?” She groans and clutches her head when he shines the light in her eyes, “damn it all, I need to go- my team. My team needs me.” 

“You aren’t going far, not with that leg.” Barrows argues, rooting around to find something for her violent shakes. 

“What's your name?” Keyes steps up to the bedside once again, “Do you remember how you got here?” 

Purely a medical question, Charon and damn near everyone in DC knew who she was, if the insignia on her riot gear didn’t give it away. Not knowing Riley and her Rangers were around here was like not knowing how to load a gun. Any gang with enough firepower to sweep the streets like Brotherhood made them a hot topic, but nobody liked walking for hours on end enough to join. Small as the crew was, they were competent and worse, crawling over downtown like they had to write a book on every damn building they discovered. His boss seemed earnest in her question though, makes him wonder how long she’s been in the capital. 

“It’s not-” She groans, “Listen, my team needs help. They are waiting for reinforcements and I can’t-” Keyes already has a bucket in her hands when Riley starts heaving. Barrows returns with the vial of med-x and injects it into her thigh while she empties her stomach. 

“Where are they?” Keyes asks her in the space where she catches her breath.

“I dragged them into Vernon fucking Square,” she groans, “top floor of the Statesmen, I only got out because of them. Only to get pinned and thrown into a ditch. Nothing after that.” 

“That ditch saved your life, Quinn had to dig you out but it kept you hidden.” Barrows argues. Charon sucks his teeth, Vernon Square is mutant central but if their numbers are as thin as they are here in the Mall, they might still have a chance. 

“They’ve probably been overrun by now.” Riley says, after her first full, deep breath, “and all our supplies were left behind on the third floor when we made for the roof.”  

Keyes watches Barrow's face wrinkle and peel under the low light and knows what he’s thinking, if the Brotherhood sees them housing the Rangers it only gives them the excuse to sniff around.  Picking sides they would say, because there are obviously sides to be taken. Barrows was a man in constant argument with himself, he was a good man and a better doctor and one often eclipsed the other. It rings true especially when it concerns Underworld, where everyone expects his opinion to be given regardless if they wanted to hear it.

“If you know that, then you should know it's not worth it. It wasn’t even worth it to me, you could change that though.” he says sagely. 

“Give it a rest Barrows.” Keyes sighs.

“Do I look like one of the Followers? This is a clinic not a charity.” He spits and turns his back to them. It was an admirable effort if she ignored the amount of med-x he used to keep her comfortable. 

She ignores him and pins the other woman with a look. “How many of you are up there? Can you give me a number?”

“Four- no three, when I left them.” Riley says. Keyes had been hoping for better odds and tried not to let it show. She can see the meds when they kick in, watches Riley’s eyes flutter and become unfocused and knows the reinforcement she begged for would be more lacking than she was hoping. Barrows flaps his hands at her, avoiding the pointed look she sends him. The Ranger would stay as long as she wanted, he wouldn’t put up too much of a fuss so long as they could keep her hidden. 

She finds Charon already by the door, a sour look on his face. Or that might just be his face, seeing as it hasn’t changed much over the last few days. The dog stood still at his feet, panting miserably in the wet humid heat that festers in Underworld. 

“Vernon Square, have you been?” She asks, taking up a post with him by the door. 

“Two hours south. You haven’t?” He replies. 

“I thought it was common sense to avoid flesh-bags when you see them.” She replies. 

“Not for the Rangers, for them it’s just another place that needs to be cached.” 

“Is that what they do? They don’t seem like scavengers.” She muses, looking over the unconscious redhead. 

He shrugs, “They’re no mercs if that's what you’re asking. They have everything this side of the Potomac mapped and charted by now.”

“Not up north?” She would take her chances out in the wilds over the claustrophobic crumbling city any day.

“Too sparse. Brotherhood doesn’t reach that far and too close to the Mill.” He explains and she assumes he’s talking about the compound in the middle of the flats, well guarded and patrolled from what she could see from her scope yards away.  

“You’re telling me I could get paid for all the walking I do?” She grunts. 

“You should enlist, then maybe you won’t come crawling back when you get tired of sleeping outside.” Barrows comes to stand next to them, wiping his hands clean with a rag. 

“You’d like that wouldn't you.” She says dryly then adds more thoughtfully, “it is a bit more crowded around her than last time.” 

Barrows nods deeply, “Train station refugees, got their camp cleared in the middle of the night.” 

“By who?” She asks.  

“Outcasts. Or Brotherhood, but the armor was different.” It sure sounded like the Outcasts in her experience, the fact they were bored enough to waste resources doesn’t bode well for any trips up north any time soon. 

“You’re really going for it?” Barrows pins her with a look, “you heard her, they’ve probably been overrun by now.” 

“The less mutants wandering around the better, besides, maybe we’ll get there in time.” she says plainly. The use of ‘we’ is not lost on Barrows and he raises a non-existent brow. The irony tickles him, Charon going from the static air of the Ninth to the one person who never stops moving. He thinks he could do worse at the end of the day and holds his tongue.  

“Just watch yourself.” Barrows says and Keyes can’t tell if it was meant for her or Charon. 

She feels Barrows staring after them, a weight to his gaze that had her on edge, as they exit. There are more bodies milling around the bottom floor now, Tulip’s doors are open and already seeing foot-traffic. Admittedly, the reception was less than warm this time around. 

Keyes breezes past stalled conversations and narrowed eyes, “Are we doing this?” she asks. Leaving the clinic has him locking up tighter than a safe, only giving a curt nod and palming his shotgun. Still an improvement in her eyes. 

Willow is leaning in the doorway to Tulips’ and gives Keyes a dip of her head, “That couldn’t have gone too bad, you aren’t being chased.” 

Keyes gives her a small shrug, it could have gone much worse but she wasn’t about to jinx things. Especially right here on the front lawn. They had enough supplies but she wanted to be on the right side of safe, ducking into Tulips to lighten her pack.

Charon lingers just outside, trying to dig up words from dry dirt. The dog sits patiently at his feet, giving him a dull look before deflating with the heavy sigh. It didn’t know what to make of Charon’s dilemma either. Willow does the polite thing and doesn’t look at him yet. Inside his pockets his fingers toy with a handful of slugs and figures it would be enough, it's all he has besides the words that seem to abandon him at times like these.

He holds them out in a closed fist, “You’re right.” 

He doesn't elaborate but she doesn't mind being told she wins and leaves it alone, letting him dump the ammo in her waiting palm with a sigh. The old habit warms her, his stockpiling for ammo he doesn’t even need just to give it to her or Quinn. No words, only sharing resources. Azrukhal couldn’t punish them for that alone. Her words earlier were said in anger and pettiness, because for years she imagined it going differently. Imagined he would stay and it would be the three of them against whatever the wasteland could throw at them. It felt foolish now, she isn’t sure she would do much different in his shoes after being made to rot in there with the rest of them. So still he became the same rotting, peeling wallpaper. Just another part of the bar. 

“We’ll probably open it up, make it a common room or something.” Willow, as per usual, picks up his slack. He likes the idea, they’d have to move the piss-soaked bar and booth out of the corner but it would be enough. A new spot to sleep, drink and fuck. Just like the old one. 

“You don’t want anything? Not even the pricey stuff he kept on the top shelf, just because you can?”

“Already did.” He says and Willow only grins. 

“Quinn got back from Canterbury last night, he won’t be up for a while. I’ll tell him you said goodbye.” 

Charon says no such thing but lets it happen, Quinn will know it’s bullshit anyway. It’s more than he thought to ask for and the weight he didn’t realize resting on his chest is gone in an instant. It’s been nearly four years of labored silence and deliberate space, he could do little else without bringing down something much worse on them. Especially after nearly having to rip the man's arm off. No goodbye or any amount of ammo could fix that. 

Keyes was out of the shop nearly as soon as she went in, her expression pinched. He stands at attention-fucking hell was that parade rest - with a rather smug look of expectation.

“You’ll have better luck if you don’t bring me around.” He says simply, falling into step briefly before overtaking their stride. She scowls, a bit sore about the fact Tulip barely even looked at her. Only insisted she had nothing for her, eyes narrowed at the door and arms crossed over her chest. Is that what all of this is about, Keyes thinks, the Ninth may have been well used but not well loved.

“That bad, huh? Enough to turn down caps?” She couldn’t understand, but she knew enough to think that Tulip and the rest wouldn’t hold a grudge unless they had a damn good reason. 

“Ghouls invented grudge keeping.” He mutters but doesn’t deny it, and what a comforting thought that was. Especially seeing as she was about to walk them right into mutant territory. 

“Naturally.” That earns her a withering look from both of them. 

____________________________

Our Lady of Hope, in-fucking-deed . The place was a goddamn goldmine, an honest to shit miracle that it hadn’t been completely picked through. Sure, it was no Vault-tec pharmacy stockade but it was nothing to scoff at out here in the Wasteland and sorely needed after not being able to resupply with Tulip. She turns to Charon after crawling into a half collapsed room and returning with armfuls of stimpaks and clean bandages, “hard to believe this place hasn’t been picked through.” 

“Full of good ideas, aren’t you?” he grumbles, motioning to the room she just crawled out from and the hundreds of pounds of concrete pressing down above it. 

“Being here in general is a bad move, let's get what we can out of it.” she mutters and he says nothing. At least she's self aware.

“Do you think they are still alive?” She asks him. 

“No turning back now.” he rolls his eyes while she digs through a desk. . 

“I’m asking what you think, what are their chances?” She insists steadily. 

“Near zero. We’ll be lucky to find remains.” he doesn’t sugar coat it, and if she thinks coming in here without a plan was a good idea then they were about to meet the same fate. 

He didn’t make a habit on gambling but his boss seemed to like their odds. For experienced wasters like the Rangers, three could make all the difference between living another day and the eternal nap. It was a fool's hope, nothing to hang your hat on in the wastes and yet the littered corpses of mutants all over the hospital gave her a glimmer of hope.

The top of the stairs lead only to an emergency exit, which she pushes open and immediately gets a mouthful of dust and a hot wind in return. The reason being the giant hole in the wall brought down by a metal tower stretching across Vernon square. Also, unfortunately, their only way across. 

“Let me go first.” He grunts and cuffs her shoulder while pushing through the doorway. He hefts a boot on the ledge, giving a shove to test. Dust was all that rained on the empty streets below, no loose parts or dodgy sounds. It wasn’t until he got to the middle did he feel his palms sweat. It bows, rust crumbling and bolts crunching under his weight as he pushes to the other side. It holds, not well, but Keyes takes her turn on the tightrope when he makes contact with the Statesmen. She has the dog slung over her shoulders, wobbling across the fallen tower. The dog looks pleased, tail whacking into her side every few seconds, very familiar with this song and dance. The cities had no shortage of high places to climb when all other options failed, especially her pipboy map. The high vantage points on top of crumbling buildings made her sick, she loved it.

Charon waits until he hears her drop down behind him before pushing open the door onto a half collapsed hallway. Below two mutants wander aimlessly, talking nonsense at each other. Charon makes her wait at the end of the hall as he peeks over the side of the balcony they’ve come out on. He grits his teeth when he feels her slide up beside him, if she wants to get underfoot so bad maybe he should let her wander ahead all she wants. She aims between the railings, she squeezes the trigger once, then twice before the one against the far wall crumbles. The other below them roars and makes the mistake of stepping further into the room, swinging the muzzle of an assault rifle up in their general direction. Her next shot glances off its gun, so Charon leans over the railing and puts one right through the top of its head. 

The Dog perks up and takes off before she can heel him, down the corridor to their right. Moments later heavy stomping shakes the floor below them and the dog yowls, making himself known. With a vague grasp on how many waited in the hall ahead, she trades her rifle for her pistol just as the third mutant smartens up and retreats down the hall and out of sight, but still close enough to throw badly worded insults. The Dog is yapping at an ear-rattling pitch to encourage it to swing a nail board at him, luring it back out of the corner. Keyes tries to nail one in its raised arm and misses, but Charon has the same thought and follows it through. It drops the nailboard with a howl and the Dog takes its jaws to the mutants throat when it crumples.

The hall in front of them breaks open into a space lined with vending machines and dead potted plants, a shortcut between one hall and the next. Charon is ten paces ahead when he throws a hand back, she tucks in close as he leans around the corner. He waves three fingers in front of her face. 

She barely pauses, only stopping short to to mime a closing fist in front of him before darting across the hall. Left behind, Charon curses at her and aims down the hall. She closes in from the other side, pleased to find them more than occupied, skidding behind them and aiming for the neck of the closest one.

The second is a bit slower on the uptake and is plenty distracted by the dog sinking his teeth into the soft meat of the back of the mutant's knee, severing any muscle keeping it upright. Ignoring the buckshot spraying its side, the mutant swings low with its nail board to dislodge the dog from its leg. It narrowly misses his hide but the second swing was going to hit its target spot on, she didn’t need her pipboy to see that percentile. 

The shot wouldn’t make it in time but her leg was already there, the thought coming a little late seeing as the board was already meeting the thick rubber of her sole already. She was close enough to meet it mid-swing and pull the dog back by the scruff. The impact takes the board clean out of the mutants hand, a series of nails embedded in her leg. The dog reacted faster between the two of them, going for the throat as soon as it dropped to his level. Thick purplish blood bubbled sluggishly over Dog’s teeth and down onto the linoleum floor. 

The third- 

Keyes drops to her knees with a yelp when a pipe nearly splatters her brain against the walls behind her. A shot cracks in her ears, much too close to her head but the mutant falls away from her, its body left swaying when half of its head had been blown away. The air leaves her lungs in a pathetic wheeze. A hand slams down on her shoulder and tugs her down the hall, the board falling from her leg with a sticky sound that makes her queasy. The floor was clear for a few precious moments and if there was any time for a stimpak it would be now, tetanus was the least of her worries. It hurts like a top-notch bitch and Keyes very adamantly tells herself it’s only pain. And does a good job of it until bile burns the back of her throat and ejects itself onto the moldy carpet.

Charon says nothing and stands ideally by, passively watching her empty her stomach against the far wall. The dog was more enthused about the whole affair and suddenly hungry, stubbornly ignoring her attempts at pushing him away. 

“Gross, man, c’mon.” She gruffs, loosening a stimpak from the outer pocket of her pack. She grimaced, taking a closer look at her leg and the goopy rust visible even through the holes in her pants, okay maybe not that close. The punctures ooze and throb as she flushes it with alcohol the best she can, even with the burn she could feel a deeper ache. Not broken, but sharp enough to tell her not to walk on it. He waits until she chances a glance at him, the pain making her eyes water. 

“This-” he mimes a fist, his fingers not touching, “is bottleneck. You just made a fist. Where did you learn that?” 

“You caught on. And that- well yeah that makes sense.” she concedes. There's no easy way to explain spending months in a pre-war simulation, some of the small details slip away when you’re being shot at. 

“Whatever. You solid?” Charon is still watching the hall when she pushes the stimpack just under the knee. 

“Affirmative.” She replies unbidden. He does remind her of General Chase, she muses watching the skin of her calf pull itself back together in a messy tangle of scar tissue. In the same way most of the simulated military men had that static look about them, stuck in their loops of habit. He seemed to wear it a bit more reasonably, the wasteland was a much harsher general to mold him into whatever creature it needed. 

The broken down Protectron in the corner was worthy of a pat down before joining Charon at the door. She puts her full weight on her leg and finds it workable, only the new skin puckering and tightening uncomfortably. Charon glowers from the doorway, it shouldn’t slow her down any but watching her throw herself in the middle of a scrap like that had his stomach dropping out.

They are stopped in their tracks when they creep up the stairs to the third floor. The dead body of a boy not much older than her lays face down next to a dead mutant, Theo written in thick black marker on the collar of his riot gear. Too young to have such a look of terror in his wide unseeing eyes, neck bent unnaturally towards the wall. She gingerly slips a thick, locked munitions case from under his limp grip, a silent promise to get it to his comrades if they pulled through. As she thumbs open the box, Charon peels away the sticky red chest plate and pulls the boy's arms through his jacket, holding it open when she snaps the case shut again. She makes no argument, placing it in the middle and letting him bundle it up and tuck it under a wide bicep. Wordlessly he continues up the last flight of stairs, one-handing his shotgun. 

  At the top of the stairs everything narrows, only the hall leading to the fire escape to the roof was unblocked by broken walls and planks of split support beams. The door catches on the leg of a super mutant, only the leg though, which is more comforting than the alternative. Midday was in full swing and the sun was at its hottest, baking the mass of corpses steaming on the concrete. The smell alone makes her eyes water and she desperately covers her mouth and nose, but the yelling is getting louder and the floor behind them shakes with stomping and dragging from the floor below. The door is shut, no use locking it. They would come through either way. 

“You made a wrong turn somewhere, and I’m talking about life in general, to end up here.” Someone hollers across the courtyard, “Get over here before you lead every mutant in this place up here!” 

Which was easier said than done seeing as there were more bodies of mutants than floor space. She sees three people, not a flesh bag in sight, all crowded around an elevator. The one who called to them jogs to the barricades to meet them. 

“How long have you been up here?” She asks once in earshot. 

“We’ve been sitting here, thumbs up ass, waiting for daylight- Donovan?” He calls over his shoulder and the one bent over the elevator panel answers, “Fourteen hours, thirty seven minutes.” 

“Butcher,” he says, jamming a thumb against the plate of his armor in introduction, “Who are you? And where are the reinforcements?”

Charon’s boot slips in a puddle of purplish gore as he comes to stand beside her with a snarl, “You’re looking at it.”  

A redhead in the back pitches forward with a groan and nails her forehead against the concrete, “We are so fucked, Butch. Minced.”

Butcher frowns hard and gives them a once over, “well, you did make it all the way up here. Riley sure knows how to pick ‘em.” 

The redhead perks up, peels herself off the concrete and abandons the mean looking minigun to crowd them, “How is she? Where is she?” Butcher looks rather annoyed at the fact he wasn’t able to ask first. 

“She's just fine, laid up in Underworld with a broken leg and a concussion.” Keyes says, “Anyone hurt?”

Butcher gives a half shrug, “I’ve done the best I can’t but we are fresh out of the good stuff.” 

“You’re a medic?” She asks, making quick work of dropping her pack from her shoulders and fishing out her medkit and all the supplies from Lady Hope. 

“The only one the Rangers got, far as I know.” He says and lets out a whistle when she plants a bag of drugs in his hands. Charon turns the redhead, and pulls out Theo’s jacket that he had wrapped around the boxes of ammo Keyes’ lifted from his ammo crate. The hurt look at the corners of her eyes and the wobbling lip sends pangs through Keyes’ chest that had very little to do with bruising. Out of the corner of her eye she watches Charon’s fists curl at his side, jaw firmly set in a perpetual frown. Tulips’ unsung warning rings in her ears as she watches him, they treat him like some rabid animal and after leaving Underworld she was under the impression it was well deserved. But it wasn’t what she saw now. The wasteland and its wide open sky had a way of cracking someone open and leaving their soft insides exposed for anything to pick at, the most honest thing she's encountered yet. It didn’t help that this was probably the most normal, dare she say friendly, interaction with a group of strangers in the wasteland. Not many hired guns would handle a partner's belongings like they were made of glass either. 

“Is there another way out of here?” She turns back to Butcher.

“Do you want the quick way or the right way? I’ll warn you now, the quick way isn’t kind on the knees.” 

“What about the elevator?” she asks.

“Toast.” The man bent over the panel, Donovan, answers, “Even if I could fix it, we don’t have a battery.”

Keyes pulls open her pack and silently promises to never say a bad word about protectrons ever again, and Charon was beginning to see the appeal of caring around as much scrap as she does when it’s all that stands between them and a hoard of supermutants.

“Ask and you shall receive.” Brick says, eyes dry and grin cracking her split lip, “How about it Donovan?”

“Give me five minutes.” He grins, tying Theo’s jacket around his hips and rolling up his sleeve.. 

“Make it two,” Butcher says, eyes glued to the stairs leading up to the courtyard, “we’ve already been here too long.” 

It’s a tight fit, all of them cramped inside the elevator and Keyes was psyching herself out by imagining them being too heavy for two hundred year old cables and plunging to their death. The dog sits at her feet, chuffing and sneezing and looking at her like he was thinking the same thing. They did get stuck in that elevator in the mall that one time, it took nearly three hours to crawl up wearing her dog like a matted, bloody scarf. The doors crack open and she's the first one out, face to face with a mutant whirling around at the sound of the door opening with a roar. 

“Humans in a box! All for me!” it yells, victorious, its hands in a stranglehold on an assault rifle. 

Bullets split the wood by her head and she ducks to the side, shoulder slamming against the wall as she takes aim and fires back. Brick is hot on her tail and peels out of the elevator with a yell drowned out by the spinning barrel of her Eugene , as she introduced it. A slug buries itself in the meat of her right thigh, a swift and blistering burn making her hands shake as she tries to keep a handle on her pistol. Brick was already rushing down the next flight of stairs and Keyes looks ahead to the floor below and finds two more brutes waiting below. She swings her rifle off her back and lays it with a smack on the nearest steady part of railing, aiming for arms and heads. Charon waits for her on the top of the stairs and stays a step ahead of her when they catch up. 

Brick and Donovan are pinned in the next hall, they join Butcher in leaning around the corner and providing support but the swarm on the other end of the hall sponged up everything they had to give. Butcher curses when Donovan is nailed in the shoulder, slumping down on the wall and leaving a streak of red. 

“How do you want to play this, boss?” Charon says behind her and she swallows hard. 

“How would you?” She hasn’t got the faintest fucking clue, they were just wasting bullets at this distance and she couldn’t curve bullets around corners. 

“We need to get in there and get loud.” Him slamming another magazine in his gun is loud in her ears and makes her teeth clack together. He made it sound like the simplest thing in the world. 

She was lucky she didn’t have time to think through what she was about to do, “I’m right behind you then.”

They share a terse look. His face was unreadable for a moment and she hoped he couldn’t tell she was about to throw up again. In the next moment he pushes himself off the wall and down the hall, in the lull of their reload. Let it be known the only perk in throwing down with muties was their piss-poor dexterity. 

She gets to Donovan first, ripping a cloth from her pocket and pressing it firmly against his arm and with one hand and the other aiming down the hall. Already more were replacing the ones mowed down by Brick and Charon ahead of her. 

“Hold that down. Hard.” She tells Donovan and he does, face pale and waxy. She feels her own bullet hole absolutely pissing blood still and is acutely aware that it’s the only part of her that feels warm anymore. It throbs when she bends down to pull a pulse grenade from her pack. She whistles, high and loud, and lobs it straight down the hall when it begins to warm her palm. It ends up going long and pushes the mutants forward and into Charon’s line of fire. 

Brick up ahead of them nearly howls, “Yeah! Get sore, you cancerous dipshits.”

She thinks she's about to be chewed out for lobbing it so close to his head when he whips around to stare her down, jaw clenched. He waits until she’d slinked by with Donovan slung over her shoulder to huff, “Cutting it a little close, don’t you think?” 

She has the decency to look a little sheepish but he doesn’t look too upset as he peeks over her shoulder,  “You got anymore?” 

She gladly hands the rest to him, hell, after running head first into that firefight she’d give him anything he needed. 

Butcher catches up to them as they spill onto the main floor, the main entrance a few feet away and Keyes sucks in a noisy breath of relief. Donovan sags suddenly in her arms and her breath catches in her throat, but his shoulders shake with a manic giggle. 

“We’re gettin’ swarmed and you’re telling me we got pulled out of it all by some rookies.” The man was warming her side with his blood and grinning about it,  “What did you say your name was again?”

“I didn’t. Keyes, that’s Charon.” She says, slinging his arm further over and shoulder and getting them moving again. Brick falls behind with them as Butcher holds open the door, slinging Donovan’s other arm over her shoulder and practically carrying the both of them out of the building. 

“You guys need a job?” Brick nearly shouts in her ear. She withers a little when she looks at Charon, “Christ, chins up we made it out alive! If that's not a sign I don’t know what is.” she says cheerily and Charon doesn’t think they look rough enough for rookie treatment but Keyes grins back like she’s in on the joke. It has been awhile since she's seen a smile that earnest, the kind that pinched her eyes closed with lots of gum. 

“And do what? Get shot at by mutants for hours?” Donovan splutters a laugh, half wheeze, “We need a better pitch.” 

“Shut it, all of you. Fall in.” Butcher hisses, reminding his merry band of muppets they weren’t out of it yet. Pressure swells behind his eyes. One lost and two gained, with odds like that you take them as they come. Second chances like this don’t just fall into your lap in the wastes, and Butcher is set on playing his cards close to his chest this time.