Don't Stop, Ch. 1

A/N: Yes, I'm doing a Charon/LW fic. Yes, I'm aware that this is done a lot! I guess you'll just have to trust that my Lone Wanderer is a very original character, and you'll have to give me plenty of feedback so that I can keep it original. This is my first Fallout fanfic, so I will want to hear from you, my readers, about how I'm doing. This will eventually be a ghoul/human relationship, so if that makes you uncomfortable, back it on up out of here - I wouldn't want to make anyone uncomfortable! If at this point you haven't left yet, enjoy!

Human-Shaped Warmth

Charon remained stoic as she slowly removed her battle armor, not attempting at all to avert his eyes (she would laugh at him, that entrancing, melodic laugh) and inwardly rolling his eyes at the irony of the jukebox upstairs playing the Ink Spots' Maybe.

She took care to remove every piece slowly and check herself for gunshot wounds; she was on so many chems sometimes that the damage went unnoticed until a later, sometimes inconvenient date. She winced as she removed the torso piece and discovered a fresh bullet hole in her shoulder – the work of the raiders they'd run into on their way back from the latest exploring expedition. Why she went on them was a mystery to him, but it was his job to keep her alive, and hell if he was going to fail.

She rummaged in her pack for some tweezers and glared at the wound as if it had deliberately caused her discomfort. Experimentally, she prodded the flesh around the hole, and when it gushed minimal amounts of blood, she inserted the tweezers and attempted to pull out the bullet. If the face she made was any indication, the thing wasn't coming out easily. Charon knew she would have trouble trying again, and the only thing that would probably make her was his watchful eye.

She always did her best to appear strong in front of him. She was foolish.

As per his contract, he weighed the importance of a direct order against what he knew she needed but would never ask for, deciding on the latter's priority within a few seconds.

She had gone back in for a second try as he moved forward, taking the tool from her pale, smooth hands without a glance for approval. She sighed, resigned, and moved so that he would have better access to her shoulder.

He inserted the tool quickly and efficiently, felt around for the edges of the bullet, grabbed it, and pulled at the necessary angle. She gave a small cry as the metal came loose, but quickly reached up to stem the flow of blood replacing it and said, "Thanks," with a small appreciative smile.

Charon, who hadn't forgotten her actions moments before, merely mumbled, "Yeah, sure." He didn't want to encourage her. She was incorrigible.

True to her character, she went back to the task of removing her battle gear as soon as she could move without gushing blood. By this time, the song had switched to Crazy He Calls Me, by Billie Holiday, and Charon couldn't help but frown. Billie Holiday was probably an incorrigible woman too. The smoothskin he called mistress was now stripping down as sensually as she could manage, just to get under his skin. In everything but this, she was the kindest person who had ever held his contract, but their daily home routine reminded him that she was also one of the most mischievous.

He dared not look away and risk assuring her of his discomfort, and soon she was wearing nothing but her customary half-tank top and the shortest shorts he'd ever seen. No one in their right mind wore that kind of stuff out in the wasteland, and he'd never had the privilege of sharing a home with anyone but his parents – and that was ages ago, long past his memory.

Sometimes she would wear some of the clothing they'd found out in the wasteland, and on those days, he was secretly relieved. He knew she wouldn't tonight, though. Lately she'd taken to wearing a dirty Chinese jumpsuit that suited her small curves perfectly, but just a few days ago, they'd stumbled upon Mama Dulce's and the horrors of the remnant Chinese officers, and he doubted she would wear it again for a long while.

Done with her tormenting for the time being, she wandered to the kitchen and looked through the shelves, trying to decide what to fix for dinner that night. "What'll it be? Pork N' Beans, or Blamco Mac And Cheese?"

His preference was automatically to be her preference, so he shrugged noncommittally. She laughed. "Mac and cheese, it is. I wish you would tell me what you want."

"Your desires suffice as my own," he replied tersely.

"Well, damn. I had no idea you wanted Colin Moriarty as badly as I did." She continued to prepare their dinner on her little stolen portable burner as calmly as she could, but he visibly stiffened, and she burst out laughing. "Relax! I couldn't be into that guy even if he were ten years younger and filthy rich. Keep in mind that he may very well be the second one. I couldn't be bothered. He's disgusting."

Charon relaxed, as she had instructed, but not because she had instructed; her words were oddly comforting. Thinking of her with anyone was slightly disquieting. He took to watching her as she carefully prepared their slightly radiated meal with care. He tried not to, but he couldn't help observing the way her hips swayed as she stood there, or the way her short, unusually red hair shimmered in the dim light.

He noticed strange things about her sometimes, unimportant things. For instance, in the bulb light of their home (it felt weird thinking that word, their), her skin appeared unnatural and sallow; he couldn't help but note how beautifully it shone in the pale sunlight, in comparison. Still, even with the sickly tint, she was beautiful. He couldn't think that about many people these days.

She put the pasta in some bowls and popped a Rad-X as she told him to sit down. He knew that had he been human, she would have offered him one too, but she always chose more radiated foods for them to eat in the hopes that the radiation would help him. It did, too – he felt guilty. He wordlessly accepted his portion of the meal and took a seat across from her in the main room of their small little living space.

They were quiet for a few minutes as they ate quickly – they were famished from a long day of adventuring and time had taught them not to hesitate when eating even the grossest of foods. Survival was paramount. As usual, she was the first one to talk. "You know, I get a bad feeling in my gut when I think about what happened back there at Mama Dulce's," She began, and he could tell by the perplexed look on her face that she was trying to puzzle it over.

He took another bite and said, "It was unexpected, but it's the waste. We run into bastards with guns all the time." He was pretty sure that wasn't what she meant, but he waited for her to clarify.

She stared at him with that perplexed look, and said slowly, "It's more than that. It was that goddamn terminal, really... those soldiers had been there since the war. They infiltrated our country, helped their rulers drop the bombs, and didn't have the good fortune to die when it happened. They were ghoulified and spent all of those years just... hating. And one day we come along and all of the sudden, it's their existence or ours? It's not our right. More importantly, it wasn't our fight." She looked like she might be ill, and it took every ounce of his self control to keep from comforting her.

"We do what we can to survive," he said. "No more, no less. None of this is really your fight, but you do what you have to do. How many poor bastards do you think wandered into their clutches before we did?"

She looked thoughtful. "I don't know, but a lot, probably."

He stared her down, attempting to fortify her. "How many do you think they decided to talk to before shooting?"

She was indignant, now. "Well, none, probably! They sure as hell didn't stop to talk to us!"

He nodded sharply. "Don't feel sorry for those officers. They may not have known what they were getting into when they signed on for the job, but they knew they weren't gonna live forever. Two hundred years should be enough for any ghoul."

She smiled a sad smile. Charon lamented that her smiles were like that more often these days. "Thanks, Charon. You really know how to cheer a gal up."

Stoic expression intact, he muttered, "Just facts, Mistress."

She laughed. "Don't call me that," she complained with a chuckle. "My name is Keira, and you should use it."

He almost rolled his eyes at her, but held back. He knew she was different, but none of his contract holders had ever wanted him to address them by name before. It would be a hard habit to break.

His silence was met by further confrontation from her. "You know, that reminds me; we gotta talk. About you."

"Is there something wrong with what I've been doing?" he asked automatically.

She pulled a face. "Yeah, there is. I want you to be more expressive. I want to know what you're thinking more often. I value your opinion, and I want you to speak your mind. No more of this, 'Your desires suffice as my own' bullshit. If you want Cram for dinner, by all means, speak up!"

"Should I start now, then?"

She gave him a dry look. "Please."

"I'm not sure who in their right mind would want Cram for any meal ever, Mistress."

She laughed out loud and stood to take her empty bowl to the sink. "That's more like it! I knew there was some funny in you." She ran the water and began to rinse out her bowl. "Remind me to pick up some detergent on our next run," she said as an after thought.

He nodded and followed her to the small kitchen area, leaning against the wall as she grabbed his bowl out of his hands and began washing it too. "We don't have any left and we don't have many bowls either." She put the two semi-clean dishes into a spare box for cleaning later.

He watched, mesmerized, as she bent down to put it in the corner, her thinly muscled pale legs put on display quite blatantly. She righted herself and gestured for him to follow her upstairs. He did, albeit hesitantly.

On their way she grabbed her pack off of the workbench she'd been sitting on earlier, removing that bullet. Charon grabbed his from the bottom of the stairs and she set about their routine of unloading various items they'd collected in their travels. "Toss me the Nuka-Colas?" she'd say, and he would, watching her as she put them carefully into their pristine Nuka-Cola machine. "Can you put all that stuff that looks like useless junk in the locker downstairs?" was another order, and he complied without question. She had some schematics for some very strange weapons.

Before they were done, she'd collected a chem from the mini-lab, sealed up her bullet wound at the infirmary, and put away all of the spare guns she'd collected for parts in their various places – big ones in the locker and little ones in the filing cabinet. They had a system, and she stuck to it. As soon as they were finished, she collapsed into a peach pre-war chair that overlooked the rest of the upstairs. "We'll go visit Moira first thing in the morning... though I don't think she enjoys it when we sell her stuff; she likes buying better."

Charon remained silent as she surveyed their small loot. They had some pre-war money to sell, along with a few cartons of cigarettes and some Vodka, but the truth was, they didn't need the caps. Keira's careful saving had landed them with quite a small fortune; 5,000 caps was more than enough to buy whatever they needed and then some. They had a huge reserve of Stimpaks as well, and they were probably ready to open their own chems shop if they wanted to; they'd seen Paulie in Rivet City, though, and thought it would be a bad idea.

"I... gotta be honest, I think I'm having a hard time with the Tenpenny situation. If only I hadn't killed Tenpenny... but now that bastard Gustavo is in charge, and he wants nothing to do with Roy Philips and his gang. What would you do?" He could tell she was in a difficult, contemplative mood, and he wasn't used to having an opinion.

"I don't know, Mistress. There's something wrong about Roy, that's all I can tell. Your fragile diplomacy ain't gonna pacify him for long."

She looked relieved as she fidgeted. "So that's not just me? I thought that I could help him and talk some sense into those stuck up bitches in Tenpenny Tower, but I keep thinking, with all of the decent ones who agreed to give it a try, I can't feel comfortable orchestrating that. He seems so eager for blood."

Charon shook his head. "You wanna save the world, but sometimes there's no good choice and no good people, ghouls included."

She sighed. "I'm learning that every day." She glanced over at him and studied him for a moment. "You can't be comfortable in that recon armor! We're not getting shot up in here. Do you want help getting out of it?"

There she went again. He growled softly and began removing it himself, pulling on a pair of pants from his pack, and attempting to relax without his protective covering – it wasn't working out so well. He felt naked.

She laughed at his apparent failure. "Damn, are you as beat as I am? Being diplomatic is exhausting."

"I could sleep for a few hours, yeah," he replied uneasily. Slowly, he was beginning to grasp the purpose of an opinion again.

"Well, good. It's about twelve, we'll get a few hours. You can take the bed tonight," she said as she extracted herself from the chair and began walking to the adjacent room.

This time, Charon rolled his eyes. He knew exactly what would happen with that arrangement on a cold night like this. He made his way to the bedroom with some apprehension.

`~.oOo.~`

Charon awoke with a small human-shaped warmth pressed into his side. He glanced at the wall and was displeased to find darkness still prevalent in the sky. He tried to go back to sleep, but he was acutely aware of her breathing, shallow as it was, and the rise and fall of her chest, light as that was, against his arm.

Since it was a single bed, she'd managed to curl herself into him so that she wouldn't disturb him or fall out, but as a result, they were touching at nearly every point possible. Charon was unused to employers who could stand the sight of him, let alone ones willing to sleep In the same bed as him. One of her legs was against his, her protruding hipbone dug deliciously into his side and her chest was pressed distractingly into his arm. Her head was resting softly on the edge of the pillow and she'd nestled her freezing nose into his shoulder. Instead of one blanket, there were two, and he had to admit, it was better than the shivering he'd done the night before. Still – the shivering didn't hinder sleep as much as this.

Charon occasionally liked to pretend he wasn't attracted to his employer, but in this case, there was no pretending. She was a pretty smoothskin, and she was completely invading his space. There was nothing to be done for it but wait.

An hour later, he'd fallen back to sleep, and three hours after that, he woke again, much more pleased to see the sun up and Keira blinking sleepily without attempting to remove herself from his person. She was a little slow in the morning when they weren't roaming about.

He looked down at her expectantly as she further joined the realm of the living, and when she noticed him staring, she mumbled, "The couch was cold..."

So, that was it! Action to come in the next chapter. What do you think? Let me know, in a review! I value constructive criticism, which means nice, well delivered advice. Bullying is just not nice, ask Butch.