Hey!!! Love this blog so much! Can I request a Charon x F!Lone fluffiness??? Like what if she was an amazing fighter but also a kind person when you get to know her. And there was a huge fire fight that she ends up getting hurt in? Idk but I kinda want to see this written, I’m actual Charon trash. ❤️
(*I’m also Charon trash! ;D )
“Dammit, we are outnumbered!”
Charon wasn’t sure if his employer heard him over the hail of gunfire that erupted through the ruins around them. The twisted metal of destroyed skyscrapers and ravaged buildings around them provided plenty of cover — but it also made it difficult to pin-point all of the threats in the area. The super mutants seemed to be everywhere; some popped out from behind mounds of scrap metal, while others jumped down from the second floor of a crumbled building nearby.
Over the sound of machine guns whirling, Charon could hear the rapid approach of a centaur making its way toward them. They always seemed to be with a pack of super mutants, but the abomination was unsightly enough to make even him grimace. One of its long tongues shot out, hitting the front of their metallic cover, and Charon’s mistress’s geiger counter ticked from the radiation emitting from the creature’s saliva.
His mistress suddenly popped up from cover, firing toward the super mutants in front of them with an assault rifle. By now, they had fought together enough that Charon knew she was creating an opening, and he braced his arm up on his cover to put the centaur out of its misery with a blast from his shotgun.
“Got one,” Charon murmured, more to himself than to her, while she took cover again and the spray of bullets continued.
“Shit, I hate this place,” she hissed, reloading a clip. “Shortcuts never work out in my favor.”
“Perhaps if you were looking for a shortcut to hell,” he quipped, and she smiled ruefully, her attention still riveted on the battle.
“Pffft, we’re not dying today. These assholes, on the other hand, just found that shortcut.”
She fired again, and Charon was quick to have her back, keeping some of the forces pinned while she thinned out their numbers. In the months that she had held his contract, they had learned how to compliment one another in battle, and despite the fact that they were outnumbered, they weren’t outgunned. They had gotten out of much stickier circumstances, and they would get out of this, too. The vaultie had gotten something of a reputation for being able to deal with problems — problems that even the Brotherhood had trouble dealing with. It never ceased to amaze him that someone that had grown up in such a soft environment had become so battle-hardened so quick, but it made him respect the hell out of her.
They had almost finished off the brawny mutants when suddenly, the whirl of the gatling gun cut through the clearing again. It sounded different this time, high-pitched, and she swore at the same time he did. Charon barreled toward her just as the first laser spurt tore through their flimsy cover, and when he collided with her, he flattened her to the ground and pressed himself over her back, trying to shield her with his much larger body. The heat from the laser was at his back, and he winced as a spurt singed the back of his armor.
The second the weapon sputtered, needing to reload and cool down, Charon was on his feet, vaulting over the remains of their cover and quickly closing the distance to blast the super mutant with his shotgun. When the asshole fell, he double-tapped just to be on the safe side, and then gave the clearing a quick glance to confirm that it was the last of the super mutants.
At least it wasn’t a Fat Man, he thought, releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding as the adrenaline rush started to wear thin. A glance over his shoulder gave him pause, however; he had expected his mistress to pop up, complaining about his rough treatment — and the fact that he had been the one to fell the mutant with the gatling laser.
When she didn’t reply right away, trepidation washed over him, and he rushed back to find her still lying on the ground. She had pulled herself up slightly, but she was clutching her side, blood clearly staining her fingers, and panic began to rise within him. He had seen her hurt before, yes, but it was a rare occasion, and it never stopped him from worrying. She was a smoothskin, after all — not to mention that he towered over her —which made her seem fragile. He was her protector; that was his role as long as she held the contract.
“Don’t get that look on your face, Charon,” she hissed, trying to stand up. “It just grazed me. Damn laser weapons always pack a punch.”
Quickly, he put a hand at her elbow and assisted her, while scanning her for further injury. Her armor was thick, but not overly-bulky. The laser had melted through and got her in the side, but it had lost so much energy that it didn’t go through her. He couldn’t assess the wound here; they needed to get into a more defensible location.
“I am sorry I could not prevent your injury.” Charon was always formal, she had found, and she hated it. It had to be a by-product of his brainwashing, and it made him sound so robotic. There were some occasions (albeit few and far between) when she could get him to speak faster, to put more of an inflection in his voice, and she always reveled in them.
“If it wasn’t for you, I’d be swiss cheese.”
The term seemed familiar to him somehow, but the phrase was lost on him. Brushing it aside, Charon abruptly scooped her up into his arms, cradling her against his chest. She flushed; he made her feel so tiny by comparison. Her first instinct was to fight against him, to protest that she didn’t need to be carried through the Capital Wastes, but… the moment she tensed, a pain shot through her side that had her hissing and pressing her fingers tighter against the wound.
“Do not struggle. Let me take you to shelter for the night, so I can dress your wound.”
It wasn’t phrased like a question, but she knew it actually was one; he wanted permission.
When she first held his contract, he didn’t do anything unless she directly told him to — except when it came to fighting. When she had gotten hurt back then, he would simply stand there and watch until she specifically asked him to do something. Now, their dynamic had shifted; he had decided she was a good person, and actively wanted to help her, which was a new sensation for him. He was accustomed to being used for someone else’s gain — and usually under circumstances he would easily call evil.
But this badass smoothskin was actually a kind-hearted person, trying to make the Wastes a better place, a livable place.
And he actually liked having her as his contract holder.
______________________________
Their shelter was a destroyed store with most of its roof still intact and a proximity mine planted in the doorway. The windows were boarded up, but he still didn’t feel comfortable building more than just a small trash can fire, while his mistress stripped off her mismatched armor.
Her T-shirt was ragged and torn, and the portion around her abdomen had been seared off. Slowly, she peeled it up, so the cloth was just below her chest, and hissed again. “Shit, this burns. I hate energy weapons so much.”
“You like the gauss rifle,” he commented absently, steering her closer to the light from the fire.
She scoffed. “I hate energy weapons when they’re being aimed at me.”
Charon didn’t reply, too busy examining her wound up close. It wasn’t life-threatening, but it had to hurt. He dug through his bag and retrieved a stimpak and some Med-X.
“Med-X? It doesn’t hurt that much,” she lied, while Charon shrugged.
“If you want to be in pain, that is your choice.”
She rolled her eyes, while he readied the needle of the stimpak and proceeded to inject it straight into her wound. She bit her bottom lip — fuck, that hurt — but almost immediately, it stopped bleeding, and she could see the wound beginning to shrink. It wouldn’t stop her from having a fresh scar, she was sure, but she wouldn’t need any form of stitches.
He lifted the other syringe in question, but she shook her head. “Nah, I don’t need the Med-X. That stimpak was enough.”
In truth, it still burned, but she was saving the Med-X for something more serious, like a broken bone, or an instance where one of them would need to fight despite being injured.
Charon dutifully replaced the Med-X, and then began to pour some dirty water onto a rag to clean the wound. The geiger counter clicked twice, and she sighed and muttered something about ‘Project Purity.’ As he wiped the dried blood away, his fingertips brushed her flesh — accidentally at first, due to his grip on the cloth, but then… he started to do it just to feel her.
It was so soothing, getting to do this much. It reassured him that she was alive, that he had really made it in time. She was a skilled fighter, capable and renowned thanks to the radio station broadcasting her deeds throughout the Wastes. She seemed immortal and untouchable, like a character from a radio drama.
But she was just a human — just a young woman that had stepped from a Vault and into an unforgiving world mere years ago. Even as skilled as she was, she was fallible; she could make mistakes or become overpowered.
She could die, and the thought terrified Charon.
Doing this much helped assuage that terror. She was so soft, and he was so close to her, bent over as she leaned back with a palm against the wall for support and the other still holding her ruined shirt away from her abdomen. He was taking more time than usual, and it took him a moment to realize that her chest was heaving, her breathing heavier than normal. Abruptly, he stopped wiping the wound with the cloth and glanced up, searching her face for signs of distress.
Charon couldn’t tell if her face was flushed or if it was a trick of the dim firelight, but her gaze was unreadable. She shook her head once and quickly cleared her throat.
“No, no, I… it was fine. I’m just feeling a l-...little light-headed.”
“Here.” Charon instantly wrapped an arm around her shoulders, guiding her to the floor. Her legs did indeed appear shaky, and he mentally scolded himself for taking so long with his treatment. “I should have had you lie down before I began.”
“It’s fine. Probably just blood loss,” she mumbled, while Charon continued to search her expression. She wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“The stimpak will take care of that,” he assured her, while he retrieved a piece of gauze and duct tape from their rather lacking medical kit. He reached to put it on her and saw her belly tense as his fingers smoothed the tape across her skin. Again, he glanced up, but this time… there was no mistaking the redness that had flared up across her face. “Are you certain you’re all right?”
His hand had absently dropped to her thigh in his concern, and she finally met his obsidian gaze. He’d seen many different looks in her eyes since their travels. There was the glint of determination she got whenever she was focused during a firefight. There was mirth whenever she cracked a joke or she found some particularly delicious food for them to eat. There was melancholy when she mentioned her father or came across skeletons in the ruins. And there were flashes of anger when settlers or members of the Brotherhood made comments about the fact that she was traveling with a monster.
But the look in her eyes now was one that he’d only seen a couple of times. Once, after she had been feeling hopeless enough that she cried — yes, actually cried — on his shoulder, and then had pulled back to look at him. And another time when she had been drunk and pulled him by the arm toward the single bed of their rented room because she wanted to be held while she slept.
Her shirt slipped from her fingers, the ragged ends falling across her bandaged stomach, and she covered the hand on her thigh with her own, squeezing it. A soft smile curved her lips, and the look changed, that fire in her gaze simpering to a flicker. “You saved my life today, you know. If you hadn’t rushed me like that, I’d have much worse wounds.”
Charon turned his hand over to grasp hers, shaking his head. The terror he had felt over her getting wounded was pushed to the back of his mind. She could be killed, sure, but the solution was simple.
“If someone wants to try to give you a shortcut to hell, they will have to go through me first. Always.”
