A/N: This is my first Fallout 3 fic, and though I valiantly resisted the urge to return to writing stories, apparently I can't escape it. This will be a two-shot, second part to be posted whenever I get it done, probably soon since my muse is on overdrive. Though this can be labeled as a Charon/FemLW story, it's not really a very...nice story. This is a dark, kind of twisted, and generally unpleasant interaction between these two characters. My PC is very evil, there is some strong language, and there will be mature content of a variety of types in Part 2. If any of that offends you, you have been warned. Also, I have no beta reader for this, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are mistakes. Review if you feel the urge.

Warning: Language.

Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership of Fallout 3 or any characters/locations/plot points therein. I do claim responsibility for Angel, though I really wish I didn't have to.

He hated her. With every irradiated fiber of his being, Charon hated that cruel, smiling bitch. More than he had ever hated Ahzrukhal – much, much more, because this was personal. Even as he stared across the room at her, his employer, and watched her listless form sprawled across the only bed in the room, he could not stop thinking how relieved he would be the day she got herself killed or got bored with him and sold him to someone else. Either way, she would be dead.

She looked exhausted, her pale hair disheveled and coming loose from the twisted knot at the base of her skull. Her eyes were closed, but he knew she was not asleep. Occasionally she would bring the half-empty vodka bottle in her hand to her lips and draw a long, lazy draught, her only movement for the last two hours. Charon turned his face away, stared at the wall, the floor, the Nuka-Cola machine, anything but her. God, he hated her. He finally focused on the sleeping dog at his feet instead.

Hard to believe it was over, that only two days had passed since they had stood in the Jefferson Memorial for the last time. Her father's dream, Project Purity, had become a reality – Sentinel Lyons had ensured that. Charon had wondered why no one bothered to ask him to punch in the code since the radiation probably would not have had any effect on him, but no one asked and he had not offered. Now, with her only real "goal" accomplished, it seemed like Angel had no purpose anymore. He sometimes wondered how long it would be before she took a dive over the railing of Tenpenny Tower. If she ever worked up the nerve, he sure as hell would not stop her.

Angel.

His eyes snapped up to her again before refocusing his scowl on the snoring mutt. Damn him for thinking it, but she did look like an angel. But she sure as shit was not one. If Charon had believed in either, he would have said she was the opposite – a demon, a devil. She was anger and bitterness and hatred and rage and lust all bound in the body of a young woman with pale hair and icy eyes. Eyes that sent a chill down Charon's spine, eyes that followed him into his dreams, eyes that would continue to haunt him even if she died right then.

Still staring at the hypnotic rise and fall of Dogmeat's flank, Charon began to think back, to remember when he had first met her, to recall the first time those eyes had landed on him…

-

He knew she was trouble the moment she walked in. He was trained to see trouble coming, but if he had had any clue just how much she would end up being, he would have thrown her out on her ass before she so much as opened her mouth. But he did not, because he did not know, because he could not have known. He just stood there watching her, like everyone else in the bar was watching her.

Smooth skins in Underworld were rare enough, but she was…stunning. Charon despised that word. Bile rose in the back of his throat just thinking it to himself, and he would never repeat the statement out loud. But it was true. There was something fresh, new, vibrant about her, a sort of brightness that clung to her, as if the Wasteland had not touched her and never could because she would not allow it. The world was hers to command. And those eyes – pale, pale blue, like ice.

Problem was, she knew the value of her looks, perhaps too well. There was an arrogance in her stance as she gazed over the ghouls in the Ninth Circle, and a small, twisted smirk tugged the corner of her mouth. There was always something suggestive about her expression, as if every word from her lips had a double meaning. She worked Ahzrukhal like a sucker.

Charon never figured out why she bought him. He noticed her watching him, but he was as pointedly rude to her as he was to anyone else. She was just another potential problem, and he was the solution to all problems within those four walls. When she approached him, swaggering and waving his contract with that smile on her face, he was actually something close to happy for a moment. He had been itching to waste his asshole employer for a long time now. In a way, he was grateful for her. Did not take long for that to change.

He had heard the stories about her – hell, anyone with access to a radio must have known at least something about her. Three Dog had a habit of exaggeration, but after a few weeks, Charon decided the man's opinion was soft in this case. She was far, far worse than "the bitch from Vault one-oh-one."

Not that anyone treated her that way to her face. That was part of the demon in her, Charon decided. People knew what she had done, what she was capable of, but they still respected her, still smiled in the presence of their "Angel." Perhaps it was a respect born of fear, or perhaps they were just idiots, but it was there nonetheless. Three Dog warned them, shouted from his soapbox that she was a terror, a blight, the worst thing to ever happen to the Wastes…but he himself shook Angel's hand with a big, stupid smile on his face and wished her luck finding her father. Fucking two-faced, double-minded morons got what they deserved when she stabbed them in the back.

Charon did not care about any of that. He did not give a damn how many settlements she blew up or raided. He sure as hell did not care how many Wastelanders she offed. He had learned long ago that anyone with a weapon was a danger – just because they were not the enemy today did not mean they would not be the enemy tomorrow. No, he did not resent her slaver friends or her policy of "shoot anything that moves, loot the bodies, move on, questions are worthless so don't bother." In fact, her ruthlessness fascinated him sometimes. She was a paradox, beauty and blood, charming and terrifying, and he doubted she even understood herself half the time, though it clearly did not trouble her. He never noticed anything close to resembling a conscience within her. There was all forms of insanity on the Wastes – she was just one of them, he decided.

But he did grow to hate her. And he had reasons. So many of them. At least ten new ones a day. Every time she touched him. The deep burning pit in the bottom of his stomach tightened with every brush of her fingers on his arm, his back, his chest…his thigh…goddamnit he hated her.

He was like her new toy, a new weapon she wanted to learn by touch. She would smile, wink, cajole, taunt…touch. He could easily ignore the rest, but her touch was different. For so many years, the only contact he had had was violent, and that was just part of his job. There was nothing pleasant about it. No one ever touched him because they wanted to, and he certainly did not need to be touched – and he was happy to keep things that way. Then she came along and fucked everything up.

He would never forget that first time, when she had discovered what her touch could do to him. After a particularly bloody battle, adrenaline still pounding in his ears, she trotted up beside him to survey the carnage. Chest heaving beneath her armor, she flashed him a malicious smile of triumph and slipped her hand over his shoulder, squeezing just a little. "Well done."

He could feel the heat of her palm through a thin part in his armor and the unexpected contact and those haunting eyes and cocky smile…it sent a jolt through Charon, a surge of sensations he thought long dead in him. He tried to bury it, hide it, deny to himself that it even existed, but she saw it. She knew. Her smile widened and that cruel laugh rang in his ears. Her hand slid away from his shoulder, trailing down his back in something like a caress…and then she strode away to loot the bodies. A cold, knowing look thrown over her shoulder at him – that was what sparked the hatred.

He told himself it was the heat of combat, the natural rush that any sane man got when fighting for his life. But she, the demon, the predator, she knew otherwise. She reveled in teasing him, and he hated her more and more for it because that was all it was to her. Teasing, taunting, baiting – she would never give herself to him, a ghoul, a monster. She never said it to him, never even implied it, but she did not need to. Charon could read it in her eyes.

A part of him wondered if she even knew how cruel she was. She was young and had grown up in a vault, after all. Just how much real world experience could she have?

But the part of him he had denied for years, the part that craved contact and screamed for touch, her touch, that part ruled his mind. And that part stewed in bitter resentment, breeding a hatred so strong that he wished she would sell his contract to anyone else just so he could send her to join his last employer and put an end to his unbearable torment. He worried that someday not even the contract would be enough – that he would lose his grip and snap. What would happen then? He did not want to think about it.

Something changed when her father died. Charon would admit only to himself that the event had effected him as well. The ghoul watched her as she stared through the thick window at James' body, her face frozen in wide-eyed horror as he succumbed to the radiation. Charon had never seen anything like the bald, naked pain written across her face, not even when she had taken a spray of bullets to the thigh during a showdown with Regulators. Worried for possibly the first time since her little games with him began, Charon hesitantly touched her arm. "Are you...?"

Without letting him finish his question, she ripped away from his touch with a hiss, her face contorted with all the emotions he knew lay buried deep within her – the demon rising to the surface in all its glory. "Don't you fucking touch me!" she spat with more hatred and venom than Charon had heard before. Stepping away from her, Charon added yet another layer to his resentment, then listened as the scientists begged Angel to help them to safety.

"Fuck you." That was her reply. "Defend your own worthless hides. Or don't. And die."

Charon stared at her back as she stormed away from the stunned scientists, then grimaced when Dr. Li turned her pleas on him instead. He did not give a shit about them, or about this Project Purity nonsense…but still…

"If you can keep up with us, you might live," he growled before striding after his employer.

And they did – well, two of them anyway. Charon had not even paid attention to how many there were to start with, but Dr. Li and one other body emerged into bright sunlight behind Charon and Angel after miles of twisting, feral-infested Metro tunnels. Angel did not even acknowledge Dr. Li's request to join them inside the Citadel, and instead marched away toward the bridge in the general direction of Tenpenny Tower. Obedient and silent, Charon followed.

She had been pissed before, so he knew it was pointless to try to speak to her. She would sulk, pout, perhaps be more violent than usual with anyone who crossed their path, but she would never talk until she was calm. So Charon was stunned when she suddenly whirled on him, those blue eyes sparking with pain and wrath.

"What the fuck did you think you were doing?!" she snarled right in his face, so close that he could see a few, light freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose. "Who gave you the order to protect those worthless bastards? Who, Charon?!"

"No one…" he ventured uncertainly. He had a feeling there was no right answer.

"You're damn fucking right! I didn't! So why did you keep them alive?!"

She was breathing hard in her fury, and Charon thought he must have been imagining the tears lining her eyes. She never cried. "Would you have preferred I let them die?" he asked very slowly.

"Yes!" she screamed, her voice cracking as she repeated the word once, twice, the tears finally tumbling from her long lashes as the pain overwhelmed the anger in her pale eyes. Charon was far too shocked to respond. "Why?" she finally demanded in a wretched sob, still staring at him as if she did not know she was crying. Shaking her head, her strength finally snapped and she dissolved into bitter weeping, her face buried in her hands. Her voice came to him in broken, half-intelligible fragments. "Why did he have to do that? Why did he have to die?"

"I do not know," was Charon's helpless, still uncertain answer. This side of her, this vulnerable, broken, shattered woman before him, she could not be the same cruel bitch he hated. Not the same girl who brushed her lips against his tattered cheek, ran her hand over his knee, purred double entendres at him until he was rabid and angry and filled with deep, raw hate for her that he could not squelch. She was the same woman, he knew that…but he could not stop himself. He reached out and gently touched her shoulder. "I am sorry."

He saw the movement, knew what was coming, but he did not try to stop her or get out of the way. The slap connected with his jaw with enough force to snap his head to the side and left his ears ringing from the impact. Bristling with anger now, all signs of frailty and pain locked away once more, his demon sneered up at him in abject rage. "Don't you dare touch me again. Ever!"

And that was the end of it. Silence hung between them for days, heavy and uncomfortable, but eventually necessity overcame the tension. Fighting at someone's side, protecting each other, struggling to survive day to day, it had a way of driving everything else aside. One day, Charon looked up from the corpse he was looting and noticed Angel watching him. Smirking at him. Putting too much swing into her step, she sauntered his direction, letting her fingers trail a line of fire down the back of his neck as she passed. "Good work," she murmured, winking those icy eyes at him.

Then it was like nothing had ever happened. No, not exactly. There was something darker about her, something about her father's death that ate away at her, made her more reckless, less concerned for herself. Charon did not mind that – as soon as the taunting started up again, his hate had returned with an ugly vengeance. All traces of sympathy and compassion he might have had for her dissolved to dust. He protected her, as his contract would allow him to do nothing less, but there were days when he prayed for a stray bullet to make its home in her head.

It did not help that she was different with him as well – crueler, bolder, pushing him harder and harder until he knew he would snap if she did not stop. It was far worse when she drank. He took to sleeping on her balcony those days, grateful that the damned woman was afraid of heights. But out on the wastes, in between fights, hell sometimes during fights, he could not find respite from her looks, her whispered taunts, her lingering touches. He had lived this long, through more than most people could fathom, but only in her presence did he begin to understand the concept of madness. She was driving him mad. He was nearly convinced that she would be the sole reason he turned feral.

Then, one day, without warning or explanation, she took them to the Citadel. She offered her help, and went along with the plans laid out by the Brotherhood. There was not time for her teasing then, just a whirlwind of fighting and crawling through vaults and being taken captive. Charon could barely keep events straight thinking back on them, but in the end, Sentinel Lyons died for the people of the Wastelands so that they might have a chance at a new future.

Perhaps he should have been touched by her sacrifice, but he was not. He was still a ghoul. Nothing would change. The Wastes would not change. The bastards living there would not change. His employer would not change. It was just another day in the Capital Wastelands.

-

A sharp click brought Charon abruptly from his thoughts. Angel had rolled onto her stomach on the bed and propped herself up on her elbows, her pale eyes fixed on him where he sat in the corner chair beside her desk. She said nothing, did not even blink, but she twisted the old lighter in her hands a few times and flicked it open once more with a click. It was too late now, but Charon cursed himself for not escaping to the balcony when he had the chance.

Then, with a start, he realized she held something else in her other hand, not the vodka bottle – a folded piece of paper. An old piece of paper, one he would recognize anywhere. His contract. The ghoul's stomach tightened, and if the look in her eyes was any indication, he had reason for concern.

"I don't think I've ever asked you," she began in her slow, methodical way, her lips curling into a smile as she spoke, "what happens if your contract is destroyed."

Charon's breath caught in his throat as she lit the lighter again and inched the contract closer to the flame. She had been drinking, sure, but this was beyond her usual tormenting. There was something…wrong about her that Charon could not place. He swallowed the dry feeling in the back of his throat and answered. "I do not know. No one has ever tried."

She bobbed her head thoughtfully, her eyes dropping to watch the wavering flame from her lighter. "Yes…they probably feared what you would do to them," she mused, that smile on her face again, a fatalistic twist of her mouth, and Charon's stomach tightened again.

She had never taunted him with his contract before, not once. Was this a new torment she had fixated on? Some new way to get under his skin, as if the old ways were not enough?

"Maybe I should fear you, too."

Charon did not answer. Her smile widened.

"Ahzrukhal should have, hmm?" She laughed and let the flame go out on the lighter, but her eyes traced the folded lines of his contract. "How can such a tiny thing hold so much power…?"

Her expression changed then, just a slight shifting and settling of her mouth and a glint behind her eyes. It was like something hard and taut inside of her snapped, gave way, and she nodded to herself in grave determination. The lighter clicked again and with a wave of her wrist, the edge of the contract caught fire.

Charon lunged to his feet, instinct or training or something screaming at him to stop her, to protect the contract, but her piercing eyes locked on him. "Sit down," she commanded in her coldest voice. When he did not immediately obey but stood wavering in place, her face hardened. "I still hold your contract, Charon, so sit your ass down! Now!"

He exhaled sharply as he sank back into the chair, trembling on the edge of the seat as his milky eyes stared fixated on the burning contract. He had no idea what this could mean, what would happen if the contract were truly destroyed, but part of him expected her to put the fire out and laugh in his face. That would be something he could imagine her doing. But she was not doing it.

Angel's gaze shifted from his face to the paper and back again, her expression tense with…excitement, anticipation. Charon had not seen her so animated since before her father died. It was out of place...wrong. Ashes drifted from the burning edge and lay unnoticed on her bedcover. Before the flames could burn down to her fingers, she stood and scooped a glass dish off the table, depositing the last fragment inside. With only the slightest hesitation, she moved toward Charon and set the dish, now filled only with smoldering ashes, onto the desk beside him.

"There, it's done," she whispered down to him, her tone for once serious, and her eyes calm and trained on his face. "You're free."

Charon felt dizzy, his whole body shaking slightly as he tried to sort out his mind. He felt…wrong…disoriented. Lost. Who am I? If I am no one's employee, then…what am I? He felt like he was going to be sick, but he shoved the feeling aside and focused his eyes on Angel. She stood over him, unmoving, barely daring to breathe or blink, waiting…he could see she was waiting. He did not know if she was afraid. He did not even know if she should be afraid. Still…she was waiting.

It was rude to keep her waiting.