Chapter Text
Stockholm sees Charon’s hunched form forty yards out from the town. The shimmer of Vaultie's cloak is indiscernible from that distance to the stale air of the wastes. Lucky Harith spies the two when they approach the gates, shading his eyes as the forms waver into view. He grins at the sight of Vaultie, leaning back against the Brahmin grazing fruitlessly at the ground.
“Look at that, Vault kid’s back." His helmeted head sticks up, like a prairie dog, swiveling around to focus on Harith as if he's not sure if the words were directed towards him or not. "You’ve been gone so long; have any exotic varieties of death you’re looking to sell? Or I’ve got an old rifle that has some choice parts, if you’re interested.”
Vaultie shakes his head, mutters a no thanks that’s too low to be heard by anyone other than Charon. Deputy Weld is also there to greet him at the front gates. And, surprisingly, Sheriff Simms. Charon thinks the man looks ridiculous in his duster; Vaultie finds him brave and he looks at him with the kind of look children look at astronauts and superheroes, almost trips over his feet up the slight incline to Megaton's open gates.
He waits for Vaultie to approach. “Well, I thought Stockholm was just having a heat stroke up there. It is you. We thought you died out there.”
“Not yet,” Vaultie says, reaching up to pull his helmet off. Simm’s eyes fall on the side of his head where Vaultie had rearranged his long, sloppy curls, to hide where the bullets had landed and the constant bandages and stimpack applications had necessitated a shaved patch. “A-almost. We’re okay, though.”
“Glad to see you’re alright.” He says, warmly, giving Vaultie a firm pat on the arm. Charon twitches, automatic. Simms glances up, but doesn’t flinch or give any sign that he noticed. He knows Charon is a little different, but he's always been understanding of ghouls; Harkness and the rest of the council over in Rivet City couldn’t care less about their plight, if it meant a bunch of residents complaining. But they've always welcomed the few who came openly. So he smiles, and nods, directing his gaze towards him, “And you too. That dog of yours has been missing you something fierce, much as Harden loves taking care of him.”
Charon frowns. “He’s not my dog.”
“Sure.” Simms’ eyebrows rise, and he turns to Vaultie. “Good to see you back, kid.” He tilts that Calamity Jane hat towards them both, and heads inside. The wind blows stale through Vaultie's curls, heavy with dust and grease and grime. He glances over at Charon. Deputy Weld's mechanics click and whir as his body turns to follow the two walking into the gate; the doors grind open slowly.
The dust rises thick in the entryway. It rises up to Vaultie's waist, and in the cover he reaches out with curled fingers, brushing the tips against Charon's rough palm. He flexes his hand, a ghost of a hold.
When the dust settles, they're standing side-by-side.
That’s the extent of welcome home fanfare they get. Sure, all of the usual townspeople say hi and chat Vaultie up longer than usual, but it's nothing special other than the fleeting stares they give towards his unnatural hair. But after each person leaves he looks at Charon with stars in his eyes, and by the time they retire he's so full of excitement he even tires Dogmeat out, bounding around the house. Wadsworth tries to fuss at his hair but he won't sit still long enough, and the scissors whizz awfully close above his head.
"Charon," he's turning the jukebox on, then crosses over to the Nuka Cola machine in two bounds, the ceiling shaking where his footfalls land. Charon doesn't look up from the bags he has on the floor, where he's pulling out their primary weapons to place on the bench. They've been gone for so long; they have so much to sell, so much to mend. "Charon, what do you want to drink?"
"Water," he grunts, can hear Vaultie's take the steps two at a time down. And then startles as something cold presses to his back. He turns around, brows furrowing at the small, sheepish smile on Vaultie's face as he presses a dark bottle into his hands. Charon looks at it questioningly.
"It's-- we should celebrate." Vaultie's exhales, bright, watery eyes and nervous fingers ghosting along the worn labels already peeling from condensation.
Charon frowns. "I don't think you should drink. You're still healing."
Vaultie's hesitates. "Yeah-- but. Yeah. I just." Color rises in his face as Charon experimentally twirls the beer around, then takes a small swig. "I thought. We could. We could, celebrate. A little, for getting back."
Charon nods, slowly. A scant smile crosses his face. "You have to tell me right away if you're in pain."
His eyes shine as he holds out his hand. "O-of course!"
Charon takes both beer from them, sets them next to Vaultie's sniper rifle and his own shotgun on the work bench. He takes Vaultie's hand, next, and the boy moves shyly in towards him as Charon steps out. Their bodies bump together, Vaultie nearly bouncing off of his solid form.
It feels like the time before cannot even be in the same timeline, the same world; the vault, and Tenpenny, and Mama Dulce's, and even further back the corner of the 9th Circle worn away under Charon's feet.
Charon pauses. “May I?”
A nervous, high laugh escapes him. “May… you?”
He guides Vaultie, slow and shuffling, through a wobbling circle around the coffee table. His hands feel heavy on his waist. “Kiss you.” Charon says, a little too deadpan. Vaultie laughs again, even higher.
“Th-that’s… you don’t have to ask.”
He moves a hand up, curls rough fingers into the hair at the nape. Vaultie can feel them like weights against his neck; his stomach tightens as Charon leans down, hesitates, and presses a chaste kiss to his lips.
Their lips move, but it's careful, slow. It's not crass tongues and biting teeth but slow, slow movement, chapped lips rustling against the rough skin of Charon's face, soft wet sounds of their mouths opening, just the tiniest hint of tongue. Vaultie presses forward, curls his body up and into Charon's, his nose practically pressing into his nasal cavity; he chuckles, and Vaultie can feel the rumble buzz up the bridge of his nose.
He laughs back, hides his face shyly against Charon's shoulder. The taller ghoul takes him around, holds him tight.
This is good. It's too good. Vaultie doesn't know what he's done to deserve this.
Charon doesn't always know what to make of the closeness. Fondness seeps out of every one of Vaultie's pores. He is hopelessly in love, though he only feels safe enough to say it in the dark, when his words will get swallowed up by the night and absorbed by the crook of Charon's neck.
He doesn't know if he can feel love. Charon doesn't know. He's not sure what it is, exactly. Vaultie says it's not something to command, that it truly can't come from ant pheromones or skunked cans of beer, but he remembers, dully, some of the other yeniceris and their adoration towards the Chairman and their direct charge. Vaultie has adored him for some time; it's simply gotten louder.
Megaton does not keep them long. This time, they take Dogmeat. They take extra ammo. They take too much, until their packs are laden with so much nonsense Charon barely bites his tongue. Vaultie talks about his father in warm, familial terms, bright-eyed and hopeful. It's like he's full to bursting with it all. Teenage hopes and dreams. He's in love, and he is loved back, and Charon doesn't have to ask to know the scene and his stage directions in all this. He wants to help his Father and they're going to move to Rivet City, eventually. They're going to be a perfect little family, the kind Vault-Tec had always promised that he would have.
Oddly, they don't slink across the open wastes. It's abnormal, when they're so vulnerable out in the open, so far from the shade of the skeletal remains of skyscrapers. They walk, straight backed. Vaultie hums. Charon's chest aches at the sight of him; he has, possibly, never been happier then at this moment in time. He has his own opinions about James slowly forming. It's strange to care about something enough to have a solid opinion, something that wasn't an immediate in his peripheral.
"We're you going to become a scientist in the vault?"
Vaultie pauses, tilts his head. "Dad... He was a doctor. Just a doctor." His face crinkles. "I got, uhm-- jukebox. Jukebox technician on my G.O.A.T." He smiles, a little bashful. "That's-- you start there, go up. Become Vault Technician. Dad wanted me to be a physician, but--"
Vaultie laughs, high with nerves as he scratches idly as the pink skin of his scalp, the puckered mark of healing wounds. "Used to be afraid of blood." From the look on his face, he seems to be heavily considering if he should be feeling shame or want to laugh; but Charon understands, things were soft underground. He doesn't begrudge him of it. "But, I'm, uh-- I'm good with robots and s-stuff." He looks over at Charon, words tumbling out fast. "I should be able to help. With the machines, the purifier. N-not-- probably not the hard science."
Dogmeat is a good dog. The master before him had trained him well, better than a ghoul who had never owned an animal and a boy who had never seen anything living past a radroach for the majority of his life. He can sense the anxiety in his voice and he eases up beside him, heeled perfectly to his side. He noses up against Vaultie's limp hand until he scratches behind his ear. They're silent, save the sound of their overburdened packs; which, considering the bulk of what they're carrying, isn't quiet in the least.
"If you could have grown up, and, been anything... Would you?" Charon catches the flush on his cheeks, head ducked low to concentrate on his feet. "Or, I mean-- what would you? You be?"
Charon laughs, quiet, shifts the straps of his pack on his shoulders. "I have never known anything else." And he despises thinking in the abstract. There's no pleasure in pointless what-ifs. What if his past wasn't his past? The thought of having grown up like Vaultie, much less even a wastelander, or a pre-war ghoul, gives him a headache with how far reaching it would be. But then, he wouldn't be himself, for good or for ill. He indulges him, nonetheless-- "A caravan bodyguard."
That's easy to imagine. Not too different-- "That's what you do now!"
Charon looks mildly amused. "But I'd have a Brahmin."
Vaultie lets out a laugh, his nose pink. Shakes his head, his limp curls bouncing around his face. Charon talks, in a low voice and slow words, about the Brahmin of before, the cows that were in his textbooks, with their long hair and large hooves and only one head. Same sweet, gentle eyes. Sometimes, when passing through a village, they would take one. Sweet, gentle eyes, and flicking ears and swatting tail. He could still butcher a Brahmin, but it was harder with two throats. "You sound like you really like them."
Charon hooks his thumb into the straps of his knapsack. "... I suppose."
They walk. Charon cannot remember any fondness. Thinking back, he likes them. But at the time, they were another task. Slaughtering and draining their blood, aiding the army chefs in anything they needed for dinner. He shrugs, too late, noncommittally