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Lee groggily awoke to the wavery sight of a high ceiling made of brick. Everything looked too bright and black spots and whirls erupted across his field of vision. Ugh. He gave up and shut his eyes again; the darkness was better. His head thumped and pounded and felt like it was a few sizes too big. He was lying still, but felt as if his body was detached from his head and everything was being forcefully jerked around. I'm on a couch... where. Why does it sound like water... The memory of what happened suddenly slammed into him and he wrenched in a loud breath. His eyes shot open despite the discomfort. The mutant with the missile launcher! Charon! He struggled to sit up and was rewarded with a horrendous surge of dizziness and nausea.

"Hey! Easy," a familiar voice grated.

Lee's head swung toward the voice, eyes squinted almost shut. "Charon... you're okay," he said with relief. The ghoul had been sitting on a step stool a few feet away cleaning his gun. His armor looked singed on one side, and there were blood-soaked bandages wrapped around his arm. He got up and walked over to Lee, sitting on the ground next to the couch so they were on eye-level with each other.

Lee relaxed and lay back, stretching a hand out to Charon. Wanting to feel some reassurance that both of them were fine. His hand was engulfed by Charon's larger one, and they sat there together for a while.

After a time, Lee opened his eyes and rolled his head to face Charon. "My face really hurts, how bad is it?" he asked, wrinkling his forehead and squinching his eyes, testing the restrictive feel of scratches on his skin.

Charon looked solemn. "Well, you were ugly before, I dunno what you're gonna do now."

Lee burst out laughing, before wincing and trying to relax his face again. "Ahaa.. ..ow. Fuck you, Charon," still smiling a little. "What happened after I got knocked out? I yelled... something at you and then… nothing." His eyebrows drew together in an annoyed expression. "Can't even take a missile to the face."

Charon hmphed at him, "You just want to take it easy and make me carry you everywhere. I see what's going on."

Lee rolled his eyes weakly, hating the sore rubbery feel of his eye sockets. "Go on, tell me what happened. How'd you get away? And how long have I been out?"

Charon began speaking and Lee closed his eyes and listened to the gravelly sound of his voice.

The mutant had shouted and fired the missile launcher, missing Lee, but hitting a short wall of concrete right next to him. The thing had shattered, sending sharp bits of rock flying along with the shards of metal from the spent case. Lee had been engulfed in a cloud of stone dust, shrapnel, and a bloom of fire and smoke, and then crashed to the ground. Charon had charged up after him immediately, drawing his shotgun off his back and pointing it backwards at the overpass. Get him. Get out of here. He couldn't tell if Lee was alive or dead just from looking at him, it had been a horrific blast.

He glanced back to quickly assess what they were up against. A rifle-toting mutant and the one with the missile launcher. They had a good position up there. Good thing it's one shot per reload or this would be it. He aimed right at the launcher mutant, who was busy chambering a new missile into his weapon. This isn't going to do much so far away, but it might slow him down, he thought, and fired, still sprinting for the crumpled body lying on the ramp. He re-holstered his gun and felt a tiny bit of grim satisfaction when he heard the mutant scream; he was probably going to spend the next week picking buckshot out of his skin.

He stooped and grabbed Lee around the waist, hauling him up and flopping him over his shoulder. The rifle mutant had been firing the entire time, and was apparently a terrible shot. But he got lucky once; Charon felt a hot sting sink itself into the back of his arm. Charon barked out a grunt of pain, and jogged up the ramp, trying not to jolt Lee too much. He heard the fssshhh noise of another missile being fired, and ran even harder. It exploded into the road behind him, and he felt the expansion of air push him forward, and the heat of the reaction toasted the leg and back of his armor. Still running, he made it around the corner of a billboard and to relative safety. No line of sight, if they stay there. They might come look for us though, keep moving.

Charon continued along the bridge, and stopped about half-way, crouching behind a burnt-out car to examine the damage. He shifted Lee forward, and set him down, back propped against the car door. His usually sharp features were now slack and softened, and he had several gashes on his face. His head was a mess of blood, but that could be deceiving, if the head got cut it bled a lot. Charon held two fingers under the shelf of Lee's jaw, feeling for a pulse. Slow, but he's alive. Unaware he had been so worried; the magnitude of the relief that swept through him was a little surprising. He brushed Lee's hair out of his face and tilted his head back. The eyes were rolled back; small crescents of the whites could be seen. Yeah, he's out for a while. Charon picked him up again, grimacing at the feel of the bullet still lodged in his arm. Can't do anything about that now.

He headed down the broken end of the bridge and cleared out the raiders that remained there. They were skinny, mongrel-looking people; drugged-out and wild. Three shots and they were all taken care of. This side of the bridge had a sort of shelter built into it; the raiders had been using it as a place to live. Bunk beds, a radio, trunks of stuff. He laid Lee on a not-quite-filthy couch and unceremoniously dumped the raiders' bodies outside.

He looked through Lee's pack and grabbed some water, alcohol, and an old scrap of T-shirt and cleaned up the vaultie's wounds as best he could. Most of the damage was superficial; light scratches, abrasions, and weak burns. There was one deep scratch across his cheek that came dangerously close to his eye, and a section of his hair had been burnt short. He might have a concussion too, Charon thought. As he finished wiping a cut that was still oozing blood, Lee groaned and moved his hands weakly. He was trying to push himself up and talk, but it was pretty clear he was still mostly unconscious. His whole body was shaking, and as Charon moved to push him back down he felt that his skin was startlingly cold and clammy. Lee wasn't putting up much of a fight, but he was still trying to either get up or crawl away across the floor. Charon frowned. Well, one way to fix both of these.

He grabbed a pack of bandages for himself and the rest of the alcohol and water and sat carefully on Lee's abdomen so he couldn't scuttle away. This is ridiculous. Charon awkwardly poured the alcohol on the back of his left arm, rinsed it with water, and wrapped the strips of cloth tightly around it. Hurts like a bitch but good enough for now. He glanced out around the bridge area. Nothing there. Lee was still wriggling intermittently and making sad whimpering noises, like he was having a nightmare. Charon stood up, releasing him, this time letting him partially stand up. Is he a sleep walker or something? I've never seen this kind of reaction to getting a concussion. Before he could walk away, Charon set his shotgun on the ground and wrapped his arms around Lee and backed them both up into the couch. He lay down on his back, leaving Lee propped up on his chest. No blankets, but body heat should be good enough... and now he can't move. He grabbed a pillow and put it behind his neck, and waited. Lee eventually stopped trying to get away, and his shivering subsided. His body finally relaxed and he began to draw the deep, slow breaths of sleep. Charon stared at the ceiling, his hands resting on Lee's shoulders, arms crossed over his chest. They rested there for the remainder of the day and the night.

"And now you're awake."

During the story, Lee had managed to sit up and his head was feeling a little better. His vision was mostly back to normal, and he'd drunk a bottle of water while Charon was talking. "So you blasted some muties in the face, picked me up as dead weight, ran across a bridge with a bullet in your arm, killed three raiders with a person slung over your shoulder, cleaned up my face, and held me back when I got all weird?"

Charon nodded.

"Maaaan." Lee leaned back and puffed air through his cheeks. "You're a tank, that's amazing." Charon looked embarrassed again; he rested his chin in his hand and looked at the wall. Lee reached out and touched his shoulder. "Thank you. You put yourself at risk to save me, thanks," he smiled wearily. Charon shrugged and nodded. His contract required it of him, but he felt that he would have done it anyway. Lee was alright.

"...And you have a bullet in your arm, so let's take care of that." He straightened up and shook his hair back. "I have no idea what I'm doing."

Charon considered for a moment, "I cleaned the wound; you just need something to pull the slug out. A pair of tweezers or forceps would be ideal, but your knife would work. It shouldn't be deep, it went through my armor first." He started undoing his buckles, and removed the top of the armor. He peeled his shirt off and waited as Lee rooted around in his pack.

"Swear I pick up the most random pieces of junk. Your lucky day, Charon." He held up a slim metal instrument and sat back down on the couch. "Alright..." he trailed away as he saw the expanse of Charon's bare skin again. Hmph. "...Let's do this while it's still light out." Charon sat in front of him on the ground and rolled his shoulder forward, bringing his elbow back and resting the huge arm on Lee's knee to bring the entry point up at a good angle.

"Sorry if this hurts."

"Oh, it's gonna hurt." Charon took a big gulp of the vodka he'd been using as an antiseptic, and handed it back to Lee. "Rinse off the tweezers with that, and then go ahead. Bandage the arm up when it's out and we're done."