Fuck, it was already a long two days.
The small dive of a town they had settled in for the evening was quiet enough, until the local drunken trash began to rowdily question as to why a young woman was parading around with a couple of hulking ghouls. That had ignited Evelyn's temper, and Cross was once again displayed with her ungodly brute strength after she had demolished a table by simply flipping it across the room.
Two men had attempted to grab at her, and that only angered Charon, who had then proceeded to beat the tar out of the two idiots until Evelyn ordered him to stop. Cross didn't want to have any part of it, but then the barkeep went ahead and brandished a piece in his face, so he relented and joined in on the fun.
The three of them were banned from the town altogether, and they had wandered the wastes for a suitable campsite for just a few hours of sleep. Cross, that first night, learned that his fellow ghoul didn't sleep at all.
Now he had to sleep with one eye open, in case the ferryman would try and sink a knife through his skull whilst he dreamed unsolicited fantasies.
The night proved rather boring for Cross's REM cycle until he was jolted awake to the sound of a woman screaming. The darkened sky gave little indication as to the time, and he was faintly disoriented when he realized he was alone. Sounds of gunfire and shouting echoed down along the riverbank they had camped by, and the ghoul quickly checked his weaponry before setting off towards the commotion.
A female shriek assaulted his hearing. "WELL, THEY WEREN'T HERE EARLIER-"
A grunt followed a not-so-graceful jump over a concrete barrier wall, both of Cross's knee joints popping resolutely as a warning. Feeling his heavy boots sinking into the gray sandbank, he turned a quick left and saw the white sparks of muzzle flash.
"Got one." That was Charon. "Get behind me."
Two shapes came into focus now. A smaller, pale form flitting like a specter behind her overly large shadow. The duo was under siege from a couple of mirelurks; the faint outline of their massive claws unmistakable. Their smell…also unmistakable.
"On your right-" Cross announced himself as he made his approach, not wanting to be mistaken for a foe, and shot outright. He raised his pistol and began to fire, the mirelurk in the rear now turning its full attention on himself. Gotta slug these bastards in the face. "It's down."
A few more ear-splitting shots rang off through the dark with credit to the ferryman; the mirelurks artistically splattered against the wet sand. "There, that's all of them."
Evelyn gave a sneeze. The rich smell of gunpowder layering with the putrid stench of the mutated crustaceans was overpowering, and she walked up the bank for the relief of fresh air. She gave a small shiver; her private bathing leisure had been rudely interrupted, and the only article protecting her from the autumn breeze was an oversized shirt she had managed to struggle into.
A grip of iron encircled her forearm, and she was spun around forcibly. "Ow-hey!"
"That was incredibly stupid of you," Charon growled down at her. Even though she could not define his face in the dark, the anger in his voice was enough to paint her a picture. "You are lucky there were only a few; if there had been anymore, I may not have made it to you in time."
Evelyn grabbed at Charon's hand with her own, but he refused to release his hold on her. Something incredibly warm and viscous flowed across her fingers, and she blinked stupidly at him. "You're bleeding."
A grunt affirmed at her, and he slowly relinquished his grasp. "It is fine. Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine," she retorted at him. "Are you okay?"
A few seconds of his nasal breathing was all she heard, and then, "I am still standing."
"Well, my God Charon! Let's hurry back! I'll…I'll meet you there." She brushed past him and went to kneel beside her things, experiencing a violent startle at the second shadow figure standing awkwardly to the side. "Oh, Cross! You fucking scared me."
The bounty hunter peered at her in the dark. She was so white she practically glowed. What he guessed was arms made a flurry of complicated movements; his vision was always shit in the dark.
"You can go back too." Her voice floated up to him from a white face, seemingly suspended in midair. It was slightly creepy. "I need to get dressed, so shoo."
"All the work and no party," he nonchalantly replied, shrugging his shoulders and beginning to trudge back up the small hill to camp.
"I am not leaving you here alone," Charon firmly spoke down to her, as he watched her unfurl her road leathers. Unlike Cross, Charon was almost cat-like. He could see perfectly well under the cover of darkness. "I will wait for you."
A sigh drifted to his ears. "We've been through this before. I like to have privacy when it comes to stuff like this and-"
"And it clearly is too dangerous." He finished, turning his back to her as he noticed her pause at undressing her only garment. "Privacy is a luxury in the wasteland, you should know that."
"No, privacy is apparently something people in the wasteland who have ghoul no-sleeping bodyguards don't ever seem to get," she chewed out at him. A small yelp escaped her lips as she was caught off balance and fell over, the wet skin of her thighs now covered in grit. A hiss was made as she wiped it away, the rough sandpaper texture scratching at her skin. "Those damn mirelurks; I think I smell worse than before now."
"I cannot tell the difference." Came the monosyllabic reply.
Evelyn paused in her actions and stared at the broad backside of her companion, the slight shaking off his shoulders giving the clear indication he was silently laughing at her. "I did not know Charon- 'The Wasteland Destroyer' -made jokes."
"I do not."
Evelyn gave a peeved huff and finished tightening her leather laces, feeling for a small stone in the sand to throw at her companion's patchy head. The military cap she had given him a few weeks ago had been left behind in his race to her aid, giving her a large enough target to chuck her projectile at.
"You're a jerk," she informed him, lobbing the rock at him. She missed completely, and it sailed over his left shoulder.
"Your aim is still terrible," he replied just as matter-of-factly, turning around to catch her beginning to walk away. He dutifully followed suit.
When the pair had been welcomed back into the firelight of their campfire, the bounty hunter was languidly lounging in his place, a smoke at his lips and an amber bottle at his side.
"Gone so long I figured you lost your way," Cross called to them, reaching down to uncork his liquor. "So, what the hell was that all about then? Skinny-dippin' with mirelurks a common thing of yours, kid?"
Evelyn went to her pack and unzipped a large flap. "I actually like to have good hygiene, if you can imagine." A couple of stimpaks and some clothed bandages were summoned out of the abyss of her bag.
"That supposed to mean somethin'?" He took a swig of bourbon, not bothering to remove the cigarette that was hanging in the corner of his mouth.
Evelyn tossed her wet hair to the side of one shoulder, and it slapped loudly against her leathered armor. She gave him a sidelong glance. "I'll let you be the judge of that."
Cross muttered something unintelligible as he watched her kneel before the seated ghoul, her medical supplies set to the side.
"Okay, take it off," she ordered, grabbing at a plastic bottle of pure alcohol and uncapping it.
Charon obeyed, removing his shredded combat armor chest piece and betraying no emotion as blood suddenly gushed from the right side of his chest. The black shirt he was wearing as a base layer was practically ruined; the swipe from a mirelurk claw had found a good hold and ripped him from his clavicle down to his pectoral muscle. It was ugly, and Cross knew it hurt like hell.
The ferryman was a tough motherfucker.
Evelyn's eyes went slightly wide as she feverishly injected him with a stimpak, wiping away at the blood on his chest as the wound sluggishly stitched itself closed. When the healing began to slow, she inoculated him again, her hands gently working over his ruined body as she cleaned him up efficiently. She was leaning forward, and the merc had to draw his focus to her hands lest they strayed away on her lower protruding backside.
He could've gotten away with it, though, Charon's gaze never left Evelyn's face as she methodically patched him up.
"Jesus Charon, this is as bad as that time in the police station, when you took that full spread from that raider." Evelyn grabbed the torn edge of Charon's undershirt with both hands and ripped it neatly in half, exposing Charon's bare chest. "I still can't believe you survived that."
The ferryman's eyes appeared warm in the dance of the firelight as they stared down at her. "If I recall, that venture was also your fault. I would not have been injured so badly had we avoided that situation altogether…and had you cleared that room properly."
Evelyn narrowed her eyes up at him and she pursed her lips, crossing her arms as he removed the remnants of his shirt completely. His face was stoic, but his eyes were smiling at her with amusement.
Cross grumbled something and stood upright, ambling away from the two of them and into the bushes to relieve himself.
"Yeah, well, take it from me." She slapped a damp cloth onto his muscled flesh and began to wipe away the residue of dried blood. "You just have to find someone willing to take the bullets for you, instead."
Massive, maroon fingers intertwined firmly around hers, halting her deft movements across his body. The fingernails were long gone from his hands, and there was a slight indent around the middle joint of his fingers from the years of constant wear from his fingerless gloves. "That is not funny."
"I'm not laughing." She smiled sardonically at him, pulling her hand away and observing her handiwork. "How do you feel? Are you still in pain? I have med-x, if you want some."
Charon leaned back from her a little, bracing his left palm against the socket of his right shoulder and rotating his right arm a few times. "I'm fine."
"I'm fine." Evelyn perfectly mocked, tossing the blood-soaked bandages into the campfire. A loud sizzle was produced from the hot flames licking at the wet cloth. "But seriously, are you okay?"
Charon twisted the bloodied, ragged leftover of his shirt into a ball and fed it to the fire. He turned to meet her stern stare with an impassive one; flexing his crimson hands into fists, the knuckles cracked loudly. "I am better. Thank you."
Evelyn dropped her eyes from the intensity of his own; the hot flush of blood creeping up her neck. She was internally grateful the pirouetting shadows made it unnoticeable. "You're going to need some new clothes, again. Let's hope there's a trader along the way."
"Next town won't be for another three days, but there is an old plaza center that might have some scraps left to salvage." The brunette nearly jumped out of her skin when the other ghoul materialized from thin air. "There's also a Vault-Tec warehouse a couple miles on the outskirts; could see about some spare parts for your little busted Pip-Boy." That ivory, bony finger scratched at his square jaw.
Evelyn ran her fingers through her wild drying hair, lifting it high atop of her scalp and setting it into a long ponytail. "That would be nice." She was digging through her pack again. "I almost feel naked without it."
Cross felt a crude joke upon the tip of his tongue, but the hard steel of Charon's eyes was tracked on him again, and after witnessing the sheer resilience of the ghoul, he thought it best to swallow it down.
