Three months later.
Lo digs the tip of her knife underneath the man's nail, twists the blade until it tears away from his flesh. Charon grips his wrists harder in anticipation but the captive doesn't struggle, just sobs out something incoherent. It's clear they've already reached his pain threshold, anything else will just be extra work for no reward. It seems that, for now, the small amount of information they've already coaxed out of him is all they're going to get.
The caravan found him early yesterday morning, hiding in a recently abandoned settlement with a bag full of scavenged supplies and an empty pistol. After the attack two months ago, other groups under their protection have tried to flee. Of the three they've visited so far; this town was the first to evacuate in time.
Lo sighs, sets the knife down by the man's bleeding foot and looks to Charon.
"Are we wasting our time?" She taps a finger against the man's bloodied toes, bouncing the tip down each digit thoughtfully. Next to his heel, five broken nails lay in a sticky heap.
Charon drops his hold on the prisoner's wrists and steps away. Physical contact has been bothering him more lately and the man's skin is slick with sweat. He whips his palms against his thighs, trying to erase the phantom sensation still lingering on his flesh.
"Unless we wait for him to calm down, I think we are." It took a month for Lo to start to trust him again but now she listens closely, chuckling humorlessly at his response.
"You know how I feel about waiting." She plucks up the knife as she ponders the man now fading in and out of consciousness on the dingy kitchen table. The house they are in is in relatively good shape, still sporting some of its original furniture, though the more modern additions have been torn apart in its previous occupants' haste to evacuate.
Charon nods his head towards the door, hoping to leave the darkened room sooner than later. He is starting to itch from the stranger's proximity and Lo can tell, grinning at his discomfort, clearly pleased at how easily she can now read him.
"We don't need him. There aren't many places a group big enough to fill this town could go." He glances towards the exit, eyeing the darkening sky, just now realizing how long they've been inside. The urge to leave the enclosed space abruptly doubles.
When he takes a tentative step towards the exit, he can hear Lo's heavy tread behind him. Tonight, they will most likely make camp and tomorrow they will head towards the mountains just south of here. There are caves throughout the range and, while the larger ones could just as easily be home to a yao guai or deathclaw, they are also the best chance the settlers have to hide. He can almost feel Lo's excitement at the prospect. She would rather track and hunt then follow a lead any day.
By now Charon knows Lo's inclinations so he isn't surprised when he hears her steps pause or the quiet, wet shlick of her knife sinking into the prisoner's throat. The man barely makes a sound, probably relieved at the release, just gurgles out one last gasp of either surprise or pain. Her footsteps start up again once his final rasping breath fades. Charon doesn't stop to look back.
The air is cool tonight and Charon sucks it in the moment he's outside, filling his lungs with anything but the heavy mix of blood and sweat and dust that settled in his chest hours ago. Pale pinks and purples stain the skyline but the pain he used to feel at the sight is long gone. He doesn't feel anything anymore.
The moment of relief is brief. Burning hot arms wrap around his shoulders, stealing away the sweet evening chill in an instant. He feels a familiar heat on his neck, lips pulled back to bare sharp teeth. They graze his skin, sharp but she doesn't bite down even though he knows she wants to.
"Can you feel this?" Her voice is quiet, husky, a tone she has reserved just for him. He nods, knowing what she's asking, but groans anyway when the needle pierces his skin. As the med-x kicks in, the itch fades. Soon he can barely even feel Lo's mouth on his neck, his flesh no longer jolting, twitching mindlessly beneath her touch.
When she begins to massage the injection point, Charon can't even bring himself to care.
…
The fire is large and crackling when the two of them return to the center of camp. Being around the others has been difficult lately but not with a fresh dose of med-x in his system. Even when Jess slaps his back as she hands him a tepid beer, when Lo drapes her arm around his shoulder as she talks, he doesn't care. His body is asleep, his skin is numb.
Lo is eyes and teeth in the firelight but tonight he can't even feel her gaze.
"Looks like we are hunting down some runaways tomorrow." She announces the conclusion from the day's torture, gleeful at the prospect, and the others are picking up on it, eyes widening and smiles going feral. It's just the five of them now, Lusk died three months ago, killed the same night David lost his eye. He sits alone now, still loyal to Lo but distant from the rest. The others pay him no mind.
They laugh and drink and eat as the sky burns low, skin pink splitting into blood red, festering into darkness. Charon watches as the stars come out, pictures them as pus seeping through dead skin.
He started rotting the sunset intentionally months ago, trying to see the image as something horrible, hideous. At first it was a form of self-protection, preferring revulsion over the lonely wistfulness the sight initially inspired, but now it's nothing but a nervous habit.
The moon comes up and he sees slivered bone, a broken molar imbedded in bruised skin. Smoke rises into pale grey swirls, burns the world dark, fills the night with shining wet blisters. Tiny white maggots writhe above him, eating away at a corpse, and he wonders when the horror disappeared.
…
Charon has grown dependent on med-x to sleep. After that first night, his muscles aching from the effort of breaking four people, the skin on his fists split from beating at long dead flesh, Lo had crept into his tent with a syringe, the first of many. It had taken three injections to dull the world to gray but Lo is a clever chemist and now it's just one needle, strong enough to kill a human but just enough to affect a ghoul.
He waits in her tent, trying to ignore the horrible sensation of feeling returning to his body, the sharp prickling burn as his nerve endings begin to awaken. She takes her time tonight. It's been weeks since he's bothered to hide his dependency and Lo never gives up her chance to relish her complete control over him. By the time the tent flap is pushed open, he's shaking.
The fire is still burning low outside, casting her face completely in shadow but he can tell she's pleased by the way she pauses to take in the sight of him, the way he comes down from each hit. Charon doesn't say a word, knows she'll give him his dosage when she's ready, but his skin is on fire, burning like a disobeyed order, one feeling he hasn't needed the drug to avoid as of late, and he can't hide the tremors anymore.
When she finally crosses the space, presses in close just because she knows he can barely handle her proximity, it's a struggle to hold still enough for a clean injection. Warmth immediately blossoms across his arm, rushes down into his twitching fingers and up until it reaches his core. It's the last real sensation he'll feel for the night and he's glad of it when Lo doesn't step away once the syringe is empty.
He knows the drill. The night before they entered the town was the last night he slept alone. Charon's first assessment of Lo might still be true, she shies away from anything too physical, has never attempted to undress him completely or done anything in pursuit of sexual completion, but she is possessive in a new way, obsessed with the physical contact she knows he loathes.
As Lo leans in, presses into his neck and breathes in the scent of fear and blood still staining his skin from a dead man, he's certain it's the power she's enjoying. The others would consent to her out of loyalty but that's not pure enough. This however, the way he stands stock still, staring at nothing as her hand comes to rest with an iron grip on his hip, as she peels away his outer clothing just to feel his muscles tense from the stress of human contact, this is complete control. He will not disobey, too lost in a haze of her own construction and too bound by the words long faded from the contract always on her person.
Charon belongs to her completely and this is all the proof she needs.
When Lo pulls him down, presses sharp lips to pulse points in her poor simulation of affection, Charon focuses on the med-x flooding his system. He thinks of the stars writhing just outside their tent, can almost hear the quiet patter on the canvas as they drop, pale squirming worms showering down on him like rain. It makes his new-found claustrophobia fade.
In the darkened tent, body almost numb, surrounded by all the side effects of death, he is already a corpse. Lo's hands explore skin that looks long dead, her teeth scrape nerves that barely respond. Charon closes his eyes and knows where his body really is. His grave.
He has been dead for three months and, as the sweet nothingness of the chem in his veins pulls him under, he is certain that this death is all he really needs.
…
Morning comes like a beating. These last few months, if Charon isn't numb, he's sore. By now, when he's gone hours without a dose, any sensation at all translates as pain. He pries open eyes that burn from the pale sunlight filling the tent, the scene turned a sickly yellow green from the faded canvas.
To his left, Lo is asleep, her eyelids twitching rapidly, lost in a dream.
Charon struggles to his feet, trying to ignore the slickness of her skin when her arm slides off his chest to the ground. She shifts, presses further into the traveling cot beneath her, but stays asleep.
Mornings without Lo are a conflicting luxury. When she doesn't wake before him, he can avoid more contact, can slip from the tent to breath in the thin bracing air but he is also forced to wait for his first dosage. She is the only one allowed to administer his shot and if she sleeps in, he is eventually reduced to retreating from the world, too wracked with waves of nausea and so much pure sensation to function.
At this point, he's more comfortable with his world staying gray.
When he exits the tent, he finds the morning weak and wet, new born and still teetering on the edge of sleep. He is the first to wake in the camp, another small gift. There is no one to avoid, instead he can circle the area, find where the dew has settled and focus on the first light hitting the droplets, something sharp and precise enough to distract from the daily withdrawal.
To his left something rustles and he turns, disappointed to have already lost the precious silence. Sound ripples through his overly stimulated nerves, pricks little bursts of light behind his eyes but he approaches the noise despite himself. Early mornings require distractions, it's as much a habit as trying to ruin the setting sun, so he doesn't think, doesn't even really care what the sound is until he finds its source.
An intruder.
They've brushed against one of the tents, peering carefully through the flaps with surprising stealth. He watches as they check two more tents before approaching. Lo might be angry at his leisurely pace but mornings are for distractions and this thief is more than enough to take his mind off the tingling heat shooting up his waking limbs. Charon creeps towards them, wondering how long he can let this go on before he's forced to make the kill. His shotgun is still with Lo so it will have to be hands on, skin to skin.
It's something he'd like to put off as long as possible.
His feet are still waking, half numb and he lands a little too roughly on the course earth with his next step. The figure jumps, twisting towards him with her gun drawn and he almost dives to the right, ready to dash behind one of the tents so he can circle around from behind. His hands are itching, preparing to touch flesh, to wrap around a throat…but he doesn't dive, doesn't even move. Can't.
They both freeze.
The morning is cold enough to put a touch of color into her pale cheeks. Her dark hair is longer, tangled and she has a new scar, bright pink down her forehead but her eyes are still the same familiar blue.
Charon's mind stutters, certain he's dreaming but he hasn't had one of these dreams in months and she looks alive, when was the last time she looked alive?
Feeling rushes back into his hands, his chest tightens. He can feel his heartbeat in his throat and damn it, the pale pink filling the morning sky is nothing if not alive, flushed cheeks and a pulse. He staggers back.
In front of him, Eva grins.