A cure?

He was lying; he had to be lying. They wouldn't keep something like that from her. It was absurd, entirely incomprehensible. She laughed, a bitter, hollow sound vibrating from her throat and into her hands. She was completely ignoring the ghoul at her side as she leaned back in her seat and slapped a palm at her forehead. The false laughter was threatening to split her sides; drive her to the brink of insanity.

"Are you done?" Sinjin asked irritably.

She all at once stopped, turned her head, and gave him a plain stare. "Is that the best you can do? A cure for ghouls?" she scoffed, smacking her boots on the floor as she stood.

When she began to walk away as a simple dismissal, he darted forward to intercept her path.

"Don't you try walking away from me, Evelyn. We're not finished." The bulky ghoul grabbed at her wrist and took a step, forcing her to retreat the closer he encroached. "You don't seem to understand the situation, so let me make it clear for you."

The chair butted against the backside of her knees, and he shunted her down to retake her seat. Her face was level with his crotch, and he had to force all of his past fantasies from clouding his mind as the proximity of her slightly parted mouth hammered a spike of lust through his groin. Instead, he slammed a palm down on the table, rattling the frame of it, and leaned in close.

"What do you think would happen if that sort of information were made public? Do you think you'd be able to walk around freely, like you are right now? You'd be hunted, by smoothskins and ghouls alike."

With a simple flick of his hand, he drew his knife and dashed a red ribbon across her palm that he had been holding. She hissed, but didn't draw away. A warning steeled itself in her eyes. It made him want to place her bloodied hand over his cock and stroke it.

"Look at what they did to you." He then stood back, sheathed his blade, and calmly went back to his chair. He began to dig around in his pack as she stupidly stared at her hand for a moment.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she growled as she curled it into a fist.

Sinjn only deposited a few canisters of jet on the table, along with a bottle of alcohol, and ignored her. He uncorked it, took a drink, and held it out for her to take.

"I don't want your stupid fucking drink!" she spat as she slammed her hand down.

"You want to ask another question?" he said calmly, and he watched her draw her bloody palm across the table to cradle it in her lap. "What about your brother?"

Evelyn glanced down at the clean line cut into her flesh. She blew out a terse breath to the side, and then looked over as he beckoned her with two fingers.

"I want you to sit right here." He scooted his chair flat against the wall and splayed his legs wide, motioning for her to set herself before him. When she shook her head, he snorted. "I've given you more than he's ever going to. Come here."

She blanked her mind and felt the heat of his hand cup underneath her jaw, holding her in place as he brought the canister to her mouth. A sizeable lightning strike vibrated the bones in her body with warm radiation. Everything felt like a weightless cloud as she sucked deeply, and her eyes closed as he greedily wrapped his tongue around hers and tasted the hit for himself. His hands nestled underneath her damp clothes, exposing her to the air as he enjoyed the sensation of her skin like a first-time lover. She couldn't help but shiver as he teased her perky nipples and laced a tongue around her breast, his other hand holding her waist as he grinded his crotch against hers. When he felt her fingers begin to dig into his shoulders, he subdued her with a second dose.

He overturned her palm for her take focus on. The disfigurement was gone. "See?" He licked her jawline up to her earlobe. "Don't let them keep you locked up. You're meant to be out here, you're meant to be what you really are." When she turned her head to stare at him with her depthless eyes, he felt himself lose his own careful control. "Goddamnit, kiss me."

And she did.

She was laid out flat against the table, the rocking of his hips against her ass keeping beat with the pounding clap of thunder outside. He had to clamp a hand over her mouth as she began to cry out; he would have to shoot whoever came up to investigate, and he wanted to enjoy this for as long as he could.

"Fuck, fuck," he panted, heavy and thick and realizing it was going to be over as quickly as it had started. He felt that coiled, burning tip edging him faster and harder until he leaned over her as he came in deep. With a groan, he removed his hand from her face and lightly traced the backside of his knuckles down her trembling spine before taking a handful of her ass to squeeze. He took her left hand, swiped the ring from her finger, and rudely dropped it to the table. "He doesn't fucking own you."

He tucked himself away, reached down for his pack, and left her there with his cum dripping down her thighs and her pants still bundled around her ankles.

"Wait." The sound in her voice made him pause in reaching for a cigarette. She was crying. "You-you said you'd tell me, everything."

The ghoul smirked around the smoke he set to his mouth. He had a full house in his hands, and he supposed it best to play it now.

"You're right. I did."

He told her what he had learned from Carol: Roman, Braxton, the synth of her mother, the three strains, the lab, the promised future for his kind, and the hope of a better tomorrow. This information was useless to him now- the only thing he needed it for was leverage. He gave a shit less about a cure, because he honestly didn't really believe it. But she did, and she held on to every word that he gave her with the utmost sincerity. By the end of it, she curled her knees to her chest and just stared at her blood-stained palm.

"If you want to find Darcy, I'll be waiting at the edge of town." He then went back downstairs. The bar was practically empty besides a Mister Handy whirring around wiping down tables while the barkeep restocked supplies.

He could still taste that delicious rush that he had induced into her mouth and then slowly breathed from her own tongue. He could feel the rhythmic pulse of her heart beating under her breast, the grip of her hands over his own.

More than a few smokes had met their burnout as he stood underneath the canopy and watched the rain. They were all trudged underfoot in the mud, used to their fullest enjoyment to then be carelessly discarded.

He wasn't planning on going back to her. This time, she would come to him.

I'll come back, okay?

Her hand seized his forearm the moment he began to slide her pants down. Her eyelids flew open, her gaze confused and misplaced.

"Hey, you're okay," Cross murmured, but when he continued to undress her from her damp and frigid clothes, she bolted. "Baby, it's just me-"

"Don't," she croaked, and she huddled herself in a small ball on the corner of the bed. Her voice was hoarse, as though she were a ghoul herself. "Don't."

The flickering glow from the lit candles around the room danced over her sunken eyes and pursed lips. She was a simple animal, scared and defensive as she watched him with no hint of familiarity. Her chest was heaving, her shirt unbuttoned and slightly askew. He could see the faded marks on her skin that he himself had not given her.

I want him off me.

His eyes automatically snapped to her groin, and he ushered her back to him, trying to keep his voice neutral. The only thing he was able to rasp, however, was thick with rage.

"Let me see."

"No."

"Evelyn." He came around the side of the bed, placing a hand on her thigh to release a sobbing cry from her throat.

"No!"

The door flew open with such force it was nearly molded into the wall. Charon shielded her from view, his aura suffocating with a simple warning.

I will kill you if you touch her.

She was sobbing freely into her hands, avoiding his eyes as though they would lance right through her. As though he could somehow harm her- as though he ever entertained any other notion besides his deep love for her.

"You think I would ever hurt you?" Cross rasped quietly.

She screwed her eyes shut and shook her head. "I just wanted to know, and-I-God-" She smashed a palm to her face and turned away from him. "I let him touch me, everywhere. He kept taking, and I, I kept fucking giving it to him. I wanted to. He-he wanted to…" Her eyes snapped open, and she stared through the wall as she recounted the way his hands and mouth clung to her body. She wiped at the trace of his tongue down her throat, tasting her hurried panting as she gave in to his clever hands and greedy cock. "I just let him do it. I let him do it."

"God, I'm so sorry," she bawled. "It was Sinjin…he told me he would wait for me…he told me everything, about my brother, about Braxton, the vault-how I'm fucking Pre-War. The cure."

They remained silent; neither ghoul made a move.

"I-I thought I would finally be something with it. I thought I would be the person I was meant to be, all those questions I had, all those nights I just desperately wanted to know. The truth…I wanted the truth…and I got it." Her face contorted into a twist of despair. "I asked for it and he fucking gave it to me. I enjoyed it." She laughed bitterly, the sound anything but happiness. "I wanted more of it. I finally got what I wanted. A stupid little child. Getting what she always wanted." Her hands raised to her face, and she stared at the lines in her palms, seeking the foretelling of her future. "He was right."

Charon cracked a fist, and left the room. There was the thudding of heavy boots climbing down a staircase, the crack of a door being flung open, and then there was nothing but silence.

Cross just stared at her as she sat there with her eyes drawn to the floor. When he finally shifted to come beside her, she flinched into the wall.

"I'm not going to ask for anything more from you," she said fearfully, her body coiled to run at a moment's notice. A small creature ready to escape from a predator's jaws. "I understand you hate me for it; I have been so selfish with you-"

He went down to one knee; the candlelight made his ebony eyes glow strangely.

"-and-and-" She licked her lips, her voice just above a whisper. "I really do love you. I always have, I meant that, I really did-I'm sorry I couldn't give you more-"

His warm hands began to shift up the sides of her thighs, and she tensed every muscle in her body as he slowly worked her pants back down the length of her skin. She smothered a hand to her face to hide away her shame as he saw everything; the vulnerability of it all.

"Fuck, I'm so sorry," she said tearfully.

Cross tucked her hair from her eyes lest her damp cheeks cling them to her face.

"I…I let him inside me," she whispered fearfully. She gripped the skin of her arms in her palms and twisted it, as though admitting the truth physically pained her. "He was right about me."

His hand wound up the backside of her neck to nestle in her hair, and he hummed a raspy tune low in his chest for a few minutes. A tear escaped from the corner of her eye, and he wiped his thumb over it.

"I came across this town back when I was workin' some jobs out of a New Vegas outfit," he rasped. "It didn't even have a name. Still don't. It had a shit excuse for a bar, and not a single broad for me to kick back with. It was the most tucked-away place I had ever been to out of all my time wanderin' the wasteland. And you know what I thought of it?"

When he didn't continue, she faintly shook her head.

He took her hands in his own, running the backside of his thumbs over her soft skin. "I thought, now here's a place for an old fuck like me. I even bought a house. Place was fuckin' fallin' apart. Hell, I don't even know if it's still standin', but I knew that it was mine, and that it was somewhere for me to come home to whenever I was fuckin' done runnin' 'round with my head in my ass." He began to undress, still keeping her eyes locked with his. "I hadn't given it much thought after Braxton. I was always plannin' on comin' back to you and makin' my peace with the world…but when you came back-" He stepped out his pants, and began to crawl towards her on the bed. "-I knew where every plank of wood was goin' to go, how those steps were goin' to be rebuilt, and which part of the house I was goin' to make love to you in every night."

Cross gently brought her closer to him and kissed her lips.

"I'm so sorry I'm such a lesser man and couldn't just tell ya the truth myself. Fuck, I'm so sorry." He kissed her again, much more tender, and he felt her hands begin to anchor around his neck. "You're the only reason I want to call that place home. I'm still learnin' 'bout ya, and I'm askin' ya to be patient with me. There's still a lot that I don't know, but by God, do I want to. I want to know everythin' there is about you. You ain't askin' anythin' of me, I'm givin' it to you. I want you to have it. I want you to have everythin'."

He kissed her forehead. "Don't blame yourself baby, don't go thinkin' this was in any way your fault."

"But I-"

"Look at me."

She did, and his expression softened. It was the look he only gave to her, the one he always followed through with the most tender kisses that made her melt into his arms.

"Tell me what you need," he rasped softly.

A single drop of her lips on his told him everything. Her regret, her wrath, her pain. He took it all; he let her be the one who pressed against him, let her be the one who moved away. She would stare at him with unbridled fury, as though she were ready to strike him with a fist, and he would take that, too. But then it would slip away into grief, and she would cry, and he would wipe her tears. She kissed him again, her hiccups stemming into needy gasps, and she would curse and shove him and then thrust herself against him begging for a release.

This was nothing like the Cross she'd made love to countless times before, when he was so mindful and gentle with his physical prowess around her. This Cross was ruthless, as though he tried to break her body and spirit as they came together, like it was some unspoken challenge he had taken to heart. They didn't make love; they waged war on a battlefield.

…and she fucking liked it. She found herself becoming less and less cautionary with her strength, applying herself just a bit more to see how far he would let her go. He wasn't stupid, he knew she could snap his neck at a moment's notice, but he didn't protest as she traded blow for blow with him. It didn't feel like sex, but more of a feral fight for superiority. He would grunt past the pain she inflicted and simply hold her eyes with his own, always asking, always ready to give.

"Oh my God, fuck, right there," she moaned, her fingers clenching down on his shoulder with enough pressure he felt as though it would break. "I'm gonna cum." Her head tilted back into the bed as she hissed, "God, I want you, I need you." She screwed her eyes shut past the blinding light behind her eyes that veiled the world in absolute nothingness. "Yes, Cross."

He came, deep inside, pulsating against that spot that made her cry out in delirious pleasure. She pulled him down for a kiss, and when he finally lifted away and left their bed, she sat upright with a certain fear ruining the ecstasy on her face. He was reaching inside of his pack, pulling out a bottle of water and a rag. He crawled back over, and gently cleaned her sensitive skin between and down her thighs. With a heavy exhale, he laid back down beside her, and held her close. His labored breathing washed the fine hairs around her head like a breeze over wheatfields. She closed her eyes, listening to the steady beat of his heart throbbing inside her skull, and painted a picture inside her mind as his fingers brushed themselves across the canvas of her skin. He then continued to hum his Pre-War tune, unfamiliar yet calming to her ears.

"I've waited, waited so long." He kissed the topside of her head. "For your kisses and your love, please come, come to me, from up, from up from above."

He twined his fingers through those of her ringless left hand, bringing them to his mouth.

"I want, want you to know, I love, I love you so…"

The soft rasp of his melody lulled her inside a warm blanket, tucking her exposed skin under a layer of safety and everlasting love. She lazily opened her eyes, just before she lost herself under that wave of dreams, and she saw it; it was clear as day.

A little girl, with sun-splashed freckles across her nose and hair as crimson as the early sunrise, eyes an icy blue that held wisdom far beyond her years. She was wearing torn dresses, tending scraped knees, and getting into one too many fights with her small, iron fists.

A small boy, with hazel eyes and dark, wild hair. He was calm, as resolute and sturdy as a lighthouse was in a storm, standing tall and proud and flashing a bright smile that would illuminate any darkness.

They would come home to men that looked just like them.

Her eyes closed, but they were still there.