"Hello, Charon!" Charon ground his molars and tilted his head. The kid had been gone for nearly a month, and he was hoping that it was the last he'd seen of the damned smoothskin. "I've made three thousand caps since we last saw each other. I presume you know what that means." Charon noticed as the kid started tapping lightly on the table and wondered if he was honestly trying to give Charon a damn stroke.
"Talk to Ahzrukhal, Smoothskin."
"Come on, Charon. Lighten up a bit for me. I'll buy ya' somethin' nice." Eros laughed and Charon sighed. "How about some drinks, eh?"
"Talk to Ahzrukhal."
"Fine, fine, but when I come back, you have to drink with me. Prepare yourself for that." Across the room, Ahzrukhal was watching a fly that was slowly making its way towards a sleeping customer. Charon saw Eros talking, but, until the word "caps" was spoken, rather loudly, Ahzrukhal remained hunched over the bar. He saw the bartender grin darkly before the kid was walking back towards the bouncer.
"Charon, what do you see in yourself? I've always wondered, since I first met you, whether or not you see yourself as you, a conscious being with emotions, dreams, hopes… or if you truly believe that you are the machine you have been taught to be. Are you a machine, Charon? A persecutor, I am sure, you are. If murdering innocents be executing, why, then, thou art an executioner." The kid smiled a lot, even when he said weird things like that. "I've got your contract with me Charon, and I'd be happy to call you my executioner, should it please you."
"You! Get the fuck back here!" Absolutely beautiful. He has to hold back a shudder as the man yells from down the hall.
Eros couldn't have been more surprised by the reality of his speech. The tongue, teeth, throat, themucosae stretched tight across the larynx – this was his speech. The movement of his tongue against his mouth to make the proper noises was captivating. Sure, his face – the combination of his muscular build and simple genetic outcome – wasn't much to look at, but, when we have no skin, no face, we are all beautiful.
The bullet from Charon's gun to the man's heart was no lesser in magnificence. The mistress of his bodily shell, his crimon life, rushed forth towards his wound, trying her best to create a wall between her and the body's dark promiscuity, and the dirty, unforgiving world as it clawed its way in. Blood, in her haste, was draining from all minor places – fingers, feet, face – towards the newly-formed window. Alas, she was too weak and she flowed, flooding, defeated and tired, onto his clothing and the metal floor around him.
Eros smiled; "Charon, you do so well for me." He turned to attempt an extraction of a response, but Charon was already moving away from him, towards the stairwell the man had been blocking. He followed sullenly, feeling sympathetic for the blood of the man, wondering if something similar to her experience would happen to himself. He cocked his head and moved slower, allowing Charon all the space he needed to clear out the room. Eros ran his hand down his face, staring blankly at Charon.
"Are you injured?"
"No." Eros wasn't feeling it anymore. His eyes were dull, empty of the spark ignited by loss. "Why?"
"You aren't fighting, sir."
"My name is Eros. Eer, like your ear-" He his ear to emphasize- "and oss like 'boss.'"Charon grimaced. It'd been a long few hours surrounded by the unerring metallic base and Eros had willingly given up all hope of finding anything of use in the little shithole. "Say my fucking name."
"Eros," His name dripped heavily in a bloody venom as it scraped from his lips.
"There's something that's been bothering me a lot, Charon." He grunted from where he sat on the cot, eyes set on the floor. "I have no idea what comes after life. There's a spark of joy and evil in every human and the fact that that can be stripped completely from a person is…" His shoulder blades – scapula – twitched. "What if there's just nothing? There's no reason for there to be a god. We're born with everything we need; we evolved from other animals – not from a creator; we started from shit and built our way up to what surrounds us." Eros's words were too fast and fell as swiftly from his lips as though they were water choked from his lungs. "There can't be anything. But there must be… There has to be or – or I just know that I'm trapped. I'm fucking claustrophobic in my own life and there's a door to eternity but I can't open it because… because it's fucking fake. I don't know what – I lay awake at night and find this feeling of absolute emptiness - and I think of those people – all those fucking people Charon-"
"You're talking too much, si- Eros." He removed his hands and stood straight, glaring down at me.
"I can feel my heart beating… I just… I need something to make me feel secure. There's nothing in my life that's promised to stay with me and actually followed through." He let his head fall back against the steel wall. "I'm not comfortable in life, Charon. I can't look back and think 'I've had a good run.' I'm young, yeah, but there's so much I've done, yet so many good things I haven't even considered."
The room was silent for a moment, metal creaking under its earthly weight; somewhere off in the hallways I could nearly hear the bodies rotting – decomposition rubbing its filthy hands in preparation. "Why good things?" Charon's voice was rough; his words were less a question than a musing.
Eros looked away. Why good things? he wondered. Why do I have to risk my skin to make sure the world smiles? Is the sun my brother? Am I the Earth's keeper? Do I gain more from a laugh than a scream? Must I constantly control the amounts of dopamine and adrenaline within a man? He smiled. "For what purpose must I serve clouds and slave to your heart's mirth?" He gave a half-hearted laugh. "You know, Charon, I wasn't born a freak. I was always trying to make my dad proud when I was a kid… I'd go to his office every day after school and work on a project I called, "Cleansing." I was working with the genetic material of specific bacteria that could potentially purify water without causing adverse effects in humans. I was trying to force it to divide faster than ever; have a stronger, long-lasting form; and make it immune to the diseases that usually accompany that disgusting water out there… And I did it." He shifted, glancing at Charon to find him hunched over – but listening. "But no one… cared. The Overseer didn't care for it – he already had a purifier; Dad just fucking smiled and told me I did a good job… But Jonas… he told me I was a genius – that I'd save the damn world. He's the reason I didn't give up then. But he's dead," he sighed; "No reason to continue to do good. Goodness and purity are for the ignorant."