The smoothskin was like a parasite- crawling under his skin, skittering across his brain. No matter how hard he tried to shake it, probe at it, grab the goddamn thing with his rough fingertips and squeeze it till it popped, it evaded him. It wormed deeper, eating away at his grey sense of rational until he felt as though he would open his mouth and just scream.
But he didn't do any of that.
What he did do, however, was reroute this carnage he kept suppressed on his more present issues. A raider junkie had just taken a fall from tripping over their own undone shoelaces- he lifted his foot, witnessed the tinge of fear in their eyes, and stomped.
Crack, Sploosh, Squish
He nonchalantly looked down and lifted his boot to view the underside of the heel, raising a brow at the brain matter stuck to it. He wiped it off on a thin rail, the clanging metal echoing down the subway tunnel, and then continued.
Another raider- a woman- rounded from the shadows in what she probably hoped was an ambush. Charon had visibly made out her trembling silhouette half a track away- the loud sniveling and teeth chattering did nothing to help her cause. He brushed aside the lead pipe aimed at his face with laughable ease, grabbed her by the throat with one hand, and lifted her from the ground, slowly choking the life from her eyes.
Her lips trembled as she struggled to breathe; he couldn't help but stare.
They had been chapped, probably due to dehydration, but they had also been soft. He remembered that. A kiss from the tip of her nose had stroked his cheek, felt the leathered sinew of his muscles and white bone. He wondered what she would have tasted like- perhaps salt, sour, a certain rot one has when tinged with death. She had been simmering in it, a homemade brew of loss of youth and a certain innocence.
He wanted to know if she tasted like him.
The raider was struggling to speak, her vocal cords vibrating under the glove of his palm. He narrowed his eyes slightly as he refocused, ever so carefully loosening his hold to allow her final words.
"Was'the matter, zombie?" she wheezed. Her eyes were bloodshot, bulging, she could have been pretty. Once. "You gonna fuck or eat me?"
She was kicking her feet, the instinct to somehow run away, to survive, was so strong. She was dripping red, a piece of shrapnel from her right thigh. The blue vault suit was blinking in and out of the shadows with every passing of the train. The lights from the windows teased her face, changing from that of the raider to the smoothskin.
Flash, flash, flash.
She looked at him with those pretty blue eyes.
Asshole. That's what she said.
He tightened his clasp, felt the muscles roll under his fingertips and the trachea crack, and then he slammed her head into the brick wall.
Crack, Sploosh, Squish
There was nothing left to see from those eyes- he had crushed them into paste.
The door swung open- he automatically looked to it. Another patron, looking to toil their caps away on one vice or another. He looked back to the bar. Ahzrukhal's oily smile. A finger propped, come here.
He obeyed.
Business. Do this. Do that. Go collect my caps, hurry now, don't be late.
A walk across the bridge over the Potomac, and he saw her. A flash of sapphire- what sort of idiot wears something like that? So noticeable, a perfect target. If he had a rifle, he could set the sights and take a clean shot. Didn't even need a fancy scope; a set of irons would do.
She had dipped inside of the Tepid Sewers, not even noticing his far-off gaze. That whirlwind of color, foreign, bluer than the sky above or the water below. The world did not remember such vibrance- it would eat her, sooner rather than later, take her in its very maws and swallow her whole, reducing her to shit like everything else.
He was surprised she had survived. He did not think she would.
He remained in his place, not realizing he had been staring at her absence until he felt his fingers brush his mouth. The palm of his hand was stared at; he felt betrayed.
He wanted to know if she tasted like the fresh scent of rain.
The radio. He listened. He didn't have a choice, it always played. A peek into the window of another time, another age. The guests all gathered round, no matter night or day. And then he listened. The Vault. He wasn't stupid...but she was. It told him everything he needed to know, as though he had found the missing piece of the puzzle, how easily it slid into place. He could glue the whole thing together now, frame it, hang it on the wall, show her, see, I figured you all out.
He wondered if she kissed the others too.
It was the dripping fat sizzling into the fire, the delicious aroma when you've had nothing to stomach and it's greasy on your fingertips. You suck on them, not caring if the others see, let them judge. They haven't known true hunger, what it does to a man, makes him willing, watching that club batter away at the hare. It seizures, blood foams at the mouth, then stills.
Who wants the eyes?
They pop in his mouth.
She's frosted cake, a ribboned icing, a creamy inside. He catches himself before his fingers touch his lips again...for he hasn't had them in over a century now.
He never wants to see her again, even just in passing.
Boom. She drops, a simple headshot.
Asshole.