They descended into the metro tunnels. Her heart was skipping a mile a minute- bum bum- her face grew hot- bum bum- the entire oh you broke my nose but not yet my hearteuphoria lifted her on cloud nine. She was almost giggling to herself, ignorant of the weird looks he gave her as she hopped and twirled down the steps.
He liked her!
She glanced over her shoulder, the grimace on his face at her silly antics instantly poking a sharp pin in her heart-shaped balloon.
Well…he said he had liked her. Sorta.
The darkness impeded her vision, as always, and she automatically clicked on her Pip-Boy light. It illuminated Charon's alarmed expression before he smacked a hand over it, smothering the brightness as best he could.
"Turn it off!" he hissed.
She panicked, flipping a knob for the radio instead.
"HEY EVERYBODY, THIS IS THREE DOG, YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD-!"
Evelyn's squeak bounced off the walls with the booming announcement, echoing down every tunnel before she finally silenced it. The loud thud thud thud of her heartbeat pulsing in her ears seemed to render her deaf until a hair-raising hiss came from almost every direction.
Charon shoved her, his tone urgent. "Move."
She didn't argue, but scrabbled for the service door just ahead, the sound of claws against concrete drawing a whimper from her mouth. A blast from the big guy's shotgun blasted at her back, and then another, another, the white muzzle flash illuminating their silhouettes like moving pictures against the wall…and it was at that moment she saw the multitude of the distorted limbs and gaping maws.
Pitch black. Snarling. Flash. A row of black teeth ready to devour her face. A scream. Pitch black.
Charon's fingers reached around her waist and unsheathed his knife, flipping it in one fluid motion to then drive it straight into the feral's throat. With his body pressed against her, he pushed her forward as more could be heard scraping over each other up the escalators. The door was opened and slammed shut in the faces of many, their souls screaming in unparalleled agony as the frame shuddered and jolted. He wrapped both hands around the wiggling knob and leaned his weight into it, the muscles of his sculpted arms bulging from the effort.
"Go!" he growled. When she remained frozen in place by fear, he whipped his head around and snarled, "Run!"
She ran across the rickety gangplank leading up to the main courtyard, her lungs begging her to slow down and her mind screaming to find someplace to hide. She nearly collided with a group of individuals that were traversing down the same path she was so desperate to escape from. Everyone was startled by the random encounter, and she pointed behind her with a huge draw of air down her lungs.
"Ferals," she managed shakily, squinting her eyes through the haze of early dusk at the particularly well-armed trio aiming their guns at her. "Down, in the tunnels-"
"You that Vault Dweller?" one asked, taking her good intentions and shoving it right back up her ass. He took in her vault suit. "The one on the radio?"
She kept silent for a moment, now really studying this entirely new threat that had come knocking at her door. Their armor pinged a faint draw of recognition. She never had the chance to answer, for they all raised their weapons at once at something behind her just as she felt a heavy blow knock her to the side.
"Oof!" she gasped, and then a gloved palm swiped over her mouth before she was rolled under the footbridge, Charon snugged underneath her in a narrow trench in the earth.
The planks above them rattled and dipped under the weight of so many- they shrieked and screamed and cried as their shoeless feet bounded toward their new foes. The dust and dirt that rained down wafted up her nose. Bullets began to hail, laser fire zinged through the air.
A desperate scream. "No! Get off me! Get off-fgchck!"
Flesh could be heard being torn apart from fat and ligament and bone. It slapped against the pavement. Mashed between rotten molars. Chew chew chew. The scuffing of boots, the repeated help me help me please don't leave me here-
She trembled. Her hands tightened around the stronghold that was the ghoul beneath her, always so still, a breathing statue. They were forced to lay there, listening to the sounds of the carnage above, one of them slowly being devoured alive. She couldn't take his sobbing, his hopelessness- it made her begin to cry. She clamped her hands over her ears, closed her eyes. A solid beat pounded against her spine, slow and steady and deep. An echo of a tympanum, beaten upon by heavy hands, vibrating through her core. She could listen to it in the early hours of dusk, the sands still warm as she lay in the ocean tide, overlooking those dark waters with the scent of citrus and jasmine in the air.
A rancid odor forced her eyes to open. A feral, sitting not more than a foot away, its open maw drooling blood with a chunk of skin dangling between its teeth, staring at them with milky eyes. A low whimper built in her throat as it crept closer, the horrid stench almost making her gag. She felt Charon's palm tighten over her mouth as he slowly raised his other arm, offering it just below the feral's chin. It sluggishly lowered its lipless mouth and sniffed, smearing some slime along the patchy muscle of his forearm.
A rattle of gunshots peppered somewhere in the distance, and it whipped its head around with a sickening crack of its vertebrae before scrabbling off with the others. Their hideous snarls soon became nothing more than the low moans of those left behind, and yet he did not release her. The seconds became minutes, and by the time her shot nerves snapped at the suspense and she went to struggle away, a creak sounded right above them, a large slop of drool dripping between the splintered cracks to slather her left cheek. A disfigured face only conceived in nightmares smooshed itself between the gap, eyeing her with an inhuman grin. She retched. It heard. Charon whipped the barrel of his shotgun straight up and blasted it into chunks of meat and musty wood splints. He quickly sat up, shoving her over and out of the trench back to the courtyard. Her ears rang from the close blast- for a horrified moment, she feared she was deaf.
She paused at the sight on the surface level. It was a fucking slaughter-fest. The low whimpering was coming from a wet sack of bloodied flesh that was still moving- the remains of one of the men she had run into. He weakly raised a shuddering hand that had two fingers- the others had been bitten off, leaving only chewed stumps. The lower half of his jaw had been ripped away, his upper lip barely moving, but the pain in his face was clear- please, don't let me die here, don't leave me alone, please help-
Charon pushed her between the shoulder blades towards the entrance to the sewers, and then quickly wheeled her back around as they turned the corner. A few ferals, skittering along the road and investigating the area with their chins to the ground as they sniffled a faint scent, one occasionally making a squawking noise and raising its blind face. With absolute silence on his end, he very carefully pulled her back around and down a set of stairs. The last sight she had before being consumed in total darkness was the creeping ghouls crawling over to the still breathing mercenary, his guttered cries haunting her as they descended below.
The arm she clung to was the only solace in that infinite pitch. Her fingertips dug into the coarse muscle and leathered skin, the endless grooves of wrinkles and knotted scars held captive by her steadfast grip. She refused to let go, followed blindly as he somehow ferried her around twisting turns without any source of light. He then abruptly disappeared from all sense of touch. Before she could panic and call for him (the thought of being torn apart by invisible teeth making her cry), a service door was slammed shut, locked, and a heavy workbench was pushed against the frame. They waited in total blackness for a few minutes, the sudden silence overwhelming and anticlimactic all at once. With hesitance, she clicked on her light again only to enhance his broad back, his hands still braced against the blockade and head slightly bent forward as though in prayer. He said nothing, but eventually leaned away until he was retreated in shadow, his presence felt rather than seen.
His glowing eyes were suspended high above in the empty air, his phantom voice sending chills down her spine. "Are you hurt?"
She managed to blink, tearing her eyes back to the barricaded door. "N-no, I, um-"
"You are shaking," he rasped with an eerie calmness.
It was true. The light was bouncing and trouncing and having funfunfunfunfun all over the walls.
"I'm scared," she confessed.
Only until his eyes disappeared did she redirect her light around the room. Broken beer bottles, their amber refraction glittering the walls; scattered tin cans, a few fashioned together in a single line with some wire; some boxes of detergent, busted crates, a person hunched over in the corner-
She yelped and jumped into the ghoul behind her. He didn't budge an inch.
"He is dead," he commented as though it was on the weather.
She hugged herself, the warmth at her back a small comfort. "Can we, like…get rid of him?"
He sighed tersely through his nose but proceeded with the request. The pale-blue corpse was almost a husk, thin and gaunt underneath the rags it wore, its jaw slack on its hinges and eyes long recessed into dark pits. He opened the cabinet doors below the workbench and rudely shoved the body inside, the bones snapping as he finagled it to fit.
"I didn't-!" she began, but then he forced them shut, hiding the body away forever inside an oversized drawer. He shrugged at the face she gave him. She muttered, "You knew what I meant."
Charon set his bag down against the far wall opposite the barricaded service door, unstrapping his shotgun before taking a seat on the floor. He adjusted the side pistol on his thigh, giving her a cool stare.
"I suggest you sleep."
The words left the tip of his tongue like a casted spell, coiling fatigue around her bones and hanging weights from her eyelids. She rubbed at the latter, yawning with a heavy nod of her head to then sit beside him. He instantly leaned away as she married her bag to his own.
"I don't have cooties," she mumbled as he moved an inch to avoid touching her.
The Pip-Boy was removed from her wrist and propped on the floor to keep the light on the door. With her blanket retrieved and wrapped around like a shawl, she whispered 'goodnight' and was out. She hadn't even realized she had fallen asleep until she felt herself being shoved aside. Her head had been in his lap, and she brushed her hand against something thick in his pants while he tried removing her. He was rock fucking hard, and the thought of unzipping it made her cunt wet.
"Oh," she whispered, and he paused in pulling her away after she put a hand on it. She looked up at him, the faint light not even reaching his face. "Do, do you-?"
He responded instantly, "Yes."
She crawled into his lap, her breath hot and damp and sour across his face, her tongue lathering into his mouth and teeth dipping in the stern line of his lip. The heft of his hands came up, demanding in their taking, snatching themselves underneath her suit as he practically ripped it from her body, the delighted gasp she exhaled moving his mouth to a freed nipple. He noisily sucked on it, frothing over the perky nub while one palm squeezed her ass. The Pip-Boy was bumped into, clattering across the floor with the light now reflecting their silhouettes against the wall. The bits of pebbles dug into the skin of her knees as he got straight to business, flipping her around and bending her over on all fours in complete subservience to him, their roles completely switched.
Charon spread her legs wide, propping her ass in the air for the tip of his weepy dick to catch. His eyes never left the sight of that initial lipping of her cunt over the head. "You will need to be quiet," he instructed, and when he thrusted, she was anything but.
He automatically smacked a hand over, catching her jerky whimpers and stuttered moans in the palm of his glove as he gritted his teeth and paid little mind to being attentive, the stabbing of agonizing pain melting into unadulterated pleasure with every plunge. A sick game of wills, the battle for obedience being challenged by the indulgence of sex, and he couldn't differentiate between the two when it came to the white light behind his eyes.
Her head turned, watching his large shadow melting into hers with every thrust he gave, the spear of his cock vanishing and rematerializing over and over and over as he buried himself inside. The white of her eyes glimmered as they rolled in the base of her brain, her body growing limp and malleable enough that he could push in just a bit farther, feel that impenetrable wall of flesh that jolted a spark of electricity through her nerves, whiplashing a seedy moan from her lips with every stab.
His fingers came down to grope at her clit, clumsy and uncoordinated and on a completely different fucking map. She came down to chart his course through the dark curls of her groin, and he scratched at the supposed 'sweet spot' with his rough texture until her voice suddenly became high-pitched. It gave him the most invasive thought of taking the backside of her head and repeatedly slamming it into the pavement till something gave way, her skull, maybe.
He came instead.
The ghoul went to stand after the minute of dignified silence, his knees feeling every bit their age as they cracked. He stifled a groan and tottered backward, snorting past that euphoric rush swelling through his veins with a harsh rub at his eyes. His dick was limp and dripping all over his boots, that sweet musky scent quickly enveloping everything else. He didn't bother wiping himself as he jiggled it back inside. The zipper to his pants was shunted up tight and flat, and he turned back to the scene of her milky legs shaking with his contribution drizzling out; it felt good knowing it was his.
When she was clean and dressed, she once again took her place beside him, drifting into sleep and his body like a loose sail caught on a gentle breeze. He grabbed her by the face and forced her weight to fall the opposite way, to which she eventually curled into herself for an undisturbed few hours before she awoke with a fright.
Her words were slurred, unsure and timid. "You're not turning feral, right?"
He turned his head. "No."
They were now rushed, insistent and demanding, like a child. "Like, never, right? You'll never turn feral? You won't…be like them?"
He turned away and shifted his weight, spreading his legs out just a bit wider. "I do not know."
It was quiet. He assumed she may have fallen back asleep until she suddenly said, "I don't want you feral…the world is cruel enough."
He almost grunted at the sentiment. He agreed. He listened to her breathing become soft and steady once again, his eyes on the door, and his gun always at his side.
The skin of her throat was being peeled between sharp teeth and sticky saliva, (bang bang!), pulled, tight tight tight until it was so strained it could snap back into place (bang bang!), but then it started to tear, riiiiiip, (BANG BANG).
Evelyn fought the constricting blanket around her legs like a live snake, struggling without a single coherent thought as to what was happening-
Charon clamped a hand around her mouth, his voice tight. "Do not scream. You are safe."
She took the inhale of air after his release like a deep drink of water. After a moment of clarity, she remembered where they were and the events leading to that point. She pulled on the collar of her suit as an invitation for the chilly air to grant relief to her hot, sweaty skin. It went unnoticed how Charon stared at the slight peek of her bra that had winked out. The blanket was shoved into her pack while she rummaged around for…for…she glared over at her companion.
"Will you stop eating everything?" she rudely snapped, and then a single can of Pork n' Beans was held under her face. "Oh, thanks, you're so considerate," she sarcastically drawled.
He nodded, deliberately and with a straight face. She struggled in popping it open with a rusted screwdriver while he simply watched.
"Can we leave now?" she asked, reaching over for her Pip-Boy to check the time. Morning. Early. She had to pee. Bad.
"There are too many on the surface," he rasped. "We will have to go underground." He pointed at her Pip-Boy. "I am familiar with the tunnels. I advise you leave that off."
She nicked her thumb on the edge of her opened lid and hissed an expletive, jamming it in her mouth to gum on. "You went outside?"
"I have."
"And they don't, bother you?"
"Ferals are of no concern to me," he vaguely explained.
She redirected the light to her thumb, the blood dewing on her skin and bouncing bright red under the glow.
The ghoul was suddenly at her side and crouched nearly face level, scaring her out of her wits with his lack of warning. (His perfection in stealth was most disarming and exceedingly ungrateful when entirely unnecessary.) He grabbed at her hand, inspecting the minuscule cut for a moment before wiping it clean with a swirl inside his own mouth. The noise of surprise that left her was unattractive, but he paid her no mind as he dipped a few fingers into a small satchel at his waist to wrap her thumb with a wad of sweat-sullied bandages.
She stared at the newly mummified finger. "Um…thank you." They both stood and gathered their respective gear, and she nervously fiddled in place while he leaned out to visually scope the tunnel.
"It is clear," he observed.
"You can go first. I need to pee."
He rolled his eyes but did as he was told, waiting on her absurd privacy request with folded arms and a scowl.
She came out with a blind grope of her hands through the dark. "I can't see anything without my light. How will I-?"
Something was pressed into her open palm…they felt familiar enough, and she ignored his suggestion and ticked a button on her Pip-Boy to illuminate the object in question. The binoculars. She gawped at him, turning them over in her hands.
She guffawed, "You took this? Why?"
He simply rasped, "They are better."
When she didn't say anything, he stiffly pointed to the side of them, clearly wholly uncomfortable. She flipped a micro switch and then held them to her eyes, peering down the once-blackened subway with perfect clarity. He reached over and flipped it again, and something entirely new came into view. Heat signatures. She pulled them away, amazed.
"You did all this, for me?" Well, that explained the noise that had woken her up.
He awkwardly nodded, not seeing to continue the conversation, and motioned for her to follow.