Fuck, it was already a long two days.
The small dive of a town they had settled in for the evening was quiet enough, until the local drunken trash had begun to rowdily question as to why a young woman was parading around with a couple of hulking ghouls. That had ignited Evelyn's temper, and Cross had once again been displayed with her ungodly brute strength after she had demolished a table by simply flipping it across the room. Two men had attempted to grab at her, and that had only angered Charon, who had then proceeded to beat the tar out of the two idiots until Evelyn ordered him to stop. Cross didn't want to have any part of it, but then the barkeep had gone ahead and brandished a piece in his face, so he relented and joined in on the fun.
The three of them were banned from the town altogether, and they had wandered the wastes for a suitable campsite for just a few hours of sleep. Cross, that first night, learned that his fellow ghoul didn't sleep at all. Now he had to sleep with one eye open in case the huge bastard would try and sink a knife through his skull whilst he dreamed unsolicited fantasies. The late evening hours proved rather boring for Cross' REM cycle until he was jolted awake by the sound of a woman screaming. The darkened sky gave little indication as to the time, and he was faintly disoriented when he realized he was alone. Sounds of gunfire and shouting echoed down along the riverbank they had camped by, and so the ghoul quickly checked his weaponry before setting off toward the commotion.
A female shriek assaulted his ears. "WELL, THEY WEREN'T HERE EARLIER-"
A grunt followed a not-so-graceful jump over a concrete barrier wall, to which both of Cross' knee joints popped resolutely as a warning. Feeling his heavy boots sinking into the gray sandbank, he turned a quick left and saw the white sparks of muzzle flash.
"Got one." That was Charon. "Get behind me."
Two shapes came into focus- a smaller, pale form flitted like a specter behind her overly large shadow. The duo was under siege from a couple of mirelurks; the faint outline of their massive claws was unmistakable. Their smell...also unmistakable.
"On your right-" Cross announced himself as he made his approach, not wanting to be mistaken for a foe and shot outright. He raised his magnum and began to fire, the mirelurk in the rear now turning its full attention on himself. A few more ear-splitting shots rang off; the mirelurks artistically splattered against the wet sand. "That's all of 'em."
Evelyn sneezed. The rich smell of gunpowder layered with the putrid stench of the mutated crustaceans was overpowering, and so she walked up the bank for the relief of fresh air. She gave a small shiver; her private bathing leisure had been rudely interrupted, and the only article protecting her from the autumn breeze was an oversized shirt she had managed to struggle into.
A grip of iron encircled her forearm, and she was spun around forcibly. "Ow-hey!"
"That was incredibly stupid of you," Charon growled. Even though she could not define his face in the dark, the anger in his voice was enough to paint her a picture. "You are lucky there were only a few; if there had been any more, I may not have made it to you in time."
She grabbed at Charon's hand. Something incredibly warm and viscous flowed across her fingers, and she blinked stupidly at him. "You're bleeding."
A grunt affirmed the statement, and he slowly relinquished his grasp. "It is fine. Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine," she retorted, "are you okay?"
A few seconds of his nasal breathing was all she heard, and then, "I am still standing."
"Well, my God, Charon! Let's hurry back! I'll...I'll meet you there." She brushed past him and went to kneel beside her things, experiencing a violent startle at the second shadowy figure standing awkwardly to the side. "Oh, Cross! You fucking scared me."
The bounty hunter squinted at her in the dark. She was so white she practically glowed. What he guessed was arms made a flurry of complicated movements; his vision was always shit in the dark.
"You can go back too." Her voice floated up to him from a white face, seemingly suspended in midair. It was slightly creepy. "I need to get dressed, so shoo."
"Bastards get a full show and I get cracked fuckin' ribs," Cross muttered under his breath.
"Excuse me? What was that?"
"Nothin', nothin'," he nonchalantly replied, shrugging his shoulders and beginning to trudge back up the small hill to camp.
Charon watched her unfurl her road leathers. "I am not leaving you here alone." Unlike the other ghoul, Charon was almost cat-like. He could see perfectly well under the cover of darkness. "I will wait for you."
A sigh drifted to his ears. "We've been through this already. I like to have privacy when it comes to stuff like this and-"
"And it clearly is too dangerous," he finished, turning his back to her after he noticed her pause at undressing her only garment. "Privacy is a luxury in the wasteland, you should know that."
"No, privacy is apparently something people in the wasteland who have ghoul-no-sleeping bodyguards don't ever seem to get," she chewed out at him. A small yelp escaped her lips as she was caught off balance and fell over, the wet skin of her thighs now covered in grit. A hiss was made as she wiped it away, the rough sandpaper texture scratching at her skin. "Those damn mirelurks; I think I smell worse than before now."
"I cannot tell the difference," came the monosyllabic reply.
Evelyn paused and stared at the broad backside of her companion, the slight shaking of his shoulders giving a clear indication that he was silently laughing at her. "I did not know Charon 'The Wasteland Destroyer' made jokes."
"I do not."
Evelyn gave a peeved huff and finished tightening her leather laces, feeling for a small stone in the sand to throw at her companion's patchy head- it was a large enough target.
"You're a jerk," she informed him, lobbing the rock. She missed completely, and it sailed over his left shoulder.
"Your aim is still terrible," he replied just as matter-of-factly, turning around to catch her beginning to walk away. He dutifully followed suit.
When the pair had been welcomed back into the firelight, the bounty hunter was languidly lounging in his place, a smoke at his lips and an amber bottle at his side.
"Gone so long I figured you lost your way," Cross called, reaching down to uncork his liquor. "So, hell was that all about? Skinny-dippin' with mirelurks a common thing of yours, kid?"
Evelyn went to her pack and unzipped a large flap. "I actually like to have good hygiene, if you can imagine." A couple of Stimpaks and some clothed bandages were summoned out of the abyss of her belongings.
"That supposed to mean somethin'?" He took a swig, not bothering to remove the cigarette that was hanging from the corner of his mouth.
Evelyn tossed her wet hair over the side of one shoulder, and it slapped loudly against her leathered armor. She gave him a sidelong glance. "I'll let you be the judge of that."
Cross grumbled something unintelligible as he watched her kneel before the seated ghoul, her medical supplies set to the side.
"Okay, take it off," she ordered, grabbing at a plastic bottle of pure alcohol and uncapping it.
Charon obeyed, removing his shredded chest piece and betraying no emotion as blood suddenly gushed from the right side of his torso. The black shirt he was wearing as a base layer was practically ruined; the swipe from a mirelurk claw had found a good hold and ripped him from his clavicle down to his pectoral muscle. It was ugly, and Cross knew it hurt like hell.
The ferryman was a tough motherfucker.
Evelyn's eyes went wide as she feverishly injected him with a Stimpak, wiping away the blood on his chest while the wound sluggishly stitched itself closed. When the healing began to slow, she inoculated him again, her hands gently working over his ruined body as she cleaned him up with practiced efficiency. She was leaning forward, and the merc had to draw his focus to her hands lest they strayed away to her ass. (It was nice). He could've gotten away with it, though, for Charon's gaze never left her face while she methodically patched him up.
"Jesus Charon, this is as bad as that time in the police station, when you took that full spread from that raider." She grabbed the torn edge of Charon's undershirt with both hands and ripped it neatly in half, exposing his bare chest. "I still can't believe you survived that."
The ferryman's eyes appeared warm in the dance of the firelight as they stared down at her. "If I recall, that venture was also your fault. I would not have been injured so badly had we avoided that situation altogether...and had you cleared that room properly."
She narrowed her eyes up at him and pursed her lips, crossing her arms while he removed the remnants of his shirt completely. His face was stoic, but his eyes were smiling at her with amusement. Cross mumbled something and stood, ambling away from the two of them and into the bushes to relieve himself.
"Yeah, well, take it from me." She slapped a damp cloth at him and began to wipe away the residue of dried blood. "You just have to find someone willing to take the bullets for you, instead."
Massive maroon fingers intertwined firmly around hers, halting her deft movements across his body. The fingernails were long gone from his hands, and there was a slight indent around the middle joint of his fingers from the years of constant wear from his fingerless gloves. "That is not funny."
"I'm not laughing." She smiled sardonically at him, pulling her hand away and observing her handiwork. "How do you feel? Are you still in pain? I have Med-X, if you want some."
Charon leaned back from her a little, bracing his left palm against the socket of his right shoulder and rotating his right arm a few times. "I'm fine."
"I'm fine," Evelyn perfectly mocked, tossing the blood-soaked bandages into their campfire. A loud sizzle was produced from the hot flames licking at the wet cloth. "But seriously, are you okay?"
Charon twisted the bloodied, ragged leftover of his shirt into a ball and fed it to the fire. He met her stern stare with an impassive one- a flexing of his crimson hands into fists, the knuckles cracking loudly. "I am better. Thank you."
Evelyn dropped her eyes from the intensity of his own, the hot flush of blood creeping up her neck. She was internally grateful the pirouetting shadows made it unnoticeable. "You're going to need some new clothes, again. Let's hope there's a trader along the way."
"Next town won't be for another three days, but there's an old plaza center that might have some scraps left to salvage." The brunette nearly jumped out of her skin when the other ghoul materialized from thin air. "There's also a Vault-Tec warehouse couple miles on the outskirts; could see about some spare parts for your little busted Pip-Boy." A finger scratched at his square jaw.
Evelyn ran her fingers through her drying wild hair, lifting it high atop her scalp to set it into a long ponytail. "That would be nice." She began digging through her pack again. "I almost feel naked without it."
He observed her tidying up her supplies to be stowed back away.
"Ain't goin' to ask if I'm hurt anywhere?" he managed to stupidly ask.
She raised a brow while her companion growled. "Are you?"
Cross felt the crude joke on the tip of his tongue, but the hard steel of Charon's eyes was tracked on him once more, and after witnessing the sheer resilience of the ghoul, he thought it best to swallow it down.
"Nothin' some bourbon can't fix," he grumbled instead, sitting back on his ass to take a long drink.
Evelyn placed a hand subconsciously to her stomach, giving a small squeeze as she felt another wave of nausea overcome her. A small bead of sweat rolled down her temple; the sun was just beginning its rise over the horizon, and the air was quite chilly. She swallowed down a rancid burp. The bounty hunter had skewered some pieces of softshell meat from their aquatic guests for an early breakfast, and she wasn't sure whether to blame the meat or the unidentifiable oil he had fried it in. Whichever the case, the last few hours of travel had been absolute agony.
"You look unwell," Charon bluntly pointed out beside her. "Shall we stop?"
She gave a light shake of her head in protest, and the small action drastically intensified her queasiness. "I-uh-" She hastily redirected herself from the group and took shelter behind a half-buried freighter. The sound of vomiting answered the ghoul's question.
"Didn't like my mirelurk cake special, huh?" Cross' voice mused over.
I'm never even going to look at another mirelurk again if I can help it. She wiped the spittle from her mouth with the back of her hand, panting lightly and waiting for her stomach to settle. A second bout of unease flooded her, and she groaned as her eyes closed. A tremor ran down her spine, and she rested a palm on the rusted frame of the truck for support. Another heave, and she puked again; the contents splattering her dusty boots. So gross. After the nausea finally dissipated, she set her pack down and probed for her toothbrush and some paste. The tinge of vomit on her tongue was something she did not want to taste all day. She scrupulously refreshed herself and dug her boots into the hot sand to wipe off her sick, sluggishly plodding back to her companions.
"You are never cooking again," she tiffed out at Cross, who merely shrugged at her. Charon was grappling at her bag, and she was trapped in place until he finished digging out what he wanted. "I have this aftertaste of-of...motor oil, in my mouth. Absolutely disgusting."
"Guess I should stop usin' it for a secret sauce," the grey ghoul demurely joked, cracking a grin at her. She only huffed at him, turning her face away.
"You should drink this. You will risk dehydration." A zip reverberated as Charon secured her wares. A bottle of purified water refracted the sunlight as it was held out to her. "You do not want to fall ill."
"I don't want anything in my stomach right now," she complained. A mean glare was given as a reply, and she relented, taking the bottle into her own hands. "...ugh."
"C'mon, he's right, 'sides, we have some miles still before we hit Ol' Sunnyvales Shoppin' Center. We're makin' good time." Cross was holding his cigarette carton in his hand, and he gave a face of disappointment. "Fuck. I'm out."
"No serious loss," Evelyn half-heartedly joked, unscrewing her cap and flicking it like a frisbee. "Shouldn't smoke so much anyways; probably bad for you."
"The world is bad for you," he commented, chucking the empty packet out into the wastes. "And so is my cookin', apparently."
He was rewarded with a loud full-bellied laugh, and he appreciated the way her eyes crinkled when she fully smiled.
"We all have our specialties...yours are just especially bad," she said.
The two then walked side by side for a while in comfortable silence; Charon brought up their rear, hazardously armed with his incoherent grumblings.
The sun was soon hanging high in the sky, those bright rays of sunshine greeting all in its boundless stretch across the wastes. The trio was strolling across a crumbling overpass that provided a strategic outlook above Ol' Sunnyvales. It had been a rather dull journey up to that point; not so much as a bloatfly had graced their path. Ironically, Evelyn was about to make an indirect comment about their luck when Cross roughly grabbed her by the shoulder and shunted her down behind the concrete divider, giving her cause to yelp. Charon's defensive instincts immediately launched for an offensive grab at the merc just as a bullet made its signature whir past the two. Both ghouls dropped down for cover instantly.
"Fuckin' raiders," Cross muttered, his initial irritation beginning to debut from the lack of smokes.
Another volley hit the side. The concrete blew apart from the impact, sprinkling them with debris. A rancorous commotion echoed in the distance.
"We can find some things at this really abandoned place, guys," Evelyn snarked over the tumult, flexibly removing her pack whilst keeping herself down low. A third shell whizzed directly above them. "How long has it been since you came through here? One hundred years?!"
"I just saved your ass," the ghoul reminded her pointedly; his eyes narrowed at her. "You're welcome."
"It won't mean much if we end up getting killed because of-" Her words were cut short as she felt the worn leather of Charon's gloves encircle her jaw, readdressing her attention to himself.
"Focus." The ferryman's eyes were like hot steel burning holes into her. He held onto her face firmly for a few more seconds before releasing her to motion for the heavily wrapped bundle strapped to her pack. "Rifle."
She ducked her head at his scolding, nimbly unfolding the sniper rifle she kept packed away. Handing over the weapon to her ghoul counterpart, she then reached inside for a metal box and procured a silver tube with beaded handles.
"Pull it," Charon commanded, unfolding the tri-stand of the rifle. He unclasped a side pocket on his person, pulling out a long black scarf and securely tying it over the lower side of his face.
Evelyn obeyed, yanking on the handle. An immediate hiss sounded, and a billowing white cloud rapidly enshrouded the three of them. Once the firing had ceased, Charon braced himself against the divider and set the rifle in one smooth motion. His thumb clicked at a switch built into a black telescopic sight, and a heart-warming thrum came to life. Five seconds was all he needed for a quick body count through the thermal scope. Eight. Not taking his eye away from his aim, he stretched his free arm down to click the safety off, his finger coming back to ghost the trigger.
Evelyn tucked her face into her jacket, too blind to rummage for her scarf in her pack. Charon had always chastised her for not keeping it on her person, and she was sure he would have plenty to criticize when all was said and done. As was a ritual between them, she kept her spine flushed against his right leg and kept herself seated in place. The ghoul could put all of his attention through the scope when he knew her position.
Two of his shots immediately rang out, and then a third. Evelyn raised a clutched hand that held a full stock and pressed it against him. An empty clip was given in exchange, and she listened to the familiar clicking of the rifle being reloaded. Thanks to Charon's stringent training, she was capable of refilling the empty cartridge in the blind. Two more shots rang out, and then a considerable stretch of silence. They were now four minutes into their ten-minute cover window.
Charon grunted, his body still as stone. "There are three more, but I do not have eyes on them."
Cross coughed. "I'll go down, flush the rest out. Give me some cover fire."
"I'll go with you-" Evelyn began.
"No," both harmoniously ground out.
Cross rose into a crouch, his boots scratching some loose rocks across the pavement. "If you plan on shootin' me, make sure it counts." And with that, he darted through the cover of smoke and down the side of the interstate.
"Are you done with that stock? I want to reload," Charon rasped. As he was re-equipping, he felt Evelyn squirm at the base of his leg. "Quit moving," he ordered.
She immediately stilled.
A few moments later, a figure came into his field of vision through the scope. As tempting as it was to simply rid the ghoul from their lives and his problems, he kept his trigger finger steady and waited for the appropriate target to shoot. Cross was suddenly sprinting behind cover. The other raiders were still hidden from his view, but the mercenary had a reputation. If the stories proved true, Charon had no doubt that he would be capable of disbanding the rest. Their ten-minute window was now up. The gas quelled from the canister, and Evelyn chucked it, the metal casing giving a clink clink as it rolled down the road. She scrabbled forward on her hands and knees, reaching for her bag. The ghoul bodyguard remained in position as the smoke dispelled and revealed them to the world.
"I'm going to help," she spoke over her shoulder, pulling out a string of four grenades.
Charon didn't break away, watching the gunfight transpire below as he waited for a pounce. "No, you are not. Stay right there."
"Charon, don't you do this right now." The annoyance in her tone was distinctive. It didn't bother the ghoul in the least. He didn't mind her being pissy at him for situations like these. "I swear-"
"He is finished," Charon interjected curtly. "It is clear."
Evelyn snapped her mouth shut and whirled her head around, peering over and spying Cross down below. He was waving at them.
Charon stretched, his back cracking as he turned to his employer. The rifle's safety was clicked back on and the thrum from the scope was silenced. She was staring back up at him, wearing that cold expression she normally reserved for unwanted fixations that attached themselves to her at the bar. In all of their time together, she had never directed this look at him before. He waited for her to speak first. No words came. Instead, she took the rifle from him and replaced the stock, carefully wrapping the gun back inside its mummified casing. He intensely watched her as she replaced the remainder of their gear back inside her pack and settled the thick straps onto her shoulders. With a turn of her heel, she set off down the road and left him in the void of silence. The ghoul pocketed away his scarf and sighed irritably.
Cross watched their approach as he fiddled around and gave a careful sweep of the area. The band of raiders must have only recently arrived; their encampment appeared temporary, and there wasn't much salvage on their end. Caravans didn't pass by on these backroads, so whatever their reason for coming out this way was anyone's guess. He observed the duo with interest as they drew closer to himself. The icy look on Evelyn's face and her stiff posture just screamed you're wrong and an idiot and I'll make you pay for that. For the decades he had been around fooling with women, he knew the tell-tale signs of that particular mood.
Luckily, though, it wasn't reserved for him.
"That was some nice sharpshootin' back there," Cross genuinely complimented, rifling through the pockets of the dead raider at his feet. "Pretty smart setup you guys got together."
Evelyn gingerly stepped over a dead woman; her brains bespattered the concrete in a fan-like design. "Yeah, whatever."
She circled at a directory stand, wiping a layer of grime from the cracked plastic screen unsuccessfully. "I'm going to look around," she said offhandedly, not caring to look back at the two ghouls staring after her.
Cross gave Charon a knowing look, chuckling at the expression of complete malice he received in return. The ferryman just grumbled under his breath, following after her. Cross stared after them for a moment until they disappeared around the bend, and he went about his way to find some smokes.