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They’ve been walking for days, clearing buildings of raiders and ferals before stealing a couple of hours rest. He’s so tired of having to kill just for the privilege of sleep. It wasn’t worth it, the killing, they never felt like they’d slept, never being able to fully relax. They slept in shifts. In the early days Raul had always offered to take the first watch and Six had always protested before eventually conceding, now it’s routine, she beds down and he keeps watch, letting her sleep a little longer than they agree every time. She chides him when she wakes but she’s grateful all the same.
It’s just getting dark as the towering green dinosaur comes into view over the hill and the feeling of relief is strong in the air around them.
The familiar click as she unlocks the doors is music to his ears as are the squeaking springs as the ancient mattress adjusts to their weight. When she first brought him to Novac after she extracted him from the sticky situation he’d found himself in on Black Mountain he’d climbed onto the couch to sleep but there wasn’t time for his head to make contact with the cushions before she was lifting him up, insisting he deserved to sleep in a bed, that it was big enough and that they’d share. And besides, that was Rex’s spot and who was he to take that away from the mutt.
He knows tired she is by the fact that when he stumbles over his bag on the ground and almost falls, all he’s met with is a weak chuckle; she must be damn tired to miss an easy opportunity to poke fun at him like that.
They climb into bed, the room dark and still, the quiet and relative safety a luxury in the wastes. She falls asleep first, her breaths falling into a steady deep rhythm as finally she finds real sleep.
When you’re as old as Raul is good dreams don’t exist anymore. He’s seen first-hand just how low people can get, what depravity they can sink to; nightmares start to feel more like premonitions and the good dreams, dreams of before the war, of safety, where the happiness and beauty of the world gets exaggerated like a fairy tale, feel worse when they leave that dull ache in his chest that throbs till mid-morning.
He focuses on her shallow, steady breathing, the gentle tempo lulling him to sleep.
-
The first thing he notices is the feeling of the sun on his skin. It feels warm and comforting in a way that it hasn’t felt since he turned. The second thing he feels is the wind whipping past his face, he’s riding his old bicycle. He smiles, he’s arrived at his destination.
-
The lake stretches out: vast, blue, and sparkling, the water looking more pure and clean that it truly ever was before the war. She’s there, lazily reclining on his mother’s old picnic blanket enjoying the sunshine. She, like the lake, is pure. Her skin is free of the scars that mark her body in the waking world. Both her eyes match, not one permanently bloodshot with that gnarled bullet scar above her eyebrow. The wastes haven’t touched her here. There are no wastes here. It’s like he’s saved her from it all. She sees him arrive and then she’s in front of him reaching out her hand. He takes it and he sees his own smooth rich dark brown skin for the first time, not the marred and knotted mess he wears when he’s awake. Everything’s okay.
They’re in the lake now and he sees his face reflected in the water, handsome and strong, he smiles at himself before being interrupted by a splash of cool water on his face. As he turns to splash her back he sees her smile, a grin his seen maybe once or twice before. She looks calm, relaxed and content, if a little mischievous. He misses her with his retaliation splash as she ducks under the water to swim towards him.
-
He hears the bombs before he knows they’re there, the deafening whistling that whips his head around and he sees the bulbous mushroom cloud form miles in the distance, over a century of this moment replaying is his head has exaggerated it, now he hears the screams and the sizzle of the people in the city’s skin being ripped from their bones, he can smell the radiation, sizzling and uncaring. When he turns back he sees her rise out of the water, water that is no longer clear and cool but the dark green irradiated muck of the wastes, hot and stinging. She’s out of the water now and she’s smiling again, not the serene contented smile from before, the manic unhinged smile he’s seen her wear before ripping a raider’s throat out. her skin shows her scars and her eyes are mismatched again, he has not saved her, he will never save her, she doesn’t need saving from the wastes, she IS the wastes, she has been created by them, she grew up on brahmin meat not the cattle he did, her life will never be this lake, her life is always the dam.
They’re no longer in the water and she’s on top of him, straddling his legs like a vice grip, he’s completely immobilised. They’re not underwater anymore but he feels like he can’t breathe, he’s choking, drowning. He’s clawing at the ground trying to get her off him so he can find something to just let him breathe when she presses her lips to his and softly but forcefully kisses him. Oxygen floods his brain as he kisses her back. It’s her as if she’s keeping him alive. He closes his eyes and relaxes, kissing her deeply. When he opens them, he’s horrified: rot is rapidly spreading across her face leading straight from her from her lips. At first he thinks she’s ghoulifying but he soon understands: she’s dying, she’s rotting right in front of him, looking more like the living dead from the old holotapes than smoothkins could ever say he did. He’s killing her. He’s doing this; he’s taking her life so he can live. finally, he gets purchase on the ground and springs up, knocking her off him as he sprints away. He needs to get away from her somewhere where he can’t hurt her like that anymore.
-
He’s running faster than he ever has in his life, faster than when he was young even. He feels the air whipping past his face as he notices something in the distance. Somehow, he runs quicker, faster, harder, determined to see what the thing on the horizon is. He draws nearer and he knows, its Six and she’s running. She’s running fast but not as fast as him. He feels an overpowering hunger: a need. He must catch her. She’s glancing back at him, eyes full of fear as she sees him gain on her and she lets out a horrific scream as he finally grabs her and throws her to the ground. He’s on top of her now and he knows. It’s happened. He’s gone feral. He pins her to the ground, completely immobilising her. He’s clawing at her chest now, making short work of the dirty tank top and just as short of the skin on her chest. She’s so small under his crushing weight. He rips and rips as blood and muscle is exposed, blooming like monstrous flowers in the most horrific spring. He keeps going, her ribs cracking under his strong hands as if they were as thin as wishbones. He wishes he could stop but the instinct is too strong. This overpowering drive pushes all kind thoughts out of his mind. He must destroy. He must. Once he’s ripped out enough of her ribs he plunges his gnarled hands into her chest pulling out everything he can find and casting it all aside, guts and gore strewn on the ground surrounding them. He rips her lungs out but still her chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm. His hands feel the last thing in the cavity, her heart. He tears it out with both hands, it still beating as sinks his fingers into it and pulls. The heart ruptures and tears with ease and he casts the two halves on either side of Six’s body. Planting his hands on either side of her head he shuts his eyes. His breathing heaves and finally; the spell is broken. He weeps. Shuddering and sobbing his eyes open he stares deep in to the bloody chasm his hands have made in her chest, still feeling the strange sensation of the body below his breathe with no lungs. He’s lost in the deep crimson abyss of his own creation as he feels hands, soft and smooth, on his cheek, his eyes look to her face and she’s alive. She’s smiling at him, the lopsided gentle smile he loves, the one just for him. She wipes her thumbs across his face, smearing her own blood across as she does.
“it’s okay,” she whispers, “you’re safe, it’s okay”
He screams.
-
He wakes mid-thrash just as she’s scooping his head onto her chest, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him in tight,
“it’s okay, you’re safe,” she repeats, “I’ve got you”.
His body wracked with sobs he clings to her as if she’s the last rock in the sea before he’s cast adrift forever. Pressing his face to the dirty tank top he knows so well, he whispers his penance over and over.