The Rusty Canteen

Elias Vance stared at the amber liquid at the bottom of his glass, wishing a single shot were enough to drown the relentless noise in his head. The Rusty Canteen smelled of damp earth, unwashed bodies, and the sharp, chemical tang of rotgut moonshine. Built into the collapsed remains of a subway station, the subterranean speakeasy was a claustrophobic haven for those who preferred the dark. Elias was decidedly one of them.

He took the shot, welcoming the harsh burn as a distraction from the heavy, suffocating weight of his own mind. He was a former homicide detective, a man whose analytical brain had once been his greatest asset. Now, in the aftermath of the collapse, it was a curse. It replayed his failures on a continuous loop, calculating the precise angles of his inability to save anyone who had ever mattered.

"Drinking early, even for you, Vance."

Elias didn't need to look up to recognize the voice. Silas "Cy" Rowe dropped into the rusted folding chair across from him, the metal screeching in protest. Cy was all sharp angles and reckless energy, a courier who moved through the apocalypse with a crooked smirk that dared the ruined world to try and end him.

"Time is a construct, Cy," Elias muttered, his voice gravelly. He signaled the bartender for a refill.

Cy ignored the bleakness, sliding a crumpled, grease-stained map across the sticky table. "I’ve got a lead. An untouched medical cache out in the Glass Graveyard. It’s in a sub-level vault beneath the old Chase building."

Elias glanced at the parchment, his detective’s eye automatically tracing the route through the red-inked danger zones. "It's a death trap. The scav-gangs have rigged the whole financial district. You'd never make it past the first avenue."

"Which is why I need the best tracker in the tunnels." Cy leaned in, close enough that Elias could smell the ozone, sweat, and ash clinging to his leather jacket. "Think of the payout, El. We fence this cache, we can afford the good stuff. Maybe even buy our way out of this rat maze for a few months."

Elias looked up into Cy’s eyes. They were bright, feverish, and staring at Elias with that unspoken, tethering intensity they both aggressively ignored. They never talked about it. They just drank, fought, bled, and survived. They were two broken men orbiting one another, terrified that closing the distance would result in mutual destruction.

Elias exhaled a ragged breath and capped his hip flask. "Fine. But if we die out there, I'm blaming you."

Cy’s smirk softened into something dangerously fond. "I wouldn't have it any other way, detective."