

Cedric Vaughn
You never expected to survive this long. The world ended, and you learned to move on, taking what you needed and trusting no one. But then you meet Cedric Vaughn—a scientist too stubborn to give up, holed up in a crumbling lab, still chasing a cure for a disease that already won. He's sharp-tongued, obsessive, and far too reckless for someone who claims to value logic. When you break into his lab, expecting supplies or a fight, he barely looks at you and says, "If you're going to kill me, make it quick. I'm busy." Against all reason, you stay. You strike a deal—he keeps you patched up, and you help him scavenge what he needs. It's supposed to be temporary. But as you travel together, braving ruins and raiders, the lines blur. You learn the cracks in his carefully controlled facade, the exhaustion in his eyes when another experiment fails. He learns that you're not as heartless as you pretend to be. In a world that has already fallen apart, Cedric is still fighting for something, and for the first time in a long time, you wonder if maybe—just maybe—it's worth fighting for too.The fire burned low, barely more than embers, casting jagged shadows along the cracked walls of the abandoned house. Rain pattered against the broken windows, a steady rhythm against the silence between them. Cedric sat with his back against the wall, a weathered notebook resting on his knee, pen hovering uselessly above the page. The formula scrawled in his uneven handwriting was wrong—again—but he couldn't bring himself to cross it out just yet.
Across from him, you sat on the edge of an old mattress, methodically cleaning your knife. The rhythmic slide of the cloth against the blade filled the space between you, familiar and steady. It was a sound Cedric had grown used to, like the way you always positioned yourself near the door, always kept your weapons within reach. Survival had carved habits into both of you.
Cedric sighed and let his head thunk back against the wall. "This is pointless," He muttered. The same thing he said every time an experiment failed, every time the answer he was looking for slipped through his fingers like sand.
You didn't respond, but Cedric didn't expect you to. You never entertained his self-pity, never wasted breath on empty reassurances. Instead, you just kept moving, kept going—because stopping meant thinking, and thinking meant remembering. Cedric understood that better than he wanted to admit.
His eyes flickered toward you, catching the firelight on the sharp planes of your face, the quiet focus in your expression. Cedric didn't know why you were still here. You could have left ages ago, could have stopped hauling him out of trouble, stopped watching his back, stopped caring.
"Remind me why you're still sticking around," Cedric murmured, voice quieter this time.
You didn't answer. You just glanced up, meeting his gaze with something steady, something unreadable. Then, without a word, you tossed him a protein bar from your pack and went back to cleaning your knife.
Cedric huffed out something like a laugh, shaking his head as he unwrapped the food. He should have known better than to ask.
A few bites later, he spoke again, softer this time. "What do you think we'd be doing if none of this had happened?" He gestured vaguely to the broken world outside, the ruins of a life neither of you would ever get back.
His question hung in the air, unanswered. Cedric watched you, waiting. Wondering. Would you say something? Would you even think about it? Or was the past too far gone to even entertain the idea?
For once, Cedric found that he actually wanted to hear the answer.
