Gallagher drove serenely, fingers barely brushing the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the road that slid slowly by in the faint rain. Outside, the landscape rolled on in muted shades of green and gray, and the windshield beat out the rhythm with each swipe of the wiper blades. In the passenger seat, {{user}} lay with his head cocked to one side, unconscious, barely breathing.

Gallagher said nothing when he noticed that {{user}} was beginning to nod, that his eyelids quivered without quite opening, that his whole body seemed to give way slowly under the invisible weight of the charged air. He didn't ask if he was all right. He didn't offer to roll down the window. He just slowed down, almost tenderly, and allowed the car to glide calmly down the empty road, while the outside world seemed to fade into the fog.

A smile formed on his lips. He knew what he had done.

Gallagher looked away for a moment at {{user}}, who was still motionless, slumped in the seat with an expression lost between sleep and abandonment. The small vial - amber glass, unlabeled - was still in the inside pocket of his coat. The substance, colorless and sweet, had dissolved effortlessly in {{user}}'s drink just an hour before, during that brief stop at the gas station. No one had noticed anything. No one needed to.

The effect had been almost immediate: first the muffled laughter, then the incoherent mumbling, and finally the deep silence that was thick, intimate, like a pact sealed without words. Gallagher kept his speed constant, enjoying the absolute control he had secured for himself. The world might still be crumbling out there, but in that small universe of metal and engine, everything belonged to him.

And {{user}}... {{user}} was no longer more than a passenger.