Dina x Reader x Maria love triangle
The gate loomed taller than you'd expected.
A jagged patchwork of rust-streaked metal towered above the snow-blanketed field, rising like the spine of some long-dead beast. It looked slapped together with desperation and old-world scraps—faded green highway signs stamped with bullet holes, buckled sheet metal, and crooked fencing panels cannibalized from chain-link yards and construction zones. A STOP sign had been bent into a makeshift hinge near the top, dangling like a broken limb. The structure sagged slightly to one side, its weight pressing into mounds of churned-up snow. Frost clung to every seam and bolt, lending the monstrous thing a brittle sheen. Wind swept over the wall, hissing through gaps in the plating like the gate itself was whispering.
Your breath ghosted into the air in ragged plumes, catching the glint of the dying light. Your cheeks stung with cold, and your lips had long since cracked into tiny, bleeding splits. Somewhere beneath the freezing layers of exhaustion and grit was the faint, far-off awareness that your ankle was swelling inside your boot. It felt tight, burning. Every step for the past hour had sent a new wave of fire up your leg.
All around you, the world felt ancient. Silent. The snow wasn’t untouched—there were tire tracks half-buried and boot prints frozen into fossil shapes—but the landscape felt still, like time had stopped just to let you collapse here.
Gravel-rough and loud as thunder, it cracked the quiet apart like a gunshot.
“Hands up! Identify yourself!”
It came from somewhere above—beyond the rusted parapets, behind the sandbags and barrels and jagged angles of scrap metal perched atop the gate like jaguar teeth. You couldn’t see the speaker, but you could hear the click of their scope adjusting, the subtle shift of a boot grinding into old snow.
Your breath hitched, caught between reflex and fear. You were too cold to be terrified in full, too hollow to panic, but the voice stirred something in your bones: fight or flight, even if both options had long since rotted.
Still, something louder than fear rang out inside you now.
That gnawing, animal ache had eclipsed everything else. It wasn’t just in your stomach anymore—it had crawled up into your ribs, chewed through your muscles, made your thoughts sluggish and mean. It was hunger that made you raise your arms, trembling and red, fingers stinging from where your gloves had worn through. Hunger that forced your voice to rise against the wind.
“Mila!” you cried, your voice dry and raw. The word clawed its way out, cracked and hoarse. “My name’s Mila! I’m not infected—I swear—I’m alone!”
The silence that followed felt endless. Just the wind howling in the trees behind you, and somewhere distant, the creak of something metal swaying—maybe a weather vane, maybe something worse. You stood there with your arms raised, snow catching on your lashes, chest heaving from effort and adrenaline.
No answer. Just the slow crunch of boots above, somewhere on the catwalk. A shape passed behind a slit in the metal—just a flicker, but enough to prove someone was watching. Judging.
You whispered a prayer you barely remembered learning.
Please don’t shoot.
Please don’t leave me out here.
Please don’t be another trap.
Then something shifted. A groan of gears, low and mechanical. Metal scraped against metal. Somewhere inside the wall, old hydraulics growled to life with a reluctant shudder, and a section of the gate lurched open with a heavy, echoing clank. Not wide—just enough to admit one person.
You blinked hard against the snow in your lashes.
Out from the gap emerged a woman.
She jogged with purpose, her rifle strapped tightly across her back. A dark green coat billowed behind her, lined with fur around the collar, worn with years of use. Her boots pounded against the packed snow as she approached, her breath coming in clouds that caught the last gold of the fading sun. She wasn’t aiming yet—but her hand hovered near her sidearm, just in case.
As she neared, her posture shifted. Her brows furrowed. Her gaze swept over your torn coat, your sunken cheeks, the way your weight kept shifting off one foot like you were trying not to scream.
“Shit,” she muttered, already closing the last of the distance. “You’re half-frozen.”
You tried to speak, but your jaw barely moved. Your teeth chattered against one another like glass beads. She didn’t wait for you to fall—she grabbed you beneath the arm with steady strength and hoisted you up, tucking herself beneath your shoulder like she’d done this a hundred times. You weren’t heavy, not anymore.
“Come on,” she said, her voice gentler now, with a softness under the steel. “Let’s get you inside before you turn to ice.”
The gate slammed shut behind you.
You expected concrete. Towering barracks. Sandbags stacked in endless rows.
The road behind the wall opened into a snow-blanketed street flanked with old-world houses, their rooftops heavy with snow. Smoke curled gently from mismatched chimneys. A small wooden sled sat abandoned in someone’s front yard, half-buried. A wind chime made from spoons tinkled against the side of a porch. There were footprints in the snow—fresh, small ones. Children’s, maybe. Somewhere nearby, you heard the dull bark of a dog.
A string of Christmas lights blinked unevenly across a narrow balcony above, their colors washed out by the overcast sky. Red. Blue. Green. Faded pink. They weren’t bright. But they were trying.
The air smelled... alive.
Pine sap and woodsmoke. Wet wool. Hay and livestock. The unmistakable tang of someone baking bread, carried in lazy curls of warmth through the frigid air. The scents of life, stitched together from salvage and memory.
Your eyes welled—not from the cold, not really.
You limped forward with the woman’s help, your boots crunching on gravel that had been scattered over the icy paths. Around you, the town breathed like a thing half-asleep. Like it hadn’t given up yet.
You weren’t sure what this place was.
She led you through a narrow alley carved between two aging buildings—structures that looked like they’d once been part of a small-town main street, long before the world had collapsed. One still had the faded outline of a mural on the brick: a cartoonish sun and the words Welcome to Jackson! now chipped and partially obscured by snow-streaked ivy.
The path between them was tight, shadowed by crates stacked two or three high—some full of kindling, others of canned food and firewood, labeled with a sharpie on salvaged cardboard. Tattered laundry hung from lines strung overhead, frozen stiff and fluttering slightly like pale flags. A child’s onesie, pink with yellow ducks, creaked as the wind passed through it. The alley smelled like wet bark and old soap—lived-in, but not filthy.
Your boots crunched over gravel and patches of ice slick against the packed dirt. You stumbled on something hard—an exposed rock, maybe, or a chunk of broken concrete buried under snow—and pain exploded in your ankle like a struck match.
You hissed sharply, leg buckling.
“Almost there,” the woman said, voice steady but laced with urgency. She didn’t wait for permission, just tightened her grip beneath your arm and hauled you upright with ease.
Her strength wasn’t flashy—it was the kind you got from years of lifting hay bales and dragging half-conscious bodies off patrol routes. Her coat smelled faintly of campfire smoke and animal fur, and her fingers, even through gloves, radiated a kind of focused warmth. She didn’t look at you often, but when she did, there was something in her eyes—not suspicion, not even sympathy. Recognition, maybe. Like she’d seen a hundred versions of you before and knew this story’s shape before you even spoke it.
You passed two people standing guard at the alley’s end. One leaned on a rifle, their breath pluming steadily in the air, eyes sharp beneath a patched wool cap. The other wore mismatched armor plates over a ski jacket, their expression unreadable beneath a half-frozen scarf. Neither stopped her. A single glance exchanged with the woman at your side and they stepped aside.
She led you onto a crooked wooden porch. The steps groaned beneath your weight, old nails complaining. At the door, a hand-painted sign swung lazily from a rusted nail: MEDICAL, written in faded red letters, each one uneven, like it had been brushed by a nervous hand.
She pushed the door open and ushered you in, ducking her head against the wind.
The first thing you felt was warmth.
Not just the absence of cold—but warmth. Real, breathing heat. It wrapped around you like a heavy blanket, coaxing your frozen muscles into trembling relief.
The room smelled like pine tar, smoke, and something faintly sweet—herbs, maybe, or old honey. It wasn’t a hospital. No sterile white tiles. No glaring overhead fluorescents. This place had clearly been something else once: maybe a pharmacy, judging by the layout and the weathered posters still clinging to the walls in curled corners.
Cold & Flu Season Tips! one proclaimed above a dusty bulletin board littered with torn notices. Another, yellowed and peeling, read Ask Us About Birth Control!, the cartoon nurse on it smiling blindly at nothing.
Most of the shelves had been cleared to make room for supplies—bandages in labeled jars, bundles of hand-wrapped herbs, and salvaged pill bottles sorted into bins. A battered wooden stove squatted at the center of the room, its black chimney pipe disappearing up through the roof. The fire inside crackled steadily, casting an orange glow over the plank floor. A kettle hissed quietly on top, sending up tiny ribbons of steam that wove through the air like silk threads.
Somewhere deeper inside, behind a hanging wool blanket that served as a door, a baby cried—a weak, mewling sound quickly muffled by a low voice trying to soothe it. You caught the tail end of a lullaby—off-key, but gentle—and the soft rustle of blankets.
The woman helped you toward a padded bench beside the stove. The cushion was worn but soft, patched with what looked like strips from old jackets. She eased you down carefully, crouching in front of you. Her breath still fogged the air slightly, not from cold now, but from the way heat struggled to fight the winter seeping in through old walls.
“I’m Maria,” she said, finally meeting your eyes. Her voice was quieter now, edged with something gentler. Not soft, but… human. “How long you been out on your own?”
You opened your mouth, but your tongue stuck to the roof of it. Your lips cracked when you tried to lick them. The words shriveled in your throat like dead leaves.
Maria didn’t push. She leaned forward, her gloved hands working your laces loose. Her touch was fast but practiced, every movement clean and confident. She peeled your boot away like it might bite, revealing a sock soaked through with blood and slush. Her hands moved up to your sleeves, lifting them, then down to your pant legs.
She checked your arms. Your calves. Behind your knees. Not lingering. Just methodical.
She didn’t even blink at the bruises, the dried cuts, the discolored swelling of your ankle.
And that’s when you understood.
She was checking for bites.
Not in fear. Not in accusation. In routine. As if she’d done it a hundred times before.
You felt no shame. No anger. Just resignation.
Of course they checked. Of course they had to.
You were lucky they hadn’t stripped you fully at the gate.
“Ankle’s sprained,” said a quiet voice beside you.
You jerked slightly. You hadn’t noticed him enter.
The man—late fifties, maybe older—wore a thick knit sweater under a stained lab coat. His hair was mostly gray, cropped close, and a beard shaded his jaw like scruff that never grew in fully. His face bore deep smile lines, but his eyes were tired. Like someone who had laughed often once, but not lately.
He crouched beside you, unraveling a roll of gauze with care. The motion was slow. Deliberate. Not because he didn’t know what he was doing—but because he did. His fingers moved like water. No words. No noise, except the faint rasp of fabric sliding over itself.
The scent of antiseptic—real antiseptic—rose faintly from his coat and gloves. Not overpowering, but distinct. A ghost of the old world. The kind of clean you used to take for granted. The kind of clean that used to mean safe.
Maria stood and handed you a tin cup. You hadn’t seen her fill it.
“Drink,” she said. “Slowly.”
You held it with both hands, trembling. The metal was warm against your fingers.
You sipped. Just water. Plain and clean.
But it tasted like everything. Like mercy. Like memory. Like a reason to stay alive.
“Two years,” you rasped, voice breaking against your teeth. You didn’t know why you said it. Maybe because she had asked. Maybe because you had to hear it out loud.
Maria’s expression didn’t change, not fully—but something flickered across it. A crease at the corner of her mouth. A tightening at her brow. It wasn’t pity. Maybe it was recognition. Sadness. Or just the weight of knowing what that meant.
She nodded once. “You plan on staying?”
The fire crackled beside you. Wind howled faintly outside, catching the corners of the building. Somewhere above, the rafters creaked as snow shifted on the roof.
And for the first time in years, the question didn’t feel like a threat.
You lowered the cup. Looked at Maria. At the doctor. At the space between them.
“If you’ll have me.”
Your voice cracked again. But you didn’t care.
Maria rubbed at her chin with the back of a weathered glove, her gaze drifting toward the small, frosted windowpane. She didn’t speak right away. Her eyes narrowed, not in suspicion, but thought—like she was mentally sifting through a puzzle with too many jagged edges and not enough time to put it together.
“We’re pretty full,” she murmured after a long pause, more to herself than to you. Her voice was low, gravel softened by fatigue. It wasn’t harsh, but it held the scratchy rasp of someone who’d been doing this too long—taking care of others, holding a wall that never stopped needing patchwork. Her tone reminded you of old coats—the kind handed down through generations, patched over the years, still warm but frayed at the sleeves.
Her eyes remained on the glass, following something you couldn’t yet see.
“But…” she added, quieter now. Her breath fogged the window slightly as she leaned in. “There’s a guest room at Dina’s place. She’s got space. And a soft heart.”
You followed her gaze, craning your neck slightly to see through the frost-rimmed edges of the window.
Across the snow-covered street stood a small two-story house nestled beneath the drooping arms of a massive pine tree. The branches were heavy with snow, thick white clumps balancing on needles like icing on a cake. Its bark was cracked and old, twisted from years of wind, standing like a silent sentinel watching over the town.
Warm yellow light spilled from behind thick, quilted curtains. It wasn’t the harsh fluorescence of survival outposts or fire-lit tents. It was home light—the kind that seeped into walls and softened them from the inside. You could just make out a figure moving behind the fabric, slow and relaxed, as if they weren’t afraid of being watched. As if nothing outside the window could reach them.
Safe.
Alive.
It looked like a memory you didn’t have.
Maria exhaled, the sound more of a sigh than a breath, and turned toward the door with a rustle of her coat.
“I’ll run it past her,” she said, pulling her scarf higher over her mouth. “Stay put.”
You gave a small nod. Numbly. Your body responded before your thoughts could catch up, already retreating from the idea of being seen, even as your chest throbbed with something else. Not quite shame. Not quite hope. A mixture of both. Guilt was already crawling in under your ribs, seeping in like cold air under a drafty doorframe.
You didn’t want to be a burden. Not here. Not anywhere.
But the part of you that had hardened, that had grown callused from sleeping outside and eating jerky in silence, was softening in the heat of this place. You were starting to feel again. That scared you more than anything.
The relief in your chest said more than you wanted to admit: You made it. You landed somewhere that smelled like woodsmoke instead of blood. Somewhere people moved with purpose instead of panic. Somewhere that might not kill you.
And for the first time in longer than you could remember, you exhaled—and your hands didn’t shake.
The doctor stayed, but he didn’t speak. He moved like a shadow, calm and quiet. The kind of man who’d learned long ago that words only mattered when they were necessary. He finished wrapping your ankle with clean gauze, the soft roll brushing your skin in rhythmic turns, steady and deliberate. His hands were warm. Smelled faintly of pine tar and old antiseptic.
Then, wordlessly, he handed you a bottle of water. The plastic crinkled in your grip—real plastic, not a salvaged tin can—and your throat ached as you took slow, careful sips.
Next came a thick blanket, scratchy against your fingers but warm, and smelling of cedar shavings and animal fur—goat, maybe. There was something raw and earthy in the scent, something grounding. Like it had been stored near hay and firewood and something else alive. You wrapped it around your shoulders and felt it cling to you like a second skin.
You stayed perched on the edge of the converted exam table, which wasn’t really a table at all. It was just an old workbench covered with padding and bolted to the floor for stability. Beneath you, it creaked softly, each shift of your weight echoing louder than expected in the quiet.
Outside the window, Jackson breathed.
You watched it unfold in fragments, through the slightly fogged glass and the occasional snowflake tracing lazy lines down the pane.
A boy with tangled brown hair trudged across the street, a woven basket of wrapped meat slung over one shoulder. He followed closely behind a tall woman with a distinct scar slicing down one cheek—a mark that hadn’t healed clean, yet didn’t diminish the strength in her posture. Their pace was casual. Unhurried. Their coats didn’t look new, but they looked warm.
Two kids shrieked in delight nearby, their snowballs exploding in white puffs against a low wooden fence. One of them slipped, tumbled into the snowbank, and popped up laughing, clutching a hat that had flown from their head mid-tumble. A collie barked excitedly nearby, bounding through the snow with its tongue lolling out, tail wagging like a flag in celebration.
Further down, a man sat on an overturned crate beside a barrel fire, meticulously repairing a pair of boots. His hands moved with focus, threading cord through thick leather. A small pot simmered beside him—maybe broth. Maybe tea. Another figure chopped wood in rhythmic, practiced arcs, their breath visible in bursts after each swing.
It was all so… normal.
Painfully normal.
You weren’t sure if it was the cold leaving your body or the memories creeping in, but your chest felt heavy. Like if you breathed too deeply, something inside might crack open.
You stared until your eyes burned.
An hour passed, maybe more. Time melted away in the warmth of the stove and the slow, silent world outside.
When Maria returned, the door creaked on its hinges, letting in a rush of bitter wind that whipped through the room before dying against the heat. Her boots were caked in slush. Her steps heavier now—measured. Her expression unreadable at first, hardened by years of negotiation and decisions she couldn’t afford to regret.
But then her eyes softened, just a little. A small nod. That was all.
“C’mon,” she said, voice quieter this time. “Let’s get some food in you.”
You stood slowly, testing your weight on the bound ankle. It held, but every step came with a dull throb—manageable, but constant. Maria didn’t offer her arm this time, but you didn’t need it. You limped beside her, blanket still clutched around your shoulders, bottle of water cradled to your chest like a relic.
She opened the door and stepped outside, and you followed.
The town opened around you in all directions—buildings hunched beneath blankets of snow, trails of smoke spiraling from chimneys like lazy brushstrokes on a white canvas. The sky was shifting into early evening now, painted in muted streaks of lavender and peach behind a gauze of clouds. The sun dipped low, casting long shadows from fence posts and streetlamps.
The road was slushy underfoot, scattered with half-melted footprints, muddy tire grooves, and little clumps of hay from someone’s satchel. You moved slower than Maria, favoring your left side, each step a small prayer to your ankle.
But it wasn’t the limp that made you feel exposed.
Not unkind. Not even suspicious.
From doorways and windows. From porches and carts. From firelit tents and balconies.
People watched. They noticed.
The girl with the limp.
The coat too thin for the season.
The blanket like a flag of surrender around her shoulders.You didn’t blame them.
You might’ve stared too.
erm ok so i have to write something other than my usuals because I wrote so much of Gun Metal I have to scrap because i am losing it with that so.... fuck it slow burn series it is
maybe we even add abby idk fuck it maybe i just feel like we spent so much time in the wlf im frickin sick of it
wanna be tagged? don't be shy tell me below
