An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Summary:
A century ago, the oceans started rising and didn’t stop. Slowly the land has been swallowed by the waves. Now, only a few bastions of civilization remain. Islands small and large hold onto the last remnants of the grand nations they once were. The seas swarm with ships, both friend and foe, scavenging and salvaging what they can of the old world.
Shadow is a captain of the G.U.N. flotilla and has made a name for himself as a ruthless pirate hunter. During his next hunt, chasing the infamous crew of The Windward, a massive storm knocks Shadow overboard. When he wakes, he finds himself the captive of Captain Sonic and his crew.
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So on top of trying to post my art again on this blog, I’ve also finally bit the bullet and started posting my fanfiction to AO3. This fic already has three chapters posted BUT I want to start posting about here as well! This is a pirate AU but also a post apocalyptic AU! I know there are a lot of pirate AU’s in the sonic fandom but I happen to really like pirates so I wanted to give it a shot myself lol.
Also thank you to @small-queer-totties for being my beta and for helping me with editing!
WIP Wednesday: Sebardagni Post-Apocalyptic Domestic Sickfic AU
I know no one cares about this idea aside from me, but this is the first thing I’ve been able to write in months, and I really fucking need the escapism of Sebastian having two men taking care of him even when the world has fallen to pieces.
I have a few scenes for this written I may end up posting on AO3 later, but for now, enjoy this scene.
The concept for this AU is this: the world ended a few years ago, and Bard, Agni, and Sebastian have been surviving together. Sebastian is chronically ill, so he and Agni mind the homestead while Bard goes off on excursions for supplies. It’s not an easy life, but overall, they’re happy.
~#~
Sebastian balanced carefully. The forearm crutches Bard had fashioned for him fit better than anything he’d managed with since the world collapsed and meant he wouldn’t do just that onto the floor—even if his muscles were weak.
He’d finally managed a few hours’ sleep, exhaustion and one of Agni’s herbal treatments helping to ease his breathing long enough to dream.
And what a dream it was. He couldn’t wait to hurry out of the small bedroom they shared in this tiny mountain cabin and tell Agni about it. As bittersweet as it was, it had felt so wonderfully real, he could almost ignore the perpetual tightness in his chest.
“Agni! Agni!” Sebastian cautiously eased the door open.
The cabin was cozy, a main room with a fireplace, kitchen, and sitting area, a bedroom and bath, and a cellar Sebastian couldn’t access—too many stairs— where they stored food for the winter.
The fire illuminated the room as Agni worked. From the way the orange sun had colored the bedroom, Sebastian suspected it was evening, which would mean Agni would likely be busy prepping their dinner.
Things had been harder lately, since Bard had been gone for weeks now—73 days, exactly, not that Sebastian had been counting—but they made do. Agni wasn’t as skilled a huntsman as Bard, but between their garden, preserved stores, chickens and goats, they managed. Agni had to coax Sebastian more often than not to eat as it was, so he barely dented their food stocks.
“I dreamed Bard came home and he found me medicine, and—“ Sebastian’s voice cut out immediately as he realized he heard Agni speaking to someone. And then he saw him. “Bard?”
The man was perched on a stool at the kitchen island, looking ragged and thinner than Sebastian remembered, but very much not a dream or a ghost.
“You’re alive?!” Sebastian’s eyes filled and he pushed himself to move as fast as he possibly could, dropping his arms from his crutches so he could throw them around his lover. “Agni and I were worried you were never coming home.”
Bard’s strong arms supported Sebastian in their embrace so he wouldn’t lose his footing, enjoying this connection. He smelt like tobacco and sweat and days out on the road, but more than anything, like hope.
Sebastian didn’t even care if Bard hadn’t been able to find any medicine for him. He was just so relieved he began to sob as weeks of emotions he’d been damming up broke free.
“Hey, hey, you’ll make your breathing worse. I’m all right. I missed you both and thinking of getting back here to you kept me going. You know I don’t die easy.”
Sebastian’s legs ached, and Bard sensed his growing instability and helped him sit down beside him. A moment later, Agni set a steaming mug in front of him. The frothy liquid was green. Another one of his herbal concoctions?
“It’s matcha. I lucked out.” Bard scratched his cheek. “Got caught in a bad storm a couple towns over and took refuge in a partly burned-out old asian market. I moved some shelves to help create a barcade and found a whole supply of the stuff that had been overlooked by scavengers.”
“The caffeine will help your breathing,” Agni said with a warm smile. “It’s not medicine, but it was a good find.”
Sebastian tried not to frown as he took a sip. It was bitter, but Agni had added some of the honey from the bees he kept to sweeten it. He didn’t want to ruin their happy reunion by suggesting, again, that maybe it was time Agni and Bard moved on and left him behind. He was too frail to travel, and Bard was having to spend more and more time on the road, detouring farther and farther from their home base in order to find any medicine to help ease Sebastian’s symptoms.
Even before the world fell apart, Sebastian had been ill. But after, the stress and lack of medical care meant his condition had deteriorated significantly, and if they hadn’t found this cabin by chance, he knew he probably would have died years ago.
Sometimes, he wondered if that would have been better for both Agni and Bard, even if he kept his mouth shut as he listened to them talking, Bard regaling some of his adventures while Agni finished prepping their food.
They’d have rabbit stew tonight, thanks to Bard’s catch, and Sebastian cherished the warmth of the mug in his hands as he tried to enjoy the limited happiness of this domestic snapshot.
He did like it here, in their little cabin. The woods shielded them from most of the horrors of the dying human world, and the fresh, dry air eased his breathing some. He loved their little home and garden, and enjoyed helping Agni with the animals when he was well enough to venture outside. He thought, despite his illness and the reality of their new world, he might be content, if Bard didn’t constantly have to put his life at risk for Sebastian’s sake.
Sebastian shivered as one of Bard’s coarse hands played with his long hair, curling a strand around a finger.
“I missed you both so fucking much,” he said. Sebastian could see the fear in those blue eyes, that he’d probably worried he might not make it back, or that by the time he did, only Agni would be waiting for his return.
~#~
Reblogs appreciated as always!
Liked this? You can see more of my writing on AO3.
CW: smut and dark themes; suicidal thoughts, monsters, horror, violence, blood, death, post-apocalyptic setting (each chapter will have its own individual trigger warnings).
This series is a reposting from the old blog.
Playlist
Terminology:
Bridges- a company that was formed to reconnect the fractured society of the USA after the cataclysmic event known as the Death Stranding.
BTs- souls trapped in the land of the living that form entities known as Beached Things, or BTs, they are hostile towards living beings.
Cryptobiotes- small life forms that float around unique natural formations, they can survive any environment, no matter how harsh. They replenish a small amount of blood and increase resistance to TimeFall when eaten by humans.
Death Stranding- an event that caused the world between the afterlife and ours (purgatory) to collide with the living world, entangling life and death.
DOOMS- a condition that grants people a greater connection to the "other side", the land of the dead. People afflicted with DOOMS are called "sufferers" of the condition. Depending on the individuals level of DOOMS, sometimes they can sense BTs or even see them.
MULEs- a faction of cargo thieves suffering from "Porter syndrome", an obsession with their previous profession. They will chase others and incapacitate them in order to steal their cargo. Many have been driven mad by the environment and circumstances, but they do not kill, and are deathly afraid of BTs.
Necrosis- a stage of death that happens after cardiac arrest (the heart has stopped beating), after which the corpse will become a Beached Thing.
Porter- freelance delivery personnel who transport cargo across the continent of UCA (United Cities of America, renamed after the events of the Death Stranding).
Repatriate- an individual with the ability to return to life after death. When people die they end up in a place called the Seam, and Repatriates can guide their soul through the Seam back to their bodies.
The Beach- a limbo, or purgatory, between the world of the living and the afterlife. Everyone has their own unique Beach that is personal to them once they die.
The Seam- the place that connects the living world to the Beach, this is where souls end up, and where Repatriates can guide their souls back to their bodies.
TimeFall- otherworldly rain that accelerates time of everything it first touches and then turns into normal water again. The appearance of TimeFall, accompanied by an inverted rainbow, signal the presence of BTs.
Voidout- an explosion that is caused when the anti-matter of a BT consumes living matter (when a human body is consumed by a BT).
☔Is there a fic concept you have that you'd like to just explain and share because you're not sure you'll ever write it? If so, what is it?
Thank you! (from this ask)
I still think fondly of that apocalyptic gunslinger AU I started last year and never finished. Had it all mapped out in my head: how these iterations of Bering and Wells would go on their little road trip/cross country trip, barely opening up to each other about their past, but coming to trust each other in the present, and eventually saving the day.
This Myka thinks that the event that happened to bring about the apocalypse was her fault. That's why she's so angry at herself, so bitter; that's why she has left and hasn't come back. The truth is, though, that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, the wrong time being a cascade of happenstances in the Warehouse that ended up not just exploding most of it but unbronzing Paracelsus.
Who has taken over the US, by using one specific artifact to make any fuel (gasoline/diesel, gas (as in, the stuff fancy stoves use), jet fuel etc.; hadn't entirely mapped out how far the damage went, but certainly the entirety of readily available fuels) vanish. Completely. At once.
As in, planes falling from the sky because their tanks were empty, cars and semis crashing for the same reason, ships stalling and then either being lost at sea or running into riverbanks, as immediate consequences. If I subsume coal and uranium under "fuel", then also power plants shutting down. Then, as long-term fallout, people leaving any place where you have to depend on cars, congregating in cities, riots, anarchy, food scarcity, worldwide upheavals: and that is when Paracelsus stepped in. Like, maybe he has an artifact source of fuels still or whatever. But he's now very firmly in power.
And there's a little enclave of people hiding out in the Rockies, part of a resistance network, that can make use of whatever doohickey Artie sent along with Helena - although he absolutely considers her (and Myka) valuable doohickeys too, to help that resistance.
But, back to our two heroines: picture empty plains, tall dry grass, blue skies without a single airplane on them - and among it, a woman and a horse, or sometimes two women, making their way first south, then west, doing their best to survive, and stay clear of raiders, post-apocalyptic cults, bears and pumas and wolves (oh my), and slowly building trust, recognizing the hurt in each other and respecting the other's silence about the reasons, but offering each other what comfort they can anyway, because they don't have anyone else but each other out here.
I have so so many WIPs, though, and this one is so far back in the queue, that I'd rather put stuff here - I don't know if this will ever see the light of day more than it has.
Summary: The world is too harsh to let hope flourish in places it shouldn’t, but in a chance encounter with a handsome stranger you begin to realize he’d planted a seed of hope inside of you without you ever noticing. One that you couldn’t seem to cut free.
A/N: So, I couldn’t help myself. I played The Last of Us part 1 and 2 (I don’t want to talk about part 2 man I am not physically ready) and when I found out Pedro was going to be playing Joel well…I couldn’t help myself. This is my first time writing for Pedro. My first time attempting it and this was a long labor of love and tears and I just truly, from the bottom of my heart, hope that someone out there enjoys this. Thank you so much for reading. Comments are always appreciated! Much love, Jenn
Ratings: M - mature content, sexual themes, violence, strangers to lovers, mentions of death and apocolypse-style world ending
Words: 18k (yeah, she’s a hefty one)
Your first meeting with him had been nothing but a pure clash of teeth and bones. Skin swallowing up battered knuckles and blunt ends of empty gun stocks. There was a brief moment of fear that flickered through you like waking up from a bad dream startled awake inside a room full of darkness. It dripped in the loose strands of hair that his large scrambling fingers had yanked free. You’d worried the latest grunt that passed your lips - due from your exertion at keeping the bat to his throat - was too loud in the small room. Too abrasive. Not soft enough to disintegrate against the drywall of the room.
With all your weight, you dug your heels down against the floor. Every muscle-burning as you fought to get the cool metal against his throat and keep it there. This wicked dance of survival flared along the synapse of your bones sparking goosebumps along your skin.
You were so focused on your primary goal - incapacitating him - that you weren’t prepared for his next move. His own fight or flight for survival kicking into overdrive and screaming for him to reach behind him to grab a hold of you.
You weren’t expecting him to take the risk of you crushing his windpipe - weren’t prepared to feel large hands palming at your head and neck. You tried to shake him off. Your body wildly thrashing, but he only needed one good opening and somewhere in that millisecond you’d given him just enough.
The palm of one hand latched itself painfully to the back of your neck, while the other curled its fingers into the dirtied cotton of your button-down. He counted on you rocking back to try and get him to release you, and the moment you did he lurched himself forward. Powerful arms pulled you with your added momentum and flung you over his shoulders causing your body to collide violently on the filthy vinyl floor. The buttons of your shirt scattered around you like marbles.
Get up! Get. Up!
You wanted to move - the adrenaline singing in your veins reminding you what would happen if you didn’t. The air that'd been abandoned from your lungs, however, refused to return. Instead, it left your chest stuttering over dry coughs to suck in a breath.
You could hear the loud clanking of the bat clattering to the floor. The hard-pressed sound of his heavy boots scrambling to get himself to his feet. You were running out of time, and options, in the span of a heartbeat.
It was your turn to fend off an attacker. You watched in what felt like horrifying slow motion as one long leg stepped over your middle. The man’s large frame came into view moments before he sat down hard on your hips, keeping the air from returning to your lungs. The panic overwhelmed your thoughts; turned your fingers into claws so you could swing up to try and rake your nails down his face. The stranger - this broad ass man - seemed to know what you had planned, and those large hands moved lightning quick to scoop up your wrists. He pinned your arms high above your head causing the sheer size of him to dwarf your body.
“Enough! I ain’t trying to kill you!”
God his voice. It was a sin - you were sure - to be in such a situation and care only about the thickness of a voice. Roughened by the bat that had been pressed against his larynx.
“Calm the hell down, will ya!”
His hands grab roughly at your shoulders and lift you a few inches off the ground. Enough space that he could effectively shake you. A silent knowledge that sat heavy with dread on your tongue at the reminder of his strength. If he wanted too, this man would have already killed you. Instead, he was watching you.
The dark orbs of his eyes reflected the wild silhouette of a woman - chest heaving with a snarl on her curled lips making her look feral. They told a small story of an unflinching woman who refused to reduce herself to begging. To succumb to the tears of frustration and the cold tiredness that hummed inside her bones. It took you a moment to realize this woman of savagery featuring eyes full of fire and a body that radiated fury - was you.
Your body grew still beneath him, but he didn’t peel his hands off of you or remove his massive weight from where it kept you pinned helplessly on the floor. He wasn’t a fool. It felt good to watch him struggle to catch his breath. Every swallow of his throat causes a noticeable winch from soreness he’d feel for the next couple days.
Good. Let it be a reminder. You were just as dangerous as the creatures lurking outside.
“What’s your name?”
You wanted to answer, but at the same time thought against it. A name was a powerful thing. A dangerous thing. Spoken like the sweetest curse or whispered in a voice of repentance it held the power to stop anyone in their tracks.
Do I want you to know me? You thought. A name to remember that painful little feeling, like you’re swallowing a mouthful of sand every time you swallow.
You were too busy in your head. You didn’t answer him right away like he wanted.
“Hey - a name. You got one?”
This time the gentleness he’d used to try and coax it out was gone. In its place was a low cuff growl that reverberated on your skin.
You’d spent the better half of this moment on your back, him pinned above you, with your eyes carving out shadowed features. The darkness of the room did little to aid you in seeing the detailed features of a man who either wanted to kill you or use you. Your eyes only made out shaggy chestnut hair and a patchy beard that were matched by the speckled patches of gray.
“Yours first.”
A wave of emotions you couldn’t register cascaded across his features, smoothing out its rough edges until they resembled something soft. A stir of laughter brewed in your belly that you chalked up to hysterics. There was no way he could be relieved to hear your voice.
“The name’s Joel. Yours?”
Well…fair was fair.
The sounds of every heavy breath he took boomed loudly in your ears. So when you responded, your name sounded too soft in the space around you. Almost lost in the quiet of the room and the exasperated laugh Joel gave that was born out of exhaustion. He repeated it back like he enjoyed the taste of it on his tongue and for a brief moment, maybe you did too.
“Now I’m going to remove myself from you. Can I trust you won’t try and lay your hands on me again?”
You gave him a quick nod. Your own chest heaving too fast; unsure if it was okay to take a gulp of air just in case your rough landing bruised a rib.
Joel didn’t move off of you all at once. He removed himself piece-by-piece. First one hand off an arm, the hand hovering above just to show it wasn’t reaching for any weapon before he slowly started on the other. Each time he removed a piece of himself from you, his eyes cautiously watched your face. Searching for a shift in your honesty that would hurl both of you back into another struggle to survive.
When Joel’s body was completely removed from yours, you couldn’t stop the panic that set your feet scrambling to find purchase on the floor beneath you. Your pulse threading back up with adrenaline as your hand mindlessly searched for your bat, plywood - anything.
Joel noticed immediately and without hesitation his hands slowly moved up to show surrender.
“Easy now. I meant what I said, little dove. I have no intentions of hurting you.”
“Don’t call me that,” you snapped. “We are strangers, and as such, you don’t have any business giving out pet names.”
“And you would be right,” he replied dryly. His hands still unwavering from beside his head. “But seeing that we did the pleasantries of a civil name exchange, I would be so bold to say we aren’t strangers any more.”
Damn him. Damn him with that smirk and his stupid flirting. It felt fitting - his little nickname. Birds usually panicked when they weren’t able to find high ground from predators; the safety of an open window to escape into the bright blue sky is something you wish you could do right now. Your heart hammering - caged and wild - inside your chest until you swore it would burst free at any moment. Your panic in plain view for his endlessly dark eyes to see.
Joel stayed motionless in his spot. The only movement he gave was the shift of his eyes as they took you in. You wondered what it was he could see looking at you. If the coldness you were attempting to portray was fraying around the edges. Your tongue flicked out across your bottom lip; quickly drawing up the skin with a quick tongue to bury your teeth into the flesh.
“So -“ you began, eyes warily watching him, “What do we do?”
“Firstly, I think I owe you this.”
Joel moved quickly - too quick - and you weren’t prepared for the sudden shift in movement. He’d moved timidly around you as if you were a frightened animal and suddenly he was shrugging off his jacket. His arms worked their way out when you scrambled further back with your right fingers lacing around a large piece of the caved in ceiling.
He noticed your frantic movements. The short bursts of breath that stuttered past your lips and arm flailing behind you for anything. Joel let his body become still once more. You told yourself to not buy into it. You both were literally at each other’s throats seconds ago. He didn’t owe you anything besides a crushed skull with the way you’d attacked him. Instead, you watched as he continued to remove his coat, but this time he moved slower.
Each movement exaggerated for you to watch and continue to prove he meant you no harm. Once his jacket was removed he laid it down in front of his knees. His shoulders shimmed out of a long sleeve denim button up that he'd worn underneath the coat, leaving him only in the thin fabric of a worn baseball tee. Joel stretched his arm out towards you with his newly removed flannel clasped tightly in his fist.
“Go ahead and take it. It’s the least I can do sense I- ugh…ruined yours.”
His eyes ticked down to a place that finally wasn’t your face and when you followed heat flushed through your cheeks. You’d completely forgotten about the small sound of tearing cloth; the buttons. Why hadn’t you noticed it before?
Your shirt was ruined. The front only had a couple buttons left that were holding on for dear life, but the top was torn open. Your chest is bare besides the one good bra you’d found in the last couple of months. It was a force of habit for your arms to shoot up to hide what little modesty you could. Joel’s own eyes averted back to looking around at the room and the space between you before finding their home back on the angles of your face.
“Please. Take it.”
Your subconscious screamed at you that it was a bad idea to get close to him again; to take anything from him. You told her to shut up. It was beginning to get cold outside. The falling leaves around the area informing you that very soon you’d need to find a warm enough shelter to survive the coming winter, and with a ruined shirt? You wouldn’t last long with it the way it was, and you weren’t about to cross your fingers that you would hopefully find a sewing kit lying around somewhere.
You moved forward little-by-little. Your own hand outstretched between you until your fingertips grazed the worn fabric. You didn’t snatch it from him, but gently removed it from his hands and Joel let you. He let you move at your own pace until you were back to where you started. The safety of a foot of space between the both of you.
The fabric was still warm from his skin.
Nervously, you cleared your throat. Your index finger performs a small circle - asking for him to turn around.
“Could I get a little privacy? Please.”
“Of course. I’m sorry I should’ve already- “
Joel never finished his sentence. He was just on his feet, a large hand scooping down to pick up his jacket before his back was facing you. It surprised you how trusting he was to do so. You could’ve been lying. You could just attack him all over again - kill him this time - or leave him injured here for the creatures to find.
Joel trusted you not too.
Stupid man. You hated the way his trust sparked something warm inside your chest. Purring like a fat cat that you swore you’d never experience again. Never let yourself feel again. You quickly banish it away and set yourself to the task at hand.
You let the ruined shirt fall to the floor. Your own booted foot kicking it underneath an old kitchen table too be forgotten like everything else. Moving quickly, you worked Joel’s larger shirt over your arms and up your shoulders doing the best you could to make it fit your frame.
God, but the shirt stunk of him and it wasn’t unpleasant. Not like you wanted it to be.
You signaled you were finished by clearing your throat and waited for him to turn around. A part of you wishing he’d stayed with his back to you. An even greater part of you wishing you’d just snuck away while he wasn’t looking. Allowing this interaction to end right here and now between the two of you, instead of you having the way Joel looked - seeing you standing there in his shirt - forever branded to your memory.
He took in a deep breath before he motioned towards his fallen backpack.
“I’m just going to grab my things. I have a-a place of shelter just a few clicks back north. You’re more than welcome to come with me if you want. Just for the night.”
“Are there others who are waiting for you there?”
Why did you sound so meek? A hand moved up to grab at your wrist and subconsciously you felt your nails digging in. There was a right and wrong way to handle this and even entertaining the thought of possibly going with him was wrong. Absolutely the wrong idea. And yet…
When Joel shook his head in reply first a deep sigh rushed from your nose.
“It’s just me. I was in the middle of gaining supplies for the settlement when I ran into - well - you.” He picked up his pack and slung it over his shoulder. His hand wrapped around the edge of your bat before holding it as an invitation between you. “My offer still stands. If you want it.”
The second stupidest thing you’d done that day was not taking your bat and walking away. Heading back to the safety of wherever you could find rest for the night and making your way further south come dawn. Instead, you found yourself walking beside him with a foot of safe space still between you and the scent of his button down haunting you with every step.
When the world ultimately decided to check itself out of the equation that was life, it wasn’t by hordes of undead or nuclear wars. World War lll and men in power yelling over who had the biggest - baddest - weapons.
It was more subtle. A ‘blink and you might miss it,’ type of end. Mother Nature herself decided she’d had enough of everyone’s shit and created something that was both legendary and nightmare worthy all at once.
A toxin is what did the world in. One people only dreamed existed inside the pages of fucking science fiction novels and dystopian franchises. It was no wonder, at first, when it all happened the world didn’t pay much attention. The true panic settled in when it all felt too late. The government doing away with the world leaders and declaring Martial law. Civilians thrust into settlements to wait it out - hoping there would one day be a cure.
Spores festered on the skin like open wounds. The skin moving - breathing - as its own organism that lived on the host. A parasitic infection that pumped its way through your blood taking up root in all your major organs until who you were, as a person - a human being - stopped existing. The fungus eventually would reach its intended target - the brain - and the only thing left was the fungus itself.
The worst part? Those spores that came from bites, scratches, or even just being an unsuspecting fool and walking into a room full of floating spore particles, didn’t just fester in one spot. Eventually, the flesh on your body became something else and the place that held the most notable change was the faces of people you knew. Men, women, and children all with morphed skin that showcased the fungus like fucked up flora that flourished from their skin.
The clicking was the worst.
In the larger cities that you passed through for supplies it felt like the sound followed you everywhere.
Click-click-click.
Pay attention to where you’re stepping. One wrong move. One sound they’ll hear you. Click-click-click. Hold your breath. Don’t make a move. Throw something to distract -mislead them somewhere else. Click-click-click. Run! Run if they hear you. Don’t look back. Fight back only if you need to, but hide-hide-HIDE! Click-click-click.
That sound haunts you in your waking hours. There was no such thing as nightmare fuel when the nightmare was real. They were real. The screeching was worse. Even inside the safe walls of a settlement your mind could hear the echolocation of constant clicks. A screech cutting briefly through them to communicate with the others around them.
Ingesting or being bitten was a death sentence. The fungus took less than two days to spread throughout your body before it finally made it to your brain. The first tell was aggression. Someone who used to be passive was easily irritated - flinging themselves at someone with the threat of gnashing teeth.
Runners were the names they were given. People are what your brain still refers to them as. After all this time, you couldn’t compartmentalize. You couldn’t see past the familiar faces of colleagues and friends you’d grown close with even when you’d told yourself that closeness was a commodity you could no longer risk.
Within weeks, those people you couldn’t call monsters began to look exactly like the ones you’d been running from. Their low groans turned into the constant click-click-click you’d grown to loathe.
You’d watched as family, friends, and people of your compound became infected. One-by-one it was caught in time before it endangered everyone inside or caught too late. A bullet through the brain of a loved one began to feel commonplace, but it didn’t ease the pain. Nothing could erase the memories of scrubbing their memories out of blood stained tile floors or burning every article of clothing you’d worn to do it.
Your hand still had a tremor every time you held a gun. It only grew still when you fired. The sureness you lacked moments ago completely wiped away and all those memories you wanted buried, well, you locked them deep inside a lockbox you imagined inside your mind. A box that held every awful thing you’d done, everyone you’d lost, every experience that left you battered, and every face that haunted your waking hours.
Whoever said grief faded overtime was wrong. Your grief clung to you like a ghost holding tight to your skin. Their imagery is painted in memories that came uninvited when you sat around a fire or cleaned your weapons. The sound of a guitar and the frailty of its song and the happy conversations held over shared dinners just before everyone departed for bed.
No. Grief was a bitch and she made it her mission that you never forget. So why were you sitting here and sharing a small fire inside the safety of an old office with Joel?
Your brain knew this could only go bad - would go bad. It wasn’t a matter of if but when.
You laid the blame heavily on his shirt. The warm material practically swallowed you whole and filled your bones with warmth. The same exact warmth you felt when eyes that reflected the lick of flames from the fire glanced in your direction. The soft hue the fire created illuminating the honey tones of his skin and the light creases of fine lines around his eyes and forehead.
You hated most how your eyes betrayed you with cautious glances down at his full bottom lip. A perfect bow that drew you in with each soft tilt of his mouth that you swore was dangerously close to being a smile. As if he knew that, along with the endless dark ocean of his gaze, it held you hostage.
“I wanted you to know. I didn’t mean to surprise you back there. In the apartment.”
Inside the four-by-four cement walls of the office and its matching floor, there wasn’t any need for him to speak in hushed tones like he did back inside the complex. You were struck by the richness the sound of his voice held. The ache it caused to swirl inside your gut at the deeply masculine baritone that hummed along your skin.
You brought your knees closer to your chest. A way to ward off whatever it was you were feeling, because you were most definitely not feeling anything for Joel. . It’s for warmth. I am not interested in this man or his puppy dog eyes. Somewhere, the devil was chuckling and remembering all it took for Eve to fall from Grace was just a bite of an apple. Forbidden fruit. And Joel was beginning to look more like a sin you could live with.
“You don’t need to apologize. I should’ve been paying attention. I’m just lucky it was you and not,” someone else “A clicker or one of the others.”
“I’m sure if it was you’d have given them one hell of a fight.”
He chuckled and your world shattered. This was dangerous. He was dangerous. Bring up something else. Anything else!
Your mouth hung open, waiting to respond with a question of your own, when Joel extended out what looked to be a sandwich bag. An actual sandwich inside. Your eyes flashed over in hunger as you looked up expectantly between him and his outstretched hand.
“Go ahead and take a slice. You look like you haven’t eaten in days.”
Weeks. Try weeks. Not real food, anyways. Not anything worth giving you sustenance and enough muscle to fight off a grown ass man.
You didn’t wait for him to ask you twice. Your hand lurched out faster than you were proud of and took the offered slice. Your mouth is already watering before the smell of soft homemade bread, meats, and cheeses hit your nose. The first bite was pure heaven, and you didn’t try to stop the moan that crawled its way out between your lips.
This is heaven!
“I’ll make sure to let Ms. Sue know you feel that way.”
Oh god, you’d said it outloud. You tried to cover the blossoming rose color of your cheeks with another bite of the sandwich.
“Ms. Sue?”
Joel took a bit of his own sandwich and answered with a small nod. His mouth worked the food down just enough before he spoke again.
“One of the ladies who works in the kitchens back at the compound. Whenever she’s gettin’ low on something she lets us know.”
“Is that what you were doing out here tonight? Looking for something she requested?”
You took a bite and noticed for the cool once over Joel sent in your direction. His body grew still as he worked out whether or not that information was something he could share. For the first time since you’d idiotically followed him, a flash of worry settled between your shoulders. The muscle tightening and turning the savory taste of food to ash on your tongue.
But as briefly as the look was there it was gone in the same amount of time. His hand reached behind him to pluck the small stick he’d been using to prod the fire from going out.
“No. I’m a smuggler. I was heading out to acquire some thing’s when I stumbled into you.”
Your brow arched playfully at his choice of words. Your throat swallowed the last of your sandwich before you replied, “Stumbled? Is that what people are calling it these days?”
A smile like Christmas morning lit up Joel’s face. He looked down into the flames of the small fire and poked the small stick into the makeshift logs from an old battered sofa from the corner. You were glad he turned away. Glad he couldn’t see the way your breath caught in your throat.
“I guess it’s just what I’m calling it these days.”
“You enjoy sneaking up on women who are all by their lonesome out here?” You quipped, enjoying the way your teasing made him squirm.
“If I remember right, and I believe I do, I did a terrible job on the sneaking part of that scenario.”
“Yup,” you agreed, popping the p for added effect. “About as subtle as a gunshot.”
“And what about you? What brings you out this way? Were you out with a hunting party of your own and got separated?”
A part of you knew this line of questioning would come. You told yourself you were prepared for it. When the time came to answer it you would do so stoically and without signs that you were close to fracturing underneath. The sudden drop in his demeanor - all that teasing and life that filled him while speaking to you - quickly diminished into a body of concern.
What were you showing him exactly? Did he see someone struggling to keep it together? A storyboard of grief and loss as they clawed their way to the surface of an overwhelming ocean? Or was Joel simply seeing just you. Alone. Scared.
Please don’t see me. Pleasedoseeme-
You swallowed the ache that began to rise in your throat. A song of mourning you held back everyday at the home you’d lost only a few days ago.
“You don’t need to say anything if it’s too…personal.”
Joel offered you a way out. A way to save yourself from wading through memories you’d rather keep hidden but, for a startling moment, all you wanted was to be seen. A small part of you believed if you needed to find salvation in the form of broad shoulders and a warm embrace, Joel would give it to you without question. The thought alone enough to make the ache in your chest bloom until your bones were weighted down with all the moments you’d tried desperately to bury.
“The fungus spread faster in the settlement than any of us could’ve imagined. We’d gotten sloppy; too full of ourselves thinking even if someone did come back infected we would know. Or that they would be honest. Well, honesty is only good to those it’s loyal too, and if you ask that honesty to give up family well-“
You splayed your hands out. A weak emphasis on a fact you both knew without you needing to say it. You were fucked.
“Isaac went out looking for Teresa one evening when they realized a group of the kids wandered out past the safe zone. They were attacked on their way back - told everyone they were fine. No need to worry. Well, in less than twenty-four hours Isaac began to change. Teresa bit her Aunt Lourdes and instead of saying anything, they thought they could sneak out. Die together in the grove or forest somewhere, except when they opened the door Isaac went berserk. Completely broke open a barricade and started screaming, alerting every damn Stalker we’d scouted in the area the previous night.”
You wrapped your arms protectively around you. The scent of Joel’s shirt was not enough to keep you grounded in the present. To keep the sound of gunfire and screaming from ricocheting through your mind; tearing open fresh wounds that barely had the time to scab over.
It’s almost comical how no one tells you - shows you - that when people panic their aim is off. The spray of bullets let off by a single trigger mowing down fleeing civilians instead of the monsters invading your home.
“We never believed it could happen to us. We’d gotten complacent. I think that’s what makes it worse.”
The room was swallowed up in silence. The crackling of a slowly dying fire was the only thing that reminded you there was still someone else in the room. A life besides yours that was still living. Still fighting.
“You shouldn’t feel guilty for being alive.”
Your eyes narrowed in on Joel’s figure as he rose to his feet. Cautiously, he made his way around the fire until he stood before you, forcing your neck to crane upwards just to meet his gaze.
Fuck, he’s tall…
When you gave no hint you would move away, Joel bent his large frame down until it was positioned beside you. Knee brushing against yours as he got comfortable against the wall with only his shoulder brushing against yours alerting you that he was close.
“I had a daughter. Sarah.”
The sadness that drenched her name felt suffocating. It demanded every last press of air from your lungs to leave your body to shatter inside you. So when you felt the resonating shudder of Joel’s exhale you understood. The amount of pain he carried inside him was unbearable.
Maybe that’s why you reached out for his hand. Maybe that’s why he laced his fingers with yours.
“We were stationed out in the Boston settlement. Something similar happened. Infected got in somehow and we tried to run my brother, Tommy, barely making it to us in time. Sarah - she-she…”
“You don’t need to open up an old wound for me, Joel.”
The two of you were so close. You felt like you should’ve been prepared better for having him invade the safety of the walls you’d built. It wasn’t like you weren’t just trying to incapacitate him hours before, but this was different. You didn’t get to see him before; not when you were nothing but adrenaline and speed.
I’m forgetting to breathe again.
Up close, you were able to make out the soft patchy pattern of his beard. Your fingers itches to run your fingers through it; circle the soft skin of his jaw that peaked through in odd places. It made him more endearing; his handsomeness flawed just enough to make him appear more real. Just above the bridge of his nose you made out a dull scar, probably from a broken nose. All these small features that blended with his thick brows and the curls of his hair. Your hand itches to reach out and run your fingers through it. Joel spoke your name and it was enough to draw you back the present.
All you could think about was having him say it again. To speak your name with his lips flushed against your skin like a prayer.
“I just wanted you to know - I understand the guilt that comes from surviving. From having to move on and live when the ones we love are missing. If you need a place to stay you’re more than welcome to come back with me to my settlement. A safe place for you to decide what it is you’d like to do.”
Stay with me. That’s what this felt like. A secret told between the endless depths of his eyes and the way they searched over your face. A silent hope that you would agree bleed into the lines of his forehead. Did Joel know he was looking at you like this? With his neck bleeding into fresh greens and yellows of a forming bruise around his neck. Your back matches in blooming plains of purples and black that formed like bruised stars on your back.
I want to. It was the only response that made sense. Could Joel feel it? The way you wished to respond and answer him with a kiss. Was this leftover adrenaline from earlier? Was your blood still roaring from your earlier confrontation?
How did we get here?
You wanted to ask him so many things, but his fingers ghosted over the pulse in your throat and you forgot all the reasons why you shouldn’t. What good were thoughts, anyways? All they’d ever brought you was sleepless nights and overthinking. This - Joel - felt easier.
Easier to respond to his thumb skimming over your lips than to think about what comes after. Your skin responded instantly to his touch; rising up to chase after roaming fingers before a large hand settled on cupping your cheek.
Joel’s eyes searched your face for any sign of hesitation. Waited for you to pull away and remove yourself from this entangled body of limbs you’d both become. But you couldn’t. How could you? When Joel stared at you like you were the means to his salvation. If only he knew how he’d damned you the second his lips feathered over yours.
Joel pressed his lips to yours with the barest of pressure. He expected you to pull away from him and a part of you knew that you should’ve, but the shared loss between you sparked a desire to forget. To feel something for once that went beyond regret and days when it felt hard just to wake up. You wanted to feel good and whole again and from the way Joel cradled your cheek and his other hand pulled you closer you knew, without a doubt he could make you feel better than you could’ve imagined. This growing chasm of need between you sparked until it ignited and all you could do was respond to Joel’s kiss.
The hair of his mustache tickles along your upper lip, causing a giggle to rise up in your throat. You could feel it tracing at the edges of your tongue, but Joel suppressed it, turned it into a groan, as his teeth tentatively bit along your lower lip.
He kissed the oxygen from your lungs and claimed it as his own. The deliberate strokes of an expect tongue coaxing your mouth to open up for him, and once you did all thoughts ceased to exist.
Joel pulled you close or as close as you could be pressed side-by-side along a wall. Eager hands that held your face with delicacy were now snaked behind your neck. Possessively gripping at your hips with thick fingers needing into the soft flesh.
The thought of his hands with their large palms and thick digits touching you sent your mind tail spinning. The wet sound of smacking lips and tongues stroking was overwhelming in the silence of the room. It only published a deeper desire to have him claim you. To cleanse your skin with his need. You were a broken thing and so was Joel but maybe, together, you could be made whole.
You tried to paint to memory the soft contours of his face and how his beard felt in your hands. How his lips were pillowy soft, and slightly rough from dryness caused by the cold weather. The way Joel exhaled a sigh of contentment when you lost your fingers inside the waves of his hair. Tugging lightly on his strands to instruct him to tilt his head back allowing you better access to his mouth.
You barely had a moment to register Joel’s hands finding the back of your thighs. He lifted you up with ease and guided you to straddle him. His knees pressed up against your ass to keep you as close as possible to him and when his hands moved under your shirt, and found a home on your skin, you purred.
It felt like you were on fire from every touch. Instead of putting it out, Joel made the flames spread wilder making you whine against him.
I need you…was what you hoped he understood. That he wouldn’t think he was hurting you and pull back from where you’d grown connected at the mouth. If he pulled away from you now, your world would never seem right again. What a tragedy it would be to not know what this man felt like in all the ways he offered to give.
A screech cut through the chorus of grunts and heavy panting the two of you created. The sound itself was enough to force your hands to freeze from peeling back his coat. Joel’s lips detached from yours and your body instantly mourned him, because once his lips left you he began to peel you completely off of him.
You should’ve been more alert - more cautious - like Joel was trying to be. It was the sensible thing to do and fucking a perfect stranger in the middle of a clicker hotspot was pretty high on the idiotic table. But you didn’t care. Your body mourned him and the feeling grew worse as he slowly rose to his feet.
His booted feet walked him back to the safety of his original spot beside the dying fire. His hand gripping tightly to his neck, the other hand on his hip, while he looked into a void you couldn’t see. Whatever it was he was thinking you hoped it wouldn’t be too head back to his settlement.
Don’t leave me. Not like this. You couldn’t breathe. Not while you waited to hear his voice; waiting to hear him say his goodbye.
“We should-should probably get some rest. It’s about a half-day's walk back to the settlement.”
His voice was raspy and sat in the air like molasses. Joel wouldn’t look over at you again, choosing instead to move back to his own side. He walked over the wall farthest from you, facing the doorway, and slid down the wall. He took out his gun and placed it in his lap as he crossed his legs and pulled his coat close to his body.
He still wouldn’t look at you even before sleep claimed him. Joel’s eyes remain closed while you helplessly burned for him in your own small corner.
Joel was true to his word.
The morning came and you found yourself following beside him. The trail Joel carved out was one you hadn’t expected. You’d been prepared to travel through desolate streets and highways that gave way back into the forest. You expected to feel the looming presence of shadows from the trees and the brushes of tall grass through your fingers.
Instead, you found yourselves moving on bending knees and hiding behind corners to get to an abandoned mall.
“There’s something I need to get first before we head back.”
It was the first time Joel looked at you since last night. Well, at least not with a look of utter regret that left you somehow feeling broken. A body full of muscle that refused to support you any longer. You wanted to ask what it was that made his shoulders hunch forward with guilt. Like the weight of your decision to lose yourselves for a moment in the arms of another was beyond reckless, but forbidden.
You kept your questions idled in the back of your mind, and focused on counting every open space you passed. Every darkened corner that possibly held spores either you or Joel couldn’t see and whatever lurked past broken windows of shops and homes.
You didn’t like this. You felt too exposed no matter how many avenues Joel took to keep you both hidden. Not to mention, if you ran into any Fireflies, the anti-military sub-group that many considered terrorists, you didn’t have any weapons beside a bat and knife. Against a gun you wouldn’t stand a chance.
To hide your anxiety your hands dug underneath the nylon straps of your backpack. Your eyes rapidly take in every detail casing every available spot for cover - to hide - if it came to that.
When you finally reached Joel’s destination it was a crate inside of a decrepit clothing store. Dresses that had once held vibrant colors were now filmed over with a yellow tint that reminded you of smokers teeth. The foliage from outside had taken over the store with a tree sprouting up in the very middle of the department floor.
You cautiously followed behind him as he made his way to the stockroom in the back. Inside Joel quickly moved to a crate that was hidden pretty well from view. If you weren’t following so closely behind him you probably would’ve never noticed it.
Of course, Joel did. He knew what he was looking for and wasted no time cracking open the lid of the crate. The sound of wood splintering sent birds who had found a home inside the lush branches of the tree squawking frantically in the room behind you.
Too loud! It’s all too loud! Warning flashes of red went off inside your head.
“Joel.”
Your voice was soft enough to not draw attention, but there was no masking the sternness that bit out around his name like steel.
“It’s gonna be alright. I just need to pick up this order - throw it in my pack - and we can go. Come here and hold this.”
With one hand holding up the lid of the crate, Joel watched you closely. The war of indecision sparked inside you and, for once, you weren’t sure what side to listen to. The adrenaline in your blood voted that you run; run as far as your legs would take you and hide. But the other side of you that nagged - that you wished would just shut up - demanded that you stay. The look on Joel’s face wasn’t helping the nagging either.
He looked hopeful. Stupid, stupid man. Neither of you knew the other one. Not really and sharing sad stories that everyone around the world experienced didn’t constitute for making you immediate best friends. Kissing each other the way you did…the overwhelming need to become a part of him didn’t change that either. You just chalked that up to being hormonal.
So why were you not running? Why instead was your dumbass moving to hold the crate like he asked?
“Thank you.”
You could feel Joel’s eyes boring into you. A silent plea for you to look at him, but you refused to give in any more than you had. Your body was already trying to stage a coup being this close to him. Mentally, you fought not to glance at him and settled on the compromise of looking at his booted foot.
A heavy sigh came from his nose and relief flooded you for all of eight seconds that he had moved on. To move on, however, meant that you somehow forgot how close doing this small favor for him had brought you to him. You were painfully reminded when he went back to getting whatever was inside the crate. A broad shoulder pressed into your bubble and rubbed against you as he reached inside.
You didn’t want to assume anything but he seemed to be leaning into you more than was necessary. Ever since you’d woken up, Joel had practically ignored your existence. He’d kept as much distance between the two of you, and while you’d walk the distance had been even greater. He acted as if you carried the plague. You shouldn’t have cared that he’d acted this way, but you did. It was impossible to pretend he didn’t affect you when the phantom touch of his hands caressing up your spine was burned into your memory.
Focus on the stuff - things - not him. You turned your thoughts from Joel and let curiosity peak your head inside. A part of you wished you hadn’t looked.
Deep inside the crate were loads of medicinal supplies. It was comical how something as simple as antibiotics, pain meds, gloves, antiseptics could get you killed. If the military caught you, it was a sure-fire way to end up in a rotting cell while they “interrogated” you about how you came across the supplies. Then there were the Fireflies. If they caught you with these, well, they’d just kill you and take it from you.
“What are you playing at, Joel?”
You weren’t aware that you’d said anything until he stilled beside you. He glanced over his shoulder at you before he placed a load of supplies from his hand to his open pack.
“I told you last night I was a smuggler. What the fuck do you think I smuggle? Lollipops and kittens?”
Joel’s body went on the defense. Each movement felt rigid; a spring coiling back waiting for the moment it would be released. He used his broad back to hide the next few handfuls. You didn’t blame him for sounding pissy or being the least bit irritated but, “I get that you don’t smuggle cute ass kittens, which you should by the way, but this? Do you realize this can get us fuckin killed?”
“I know that already!”
His body snapped halfway in your direction with his eyes wild in irritation as they fell on you. Involuntarily you felt yourself flinch and you hated showing a moment of weakness. Joel took notice - he was always noticing even the smallest things and you hated it.
“Look,” he huffed. “I’m getting paid what I need for this job, and a few of these supplies I get to keep. This is going to help save lives at my settlement and others.”
It was your turn to sigh; watching as he shifted back to grabbing bandages.
“I understand that. I don’t mean to be an assho- “
Click-click-click.
All the air rushed out of your lungs. Joel froze with his hand inside his pack and you with your arms still holding up the crate. The two of you listened for any more giveaways of where the Clicker was. After a few heartbeats, Joel began to move again. This time more deliberate and slower.
He leaned down and began to zip up his backpack inch-by-inch. His eyes scanned the back area and, hopefully, his ears were possibly straining as hard as yours were to try and gauge how close it truly was.
“Fuck!”
His words were guttural; whispered harshly into the collar of his jacket.
He rapidly scanned the area behind you, and you were just about to mouth a question of ‘what the actual fuck,’ when his eyes landed on your backpack. He looked from it, to you, and back to your backpack. You knew before he even asked and already could feel your head snapping wildly back and forth.
“My pack is full!” He noted in a hush whisper.
“Well, that sucks.”
Each word hissed past clenched teeth. You tried to remain calm, but the anxiety was boiling closer to the surface.
“Do you have room in your pack?”
“Are you fucking crazy? Joel, we need to go. Now!”
Your name fell from his lips in a plea and you hated yourself a little more for the fact you caved. Joel’s eyes reminded you of a deer - caught in the headlights of his own stubbornness and the panic at leaving an honest amount of supplies behind.
“Look, if I don’t bring enough back then the deal I made is nullified. I can’t go back without at least half. I don’t have enough room, but maybe you do.”
You did. You both knew that you did. The cloth backpack only had a few fruit bars you’d found that weren’t spoiled and one change of clothes. Besides your bat, it wasn’t holding anything else of importance.
You didn’t respond right away as you shimmied your arms out of each strap. Ignoring the thankful glint that lightened his eyes as you handed it over to him. Not even the sound of a moan - loud enough to be a scream - echoing down the halls stripped him of the soft way he was looking at you now.
“Hurry it up, will you?”
“Thank you for this.”
“Yea, yea you can thank me by hurrying up so we can get the hell out of here, you stubborn jackass.”
You were using both arms to hold the weight of the lid of the crate. It started to feel like you were Atlas holding the world on your shoulders the way your arms began to shake. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. You needed to focus on something else.
Joel’s long frame was reaching deeper and deeper inside the crate until his stomach hinged on the lip of the box. He’d placed your backpack on the crate’s bottom, one hand holding the mouth of it open so the other could shovel in as much as he could.
The world may have gone to shit, but at least the universe still blessed you with views. Like the one you currently had of Joel’s ass.
Stop ogling him! There are clickers - maybe runners - outside this door. Not the time. It made perfect sense. You could hear something was getting closer indicating that the two of you should be running. You should tell him it was time to go. You had every intention to do that but he was just suddenly standing at his full height and god he was fuckin tall. Not the time.
Joel’s ridiculously large hand - Not the time - held your backpack out for you to take. His free hand reached down to grab his pack off of the floor.
“If it’s too heavy let me know and I’ll carry it for you.”
You took it and took note that it was incredibly heavy. It wasn’t a deal breaker, kinda heavy, but you knew there wouldn’t be any long distance running in your near future.
“I can handle it,” you replied, slipping it over your shoulders. “We just need to go.”
Joel watched you buckle the middle strap across your stomach for extra security. You weren’t sure what he was looking for, if anything. Did he expect you to say something else? Was that why he was staring at you so intently? You didn’t know what to think, but just when you were finding the courage to ask, he beckoned you to follow as he jogged towards the backdoor you’d come through.
“I think it’s a good time to start heading back-“
A split second. It was all it took for the runner to come bursting through the door. Less than a second for it to collide into Joel and send them in a heap of clashing bodies on the floor.
Joel instinctively already had his hands pressed up into the shoulders of the runner, straining against its strength as it bore down on him gnashing teeth and dripping saliva. His head violently swayed away from swiping nails that wanted nothing more than to tear into his skin.
This could’ve been your moment to run. You should run. Run you idiot! Run! It was only a matter of time before the others showed up; attracted by the noise. They would come there without any doubt in your mind. The way the runner was now screeching would only alert others to your location. Runners were fast, but they weren’t unnaturally strong. Not like Clickers. If a group of them showed up…
The usual adrenaline that sprang into your limbs and sang at the muscles to run was there. You only needed to move. It wouldn’t take much to squeeze past the two thrashing bodies and make it to the door. It’s what you should have done. It’s not what you did.
It felt surreal. To know your feet were rapidly approaching Joel’s struggling body and the grey-skinned mass that thrashed at arms length without a plan. You had no fuckin clue what you were going to do, but your brain betrayed you again. It refused to let you walk away clean like all the other times.
Your hand was fumbling at the back of your pack to unlatch your bat when your brain finally registered the words Joel had been shouting at you. Your name ringing out like a gunshot drawing your attention to where you couldn’t stand to look.
“Go! Get out of here goddamn it!”
Go! I can’t leave you! The words bounced around your head in a panic. Go! He didn’t owe you anything - not his pretty words or his life. How dare he put that on you. To hold on to the memory of the way his mouth had breathed life back into your bones. The kindness of his shirt you now wore bearing his scent into your skin that still burned like a dying fire where he’d touched.
Go!
“I’m not leaving you!”
For the second time, in a matter of minutes, your entire body betrayed you. The words tumbling out erratically as your hand finally got your stupid bat free from behind you.
A sickening crunch echoed with the metal, ‘ting’ as the bat made contact with the skull of the runner. For the briefest moment, the kind that if you blinked, you’d miss it, your brain went haywire.
Person. This was - had been - a person. Could still be a person under all that infection from the fungus.
The resonating tremor from the impact and the tight grip you held on to the handle sent your hands and arms erupting in a dull ache of pain. You didn’t have time to care about the pain. You were losing precious minutes. The longer this took, the chances of either of you getting out before more arrived was growing slimmer by the second.
You’d swung hard enough with the first impact that it had launched the runner off of Joel. It landed just beside him and he - it - was scrambling to try and get back on its feet. You weren’t going to give it the chance. You swung down again with every ounce of strength in your body landing a blow directly between its exposed head and neck.
Protect yourself! You’re so damn exposed! You kept swinging down with everything you had. Not stopping when your arms grew numbingly tired and every draw upwards felt like you were trying to lift a hundred pounds over your head. Your breathing had gone ragged, and underneath it all - the panic, the fear, the rage - was the overwhelming sadness that you’d just murdered again - another person - to stay alive. To keep Joel alive.
Joel. Who you nearly choked to death just because this world called for survival and nothing else. Nothing else could matter and yet…
You knew you were sobbing before you heard Joel softly speak your name. You knew underneath a giant scream was bubbling up between heaving shoulders and blurring vision. You couldn’t answer him; didn’t try and fight him off when he took the bat from you. A large hand on your shoulder leading you to his open chest.
His arm dropped down to protectively wrap around your middle giving you the feeling of the security you missed.
“It’s alright little dove,” he mumbled into your hair. “It’s alright.”
Joel gave you the time you needed to calm down. The sobs that sent your body into a violent tremor finally began to subside. The worst of it watered down to small hiccups of tears that you’d begin to swallow back down your throat. Joel was there through it all. A comforting hand that rubbed calming circles against your back to soothe it all away.
“You saved my life.”
“I wasn’t going to let you die, Joel.”
“You called me a stubborn jackass.”
“You are,” you retorted, earning you a snort of amusement that blew strands of loose hair into your eyes. “It doesn’t mean I’m going to desert you.”
“Well, I do appreciate you deciding I’m a pain in the ass worth sticking around for.”
Don’t. Did he know, you wondered, how in a matter of days he had completely uprooted every survival instinct you had. That he’d come into your life in a spontaneous melding of chaos and desperation and rooted himself inside the soil of your soul.
You weren’t sure how to respond to him, and when you both pulled apart enough so you could glance up at him only one thought came to mind.
Kiss me. Kiss me again, and make me come undone without regret.
For a moment, you thought you would say it. Spill all your secrets about the need to feel his lips claim yours in a clashing of tongues and teeth. And just for a moment, you swore it looked like he might.
“We should get this stuff back to your settlement.”
You peeled yourself out of his embrace and moved towards the exit. You didn’t need to look back to know that Joel would be following close behind.
“Are you a firefly?”
“Jesus, Billy you’ve asked her that a dozen times already,” Joel growled.
His position next to the door, arms crossed with deep lines of irritation on his forehead, had not changed in the last fifteen minutes.
“And I’ll keep asking her Joel until I get an answer that is acceptable. So again: Are. You. A. Firefly?”
“For the fifteenth fucking time - no! Is the word, ‘no,’ not acceptable enough for you people?”
The reception at the gate started off with a warm welcome. Well, warm enough until the guards posted at the previously stated gate noticed you standing just behind Joel. After a bunch of suspicious looks and Joel refusing to answer one guard - Raphael’s - questions Billy was called. Your backpack that Joel had used to stuff what was left of the medical supplies - your bat strapped to its side - was stripped from your shoulders and handed to the nearest guard.
Billy mentioned having your hands tied with rope, “Just until we figure all this out,” and come to the conclusion of whether you could stay or if your ass would be thrown back out to the whims of the forest. The only thing that stopped them from doing it right then and there was Joel.
His large frame came to stand beside you and practically swallowed you whole. His hands flexed a few times, the anticipation of a fight changing the atmosphere of welcome into one of hostility. In that one movement, Joel drew his line in the sand placing him squarely with you.
You didn’t expect him to be protective - to fight to keep you safe from the whims of a group of men. It sent a thrill of desire to coil hot and slick between your thighs when he’d launched his hands into the jacket lapels of one of Billy goons that’s arrived with him. Those hands that were clenched at his side shooting out to halt his advance. A rough snarl of, “You ain’t touchin’ her,'' only made the heat between your thighs worse.
You shouldn’t have been this turned on. Not the time. But your body was back to ignoring you. No thoughts. Just a head full of Joel - drowning in his presence.
It wasn’t until you lightly touched his shoulder that Joel let go of the guard. His body instinctively stepped back to guard you against the line of sight of the others. Mostly from Billy, who was stealing peeks of you from over the broad shoulders of your protector.
You knew when Billy instructed you to follow him you weren’t really getting a choice. You have one option - obey. The nagging part of you that had fended decently well for yourself, until Joel stumbled into your life, was reminding you with every step towards Billy’s cabin - yes, a cabin - it would be simpler if you left.
The walk gave you enough time to take in their base of operations. The walls of their compound was built around what used to be a holiday getaway of some sort. Cabins were scattered around the grounds and buried in between rows of trunks of oak trees and pines. The small shops that had once been used for gift shops and snack bars were repurposed as clinics and stocks for food supplies.
Children were playing in the center, between picnic tables that’d been set up in small circles. Teenagers huddled around one sharing jokes and in one corner was a couple stealing glances that ended in hurried pecks on the lips. The sight sent a smirk to spring on your lips at the normalcy of it. As if the outside world hasn’t ruined anything behind their walls, and maybe that was a good thing.
The far right of the complex was a large garden, with a few men and women on hands and knees cleaning out weeds and picking what was ripe from the harvest. The whole place buzzed with life - making it almost easy to pretend you hadn’t just caved in the head of a runner hours before.
You would never admit it out loud, not even to the darkening shadows of the night, but you missed this. The small sparks of hope and life made the nightmare of your current predicament seem less dire. A part of you hoped they would let you stay. But the minute you stepped inside the four walls of what you assumed was Billy’s cabin, the air completely shifted. No one moved to strike you, but by the wary way Joel’s eyes continuously scanned over everybody in the room, you knew hell was coming.
You don’t need to fight for me. Billy’s eyes carefully watched Joel resume his place beside you. A brief hand was placed, for what you could only assume was comfort, on your lower back. Maybe it was meant to be comforting, but all it did was stir something dark you’d thought you’d buried.
They’re going to know. The thought slithered up your spine as you glanced up at him. Could Joel see what he was doing to you?
The interrogation felt like it would last all night. Joel defended you when Billy or Thomas, one of the guards, tried saying you could be a spy. A firefly sneaking inside to find the weak spots in their defenses; helping them raid in the middle of the night. The whole time they argued, you’d been unable to answer. Your mind swims back to the day your own compound was turned upside down. All because of an infection - a moment of weakness when you should’ve sounded the alarm. Maybe if you’d said something - told someone - hundreds would still be alive.
They were all back to arguing about what should be done with you. Each voice rose louder and louder to the point you could barely hear yourself think. It wasn’t until you stepped out from behind Joel that they grew quiet. You weren’t particularly a fan of their undivided attention, but at least no one was yelling.
“I have a proposition for you, Billy.”
Whether you were prepared to have his full attention or not - you had it. Billy regarded you with a cool expression. A refreshed spark of interest colored the cornflower blue of his irises into something dangerous.
Don’t be alone with him. Joel noticed it too. The swift change of mistrust that once etched the deep lines of his face had softened. The intent underneath the surface was suffocating. You could feel Joel’s body go rigid and his hand reached out to grab you. His fingers curled into the fabric of the button-down shirt you still wore and pulled lightly to bring you back to the safety of his body.
“I’m listening.”
“Little dove,” Joel whispered in a warning.
God. It shouldn’t have sounded as sinful as it did. His voice shouldn’t make you feel this way, but it could - it did - and you knew you would gladly drown as he pulled you under. Don’t look back. Don’t look at him. You wished you listened to that nagging voice like you used to because you did look back. Your eyes landed on large doe eyes that pleaded with you to stay closer.
No matter how hushed Joel tried to make it, Billy heard his sweet nickname for you. A sickly smile crept up the corners of his mouth. You shouldn’t have said that. You pushed back the spring of panic that rose to the surface in your blood and tried to believe everything was alright.
“Give me a month or two to prove I can be valuable to the settlement. Let me earn my right to be here.”
A tongue drew across the inside of his cheek before he asked, “Are you a healer? Do you know how to make medicine out of shit found in the forest? Do you know how to take care of crops or assist in childbirth?”
“No, but-”
“Well then, I don’t see you having much of a place here.”
“You aren’t even giving her a damn chance, Billy! I told you she saved me from that runner.”
Joel was walking up fast behind you. His feet bolted him towards the other man at a blinding speed. If you didn’t notice the slight tremor in his last words, you would’ve claimed Joel was just responding to the current hostility in the room but could feel the truth clawing its way up your throat to sit heavy on your tongue. Your hand barely caught his arm to stop him from barreling fist first into Billy’s smug jaw.
“Just because she saved you from one of them doesn’t make her one of us, Joel!” Billy snapped back. His arms that had been crossed over his chest were dropped violently to his side. His own legs lurching him forward to meet Joel the rest of the way. “I don’t know if you’re just hypnotized by her pretty face or if she’s got a golden pussy that’s making you this stupid. Either way, I’m disappointed as fuck, Joel. Tommy would be beside himself if he knew you were willing to endanger all of us over a woman.”
“Don’t you bring my brother into this. You wouldn’t be able to run this shithole without people like me: people like her! You won’t even listen to her.”
Joel threw a pointed finger back in your direction.The movement was hostile as his body radiated with rage. How Billy could remain grounded in his spot under the sheer fuckin’ force that was this hurricane of a man. He was either brave or incredibly stupid, and you were betting the latter.
“At my old settlement I used to be a hunter. I was the lead in charge of bringing in game. I forged for seeds, nuts, or berries-” It was your turn to move. Just enough to remind both men that you were here and you had something to offer. You refused to flinch when both men turned to you seemingly upset you’d interrupted their macho man bullshit. “And if I wasn’t able to scrounge up anything around the area I was sent into the city to retrieve things.”
“We already have hunters.”
“If that’s true than they’re fucking terrible at it. It’s a wonder you aren’t all malnourished or dead.”
A man beside the window snorted out his disbelief at your words.
“The fuckin balls on this bitch,” he laughed.
“This bitch can prove I can bring in more food than any of your best hunters in this damn settlement.”
Your eyes narrowed in on him. A line of a challenge drawn in the metaphorical sand, because fuck them. You weren’t lying when you said you were good. Damn good. You’d never hunted before the outbreak occurred. The actual idea of going out and slaughtering Bambi’s mother wasn’t appealing in the slightest, but then the world decided to end and you no longer had a choice.
It’s a funny thing when you realize how much was taken for granted having meals easily accessible. A quick order at the touch of a button or rows of freshly packaged meats or vegetables and fruits set inside a grocery store. You never thought to wonder what would happen if it just stopped. Well, everyone found out the hard way.
Once martial law was declared, the government took over every cattle ranch. Every farm that ran crops or planted fresh seeds for fruits. Some of them were lost due to being overrun by the infection of the spores, but those that survived were heavily guarded. Generals and their leaders declaring meat would be rationed first to those in charge and the soldiers that followed them.
Scraps. That’s all that was left for millions of struggling civilians, and when those hungry bellies turned to desperation killing Bambi didn’t seem like the worst thing you could do. The furs taken from their bodies put to good use to help keep families warm during the harsh winters.
The oldest hunter in the camp, Willard, had offered to teach you but refused to do it with a gun.
“Damn thing is too loud,” he’d say. “Too noisy.”
Claimed the sound of one gunshot would alert any other food nearby. What good was one kill when you could possibly have one more? Two more? He’d taught you how to look for tracks and how to tell which animal it was that left them. You trained for hours in how to properly draw back the spine of a bow and shoot directly for the heart. You’d spent hours a day training with him until your hands claimed callouses from where they’d gripped the string of the bow. Your back muscles tightened perfectly to the shape needed to release it with enough power to make it quick.
Everything you were you owed to Willard. The least you could do was prove to his ghost his teachings had stuck.
“You sound cocky to me.”
“I’ve earned the right to be cocky.”
“Not here you haven’t,” Billy reminded you.
“Then give me the chance to prove it. All I need is one night and, if by morning, I don’t have at least two kills to bring back to the settlement then I won’t come back at all.”
You’d been so focused - too focused - on Billy and proving that you weren’t spineless, that you had a fuckin’ back bone. You should’ve been paying attention to the whole room, because when Joel pressed himself close to your back your next breath became caged inside your lungs. Your name whispered as a plea into the strands of your hair where his warm breath hit across your neck.
“You don’t need to do this.”
Nothing prepared you for how he looked when you turned around, not even how close. Joel’s eyes were raw with emotion. A flickering film of his thoughts that left you spinning trying to understand what any of them meant.
“I know I don’t need to, Joel but I want to. Please-,” you reached out and took his hand, giving it a small squeeze in reassurance. Joel looked anything but assured. “-let me do this.”
“If you lovebirds are finished I’d like to get this over with sometime today.”
You turned back to Billy and quickly decided you needed to go over the deal and get out. Anywhere was better than this cabin with the heat of Joel’s body making it hard to think.
“Does that mean we have a deal?”
Billy walked the last couple inches between you. His booted feet stop just inches in front of yours making him too close. He was trying to be intimidating to prove that you were weak - bastard. But you’d been through a hell of a lot worse than some macho dick on a superiority complex.
He stretched out his hand and waited for you to take it. Without breaking eye contact, you reached out and enveloped his hand with yours. The both of you gripping just a little too tight and giving one hard shake before letting go.
“It’s a deal. You can go ahead and follow Gabe. He’ll give you a rifle to have for the night.”
“I don’t use rifles.”
“What?”
Poor Billy, he seemed confused.
“Rifles are too loud. It will alert anything in the nearby area and scare off what I’m actually hunting all at the same time. Plus, bullets can ruin the meat. If you have any bows, that's what I would prefer to use.”
“Check out Pocahontas over here.”
The man at the window was snickering again. You hated him and would forever be, ‘Man next to the window,’ in your head. Fuck that guy.
“Do you have one or not?”
“Yeah, we got one. Same place as the rifles. Gabe will take you there now. Good luck, Princess.”
It turned out, Gabe was the ‘Man next to the window,’ guy which made your departure from Joel all the more bittersweet. You waited while he pushed away from the window and headed for the door. Joel’s hand had lightly held on to your arm as if it would be enough to keep you from leaving. The air hung with things left unsaid and all of them were unexpected. How did we end up like this?
I was safer on my own. And maybe that was true but another truth had been sprouting inside you. One you allowed to take root and change every word of safety you held on to. You didn’t want to do it on your own anymore.
You wanted to lift up on your tippy toes and kiss him goodbye. To inhale his scent that was incredibly very much him and run your fingers through the coarse hair of his beard.. You knew if you touched him just right, Joel would grab on to you like a man drowning.
The memory of his lips pressing into yours without remorse sent a thrill through your body. The way he’d worshipped every inch with tongue and hands while he’d kept you pinned in his lap.
If there was a chance you didn’t make it back to him, you at least wanted to kiss him again. But that was a dangerous thing. The chances of you dying trying to prove yourself was dangerously high. Every person in that room knew it. It’s why Joel wanted to stop you - to keep you safe and where he could see you.
Joel was filling you back up with hope. Every time he spoke your name with reverence or touched you - held you - like you were made of the same soul it all felt like too much. Hope was a dangerous thing. It's what got people killed, and because of that you didn’t look at him when you pulled your arm out of his hand. You didn’t bother to glance behind you to see if he was watching you leave the room knowing it could be the last time, he’d ever see you.
I wish I could stay…
“I don’t need luck. I’ll see you all in the morning.”
Your voice cut through your thoughts, and you were grateful for a moment of silence. Your hand on the door stopped cold as a voice you were trying to forget responded: “I’ll be waiting.”
In three simple words, you knew that you were fucked. Your hand quickly turned the knob on the door, and you escaped to the cold bite of winter air.
Joel kept his word and you’d kept yours.
The following morning after you’d left, Billy and his band of misfits opened the gate to find you huddled against a tree. A giant carcass of a buck at your feet with a few rabbits and geese strung up on a rope line.
“I thought you said we could expect two or more stags.”
You’d expected Billy to be a tough critic. To come out and bitch, take your hunt, and send you off running but he was smiling when he spoke. It wasn’t a full-blown toothy grin, but it was lopsided and matched the lightness in his eyes. You were prepared to have a war of words, but he just looked warm in his stupid jacket and puffer vest combo. Well rested too. While you’d been up all night with only a light jacket and Joel’s button-down to keep you warm traipsing around the woods in 10-degree weather just to prove a point.
Typical. You would’ve responded better to a fight than teasing right now. You got up slowly, body protesting with every movement, from your place at the trunk of a pine tree and started the trek down to the path.
“That big bitch weighs close to, or over six-hundred pounds and I had to drag it here. I’m exhausted, hungry, and freezing. So, either all of what I brought is sufficient enough for you or it isn’t.”
“You’re so chipper in the morning,” he mocked.
“Cut the shit,” you groaned. “Am I staying or going?”
Billy stuffed his hands inside the pockets of his puffer vest and regarded you for all of a second before he shrugged. You prepared yourself for the worst. You counted on it. So, when a hand pulled free from the warmth of his jacket and ushered you to follow him your body froze in shock.
“You’ve earned your place,” he commented and for the first time since you’d met, said your name with respect. “I already had a cabin cleared out while you were gone. Just in case, ya know.”
He gave another nonchalant shrug. The teeth began to peek through his ever-growing smile. They’d been testing me. The whole time you’d thought they were just a bunch of assholes and, the entire interaction, was them testing out the waters. If they were really as unfriendly as they claimed to be in your meeting the day before, it didn’t show now.
Gabe and another man rushed out to grab the meat you’d left behind at the tree. One of them patting your shoulder without the bow strung across it like you’d been friends for years.
This is too much. You just wanted a warm bed. You needed sleep. The idea of a soft blanket and pillow left your eyes begging for you to find it before you fell over and curled into the dirt right there. You followed Billy back inside the settlement to find Joel waiting at the ladder of the second-story wall.
You hated how your heart betrayed you at the sight of him. His hair was unruly curls like his hands had dragged through it with darkened under eyes that screamed lack of sleep. The sleeves of a fresh -but wrinkled - shirt were rolled up to expose strong forearms and denim-covered legs crossed over as he leaned casually on the wall.
He shouldn’t have looked handsome, but he did. He was devastatingly handsome - stupid handsome - and somewhere the universe was laughing at you for ever believing Joel held no effect on you.
The minute Joel noticed you his body pushed off of the wall and bolted straight for your position. You were expecting him to stop just short of ramming into you, but he’d surprised you when large hands reached out to grab a hold of your arms. His eyes taking in your current state, checking to see if you were injured, and when you seemed to pass whatever test he had in his head, a heavy sigh of relief pushed past his lips.
“Joel, I’m fine- “
Your words were pushed in a huff of air from your lips as he crushed you to his chest. His arms enveloping around you to pull you impossibly closer. You were in shock. There wasn’t a better word to explain why you went rigid with uncertainty and your arms trapped lifelessly at your sides. Joel didn’t seem to care that you weren’t hugging him back. He was just happy to have you back.
“Joel- “
You tried again to gain his attention. To pull him out of his head and whatever scenarios he’d played out there. Had he not slept the whole time you were gone? Was he that worried you might leave or worse?
Your hands finally found a purchase on his hips where you attempted to pull him back from you. Joel seemed to understand, but he only pulled back enough for his hands to move up to your face. The tenderness in the way he held you between calloused palms was enough to shatter the facade you’d desperately tried to reassemble during your midnight hunt. The deep brown of his puppy dog expression made it hard to swallow and forced you to bring your hands up to hold his wrists to stay grounded.
You wanted to pull yourself apart from him, but you couldn’t. You greedily wanted to stay and enjoy the feeling of having someone give a shit about whether you came back or not.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
The pleading of the richness of his voice matched the desperation in his eyes, leaving you unable to voice a reply. What a silly thing to ask is what you wanted to say. Joel should’ve known by now promises like that couldn’t be kept. So why did you want to?
Luckily, Billy interrupted you before you could tell Joel anything. Before your inner monologue of why this was a potential Greek tragedy waiting to happen spilled from your lips. But the distraction was short-lived when he Instructed Joel to show you the cabin that you could call home if you wanted.
Joel pulled himself away from you and, turning on his heel, started walking back towards the scattered cabins in the woods. He didn’t say anything about following or sent a glance over his shoulder to see if you were marching after him. A soft curse fell from your lips as you jogged to catch up to him.
The whole walk to your new home was one of silence. From the way Joel had greeted you, you expected him to be more talkative. For him to tell you how stupid you were to do what you did or how he was worried about you. One minute Joel had you ready to collapse at just the touch of his hand and the next you wanted to scream at him. To pound your fists in his chest and tell him how confusing he was. Why do you care?
The settlement bustled with life, and you didn’t miss the cheers of excitement when the stag and the other kills you’d made were brought inside the camp. You couldn’t stop the swell of pride that blossomed in your chest. I can be useful. There wouldn’t be any hungry bellies tonight.
When you finally came to your cabin, it was a petite thing. The red body and green trim reminded you of a dystopian Christmas cottage with the way the forest began to reclaim it and the years of neglect on the paint faded it to look, well, sickly. The inside fared a little better.
It was your typical cabin with everything compacted inside one room. A full bed was placed by one of the four windows of the room. A small kitchen with the most petite oven and stove combination you’d ever seen jammed by the door and a sink and shower that had nothing but a curtain to keep the water from spilling out.
“Does that work?”
You couldn’t keep the giddiness out of your voice but fuck you didn’t care. If everything else in the world was a luxury, imagine what actual running hot water was.
For the first time since you’d left the gate in the front Joel looked at you. A smile crinkled the corner of his eyes and threatening to show teeth. It would’ve warmed your tired bones if you hadn’t spotted the shower.
“Yeah, it works. I wouldn’t recommend staying longer than 8 minutes. To conserve water, we put time limits on the pumps.”
“All I need is five or less. Holy shit, I can’t believe it’s a shower!”
You were already removing the bow from across your body and the satchel that held what little arrows were left. Your fingers fumbled with the buttons on the shirt when you realized Joel was still very much in the room.
“That excited about a shower, huh?”
His voice was light and sweet like honey. You should’ve been embarrassed, but the heat on your cheeks was for a whole other reason. The devil on your shoulder begging the question, what would Joel do if you continued to unbutton your shirt.
Don’t go there.
“Are you kidding?” You cleared your throat and dropped your hands away from the next button. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen running water?”
“By the smell of you I’d say a month or so.”
The comment left you whirling around to face him. Your mouth practically dragged on the floor and ready to tell him it hadn’t been that long when you were met with a sunshine smile. The universe should be jealous: the sun could never compare to the way Joel looked standing there.
You knew no matter what you did the image of Joel standing there with laughter etching his bones would be a core memory you would always remember. You’re beautiful. You wanted to shout it at him, but you had to remind yourself that now wasn’t the time. It would never be the right time.
So, you settled on playfully smacking his arm which only seemed to make him laugh harder.
“I do not smell that bad! I’ve washed up in the creek,” you pout. Inwardly cringing at the fact you’d just admitted where you’d currently been taking a bath.
“I’m just glad you’re able to admit you do smell…even just a little.”
“I hate you. You’re a bad person,” you deadpanned.
Joel feigned hurt and when you went to shoo him away, he surprised you by grabbing your hand. Using it to pull you towards him. He could’ve brought you all the way into his arms again, but he stopped when you were only inches apart. Your eyes moved up to meet his, which still sparkled with laughter.
“I’m not all that terrible. I put your half of the - ugh - merchandise we acquired in Maryann’s shop for credit. She has some supplies like soaps and the like.”
“Joel, you didn’t have to do that. That was yours, not mine.”
“Well, that may have been true but if you hadn’t been there to help me. I probably wouldn’t have anything to come back with, would I.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“What?”
All the mirth from before was gone. In its place, came the heavy clouds of confusion. His brow furrowing in question forced you to look away. Should’ve just kept your mouth shut. It was reckless to let the question escape, but it’d been pressed behind your teeth aching to be asked.
“Why are you being so nice to me? We didn’t meet under the best circumstances and if it’s because we shared a…” God just say it! “-a kiss- “
“Whoa, whoa,” Joel stopped you with gentle hands on your shoulders. A small shake asking you to look up at him even when your brain screamed not too. “Where is all this coming from?”
“I just-never mind.”
I can’t tell you. How could you explain to him that you were scared? That you’d allowed hope to die the day your settlement burned and you listened to the sounds of friends and neighbors dying. You couldn’t allow yourself to be vulnerable again like that. You couldn’t get close to him and watch the same thing happen to Joel. You couldn’t-
You didn’t realize you’d started crying until Joel traced his thumb lovingly over your cheek. An attempt to quiet down your fears as if he somehow already knew.
“I’m doing this because I care about what happens to you, little dove and I knew the minute you saved my life that day you did too.”
You needed him out before all the secrets you kept buried crawled their way out of their shallow grave and made themselves right at home.
Kiss me. Kiss a promise you can’t possibly ever keep that you won't leave into my skin.
Your hands were buried in the front of his shirt and pulled him closer to you. You weren’t sure when you’d reached for him, but maybe it was just to quiet the trembling of your own body. Joel’s hands moved slowly down your arms until they dropped down to find your leverage at your hips and pulled you impossibly closer.
Your pulse was loud in your ears. It was all you could hear even as Joel used his thumb to tip your chin up towards him, and without warning his lips came crashing down on yours.
The world fell incredibly silent at that moment. Every thought diminished until all that was left was the feeling of Joel’s body molded against you and his lips connecting into yours. He kissed you softly - testing the waters of how much you could take, but you wanted it all. You didn’t want him to be gentle. You couldn’t afford it. Not when your mind screamed for you to pull away, but all the warning bells in your head were slowly turned off by the flick of his tongue that dragged across your lips.
Joel’s tongue feathered over your bottom lip again before his teeth nipped gently at the skin. He was quick to chase the pain away with another soft press of his lips. The sensation caused a moan to break free from your lips when his teeth grazed over your bottom lip again. A groan of his own reverberated in his chest that caused his hand at your lower back to convulse.
You opened up for him and all the gentle constraints Joel had held on to completely disappeared. He wasted no time to delve his tongue inside you. Each caress tasting, devouring, every last sound he could pull from you. You were just as desperate as he was to taste him. Joel pulled away just enough to nip at your kiss swollen lips before trailing a hot line of bites down your neck.
When he reached the thundering pulse in your throat, his lips latched around the skin and sucked. A soft moan erupted in the room and without question you knew it was you. You couldn’t think past the growing heat between your legs and the growing ache that tore another moan from your lips when Joel dragged his teeth across the sensitive skin of your neck. His teeth seizing a piece of flesh between them and gently biting down until your legs threatened to buckle. Joel hummed his appreciation for the sound in the curve of your neck before he pulled away.
“God, even your moans sound pretty,” he groaned.
He went back to decorating your jawline in hurried kisses that he used to set a heated trail back to your mouth. Silencing your moan behind your teeth as his hands trailed down your back to grab a hold of your ass.
Joel’s touch was rough - possessive - and your thighs were growing slick with your need to feel him closer. You dug your hands into the strands of his curls and gave a good tug earning you a growl that sent a thrill of anticipation along your skin.
“Fuck, Joel, I need you. Please-please fuck me.”
Your voice was whiny - breathless in its neediness but you couldn’t take another moment of running your hands over his clothes. Joel responded in nothing but grunts and slid his hands down to your thighs and lifted you up with ease. You gave out a short burst of a surprised yelp as your arms wrapped around his neck for security.
The sound of his booted feet echoed against the small walls of the cabin. He moved quickly over to your bed and dropped you down on top of it. You would’ve let out another soft sound of surprise, but Joel never detached himself from you. His body simply followed yours down onto the mattress, his clothed erection grinding down against your core. His lips reclaimed yours just in time to eat the moan he dragged from your throat.
He was working on the buttons of his shirt, and you were eager to help him. Your impatience coming across as a whimper against his lips. It was enough for Joel to pull away for the first time in minutes. The both of you breathless with swollen red lips as he looked down at you in concern.
Your name floated sweetly to your ears as he stroked his thumb across your swollen bottom lip.
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
You couldn’t formulate a response. You could only shake your head vigorously with your fingers moving to work on the last few buttons of his shirt.
“Get these clothes off, Joel before I ruin them.”
“I’m working on it, little dove.”
A smile graced his lips as he followed your instructions. His fingers finished the last of the buttons on his shirt. He leaned himself up just enough so he could work the material over his shoulders and shimmy it down his arms.
The first thing you noticed was the muscles that coiled and flexed with each movement in his arms. You watched as the muscles of his biceps flexed with every flick, he made with his wrists to get rid of the last of his shirt. The second thing you noticed was something you hadn’t expected. Scattered along his chest were constellations of freckles that graced his skin. You wanted to follow them with your tongue just to find out what shape they made.
You were still admiring the patterns they made; tracing them with your fingers when the last of the shirt was sent flying to the floor. Joel wasted no time positioning himself back on top of you. Your arms eagerly accepting him as his lips connected with yours. He kissed you like a man starved; every stroke of his tongue coaxing a moan free to vibrate against his lips.
His fingers moved to the buttons on your shirt - his kisses becoming more languid as he focused on removing them one-by-one. He finally popped off the last of the buttons and, instead of allowing him to take the time to pull it off you, you simply splayed the fabric open.
It seemed the minute he realized you were bare in front of him he needed to see. He pulled himself away from your lips, his eyes hazy and struggling to focus. The way Joel’s eyes drank in at the sight of your exposed breasts sent a shiver of anticipation through your body.
He continued to watch the way you mulled under his touch as his fingers played with the clasp of your jeans. His index dragging underneath the seam sends goosebumps to bloom along your skin. You knew you could’ve moved. You could’ve sat up and pulled him back to you and told him to stop being a fucking tease, but the truth was you lavished in his attention.
Joel’s eyes only seemed to grow darker with each passing moment. His fingers finally left the hem of your jeans to trail up the middle of your stomach - tracing a soft line up your stomach and to your sternum. He traced an outline around each other's breasts. The sensation causing your nipples to harden, and all Joel did was continue to watch the way your body responded to his every touch.
“Please, Joel.”
If he wanted you to beg, you would gladly give him what he wanted. Anything he asked. You half expected him to continue this small torture he’d created, but without warning he enveloped one of your breasts with his large hand. Joel watched as his thumb and index rolled the peak of your nipple between them. He watched the way you squirmed and moaned as he applied pressure to the point of pain before he ran a soft thumb over the skin.
Your body bucked up into his touch like an offering. Anything he wanted to do; you would let him. You would gladly suffer at the ecstasy of his touch. Each brush of his hands and fingers over your breasts made the ache between your legs worse. If Joel removed your pants now, you knew he would see how soaked your underwear was. Hell, your jeans were probably soaked.
If you thought you were boneless before, every single one completely evaporated when his mouth wrapped around a one of the sensitive peaks. The contrast of his warm mouth pulling the overworked bud into his mouth sent your hands pulling at the soft curls in his hair. Your legs clenching tight as the feeling of his tongue flicking and circling your overstimulated flesh sent shockwaves of pleasure down to your cunt.
Touch me before I burst.
Your nails dug into the skin of his broad shoulders and you knew when this was over he’d be wearing the marks of your pleasure for days. The thought alone made you wetter and eager for him to give you marks of your own.
While his mouth moved on to work on your other breast, his hand returned to the hem of your jeans. All the teasing was completely gone as his fingers made quick work of the button and didn’t even bother taking your zipper all the way down.
Joel had grown just as impatient as you felt and while his mouth sucked a hickey into your breast, he slipped his hands between jeans and your flesh. His middle finger slid between your slick folds coating it with your juices.
“Fuck, little dove you’re already soaked for me.”
His voice slithered across your skin. Its timber made you shiver as his mouth latched on your other breast just as he pressed a finger at your entrance. Your hands were clawing at his back - pulling at his hair - as you felt the first delicious push of his finger breach your entrance.
Your back arched itself off the bed as your hands dig your nails into Joel’s back. He groaned his pleasure as his mouth made a sinful pop as your nipple feel from his mouth. His eyes hungrily watched you as he worked his finger in and out of you until he pressed knuckle deep between your folds.
“Does that feel good , little dove?”
He was insane for thinking you could say a full sentence let alone speak a single word. It was just one finger, but his hands were large and his digits thick and the feeling of him stretching you made your walls flutter around him. Clenching and desperately trying to make him give you more; to go deeper.
You answered him by a nod of your head, but that wasn’t what Joel wanted. His nose traced the outline of your jaw as he spoke: “No, little dove, I want to hear you say it.”
Your tongue flicked furiously over your lips as you tried to remember how to formulate words.
“Yes-“
“Yes what?”
“Yes you feel good, Joel. So fuckin good-“
Joel introduced a second finger as you spoke. The added finger pushed in deeper with his fingers curving up with each thrust. Your words ended in a soft scream as your hips greedily moved up to meet each thrust of his fingers.
For so long, the only thought that had plagued you for the last eighteen months never went past surviving. Only taking it a day at a time and figuring out your next move as the seasons came. Now, all you wanted was to be claimed by Joel every night. To feel his hands and mouth take what belonged to him and to wake up in the morning and to see him sleeping peacefully beside you. You wanted to be consumed by something other than fear and worry. Make me believe in something good.
You cried out as he added another finger, pushing and stretching you until the room was filled with the wet, squelching sounds that Joel pulled from your cunt. In another life, the sound would have embarrassed you but all it did now was prove how much you wanted him — needed him. You wanted him to know how good he made you feel.
You felt your walls clench around his fingers trying to take them deeper. You breathing beginning to became erratic as you felt so close - so incredibly close. His thumb joined by pressing down on your clit to rub small circles in time with each movement of his wrist. Each stroke of his thumb and thrust of his fingers sent your legs shaking. Your thighs helplessly clenched around his hand as he pulled a moan from you. It wasn’t enough. You needed more.
“Joel, I need you inside me.”
“What do we say, little dove.”
“Please,” you whined. “I want to feel you deep inside me, Joel. Make me yours.”
A growl vibrated in his chest as you spoke the last words. It seemed enough to trigger him and Joel completely forgot about wanting to take his time with you.
He pulled his fingers from your slick cunt and watched as they came up covered in your juices. You watched, mesmerized, as he stuck them in his mouth and sucked each digit clean.
He’s going to ruin me. It was accurate. There was no going back from this; from him. Even if you could, you probably wouldn’t want to. But he was taking too long. You needed to be out of your clothes and he needed to get the fuck out of his.
You’d lost all your patience and moved up on your heels, your fingers in the hem of your jeans, and started working them down your hips. Joel pulled his last finger out of his mouth with a hurried pop, and clamped his hands down on yours completely stopping the movement. A whine, an actual honest to god whine of frustration resonated in your chest. You struggled against him to keep going, but Joel was strong and he had rules you were supposed to follow.
“Please, Joel,” you begged him. “Please take your fuckin clothes off.”
A teasing smirk flicked across his lips. His hands nudged yours away until his fingers were curled underneath the hem.
“Now how can I say no to that?”
The first tug sent you moving with the jeans and the heels of your feet struggling to stay up. You pushed your heels in deeper to the mattress, lifting yourself up much higher. So the next time he pulled, he had your pants and underwear half way down your thighs. With a few more tugs, Joel had them both off and joining his shirt somewhere on the floor.
His hands dropped to the buckle of his belt and the anticipation of watching - waiting - for him to work himself out of his jeans was maddening. You had a moment of panic, if he would make you beg for this too, before his fingers worked in removing the first notice on his belt. You shouldn’t have been this turned on watch a man unbuckle his jeans but you were and when his cock sprung free as he shimmied his jeans down his hips you felt your eyes widen.
Joel was most definitely bigger than most lovers you’d had in the past. You bite your lip as you take in the length of his cock and feel your stomach flutter in anticipation.
“I’ll go slow,” he promised in the hush of the room.
You could only nod as he finished working the rest of his jeans off. God, he was absolutely gorgeous, but Joel wasn’t going to give you any time to admire the view. The minute the last of his clothes were gone he worked himself back between your legs. The head of his cock brushed between your slick folds. A soft gasp escaped your lips and Joel was quick to silence you with a kiss.
His hand gripped the base of his cock and, using the thick head of his tip, he moved it slowly up and down between your folds. He stroked across your clit, stimulating you until you were moaning against his lips. He continued to tease you like this; his cock rubbing between your folds until you couldn’t take it. Each stroke across your clit left you panting, but always wanting more.
You were close to begging when you felt his movements change. He pressed at your entrance and your body hummed with the anticipation of the stretch. You didn’t know what to expect, but at the first pinch of pain as his head pushed inside you, your arms wrapped around his shoulders.
He continued to work his cock inch-by-inch. The walls of your cunt clenched tightly around him. Even when he kissed praise into your shoulders and planted wet kisses on your jaw instructing you to relax, you had a hard time.
“Relax for me, little dove. You’re so goddamn tight.”
You wanted to do your best for him. You wanted to show him you could take him with ease, but with each new small thrust of his hips and the more of him that stretched you, you felt impossibly full. He worked his cock in inch-by-inch and when he finally bottomed out you felt ready to burst.
“Fuck-so tight-“ he huffed into the crevice of your neck. He began to work his hips in a slow rhythm, still trying to be gentle and let you adjust, but gentle wasn’t what you wanted - you wanted Joel to turn you inside out. With each thrust your hips rose up to meet his, making sure that you took every inch of him. Your own pace is desperate compared to how Joel’s tried to stay in control.
His body stilled above you as he caught on and you tried to keep going, but he pulled most of the way. You let out a sound of frustration as your hips hovered for a moment between his body and the mattress. He looked at you like he was confused, and maybe you hadn’t made yourself clear enough with the desperation of your hips.
“You don’t need to be gentle with me, Joel,” you began softly. “I want you to be rough. I won’t break.”
You weren’t sure at first if you’d broken him. If Joel was a man more prone to the softer side of things and you’d just told him soft wasn’t for you. But in the same breath your sentence ended, you watched something slide behind Joel’s eyes. His pupils became darker than you thought possible and it was like a whole new man had taken over.
You went to drop your hips back down to the bed, but his hands caught you at your ass and kept you lifted up. Your pulse picked up as he lined up with your entrance, your legs resting straight up against his chest. When Joel pushed back inside of you at the new angle your body arched in his hands and you buried your face into the sheets. A scream rose up past your moan and stole your breath away with the next thrust.
Joel was so deep. His cock stretched out your walls in this new position until he hollowed you out; hitting nerves that sent your legs shaking underneath his hands. He didn’t waste time allowing you to adjust before he began pounding into you. The sound of your bodies connecting rose up into the room; the only sound louder was your muffled moans from the sheets.
But Joel didn’t like you trying to stay quiet. A snarl snapped from between clenched teeth and he pistoned his hips into you harder. You went to bury the moan into the sheet but Joel risked losing stability to rip them away from you. The sound of fabric tearing drew your gaze up to see him.
“Don’t you dare try and silence what is mine.”
You weren’t prepared for him to change positions, but you went from being held up to being folded like a pretzel. Your knees were now over Joel’s shoulders with his hands pressed down into the mattress for support.
“F-fuuc-“
You couldn’t think. You’d even forgotten how to breathe. You weren’t even sure you were breathing when Joel started back up with a brutal pace. He was so deep -too deep. Every thrust of his hips sent your vision splitting in two. Your fingernails dig into the curve of his back right as his next thrust sent you screaming.
"Don't leave me like that. Not again. Not ever."
Your body spasmed at the desperation in his tone. You weren’t expecting it when everything had been possessive but even now as he fucked you until your eyes rolled back and the beginning of your orgasm grew, you knew deep down what this meant. You’d both gone too far. You’d allowed him all the way in and there was no going back.
Stupid man. You wanted to snarl at him - gnash your teeth and push him away but all you did was pull him closer. How could he expect you to agree to something like that? Did he forget what your new world looked like? A part of you hated him. Joel made you want to forget that outside that cabin door was a world that took and took and gave very little in return. What were you supposed to do when it took him too?
You wanted to answer him like a rabid animal, but you settled with your teeth biting down on his lip to keep him quiet, from saying anything else, and your nails marking their way into his skin. He huffed a soft moan in response, and his next thrust sent you bucking against him. It was harsher than before; the need that'd been building since that day in the apartment complex to take and own was no longer contained.
Joel fucked into you with abandon. Finding as much solace in the curve of your spine against his fingers and your trembling thighs as you did in the sweet taste of his lips. When you came it was in a sob of his name as he continued to fuck you through his own release.
You wanted to believe that you held him to your chest just so you could run your fingers through his soaked hair. You held his collapsed body because he was too exhausted to move and that you gently kissing the fine lines in his forehead had nothing to do with being affectionate.
Liar- liar- liar. You were willing to lie if it would be enough to keep Joel with you forever. Safe and secure inside that cabin. You would lie a thousand times if it meant you could keep promises of staying safe a reality, and you’d lie a thousand more times if it meant Joel would always come back to you.
But the dangerous thing about promises was that they were always meant to be broken. If the day came and you lost Joel, you weren’t sure you’d survive. Not when he’s grown to be the song in your bones.
He hummed, tapping the edge of his charcoal pencil against his sketchbook. He raised his head and watched you leaning with your arms folded against the back of the couch, your eyes peering at the skyline as it stretched for miles, lights half lit and half dimmed.
“It’s crazy to believe the city is so big yet so empty.” Steve drew his eyes down your back to the edge of his shirt you’d stole, the hem drawing further up your body to expose your bare ass.
“We’re working on rebuilding it.” He bit down on his bottom lip and began sketching, capturing your breathtaking likeness on paper as you watched the skyline and sunset in your home.
“A little at a time.” He could only see one of your heterochromic eyes as the other was closed when you tilted your head, but he sketched anyway in order to gather the expression on your face.
“Muse,” Steve whispered seductively and sensually, enraptured by your beauty, “keep your eyes open, sweetheart.”
“You can only see one,” she teased, shaking her bare ads in his direction to stir his hunger, “which one is it?”
“Your ass,” Steve whined with need, “why are you distracting me?”
“Because its fun,” you angled your head back, hair falling down your shoulders like a waterfall, “and I need to cause trouble.”
“Just like Bucky-“ Steve mumbled under his breath, using one of his thumbs to blur a line and add depth, his eyes scoping out the elements he had already added to your image.
“I love Bucky, Bucky is fun.” The corner of his lips quirked, a smile toying on his face when he heard the absolute glee in your voice as you spoke.
“Should I be jealous?” Steve’s smile was met with one of your toying smirks, and his heart began beating erratically when you raised a finger to your lips. “If I go missing, I know where to find you.”
“Can we leave? After you’re done? You said you wanted to show me part of the city-“
hi! do you have any fics where its takes place during an apocalypse like twd kinda apocalypse?
Hey Anon,
Not sure if you just sent in another similar ask about specifically Zombie Apocalypse AUs; in any case gonna kind of string these two together.
I'll answer this one with some post-apocalyptic/dystopian setting fics, and then list some specific zombie ones on the other ask. So keep eyes peeled if that wasn't you.
Shout out to Untenable by saintcorvus; that's actually a gift to me from an exchange! -JD
Untenable by saintcorvus
T+ | One Shot | 3k
Prompt: Sci-fi/Dystopian AU where Tom and Hermione lead two different tribes. Heavily inspired by a lot of Dystopian books that I've read. Some direct usage of themes from The 100.
the price of water by peppershark
E/Ma | WIP | 14k
After a mishap in the Room of Hidden Things, Hermione finds herself in a barren, post-apocalyptic future where witches are all but extinct.
The rare females are prized by desert traders and cloistered under the paternalistic care of the few men evolved for ultimate power.
One omega has heard about a special little alpha witch in possession of a power lost to wizarding-kind for centuries.
Tom Riddle is going to find her, and claim her.
If she won’t give up her secrets, he’ll just have to fuck them out of her.
my (edge) lord by tomioness
T+ | WIP | 7k
After a fatal virus killed every person older than 21, the world is thrown into absolute chaos. Children and teenagers can only survive by coming together. Gangs of older survivors terrorize them by taking all reserves under control. Hermione, Head of the Mudbloods, puts all her efforts into taking care of her tribe. But everything seems at risk when the self proclaimed Lord of the Death Eater gang takes an interest in her and uses her love for her community to bend her to his will.
A Clockwork Black by ChloeGevaux
E/Ma | WIP | 19k
No man can describe it to you until you've felt it for yourself. The cry in the dark; the mortal call for meaning - oh, God, please give us some meaning - in this short, sharp life.
Does he answer? That absentee father figure... does he answer your prayers?
When you hear the crunch of gravel outside as the car pulls up, when you frown in confusion because - wait, but it's too soon for my husband to be home from work - and when you look up, stunned, as the doorbell rings just as the front door itself is kicked in and kicked open-
No. The only one who will answer your prayers is me. And then you'll wish you'd never said them.
Tomione. 'A Clockwork Orange' inspired AU.
The Heir From District 2 by PenelopeGrace
Series: Tomione Hunger Games AU [1]
E/Ma | Complete | 16k
They thought he would win.
Hunger Games AU + District 2!Tom Riddle + District 12!Hermione Granger
Ad Infinitum by Speechwriter
T | WIP | 74k
As he forges inexorably toward the end of time, he may come to wonder if this is a world worth ruling. Science fantasy.
Behind Death by elude
T | WIP | 2k
post-apocalypse world In a last ditch attempt to right the wrong, Hermione goes back into the past. But, time refuses to be tamed. Tom/Hermione
Black Mambo by Nekositting
M | One Shot | 6k
She sprung from where her legs had been rooted on the floor, running to the door at the end of the room. She pounded on its surface, blood rushing up to her ears.
The door refused to move.
“Open the god damn door,” she shouted, hysteria making her words crack at the end, but still, the guard outside refused to open the door for her.
Was he even still out there?
“They won’t come for you, you know.”
Entropy by Mechanical_Orange
M | WIP | 21k
There are holes in the universe and holes in their hearts, but time can heal all wounds.
In 1998 Hermione begins her seventh year at Hogwarts. In 1944, Tom Riddle does the same.
Madam Granger by cherry_cup
E/Ma | WIP | 45k
When Hermione Granger secures the position of librarian at Hogwarts, she becomes the object of fascination for a particular Dark Lord in the making. AU. 1940s (no time-traveling)
Oceanfront View (It’s me and You) by ChaoticBabe
T+ | One Shot | 1k
This wasn’t how things were meant to go, the world fell before they even found there feet.
Orphea by SallyJAvery
M | WIP | 48k
"You could not believe I was more than your echo." A spell to sing the dead to life, when the living are lost. Tomione, post-war, dystopian AU.
The Plague by QueenRuby
E/Ma | WIP | 17k
A plague has hit the wizarding world and the greatest minds alive must get together to find a cure before all is lost. AU/AR
Romanticism by mysterymin
M | WIP | 8k
In a dystopian world where Voldemort has won the battle of Hogwarts, the purebloods have decided to weed out the weakest of the mudbloods.
Types of Iron by knittedcoffee
M | WIP | 1k
A magic and sci-fi blend AU. A magical and medieval world is connected to a technologically advanced one run by robots, but they do not coexist under the reign of Lord Voldemort. Warnings: violence, death, language, involuntary self-harm. "As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive" Don DeLillo. Part 1/?
we'll sing in the sunshine by flosculous
M | WIP | 4k
Dystopia AU.
She was pushed into her cell with only one thought in her mind. Obedience, there's no such thing as love.
Was he born normal he would have felt something similar to empathy now, or maybe his chest would convulse with sympathy (...) but Tom was anything but normal.
Or Hermione is one of the Hollows and Tom is High General of Grindelwald's Followers.
A Fall Through Time by orphan_account
E/Ma | Abandoned | 89k
A/U Tomione In a present day dystopian society, muggles and muggleborns are enslaved to their pureblood masters who greedily drain the earth of it's resources resulting in famines and plagues. Hermione, known to her master Draco as Sandy, must do what she does best-survive and adapt. Until that is, she is given an opportunity to go back to when it all started and rewrite history.
~Incomplete~Abandoned~Orphaned~If you are inspired to write something for this story or pick up where I left off--feel free~
