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🐇
It’s simple, really. Either the dog bites you or the barbed wire does.
The chain link fence sinks into your flesh and locks its jaw. Raw pain.
It’s a small opening. A grown man could never squeeze through it, but a malnourished whisp of a thing like you could.
It rattles and whines, harsh, while mud pops and bubbles beneath you, swelling up around your body as you shred your hands raw, frantically pushing at the wire, squeezing yourself through right as the dog bolts out from the warehouse you tried to scavenge.
The barbs latch, sink.
Blood, ripped skin, ripping even more when you pull.
Dog is coming, foaming mouth.
Round the corner any second, hear it slobber and bark.
Pebbles grit your tongue, clumps of dirt as well. You swallow it back.
It’s been like that since the world fell apart.
Swallowing and taking what the world gives you.
Blood pools, inky.
When the dog lollops around the corner, you’re only halfway under the fence.
You strain to see where the dog is.
Starved, ribs slinking beneath its fur.
It will tear you apart.
More barbs catching, tugging, flesh tearing.
Like pushing yourself from a birth canal lined in shards of glass.
Shredding yourself so that you might be smacked on your back and made to wail some more.
Because you have been wailing for a long time, wailing even in that moment as a barb shreds your throat.
Choking on the afterbirth of your own survival when a barb finally springs free, only for another to catch your cheek.
Hands all wet, slipping, you pull at the wiring, still squeezing through a small gap as much as you can, but the dog is closer, tang of copper, stone, dog has its maw parted wide to snatch hold of your outstretched leg, you push and push, fighting to free yourself from the fence but the barbs sting, hot warm blood, what are you living for now anyway, the dog is about to pounce, let it fucking take you, canines wet and glinting, please god i am so afraid to die –
A flare lands between you and the dog, sizzling, puffing red clouds.
The dog rears back and disappears between the red folds.
Mange scabs its hind legs.
You feel sorry for the creature that would have killed you.
Pain drenches you. It soaks.
Steel gnaws lazily at the meagre fat of your thigh.
You make another pitiful attempt at wrenching yourself from beneath the fence.
Blood stings your eyes; your eyelids flutter and flutter until finally you can see again and find a man kneeling on the mud to your left.
“Easy, love.” He speaks softly, his voice rumbling low. “Easy.”
He pulls pliers from his belt and takes hold of a steel spiral and snips it.
Then he teases out the barbs from your flesh, gently, slowly.
Each barb is plucked, tugging at the skin, stubborn.
His voice is gentle, like you are the one coated in mange, suffering hunger pangs, poor creature, even pauses long enough to brush a hand tenderly over your forehead.
“Almost finished, sweet'eart. Doin' so well for us.”
Pain thins your eyesight, but you can still make out parts of him.
All bulk against bruised clouds, barrel-chested; thick beard and funny moustache, the brim of his hat covers his brows.
Serene in his movements, unhurried, unwinding the steel.
Even though he is calm and helping you, your heart still pounds.
There are too many unknowns: your mouth fills with bile, chokes you, makes you twist a little too sharply, the last few barbs cutting deeper.
“Have to stay still, darlin'.” He smooths his hand over your hair again, a gesture that soothes you. “Only a few more.”
Moonlight spills over his shoulders, silver outline. Faintest touch of Scouse in his accent. Hardly notice it, really.
Your breathing grows slow and placid.
He asks something of you. His lips pinch when he grasps that you are not quite hearing him anymore.
Fuzzed words.
See yourself through his eyes all of a sudden, little rabbit twisted and limp in a snare, pelt rippling as it pants, black wet eyes.
Something that you would look at and think poor thing ought to be put out of its misery.
Then he sticks one arm beneath your knees, the other banding around your back before he braces and lifts you.
Pain cracks the hull of your ribcage.
What slips out is a bloodied animal-sound, a primal keening drawn from your belly.
“I know, sweet'eart,” he murmurs, lips pressed against your temple. “It hurts. I know. Little further an' I can take care o' you properly, yeah?”
🐇
Humming.
Like your bones have been sapped of marrow and replaced with flies, hundreds of them, twitching bodies slipping in and out through your joints.
Artificial humming, a blistering and popping of electricity.
You open your eyes and suffer for it.
Thin bleach-white rods run along the wall over your bed.
It’s a barebones room that surrounds you. Large, almost cavernous. High ceiling.
It should alarm you that your clothing is gone, entirely replaced with loose sweatpants and a huge t-shirt that does not rub against you.
But your thoughts are so scattered, wispy, drawn away by the slightest distraction.
Antiseptic stings the air.
The bandages that mummify your body are thick and purposeful, wrapped by knowing hands.
It’s cold down here, you think, before each syllable finds itself ground through the sieve of your brain, softened to mushy pulp.
Because even if your consciousness is a liquid thing that pools stagnant at the base of your skull, you know you are beneath soil.
The door opens. The stranger who saved your life enters.
He is dressed casually. Light green trousers, bottoms tucked into brown army boots, an old white t-shirt, short sleeves, his arms thick with hair.
He stands for a moment, a smile ticking at his lips as soon as he sees you are awake, staring right back at him.
He crosses the room and crouches at your bedside, balanced on his haunches, his elbows resting on his knees.
“Hello, sweet'eart,” he says softly. “How're you feelin'?”
When you attempt to speak, your throat tightens and chokes you, letting out only a hoarse cough. His eyebrows pinch together. He soothes you as he did beneath the chain link fence, poor creature, look how it writhes and makes things worse for itself, stupid thing.
He pulls out a flask from his pocket, shuffles that little bit closer while uncapping it and then tips it against your lips. So blissfully cold, that water, blotting out the dryness of your throat.
All while you gulp and gasp, he encourages your greed.
“Oh, love. That’s it. Take what you need. As much as you want.”
Water spills. It spills down your chin, shivers in beads over your clavicle, and he quickly pats it away.
The heat of his skin against yours draws out a murky half-remembered thing, when he first brought you here and placed pills on your tongue - his palm cupped firm around your nape to hold you steady, good girl, no spittin' that out. Your cheeks had flushed pink and he noticed and laughed and said oi, naughty, that…
“Can you tell me your name, love?”
So you tell him. The fog of your brain stirs at the sight of him and clears long enough for you to snort, an ugly sound, but it makes his smile widen.
“Somethin' funny?” he teases.
It spills out through your silly, slurring mouth: “You’re handsome.”
His laugh chimes rich and strangely fond. “Still dreamin', aren’t you?”
“No,” you say. “You are. You’re lovely.”
He feigns offence, though his smile flushes into a wicked grin.
“Lovely? D'you really think so?”
“Yes.”
“You’re far lovelier than us, I can promise you that, angel.”
Giddiness bubbles in you, popping, an overfilled flute of champagne.
“Are you taking care of me?” you ask.
“Yes, love. I’m takin' care o' you.”
“Why?”
“Because you need takin' care of.”
“I’ll replace your supplies,” you tell him. “I’ll replace everything.”
He laughs. “D’you really think I’m lettin' you back out there again? No chance.”
Slowly, you blink. Your eyelids feel weighted; each lash made of lead.
“But I have to – …” Confusion falls over you for a second. It clears. “I have to do something for you.”
John takes your wrist, sweeps his thumb back and forth over your pulse point. His smile falls away, though you are still giggly, floating, thinking all the while that his arms are strong, lined in veins, strong arms.
You try to trace his veins. He lets you.
“You’ll do somethin’ for me, love,” he tells you softly. “Somethin’ very important.”
“Really?”
“Really, sweet'eart. All you have to do is let me take care o' you an' give you what you need. Yeah?”
“What’s your name?”
He huffs a laugh. “John.”
“Promise, John.”
“What d'you promise then?”
Laughter bubbles in your throat. “I will let you take care of me,” you tell him. “And give me what I need. Promise.”
His smile wanes. “Careful with promises,” he says quietly. “I take those seriously, y'know.”
Weakly you lift your hand, holding out your pinkie. “Promise, John,” you say again.
He hesitates.
Something bubbles and flickers in his eyes.
Then, carefully, he loops his own pinkie around yours and shakes twice.
Your laughter has him chuckling again, looking down at his boots.
He seems oddly subdued, lost in his own head.
His eyes are damp when he looks up at you again.
He speaks like it hurts him, his lips twitching like he cannot hold up that smile anymore.
“Promise.”
🐇
John rouses you now and again, props you upright long enough to drink water and swallow down the softened mush that he places on your tongue.
Sometimes the pain blooms and you weep, sniffling, only for him to stroke your hair until you quieten. Other times you are very tired and only watch as he moves around.
He brings a cot into your room so he can watch over you, he says.
Eventually, your bladder feels overly swollen and you tell him when the strain becomes too much, cheeks beetroot, though he does nothing more than help you stand, cupping your elbow as he guides you out of the room and into a hall. All concrete and steel.
There is a door at the end, through which is a cramped bathroom. Small showerhead straight ahead, some towels strung alongside it. There is a bar of soap on the sink.
The harsh lights glint against the metal toilet. It’s low, awkward. It will hurt you terribly to stoop and bend and do what you need to do.
You know it. Feel a thousand agonies already.
John looms, shoulder brushing yours as you fiddle with the tight knot of your drawstring, fumbling.
John asks, “Need some help, darlin'?”
When you look up at him, your stare is dumb and vacant.
It makes him laugh, his own hands gently nudging yours aside.
The knot comes undone in a matter of seconds. He eases down your sweatpants, never letting the fabric catch on your bandages, and crouches when the fabric pools around your feet.
He helps pull you out from the tangle, makes sure you don’t trip over yourself. You gaze down at him, blinking slowly.
He smiles and shakes his head as he meets your eyes.
“Still fuzzy, aren’t you?” he clucks. “Can you sit down for us?”
Pain blossoms along the backs of your thighs when you stoop.
Teeth gritted. Bandages chafe.
He comes closer, lets you rest your forehead on his shoulder as you finish and wait a second, too much pain, that’s it, angel, take all the time you need, I know it hurts.
Humiliation flushes your face.
When you finally find it in yourself to stand, John tugs your sweatpants back around your waist. Water sputters from the tap; the soap lathers. Sweet notes of strawberry and vanilla.
It has been a long time since you have known such lovely scents.
Only known rotting flesh, dirt and the copper pang of your own blood. You press your hands to your face, inhaling deeply.
John reaches out, gently grasps your wrist.
“Alright,” he says. “Back to bed. C'mon, then. That’s it…”
🐇
“Are we underground?”
John glances up at your question.
He sits beside you on the bed, holding a bowl of rice and beans that he feeds to you, even though your hands are healing well. He tells you that it’s still too risky for you to do everything on your own. Could risk a cut opening, becoming infected. He was in the army – a Captain. He knows this stuff.
“Yes,” he answers finally.
“Like a bunker?”
“Yes. Government poured millions into it. State o' the art. Not that the civilian population knew anythin' 'bout it.”
“How is there still power?”
“Generators. Should last a couple o' years, at least. Here, love.”
John holds the spoon to your lips.
He lets you chew and swallow at your own pace. He insists that you eat. Too skinny. Months of chewing protein bars long past their sell-by date and risking stomach cramps by downing a bottle of water found in the boot of a broken-down car, that sort of thing.
Your skin has grown thin. It clings to your collarbone, hangs translucent on your cheekbones. It must be off-putting, you think. Makes you feel shy around him. Don’t know why you care so much. Still strangers, really.
Except you’re not. Not with the way he looks at you and speaks to you and lately he’s been telling you that you should both really stay in the same room together, same bed, in case something happened, and it’s cold down here, and you expressed some uncertainty, I know, I know, but it’s only for the best, love…
“Were you always alone?” you ask him.
“No.” He pauses. “Used to be people here. I’m the last one left.”
“I’m sorry, John.”
“Worse for you, I reckon. Out there, on your own.” His eyes meet yours. “You were on your own. Weren’t you?”
John has a habit of asking questions like that. Stating something, simple, plain, then following it with this strange lilt in his tone. Doubtful, like you told him something different before.
It makes you antsy, eager to show him how truthful you are.
“Not always,” you answer. “I had a group for a little while. Then some were bitten and others became ill. Some disappeared. I hate that the most, you know. When people disappear.”
“Yeah. I know. Spend all your time wonderin' what happened an' what you could've done.”
He offers you another mouthful.
Even beans and rice are so much better than the scraps that you ate out in the wild, hunkered in old houses, behind an armchair out of fear one of the dead might stumble across you – or worse, one of the living, and sometimes you heard noises in the distance, engines rumbling, faint shouts back and forth, and your spine always went sort of cold, like icy droplets ran from the ball to the base, crying, curled up, please don’t find me please don’t find me please please please
He asks, “Anyone you missed more'n others?”
You blink back at him. “Like family?”
“Sure.” Another shrug. “Like that. Anyone, really.”
“No. Well – …”
The spoon clangs against the bowl. “What?” he pushes.
“I didn’t really have anyone before. So – I don’t know.”
His shoulders ease. “Sorry, love. Shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s okay. Did you? Have anyone you missed more, I mean?”
John muses for a moment. “My team,” he says finally. “Wish I could’ve found them.”
🐇
It takes days for you to walk around on your own.
John brings you along the long, slate-coloured walls of the Bunker.
There is a pantry, stocked in sprawling rows, so that you stand in the doorway and stare at the sacks of rice, the towering shelves of canned food. Enough for an army, and there is only two of you.
There are proper rooms. Meaning official, government rooms, where you imagine John in his uniform, his face pinched, focused.
There are some non-official rooms, too, with a snooker table and a dart board.
He laughs when you try to hit the bullseye and sink the dart the edge of the board instead.
He takes a turn.
Hits the bullseye immediately.
But then that is John.
Always finds his mark.
Always pierces it clean through.
🐇
There is a thin, bluish light dripping from one of the parted doors as John continues to show you around.
When you stray toward it, John grows strangely quiet. He watches as you move closer to the door, then glance back at him questioningly.
He offers a short nod.
Though you wonder, inwardly, if he did not look a little pleased at how you sought his approval first. That you waited until he gave it.
And it croaks and ribbits at the back of your mind, some unpleasant slimy oozing thing that you want to ignore, and so you ignore it, pushing forward.
The door groans. Heavy, awkward. You slip inside.
There are screens. A lot of them.
So many that your eyes flick back and forth, a shivering up and down your limbs at the sight of fields and Corpses and metal sheds and abandoned roads.
The Corpses stagger. Bump dumbly into an electric box. Bang into each other. There is a small huddle of them in the distance, too pixelated to really tell apart.
But you think, with your stomach growing tight, that they are eating something.
A lump on the ground, limbs sticking up, if you squint hard enough.
There are dials and buttons, too.
Some blink and flash. Others are lit all the time.
John moves into the room.
He hovers somewhere to your right, partially hidden in your peripheral.
“Is this – live?” you ask.
“Yes,” he answers. “All 'round the Bunker. Some a mile o' two out an' still workin'. Some closer. I used to – …”
The flickering light of the screens splashes against his face. His sockets darken. His face is gaunt, surreal.
“John?” you call softly.
“Never mind,” he says. “Never see anythin' out there.”
“Really? Nothing?”
He smiles.
Not genuine, like his other ones.
It rots at its edges and falls away in seconds.
“Nothin',” he echoes. “Trust me.”
“What are all the buttons for?”
“There are gates,” he replies. “Can unlock 'em from in here, if you wanted. At least that was the point, back in the day, to bring in new supplies."
He focuses on the Corpses.
“Don’t worry, sweet'eart. They’re outside the fence,” he adds. “You’re safe down here.”
You ask, “Why’d you go out there? When you found me, I mean.”
As if drawn from a daze, he straightens, eyes darting to yours.
“What?”
“You have everything here,” you say. “Food to last years. Clothes, heat, the whole lot. So why’d you go out in the first place?”
The screens fill his pupils, makes them glitter and shine.
“Not everythin',” he says. “Some things you still have to go an' find.”
🐇
You like the ‘library’ most of all. More like a study, somewhere for staff to conduct research if needed. But it has rugs and an armchair and some desks.
The books are boring, dry. At least the first couple of rows, until he notices your disappointment and gently guides you toward a particular shelf, which is full of classics and some contemporary novels, even some romance.
He lets you pull out each one, tracing wrecked spines, withered covers.
Listens when you tell him which one you have already read and smiles when your arms fill with the ones you would like to try next.
🐇
There are codes all around this place.
He teaches you the codes for those plain rooms, the unimportant ones.
But there are other steel doors. Looks at you when you ask about them and says there is nothing for you behind them, only things he can take care of. One is the medical supply room, you know that. Even the pantry had one.
There is one door in particular, rimmed in stripes of black and yellow.
You hear the humming bleeding through though, hold your palm against the steel and feel the vibration jiggling your organs. Leads to a tunnel that leads to another tunnel. Down to the bottom of this Bunker, because it goes even lower into the Earth, to its bowels.
The generators are down there, he says. He has to check them regularly, see that nothing is broken or overheating.
Might show you one day, John says. Casual, offhand, while he lounges on the floor of the library with you, one hand resting on your ankle.
Might show you one day, sweet'eart. But you focus on your books for now, yeah? Let me handle the rest down here.
🐇
Even need a code to leave the Bunker, y'know.
🐇
The humming still bothers you. A constant drone.
You sear your retinas looking at those blazing rods that never switch off.
You asked him once, if you could turn them off while you sleep.
He looked at you funny. Found a sleeping mask for you. Cleaned it and everything.
But the light seeps, all around its edges.
You burrow into his chest when you sleep now, because you sleep together, it really was for the best, like he said, warmer, and John says if anything happened, he would be right there, though he never says what could happen, buried so far down like you are.
And whenever he's gone, you sleep with blankets layered over your face now, how they used to cover the bodies back at the start, fabric moulding to features, something like – …
🐇
“Love,” John says, “I need to look you over. Up you get.”
He shakes your shoulder to wake you.
Not sure what time it is. Hardly ever know what time it is in the Bunker.
He sits on his side of the bed, leaning over you, eyes warm and pleading as he strokes your face.
He insists that you rest now and again. Pushing yourself too hard, he says, even though you feel better.
You think you feel better.
“Sorry,” you mumble. “What?”
“Need to look you over,” he says. “Check that everythin' looks okay. It’ll only take a minute. Just to see how your cuts are doin'. See if there isn't anythin' to worry 'bout.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Cuts could be infected."
“I could check myself.”
“I know this stuff, darlin',” he says. “You might miss somethin', but I won’t.”
You swallow. “I just think – I don’t know.”
He draws back. His hand slithers away from your face.
He asks, “What’re you lookin' at us like that for?"
His tone spikes through you.
His expression makes you feel sick. Almost like he finds you sick, something wrong with you, what does he mean, vague words, makes your head throb when he talks like that, but then you’re the one making it weird, when he has only ever –
“Only ever helped you,” he says. “So what’s the matter with you? Why are you actin' like I’m – like I’m …”
He cuts himself off. Looks wounded. It sends you into a spiral.
“I didn’t mean anything. I wasn’t saying anything,” you blurt.
He stands.
“You were, though,” he says, huffing. “Like I’m – I don’t know. I don’t think I want to know.”
“Please, John.” You shove aside your blankets, try to stand. “Please.”
He had you take something earlier.
Fizzled and popped on your tongue, sour clump stuck at the back of your throat.
Supposed to help, he says. It will help.
But it makes you a little shaky in the meantime.
Stumble and bang into the bedside table and almost fall, crying out.
He catches your arms. Sniffling, clutching onto him, babbling into his skin don’t go i’m sorry don’t go until he shakes his head and eases you back onto the bed. He crouches in front of you, swallowing your hands with his own. Thumbs swiping over your knuckles. Trembling, you are, while he is calm and steady. How stupid you look, what does he think of you? He was a Captain.
“Easy, love,” he murmurs. “You’re alright. I’m not goin' anywhere.”
“I didn’t mean anything,” you bleat miserably. “Honest, John, I just – …”
“I know, darlin'. I know.”
“Will you check?” you ask him. “Please?”
He nods. “Okay, sweet'eart. Fine,” he sighs. “Please, love. Don’t cry. You know how much it kills me to see you cry.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know,” he repeats.
So you stand and peel off your sweatpants, your shirt. You can take them off yourself.
But John helps.
Fabric pools at your feet. No bra, no knickers. Still hurts, all that wire and cloth and frills scrubbing against your tender skin. He tells you it’s better not to wear them, and you listen.
Your face is inflamed, all hot, still wet with tears. Nose runny.
He brushes his fingertips over your throat, your neck. Clavicle, arms.
It makes you breathe faster when he glides over your stomach.
Turns you to check your shoulders.
He cups your ribcage from behind, presses ever so lightly over the healing cuts.
Whispers an apology when you flinch at the tickle of his fingertips beneath your breasts.
“Healin' well, love,” he observes, breath blowing warm over your nape. “An’ fillin' out well too, aren’t you? Look at your hips."
There is hunger in his words.
You face him again.
He kneels.
Your eyes latch onto the rods, white burning light. Better than acknowledging how close he is to your cunt while he strokes over your thighs and calves.
Finds one of your cuts raw, pink. Tells you it looks bad, that one. Risk of infection. Didn’t he tell you?
“Need to listen to me more, you do,” he chides. “Stubborn girl.”
He takes antiseptic cream from your bedside table and rubs it gently into your skin, smoothing circles.
He turns you. Easy, how he does it. He never even needs to say anything.
Only lightly bumps your hip and you know to turn.
He ghosts over your buttocks, checks the back of your thighs.
Another dollop of cream, so frightfully cold that it makes you buck.
“Sorry, sweet'eart,” he says. “Let me warm it up for you.”
His hand moves to the innermost part of your thigh, teasing the cream back and forth.
Light-headed, you look back up at the lights. Anything to numb that tension, a stirring heat between your thighs.
He grips your hips when he stands, like he needs you for balance.
Indents in your skin.
Still behind you, lined against you.
Holds onto your hips and speaks over your shoulder, into your ear, cutting clean through the humming.
“Healin' so well, dove,” he tells you.
When he presses his lips to your ear, you remain still. First time he ever calls you that. Dove.
Indents filling out. Never even know he touched you at all, that he gripped you.
Cream still seeping into your skin.
It takes time for those white dots to leave your vision.
🐇
Later, when you look for that one cut between your thighs, raw and pink and at risk of infection, you cannot find it.
🐇
And you think that was all he needed, that one time to really touch you.
Now he does it all the time.
🐇
Half-asleep in bed, you feel his hand shiver up your stomach until he finds your left breast.
He kneads lazily, lightly tugging at your nipple. Twists it once, and chuffs into your hair when you bolt, ass pressing into his pelvis, makes him tug it again.
It might be morning. It is probably night. Never can know down here.
He tugs your nipple again and groans hotly into you when your ass sinks against him again from the pain.
“John…”
Not even sure what you mean by this little breathless whine.
But he laughs. It is easy for you to make John laugh, like you are so daft that he cannot help himself.
He twists. It hurts badly this time, no fun. You whine some more.
“Quiet an' take it, dove,” he chastises. “Otherwise I’ll have to fill that mouth o' yours an' make you quiet."
Your whining dies out. His smile does not.
🐇
And sometimes he kisses you, quick pecks on your cheek at first, a little press of his lips against your bare shoulder until there are longer, lingering kisses. Likes how your lips look when they’re swollen and sore, likes how dazed you become, how slow and pliant, moving the way that he wants.
In your shared room, for the best love, he kisses you, smothers you beneath his own weight, one thigh slotted between yours while he licks and teases and even tugs your lower lip between his teeth.
if something happens to him how will you access the medical supplies or the pantry
His left hand drifts by your waist. His right hand cups your crown, keeps you in place.
Bares your throat for him to suck. Leaves a litter of bruises.
When you feel his left hand toy with your drawstring like that first time in the bathroom, you pause, pulling back.
“John,” you mumble. “John…”
“It’s okay, honey,” he says gruffly. “Just takin' care o' you. Remember your promise, now.”
say he dies down there in the generator room and you are up here on your own
He sucks at your pulse point, right beneath your jawline. Your thoughts turn hazy.
His thigh grinds blissfully hard against your cunt. Hard to think, really, and you start to think none of it matters anyway, always taking what the world has given you, and is John the worst thing to be given?
He finds your wetness and smiles, always smiles. Finds his mark. Pierces clean through.
He plays with your clit, round and round, liking when your breath quickens, when your back arches and your breasts strain against the thin fabric of your top.
“You want to be taken care of,” he continues lazily. “Not made for that world out there. Look what it did to you. Soft things for a soft thing like you. Oh, sweet'eart. Are you cryin'? Want it so bad, don’t you?”
And you are crying and you do want it, you think, you would take anything over that constant humming.
There is pleasure when he slips a finger into you, curls and rubs at your walls while whispering into your skin.
But there is shame, too.
It simmers beneath the hot flush of your body, because you are terrified that John is right, and you are weak, all the way through. You pitied the thing that almost killed you, after all. Cried all those days on your own, hiding, cowering.
Is it wrong to let him lavish you? Is it wrong when he pulls down his pants and yours and places your hand on his length to stroke him?
if he dies how will you get out of the bunker
You are enraptured by the tension that laces his shoulders when you tug his cock, very slowly at first, simply studying his parted lips, his eyes fuzzy and breath hot as it fans your face.
When you move faster, you soak in the sounds that he makes.
His hips rock, eyelids fluttering shut. He has always run hotter than you, and the warmth of him replaces the sunshine you have not felt in days – weeks, maybe. Has it been months?
He pulls your hand away.
Shifts you so you lay in front of him and he is lined at your entrance.
Your hands rest against his shoulders, holding him away from you for a moment.
“John – should we – don’t we need …”
Protection. There is a whole medical supply room, and you wonder – well, surely…
And John knows what you imply, what you want to ask. He has always been able to know what you are thinking, what words you want to say even when you hold them back.
The tip of his cock rests heavy and weeping at your opening. He looks down at you, into your eyes. And he smiles again, gently pushing back your hair, ghosting over your cheek.
“Soft thing,” he says again. “Be good an' take what I fuckin' give you.”
The stretch of him is too much. Finally blots out all that humming, that horrible fucking humming, your thoughts turn gummy, sticking together.
That dog would have killed you.
John saved you. He looks after you. He cares about you. Only ever wants you –
“On your fuckin' back,” he huffs, “like this, every fuckin' hour o' the day until it takes. An' it'll take, love, I know it. Fuck, already got tender breasts, think how much sorer they’ll be then, full an' achin'. Made for it, you were, look at those fuckin’ hips. That’s it. Let me have you, love, all o' you – …”
When he fills you, he groans, his cheek against yours. Sweat soaks him, and his beard scratches you. His hand moves between you, catching his spend, pushing it back inside of you.
“Don’t let it spill out, sweet'eart,” he croaks. “Need it to take, don't we? Has to take."
you will die down here
🐇
Hours later, or maybe days, John finally climbs off you long enough to check the generators.
Leaves you to play darts alone, sore between your legs and thinking about that dog in the warehouse. You always think about that dog. How it ended up there. Whether it is still alive.
And you always, always feel so fucking sorry for it.
John was right. Soft thing.
You miss the bullseye three times over before you drift off into the hall and down to the room full of screens.
There is a roller chair tucked in the corner that went unnoticed the first time you came here. You pull it over and settle, looking at the Corpses beyond the fences. Only three of them today. The rest were drawn away by some sound, you assume.
Birds flit by. Something moves over the grass.
A hare. Too small, you think, leaning closer.
It’s a rabbit. Lithe, leaping until it melts into the grass.
Down into its burrow. Safe down here.
Then you spot something else. A figure by the fence.
A man on his own, limping ever so slightly.
There is a clang of a steel door out in the hall. Beeping, a lock sliding into place.
John’s back.
“John!” you yell out.
Boots smack against concrete. He darts past the door, then turns back, shoving it open in his search for you. His eyes are wild, chest heaving. You whirl around to him, pushing off the chair. He moves quickly, clasping your face in his hands, checking over you. Frantic. You frightened him.
When he sees you are unharmed, he glances behind you. Locking onto the figure on the screen, still moving around.
You place your hands over John’s and gently tease them away to hold between your chests.
“We have to help him,” you say. “He looks injured.”
John neither moves nor answers you.
He only watches the man struggle alongside the fence, pausing every once in a while.
The man's leg drags behind him. Maybe he fell and broke it or sprained his ankle.
“John,” you prompt, lightly squeezing his hands. “There are only three of them out there. The Corpses, I mean. We could help him. We have to.”
The man stops again. He holds onto the fence, leans forward. Catching his breath.
John’s hands slips from yours as he moves into the room and nudges aside the roller chair, which bumps against the wall.
He looms over those flashing buttons; those dials which are meaningless to you.
He flips one of the switches and types a long string of codes until something chimes.
Then he presses a button, which is not labelled, which looks like all the others.
On the screen the man bolts upright, hand still locked on the fence.
He jerks and writhes and convulses.
When it ends, he collapses onto his knees, still holding the fence.
Like a statue, locked into position.
There are still those three Corpses outside. They amble toward the man.
And you know if he is not dead, then he will be soon. He might even see them from where he kneels, still twitching, the aftermath of an electric shock.
John never told you that he could switch on the fences like that.
What else can he do? What else is down here, behind all those steel doors?
John smacks at some buttons. Twists a dial. A string of code.
He turns to face you when all grows quiet again.
“Why did you do that?” you ask hoarsely.
“Because I had to.”
“We could have helped him, we – …”
“Why would I put us at risk?”
He steps toward you. You flinch back.
He stands still. He holds up his hands.
“Sweet'eart,” he says, placating, chiding, all at once, “we have resources down here to last us a long time. I know that an' you know that. But those resources are for us. For our future. D’you understand?”
“But we – we could help people. There could be good people out there. It can’t just be the two of us down here forever. Not when we could – …”
“Dove,” he says, chiding, placating, one more than the other, “don't play daft with us. It won’t just be the two o' us. Not forever. Y'know that."
The dials blink. The buttons flash.
Behind him, a Corpse scoops out the man’s stomach.
🐇
You stay away from him for a little while, and he allows the space.
Only brings you food and water and nudges books towards you from where you hide in bed.
You should be tougher, you know. You hate that you sniffle and weep.
But you keep seeing that pixelated vision of a body shuddering, dream of burning skin.
And you know. You know he was right.
Soft fucking thing.
🐇
if you ever made it out of the bunker and reached the fence would he do the same thing to you
🐇
The cue stick cracks against the balls, sends them scattering.
He lines up another shot before he notices you standing in the doorway.
First time out of bed in a while. He watches you as you move into the room.
Taking one of the seats near him, settling on it.
He waits.
Then, slowly, he leans back over the snooker table and lines his shot.
Another crack.
The ball rolls and lands in the pocket like he wanted.
🐇
John was right. It took, and your breasts are more tender than ever.
When you tell him, one morning, or maybe it is night, he locked the room to the screens and so you can’t look outside to know anymore, his smile is sympathetic.
“Oh, sweet'eart, it’s okay,” he soothes. “I'll take care o' you.”
🐇
Funny, you think much later. At least the dog would have let go eventually.
🐇