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yuesgirlfriend · 3 hours

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take me home, country road

[ao3]

You have nothing on your person apart from a hastily packed suitcase and the dress you came into town wearing, on the run from trouble back home. Too bad John's missing a bride that matches your description. Or: the 1800s (mistaken) mail order bride au (chapter 12) [note: trigger warning for a pretty rough spanking scene with a belt and minimal aftercare. if you need to, you can skip to the midway point (there's a line between the first half and second).]

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He keeps your hands tied behind your back on the ride home.

All that does is confirm the fact that he must know. Graves must have tracked him down or perhaps he was approached by someone who did consider your sudden arrival in town suspicious. Why else would the sheriff chase you all the way into the mountains on horseback and then take you back with him? He would’ve within his rights to leave your thieving self to wander alone in the woods and succumb to the elements.

John doesn’t say a word the first hour of the ride back. You can feel the anger emanating from him though. He almost shakes with it. His anger somehow upsets you more than whatever is left to come.

“Anytime you wanna start talkin’, I’m all ears,” John finally says, breaking the silence.

You keep your lips pressed together, stubbornly silent. There’s no use giving yourself away before you’ve learned how much he knows. You haven’t built this life of yours with loose lips.

“I don’t know what in the Sam Hill has gotten into you,” he continues, and his voice is cobblestone tread rough in the night. “Running off all by yourself. There ain’t nothing out in these parts except outlaws and highwaymen. There are men out here that’d love to get their hands on a woman like you—not even a knife to defend yourself with. You haven’t even got a scrap of food on you, never mind water. You’d’ve been dead in a week if the men out here hadn’t picked you off themselves.”

His words make your stomach ache. You know that there are worse things out there. A thousand gruesome ways to die. You’re less of a lady than John might think—you’ve heard stories. You’ve brushed close to that reality yourself. You wonder how he’d take it if you were to tell him about what had happened back east.

Maybe running away this time hadn’t been your smartest idea, but it had been your only. You can’t fault yourself for the instinct to survive.

“I know,” you mumble, dropping your chin to your chest.

“You gonna explain to me why you stole my horse and ran off in the first place?” he asks.

It’s the strangest interrogation you’ve ever heard of—sitting on the same horse with your back to the man questioning you and your hands tied together at the wrists. You wonder if you leaned back whether you’d feel his heart beating furiously in his chest.

You remain mulishly silent though, reticent to answer the question.

“Maybe I’ve been spoiling you,” he continues, trying to rationalize it to himself. “After the fuss you put up those first few days, I thought a bit of structure and discipline would do you well, and it did. Giving you a bit of slack was my mistake.”

You frown at that. Those don’t sound like the words of a man with any knowledge of the circumstances leading to you running off. He might not even have come across Graves at all in the hours since the man made his appearance in the general store. Otherwise, you can’t imagine how he wouldn’t make the connection.

Still, you can’t make yourself come right out and say it, even though every iota of your being aches to let the truth out. Call it nerves overpowering the need to be truthful and good. You vacillate between honesty and self-preservation, but each avenue feels like being dropped into a nest of vipers.

But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. If he knew, he wouldn’t question you like this. It’s a boon you can’t give up, not yet. Not when the thought of his inevitable righteous fury fills you with dread and self-loathing.

“I don’t have to explain myself,” you spit out suddenly, and it’s not you saying those words but something ugly and sad in you. “You’re not my owner.”

“I damn sure am your husband though,” John growls, winding his free hand around your hair to tug you back into his chest. “And I know these parts far better than you, little miss. Beyond running off on me for no good reason when I thought we put your reticence behind us, you went and put yourself in danger the likes of which you couldn’t even fathom.”

“I’m not an idiot,” you snap. “I know what men are like.”

“You’re telling me you pulled that stunt knowing what kinda danger is out there in the woods?”

“I wasn’t thinking!”

“I know you weren’t,” John grunts. “That’s the issue.”

The rest of the ride home is uncomfortably quiet. John keeps one hand clamped on your waist while the other holds the reins of both horses, the two walking alongside each other back down the trail towards the house. The ride home is a lot longer than the ride out into the woods since John refuses to let either of them go faster than a slow trot while your hands are tied behind your back.

He snorts in derision at your suggestion to undo your binds. “That eager for your punishment?”

That gets you to zip your lips.

When you get drowsy, John tips your head back and makes you sip from his waterskin. His hand fits carefully around your throat to hold your head in place, his fingers curling around to just graze the nape of your neck. Your throat pulses under his palm when you swallow. It’s far too intimate for how restless you feel, damn near shaking out of your skin, but it briefly shushes the voice in your head until he pulls his hand away.

A shadow under the doorway of the house startles you at first before it takes a step into the faint light of the setting sun and you recognize the bristly blond of Simon’s shorn head and the red bandana shrouding the bottom half of his face. The tension ebbs back into you when you realize with creeping humiliation that the black horse you rode home on must belong to him.

He watches the two of you approach with predictable disinterest, his eyes betraying nothing. The shame is excruciating.

John brings the horse to a halt some feet from Simon, not bothering to greet him. You wonder if it’s the anger choking him or if this is just routine, men trading favors in silence lest a word in gratitude break the spell. After dismounting himself, John helps you down, all but picking you up and lifting you off the horse.

Simon doesn’t say a word to either of you when he takes the reins from John’s hands, giving him only a curt nod and you a cursory glance before leading his horse away to mount. He doesn’t spare you a backwards glance before taking off back towards town. You watch him over your shoulder while John guides you up the porch steps and into the house, until the shape of him disappears into the horizon. Then the door shuts behind you.

Alone now, your attention turns back to John. He stares down at you consideringly, a hand planted on the door he just shut until he lets it fall to his side. You can see the gears turning in his mind, weighing something out.

It wouldn’t be right to call it anticipation; it’s not quite dread either.

“I don’t make idle threats, you know,” he says, apropos of nothing.

His words make you frown until you glance down to find him undoing his belt. Your blood turns to ice. He tugs the thick strap until it comes sliding out of each loop around his waist. The buckle rests heavy in his palm, thick fingers curling around it, and when he bends the belt in two, you already know that he intends to follow through with his threat from earlier, the one you said you’d gut him for.

“I’ll scream,” you warn, heart in your throat. It almost chokes you. “I mean it. I’ll scream like the devil.”

“Don’t go makin’ no empty threats now, darlin’,” he says in a low voice, almost taunting. You can hear the hard edge in his voice though. It’s not something he craves, but he’ll take it.

“You touch me with that thing and I’ll never forgive you.”

John’s eyes go hard. “I’ll just have to take that chance.”

And then he’s on you.

He hooks an arm around your waist when you try to rush past him back out the door and it forces the breath out of you.

You struggle as best you can with your hands tied behind your back, trying to wriggle out of his hold even as he heaves you up into his arms and climbs the staircase towards the bedroom. The steps creak under the added weight of you in his arms. The screams come tearing from your throat, ripping your vocal cords and nearly sending you into a coughing fit.

“Let—me—go—” you shriek, kicking out wildly, hoping to catch something that’ll make him lose his balance.

“All that squirmin’ ain’t making me feel more merciful,” he growls.

John kicks the bedroom door open with his foot when he reaches the top of the staircase. The room looks ominous without the oil lamp lit, the shadows growing in the corners swallowing up the end table. The bed is just as you made it this morning, the sheets pressed tight and neat, and you only get a second to take that in before he marches towards the bed and throws you down onto it.

You hit the bed hard, bouncing slightly. He sits down heavily enough to jostle you and when you try to roll away on instinct, a hand catches you by the bicep and pulls you back. He hauls you across the bulk of his thighs this time, far different from your first meeting back in the sheriff’s office all those weeks ago. Your feet don’t even touch the floor this time around, dangling in the air and flailing for purchase.

“You brute—you bastard!” you screech.

“I’m not gonna be as charitable this time,” John says, yanking your dress up and your drawers down until your bare bottom is exposed. You gasp at the cold air, murmuring something like please, please, please under your breath. “Even if I knew why it was you decided to run off, that doesn’t excuse the fact that you did. You coulda been hurt or worse out there, darlin’, and I’d never have forgiven myself. I’m gonna make sure the lesson sinks in this time.”

He folds the leather belt to hold it in one hand, leaving the other to pin you down over his thighs, making sure you don’t wriggle out. The leather is cool at first when he drags it over your butt. It makes your breathing pick up. It’s so gentle that you can almost trick yourself into thinking that it’s all he intends to do.

The first lash comes so quick that you barely register it. The second knocks the wind out of you, and then the pain sets in.

It stings something fierce. Where his palm hurt that first time he bent you over his desk and spanked you, the belt burns. It goes deep and it lingers when he pulls the leather away from your stinging bottom.

“Hurts like the dickens, don’t it?” John asks, not bothering to wait for confirmation before bringing the belt down again. “You’re lucky it’s only ten this time.”

You howl into the bedsheets, eyes tearing up and spilling down your cheeks. When you try to cover your ass with your bound hands, John grabs them and pins them to the small of your back.

“What’ll you never do again?” he growls.

“I—I’ll—”

“Say it, darlin’: I’ll never run off on my own again.”

“I’ll—n-never gonna—oh, it hurts, John—please—”

At some point, you must say the words he’s looking for. You lose count of how many times his belt has struck across your ass. Like thunder coming after lightning, you feel it and then you hear it. The sharp snap comes as a second wave of agony in and of itself.

Your throat is stripped raw by the time it’s over. The aftermath finds you with a puddle of drool under your cheek, hair matted to your face. Sweat slicks the backs of your thighs and down your spine. Even the gentlest brush of John’s hand over your backside, the belt deposited off the side of the bed, makes you flinch, the skin there tender to the touch. You’ll surely feel it deep in your bones come sunrise.

Too exhausted for anger, all you can do is lie there. It sits heavy in your stomach though, a pit at the center of you. You want to say, who gave you the right? The answer burns a ring around your finger though. You want to say, you don’t understand, it had nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with him and you.

You can tell he wants to say something. It gets choked in his throat, but you can hear it in the way his breath draws in, like he’s trying to coax it from his chest but it simply won’t come out.

“Stay right there,” John rumbles instead, shifting you onto the bed to let you lie on your belly.

You moan in pain when he moves you, sniffling into your arms. The crook of your elbow is sticky with your tears and snot.

The bed dips under his weight when he comes back. You flinch violently when he draws the skirt of your dress up again and smooths his hand over the tender cheeks of your backside, spreading a cool salve over your skin. The first touch of his hand makes you hiss, tears beading in the corners of your eyes again, but then the cool sinks in, alleviating the ache.

He does that for another few minutes in silence. Gentle, tentative touches, only stopping when the salve has been spread evenly over your bottom. He’s quiet when he shifts you up the bed until your feet are no longer dangling off the end. You’re distantly aware of him taking off your shoes and tucking you into bed, but the events of the day have finally gotten the better of you. It would be easier to push a boulder up a hill than crack even one of your eyelids open.

Time passes slowly; sluggishly. Your thoughts can’t quite catch up with it, either too quick or too slow. You’re stuck in thoughts of the desert, caught in a sandstorm that manifests too suddenly for you to take cover. All you can do is close your eyes and wait it out.

Morning comes like a brutal summoning into the waking world.

It hurts, but you expected that. Before your eyes even open, you’re aware of a throbbing pain coming from your backside. You wince when you shift to your side, squeezing your eyes tight. You contemplate rolling over and taking your chances with John’s temper. The thought isn’t as appealing in the light of day though.

It takes some time to get out of bed and when you do, you have to step tentatively from floorboard to floorboard, the ache making it decidedly uncomfortable. You can’t imagine what sitting down will be like. Riding a horse is just out of the question.

From the bedroom window, you see John standing in front of the house with Simon, back again not even twelve hours later. With the window closed, you can’t hear their conversation, nor can you read their lips. Their exchange doesn’t last long though. After another minute or so, and a nod goodbye, Simon walks back over to his horse standing nearby and lifts himself up and over onto the saddle, taking off towards town.

When John turns back towards the house, you see him glance up towards the bedroom window where you stand. The circles beneath his eyes are dark, pronounced. On another day, you might’ve ducked out of sight or jumped away from the window, but now you hold his gaze.

He breaks your stare first this time, heading back inside. It’s less satisfying than you thought it’d be.

You spend the day resting in bed and avoiding John for the most part. He spends the majority of the day out of the house. You hear him downstairs in the kitchen around midday, fixing himself up something to eat, and you listen attentively to the scrape of the chair across the floor and the pan on the stovetop. Like the day he brought you home, he brings you up a tray only to leave it at the door, rapping the door with his knuckles to let you know before heading back downstairs.

When he comes up for bed, you’re already lying down with your back to the door, the oil lamp left unlit. John doesn’t say anything to you as he changes into his nightwear. He smells fresh when he climbs into bed, like he bathed in the creek out in the woods. You breathe in deeply, trying to keep your breath quiet enough to not disturb the silence. The pillow under your head is saturated with his scent. You turn your nose into it when he lies down on his back instead of curling into you like he usually does.

Your chest aches at that simple denial. There’s a wall between the two of you and you know where it came from. Any trust that you’d built lies in ruins now.

Perhaps that’s not quite right though. It’s a romantic notion that you’ve been building something together all this time, but it doesn’t feel right now that you have the wherewithal to look back and reflect. All this time, whenever you’ve touched, you’ve held him steadfast and at an arm's length away, stopping two degrees short of intimacy.

Deliberately effusive; and worse, you’ve called it affection.

The tenderness in your heart is the worst of it. There’s a bruise there, and it’s been there awhile. It’s only grown with your recent troubles. You tell yourself every year that you’ll air it out come spring, but then the winter comes and it freezes over again.

The pillow under your chest grows damp with your tears.

Your dress the next morning is cornflower blue. The wheatfields are golden stalks swaying in the breeze. It’s a pleasanter day than how you feel.

The ride into town is as painful as you thought it might be. You wince with every stride, your bottom still tender as a rose. John’s arm tightens around your waist when you squirm, like you might slide off the saddle and try to flee again, and you bite your lip to hold back the urge to snap.

The little bit of independence you’d grown to enjoy is snatched away from you. You expected that as well, but that loss of privilege comes with a biting ache. You fight the urge to gnash your teeth and bark at him that you’re not a child when he grips you under the arm and leads you down the road. It wouldn’t do you any good.

When John leaves you off at the general store, you’re surprised to find Kate back, hale and hearty. She looks up when the chime over the door jingles and raises her eyebrows in greeting. The sound makes you flinch, memories coming back unbidden.

You look over your shoulder to say something to John before he leaves, but the door is already closing behind him by the time you turn around. Your lips are pursed on a word that dissolves in your mouth. It has a bitter aftertaste.

“Thought you wouldn’t be back for a few more days,” you say instead, turning back to Kate. There’s already a chair pulled up for you by the wall and you make yourself comfortable there, grimacing at first when your sore backside touches the wood before settling in.

She shrugs. “Plans changed. Gaz and I made it back late last night.”

You frown. “Gaz?”

“Kyle Garrick. Sorry—slip of the tongue. You’ve met him already. He used to go by Gaz way back when.”

“Way back when?”

“Not my story to tell. You should ask one of them, if you’re curious.”

You are, but not enough to ask. “Maybe.”

The two of you lapse into silence after that exchange. Before leaving the house, you remembered to bring with you some needles and wool to pass the time. They’re not as familiar in your hands as you’d like them to be, but you suppose, barring the possibility of Graves or another bounty hunter showing up in town to cart you off, you’ll have time to learn.

The thought leaves you anxious. It feels distinctly more possible now.

“You met Miles while I was away?” Kate asks, out of the blue.

Your head comes up at her question. “Miles?”

“He was minding the store for me while I was away. Said you came in the other day.”

You swallow reflexively. “Oh. Yes, I suppose I did meet him. I didn’t stay long, since you were gone and all.”

She hums and looks back down at the book in front of her. You feel nervous all of a sudden.

“He said you were very helpful,” she says abruptly, breaking the silence. You flinch. “Told me some gentleman came by with a warrant for a murder back east and you were kind enough to take it to your husband for him so he could keep minding the shop.”

Your throat constricts. She pins you under her gaze, unblinking eyes staring into yours but not looking for anything. Wispy blonde bangs brush along her forehead when she tilts her head ever so slightly.

You nod instead of answering.

“Did you give it to him?” she asks.

“I didn’t have a chance to. The day got away from me,” you say tersely.

“I heard something about that. Kyle said John had to borrow Simon’s horse the other day. Said something about him taking off in a hurry.”

Again, you don’t answer. It feels like without knowing it, you’ve crossed over a threshold.

“Do you still have it?” Kate prompts when again you don’t respond. You don’t tell her that you don’t because in all the fuss the other day, it must have slipped out of your pocket and drifted off into the wind. “The warrant?”

“No,” you whisper, shaking your head.

“That’s alright. I have a good enough idea about what it might’ve said.”

Sweat beads on your upper lip. She all but says it outloud. You’re as still as a ferrotype under her gaze, imprinted in place, unable to move so much as a muscle or force a word past your stiff lips.

“You’re under no obligation to tell me or anyone,” Kate says, and her voice is suddenly gentle, softer than you’ve ever heard it before. “I’m sure you had your reasons. I won’t be telling John, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Oh. Thank you,” you breathe, throat so tight that the words almost don’t come out.

It’s the closest you’ve come to admitting to it, tangentially or not, and even now it’s spoken only out of the corner of your mouth. You don’t think you have it in you to recite the events sequentially. Even in the privacy of your memory, it comes piecemeal, in fragmented images that flicker across your mind because maybe to remember it whole would be too much.

You don’t say much more after that, and neither does Kate. That wasn’t the point of bringing it up, you think. You'd know if it was.

When John comes to fetch you at the end of the day, you leave without saying goodbye to Kate. Only a stiff smile before heading out on your way. If she returns your smile, you don’t notice it. To John, you simply duck your head and follow him out the door, letting him help you up onto the horse without a word.

If it bothers him that you refuse to speak to him, he doesn’t show it.

It’s so many steps back that you might as well be back where you started. Maybe even further back, a voyage gone so wrong that when you look over your shoulder, you can’t make heads or tails of where you came from. The trees from the other side of the trail never look quite the same.

If you could open your mouth and say it, you would. If you knew he’d listen. But you don’t think John is that kind of man. Against the gold of the setting sun, he cuts a figure from times of yore. He speaks plain while you tend to speak in fricatives and bilabial stops, incapable of enunciating the words.

You feel like a wound on the world. Getting it wrong again and again.

It’s an old pain, one that started back when you were too small to hold it all. Now, you’ve grown large enough to hold it, though it holds you back in turn. You remember your parents studiously ignoring first creation like some noxious cloud billowing from the chimney. There’d been too many children for them to care about the runt. Shipped off to your aunt’s and uncle’s just for the cycle to repeat itself.

It’s an old grief, this one, friendly because it nudges at your hips when you brush by, striking in the blue-green. And when it burns, it burns.

“John, I—” you say when he helps you down back at the house.

He stares down at you, waiting you out. Your mouth goes dry, the truth beyond your grasp again. Your heart aches when his brows furrow and the lines around his eyes crease again, frustration welling beneath the surface.

You understand. It sits under your skin too.

"Go inside," he says instead when you don't go on. "I'll bring in the horses and start supper."

Your God sits at the edge of the bed, wholly lacking praise. It’s not His fault that it’s been awhile. These days, you can hardly muster up the energy to say hello. You gargle saltwater before you bathe and scrub your skin free of blood, waiting for the next morning to come.

And you think, lying on your side while John sleeps on the other side of the bed, wouldn’t it be lovely to get it right now, rather than in retrospect?

#i’m going insane #captain john price

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yuesgirlfriend · 1 day

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it took the end of the world to bring you to where you were supposed to be. (18+, 5.5k words) ghost (+ johnny) x fem!reader (apocalypse au -> dark content ahead)

you know it is luck that you are still alive. in times of anarchy, it isn't the soft and weak hearts that remain. only the unfeeling stay alive. the ones that are willing to do what others are not. the lot that know what isolation feels like. the ones familiar with survival and everything that comes with the wounds it leaves behind.

the loneliness. the paranoia. the heat of hunger and the impossible itch of thirst, on top of the fact that running for your life is second nature to you now.

if it wasn't the sick and dead lurking in the shadows, it was the live ones that would take you. and you have seen what they can do, and you have watched what the opportunities of the unbecoming have given them, and you vow that you will kill yourself with your own dull army knife than let yourself succumb to that kind of death.

you'd rather be eaten alive by the things that don't understand than the ones that do, because they don't know any better, and the others do, and they know what they are doing isn't human, but they don't care.

whether they eat for survival, for pleasure, for power, it is becoming more and more difficult to discern between the sick and the healthy, and in that in-between, you've decided to be on your own.

you know the loneliness will eat at you from the inside. but you are comforted by the fact that you are not being eaten from the outside.

you sleep in the trees tonight. you climb, high enough to be out of sight, and then you use the rope in your pack to anchor yourself to the trunk. as soon as your head falls back, you fall asleep. you have been walking for days now, you think, and with nothing in your belly except for a few scavenged snacks, sleep comes easy.

when you wake up in the morning, you feel the crisp edge of the sky against your face, and you know it will rain soon.

if there is a god above, they will wash you away with it. you hope, at least. you don't know if this is how you imagined noah's ark--the cleansing of the earth, a flood great enough to wipe it of what they deem ugly and unimaginable and irredeemable. and god must be a man, because only a man would unleash something like this that comes with consequences he never intended--the fact that it didn't fucking work. in his effort to eradicate the fucked up pieces of shit he supposedly created by his own hand, he unleashed them.

he set them free.

and like a man, instead of fixing his fucking mistakes, he turns a blind eye. he forgets. he allows it to manifest, and now that it is out of control, he will blame the sins of what he's done on someone else, someone like you. the innocent. the unknowing. the small and the weak, the ones who he said would inherit the earth, where is he now that there is nothing to inherit? how come he's allowed to go back on his promises, and i'm not? what have i done so wrong that this is the lifetime you gave me?

you don't know why you care. you don't know why you've survived and why you keep trying to. you don't know what drives you forward, but there must be something. there has to be something waiting for you, because you don't think your life can fall any lower than this.

but fuck, there are other plans for you.

there's no one to hear you scream. they cut the branch, unravel the rope, and one of them has gotten ahold of your legs, and they're dragging you. you cry, you scream, you thrash, but all your clawing hands do is leave sporadic trails in the dirt. they laugh, you think, but you cannot hear them over the blood that rushes in your ears.

your nails are raw when they flip you over onto your back. they bleed from how you scratched to be let go, and you don't know why you fight this, but you just have this voice inside you that screams that this can't be how this ends. this can't be the way you go--this isn't the what you deserve, this isn't fair--

you vow to leave your mark. when they come closer, you don't let them come easy. you claw at their faces, rip out chunks of their hair, and when another comes close, you use your teeth, biting off chunks of their flesh, tasting blood, because i won't make it easy for you, i won't go silently, i'll leave you worse than you leave me, i'll take you with me if i fucking have to.

and when it stops, you sob. suddenly everything is still, and there are no hands on you anymore, and all you can see through the blood in your eyes is the sky above you, and how it is early morning, and there's a flock of birds passing by overhead. they fly peacefully. they have no idea what they're observing--the struggle of being alive, the humanity of your will to live, the defiance of dying at their hands, they have no idea that they are witnessing the death and rebirth of something fragile, something so delicate.

you sit up on your hands shakily, and you swallow hard as you look around. to your horror, your savior is a man.

bodies surround you. there's blood staining the dead leaves along the forest ground, trickling from sickening wounds in heads. in one hand, the man in front of you holds a dirty stone, large and jagged, and the sharp edge of it is darkened with red and drips on the tips of his boots. he has wild blue eyes, and while his hair is grown out, it is carefully cut along the sides. his dark hair falls in effortless curls along his forehead and at the base of his neck, and when he meets your eyes, he smiles, wickedly.

he wields other methods of killing people, but he chose a fucking rock. and you think he must be crazy.

you shake, and you find your balance, crawling back on your hands to get away from him, but you're only able to crawl a few feet before your back hits an imposing wall.

you gasp, jerking to the side, and you bow your head to cry when there is another man behind you. this one towers, broad and big, and he wears a sickening skull mask that shadows any human part of him. he might not even be human--maybe he's as dead as everyone else.

you hiss when your hair is pulled. crouching at your level now, the one that wears a real face stares down at you, still smiling. he's chuckling now, licking his lips, and you lean forward and spit at him. it lands on his cheek, a mess of saliva and blood, but his eyes seem to only sparkle. his smile widens.

"what do we have 'ere, LT?" he snickers, and you gather the saliva in your mouth and spit it at his feet this time. there's more of a mess of cartilage and blood and spit, but instead of disgusting him, he just grins up at the ghost behind you. "with a will ta live. ever seen anythin' like it?"

"she's dead fuckin' weight." even his voice has you shaking, low and gravelly, and you hold back a whine when you're let go of. the scottish one is yanked backwards by the scruff of his hair by his superior, who bends to growl in his ear. "she'll only hold us back. dunno why y'even had to intervene, she'll not make another fuckin' day."

"fuck you," you snap, wiping at your face with a trembling hand. you wipe at the tears under your eyes, coughing, and you stare back up at him. with the sun in his face, you can see his eyes. they are dark, and they are unforgiving.

he is one of the ones who is free. he is one of the ones that god intended to kill, and yet here he stands, stronger than ever. and even though you know he's a murderer, an undeserving, broken inside and scarred on the outside, he'll outlive you because he thrives in the anarchy of what is left behind, and you are consumed by it all.

"let's go, johnny," he spits, and you close your eyes. you don't know why you were spared your life. you don't know why luck has been on your side, you don't know why men are what punish you and save you, but you cannot escape them. they send you to slaughter, and then they pick you out of the pen, and you wish you had more control.

you want to be more than this. you want to be more than whatever it is you're made of. you are not meant to be here, you're not meant to be alive, but you are, and fuck, you're so tired of it.

johnny belongs to him. it's obvious, in the way that he lets that man pull on him and order him around, even if they are adorned in military fatigues. you imagine there is no authority anymore, but he listens to that beast anyway, because he's getting up onto his feet, letting it guide him away from you.

if you want to live, you'll have to tame that beast.

"i-i can be useful," you say softly. your eyes are wet and big, and you look up at them as they stand over you. johnny turns his head, looking at his handler, who tilts his head to the side and glares at you. he does not believe you, at least that's what it feels like, but you look right into his eyes and take a deep breath. "you'll just kill me if i'm not. w-what do you have to lose?"

the hum he lets out isn't an agreement, but he doesn't say no either. so when he turns to walk away, you stand, brush your bloodied jeans off, and you follow them. johnny trails, putting you between them. you're pretty, but he doesn't trust you yet, but you're also aware of the eyes you feel on you from behind. when you catch him staring at your ass, he doesn't pretend to look anywhere. he simply giggles.

they are a unit. they can speak without words. johnny tells you his handler's name is ghost. his lieutenant, a man of many talents, and you refrain from rolling your eyes at his sergeant's praise. but instead, you look up at him, and you smile, and you nod, and you give him those doe eyes that you can tell make him a little dizzy.

at night, they alternate keeping watch. they carry lots of gear, and while one guards in his sleep, the other stands in the shadows and keeps their head on a swivel. they take efficient rounds of sleep, getting their rest in while keeping their senses on alert. the first night, you aren't able to sleep. you are too afraid of johnny and how he smiles, because he's a dog, and you don't know when ghost will let go of his leash.

and you are too afraid of ghost, because he looks at you like he wants to kill you, and when he does, you'd like to look him in the eyes for it. you want him to know that you might not be strong like them, might not be the kind of survivors that they are, but you aren't a coward.

you aren't a man, and you'll die the way a woman should--with her fucking dignity.

the days pass easier. ghost hunts, and johnny cleans. ghost scavenges, and johnny kills. and when there is food, johnny feeds it to you, and you put on your best face, opening your mouth, letting him spoon you a mouthful of something that warms your belly. johnny eats your lies right up, but one look at ghost, and you know he sees right through you. with each lick of your finger, he snarls, and with each foot you step closer to johnny, he growls.

he doesn't believe you. you need to make him believe you.

you see your opportunity. it crawls towards him on soft hands, flesh spongy and quiet from the weeks of decay and rot. you see its mouth, black teeth sharp and ready to sink into the meat of his calf, and you lunge, pushing the vase off the table and watching the heavy clay fall until it squishes the head into a heap of rotten matter and dead meat.

ghost turns, looks down, and when he looks back up, he sees you gasping for breath, heaving. there's a desperation in your eyes. it trickles between panic and worry, and you don't know how it is you wear it so well, but it manifests into wet tears that gather at the corner of your eyes.

he's not a beast. he's just a man. and when he passes by you, he reaches up and grips your face hard, nearly shaking you, but it isn't like any other time he's touched you. he glares down at you, right into your eyes, and you melt, stepping just that much closer, sinking your nails into fabric of his tactical vest and gripping it tight.

i can be useful. it rings in his ears as he looks down at you, the burden he has been carrying with him, and suddenly he drags you that much closer, until your open mouth touches the front of his mask.

even your determined conscience can't stop your legs from squeezing together when you feel the warmth of his breath.

i can be useful. i can be useful. i can be useful.

you can be the thing that wakes what is dead inside of him. you can be the virus that infects his veins, the dagger straight through his heart, the heat of the sun, the thing that builds back up what he's buried so far down. johnny keeps him human, but you'll keep his blood pumping. johnny satisfies the itch of authority that ghost needs to keep, but you challenge the fire he keeps under his tongue, and fuck, those eyes.

you pretend with johnny. you play the damsel in distress. you fawn, let him coo over your soft eyes, keen at his touch, but it is a game you play, and he sees it, he sees it, but this time, it doesn't make him angry, and he likes it, and fuck, have you always been this pretty?

you swallow your smile. his grips tightens, and you know you have him.

he's yours. and he's going to keep you. the world ends, god doesn't answer your prayers, the salt of the earth runs free, but it doesn't have to be the end for you. you will learn the hymn of what makes monsters move, and you will sing that song until you can't sing anymore.

you will learn their language, and you will convince them of what you are not, and keep what you really are a secret.

the good, the easy, the soft, you'll keep it inside, because that isn't who lives at the end of the world--it's ghosts that remain, and this one belongs to you.

this one belongs to me, this one is mine, this one you can't fucking have.

and maybe it's selfish. maybe it's wrong to think this way, to take from your saviors this way, because that is what they did, they did save you, but this is the only way you can make sure you make it out of here, that you live. a man takes, and a woman gives, but wouldn't it be nice if it wasn't always this way?

because the dead are still moving now, and there isn't humanity in the living; this is what you are owed.

you think it will be difficult to pretend. when it is night again, and you are staring up at the blue of johnny's eyes, you think it will be difficult, but it isn't. despite what you know he doesn't have, even though you know there isn't anything good in him, he still smiles, and he's so pretty, and you let him kiss you.

it's easy because he's warm. his voice low, his breaths heavy, and it feels like love, and it isn't hard to imagine yourself somewhere else. in another place, meeting him in another time, falling in love with him because it is the only thing you really have to worry about. if you lived another life, you wonder if you still end up here.

you wonder if he would eat your cunt this way in that other place. like he'll never have it again. if he's just as aggressive, spreading your thighs, trapping himself between them, slurping at your folds until you are nothing but a wet, leaking mess underneath him. you wonder if he would groan the way he does, gripping you tight enough to bruise, taking his fill because everything that begins has to end, but maybe if i keep making her see fucking stars, she'll let me stay here forever--

johnny's so much easier to control when he's pussy drunk. anything you whisper in his ear, he just nods, licking into your mouth, mumbling incoherently. he'll say yes to anything you say, and when the gruff call of his name pulls him away from you, he struggles to leave. it isn't obvious, the power you have over him, not to him at least. but it's real, and because he watches you even as he goes, you know he'll do anything for you.

he'll do anything for me. he'll live for me. he'll kill for me. but will he do it even if ghost tells him not to?

because that is the only question that matters. if you and ghost stand on either side of him, who will he go to when his name is called?

if i call both of their names, will they come to me?

if he calls my name, will i come to him? am i just the same? do i wear the collar, am i the puppy, is it me that fell and not the men i hate so much? how do i tell the difference between what the fuck is real and what isn't?

you don't know what time it is. it's dark outside, it must be the middle of the night, but you can make out ghost's silhouette in the doorway. you've been holed up here for some days, and he takes turns with johnny covering the perimeter. your legs are tired, and so are they, and the bed in this house gives way to a comfort and peace that you haven't felt in a long time.

you tilt your head to the side as you watch him there. you sit up, your hair falling around you, and you watch the shadow of him shift in the hallway there.

"scared of the dark, ghost?" you ask softly, and the way he stills tells you he didn't realize you could see him. he steps into the room, and the candle that flickers in the corner deepens the shadows that dance along his masked face.

"nothin' scares me," he murmurs, and you find his eyes in the dark. it unnerves you every time you stare at one another--his gaze is always so intense. he always looks in between all the layers you hide, and it's hard to remember what you are doing here when he looks at you this way.

"i don't believe that," you counter, and he narrows his eyes, shuffling closer, and you tilt your head back to look up at him. "you're terrified."

"not of wot y'think," he pushes back, but you shake your head.

"don't lie, simon," you whisper, and at the sound of his name, he reaches for your face--cups the underside of your jaw, grips the base of your throat, bends down to growl against the skin of your cheek. "are you jealous? is that what it is?"

"of wot?" he mutters, and you hold your breath when he grips your neck firmly. "of m'pet 'n his little lamb?"

"yes."

"nothin' to be fuckin' jealous of," he laughs, but it holds no humor. "what's his is mine."

"says who?" you breathe, and he pulls back to look at you again. there it is--the thing in your eyes that he cannot escape. he doesn't know what it is, but there is something there, and he craves it. he wants it more than anything else--more than food, than water, than survival, he wants to have it, to own it, to command whatever it is there because it's what he thinks he deserves.

he saved your fucking life, and this is the price for it--he gets to have the thing that lives in you that makes his fucking head spin, and you will give it to him, so help him god.

you kiss soft. he hasn't taken his mask off in a long while, but you move it up easily and without resistance, and now you're kissing him, and he moves without thinking. he hasn't even let johnny this close--he hasn't let him underneath his skin, not this way, and here you are, sighing against the scars he wears and kissing them anyways.

the ugly and the irredeemable, that is the skin he wears, and you love it anyways, and the ringing he always hears is gone because you don't seem to care. you caress his face, and you tug on the front of his vest, and then he is with you, and--he doesn't know if this is real.

when you pull away to look at him, his eyes flutter open. you don't say anything as you climb into his lap. the look you share, you don't know how to explain it, but you are almost afraid that it is understanding.

because it's the end of the fucking world, and he isn't capable of love, and you are only here to survive, and yet there is something here that you can't explain. god isn't real, he's just a man, but you think for a moment that that man might be simon riley because what the fuck is happening to me?

"simon--"

he kisses you this time. hungry, all-consuming. if there is anything you've learned about him in the weeks you've spent beside him, it's that he does everything with purpose or not at all. he has a will, a will of what you don't know, but of something, and he does everything with his entire chest. you've heard him talk to johnny when they think you're asleep, the pillow talk that you aren't supposed to be privy to, and suddenly you wonder if this is what johnny feels like--like the only person left in the entire world. because to matter to someone like lieutenant simon riley means you must've done something right, because he doesn't care about anything, and he doesn't love anyone, and--fuck.

he fucks like it, too. he fucks like he won't live another day, and maybe he won't. he fucks like it's the last time he'll ever see you, and it could be, and maybe that's why you're crying. you're sweaty, naked under him, and he can't stop kissing you. he breathes you in and swallows your breaths like it's what keeps him alive, and maybe it does.

"simon--" you cry, because it feels good, and he buries his face in the crook of your neck. your hand rises, slipping under the mask, and your nails scratch over his shaved head underneath. god, it feels sacrilegious to feel him this way, to know what's under it, but it doesn't matter.

"know wot y'r doin'," he hums, and you claw at his back when he slows down. your knees try to widen to accommodate the width of him, and he puts two big hands on your thighs and pushes, nestling himself deep and pressing himself right up against your pelvis. "know y'r playin' tricks on johnny, on me--" you cry, and he tsks, shaking his head, "'s pathetic, luv...thinkin' y'could fool us both."

"i-i--"

a particularly rough thrust shuts you up, and you arch your back, pebbled nipples hard against the warmth of his chest as he chuckles, laughing at you, so mean.

he leans down, and all you can do is whine as he mutters into your ear. "johnny's so fuckin' distracted by y'r cunny, swee'eart. and fuck, i get it, 's such a sweet pussy, luv--" you whimper, grinding up against him, needing him to move, but he puts both hands on your hips and squeezes, holding you still. "--such a nice cunt, make a bloke forget all his fuckin' troubles, but i know--"

you yelp when he reaches up and grabs your face. his palm cradles the lower half of your face, squeezing your jaw, and he squeezes your cheeks as he looks down at you and snarls.

"i know wot y'are. wot y'r here for."

"you--" you sob. "'m here for you--"

"can lie to johnny all y'like, luv, but don't you ever--" you whine as he shakes you gently, "--don't y'ever fuckin' lie to me. y'r usin' us. known since we found ya."

you let out an exhale, a deep one. you find his eyes, and he looks down at you, and you swallow hard. because it's true, in a lot of ways--you could never love them, right? this could never be a real thing. the only men that are left are god's mistakes. when man broke off his rib to make a woman, he didn't know a beast like this would come from him someday, did he?

did he know his sons would try to kill each other? in each and every generation? is he watching the dead roam the earth and wondering why those ones died and ones like this one are still living and breathing?

the thing that you don't understand yet is that nothing will kill ghost. his father couldn't kill him, the dark couldn't kill him, the earth he was buried in couldn't kill him, and every bullet that scarred him had missed the vulnerable places of him by just that much. the virus couldn't kill him, and he has an inkling that even if he was bitten, somehow, he would still live because that's his fucking fate.

his fate is to live, to endure, to grieve, no matter what happens around him. the world collapses, and he watches, and he picks up pieces as he goes hoping they will last, but he knows they won't.

he doesn't know how johnny will die, but he will. he doesn't know how you will die, but you will, and he'll be there to watch. for some reason, there's a little comfort, because at least this means they won't be alone. johnny wouldn't handle being alone well, and neither would you, because johnny is a mutt, and you are a leech, and neither survive without a keeper and a host, something else to keep them alive.

"'s olright," he licks over your bottom lip. "'m keepin' you, luv. but let's get one thing straight, aye?" you grunt when he turns you roughly under him, forcing your face into the mattress and caging you underneath him. you can't move much, all you really can do is sit up on your knees a little and push back against him, burying him deep inside you again as he presses his hips flush against your ass. he tangles his hand into your hair, pulling your head back, and he plants a chaste kiss against your throat. "y'r not above me, pet. you can order around m'mutt all y'like. bet he'll like that..." you hum when he cants your hips, the tip of his cock hitting a nice, warm place inside you, "but y'r gonna do as i say. and be a good girl."

you open your eyes, looking up at him over your shoulder. you plant your palms against the mattress and push back against him again, moving just enough to encourage a few slow, wet grinds.

"anything you want, simon," you whisper, pressing your face into his neck, and he grunts as his hand disappears underneath you to cup your mound, hissing as he feels the place where his cock is moving inside you. "can have whatever you want, please--" you whine in his ear. "i won't lie to you! i-i...i won't lie..."

with his other hand, he cups your breast, squeezing, his thumb circling your nipple before he tugs on it gently.

"gonna be a good girl?" he asks. "gonna let johnny fuck ya? let my mutt have his fill?"

you nod, panting.

"are--" you sniffle. "--are you gonna take care of me?"

ghost laughs, as if it's a stupid question. he maneuvers you onto your knees, and as you start to push back against him more eagerly, you start to hear the jangle of the dog tags he wears. you want to turn around and pull on them, want to see his face when he comes, but you tell yourself that's for another time--that right now, you need to get him cumming and agreeable.

he leans over you, picking up the pace, punching his hips into your ass. the sound of your skin against his is wet and quick, and as you press your chest into the mattress, he starts hitting you so deep, the air feels tight in your chest.

"need to see you--!" you gasp, and when you're on your back again, you grab for his face. your knees spread again, welcoming him deep, and you force his eyes to stay on yours as you feel the rough grind of his hips starting to build up that sweet, soft feeling in you.

fuck--he's so big. every part of him, it swallows you, and this isn't any different. you come when you feel him, so much of it that it's leaking down your thighs because he stuffs you so full, and there's tears in your eyes, but he isn't sorry.

looking at him this way is jarring. you have really only ever seen his eyes incredibly dull, nothing in them except a void that you aren't able to understand. but you are using him, and he is using you, and you smile, because now you can read him, read what's reflected there.

when ghost shoves his cum-soaked fingers into your mouth, you don't fight it. you keen, arching your back as you let your tongue swirl around his thick fingers, and he tilts his head to the side as he watches you. he's making sure you're doing as he wants. he's making sure that you will be pliant and good, that you will do as you are told and nothing else because that is what he asks of you.

he's making sure that even though he knows you are not the submissive puppy you pretend to be, that you will be it anyways because if you don't, you won't like how he bites.

you and ghost are the same. you are equals, even if he will never admit it. you trade different parts of yourself, but this isn't about preservation, it's about survival, and you are willing to give yourself for it. you are willing to say yes, ghost, of course, whatever you want, because you aren't supposed to be alive anyways, but you might just have a chance if you hide in his shadow.

you're still on the bed when he dresses himself. he straps his vest back on, zips his pants, and you watch him lick his fingers clean before putting his gloves back on. you reach down, your mouth falling open when a glob of his cum slips out and dampens the sheets, and ghost has a hint of a smirk on before he rolls the mask back down.

"don' worry, luv," he mutters, reaching over and gripping your jaw rough. you pucker your lips, and he snickers. "soap'll fix you right up."

"soap?"

"mmm. the fuckin' thing is useless unless there's a mess to clean up, yeah?"

will you take care of me? will he take care of me when it's time? will he keep the dead out of my eyes and my blood inside?

he never answers your question. and deep down, you're certain it's because he would kill you, and maybe johnny would, too, because johnny does whatever he says, even if it isn't good for him. and you aren't sure if it's because this is his lieutenant or because saying yes is the only thing that make's sense anymore.

i can be useful. i can be useful. i can be useful.

when you are not useful anymore, you'll need to be the first to strike then. because maybe you don't deserve to live, but neither do they. god is a man, and he makes mistakes, and ghost is one of them, and he's eaten johnny's soul, and if you go down, you will take them with you.

god is a man, and he was a fool to think he could've cleansed the earth by himself.

it was the flood that cleansed it the first time, and mother nature always does her fucking job.

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