The Walking Dead

Part 3

[14 years post-apocalypse]

I reached over after a minute and dragged you closer by the thigh after raising the center console back, needing you against me for a second.

You smiled sleepily and leaned into my shoulder while the Jeep rolled down the quiet road toward Alexandria, headlights cutting through the dark.

Connor shifted in the backseat with a tiny sigh.

I glanced up into the mirror again automatically.

Still asleep.

Still safe.

Still ours.

God.

“You know what gets me?” I said quietly.

“Hm?”

“The fact that he trusts us completely.”

You tilted your head to look at me.

“He just climbs into the Jeep and falls asleep.” My voice softened. “No fear. No worrying if we’re gonna make it home. No wondering if there are walkers around the next corner.”

I swallowed thickly for a second.

“Remember what we were like back then?”

Your fingers tightened around mine immediately because you remembered too.

Every second of it.

The panic.

The exhaustion.

The constant fear clawing at our throats.

Fourteen years ago, every ride in this Jeep felt like survival. We drove with weapons in our laps and maps spread everywhere because one wrong turn could get us killed.

You used to sleep with your hand wrapped around my arm like if you let go, I might disappear.

And honestly?

I probably held onto you just as hard.

Now Connor fell asleep with chocolate smeared on his cheek after a rodeo.

I laughed quietly under my breath at the difference.

“What?” you murmured.

I shook my head with a grin. “Just thinking about how pissed younger me would be if he saw this Jeep now.”

You smiled instantly. “Why?”

“Because there’s glitter stickers on the back window.”

You started laughing so hard you had to cover your mouth so you wouldn’t wake Connor.

“And there’s a stuffed dinosaur strapped into the seat beside him,” I continued. “And I’ve got applesauce packets in the glove compartment.”

“You love it.”

“I do love it,” I admitted immediately.

More than anything.

I drove one-handed for a while, just listening to your breathing and the soft hum of the road beneath us.

The closer we got to Alexandria, the more lights appeared ahead in the distance. Warm lights. Safe lights.

Home.

I still didn’t think I’d ever get used to that feeling.

The gates came into view, guards waving us through after spotting the Jeep. One of them smiled when they noticed Connor asleep in the backseat.

“Looks like somebody had a good night,” one of the guards said quietly as I slowed near the entrance.

I grinned, glancing in the mirror again. “Kid fought sleep like his life depended on it.”

The other guard laughed softly. “Lost the battle, huh?”

“Violently.”

You snorted beside me while Connor kept sleeping through the entire conversation, cheek smashed against the side of his booster seat.

The guards swung the gates fully open for us, warm floodlights washing over the Jeep as we rolled inside Alexandria.

Even after all these years, there was something about driving through those gates that still hit me hard.

Safe.

That feeling never got old.

The streets inside Alexandria were quiet this late at night. Porch lights glowed softly outside houses. Wind moved through the trees planted along the roads. Somewhere in the distance I could hear muffled laughter from one of the houses where people were still awake.

Real life.

I drove slowly toward the parking area along the inside fence near the gates where all the community vehicles were lined up. Old trucks. Motorcycles. Jeeps patched together with scavenged parts. A couple wagons parked nearby.

And mine.

Mine sat among them every day now like it belonged here.

Not running.

Not escaping.

Not surviving.

Just home.

I parked carefully near the fence and shut the engine off.

The silence afterward settled soft and heavy around us.

Connor stirred faintly in the backseat but didn’t wake, little fingers still curled around the brim of his cowboy hat.

You turned in your seat to look at him, smiling instantly.

“Oh my god,” you whispered. “Look at him.”

His tiny boots were untied now, one sock half falling off his heel. Dirt streaked across his jeans from the rodeo grounds. His cheeks were flushed pink with exhaustion and leftover excitement.

He looked so little suddenly.

Not our fearless little cowboy screaming about trophies anymore.

Just our sleepy four-year-old boy.

My chest squeezed painfully.

“He’s out cold,” I murmured.

You reached back carefully and brushed your fingers through his messy curls.

Connor reacted immediately even asleep, turning instinctively toward your touch with a tiny sleepy sound.

That almost ruined me right there.

I watched you for a second too long before quietly unbuckling my seatbelt.

“Stay there, baby,” I said softly. “I got him.”

You nodded, already gathering up Connor’s little hoodie and the ridiculous cowboy hat he’d insisted on wearing all day.

The night air hit cool and clean when I climbed out of the Jeep. Gravel crunched under my boots while I moved around to the back door.

For a second I just stood there looking at him through the window.

Four years old.

Four years old and already so deeply woven into every part of my life that I physically couldn’t remember what existing felt like before him.

Before you.

I opened the back door slowly, careful not to wake him.

The second the cool air brushed against him, Connor shifted sleepily.

“Mmm… Daddy?”

His voice was tiny. Barely awake.

“Yeah, buddy,” I whispered immediately, leaning down toward him. “Daddy’s here.”

His eyes didn’t even open all the way.

“You carry me?”

The trust in that simple little question hit straight through my chest.

“Always.”

I unbuckled him carefully from the booster seat, and the second the straps loosened he melted forward against me automatically, warm sleepy little body collapsing into my arms like pure instinct.

There it was.

That thing he always did.

Even half asleep, Connor clung to me immediately.

His arms wrapped loosely around my neck while I lifted him against my chest, one big hand supporting under his legs automatically. His face buried into my shoulder with a sleepy sigh like this was the safest place in the world.

God.

You climbed out beside us quietly, smiling so softly it almost hurt to look at.

“He didn’t even wake up,” you whispered.

“He woke up enough to request chauffeur service,” I said quietly.

You laughed under your breath while gently fixing the collar of Connor’s little flannel where it had bunched up beneath him.

Connor cracked one eye open at the sound of your voice.

“Papa…”

“I’m right here, cowboy.”

His sleepy little hand reached toward you immediately.

You took it without hesitation.

And there we were.

Standing beside the Jeep that once carried us out of collapsing D.C. while our son sleepily held your hand in one of his and clung to my neck with the other.

Life was unbelievable.

You carefully slid the cowboy hat onto your own head for a second and grinned at me.

I nearly laughed loud enough to wake Connor.

“Oh my god.”

“What?” you whispered innocently.

“You look ridiculous.”

“You love me.”

“I unfortunately do.”

You smirked before taking the hat back off and holding it carefully against your chest.

Connor mumbled something unintelligible against my shoulder.

“What was that, buddy?” I asked softly.

“M’horse…”

You immediately bit your lip trying not to laugh.

“Your horse?” you whispered.

He nodded sleepily against me. “Fastest one…”

“Obviously,” I agreed seriously. “No competition.”

Satisfied with that answer, he relaxed bonelessly back into my chest again.

I shut the Jeep door quietly with my free hand before we started toward the houses.

Alexandria was peaceful tonight.

Soft yellow porch lights glowed against the dark streets while crickets hummed somewhere in the grass. A couple people passed us on the sidewalk and immediately smiled when they saw Connor asleep in my arms.

“Long night?” someone asked quietly.

“Rodeo,” you answered with a grin.

That explained everything instantly.

They laughed softly and kept walking.

Connor’s head stayed tucked against my shoulder the entire time, tiny breaths warm against my neck. Every few steps his grip tightened reflexively like he was making sure I was still there.

I adjusted him higher against my chest automatically.

You noticed immediately because of course you did.

“He’s getting heavier,” you teased softly.

“Don’t start.”

You grinned at me. “Daddy’s getting emotional.”

“I am not.”

“You absolutely are.”

I looked down at Connor curled against me in his little rodeo clothes.

“…okay maybe a little.”

You laughed quietly and slid your arm around my waist while we walked.

The neighborhood around our house was even quieter. Most windows were dark now except for a few warm lights glowing from kitchens and living rooms.

Then our house came into view.

And next door, Alyssa and Felix’s porch light was still on.

You noticed it too immediately.

“They’re awake.”

“Probably waiting to hear how the rodeo went.”

Right on cue, Felix stepped out onto their porch the second he spotted us walking up the street.

“There’s the future cowboy,” he called quietly.

Connor stirred faintly at the sound of his voice but didn’t wake.

Felix walked over with Alyssa right behind him, both of them smiling immediately when they saw Connor completely passed out in my arms.

“Oh my god,” Alyssa whispered. “Look at him.”

“He lasted exactly three minutes after we left the Kingdom,” you said.

Felix laughed softly. “Did he love it?”

“Loved it?” I adjusted Connor slightly higher against my chest. “He’s planning his entire future around it now.”

“Daddy,” Connor mumbled sleepily without opening his eyes.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Tell Uncle Felix… m’gonna win trophies…”

Felix pressed a hand dramatically to his chest. “I believe in you completely.”

Connor gave one tiny nod like that settled the matter and immediately fell deeper asleep again.

Alyssa laughed quietly into her hand.

“He’s so cute it’s disgusting.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, even though my chest swelled hearing it.

You stepped closer to Connor and brushed some dirt gently off his cheek.

“He rode a pony today,” you said softly to Alyssa. “You should’ve seen his face.”

“Oh, I’m sure Emmett cried.”

“I did not cry.”

Felix looked at me knowingly. “You absolutely cried.”

“I hate all of you.”

You were laughing so hard silently beside me that your shoulders shook.

Connor shifted again at the sound and buried himself deeper against my chest, sleepy little fingers bunching into the fabric of my shirt.

Instantly all four of us quieted.

Because that trust.

That comfort.

It meant everything.

Alyssa’s expression softened watching him cling to me like that.

“He feels safest with his daddy,” she murmured quietly.

I looked down at him for a second, throat suddenly tight.

“Yeah,” I said softly. “And I’d burn this whole world down before I let that change.”

You looked at me immediately after that.

Not teasing anymore.

Just soft.

Warm.

Full of that overwhelming kind of love that still knocked the air out of me after all these years.

Felix smiled faintly and clapped my shoulder once. “Get the cowboy to bed.”

“We will,” you said quietly.

We said goodnight and finally headed toward our front door.

The porch creaked softly under our footsteps.

Connor was completely dead asleep again by then, heavy in my arms, cheek pressed against my shoulder while I unlocked the door one-handed.

The warm familiar smell of home wrapped around us instantly the second we stepped inside.

And for a moment I just stood there in the quiet entryway holding our son while you locked the door behind us.

Safe.

Fed.

Loved.

Home.

Everything we fought for was standing right here.

Part 2

[14 years post-apocalypse]

“I have to say, baby. It’s SO surreal having our son in your jeep. He’s only 4 and sits in his lil booster seat. And he has no idea that you’ve had this jeep since before the apocalypse. It’s what we escaped DC in when the apocalypse started while Alyssa and Felix followed in their BMW 14 years ago. Your jeep has seen SO MUCH with us. And now it transports our baby safely. “

I looked over at you when you said that, my hand tightening around the steering wheel for a second before I glanced back at the road ahead of us.

Connor was dead asleep in the backseat, little head tipped sideways against the booster seat, cowboy hat crushed awkwardly against the window. Every bump in the road made him mumble something sleepy under his breath, and it pulled the softest grin out of me.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “It’s kinda insane when you think about it too long.”

The Jeep rumbled steadily beneath us, older now. Scratched to hell. Repainted panels. Different doors than the originals after years of repairs. The dashboard still had tiny cracks from the brutal summer heat back in D.C. all those years ago.

But it was still my Jeep.

Still the same one I drove to your apartment before the world ended.

The same one we threw supplies into while the city burned around us.

The same one you climbed into shaking while sirens screamed through D.C. streets and walkers tore people apart outside.

I could still remember gripping this steering wheel with blood on my hands trying to get you out of the city alive.

And behind us, Alyssa and Felix’s BMW headlights stayed glued to our bumper almost the entire way out of D.C.

Four terrified idiots trying not to die.

I huffed out a quiet laugh under my breath. “Back then this thing smelled like gasoline, blood, and panic.”

You snorted softly beside me.

“I mean it,” I said, glancing at you with a grin. “There were literal axes rolling around in the backseat.”

“And now there’s crayons.”

“And sticky fruit snacks,” I added immediately. “Connor somehow gets those everywhere.”

You laughed harder at that, and damn, hearing you laugh while our son slept safely in the backseat hit me straight in the chest.

Because you were right.

This Jeep had seen everything.

The fall of D.C.

Nights sleeping inside it because nowhere was safe.

Rainstorms.

Walker herds.

Roadblocks.

Starvation.

Our first fights.

Our first time saying I love you.

The day I asked you to marry me.

Hell, the backseat still had a tiny dent from when Felix accidentally slammed a crowbar into the door fourteen years ago.

And now?

Now there was a booster seat back there.

A little dinosaur cup in the holder.

Tiny fingerprints all over the windows.

Connor’s favorite blanket folded in the corner.

Life was unbelievable.

I glanced into the rearview mirror again, looking at our little boy sleeping safely back there without a clue what this vehicle survived before he ever existed.

“He’s never gonna understand how hard we fought for this,” I said softly. “And honestly? Good.”

You looked at me quietly.

“He gets to grow up safe enough that this is just Daddy’s Jeep to him.” I smiled faintly. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

The road toward Alexandria stretched ahead of us in the dark while my thumb brushed slowly across your knuckles.

“I used to drive this thing thinking every trip might be our last.” I glanced at Connor again in the mirror. “Now it takes our son to rodeos and back home to us.”

My chest felt tight in the best way.

“That’s a damn good life, baby.”

~Christopher Cullen

Part 1

[14 years post-apocalypse]

The sun was dropping low over the Kingdom by the time I drove the Jeep through the gates, the sky all gold and violet behind the walls. Seventeen years into this world ending, and somehow people still found ways to build something good out of the wreckage. Kids laughing. Music somewhere in the distance. Smoke from grills curling into the evening air.

And beside me, you.

Your hand rested on my thigh while I drove, fingers absently squeezing every now and then, and I caught myself grinning because you always did that without realizing it. You looked relaxed for once, leaned back in the passenger seat with those sunglasses pushed up in your hair, watching Connor in the rearview mirror like he hung the damn moon.

“Look at him,” you said softly.

I glanced up into the mirror and laughed under my breath.

Connor was practically vibrating in the backseat. Cowboy hat crooked over one eye, boots kicking the back of my seat every few seconds because he couldn’t stay still if his life depended on it.

“I’m gonna ride the fastest horse there,” he announced proudly.

“The fastest pony,” I corrected. “You’re seven, buddy. Let’s survive the pony first.”

“I can do it,” he argued immediately. “Papa said I can.”

“Oh, Papa said so?” I shot you a grin. “Guess I’m outnumbered.”

You smirked at me, warm and amused, and Connor let out a triumphant little yell like he’d just won a war.

The parking area near the arena was already packed. Jeeps, old trucks, motorcycles lined up everywhere, people moving toward the gates carrying drinks and blankets and kids on their shoulders. The sound of the crowd rolled through the air before we even climbed out.

The second I parked the Jeep, Connor launched himself out.

“Come on, Daddy! Papa!”

I barely had time to shut the driver’s door before he grabbed my hand and started dragging both of us toward the arena fence. You were laughing beside me while I let him pull me along like he actually had the strength for it.

“Slow down,” I told him. “Rodeo’s not gonna disappear.”

“But we’re late!”

“We’re early,” you said.

“That’s basically late.”

I barked out a laugh at that.

The Kingdom’s rodeo grounds were alive tonight. Bleachers packed with families, music crackling through old speakers, horses stomping in the dirt pens nearby. The smell hit all at once too—dust, barbecue, leather, popcorn.

Normal life.

Something most of us thought we’d never see again.

Connor stopped dead near the fence, staring into the arena with huge eyes.

“Whoa…”

You rested a hand on his shoulder, smiling down at him while he soaked everything in.

A woman walking past pointed at his oversized hat and laughed. “Now that is a future cowboy.”

Connor puffed up instantly. “I’m gonna win trophies.”

“Of course you are,” I said seriously, like there was never any doubt.

We found seats near the front. Connor climbed halfway onto my lap because he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to sit or stand, and every few seconds he pointed excitedly at something else.

“Horses!”

“Look at that rope!”

“Daddy, did you see that?”

“I saw it, buddy.”

You leaned into my side while the announcer welcomed everybody to the rodeo, talking about survival and rebuilding and the future we were all fighting for. The crowd erupted into applause, loud enough to echo against the walls.

I felt your fingers slip through mine.

Seventeen years ago we were running for our lives in D.C., sleeping with weapons beside us and praying we’d make it another week.

Now our son was wearing a cowboy hat at a damn rodeo.

Life was unbelievable sometimes.

Connor completely lost his mind during the barrel racing. He was halfway standing on the bench, yelling every time a rider flew around the barrels.

Then came the pony rides.

The moment they led those little ponies into the arena, Connor grabbed both my arms hard enough to shake me.

“Daddy.”

I looked at him. “Yeah?”

“I gotta do that.”

You laughed quietly beside me. “Pretty sure that wasn’t a question.”

Connor whipped around toward you instantly. “Can I? Please?”

I looked at you, then back at him.

“You wear the helmet and listen to the instructor?”

“Yes.”

“You hold the reins right?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t try anything insane?”

He hesitated just long enough for me to narrow my eyes.

“Connor.”

“…maybe.”

You snorted into your hand while I shook my head. “Helmet first, cowboy.”

The second we agreed, he tore off toward the line with you following close behind him.

I stayed back for a second just watching the two of you together.

You reached down to fix his hat when it slipped over his eyes again, and Connor immediately started talking with his hands, explaining something at a hundred miles an hour while you listened like it was the most important thing in the world.

That sight hit me harder than I expected.

Because after everything we survived… this was what mattered.

You. Him. Us.

Connor climbed onto the little brown pony with this fierce concentration on his face like he was preparing for battle. The helmet looked ridiculous with the cowboy hat shoved underneath it, but he sat up straight the second the instructor handed him the reins.

“Look at him,” you murmured when you came back beside me.

“I know.”

Pride swelled so hard in my chest it almost hurt.

Connor spotted us near the fence and immediately waved both arms.

“No hands!” I shouted.

He grabbed the reins again so fast the instructor burst out laughing.

When the pony started walking, Connor’s face lit up so brightly I thought my chest might split open right there.

Every little loop around that arena, he looked over to make sure we were still watching.

And we were.

Every second.

After the ride ended, he came sprinting toward us covered in dust and excitement.

“Did you SEE me?!”

“You kidding?” I caught him around the waist and hauled him up against my chest easily. “Buddy, you looked like a professional.”

“I did?”

“You absolutely did,” you told him.

Connor beamed so hard his cheeks turned pink.

“I’m gonna ride real horses someday,” he declared. “Big ones.”

“Oh yeah?”

“And I’m gonna protect Alexandria too.”

That one hit both of us quiet for a second.

Because kids born after the fall said things like that casually. Protecting walls. Learning weapons. Keeping people safe.

Connor wrapped his arms around my neck. “I’m gonna be strong like you, Daddy.”

I kissed the side of his head automatically. “You’ll be stronger.”

You looked at me then, soft and warm in that way that still wrecked me after all these years.

The rodeo lasted until sunset.

By the time we headed back toward the Jeep, Connor could barely keep his eyes open. He walked between us holding your hand with one hand and mine with the other, stumbling sleepily through the gravel.

The second I started the Jeep, he curled against your side in the backseat, still clutching that stupid cowboy hat.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Best day ever.”

You smiled at him softly, brushing your fingers through his hair.

“Think so?”

“Mhm.”

A few minutes later he was asleep.

I drove slowly back toward Alexandria while the last light faded over the roads, one hand on the wheel and the other resting over yours where it sat on the center console.

You turned your head to look at me quietly.

And damn, after everything this world had done to us, you still looked at me like I was something worth loving.

I brought your hand up and kissed your knuckles gently before lacing our fingers together again.

“We did good,” I said softly, glancing back once at Connor sleeping peacefully behind us. “Didn’t we, baby?”

~Christopher Cullen

[VERY Post-Apocalypse]

The world outside our bedroom was a distant, irrelevant concept. There was only this. The dense, cocooning warmth of your body curled against mine, the soft, steady rhythm of your breathing a soothing counterpoint to the slow, lazy beat of my own heart. I was floating in that hazy, dream-filled limbo between deep sleep and true consciousness, a state I only ever achieved when I was holding you. The lingering, pleasant ache in my muscles from our early morning lovemaking was a dull, satisfying throb, a physical reminder of the connection we shared. My body was completely, utterly relaxed, every muscle uncoiled, every thought quieted. I was aware of the smooth, warm expanse of your back pressed firmly to my chest, the perfect curve of your ass nestled snugly against my hips. My arm was draped heavily over your waist, my hand splayed possessively on your stomach, my fingers occasionally twitching, tracing idle patterns on your skin. This was my sanctuary. This was my peace. The only place in the world where the 6'8" exterior I presented to the world could melt away, leaving just... me.

Then, the sanctuary was breached.

The bedroom door didn't just open; it detonated inwards, slamming against the wall with a deafening crash that rattled the pictures on the nightstand. A tiny human missile, all flailing limbs and boundless energy, launched himself onto our bed with a triumphant war cry. "PAPA!!!! DADDY!!!!! WAKE UP!!!!!!" Connor's voice, a high-pitched, joyous shriek that could shatter glass, cut through the comfortable, predawn silence like a foghorn.

A deep, guttural groan rumbled in my chest, a sound of pure, unadulterated misery. I buried my face deeper into the back of your neck, inhaling the familiar, clean scent of your hair, trying to block out the sound and the sudden, unwelcome sliver of light that pierced our cozy darkness. I tightened my arm around you, a silent, futile attempt to hold onto our peaceful bubble for just a few more precious seconds. I was exhausted, my body still heavy and languid with sleep, and the last thing I wanted to do was face the world, or more specifically, the tiny, demanding dictator who was now attempting to jump his way into a crater in the center of our mattress.

But you, you were already shifting, turning in my arms with an ease I envied. I could feel the sleepy, adoring smile on your face even before I saw it, the way your lips curved against my cheek. "Hey sweetie pie," you murmured, your voice soft and warm with an affection I could never replicate, especially not before my first cup of coffee. "What time is it?"

"BREAKFAST TIME!!!" Connor yelled, bouncing on the mattress with the boundless energy only a seven-year-old can possess at this ungodly hour. He was a whirlwind of flailing limbs and catastrophic bedhead, his dinosaur pajama top askew, his eyes bright with the kind of manic excitement that usually preceded some kind of household disaster. He was a beautiful, chaotic force of nature, and he was currently trying to knead me like a lump of dough.

You smiled again, a genuine, radiant thing that made my heart ache a little. You leaned forward, bracing yourself against his enthusiastic bouncing, and planted a loud, smacking kiss on his forehead. "Pants," you said, the word a soft, clear command meant only for my ears. It was our code. The one-word signal that the private, naked world of our bed was about to be invaded by the public, clothed world of parenthood. I grumbled in protest, a low, unintelligible sound of dissent, but I complied. It was an argument I never won. I reached for my own worn, soft sleep shorts on the nightstand, the ones with the tiny hole in the waistband I was too lazy to sew, while you grabbed your little lilac-colored ones. We both slid them on under the covers, a familiar, well-practiced morning routine that we'd perfected over the years. The moment we were decent, you opened your arms, and Connor scrambled into them like a baby monkey seeking its mother.

"I'll make you breakfast in a little," you promised, tugging him into the warm, divot in the mattress I'd just vacated. "But you gotta cuddle with Papa for a minute."

Connor groaned, a theatrical, put-upon sound that was so exaggerated it was almost comical. "But I'm HUNGRY," he whined, his lower lip jutting out in a perfect pout.

"And Papa is sleepy," you countered, your voice gentle but firm. "One minute. Cuddle time is important."

He didn't resist after that, a testament to the power you held over him. He let himself be pulled into our bed, his small, wiry frame fitting perfectly against yours. You spooned him, your arms wrapped securely around his chest, your chin resting on top of his head. I, in turn, spooned you both. My big, dumb arm, as you so affectionately called it, was long enough to throw over you and our son, creating a warm, safe, impenetrable cocoon of our little family. I rested my large hand on Connor's small back, feeling the steady, rapid beat of his heart against my palm. He was so small, so fragile. It was a constant, humbling reminder of the responsibility we carried. I leaned in and pressed a trail of gentle, cuddle kisses along the back of your head and neck, my lips brushing against the soft, fine hairs at your nape.

"Good job, baby," I whispered, my voice a low, raspy murmur against your skin. I was proud of you. So incredibly proud. Of the way you handled our son, the way you always seemed to know exactly what to say, how to defuse his tantrums and channel his energy. You'd gotten us more bed time, a small victory in the daily war of parenthood, and for that, I was eternally grateful. You were the heart of this family, the calm to my storm, the warmth to my occasional grumpiness.

Connor, despite his initial protests, was the first to succumb. The combined warmth and safety of being spooned by his two dads was too potent a force for his little body to fight. I felt his breathing slow, his small frame going limp against yours as he drifted back off to sleep, his earlier demands for pancakes and bacon forgotten. You weren't far behind him. The combination of my body heat radiating against your back and the cute, solid weight of our seven-year-old in your arms was a more powerful sedative than any pill. I felt your breathing even out, your body relaxing completely, melting back against my chest.

And just as I was finally following you both back into the sweet, welcoming oblivion of sleep, my mind beginning to quiet, my body sinking deeper into the mattress, the edges of my consciousness blurring...

DING DONG!!!!!

The doorbell, shrill, insistent, and shockingly loud, echoed through the house, a metallic, electronic shriek that shattered the silence like a gunshot.

Connor was up like a shot, his eyes flying open, his body instantly alert. "SOMEONE'S AT THE DOOR!" he shrieked, scrambling out of our bed in a flurry of tangled blankets and renewed excitement. He was gone in a flash, his little feet pounding a frantic, staccato rhythm down the stairs, leaving a trail of chaos in his wake.

I groaned, a long, suffering sound of pure, unadulterated misery. It was the groan of a man who had been promised paradise and then had it snatched away at the last second. I turned, intending to bury my face in a pillow and scream into the soft fabric, but you were already there. You had rolled over to face me, your eyes sparkling with amusement and sympathy. You leaned in and kissed me, your lips soft and familiar, a gentle apology for the morning that wasn't. I held you in place for an extra moment, my hand coming up to cup the back of your head, deepening the kiss, trying to steal one last second of peace, one last taste of you before the day officially began. Then, with a reluctant sigh, I let you go. I watched you get out of bed, your body lean and graceful in the soft morning light, before I slowly, painfully, swung my own legs over the side of the mattress.

NSFW

(Pre-Apocalypse)

The silence in the condo was suffocating. I paced for a bit, the anger and frustration a sour taste in my mouth. I tried to watch TV, tried to work out, but my mind kept replaying our sharp words. Finally, I collapsed onto the couch, the exhaustion of the day and the residual tension from our fight pulling me under. I didn't mean to fall asleep, but the next thing I knew, the light in the room had shifted, and I was blinking my eyes open, disoriented and groggy.

The house was quiet. Too quiet. I sat up, the blanket you must have draped over me pooling in my lap. I listened, straining to hear you. Nothing. A fresh wave of panic, cold and sharp, washed over me. The argument. You leaving. What if you didn't come back? I was on my feet and up the stairs in three long strides, taking them two at a time.

I pushed open our bedroom door, and there you were. Lying on your side, facing away from me, fast asleep in our bed. The relief was so potent it almost buckled my knees. You were here. You were safe. And just like that, the anger from earlier evaporated, replaced by a tidal wave of something else. Something raw and desperate. I hadn't realized how much I needed you until I thought you might be gone.

I crept towards the bed, my movements silent. I could see the gentle rise and fall of your breathing, the soft ginger of your hair splayed across the pillow. You were wearing nothing but a pair of loose sleep shorts, and the sight of your bare back, the curve of your hip, sent a jolt straight to my cock. It began to thicken, to harden, a primal response to the sight of my boy, safe and in our bed.

I knelt on the floor beside the bed, my face level with your perfect ass. I gently hooked my fingers into the waistband of your shorts and pulled them down, just enough to expose you. Your little pink hole was there, a delicate, puckered ring that was mine and mine alone. I leaned in, my breath ghosting over your skin, and then I tasted you.

I started with a soft, worshipful lick, a gentle apology. But the moment your flavor hit my tongue, something inside me snapped. I was starved. I was ferocious. I spread your cheeks wide with my hands, burying my face between them, my tongue delving deep into your hole. I tongue-fucked you like it was my first meal in weeks, like I could die if I didn't taste every inch of you. I hugged your cheeks around my face, desperate to be closer, to lose myself in you completely.

You stirred in your sleep, a soft moan escaping your lips. Your body responded instinctively, pushing back against my face. I felt your hand reach back, your fingers tangling in my hair, tugging my face even deeper. "Emmett..." you murmured, your voice thick with sleep and pleasure. That was all the encouragement I needed. I ate you with a renewed frenzy, my cock now rock-hard, straining against my sweatpants, a thick bead of precum soaking through the fabric.

When I finally pulled back, your hole was slick and swollen, glistening in the dim light. I trailed kisses up your spine, each one a silent promise. I moved over you, positioning my body behind yours, my lips continuing their journey up your neck, across your jawline, and finally all over your face. I was marking you, reclaiming you. My big, thick eleven-inch dad cock was so hard and worked up it was oozing precum, a steady, slippery stream that provided more than enough natural lube. I pressed the head against your slick entrance, and with a gentle push, I slid in, hands-free, my entire length disappearing into your welcoming heat.

You were still waking up, your body soft and pliant. I was gentle at first, my movements slow and deliberate. I was opening up my dad cock's playground, and you were opening up for me. I held your turned face in my hand, my thumb stroking your cheek as we made out, a slow, deep, passionate kiss that tasted of apology and longing. My cock throbbed inside you, a low, steady pulse of need.

But then you started to move, your hips rolling back to meet my gentle thrusts. The way your boyhole hugged my enormous length, the wet, slippery warmth of you... it was too much. The rhythm began to change, to quicken. I'd originally planned to make love to you, to show you how sorry I was with tenderness and affection. But now? Now I needed to FUCK.

The gentle lover was gone, replaced by that crazy, insatiable fuck demon you unleash in me. Both of my hands moved to your hips, my grip like iron. I started yanking your body back to meet my mean, rough thrusts, the sound of our bodies coming together filling the room. It went from make-up sex to me using you as a disposable sex toy, a vessel for my pent-up frustration and overwhelming need. I was pounding into you, my hips slapping against your ass with a brutal, punishing rhythm. My sweat started to drip onto your back, a primal rain as I used your body to chase my release.

I could feel my climax building, a tingling at the base of my spine, a tightening in my balls. But even as I fucked you like a demon, my movements still rough and relentless, I reached up and held your face, my touch surprisingly gentle. "I'm sorry baby boy," I crooned, my voice a ragged whisper against your ear. "I wasn't nice earlier. Can Daddy breed you to make it better?" I looked at you, pouring all the love I could muster into my gaze, a stark contrast to the brutal way my body was claiming yours.

You were so caught up in the moment, my cock still pounding your hole, my words a desperate, loving plea, all you could do was beg. "Please, Daddy," you whimpered, your voice breathless. "Breed me. I want to be your good lil cummy boy."

And with that, I lost all control. I slammed into you one last time, burying myself to the hilt, and exploded. It was a soul-shattering orgasm, so intense my moans almost turned to whimpers. I held you tight, my body shuddering as my cock pulsed, pumping a huge, thick load deep into your little boy hole. It felt like I was cumming forever, my balls emptying themselves inside you, filling you until you were overflowing. It's your glaze-filled donut, and I was the baker, and I had just given you the cream filling of your life.

Timeline: 12 years post apocalypse.

Ages: Chris: 34. Emmett 36. Connor 1.5.

The Rescue

The sound that came out of me didn’t sound human.

I hit that back lot at full speed, got both hands on the towering thing crushing you into the pavement, and ripped it off you so hard its spine tore with a wet crack. The body hit the side of the old work van. I didn’t let it fall. I slammed it into the metal again. Then I drove it down onto the concrete and obliterated its head under my hands and boots until there was nothing left but shattered bone, pulped flesh, and black-red gore sprayed across my jeans, the van door, my boots, your shirt, the ground around us.

Then I was on my knees in front of you.

“You. Look at me.”

Your eyes found me, but not cleanly. One side of your face was slick with blood from the scalp wound, one pupil a little slower than the other, your breathing jagged and too fast. Your lips parted on my name.

“Daddy…”

“I’m here.” My hands were already on you, everywhere at once. Your jaw. Your throat. Your shoulders. “Stay with me.”

You made a broken sound that was almost a laugh and almost pain. “Took you long enough.”

I checked your throat first.

Both hands on your jaw, thumbs under your chin, head tilting side to side while I searched every inch of skin I could see. Bruising had already risen dark over your throat where those dead hands and teeth had been forcing you down. Collar. Neck. Under your jaw. Shoulder line. No bite. No torn flesh there. No puncture.

You swayed toward me.

I caught the side of your face in my hand. “Eyes on me.”

“I’m lookin’.”

“You’re slipping.”

Your mouth twitched weakly. “Might be concussed.”

“Might be?”

“Definitely.”

I saw all of it then in one horrible, complete piece.

Blood soaking the side of your face from the scalp clip.

Your left arm chewed up and bruised and shaking.

Your side wound leaking through your shirt.

Your left ankle folded wrong and already swelling ugly.

Your breathing too shallow from the rib damage.

Your focus drifting.

Your body trying to sag even while you looked at me.

Panic hit me first.

Rage came right on top of it and locked everything else down.

“You stay awake.” I slid one arm behind your back and the other under your good shoulder, bringing you up enough to get you off the blood-slick concrete. “You hear me?”

“Yeah.” Your head lolled, then righted itself with effort. “I hear you.”

“Good. Keep hearing me.”

Boots pounded somewhere behind me.

Rick came over the low retaining wall first with his revolver up, Michonne right behind him with blood all over the lower half of her blade, Daryl swinging in from the loading side with his crossbow up and his chest heaving. More walkers were still spilling in from the far end of the lot, and somewhere beyond them one surviving scavenger was shouting for somebody who was never going to answer him.

Rick saw me first and exhaled hard through his teeth like he’d been waiting to find a body and got something he could live with instead.

“There you are—”

Then his eyes dropped to you.

You were half slumped against me, face white under the blood, one hand twitching weakly toward your side, the other dragging uselessly over the concrete. His whole expression changed, but not in a way I liked. Surprise first. Then irritation. Then something meaner and smaller than I had patience for.

Daryl looked at you and stopped short. “Shit.”

Michonne’s eyes narrowed. “He’s still alive.”

You lifted your head just enough to glare at them through one blood-smeared eye. “Disappointin’ for some of you, huh?”

“Save it,” Rick snapped. “We need to move.”

I looked up at him and everything in me sharpened. “You were ready to leave him.”

Rick’s jaw flexed. “We were trying to keep the yard from collapsing.”

“You were ready to leave him.”

Walkers pushed into the back lot behind them. Michonne moved without looking and cut one down across the face, then another through the neck while Daryl put a bolt in a third. The scavenger at the far end leaned around the work van and fired wild. The shot sparked off concrete somewhere past my shoulder.

You flinched.

I tightened my grip on you and felt you try to push yourself upright.

“I can move,” you said.

“No.”

“I can—”

You tried anyway.

The second your left foot touched ground, the ankle folded completely. Your whole body dropped sideways, your breath punching out of you in one raw cry that made my vision go red again. I caught you before your head hit the pavement.

“Fuck—” you gasped, one hand clawing at my jacket. “Okay. No. No, I can’t.”

“I know.”

I got one arm under your knees and one behind your back and lifted you off the ground.

Pain went through you instantly.

Your face twisted against my shoulder. Your fingers dug into me. One of your boots kicked uselessly at the air before your bad leg hung dead weight. Blood from your head soaked into the front of my shirt. Your breath hit my throat in fast broken bursts.

“I know,” I said again, already moving. “I know, baby boy. Hold on.”

Daryl backed up to cover the rear while Michonne cut the side path clear. Rick moved ahead of us, firing at anything still upright between us and the yard. Another scavenger burst from the loading door with a gun half raised and a look on his face like he still thought this might go his way.

I shot him one-handed while carrying you.

The bullet took him through the mouth. He dropped flat.

You made a weak, ugly little sound into my neck. “That was hot.”

“You’re losing blood.”

“Still hot.”

“Stay awake.”

“I am.”

“You’re drifting.”

“I’m right here.”

I adjusted my grip higher under your knees and felt how light you’d gone from blood loss and adrenaline and injury. Not actually light. Never that. Just too easy for how bad this was.

Walkers poured into the narrow route behind us.

Daryl fired over my shoulder. The bolt punched into a dead woman’s eye and sent her backward into two more. Michonne drove her blade through another skull, yanked it free, and turned in the same movement to slash open a scavenger’s forearm when he lunged from behind a crate. Rick kept the front open long enough for me to get you through the service lane and back toward the yard.

You kept trying to focus.

Every few seconds I felt your head dip.

Every few seconds I tightened my hold and jerked you just enough to keep you with me.

“Talk.”

“What?”

“Talk to me.”

Your breathing shook. “My ankle’s fucked.”

“I know.”

“My side hurts.”

“I know.”

“My head’s gross.”

“You are gross.”

That got the tiniest thread of a laugh out of you. It broke halfway through and turned into a hiss when the movement dragged at your ribs.

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Mean.”

“Stay awake.”

Another shot cracked behind us.

Pain ripped across my ribs where the earlier graze had opened more under the strain of carrying you. I felt the wet heat spreading down my side and ignored it. A walker lunged from the fence gap ahead. Rick shot it through the face before it got close enough to touch us. Another grabbed for my shoulder from the left and Michonne split it open from temple to teeth.

The closer we got to the yard, the more of the fight opened up around us again.

The van was still there.

The Jeep was still there.

The whole damn yard was still crawling.

Dead bodies.

Living ones.

The fence line broken in two places.

Walkers forcing through gaps and climbing over the fallen.

The jackknifed delivery van sitting crooked in the middle of it all like the world’s ugliest choke point.

And through all of it, I could feel the others looking at me like I was the crazy one for coming back for you.

That anger sat in every step.

By the time I got you to the Jeep, my forearm was throbbing, my ribs were on fire, my palm was half slick with blood through the torn skin, and my split lip had started dripping into my mouth again every time I breathed too hard.

I got the passenger door open and started lowering you toward the seat.

Your left leg jerked the second it brushed the frame and you bit down on a cry so hard your teeth clicked. Your hand clamped onto the inside handle. One knee made it in. Then your hip. Then your good foot dragged against the floor mat.

You were half in.

Not secure.

I stepped back because Rick was already coming toward me with that look on his face.

“What the hell were you doing?” he snapped. “Disappearing after him in the middle of all that? You nearly got us all killed!”

Blood rushed in my ears.

“He was back there alone.”

“He was already gone!”

“You don’t say that about him.” I took a step toward Rick. “Ever.”

“I’m talking about what happened! We had people dying in this yard and you ran off!”

Daryl was still covering the fence line with the crossbow. Michonne had moved closer to Rick. Behind them, walkers were still pushing through broken chain-link and over bodies. I could hear you breathing behind me, rough and weak and too quiet.

Then the Jeep rocked.

I turned.

The last walker had come out from under the jackknifed delivery van.

It slammed into you before I closed the distance.

You went back hard against the open passenger door with the thing on top of you, its dead hands clamping onto your shoulders, its whole rotting body driving down. Its teeth snapped straight toward your throat.

You got one forearm up under its jaw.

The wrong arm.

The injured one.

Your left arm shook instantly under the weight. Your bad leg slid out under you. Your other hand scrabbled uselessly at its face. Blood from your scalp wound ran into your eye. You were too hurt. Too dizzy. Too weak.

“Emmett—!”

I hit it like a truck.

Both hands on its skull and shoulder, I ripped it off you hard enough that one arm tore half out of its socket. I swung it into the side of the Jeep. Once. Twice. Then down. Then up again into the door frame. Then down into the gravel. Then again. Again. Again.

Every hit burst more of it apart.

Bone caved.

Jaw snapped.

One eye blew out.

The face collapsed under my hands and kept collapsing until there was barely anything human left in it.

Blood and brain matter sprayed the side of the Jeep, the open door, my shirt, my hands, the ground around my boots.

Then I was over you again.

My hands went straight to your throat.

Jaw.

Collar.

Neck.

Shoulders.

Still no bite.

You were shaking so hard your teeth chattered once. “Holy… fuck…”

“I’ve got you.” I pushed your hair off your face with one blood-slick hand and leaned in so close our foreheads almost hit. “You stay with me.”

Rick’s boots crunched behind me.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he shouted.

I turned.

He got one more second to be upright before my fist hit his mouth.

Hard.

Clean.

All my weight behind it.

Rick stumbled sideways into the side of the van, one hand flying to his face. Blood spilled instantly between his fingers.

Daryl swung his crossbow up at me.

Michonne moved just as fast, stepping in front of Rick and shoving him back before he could lunge. One hand braced on his chest. The other still holding her sword low and ready.

I pointed straight at Rick and shouted loud enough to cut through the entire yard.

“He is the ONLY person I give a fuck about! I’d kill you and everyone in Alexandria ten times over if it meant keeping him safe!”

No one spoke.

Not for one beat.

Daryl’s crossbow stayed aimed at me.

Michonne held Rick back with her body between us.

Rick looked like he wanted to kill me with his bare hands.

Behind me, you made a weak, wrecked sound trying to pull yourself farther into the seat.

That broke the standoff.

I turned my back on all of them and got you the rest of the way into the Jeep.

One hand behind your shoulders.

One under your knees.

Careful.

Fast.

You were limp by then, except for the way your fingers kept grabbing at me like you needed to know I was still there.

“I’m here,” I said, shoving the med bag under your legs and yanking the passenger door in enough to keep you from spilling back out. “I’m right here.”

I slammed the door, rounded the hood, got behind the wheel, and started the Jeep.

The van was still theirs.

They could figure out the rest themselves.

I pulled out of the yard hard enough that the rear tires spat gravel and blood over the dead nearest the gate.

The road back to Alexandria blurred under the wheels.

One hand on the steering wheel.

One hand jammed hard over the soaked bandage I’d pressed into your side wound.

You were drifting fast now.

Your head lolled toward the window, then toward me, then back again. Blood kept slipping down the side of your face and into the collar of your shirt. Your breathing was shallow and quick. Every bump in the road made your bad ankle jerk and your whole body shudder.

“Talk to me.”

You cracked one eye open. “Trying.”

“Try harder.”

“My side feels like shit.”

“I know.”

“My head too.”

“I know.”

“My ankle is—” You sucked in a breath when the Jeep bounced over a pothole. “Jesus. Fuck.”

“Stay with me.”

“I am.”

Your voice was getting softer.

I pressed harder over the bandage and felt fresh wetness pushing through anyway.

“Look at me.”

You dragged your gaze over. “You punched Rick.”

“Yes.”

You made the tiniest, most miserable little smile. “Good.”

“It wasn’t enough.”

“That was… kind of hot.”

“You’re concussed.”

“I’m also right.”

I almost smiled and hated myself for it because your eyelids were drooping again.

“No. Keep talking.”

You swallowed hard. “About what?”

“Connor.”

Your breathing hitched once and steadied. “Still with Carol.”

“Yeah.”

“She’s probably giving him crackers.”

“She’s probably giving him everything.”

You licked blood from the corner of your mouth without seeming to notice it was there. “He’s gonna smell like laundry soap and apples when we get home.”

“You’re getting home first.”

“I know.”

“Say it right.”

“I’m getting home first.”

“Again.”

Your head knocked lightly against the seat as the Jeep hit another rough patch. “I’m getting home first.”

“Good.”

You were quiet for three seconds too long.

I hit the horn once, not because anyone was near enough to hear it, just to jolt you.

Your eyes snapped open. “Rude.”

“Talk.”

You dragged in a slow breath. “The joint was good.”

“It was.”

“I didn’t get to finish it.”

“You can complain about that tomorrow.”

“You gonna smoke with me?”

“Yes.”

Your fingers twitched weakly over the seat. I caught them with the hand that wasn’t holding pressure over your side, squeezed once, then put my hand right back where it needed to be.

“Tell me what we found.”

You blinked hard, trying to sort your head out. “Batteries.”

“What else?”

“Radios.” Another breath. “Tape. Gauze. Flashlights. First-aid kits. Gloves.”

“Good.”

“Daryl was being a bitch.”

“He was.”

“Rick too.”

“Yeah.”

“Michonne knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That I was right to come.”

“She knew you’d come whether I liked it or not.”

“Exactly.”

Your head tipped back again.

“Eyes open.”

You forced them open and looked at me. “You’re bleeding a lot too.”

“I don’t care.”

“I care.”

“Then stay awake.”

The gates of Alexandria came into view.

I laid on the horn hard enough that the sound punched ahead of us. People on the wall looked down. The outer barrier opened. I drove through faster than I should have, brakes biting only when I was close enough to the infirmary that I could see Denise and Siddiq already running toward us.

I was out of the Jeep before the engine finished rattling down.

I jerked the passenger door open and got both arms around you.

Your body folded into mine with a broken sound when I lifted you out. One arm went around my neck automatically. Your face pressed against my shoulder. You were barely helping me hold you up anymore.

“I’ve got you,” I said, moving. “I’ve got you.”

Denise saw the blood and went white.

“Table. Now.”

Siddiq was already dragging a second rolling tray into place. “How long ago?”

“Under an hour.”

“Bite?”

“No.”

“Loss of consciousness?”

“Starting.”

“Fuck.”

They took us both in at once.

The infirmary exploded into motion around us.

Denise got you onto the main treatment table.

Siddiq got me onto the chair shoved close enough that I could still keep a hand on you.

Another set of hands I barely registered—Dante, maybe—was already hanging bags and pulling supplies.

You got IV pain meds first.

Strong ones.

Liquid fire into your veins and the sharpest edge of the agony left your face by degrees, though you were still shaking. IV antibiotics went in right after. Another line for fluids. Denise cut away your shirt and cursed softly under her breath at the side wound. Siddiq slapped pressure dressings over my ribs and palm while glancing up every few seconds to check what Denise needed.

Your scalp wound got flushed first.

You hissed and tried to jerk away on instinct, but my hand was already in yours.

“Easy. Easy.”

“Hurts.”

“I know.”

“Everything hurts.”

“I know.”

Denise pushed your head gently to the side and worked blood out of your hair with steady fingers. “Stay still.”

You looked over at me, eyes glassy with pain meds and concussion haze. “You look awful.”

I squeezed your hand harder. “You look worse.”

That got the faintest twitch out of your mouth before Denise started stitching the scalp wound and you swore hard enough to make Siddiq snort under his breath.

The side wound took longer.

They cleaned it.

Flushed it.

Checked depth.

Closed it.

You went pale enough during that part that Denise ordered more fluids and a second hit of pain meds before she even finished the stitching.

Your left ankle was next.

Swollen ugly and wrong-looking already.

Denise and Siddiq examined it together while another set of hands wrapped my forearm and cleaned the split in my lip. When Denise reset the ankle, you cried out and nearly came off the table even with the meds in you. My grip on your hand locked so hard our rings knocked together.

“Fuck—fuck—fuck—”

“I know.”

“I hate this, I hate this, I hate—”

“I know.”

Siddiq wrapped and splinted it tight while Denise moved to your left arm. Bruised muscle. Torn skin. Concrete rash. Deep swelling where the pipe had wrecked your side and another stretch of damage from getting dragged. They cleaned all of it, wrapped it, stabilized it, and checked your throat one more time under the rising bruises.

“No bite,” Denise said, firm and clear.

Only then did I realize I’d been waiting for those words again.

Siddiq worked on me at the same time.

Rib graze cleaned and dressed.

Palm wrapped thick.

Forearm strapped.

Brow cut stitched.

Split lip cleaned.

Bruises checked with fingers that knew exactly how deep to press to make me hate him.

“You need rest,” he muttered.

I looked at him. “No.”

He didn’t bother arguing.

Rick showed up later, after most of the blood had been cleaned off the floor and your breathing had stopped sounding like you were fighting every second for it. He had a split lip. One side of his mouth was swelling already. Michonne stood just behind him. Daryl hovered in the doorway for half a second and then leaned on the frame with his crossbow slung down and his eyes moving between all of us.

No one spoke first.

You were half awake, drugged, pale, one hand still wrapped in mine.

Rick looked at you.

Then at me.

The room stayed tight and ugly and unresolved.

Then Denise turned and stared him down with a look so flat it could have cut glass. “Take that outside or don’t do it at all.”

Rick held my gaze one second longer, then stepped back out.

Daryl followed him.

Michonne went last.

The room quieted again.

By evening, the pain meds had dragged you in and out enough times that your hair was dry where Denise had cleaned it, your side was stitched and bandaged, your ankle splinted and elevated, your arm wrapped, your throat dark purple under the infirmary lights.

I was stitched, wrapped, bandaged, bruised, and cleared to go home.

You weren’t.

Denise stood at the foot of your bed with her chart in hand. “You stay overnight. Observation. Concussion, blood loss, the ankle, the side wound—I want eyes on you.”

I looked at her. “I’m staying.”

“You are not bleeding enough to justify taking up a bed.”

“I don’t care.”

She looked tired enough to punch someone. “You can sit with him until lights-out. Then you go home, shower, sleep a few hours, and come back.”

“No.”

You cracked one eye open. “Daddy.”

I leaned over you immediately. “What?”

“Don’t fight Denise.”

“I’m gonna fight Denise.”

“Don’t.”

Even drugged half stupid, your fingers still tightened around mine when I moved closer. Your voice came out soft and wrecked and so obviously exhausted it made something inside me ache.

“I just need you close.”

“I’m here.”

“You’re goin’ home later.”

“I’m coming back before sunrise.”

“Okay.”

You were still drifting while you said it, but you meant it. I knew you meant it because your thumb dragged once over my knuckles, because you kept trying to keep your eyes on me even when they wanted to fall shut.

The adrenaline had burned out by then.

What was left underneath it was uglier.

Fatigue.

Anger.

The aftertaste of blood in my mouth.

The image of that thing over you in the lot.

The sound of Rick saying you were already gone.

The way your body had folded when that ankle gave.

The way your voice had gone small in the Jeep when you were trying so hard not to disappear on me.

I bent and pressed my forehead carefully to yours, avoiding the stitched part of your hairline.

“You scared the fuck out of me.”

Your eyes opened just enough to find mine. “Sorry.”

“Don’t do that again.”

The corner of your mouth moved. “Bossy.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

I stayed like that with my hand around yours and my forehead against yours while the infirmary lights buzzed overhead and the rest of Alexandria moved outside the windows.

Rick was still furious somewhere.

Daryl had seen everything.

Michonne had seen everything.

Every one of them knew exactly what I’d chosen.

You were alive.

I was alive.

You were staying overnight under observation.

I was cleared and still nowhere near calm.

And I did not regret one second of it.

Timeline: 12 years post apocalypse.

Ages: Chris: 34. Emmett 36. Connor 1.5

PART 1

I was awake before the alarm, staring up into the dark with one arm under my head and the other laid across the sheet where you should’ve been tucked against me.

You were still there. You’d just drifted lower in your sleep, cheek pressed to my ribs, one hand spread over my stomach, your leg slung over mine like even half-dead asleep you’d decided I wasn’t allowed to lie there and brood by myself.

The room was black-blue and quiet. I could make out the shape of your mouth, the mess of your red hair over the pillow, the soft line of your lashes against your cheek. When a thin strip of moonlight pushed through the blinds, it caught your ring and threw a hard white spark across the blanket.

I looked at it too long.

“You’re awake,” you mumbled.

I slid my hand slowly up your back. “Go back to sleep.”

“No.”

Your voice was thick with sleep and attitude. You pushed up enough to squint at me. “You’re doing that giant gargoyle thing again.”

I looked over at you. “That’s not a thing.”

“It absolutely is.” You rubbed one eye with the heel of your hand. “You go all stiff and weird and make the whole room annoyed.”

I snorted once. “The room is annoyed?”

“The room, the bed, me, probably the walls.”

You shifted higher until you were half over me, warm and loose and stubborn. Your ring pressed cool against my chest when you planted your hand there.

“You’re still mad,” you said.

“Yes.”

“You knew that already.”

“Yes.”

“You think I’m staying behind if you glower hard enough?”

“No.”

“Good.”

I caught you by the waist and held you there. “You want the truth?”

“You’re dying to say it.”

“My whole day gets worse the second you’re outside those walls with me.”

You watched my face carefully then. Sleep was still all over you, but you were awake now. Really awake.

I kept going.

“Every walker, every blind corner, every piece of noise I can’t place turns into whether it gets to you before I get to it first.”

Your fingers dragged once over my ring.

“That’s your problem,” you said quietly.

“I know.”

You leaned down and kissed me. Slow. Warm. Married. Your mouth still tasted like sleep.

“I’m going,” you said against my lips.

“I know.”

That was it.

No more of it.

You looked at me for one more second, then pushed off me and sat up, hair a mess, bare back catching the dim light. “Then get up, Daddy. We’ve got a run.”

I rolled out of bed with a curse and went for the gear first.

Pistol. Magazine. Chamber. Holster. Knife at my belt. Spare mag. Rifle. Sling. Another knife because I liked another knife. You moved through the dark beside me getting dressed with that same deliberate little swagger you still had somehow, even after years of blood and walls and watching the dead rot into the road. Jeans. Shirt. Jacket. Boots. Med pouch strapped high on your thigh. Knife clipped at your waist.

You dragged your fingers through your hair, then caught me watching you in the mirror.

“You stare a lot for somebody in a mood.”

“I’m looking at you.”

“You’re staring.”

I stepped up behind you and took your left hand, turned it once in mine, my thumb brushing over the diamond band before I let you go and picked up my own ring from the nightstand.

You watched me slide it on.

“There,” you said softly. “Now you look right.”

I slung the heavier med roll into the bag by the door. “You packed the antibiotics?”

“Yes.”

“Bandages?”

“Yes.”

“Pain meds?”

“Yes.”

You opened the inside pocket of your jacket and held up a neatly rolled joint between two fingers. “And breakfast.”

I stared at it.

“Sativa,” you said.

“You’re smoking on the drive.”

“I’m puffing on the drive.”

“You’re impossible.”

You stepped in close, rose onto your toes, and kissed the corner of my mouth. “And you still like me.”

Down the hall, the house stayed quiet.

Connor slept in his room with Carol downstairs and the sun still nowhere close to up. I checked the hall anyway before we stepped out, my eyes going straight to his door. Closed. Still. You followed my look, then touched my wrist once.

We went downstairs.

Only the kitchen light was on. Carol stood at the counter with a mug in one hand and her coat folded over the back of the chair. She looked up when we came in and nodded once.

“Front latch sticks,” she said softly. “Pull it toward you first.”

“Got it.”

You moved to the counter, grabbed the Jeep keys from the bowl, checked the water bottles, checked the extra shells, checked the med bag again because you always checked your own work twice. Carol set a folded bundle of clean gauze beside the bag. You took it and tucked it inside.

Then we were out the door and into the cold.

The walk to the gate took only a few minutes. The sky was still dark enough that the wall lights threw long pale bars over the ground. Rick, Daryl, and Michonne were already waiting by the van.

Rick stood near the driver’s side with a folded map in his hand.

Daryl leaned against the passenger door looking half awake and fully pissed off at the universe.

Michonne was in the back of the van tightening the straps over empty fuel cans and a rolled tarp.

Rick saw us first. “Thought maybe you two got lost in the house.”

“Dream on,” I said.

You came up beside me with the bag on one shoulder. “You’d miss us.”

Daryl grunted. “I wouldn’t miss listenin’ to you.”

“You like me,” you shot back.

“No, I don’t.”

Michonne glanced over the roof of the van. “He likes you just enough to keep pretending he doesn’t.”

Daryl gave her a flat look. “Ain’t nobody asked you.”

Rick unfolded the map across the hood. “Distribution yard east of the service road. Office up front. Warehouse in back. Loading bays on the south side. We need fencing hardware, fuel if there’s any left, batteries, tools, medical supplies if we get lucky.”

“Roads out there had tracks yesterday,” Daryl said.

“Fresh?” you asked.

“Fresh enough.”

Michonne tapped the edge of the map. “Weak fence line here. Side access here. If anything gets loud, that whole block’s gonna start walking.”

Rick folded the map again. “We move fast. We stay tight.”

I looked at you. “Beside me.”

You rolled your eyes. “You’ve said that enough times to legally marry the sentence.”

“Say you heard me.”

“I heard you, Daddy.”

Daryl made a face like he regretted having ears. “Christ.”

You looked over at him. “You’ll live.”

Michonne climbed into the back of the van, still smirking. Rick got behind the wheel. Daryl dragged himself into the passenger seat like the whole world had personally inconvenienced him.

I opened the passenger side of the Jeep for you. You got in, tossed the bag at your feet, and buckled in while I rounded the hood and slid behind the wheel.

The engine turned over with that deep familiar growl I’d loved before the world ended and loved harder afterward because it was one of the few pieces of my old life that stayed mine.

The gate opened.

Rick pulled out first in the van.

I followed in the Jeep.

The road out of Alexandria was empty except for broken cars and dead brush and the occasional shadow of a walker way off in the trees where it didn’t matter. The sky changed slow while we drove. Black to dark blue. Dark blue to a washed-out gray at the horizon. The van stayed a few lengths ahead.

You dug into your jacket, pulled out the joint, lit it, took the first drag, then offered it to me.

I took it.

The smoke hit sharp and citrusy. You cracked your window and turned a little toward me in your seat.

“How hard are you glaring at the steering wheel?”

“I’m driving.”

“You’re pouting.”

“I don’t pout.”

You laughed. “You pout huge.”

I handed the joint back. “Talk less.”

“That’s not nice.”

“Neither are you.”

You took another drag, held it, let it out slow. “The weed might make you less insane.”

“Nothing is making me less insane today.”

“That sounds like a personal problem too.”

I reached over and squeezed the back of your neck. “You’re real mouthy before sunrise.”

“You like it.”

I didn’t bother answering that.

We passed the joint back and forth the rest of the drive. You talked more than I did. About how empty the road looked. About Daryl’s permanent bad mood. About the fact that Rick’s van sounded like it was one hard pothole from exploding. About how if we found sealed pain meds Denise was gonna cry.

The industrial strip came into view just after the sky started picking up real color. The distribution yard sat behind sagging chain-link with a rusted sign hanging crooked at the front. Office building in front. Warehouse behind it. Loading bays down one side. A jackknifed delivery van near the middle of the yard. A forklift listing sideways beside stacked pallets. Three visible walkers near the fence line and another farther back snagged in torn wire.

The whole place looked too still.

Rick rolled the van in careful and parked with the nose pointed back toward the gate.

I parked the Jeep angled near the loading side, far enough to swing clean if we had to leave hard.

Daryl was out first. Crossbow up. The first bolt punched through a walker’s eye and dropped it. Michonne took the second one at the fence with one clean cut. I got the third with my knife and left it there a second before I yanked it free.

You came around the hood adjusting your rifle strap. “This place feels bad.”

Daryl jerked his chin toward the yard. “Means you got sense.”

Rick pointed toward the office. “Clear the front. Sweep the yard. Then warehouse.”

We moved.

The office had broken front windows, a warped reception desk, old paper smell, and the kind of silence that made every footstep feel rude. Rick and Michonne took the back offices. Daryl planted himself near the shattered front glass to watch the yard. You and I worked the reception area and the side storage closet.

You opened a cabinet and came up with a stack of unopened batteries. “Ha.”

I looked over. “What?”

“Tell me I’m pretty and useful.”

“You’re pretty and useful.”

You grinned. “Much better.”

You found two flashlights, a pair of little radios still boxed, a stack of notebooks, pens, hand sanitizer, adhesive tape. I checked behind the desk and came up with more tape, a half-empty first-aid box, and a working box cutter. Rick stepped into the doorway.

“Anything?”

You held up the radios. “Good shit.”

Rick nodded once. “Take it.”

Michonne came out of the back with a sealed packet of gauze and a flashlight. “There’s a supply closet with scraps.”

Daryl, eyes still on the yard, muttered, “Don’t like this quiet.”

You looked over. “I noticed.”

“I’m still sayin’ it.”

We moved into the warehouse.

It was actually good. Better than I’d expected. Shelves still full in patches. Coils of wire. Fence brackets. Boxes of screws. Work gloves. Hand tools. Plastic sheeting. Cases of industrial cleaner. Useful junk everywhere if you knew what you were looking at.

You were good at looking.

You found the first sealed first-aid kit crouched near the bottom shelf, half hidden behind a collapsed display.

Your whole face lit up. “Oh, you beautiful little bitch.”

I took it from you and dropped it into the crate I was carrying. “Don’t start flirting with supplies.”

“They deserve it more than some people.”

“You’re lucky I love you.”

Daryl came through the loading side door with two empty fuel cans and a disgusted look.

“Bone dry.”

You glanced over at him. “That figures.”

He stared at you for a second, then looked at Rick. “Whole place feels wrong.”

Rick was already stacking tools into a second crate. “Take what matters.”

You found another first-aid kit. Then heavy-duty gloves. Then a box of industrial flashlights shoved behind the plastic sheeting.

You held one up with that smug little look you got when you knew I was impressed. “You can say it again.”

“You’re useful.”

“Meaner.”

I stared at you.

You laughed and moved to the next shelf.

We spent real time working the place.

Rick stacked tools and directed what went where.

Michonne sorted batteries and cleaner and anything sealed.

Daryl kept moving between the yard and the loading side, always checking angles.

You found things other people missed.

I carried the heavy crates, shifted pallets, hauled wire, checked the side doors, watched you every time you moved out of my peripheral vision.

You caught me doing it when we were dragging a crate toward the loading ramp.

“You know I can feel you being insane from across a room, right?”

“You know I don’t care.”

“That’s not healthy.”

I adjusted my grip on the crate. “You’re still talking.”

You bumped your shoulder lightly against my arm. “And you’re still glaring.”

Then the metallic slam hit from outside.

Sharp.

Heavy.

Wrong.

Every head turned.

Then came the gunshot.

Then another one.

Then yelling.

Rick moved first. “Out!”

We ran for the loading side yard.

The whole thing had gone bad in seconds.

Four scavengers.

One already at the back of the van trying to force it open.

One behind the jackknifed delivery van with a pistol.

One near the fence with a pipe in both hands.

One yelling from behind stacked pallets.

Daryl fired first. Bolt straight through the throat of the one at the van. He folded, hands clawing at the shaft.

Rick returned fire at the man with the pistol and forced him back behind the van.

Michonne cut left, blade out, using the loading ramp for cover.

And all around the yard, the dead started coming.

Gunfire drew them from the road.

From the side street.

From behind the office building.

From weak spots in the fence line.

The whole property began tightening inward.

“Move!” Rick shouted.

I grabbed your arm and shoved you toward the narrow cut between the office and the warehouse. “With me.”

A scavenger burst from behind the forklift with the pipe up and swung straight at your head.

I turned into it and took the blow across my forearm.

Pain cracked up through my elbow and shoulder.

You shouted, “Emmett—!”

I drove into the bastard with my shoulder and sent him backward. In the same motion, he grabbed the chain gate, slammed it shut between us, and locked it.

The metal shrieked.

You were on the far side.

I was on the yard side.

He reached for the key on his belt with blood running down his teeth.

I shot him in the face.

He dropped backward onto your side of the gate with the key still on him.

You hit the chain links. “It’s locked!”

“I know!”

A walker lunged at you from the side. You spun and shot it through the face at arm’s length.

Then a scavenger deeper back saw you and fired.

The bullet clipped your scalp and burst blood across the brick behind you.

Everything in me went cold and vicious at once.

“Go!” I shouted. “Move!”

You looked at me one second too long, one hand already up to your head, blood running through your fingers.

“Now!”

You ran.

I slammed into the gate. Shot the lock once. Twice. Kicked it. Grabbed the top rail. Searched for anything that would give.

Nothing gave.

Crossfire kept cutting through the yard.

Walkers were already pushing through the breaks in the fence.

Rick got to my left with his revolver up.

“We clear this yard or we all die!”

“I’m not leaving you back there,” I snarled at the empty space you’d disappeared into.

“Emmett!”

I shot the lock again.

Metal sparked.

Lock held.

I tried the gate one more time, hard enough to rattle the whole section of chain-link. It stayed shut. Walkers were piling through the yard now, and every second I wasted there was another second of you bleeding somewhere behind the warehouse.

I made the choice and ran around the building.

The fence wire ripped open my palm when I threw off it rounding the corner too hard, skin tearing hot along the heel of my hand. I kept moving. The alley behind the warehouse narrowed fast and I found the first trail almost immediately.

Blood on the wall.

A dropped glove near a trash bin.

An exploded first-aid kit crushed under a dumpster wheel.

Gauze scattered.

You had come through there.

Then I heard you.

“Get the fuck away from me!”

Ahead.

Alive.

I ran harder.

The first choke point in the alley nearly killed me. Three walkers jammed into the narrow lane at once and drove me into the wall hard enough to split my lip on my teeth. One set of dead hands grabbed the torn skin in my palm and opened it wider. Another body slammed into my side and lit my ribs up bright and hot. I shoved all three away together, barreled through the center, and kept running while one of them clawed down my jacket and tore the shoulder seam wide open.

Farther in, I found one walker on its back with your knife buried in its skull. Another with half the back of its head gone. Shell casings on the concrete. Blood smeared low along the wall where you must have stumbled.

Then I saw a scavenger dragging himself across the service lane clutching his hip and screaming.

Walkers swarmed him from both sides before he made it two feet more.

You had done that too.

I pushed deeper into the service lane.

Gunfire snapped in the narrow space ahead. Tight. Close. Ugly. Another scavenger rose from behind a stacked dolly and fired at me from almost nothing.

The bullet tore across my ribs.

Heat and pain hit together.

I fired back and put my bullet through his eye.

He went down instantly.

I ran past him with blood soaking warm under my shirt.

The service lane opened into a wider back section with abandoned work vehicles, a side loading door, and enough blind spots to hide half a dozen bodies. One of them was already there—big man, machete nearby, blood blown across the side of a van. His throat had been punched open by a knife jammed up under the jaw.

My head clipped a hanging metal panel when I cut too close around the van, splitting the skin at my brow. I wiped at it and only smeared more blood into my face.

“You!”

Nothing.

Then from farther ahead came the sound of something heavy going down hard and a broken gasp that punched straight through me.

I ran toward it.

Back in the main yard, I could still hear the others fighting. Rick barking orders. Daryl cursing. Michonne cutting a path through the dead gathering around the van and the Jeep.

They were fighting for the vehicles.

For the exit.

For themselves.

And they had already put you in the ground in their heads.

I knew it in Rick’s voice.

In the way nobody forced this far in after you.

In the fact that I was alone back here with your blood on the walls.

That anger stayed with me the whole way through the next turn.

A walker hit me from behind before I reached the final lot.

I reached back, caught its arm, yanked it up and over me, and slammed it flat on the pavement. Then I stomped its head in until bone gave under my boot and black-red mess fanned across the concrete.

Then I heard you again.

Not yelling now.

Straining.

Desperate.

Half gone.

I rounded the final turn into the back lot—

—and saw you on the ground.

Blood all over you.

Your left ankle folded wrong under you.

One arm shaking.

Face red and wet from the scalp wound.

Your side soaked.

Your throat bruised dark.

And on top of you, huge and rotten and leaning all its dead weight down toward your neck, was a towering chomper snapping its teeth closer and closer while you fought to keep it off with what little you had left.

(Just a little casual day during the zombie apocalypse)

The cabin had held up well enough so far, but “well enough” wasn’t good enough for me anymore.

I wanted stronger hinges. Longer screws sunk deep into the studs. A deadbolt that wouldn’t give easy if somebody got desperate enough to try the door in the middle of the night.

Behind me, you were moving through the main room with a laundry basket on your hip, barefoot and fast, pausing every few seconds to shake out a shirt or snap a towel straight before folding it into one of four neat little stacks on the couch.

“That one’s mine,” you said.

I glanced over my shoulder. You were pointing at the black shirt folded over your forearm.

“It’s my shirt.”

“It was your shirt,” you corrected. “Then I put it on once and everybody with taste agreed it became mine.”

I huffed a laugh and drove the screwdriver harder through the hinge plate. “Everybody with taste.”

“Yes.”

“You mean you.”

You folded the shirt and laid it on top of your stack with exaggerated care. “Me. Alyssa. History. The natural order of things.”

Sunlight poured in through the front windows, warm and gold across the old floorboards. The place smelled like clean laundry, sawdust, and the faint lemon soap you had used when you wiped down the counters earlier. You had already swept, dusted, straightened the blankets on the couch, and bullied the cabin into looking softer than it had any right to in the middle of the end of the world.

I shifted, tested the hinge with my hand, then reached for the next screw.

You crossed to the table, scooped up a pair of Felix’s socks between two fingers, and made a face. “Why are men disgusting?”

I looked up at that. “You’re a boy.”

You pointed at yourself. “I’m curated.”

That got a grin out of me.

You tossed the socks into Felix’s pile and started folding one of Alyssa’s shirts. “What time do you think they’ll be back?”

“Depends what they found.”

“Mm.” You smoothed the shirt flat over your thigh, then looked toward the windows. “It’s weird when it’s quiet.”

“I know.”

“It’s nice,” you added. “Just weird.”

I stood, rolled my shoulder once, and reached for the small metal box on the table with the new deadbolt parts inside. “Come here a second.”

You looked up. “Why?”

“Because I said so.”

That made your mouth twitch.

You came over anyway, stopping close enough that your bare foot brushed my boot. I held up the deadbolt. “See this?”

You leaned in. “I’m looking.”

“This one throws deeper than the old one. Longer screws too.” I tapped the hardware against the doorframe. “If anybody hits the door, they’re dealing with this and the bar brace.”

Your face softened a little at that. “You’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have to act like you’re not.” You put one hand lightly on my side. “I know how your brain works.”

I looked down at you, at the way the sunlight caught the red in your hair, at the ring on your left hand flashing when your fingers shifted against my shirt.

“Yeah,” I said again, quieter this time. “You do.”

You held my gaze another second, then patted my stomach and stepped away. “Okay. Fortify the castle, big man. I’m folding the royal linens.”

“Royal linens,” I repeated.

You bent to grab the basket and shot me a look over your shoulder. “Don’t ruin the fantasy.”

I went back to work.

The old deadbolt came off first. Then the strike plate. Then I had to chisel the frame a little wider for the new hardware to sit right. The cabin stayed quiet around us in that easy way that only happened when we were each busy but still in the same space, still in each other’s line of sight.

You worked the room while I worked the door.

You folded laundry, then carried stacks upstairs. Came down with dirty mugs and took them to the sink. Wiped down the windowsill. Straightened the books on the little shelf. At one point you stopped beside me just to nudge a glass of water against my arm.

“Drink.”

“I’m busy.”

“You can drink and be butch at the same time.”

I took the glass. “You say the craziest shit.”

“And yet I’m still the smart one.”

You stayed there while I drank, one hip leaned against the wall, watching my hands.

Then, because you were you, you reached down and brushed a bit of sawdust off my shoulder for no reason except that you wanted to touch me.

When I finished installing the deadbolt, I worked it three times in a row. Smooth turn. Clean catch. Solid throw.

I shoved at the door with the heel of my hand.

Nothing.

Again, harder.

Still nothing.

“That sounds promising,” you called from the sink.

I looked back at you. “Come test it.”

Your eyes lit up. “Violence?”

“Against the door, yeah.”

“You’re giving me permission to hit something you just fixed?”

“I’m giving you permission to try.”

“Bold.”

You shoved first, just to feel it.

Then harder.

Then you stepped back, squared up dramatically, and slammed your shoulder into it.

The door didn’t move.

You staggered back laughing, clutching your shoulder. “Ow. Jesus.”

I laughed too, caught you by the waist before you could wobble farther, and rubbed the spot you’d hit. “You good?”

“I’m insulted, actually.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought I was stronger than that.”

“You are not stronger than steel and three-inch screws.”

You sighed. “A tragedy.”

I kissed the top of your head. “Take a break with me.”

You tipped your face up. “You mean it?”

“Yeah.”

Your whole expression brightened. “Joint?”

“Already rolled one.”

“Whiskey?”

I held up the bottle I’d set on the table an hour ago.

You grinned. “I knew I picked the right one.”

A few minutes later we were out on the porch.

The bench swing creaked softly under our weight when I sat down. You tucked yourself against my side right away, one leg folded under you, the other stretched out along the worn boards. I had the whiskey bottle in my right hand, resting on my thigh. You had the joint between two fingers of your left, elbow bent against your stomach to keep the ash from dropping on yourself.

The woods around the cabin were all soft afternoon noise. Wind through branches. A bird somewhere off to the left. The distant rustle of leaves shifting high above us.

You took a drag, held it, then lifted the joint to me.

I took the joint from your fingers with my left hand, brought it to my mouth, and took a slow pull before handing the whiskey over with my right.

You smiled like that tiny trade had made your whole day.

“Look at us,” you said, lifting the bottle. “So domestic.”

“You folded laundry for an hour.”

“I also cleaned.”

“You did.”

“And you made the door sexier.”

I barked out a laugh. “Sexier.”

“Stronger, sturdier, broad-shouldered. Very you.”

You tipped the bottle and took a careful sip, making a small face at the burn before handing it back.

I took it from you, set it beside my boot on the porch floor, then passed the joint back.

You drew on it again, cheeks hollowing slightly, and the ring on your hand caught the light when you moved.

That was it.

Just that.

A little shift of your wrist in the sun.

A glint of cut diamond.

And all at once my chest went tight.

You noticed the silence before you noticed the reason for it. You lowered the joint and turned your head to look at me. “What?”

For a second I just watched your hand.

The ring looked almost obscene out here. Too bright. Too expensive. Too beautiful for a place with rough porch boards and patched walls and muddy boots drying by the door.

Too beautiful for a world that had tried so hard to turn everything ugly.

You followed my gaze down to your hand, then back up to my face.

Your voice softened. “Emmett.”

I took the joint from you, tapped the ash over the railing, and drew in smoke I didn’t really need just to buy myself a second.

When I handed it back, I kept my fingers wrapped around yours for a beat.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Your brows pulled together immediately. “For what?”

I looked out at the trees instead of at you. It was easier that way at first. Easier to say it without seeing your face right away.

“For all of it.”

You went still beside me. “Emmett.”

“I mean it.” My thumb rubbed once over the side of your hand before I let go. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the wedding you were supposed to have.”

You didn’t speak.

So I kept going.

“I wanted to see you at the altar.” My voice came out rougher than I meant it to. “I wanted you all dressed up in some over-the-top suit you designed yourself because nothing off the rack was ever gonna be enough for you. I wanted to stand there and watch you smile at me like you were trying not to cry while everybody else cried for real.”

Your mouth parted a little, but you still said nothing.

I swallowed and looked down at the porch boards.

“I wanted flowers. Music. Good liquor. Too much money wasted on stupid details you’d love.” I let out a quiet breath through my nose. “And the honeymoon, Jesus. I had plans for that. Secret ones. Real ones. I wanted to take you somewhere obscene. Somewhere soft. Somewhere with a bed bigger than this whole porch and a bathroom you’d lose your mind over.”

That got the faintest wet laugh out of you.

I finally turned my head and looked at you.

Your eyes were glassy.

You were trying not to cry anyway.

My chest hurt harder.

“I hate that the world went to shit before I got to do it,” I said quietly. “I hate that I didn’t get to be your husband the right way.”

You stared at me for one long second.

Then you set the joint carefully in the ashtray on the little crate beside the swing and turned your whole body toward me, one knee pressing into the bench between us.

“Hey,” you said.

I didn’t answer.

You reached up with both hands and held my face.

“Hey.”

My hands settled on your hips automatically.

“There is nothing for you to be sorry for,” you said, each word slow and clear. “Not one thing. Do you hear me?”

I looked at you and nodded once, but you didn’t let me off with that.

“No. Use your words.”

A helpless little laugh broke out of me. “Yeah. I hear you.”

“Good.” Your thumbs brushed just under my eyes. “Because none of this is your fault.”

“I know.”

“And whether we made it to an altar or not”—your voice went softer there, warmer—“I’m yours for forever and always. You know that, right?”

My throat tightened. “Baby—”

“I would go through every apocalypse a million times,” you said, eyes locked on mine, “every ugly cabin, every bad road, every stupid scavenging run, every awful thing this world could throw at us, as long as I had you with me.”

That hit so hard I couldn’t even pretend it didn’t.

I stood up before I thought too hard about it, hooked a hand under your arm, and pulled you up with me.

You came straight in against my chest.

I wrapped both arms around you and held you hard, one hand spreading over the middle of your back, the other cradling the back of your head as you tucked your face into my neck.

For a minute neither of us moved.

The swing creaked behind us in the breeze. The joint burned quietly in the ashtray. Somewhere down the hill, a branch snapped in the woods and then the silence settled back in around us.

I pressed my mouth to your hair.

“I love you,” I said into it.

Your arms tightened around my waist. “I love you too.”

I kissed just below your ear. “I love you.”

You turned your face enough that your lips brushed my throat. “I know. I love you too.”

I smiled into your hair, then tipped my head so I could murmur right against your temple, “You’re everything to me.”

You made a tiny sound, half laugh, half breath, and lifted your head.

Your eyes were damp, but your mouth was soft when you looked at me.

I slid my hand from the back of your head to the side of your face and kissed you.

Slow. Sweet. No rush in it at all.

Your hands came up to my chest, fisting lightly in my shirt while you kissed me back, warm and gentle and familiar in that way that always made the world narrow down to just you.

When you pulled back, it was only far enough to breathe.

Then you leaned in and pecked my mouth once more.

“Okay, Daddy.” Your nose brushed mine when you smiled. “Back to work. Fix that door and keep me safe. I’m gonna go make you some lunch.”

I chuckled and grabbed your ass with both hands, squeezing hard enough to make you jolt.

“That’s the plan,” I said.

You laughed, swatted at my shoulder, and I stole one more quick kiss before letting you go.

As you turned toward the front door, I caught your wrist long enough to stop you.

You looked back at me. “What?”

I lifted your hand, turned it just enough to watch the diamond throw light one more time, and kissed your knuckles.

Then I let you go.

You smiled at me, soft and bright, and backed toward the door. “Don’t stare at me like that unless you want me to burn lunch.”

“No promises.”

You slipped inside laughing, and I bent to pick up the whiskey from the porch floor while the screen door thudded shut behind you.

Human Emmett Cullen

from my

Walking Dead AU

Timeline: pre-apocalypse. Dating, pre-move-in

Zack opened the apartment door before you could knock twice.

He was barefoot, in gym shorts and a tank that had definitely seen three too many workouts, hair still damp from a shower. Behind him, the TV was already on something stupid and loud.

“There he is,” he said, stepping back and sweeping an arm dramatically. “Our local fashion god. Please don’t judge my entire existence when you see the state of our couch.”

You snorted, holding up the bottle of whiskey and the paper bag in your hands.

“I already judged your existence,” you said, brushing past him. “The couch is extra.”

“You see what I live with?” I called from the kitchen. “He’s been here five seconds and I’m already being emotionally abused.”

You turned the corner into the open living room/kitchen space, and I actually felt my chest tighten for a beat.

You’d dressed like you weren’t trying, which meant you’d tried.

Black skinny jeans that made your legs look even longer, a soft, loose red t-shirt that slid just a little off one shoulder, showing a clean line of pale collarbone. Boots. Hair styled, but not overly done. Lip gloss that caught the light when you smirked.

“Hi,” you said, that casual, dangerous way you do.

I wiped my hands on a dish towel and came around the island.

“Hey.”

I bent down and kissed you—quick, just a brush of mouths, nothing that would make Zack start heckling yet. You still went slightly up on your toes to meet me, tall as you are.

“You brought gifts,” I said, nodding at the bag.

“Whiskey and garlic knots,” you replied. “I know how to speak to both halves of your brain.”

Zack whistled.

“Marry him,” he said. “Tonight.”

“Shut up,” I told him.

He just grinned and padded back toward the couch.

The apartment was… lived-in. Two guys in their thirties sharing a space in D.C.—cheap art on the walls, workout gear stacked in a corner, controller cords on the coffee table, the faint smell of laundry detergent and cologne and whatever air freshener Zack had gotten on sale.

You never looked uncomfortable in it.

You set the bottle on the counter and peeked into the pot on the stove.

“What did you make?”

“Chicken and vegetables,” I said. “Actual food, not just takeout. I’m trying to impress you.”

“Trying,” Zack repeated pointedly from the couch.

You covered the pot again and looked up at me.

“It smells good,” you said. “You get points.”

I leaned back against the counter, letting myself just look at you for a second. You caught it.

“Don’t stare,” you said. “You’ll make me shy.”

“That’s a lie,” I said. “You don’t get shy. You get smug.”

You smiled.

“Also true.”

We ate at the little dining table shoved against the wall—three chairs that didn’t match. You sat across from me, one knee bumping mine under the table every so often. Zack gave you shit about your portions until you pointed at his plate and said, “You know vegetables exist outside memes, right?”

He gasped.

“In this house?”

The banter was easy. It had been from the start, but now that we’d had a few weeks of dates and too-long phone calls and lingering goodnight kisses that turned into makeouts in doorways, that ease sat over something charged. Each time you adjusted in your chair, my eyes flicked to the way your shirt pulled across your chest, the way your fingers curled around your glass.

When dinner was done, Zack cleared his throat.

“I’m gonna go… not be a third wheel on this sad little Titanic,” he said, picking up his plate. “If you hear screaming, it’s just my game, not me dying. Probably.”

He clapped my shoulder, gave you a nod, and disappeared down the hall to his room, door closing with a soft click.

The apartment felt quieter in an instant.

You glanced toward his door, then back at me.

“He’s actually kind of cute when he behaves,” you said.

“Don’t flirt with my roommate,” I replied.

“Jealous?”

“Terrified.”

You rolled your eyes and stood, grabbing your glass and moving toward the couch.

“You coming, or are you and the dishes having a moment?” you asked over your shoulder.

I finished the last of my drink, set the glass down, and followed.

You curled into the corner of the couch, tucking one leg under you, facing me as I sat at the other end. There was space between us, technically.

It didn’t feel like space.

“So,” you said, tipping your head back against the cushion. “Are we watching something terrible or just talking until one of us falls asleep?”

“Why not both?” I said. “We can put on something Zack hates and talk over it.”

“That’s brave.”

I grabbed the remote, flicked through options, settled on some action movie we’d both seen three times.

You watched the screen for about thirty seconds before your focus shifted back to me.

“Come here,” you said, voice lower.

I didn’t need to be told twice.

I shifted closer, thigh against thigh now, my arm along the back of the couch behind your shoulders.

You turned, swinging a leg over my lap until you were straddling me, knees braced on either side of my hips. You held your glass lazily in one hand, the other resting on my chest.

“You’re comfortable?” I asked, my hands hovering at your waist.

“For now,” you said.

You took a slow sip, then set the glass on the coffee table behind you without breaking eye contact. Your hands slid up my shoulders, fingers tracing the back of my neck.

“Hi again,” you murmured.

“Hi,” I answered.

Then your mouth was on mine.

It wasn’t cautious.

We’d kissed like this before—pressed up against my front door when I walked you out, in the shadowed corner of a bar after one too many rounds, half-hidden in a hallway at some event where you’d been working and I’d shown up just to see you. Every time, we pushed it up to the edge before you put your palms on my chest and said, not yet.

This felt heavier.

Your knees tightened against my sides, hips shifting almost imperceptibly. Your tongue brushed my lower lip, and I opened for you easily. My hands settled on your waist, then slid lower, fingers finding the curve of your ass, testing how much of you I could hold.

You made a sound in the back of your throat, something between a sigh and a quiet curse.

That sound went straight through me.

I tightened my grip, pulling you down against me, letting you feel exactly what you were doing.

Your breath hitched.

You didn’t pull back.

You deepened the kiss instead, fingers digging into my shoulders, body pressing closer. The movie was just noise now, some distant soundtrack to the way your mouth moved under mine, the way your hips rolled once, slow and dangerous.

I slid my hands back up, then down again, bolder—palms full, thumbs pressing into the base of your spine. You gasped softly against my mouth, and I couldn’t help it; I did it again.

“Emmett,” you breathed.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

My laugh came out rough.

“I can finish anything you throw at me,” I said.

You bit my lip lightly in answer.

Heat pooled at the base of my spine. The room felt too small.

One of my hands moved from your ass to the waistband of your jeans, fingers slipping just under the edge of denim, just enough to feel the warm skin there.

That was when you froze.

Not a full stop.

Just this sudden, contained stillness.

I felt it instantly.

Your mouth slowed. Your hands eased their grip. Your hips stopped moving.

I pulled back an inch.

“Hey,” I said quietly.

Your eyes were still dark, pupils blown, lips red and kiss-swollen. You looked wrecked in the best way.

But there was something calculating behind it now.

You took a breath.

Then another.

“Wait,” you said.

One word.

Soft.

But absolute.

My hand retreated from your waistband immediately, resting back on your hip instead.

“Okay,” I said. “Talk to me.”

You sat there for a second, catching your breath, not moving off my lap, just… thinking.

“I want this,” you said slowly. “You, this—” you gestured vaguely between us, “—all of it.”

“I know,” I said.

“But I don’t want it like this.”

“Like what?”

You shifted back just enough to look at me clearly, your hands sliding down to my chest, resting there.

“Like a momentum accident,” you said. “Like we got drunk on hormones and ended up naked because we didn’t hit the brakes in time.”

“We’re not drunk,” I said.

“I know.”

“And we’ve been building this for weeks.”

“I know that too.”

You chewed on the inside of your cheek.

“I just… don’t want my first time with you to be something that happened because you touched me one more inch lower,” you said. “I’ve had enough of that.”

The line sat there between us.

I knew you had history.

I knew there’d been people who took from you because you were pretty and willing and eager to please, people who didn’t bother attaching any real weight to it. You’d talked around it, not in detail, but enough for me to know it wasn’t superficial.

You held my gaze.

“This isn’t casual to me,” you added. “I don’t want it to feel like the same script, just with a hotter lead.”

My chest tightened.

I let the silence hang for a beat, really taking it in.

Then I nodded once.

“Okay,” I said. “Then we stop here.”

You searched my face for some sign of frustration, ego, disappointment—something to confirm the fear you weren’t saying out loud.

I wasn’t thrilled about stopping. My body was very clear about its opinion on that.

But I wasn’t going to push you past a line you weren’t ready to cross, not like that.

You watched all of that flicker across my expression.

“You’re not mad?” you asked.

“No.”

“You don’t feel… rejected?”

“I feel like you know what you want this to mean,” I said. “And I’d rather sleep next to you frustrated than wake up next to you wishing we hadn’t rushed.”

You exhaled slowly, tension bleeding out of your shoulders inch by inch.

You didn’t climb off.

You stayed right there, on my lap, hands still on my chest.

“I’m not saying no,” you said.

“I know.”

“I’m saying not like this.”

“I heard you.”

Your fingers traced absent shapes against my skin through my shirt.

“I’m used to guys getting pissy when I put the brakes on,” you said after a moment. “Or acting like I teased them on purpose.”

“They’re idiots.”

You smirked faintly.

“Probably.”

I shifted slightly under you, trying not to groan at the way your weight moved when I did.

“Can I make a selfish request?” I asked.

“Maybe.”

“Can you stop rolling your hips while we have this conversation?”

You glanced down at where our bodies pressed together, then back up at me, and this time when you laughed, it was real.

“Yeah,” you said. “Okay. Fair.”

You adjusted your position, settling more onto my thighs than directly over my crotch, leaning your chest against mine. The contact was still intimate. Just… less incendiary.

You rested your head against my shoulder, your breath warm against my neck.

The movie kept playing, some explosion lighting up the room for a moment before fading again.

“This is new for me,” you said quietly.

“What is?”

“Not saying yes just because it feels good.”

I slid one hand up your back, fingers tracing your spine slowly.

“You’ve always had the right to say no,” I said.

“I know that,” you answered. “That’s not what I mean. I mean… choosing to wait because I want to, not because I’m scared or unsure or playing some bullshit game.”

I nodded against your hair.

“Feels different,” you added.

“Good different?”

You thought about it.

“Unsettling different,” you decided. “Like I’m… valuing something I used to hand out for free.”

“That’s not unsettling,” I said. “That’s you changing what you’ll tolerate.”

You made a small sound—half agreement, half discomfort.

We stayed like that for a while.

You on my lap, my arms around you, both of us slowly calming down, my heartbeat finally easing out of my throat.

At one point you shifted again, more to curl into me than grind against me, your legs stretching out along the couch, your back fitting against my chest now instead of facing me. My arms wrapped around your middle, hands resting over the soft cotton of your t-shirt.

“You know this means when we do actually have sex I’m going to be unbearable about it,” I murmured into your neck. “Like, emotionally. Mentally. Physically—”

“You’re unbearable already,” you cut in.

“Rude.”

“Truthful.”

I pressed a lazy kiss just under your ear.

“You staying over?” I asked.

“Do you want me to?”

“You’re on my chest, wrapped in my arms, in my apartment,” I said. “What do you think?”

You went quiet for a beat.

Then you nodded, just a small movement against me.

“Yeah,” you said. “I’ll stay.”

No ceremony.

No big decision speech.

You just decided.

When the credits finally rolled, I reached for the remote, turned the TV off, and we sat in the sudden quiet hum of the fridge and Zack’s faint game noise through the wall.

You didn’t move to get up.

“Do you have an extra toothbrush?” you asked, voice low.

I smiled into your hair.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I do.”

Pre-Apocalypse

Valentines Day

Part 3

The Night It Starts

It was supposed to be a slow morning.

For once, you didn’t have to wake up early. No clients. No meetings. No rush. Just soft blankets, warm skin, and the sun filtering lazily through the tall windows of the condo, painting gold across the sheets. You were both tangled together, half-asleep, half-sticky, legs knotted and breath syncing without thought.

Chris stirred first, turning into Emmett’s chest. His cheek pressed against bare skin, lips brushing a faint stubble-shadow that hadn’t been there the night before. Emmett’s arms were still wrapped around him, one draped across his back, the other curled under his neck. His chest rose and fell slow, steady.

Neither of you moved for a long time.

Eventually, Chris blinked up at the ceiling and murmured, “We don’t have to get up, right?”

Emmett grunted, eyes still closed. “Don’t even think about it.”

Chris smiled faintly and pressed a lazy kiss to his collarbone. “I’m starving.”

“Get delivery.”

“You get delivery.”

Emmett cracked one eye open, glanced at the time, then groaned and rolled them both over so Chris was pinned beneath him. “What if I starve instead,” he mumbled, voice still thick with sleep, “but at least I die looking at your face.”

Chris laughed under him. “You’re such a dramatic bitch in the morning.”

“Only ‘cause I’m in love.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“And you love it.”

“I do,” Chris said, quietly.

Emmett smiled into the crook of his neck. You stayed like that for a while longer, the city humming outside, the building alive with distant movement—other couples getting up, making coffee, turning on the news.

You didn’t know it yet, but it would be the last time your home felt safe.

⸻

An hour later, Emmett was padding around the kitchen in loose pajama pants, hair damp from a shower, while Chris scrolled through brunch delivery menus on his phone. You were debating between cinnamon rolls or breakfast burritos when the first flicker hit.

The lights cut out for a split second. The fridge hummed, paused, then clicked back to life.

Chris looked up. “Did the power just—?”

“Yeah,” Emmett said, grabbing his phone. “Could be the grid. Happens sometimes when they do maintenance.” He pulled open the cabinet and reached for a clean glass. “Did you get a text from the building?”

Chris checked. “No alerts. But the Wi-Fi just dropped.”

Emmett frowned and walked to the wall panel. The smart screen was frozen—backlight still on, but unresponsive. “Weird.”

Chris’s phone buzzed once. Then again. Then six times in a row.

He glanced down.

Alyssa.

ALYSSA: “Where are you??”

ALYSSA: “Something’s happening downtown.”

ALYSSA: “We’re leaving now. On the way to you.”

ALYSSA: “Turn on the news. NOW.”

ALYSSA: “Felix said we shouldn’t wait. Just pack.”

ALYSSA: “I’m serious, Chris. We’re 15 minutes out.”

Chris’s stomach dropped.

He didn’t speak right away—just clicked the lockscreen and walked to the living room where the TV hung across from the couch. He grabbed the remote and flicked it on.

No signal.

“What’s going on?” Emmett asked.

Chris didn’t answer. He grabbed his phone again and pulled up a news app.

It was loading… loading… then suddenly—

BREAKING: CDC URGES CALM AMID “UNUSUAL AGGRESSION INCIDENTS”

BREAKING: WASHINGTON METRO STATIONS CLOSED — “MASS PANIC” ON RED LINE

BREAKING: NATIONAL GUARD MOBILIZED IN MULTIPLE STATES

“Emmett…” Chris’s voice was tight. “I think this is real.”

“What’s real?”

Then—

A scream.

From the hallway. Close. Right outside your door.

Emmett froze. His eyes locked on the door. “That sounded—”

“Someone screamed,” Chris said. “In our building.”

Another scream followed. Louder this time. Then a crash, something shattering—glass or furniture or a person being thrown into a wall, neither of you could tell. Someone banged on a door down the hall, fists slamming against it like they were trying to break it down.

Chris backed away from the door.

Emmett moved in front of him immediately.

Then—he heard it.

Not just the screams.

The sound from outside.

He turned toward the windows. Chris followed his gaze.

Down on the street, the view of the city was starting to unravel.

Smoke. Not from one place—but multiple. Trails rising from blocks away. Cars were stopped in the middle of intersections. People were running. One man was dragging a woman away from the sidewalk—her leg clearly broken, blood on her face.

On the far corner of the next block, someone was on the ground—flailing—and another figure was hunched over them, moving in sharp, twitchy jerks.

“Is that—” Chris started.

Then the hunched figure ripped something off the person on the ground.

Emmett watched it happen.

Then it clicked.

He turned. “We’re leaving.”

Chris didn’t argue. “Alyssa and Felix—”

“They’re on the way, right?” Emmett was already moving, voice deadly calm, deep and grounded. “Then we meet them on the road. We don’t wait here. Not a chance.”

⸻

You both moved at the same time.

Chris grabbed two bags from the coat closet, dumped them on the floor. Emmett was already stuffing in bottles of water, protein bars, batteries. Phone chargers. Medicine from the bathroom. Socks. Underwear. IDs. Credit cards, and cash. Cash.

“Backpacks,” Emmett said. “Ditch the duffels. Hands-free only.”

Chris was already swapping them out.

Neither of you asked if the other was sure.

You didn’t argue. You didn’t stop.

You both just moved.

Chris grabbed Emmett’s passport. Emmett grabbed the car keys.

In the hallway, there were more sounds now—footsteps running, someone sobbing, another scream that was abruptly cut off.

Chris’s hands were shaking as he shoved your laptop into one of the packs.

Emmett’s voice came from behind him, firm but steady. “Baby, breathe.”

Chris nodded, throat tight, and kept moving.

⸻

Seven minutes.

That’s how long it took before you were out the door.

Emmett went first, checking the hallway. No one was in sight—but there were streaks of something wet on the tile floor, and a door a few units down was wide open, swinging on its hinges.

You took the stairs. Fast. Quiet.

The elevator was dead.

Ten minutes after it started, you were both in the Jeep, engine rumbling, doors locked.

Chris’s phone vibrated again. He looked down.

ALYSSA: “We just turned on your street.”

Part 2

The next morning started out like any other.

Chris had already left for work by the time Emmett finished lacing up his boots, a half-drunk protein shake still sweating on the kitchen counter. The apartment was quieter than usual without him in it. A voicemail from one of his clients blinked on his phone, but he ignored it. He’d check it later.

By the time Emmett stepped out of the high-rise, the city felt… off.

It wasn’t dramatic. Nothing screamed wrong. Just the kind of subtle shift you don’t register until hours later when you look back and realize it was there all along. The crosswalk light was taking longer than usual to change. A guy in a hoodie was standing completely still at the edge of the sidewalk, staring across the street—eyes wide, unmoving, like he’d forgotten where he was.

A woman bumped into him and muttered a curse, but he didn’t even blink.

A block down, two men were arguing outside a pharmacy. Loud. Aggressive. But weirdly flat, like something was missing behind it.

Emmett watched for a second, brows furrowing. Then kept walking.

By the time he got to the gym, he’d shrugged it off as just another weird D.C. morning. People were always losing their minds over something in this city. Politics, traffic, tourist crowds. Nothing new.

He trained back-to-back clients. Gave someone shit for using a rowing machine backwards. Sent Chris a selfie with his tongue out and the caption:

“Do I look hot enough to justify quitting this job and becoming a trophy husband?”

Chris replied instantly:

“Yes, but you’d still be making breakfast.”

At lunch, Emmett noticed a second thing. The sirens.

They were constant.

Ambulances. Police cruisers. Fire engines. Not one or two—constant. Faint but persistent, echoing off buildings. No one in the gym seemed to care. Some even joked about it.

But when Emmett went to the front desk to grab a towel, he saw the receptionist leaning over her phone with her hand over her mouth.

“You good?” he asked.

She jumped. “Yeah—sorry. Yeah, it’s just… there was a fight or something on the red line. Some guy bit another passenger. Like full-on, wouldn’t let go.”

Emmett blinked. “Bit him?”

“Yeah, like… people were screaming. Someone posted a video. It’s crazy.”

She showed him her screen for half a second before the app reloaded and it vanished into an error page.

⸻

Chris didn’t get home until a little after six. The moment he stepped through the door, Emmett could tell something was up.

“Hey,” Emmett said from the couch. “Everything okay?”

Chris tossed his bag onto the chair and kicked off his shoes. “You didn’t hear about the metro thing?”

Emmett sat up. “Kinda. Someone at work said something, but—what happened?”

Chris dropped down beside him. “Someone went nuts on a train this morning. Bit a guy. Like bad. People said he looked out of it—eyes all glazed over, wouldn’t stop attacking. They tried to pull him off, but he kept going.”

Emmett frowned. “That’s what the gym girl was talking about too.”

“There’s a video,” Chris said. “Well—there was. News keeps pulling them down. Reddit’s overloaded. Everything says it’s under control, but it doesn’t feel like it is.”

“I’ve been hearing sirens all day,” Emmett said. “Even walking to work. It’s nonstop.”

Chris looked out the window. “There was an ambulance parked across the street from my office when I left. No lights. Just sitting there.”

Neither of them spoke for a minute.

Then Emmett broke the silence. “You still wanna go out tonight?”

Chris blinked. “Dinner and a movie?”

“Yeah.”

Chris looked back at him. “Yeah. I do.”

⸻

You picked a restaurant in walking distance. One of your favorites—low lighting, pasta you couldn’t pronounce, a wine list too long to care about. It was comforting. Familiar. You didn’t talk about the metro. Or the sirens. You talked about the DJ you were thinking of hiring for the wedding. You laughed about the time Emmett knocked over the entire bouquet sample table trying to grab a mini cupcake.

The world still looked normal. People filled the sidewalk. Cars honked. A kid cried about not getting a second ice cream cone, and his dad gave in. The servers were short-staffed but trying their best. Nothing looked wrong.

But the sirens never stopped.

The movie theater was cold. The previews were too long. Chris curled his legs over Emmett’s lap and whispered sarcastic commentary the entire time. Emmett stole a sip of Chris’s drink when he wasn’t looking. It tasted like melted sugar and regret.

After the movie, you walked back slowly, Emmett’s hand in Chris’s back pocket. The air had cooled, but the city lights made everything glow. Neon. Window reflections. The same low hum of life as always—but something under it had shifted.

Just a little.

⸻

Back home, Chris slipped off his shoes and grabbed the joint from the little ceramic dish on the kitchen counter. Emmett popped open a can of beer and followed him to the balcony.

You stood there together, barefoot, shoulders touching, looking out at the city. The glass railing in front of you sparkled faintly from the moisture in the air. Chris lit the joint, inhaled, held it out. Emmett took a drag. The smoke curled between you.

Below, the traffic moved. The skyline pulsed. A siren passed in the distance.

You didn’t say much. You didn’t have to.

Chris leaned into Emmett’s side, resting his head against his shoulder.

Emmett pressed a kiss to his temple.

;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,”;,

The balcony door was still cracked open when Emmett came back with two drinks—his usual beer and a whiskey glass for Chris, half full, golden in the glow of the skyline.

He handed it over without a word, then stepped in behind him, the glass clinking gently as their fingers brushed. Chris took a slow sip, eyes still on the city, the joint burning low between two fingers. The lights below blinked like a thousand tiny lives still buzzing along. You could almost pretend nothing had changed.

Emmett didn’t say anything—just wrapped his arms around Chris’s waist from behind and leaned in close. His bare chest pressed to Chris’s back, lips grazing his neck. He smelled like beer and cedar soap. His hands settled low on Chris’s hips, fingers spreading lazily beneath the hem of his shirt.

Chris leaned back into him. He felt it immediately—the thick, heavy press of Emmett’s semi-hard cock, thickening through his jeans and grinding into the curve of his ass like it wasn’t even intentional. Except it was. It always was.

“You doin’ that on purpose?” Chris murmured, lifting the joint to his lips again.

Emmett nosed behind his ear, his voice a low rumble. “Maybe.”

The joint disappeared quickly after that. The drinks were set down—half finished, forgotten. Emmett’s hand slid under Chris’s waistband as he bit at the curve of his neck, already walking him backward into the apartment without breaking contact.

They barely made it to the couch before Emmett had him down across the cushions, hips grinding, tongue deep in his mouth, both of them yanking clothes out of the way instead of bothering to undress fully. It wasn’t rushed—but it wasn’t slow, either. It was urgent in the way of two people who had done this a thousand times and still never got enough of it.

Chris clung to him, nails dragging down Emmett’s back, heels pressed to the edge of the cushion as he gasped and arched beneath him.

Emmett’s hand stayed firm at his thigh. His mouth didn’t leave Chris’s neck until he came.

After, the apartment felt too quiet. The windows glowed. The air inside was warm and thick with sweat.

They didn’t clean up. They just crawled back to bed—naked, tangled, still a little sticky. Emmett pulled the sheets up and buried his face in Chris’s hair.

Chris murmured something about setting an alarm. Emmett ignored him and wrapped both arms around his waist, his breath slow against Chris’s shoulder.