Sat Upon A Live Wire

"Holy fuck."

Joel's laughing stops in the living room, his voice suddenly more serious. "What is it?" he asks, already through the doorway and looming over you like you'd called out for help with your last breath. "Are you okay?"

Instead of answering him, you simply turn to him with the newly located object pinched between your thumb and pointer finger.

"What the fuck is that?"

You hold it just a bit closer to his face. "My purity ring."

It's a relatively simple band, silver and narrow with the word Purity etched onto one side, and it's also something you were certain you'd lost years ago. It had been, much like the mother that gave it to you, a piece of your life taken by cordyceps years ago. Or so you'd thought.

"Your what?" Joel questions, face scrunching up a bit as he tries to process what you've told him. "You had a purity ring? You do know that..."

This gets you to giggle. "Well when mushrooms take over the fucking world purity feels a whole lot less important." You continue to stare at the tiny piece of jewelry in your hands, trying to remember when you'd first rendered it missing in the first place. "I don't even remember when I lost it."

Your boyfriend reaches for the ring and you let him take it. He examines it not unlike you just did, taking in the wording with a wide smile. "When you lost what...this or..."

He winces when you smack him in the arm. "I remember when I lost that," you inform him, only continuing when you realize he's looking at you with an expression that tells you he's expecting more from your explanation. "You don't want to know."

"1987," he tells you without missing a beat. "Back of my dad's pickup truck with a girl named Jennifer."

You stare at him like he's got two heads, but he's entirely serious now as he holds the ring back out for you to take. "My eighteenth birthday," you begin, once again holding the piece of metal between your fingers. "It was a guy named Tyler. We met in the Denver QZ."

The explanation is simple and, honestly, that first time hadn't been that bad considering the circumstances, but for some reason it makes you a little bit sad now. You wonder if it's because you know now that whatever it was back then, it's not what you have now with Joel or if it's just another one of the waves of emotion you've been experiencing all night.

Whatever it is, you shake it off. "You know, if I put this back on it's like, basically the same thing, right?''

"Baby," he begins, the hint of laughter again threatening him, "you know that's not how that works, right?"

You can't help but join in, wheezing at the idea of you putting on the ring you thought you'd lost years ago just so your virginity would be magically restored. "But what if it did, Joel?"

Slowly, his laughter dies down as he comprehends your suggestion. He knows you aren't serious, regardless of how many brownies you had earlier, but there's something about your theory that nags at the back of his brain. "Well, then I guess I'd just have to marry you."

And in an instant, the tables have turned.

You're still laughing, certain that what he's said is just a passing thought brought on by too much of Eugene's latest crop, but you busy yourself with studying the ring. It's a little less polished than it used to be, and you're still trying to figure out how it got in the bottom of your backpack after all this time, but you don't ponder for much longer because, you realize, he's still looking at you like it wasn't a passing thought.

"I'm serious," Joel states, taking a step closer. "Put that ring back on and I'll marry you right now just so I can take you upstairs and..."

"And who exactly is gonna marry us?" you ask, cutting him off as your eyebrows raise toward the ceiling. "We're the only ones here."

"Me. I'll do it." His arms pull you against him as he makes the suggestion.

You laugh again, "I don't think that you're allowed to do that."

He tightens his grip. "Say's who? Pretty sure there's no legal documentation needed anymore and if we're talking about the eyes of God..." he trails off, a wicked smile growing on his face, "...well, then I think we'll probably have some other things to explain first."

For a moment, you consider what he's suggested. It's not that you wouldn't want to marry Joel, because you do want that. Desperately. You've wanted it nearly since the first moment you saw him ride into town years ago and it's an urge that has only grown over time. "You're not just saying that because of the weed, right?" you ask him, because now, you're serious, too. Marriage might not really be much more than a personal commitment these days, but there's some part of you, deep down, that still has to respect it or, at least, what it could be.

Joel shakes his head, "I'm not just saying it because of the weed."

"Ok, then marry us," you return with finality, slipping the purity ring back on your finger as you look up at him. And, you suppose, even if he isn't serious and this is just some kind of crazy role play you'll engage in tonight, it'll still be worth it.

With a smile, he stands a bit straighter and, for just a second, you see something flash behind his eyes. A hint of debate, as though he's considering bolting out the door instead of moving forward with his own suggestion, but then he's focused on you again. "Alright, repeat after me."

He guides you through the traditional marriage vows that you're sure he'd heard on repeat before the outbreak. The wording that you were more familiar with from the occasional romcom you'd watch with your mom than from real life experience, and as he repeats the words back to you, you can't help the threat of tears that you feel prickling in your eyes.

"And with the power vested in me..."

"Which isn't a lot," you insert playfully, causing him to skip to the next part, kissing you fiercely.

"I now pronounce us husband and wife," Joel finally finishes, his forehead against yours as you cling to him. He lunges in again, his hands sliding down to your thighs to pick you up, guiding your legs around his waist as he walks you toward the kitchen counter.

He makes quick work of your jeans, encouraging you to lift your hips up almost immediately after he's placed you there. "You're not gonna fuck me in the kitchen, are you?" you tease him, head falling back against the cabinet when he tugs your legs apart to settle between your thighs.

"No," he confirms, trailing a finger through your folds before expertly finding your clit, "I'm gonna eat you out in the kitchen and then I'm gonna fuck you upstairs."

Your groan fills the small room when he replaces his fingers with his tongue, his hands returning to your hips to drag you closer to the edge of the counter. You somehow manage to guide your legs over his shoulders, settling back in a way that allows him full access to where you need him most.

He laps at you like a man dying of thirst, with movements that are careful and precise. They're familiar, you figure, after the way he's eaten you out time and time again, so it doesn't surprise you just how quickly he's able to bring you to the edge. "Joel," you moan, his name stretched out as he brings a finger back to your center, slowly easing it in and curling it to tip you over the edge.

The grip you have on his hair must border on painful, but he makes no complaint, drawing out your orgasm by adding a second digit to the mix. He only stops when you're pulling at his arms, trying to get him to stand and kiss you properly, which he does with a grind of his hips into yours.

"Ready?" he asks you breathlessly, and you nod in confirmation, letting him slide his hands beneath your thighs once more. He takes his time with the trip upstairs, although it's unclear if its because he's being careful not to drop you or if he's just borderline distracted by the way you're softly biting into his neck.

When you reach the bedroom, you're desperate, emotions heightened once more when he sets you gently down on the bed. You don't stay there long, bouncing back up to pull your own shirt over your head before starting at the buttons on his.

Joel smiles, deftly undoing his belt and the button of his jeans to tug out what looks like a painfully hard cock. "Eager, much?" he asks, but you don't allow yourself time to respond, instead abandoning your earlier task to take him into your mouth. "Fuck," he grunts, one hand already in your hair.

His eyes are tightly closed when you look up at him, and he hisses when you wrap your hand around the base of his shaft, only to realize that the ring you'd put on earlier is now pressed against him. "Sorry, I guess I should take it off," you suggest when you pull back, already beginning to tug it off your finger, but Joel stops you.

"Don't. Leave it."

Your heart beats quickly in your chest when you lock your eyes with his once more, but you follow his command, returning the ring to the base of your finger before you take him into your mouth again. He guides you and you let him, as eager to please him as he always is to please you, but as usual, he forces you back before he can finish in your mouth.

"Top or bottom?" he asks you, watching carefully as you drag the back of your hand over your lips.

"I want to ride you," you request, and you note that once again your voice sounds a bit higher than it usually does, but you're too worked up to even begin to care.

Joel finishes pulling off his shirt before he takes his place on the bed, reaching for you the second you're within range. You swing one leg over his hips and, too eager to do anything else, you waste no time in lining him up and sinking down.

For a brief moment, your mind wanders back to your eighteenth birthday. The world you lived in then, much like the one you live in now, was filled with uncertainty, and in the heat of a brief moment in Denver, you'd thought what you felt was love.

Now, you know just how wrong you'd been.

As you let the stretch of his cock fill your senses, you lean down to kiss him slowly, placating both of you until your body begs with you to move. He follows suit, touching you everywhere his hands can reach as you set your rhythm - cupping your breasts, guiding your hips, holding you like you're everything good that's left in the world. A world that grows hazier and hazier with each passing second.

"Touch yourself," you barely hear him say through the fog. You trail one hand down to where you're joined, but he stops you again, reaching for your other hand, forcing you to swap places. "This hand," he emphasizes, and when your mind catches up with him you realize it's the hand you put the ring on earlier. You don't protest, taking over where you'd left off in tight circles against your clit as he starts to rut up into you with more force.

You know he's trying to hold out, but his eyes are locked on where his cock slides into your center, and before you can tip over the edge he's spilling into you. Heat settles in your abdomen, the feeling of his release enough to trigger your own climax.

The haze has returned by the time you fall against his damp chest, although it feels different now. It's softer around the edges as the darkness pulls you toward sleep, and the last thing you remember before it closes in completely is the feeling of his lips, gently pressing against the ring on your finger.

It's the same feeling you wake to, when birdsong floats in through the window and the faint trace of morning light warms your bare skin. He's settled you in the crook of his arm, his fingers intertwined with yours against his lips, and you're about to make fun of him once more for the ring when you realize that it's no longer on your finger.

But, in it's place, another ring is.

"Joel?"

"Yeah, Baby?" he asks gently, as though it's the most causal thing in the world. There's a soft smile on his face when you pull your connected hands back to look at them more properly, and sure enough, where your purity ring had been the night before there now sits a diamond instead.

"Where the hell did you get this?" you start, observing the way it glints in the light because never in a million years would you have ever expected to see something like this again, much less on your hand. "How long have you had it?"

Joel presses a kiss to the top of your head, "Found it on patrol a while back. Hid it in the downstairs coat closet where I knew you wouldn't look." And, just like that, any doubts that may have crept in about last night are quieted before they can even breech your mind.

"What did you do with my other one?" you ask with a playful smile, because you can't believe him and you're pretty certain you'll never believe this is real, but it is and you love him for it.

You hesitate. "You know most of it," you begin tentatively, because he does and there's no sense in repeating it. Not when his fate isn't really his to decide. When there's no argument that you can make to him or anyone else that will allow you what you desire most.

He looks up at you with tired eyes, one hand reaching to brush through your hair as the other tightens around where yours sits against his chest. "I know, my love, but what else?"

It's a simple question, what it is that you wish for most in the world, but you realize now that it has been far too long since you allowed yourself to dream beyond the immediate. To think of what could be possible if your reality was not your own. To seek beyond the horrors you so often find in slumber and past the echo of his screams, the ones that linger even in your waking hours. You know you had believed them to be possible, once, when you were younger and he'd spent more time with you than you spent apart, but they'd long been forgotten.

And yet, he slowly draws them back to you now.

You tangle your fingers in his curls, pushing them back from his forehead in methodical movements as you let yourself imagine a different existence. One where you are never threatened by the possibility of living in the world without him, one where you wake in his embrace and he drifts off in yours. One not unlike the respite you feel now, but without the ticking of the clock that slowly counts toward his next departure, where meals are just meals and meetings are just meetings and there's never the threat of something more.

Of losing him.

"I suppose," you start softly, pausing for a moment as you search for your words, "...I suppose I should dream of children."

"Do you?" he questions without hesitation, as though the thought has lingered silently in his mind for far too long. "Even now?"

A long breath releases from your lungs. "Not now," you answer him, the response familiar to his ears, "not in this world. But in another, perhaps. One where a little girl might grow up in her father's embrace and a son is taught to wield a sword not for use in battle, but simply to grow agile and strong." You pause for a moment, still considering what you had once pictured for your life with Acacius, before the war, before the fear. "We'd live in a house just big enough for all of us, somewhere in the countryside, far from here. Somewhere quiet."

His gaze darkens slightly, but he lets the silence linger, just the soft call of birdsong filling the space in between.

"And I dream of nights with you," you continue, brushing a thumb over his cheek. "Of your skin against my own, and of mornings where I wake in your arms. Of a life without violence, where I need not worry about living in a world where the sun burns without you."

Acacius closes his eyes, undoubtedly picturing the existence you've laid out for him, but the weight of the world slowly creeps back in as you watch him, the darkness clouding the edge of your vision. It's blinding, but you welcome it the same way you always have. The way you both have, with the knowledge that it is easier to go on believing it's something you'll never have than to hang on to the hope that it will in a world where it won't.

In a future where you both know it never can.