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━━━━━━━━━.◦*∘☽

𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

The water had turned a sickening shade of pink as I cleaned my body of Lori's blood.

The thing about having a compartment for gruesome shit was that it was all like an out of body experience.

Really, it was just a safety net I'd formed inside my head a long time ago to escape the piling shit I'd went through to keep pushing on.

It wasn't every day a teenager with no prior medical experience would perform a cesarean on a pregnant woman in the middle of the apocalypse, right?

Or losing not only said pregnant woman, but two other members of our group to the hoard of monsters roaming around the planet.

Shit, if you told me before the world fell to shit that this is where my life would be, rubbing my skin clean of a pregnant woman's blood after delivering a baby, I would tell you you'd lost your mind.

But again, I wasn't the poster child for normal either so I guess it doesn't really matter anyway, now does it.

Gage watches me closely, probably concerned for my inner sanity. Given recent events, he's valid for his concern, but I don't think he realizes just what I've done to make it through that with myself still in mostly one piece.

"Stop looking at me like I'm about to break. I'm fine." I snap after what feels like ten straight minutes of his eyes burning their way into my exposed skin.

"I'm just here baby, don't need to get all hostile on me now." He says back and my body softens at his words, feeling awful now for snapping at him.

Of anyone, he's the last one to treat me like a porcelain doll.

"I'm sorry." I say, turning to look at him fully.

His hair is longer than it was, and his beard has grown fuller since we left the farm, making him look like a mountain man instead of a teenager. I give myself a moment to do as he is with me and take in all that he is.

Like all of us recently, his skin is matted with dirt and sweat giving him the stereotypical look of a mountain man and I smile internally.

If I told him that, he would roll his eyes and call me barbaric but I guess in the state of our living situation and the world, looking archaic is fitting and it suits him.

I can only assume I look similar, having only washed the crimson from my arms and hands, which leaves me with months of unwashed hair and dirt in places it shouldn't be.

I should give myself some more credit, all things considered, if Gage can find this version of me; the version where a proper shower and hygiene have been long since forgotten, it must say something about my character.

"You're beautiful.." I whisper softly, barely audible and he recoils slightly before I move to grab his hand to stop him from going on a rant about how he is anything but that. "In all of this shit you've been my pillar. My raft in the middle of the sea, and you've made sure my head doesn't go underwater." I tell him softly and he leans closer to me, grabbing my face gently and pulling me into him.

Our lips touch softly at first, a small shock to the system before he's pushing me against our mattress and completely shielding me from the outside world as our lips move in our own creation of rhythm.

Nothing about it is sexual, just a break in the timeline, where the world isn't falling apart seam by seam, where we haven't lost so many loved ones, our pain isn't privy, and we can just be.