Work Text:
You have the same dream every night.
You are standing in a cave. The walls are jagged and rough with sharp edges that jut out to cut your hands and feet as you move through. Long paths forged billions of years ago that twist and turn, veering into one another, and turning into an inescapable maze. You, Theseus with your memory as your golden thread, know the way through the dream. It doesn’t matter what way you go — you’ve tried them all. They all lead you to the same yawning pit. A gaping maw that stretches out into inky black nothingness and drives fear so deep into your soul that you think it might kill you.
The dream always ends the same.
Firm hands grip your shoulders. You take one quick moment to crane your neck with hopes to see who it is. When you see what it is, a scream rips through your throat so hard that blood froths in your mouth. Then it pushes you into the abyss.
You jolt awake every time, a scream on the edge of your lips. The only thing you’re able to stop is the noise you make.
There isn't much in your life. You lived in the same house you grew up in — an old, neglected structure that was left to you in your grandmother's will. It sat on a massive piece of unkept land in the middle of nowhere, nearly an hour from the nearest town that you tried your hardest to never visit. You would keep your solitude until it killed you.
But despite the emptiness of your days, the nights brought a different kind of presence.
While the house was old, it seemed to come alive at night when you were alone and it was pitch black outside. It would quake under its own weight, as if it were unable to bear the knowledge of the things that happened within it. The sound of it settling was like listening to the groans of a dying beast, begging to be put out of its misery. Whenever the wind was blowing outside and caused your grandmother's collection of crosses to rattle against the wall, you would contemplate it.
The one thing — person, actually — that stopped you, was Johnny.
You had met after your hot water heater broke in the middle of winter and you spent hours calling every repairman in the state. He was recommended to you and had been there in an hour after you contacted him. Since then, he was the only one you trusted to fix the house as it slowly eroded around you.
He was handy and not bad to look at — ignoring the large scar on his left temple — but the one thing that put you at ease the most when you met was the crucifix around his neck. You hadn't been practicing for some years at that point, but the golden chain he wore still brought you some comfort.
If he hadn't been so odd. Something about a brain injury while he was serving that left him a little off kilter, but still okay enough to be a damn good repairman. You were too grateful for him to have saved you in the middle of a snowstorm to be bothered by his behavior.
Truly, you expected to never see him again and just be left with an ache between your legs and a cold, empty house. You suddenly loved living in that old house, as odd jobs popped up here and there that he was always happy to come by and work on. Johnny knew every repair came with a meal attached to the meager payment you could offer, and that was somehow enough for him. Deep down, you knew he was just as lonely and broken as you were.
You were almost giddy when your AC broke that summer and Johnny answered your call to fix it. You had half a mind to proposition yourself to him that time, but then the crosses on the wall caught the corner of your eye and you couldn't get him out of there fast enough. It didn't matter that you didn't practice anymore because you were convinced god was still watching.
Sending him out of the cool house that summer, into the sweltering heat that hung heavy in the air and clogged your lungs, felt like a form of self flagellation. The need to repent still hung heavy around him. Every inch of the house you let him near needed to be cleansed. For what reason, you weren't sure yet.
You had scrubbed the floors for days as your grandmother's acrimonious lectures wailed in your mind. The horrible memories clung to your mind until your fingernails were bloody and your hands were raw and cracked. It made no sense to you why you felt the need to cleanse the house after Johnny had left.
Maybe you hated the raw need that he stirred within you. After being alone for so long, it was no surprise that a stranger could pull out such heady feelings from you.
Maybe you feared that he could see the filth that stained the bones of the house and hoped cleaning hide the decay and death that hung around. Or maybe you feared that he'd see it and never come back, and leave you all alone again.
Or maybe, just maybe, there was something wicked in him that made everything else tainted and filthy.
Every repair after Johnny was like wearing a wrong size shoe. You had to get used to the fact that no one had the same attention to detail as he did, no one had the correct parts — you dealt with so much bullshit about 'needing to special order' some random item to fix things that felt like they broke too often.
And none of the people you hired left you feeling as comfortable as Johnny did. It was like he had managed to carve out a hole for himself deep in the pit you called a heart.
But you were a creature of solitude. Best to cut the cord before you choked yourself with it.
Best to jump before being pushed.
Life had been hard since the tunnel. There was nothing but a serene void that Johnny could drift through, unbothered and unharmed. He felt peace for the first time in so long.
Then he awoke under the harsh fluorescent lights of a hospital room and incessant beeping of a heart monitor with tubes shoved in every hole in his body. The doctors said it was a miracle, Johnny thought it was some kind of divine suffering sent by God to punish him for all the wrong he'd ever done.
The recovery process was slow and crushed what little dignity he had left. Learning to walk and talk again was one thing, but not being able to get to the bathroom on his own was another.
He moved home for a time, but it was too much. The pitying looks he got from his sisters when they visited, his little nieces and nephews avoiding him like he a was a rabid dog, and having to listen to his mother whispering to her friends — not that he could actually hear was she said, not that he even needed to — was almost worse than the recovery.
It was Nik who got him a job in the states and Price who helped set him up in that quiet little town. He thought that was what he wanted — to get away.
It turned out that solitude wasn't much better than being stuck around his family. In solitude, they were all he could think about. His sisters and their husbands and their children, his mother and father and the children they had left that weren't left fucked over by a bullet to the skull. They didn't have to be condescendingly asked by his sisters if they remembered to take their meds or brush their fucking teeth.
The phantom pain persisted, his tinnitus got worse, and his sciatica made winters fucking unbearable. There were too many nights spent staring at the ceiling, and dreaming of the tunnel or the hospital room, and waking up gasping for air like the gun had just fired or the tube had just been ripped out again. Drinking could only snuff out the memories so much.
At his best, Johnny could power through a couple of jobs here and there. At his worst, he'd pass out on the floor and dream of the running through the tunnel on a loop, being shot over and over while Ghost screamed his name.
He'd tried to call Simon a few times but his comrade always seemed too busy or too guilty to talk for long.
After the last brief conversation Johnny had with his former friend, he began on a slow descent. Every minor inconvenience felt like another push, every major setback became a nail in his coffin. Burnt microwave dinners turned into fits of rage, and later, hours spent sobbing alone while clutching an bottle.
Everything just felt so tedious those days. His hair had grown out and a thick beard that he didn't have the energy to shave covered the lower half of his face. On the nights he wasn't piss drunk, Johnny was praying. He knew God had saved him from that bullet for a reason, but no amount of bleeding over a rosary and kneeling until it felt his knees might break would bring him any absolution.
Winter was heavy. The long nights did little to improve his condition and the cold seemed to make his tinnitus even worse. He reached lowest point after finishing off his Christmas gift from Price. It was mid-January and he swore it had been dark outside for a week. There seemed to be no end in sight, as if the snow and ice had sunk their claws into the land and refused to let up. Nothing seemed to ever let up.
It was only around eight when Johnny answered that phone call. He had been ready to tell the person to fuck off so he could finish what Makarov started in that tunnel. Then he heard your voice and the tinnitus stopped and the wind seemed to die down. His world became a single point — a beautiful angel telling him her hot water heater had broken.
He arrived an hour later, bundled up against the biting chill and pounding on your front door. The wood nearly splintered under his fist as the rot had been covered up by multiple layers of paint. Depending on how the repair went, he decided he'd make a new for you as well.
When you had opened the door for him, he decided you truly were an angel. The way you flitted about after you showed him downstairs, thanking him up and down, bringing him coffee, and nervously offering your couch to him for the night. It was only the first date, in his mind. It wouldn't be proper to spend the night without getting to know you first.
You paid him far less than he normally charged, but he knew he'd be back. After all, your washing machine was going to break soon.
His tinnitus returned after he left that night, but stopped again when you called him three days later. It continued like that, until he realized it was God telling him he was right where he need to be. God had finally delivered him — you were his gift after all the hell he had gone through. You had to be. The crosses on your walls told him so. They told him his prayers were answered, that you were his angel and salvation.
Repairs turned into shared smiles, turned into meals, turned moments of pure heaven. Spring came with flowers, summer came with lemonade on your porch and fixing your AC without a shirt on. He would ease you in, he told himself. But not fast enough, he found.
Johnny wasn't mad when you stopped calling him around that summer. He understood that you were just confused, a poor little lamb trapped in the darkness. You just needed to go through true hardship, just like he had, to let him guide you back to light.
Your bi-weekly trips to the farmer's market were quickly coming to an end with the rapidly cooling autumn air. You found it to be much more pleasant than the grocery tore and knew you would mourn it come November. The vendors that came from out of town offered far more kindness than those you had grown up around and saw you as a blot on their little town.
As you walked, you took a mental stock of everything you'd need before the weather really turned. The first snow meant you'd be bound to your house until May, April if you were lucky. The last thing you wanted was to make the ten mile trip in the snow for something that could be stocked up on now.
Firewood, check. Preserves, check. Tallow—
A gasp shot from your lips as you, fixated on your mental list of work to do and groceries to get, walked right into someone that felt all to similar to a brick wall. Like a deer in headlights, you just had to stare at the ground and hope the person ignored being run into instead of acknowledging you. It was just your lucky that Johnny smiled right back at you.
The hug he pulled you into made you wince from the force of it, like you were being hugged by a bear while something dangerously close to desire burned between your legs. It felt good to be close to him—
It was filthy.
"Aw, I've missed you, bonnie! Let me carry this for you. Have you eaten today yet?" He took the bags from your hands and was walking to his truck before you could stop him. If he noticed how flustered you were, he pretended not to notice. "Come on, I'll buy you lunch."
You sputtered futile protests and excuses as he herded you into the car. The door slammed shut with the child lock on.
"Those groceries need to be refrigerated!" you spat when he got into the driver's side. "They can't just sit back there and— and I have things to do at the house—"
Johnny smiled at you as he turned the truck on, as if your protests were just a joke you weren't in on. "I'll help you at the house, bonnie. Let's get some lunch first, yeah?"
He took you to the only diner in town, the one you had once begged your grandfather to take you for your birthday dinner. The air left a bitter taste in your mouth now. The waitress barely even looked your way but seemed to be good friends with Johnny.
"The usual?" she asked, grinning just a little too much.
"You know it, hen," he smiled back. "And whatever my girl wants."
"I'm not hungry." The words came out so bitter and far more strained than intended. "Johnny—"
"The club for her," he said to the waitress.
You tried not to notice the scowl on the woman's face when she snatched your menus away. Once the waitress was gone, Johnny began going into how he spent his autumn, the odd jobs and even odder people he encountered. The scowl on your face brought great amusement to him, obviously, but he refused to let you get a word in. He finally stopped talking when the food came out.
"Did you need something, Johnny?" you asked.
He nodded between bites, eating like a heathen per usual. "I wanted to see you! My calls stopped going through, so I thought I needed check on my favorite girl."
"I'm not your favorite girl—"
You flinched when he shoved the plate closer to you. Nothing would come of protesting. He was far more headstrong and patient than you ever had been, so you ate the damn sandwich.
"You are my favorite girl," Johnny assured, patting your hand. "Now hurry up and eat. I've been itching to fix your front porch."
Guilt tore through your nerves. He was still so kind and so eager to make your life easier. It was almost like he wanted to be a part of your life—
The thought was quickly pushed aside. You were a creature of solitude and you didn't enjoy the idea of having to scrub your porch clean in the autumn chill once he was gone. It made your head spin but there was no way around it. His desire to be near you and the mausoleum of your home was a mystery.
"Johnny—"
His hand gripped yours, now squeezing in a way you wanted so desperately to be reassuring. The teasing look in his gaze gave way into sincerity and you caved.
"Eat your lunch, hen. We can take care of it all later."
It was hard to pinpoint what he meant by that. But his words, the way he spoke so kindly and sincerely warmed you to your core. It was so rare that you were met with the compassion these days that it was nearly impossible to resist his pull. The abyss was yawning open. You were about to fall.
Johnny insisted on driving you home, at which point you were growing too tired to put up any more of a fight and the idea of riding your bike the ten miles back seemed almost impossible. He loaded it into the bed of the truck and even strapped it down to avoid hearing you fuss about it. But the worries about the bike quickly faded as exhaustion suddenly settled into your bones. With how quiet the the was ride, save for the soft fuzz of the radio, you soon found yourself drifting back and forth fighting sleep.
"Take a rest, hen," he said softly, turning the radio down. "I'll wake you up when we get there."
"Sorry," you mumbled. "I don't…don't know why I'm so tired."
The feeling of his large hand squeezing your thigh seemed to push you further into a sense of calm. "You're alright."
His words faded into nothing as your eyes finally drooped shut and the abyss closed in. Like a shimmering of bells through the mist, fading.
You were so soft in sleep, no longer spitting protests and fussing over every little thing. It made Johnny's heart warm and his cock twitch. Even better was that you hadn't even noticed the crushed up pill he had poured into your sandwich during your escape to the bathroom. He was just happy that you were eating.
In time, he knew you would come back around to him.
Johnny put you on the bed upon arriving back at your house. He put the groceries away the way he knew you liked and took a survey of the house. Of course, it was still falling apart. The crown molding was falling off in chunks and there was a leak in the living room ceiling from the lead-lined pipes you refused to let him touch — money was always such a sore topic for you, as if he'd ever charge you for his services. No, you would never pay for them again. Maybe not in money, that is.
After his walk-through, Johnny returned to your bedroom and began undressing. You slept so peacefully, so softly.
He climbed over you, tugging down your stockings and panties, then moaning at the sight of your bush.
"Oh, bonnie," he whispered. "You know me so well."
It was a shame that you weren't awake but he knew you'd be fussing and shrieking like a banshee at the immodesty of sex before marriage. Poor hen. He made up for it by saying the Lord's Prayer between every punch of his cock into your cervix.
Even in sleep, you made such sweet sounds. Your breathy sighs and little whimpers just made Johnny shudder harder. He could feel the heat from your body as he pressed further in, until finally, it was too much.
"A-amen," he whimpered out, pumping a hot load of cum deep inside you. He let himself collapse on top of you, nuzzling into your neck as slept. "You'll get used to it, bonnie. When we have our own paradise here, you'll see."
He laid there a while after cleaning you up and straightening out your clothes, until it seemed like you were finally coming back. Such a pretty thing when you weren't dragging yourself down. But soon, he knew, soon you'd be reborn. You'd healed the world for him, and he would do the same for you.
"Sleep well, bonnie?" Johnny asked, patting your head.
"Huh?" You looked up at him with bleary eyes, still asleep for all intents and purposes. "What…what time is it?"
He looked down at his watch. "Just about ten."
"Ten? I've been asleep for eight hours?!"
So fussy again. It took all Johnny's effort not to roll his eyes at how worked up you were able to get yourself. He honestly thought a good fuck would have worked that out of you.
"You were tired, hen— and before you get upset, I put the groceries away and fixed the leak in the ceiling downstairs."
The anger flickered behind your eyes, though pacified now at his offerings. He was getting there again, back to where you two had been so easy with each other. It still perplexed him to think that he had all but worshiped you, only to be tossed out so abruptly. This time, he wouldn't make the mistake of leaving you to your own devices. You needed him to guide you, to show you back to the light.
Autumn hung heavy with winter attempting to break through. With it came another bout of horrible luck, as the furnace the day of the first frost. You awoke, trembling with your breath coming out in visible huffs. In your fearful exhaustion, the only number you thought to call was Johnny's. He answered on the second ring and was at the house in record time.
"I was already out," he explained, walking with you to the basement. "Just your luck, right?"
You smiled, dry and forced. "Right. Do you want breakfast or…"
"Aw, you're too kind, hen." He was already on his knees examining the furnace. For a moment, you thought he might leave it at that. "Bacon and eggs would be great."
Great.
It was a conscious effort not stomp the stairs. It grated on you, his flippant attitude and forcefulness in your life. Nothing seemed to matter to him, as if there was no seriousness, no care at all. Everything was just so easy for him. No strife or worries. Where it was once met with joy, was now met with frustration. How you ever enjoyed his company was vexing.
Yet you cooked for him. The only bright side now was the heat from the oven and stove. You finished up and went to the bathroom to fix yourself up. By the time you returned, Johnny was done working and had already made up your plates.
"Looks great, bonnie."
For the first time, in all the time you've known him, Johnny ate in silence. He still scarfed down his food like an animal, but wasn't filling the air with his noise.
"Anything else I can fix, bonnie?"
Your head, you realized, felt so heavy. It was an effort to pull it up to meet his eye.
"No," you mumbled. "No…sorry. I'm so tired."
You woke up at dusk.
The washing machine broke a week later and the dryer the day after. Both times, Johnny was the only one to answer your call. Both times, you cooked him meals and woke up hours later. You would be dazed, stumbling around until your head cleared. You tried to call the doctor, but he recommended you to a specialist without even seeing you in person. The specialist made you an appointment for March, apparently not too worried for the fact you were losing hours of your days.
Your mind tried to blame Johnny, but it was impossible to blame him when it happened without his presence. You would wake abruptly at odd hours of the night, unsure if it was midnight or only 8pm. The clocks seemed to all show different times.
The days grew longer still until you swore there were days when the sun never came up. Darkness spread, closing in like a vice around the world. Sleep came too easy and waking up was like clawing from a grave. But what scared you wasn't the time you had begun to lose — it was the things you saw behind you eyes.
Flickers in your peripheral vision, shapes moving too quickly in the dark. It was those times that you found no comfort in your self imposed isolation. Johnny only seemed to answer when you were sobbing for him to come check on your house, to make sure no one was hiding in the spaces you were too frightened to check. On more than one occasion, he found you waiting outside in the cold, dressed in nothing but your nightgown and slippers.
He'd walk through your house while you sat in the warmth of his truck, trembling. When he returned, you'd cry into his arms.
"I'm not crazy, Johnny. You have to believe me."
You would feel his lips against the crown of your head, his nose inhaling your scent. "I know you aren't, bonnie. You're just lost."
It was impossible to tell what he meant by lost, but you couldn't help but trust his judgment.
Johnny would carry you back to bed with promises to stay until morning. As you curled up beneath the sheets, he'd sit close by and pray into his cross.
It was unsustainable, you decided one afternoon. It felt like the house was falling apart, and with winter on your doorstep, it was time for drastic measures. So you decided to stop sleeping.
You brewed coffee at all hours to stave off the ache that began to settle in your bones, the radio was turned on at all times with the music roaring in your ears over the sound of your work.
After 17 hours awake, you realized your phone had stopped working. Not to worry — Johnny would check on you soon.
20 hours passed.
Finally, a full day. The sun was setting and you found yourself settled into a hot bath, convinced your sleep schedule was going to return to normal. Your eyelids were beginning to droop when you saw it. A dark figure moved past the bathroom door. Then the radio turned on in the bedroom.
It felt as though your body had turned to ice. Terror gripped your very core, yet you knew this was your chance. The figures that haunted you would not take your life.
Slowly, you climbed from the tub to begin the journey to your bedroom. The music grew louder with each step, reaching its crescendo when you pushed open the door. It raked through the radio on your nightstand, croaking out through broken static:
"Behold the Lord is coming, He's coming for His Bride…He bids the church be ready and in Him to abide—"
Your grandmother's rosary sat on the bed as you frantically tried to shut the radio off. In your state of mania and panic, it ended up being smashed through the window. For the second time that night, your body turned to ice. The winds howled.
Winter had come.
Your second day awake was spent boarding up the window and turning on every light in the house out of refusal to be caught in the dark. It didn't stop the figure from dancing in your vision, nor the whispers that seemed to come from nowhere. Out of fear, more than anything, you put on the rosary. Fear kept it around your neck.
Idle hands are the Devil's workshop.
You jolted awake with a startled cry at your grandmother's voice. Whipping your head around, you that you were alone. Worse still, was that even in death, she was right.
Sleep hadn't been your intention, but it overtook you for a moment while trying to change a lightbulb. Sitting down on the couch proved to be a mistake. But it was just a moment—
Vile girl.
You leapt to your feet. It was no longer just grandmother. Other voices mingled in — grandfather, the old priest, people from town. All came together in your torment, their voices overlapping in a horrific roar. Only when you grabbed the rosary did the voices quiet.
Praying was now necessary. Whispers to the angels between chores, as you now knew they had obviously been the figures you'd seen. Soft words to God, begging forgiveness for your wretched ways, for straying from him. When the voices returned. You knew it was Him talking to you.
The terror resigned to absolution. You knew now that God had been sending you signs all along. All that was left was to call Johnny…Johnny. How long had it been since he'd last come by? A day? No. It had to have been at least four, maybe even a week. That didn't matter anymore, you would just call him—
But the phone had died. No matter! You'd walk into town and call him from there.
The moment you opened the door, you were meant with nothing but a wall of white. When you shut the door, the power went out.
Time, once frayed, ceased to exist. You found yourself on your knees in your bedroom, praying to the rosary for what could have been hours. Maybe days. Maybe it had all been a dream — but it wasn't. You prayed. You knew you did, as the temperature began to steadily drop as the sky darkened outside.
The morning would soon come, you told yourself. The sun would rise again and you would make your town to call Johnny. For now, you got ready for bed in the glow of your candles. It took until your stomach growled did you realize how long it had been since your last meal. But food meant braving the darkness.
With a not-so-confident breath and nothing but a candle to light the way, you prepared to go downstairs. The light did little to cut through the thick darkness of the abyss that had become your home, but you had few options left. The cold was weighing in as heavy as the dark now.
You took another breath in an attempt to calm your frazzled nerves. The edges of the world were already fraying, the seams splitting apart. Still, it shouldn't have frightened you as much as it did. Then you felt it — something brushing over your neck. You took one quick moment to crane your neck with hopes to see who it is. It was just like your dreams.
A figure stood at the top of the stairs, shrouded by the same shadows that not even the moonlight could reach. Your eyes went wide with a terror that filled you to the core. A scream ripped through your throat so hard that blood froths in your mouth. In your panic, you lost your footing and fell backwards down the stairs, into the darkness of your home.
Time was nonlinear. You were caught once again in the horrible space between waking and dreaming. Only now, there was a dull pain throughout your body that refused to relent. You might have been making noise, or perhaps trying to move but there was no way to tell if it was real or not. It's not like anyone was there to hear the pained, pathetic noises you were making.
Feeling returned to the rest of your body slowly. It took everything in you to open your eyes. Even then, there was so little to see. Less time passed than it had seemed. Night still hung deep and heavy. Perhaps it would always be like that. Perhaps it had always been like that. Everything felt so vivid one moment, then hazy the next. Like the world was rolling over you in waves.
With slow, measured movements, you pushed your aching body to standing. You stumbled against the wall almost immediately. Everything was spinning and something was wrong with your ankle that made pain shoot up your leg with every step — something was wrong with your head too. A warm, thick liquid was trickling down your temple, dripping onto your once pristine white nightgown.
Blood.
Right. Blood. Not ichor. Blood. You were bleeding because you fell. You fell because someone pushed you. No. That couldn't be right. That was just a dream. That was what grandpa always said.
"Hello?!" you called into the darkness. It was like you couldn't stop the words from coming out.
There was no response anyways, just the howling of the wind outside. But it was getting louder and so much closer — you swore it was. Even the cold was pressing further in. It was as if the outside was trying to break in.
Limping over to the window, you pressed your face against the frozen glass to see out into the void. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The land had never been more desolate than it was now in your time of need. Still, you focused out, staring into the darkness until you swore there was—
A hoarse, startled cry escaped your lips as the window cracked. You leapt back, your heart slamming from the adrenaline. But there had been something out there in the trees. Rushing back to the window, you stared out once more at the desolation.
But you knew the truth. Something was out in the darkness.
The sound of the grandfather clock striking midnight startled you once more. The days without sleep were getting to you and isolation weighed heavier than you cared to admit. But no, you knew the truth. There was something out there. If only you had Johnny—
You pinched yourself at the thought. He would not help you! He had been sent to tempt you!
Wicked girl.
"Who said that?!" you cried out, your head whipping around in the darkness. "Who are you?! PLEASE! Who are you?!"
Wicked girl.
Evil girl.
Corrupted girl.
Wind howled outside, it rang in your ears but wasn't loud enough to drown out the voices of angels filling your head. They shuddered through your body like the cold that was seeping through the pores of the house. The temperature was dropping rapidly still.
Johnny had promised to fix the insulation and the furnace. He had cut all of the wood for you when you met last winter and you hadn't thought to light a fire when the storm hit. It came out of nowhere, like something from the Inferno.
Your head shot up as a figure passed across the field.
A demon.
Oh…you knew finally. This was it. The apocalypse, your final judgment. The rapture had finally come to pass and the angels were judging you for your sins. The wind picked up again and you realized the truth for the first time — it was the trumpets sounding for the end times.
"Oh god!" you sobbed, stumbling through the halls. The tears that fell froze to your cheeks, your breath coming in visible huffs before your eyes, like ghosts. "Please, god, I am good! Please, take me into your kingdom!"
A horrible sound tore from your throat as the house began to shake under the cold and the wind and the wrath of god. Then the door burst open, breaking the dead bolt, the wind howling into your home and exposing you to the creatures outside and the snow that began to blow inside. Something stood in your doorway, tall and ragged. painted only by the moonlight.
No, not moonlight. A halo. And so suddenly, you knew him. You had always known. An angel come to take you to heaven. But if that were the case, why did he instill such fear within you.
"I've been so good!" you wailed. "Please—"
The crosses on the walls began rattling so hard that they began to fall — the ceramic, porcelain, and glass shattering upon the hardwood floors as you collapsed into the corner and screamed alongside the trumpets of the rapture.
Johnny found you on the floor, curled up like a wounded animal and whispering prayers beneath your breath, in between sobs. He sat with you a while, until your body finally gave into the sleep you had been denying yourself. While you slept, he cleaned up the mess and hung up a new St. Andrew's Cross in place of one that had fallen onto the floor. It looked perfect to him.
Time was so odd these days. It was spent praying, cooking, cleaning, and, when you were in the mood, fucking. The first time he tried to initiate sex, you balked, only for him to remind you that God had married you both by making you two His new Adam and Eve. Johnny even let you wear your grandmother's wedding dress the first time.
There was so little left to do and to do worry about, but to have Johnny alongside you in this odd paradise made it so much better.
He spent his days tending to various repairs around the house, drawing, and occasionally taking long drives into what you believed was nothingness. You had no desire to leave your little sanctuary, especially not in the frigid winter that clung to the land. It refused to let up and you knew it never would. Johnny seemed to think life would continue like normal, coming and going with what used to be the normal seasons. He called it a simulacrum He had made as a sort of paradise. It would all come back eventually.
"He made it for us, bonnie," Johnny whispered to you one night. "This is our paradise. We deserve this."
Calling the desolate world you found yourself in paradise felt wrong, but you came to know it in his arms.