Apocalypse, With Peaches Part 2

Simplicity hummed as she refolded the linens in the main room’s cabinet. She wasn’t sure why he had four pillowcases and no pillows, but that was just one of many mysteries she intended to solve over time.

Her heart was warm and ticking fast, like it always did when things started to make sense.

Sylas didn’t make sense. Not to most people, anyway. But she had always had a knack for assembling things without instructions. You just had to listen. Watch the pieces. Feel where the tension lived. It was like fixing a wind-up clock that had forgotten how to tick.

She liked the way he looked at her, all stunned and suspicious, like she had snuck into his private apocalypse and started planting flowers.

That last thing she said about him being sexy had come out before she thought about it. But it was true. She had meant it. He had the kind of beauty that looked like it had been carved under pressure. Too sharp in places, sure. A little cracked. But solid.

She opened the drawer of the little side table and found a pack of matches, three loose screws, and a tiny photo of him, probably from before. Younger. Alive. Still beautiful.

“I’m glad you came back,” she whispered to no one, and folded the photo neatly back into place.

Then she went to his bedroom and began tucking in the sheets for two.

Sylas hadn’t fixed anything all day.

He had tried. He had sat at the bench, surrounded by wires and spare parts, with a screwdriver clenched in his hand like it was a weapon against feelings. But every time he touched something mechanical, his mind drifted.

To her.

To her fingers brushing his.

To her calling him sexy like it was a known fact, like gravity.

To the way she smelled like the idea of spring.

It was horrible.

He stared at a broken hand-crank radio for three full hours and accomplished exactly nothing. At one point, he tried taking it apart just to take it apart, but then he forgot where he put one of the gears and panicked like it was a metaphor for his entire life.

By dusk, he was exhausted. Emotionally. Mentally. Existentially.

The sky outside had turned a weird, bruised orange, end-of-the-world stuff, which felt a little on the nose.

He made his way back to his bedroom like a condemned man walking the long hallway to judgment.

And that was when he saw it.

Two pillows. Freshly laid out. Fluffed. One with his usual flat, threadbare case. The other with the soft blue one he hadn’t touched in years.

The bed wasn’t bigger. But it looked like it was.

He stood in the doorway for what felt like a full lunar cycle.

It wasn’t the fact that she had done it. Of course she had. She was that kind of person. No, what broke him was the fact that it looked right. Like she belonged there. Like this was always going to happen, and he had just been waiting to catch up to it.

He sat on the edge of the bed. Put his face in his hands. Tried not to bleed from anywhere.

The scent of lemon and soft cotton wafted from the linens.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

The door creaked open.

She didn’t knock this time. She just came in, calm as a breeze.

“Oh good,” she said, stepping closer. “You found it.”

He looked up. “Why?”

“Because,” she said, standing in front of him. “It’s very tiring sleeping alone, isn’t it?”

“I don’t,” he started. Then stopped.

She didn’t say anything. She just leaned in, very gently, and placed her hand on the side of his neck.

The touch was soft. Warm. Grounding. Like she was telling his bones they weren’t alone.

“You don't have to do anything,” she whispered. “But I think you want to.”

He looked up at her. She wasn’t smiling now. She was just present. All sunlight and stillness and waiting.

And something in him, something that had been frozen solid for years, moved.

He reached up. Touched her waist. Pulled her close.

She climbed onto the bed like it was sacred. Straddled him without ceremony. Her dress bunched around her thighs. He stared up at her like she was some kind of prophecy.

Her hands went to his face. His to her hips. Their breath synced up like gears finally catching.

She kissed him.

It wasn’t shy. It wasn’t timid. It was Simplicity Grace deciding something, and Sylas being unable, unwilling, to deny her.

Their mouths fit. Their bodies responded. Every part of him that remembered pain seemed to loosen.

And as she pulled his shirt over his head and whispered something that sounded suspiciously like “I knew you’d be good at this” against his neck,

He gave in.

To her. To the heat. To the need. To the terrifying possibility that maybe, just maybe, death had made him ready for something real.

She kissed him.

It started soft, but that didn’t last. Because Sylas, poor, confused, wrecked Sylas, kissed her back like it was the only thing anchoring him to the world. Like he had been starved of skin and scent and softness for seven years and just realized someone had laid a feast on the bed in front of him.

Her mouth was warm and open and so willing, and her dress was already sliding up her thighs, and her hands were in his hair, and he made a sound he didn’t know he could make. Something low and feral and involuntary, like a prayer turned inside out.

She responded immediately, her hips grinding against him through the thin fabric of his pants like she had a map of him in her head and wasn’t afraid to follow it.

“You’re shaking,” she murmured against his mouth.

“I’m not,” he started, but she bit his bottom lip just enough to shut him up.

“You are,” she said, pulling back to look him in the eyes. “It’s okay. I’ll hold you together.”

Then she slid her hand down between them and cupped him through the fabric. No hesitation. Just perfect, precise pressure.

Her other hand was already pulling at the waistband, and he let her. Let her strip him like she was unwrapping something delicate and slightly dangerous.

And when she touched him, bare skin to skin, he groaned. Loud. Raw. A sound like something ancient cracking open.

“I knew it,” she whispered. “You’re so good like this.”

He opened his eyes. Met hers. There was no smugness there. No teasing. Only worship.

She pulled her dress off over her head and tossed it onto the floor like it was an afterthought. This wasn’t performance. It was decision.

And it was.

He reached for her, hands on her thighs, her hips, her ribs, pulling her close, guiding her, and when she sank down onto him, it was like the whole world aligned.

She gasped, eyes fluttering. He cursed under his breath. His hands tightened on her waist, and hers went to his chest, fingers splayed wide like she needed to feel all of him at once.

They moved together like they had been doing this forever. Like the rhythm was already written into their bones.

He held her like she was air. She rode him like she was memorizing the shape of a home she had found in the middle of ruin.

The bed creaked.

The wall thudded.

And when he came, when she made him come, he said her name like it was a confession. And she held him while he trembled, and whispered, “Told you you’d be good at this.”

Sylas woke up to the smell of lemons and sex.

His brain tried to reboot itself. It failed.

The bed was warm. The other side of the bed, the side that hadn’t been used in years, was mussed and occupied. Simplicity was still sleeping, her hand draped across his chest like she owned it. Like it belonged there. Her breath tickled his shoulder.

He laid there, staring at the ceiling as if it might offer guidance. It did not.

Eventually, she stirred. Opened her eyes. Smiled like the sun hadn’t died years ago.

“Morning,” she said, voice wrecked and soft.

“You’re still here,” he said, because his brain was only operating at half-capacity.

She nodded. “I live here now. Remember?”

He blinked. “You moved in yesterday.”

“Yeah,” she said, stretching like a cat. “We’ve made a lot of progress.”

She got up. Naked. Completely at ease. Wandered toward the tiny sink to brush her hair with a comb she had definitely pulled from her infinite lemon-scented dress pocket.

“We need food,” she called over her shoulder. “We’ll go into town after you put on pants.”

The walk into town was quiet. Awkward. Warm.

They didn’t talk much, mostly because Sylas wasn’t sure how to make words anymore, and Simplicity seemed content to hum and point out flowers growing through the cracks in the pavement.

They passed a bus half-swallowed by kudzu, its windows shattered, emergency exit still swinging. A skeleton of a stoplight blinked red into nothing. Somewhere under the vines, a voice crackled from an old speaker, still insisting the route was delayed due to “temporary civil disruptions.”

Halfway there, her hand brushed his.

He didn’t pull away.

She took it like that was permission and laced her fingers through his.

He stared at the horizon with the kind of intensity normally reserved for collapsing stars.

“You’re squeezing a little tight,” she said gently.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he muttered.

“You’re doing fine.”

Town was still standing. Sort of. A few tents, some makeshift stalls, a collapsed building someone had turned into a market. The world had ended, but people still sold bread and weird jars of jam with no labels.

Simplicity bartered like a pro. She smiled at everyone. Made small talk with a woman selling dried meat who definitely had a knife up her sleeve. Somehow, she got them a basket full of eggs, flour, something that looked like real sugar, and a tiny bottle of vanilla extract that smelled like memories.

A girl, no older than ten, sat beside a bucket of rusted silverware and whispered prices like secrets. “That one remembers birthdays,” she said, pointing to a bent spoon. No one told her to stop. No one said it was strange.

Sylas trailed behind her, holding the bag and trying not to look like he was about to implode.

At one point she kissed his cheek because she liked the way he was scowling at tomatoes.

He forgot how to breathe for ten full seconds.

Somewhere behind them, a building folded in on itself with the slow groan of rebar giving up. No one turned. No one screamed. Simplicity just squeezed his hand a little tighter.

Back home, she disappeared into the kitchen.

He retreated to the radio room. The busted hand-crank was still waiting. Still broken.

He sat down. Touched the gears. Took a breath.

And this time, it clicked.

Ten minutes later, it whirred to life with a satisfying bzzt-whirr-khhhhh, and for the first time in a long time, Sylas felt functional.

Useful.

He stared at it.

He flipped through dead channels out of habit. One of them stuttered into an old car commercial, warped and half-eaten by static. A woman’s voice promised freedom with zero financing. He turned it off before the jingle could finish.

Then he smelled muffins.

Like, actual muffins. Warm. Vanilla. Maybe a hint of cinnamon. He had no idea where she had found cinnamon. Maybe it came from one of those sealed-prep lockers people used to keep under their floors. Maybe she had just willed it into being.

He wandered into the kitchen like a man being called by the gods.

She turned, wearing one of his old shirts and no pants, and held up a tray.

“I didn’t know if you liked nuts,” she said. “So I made half with and half without.”

He stared at the muffins.

Then at her.

Then at the muffins again.

“You baked.”

“I did.”

“They smell like childhood.”

“They taste better.”

He grabbed one. Bit in.

The sound he made was obscene. Like a dying man being revived by cake.

“You’re going to rail me again now, aren’t you?” she asked, far too casually.

He swallowed the muffin whole. “Yes. Immediately.”

She was already climbing onto the counter before he finished the sentence.

It was rougher this time. Hungrier. Messier.

He pressed her into the counter, knocking over a jar of something they couldn’t afford to replace. Didn’t matter.

She was giggling. He was growling.

He had flour on his hands and her thighs around his waist and he thought I could live in this moment forever.

When she came, she moaned his name like it meant something permanent.

When he followed, he kissed her shoulder like he was apologizing for every year he had spent alone.

They lay on the floor for a while afterward, her back against the cool tile, his hand over her stomach.

“We should probably clean this up,” she said eventually.

“Probably.”

“We should go on a date.”

“We just went grocery shopping.”

“That wasn’t a date, that was survival,” she said, mock-offended. “I want dinner. Candles. Mood music.”

“I’m undead.”

“And I’m your girlfriend. Which means I win.”

He blinked at the ceiling. Then turned to look at her.

“You’re my girlfriend?”

She smiled. “Of course I am. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

The sheets were dry. That was the most remarkable thing about the morning.

His eyes were dry. The toaster was quiet. The sky held still. Sunlight crept through the window, pale and polite, carrying the scent of soap, lemon, and warm laundry.

Simplicity stood at the end of the bed, folding pillowcases like they were secret messages. She was humming something that might have been music or might have been a threat. Hard to tell with her.

Sylas watched from the doorway, still half-clothed, still half-waking. He stepped forward, grabbed a shirt from the pile, and began folding. Badly. But with intent.

Simplicity didn’t comment, but her smile was obnoxiously pleased.

“Hey,” he said after a moment. Voice low. A little rough. “I think I want you to stick around.”

She didn’t even look up. “Obviously.”

He blinked. “You knew?”

“I was always going to,” she said, as if they had discussed it at length. “You just had to catch up.”

“Oh,” he said, folding a sleeve the wrong way again. “Okay.”

They folded in silence for a while. The mundane intimacy of cotton and shared space filled the air like a third presence.

When the last towel was flattened into submission, Sylas turned and walked into the other room.

Simplicity didn’t follow. She knew he would be back.

He returned two minutes later, holding the old radio.

It was small and dented and covered in little grease-fingerprint constellations. It also worked. Mostly.

He set it on the table and gave it a look that said behave.

Then he turned it on.

It crackled. Buzzed. Shuddered like it remembered war. Then, somehow, music poured out. Warbly and tinny and real.

Something upbeat. Something with drums and joy and no patience for subtlety.

Simplicity’s eyebrows lifted. “This is your victory song?”

“It was the clearest signal,” he muttered.

She laughed. Actually laughed, loud and delighted and completely unladylike. Then she grabbed his hand.

“We’re dancing now,” she announced.

“We, what, no.”

Too late. She had already spun him in a circle, badly, and nearly knocked over a chair.

He stumbled. Regained balance. Glared at her.

She grinned.

And then he laughed. A rusty, reluctant sound at first, but then full-bodied, like something cracking open for the first time in years.

They danced like children. Like idiots. Like two people who had survived the unthinkable and decided not to let that be the most interesting thing about them.

She jumped. He twirled. They tripped over a sock. The radio skipped and they didn’t care.

She spun out from him, arms wide, hair wild. “You’re getting good at this,” she called.

“Lying to me already,” he said, breathless.

“You’re smiling,” she said, pointing like it was a revelation. “Your face does that?”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Too late.”

He caught her again. Held her just long enough to remember what that felt like. Then they danced more, without rhythm, without form, without shame.

When the song ended, she collapsed onto the couch.

He dropped beside her. Their legs tangled.

She exhaled. “If the world ends again, I want it to happen on a day like this.”

He nodded, eyes closed. “If it ends again, I’m going down swinging with you.”

Her hand found his. Fingers laced.

“You really want me to stay?” she asked, quieter now. No joke in her tone.

He opened one eye. Looked at her. “I want to wake up and know someone’s here. I want to make toast for two. I want the radio to hum and you to hum louder. So yeah. I want you to stay.”

Simplicity blinked once. Slowly.

“Cool,” she said. “I already rearranged the closet space.”

He groaned. “Of course you did.”

She leaned over. Kissed his cheek. Then pulled his head onto her lap like he was a particularly troubled cat she intended to adopt permanently.

The radio clicked into another song, something scratchy and bright.

They didn’t dance this time. Just sat in the warmth. Alive. Together.

And happy.