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Joseph is completely, utterly mad.
You knew this of course. Apparent clairvoyance aside the man truly thinks god speaks to him. Before the world ended you would have said 'not if he were the last man on earth' and you would have meant it. But now he truly may as well be and that changes everything.
The bunker is unusually large by prepper standards but it is still a metal box in the ground and there is not so much space that you're not constantly aware of Joseph's presence. Even on those rare occasions that he does deign to leave you to your own devices you can hear him praying or singing or simply pacing up and down the halls like a caged beast.
He pesters you to pray with him and sometimes you do. Sometimes you even mean it.
The first few months were the hardest. At first Joseph did not trust you, which was fair, so he kept you bound and in sight at all times. It was extremely humiliating to allow him to care for you during that time. He hand fed you, washed you; with your hands bound you even needed his assistance to go to the bathroom. The whole time his eyes on you felt like lazers burning through you, and you met them as infrequently as you could. When you slept, it was with his body draped along the back of yours, and his hand stroking through your hair.
After some weeks of this you woke and found him standing over you with a knife and a grim expression. With nothing but acceptance you thought to yourself: 'this is it', but he only cut your bonds and walked away. Having nothing better to do you followed him to the kitchen where you ate breakfast together in stony silence. That night you pointedly made up a cot for yourself in another room and he said nothing and you slept alone. That didn't last long. With no one in the world but yourselves and nothing for stimulation but each other you quickly found yourself touch starved and you crawled into his bed to lay at his side of your own volition more often than not. At times the intimacy of sharing the same air as him felt stifling. At other times you pressed your face into his chest and imagined you were being held by someone you loved.
You didn't speak much, during that time. Joseph spoke enough for the both of you. Bible nonsense. Stories about him, about his family. About gods plans for you. Sometimes just actual nonsense. You listened on and off, drifting in and out as you pleased. Dutch had stocked the place with toys and games for children at some point and you found yourself playing with plastic dinosaurs and tin soldiers. There were several decks of cards stashed about the place and Joseph turned out to be surprisingly good at Gin Rummy.
It wasn't enough.
You waited until Joseph was asleep before you tied the noose but even from the other side of the bunker the clatter the chair made as you kicked it away must have woken him.
He wailed like he'd been stabbed as you gulped for breath and he cradled you in his arms on the floor.
“I won't let you leave me too” he said, over and over while his tears and snot drenched into your hair.
He left you alone even less after that.
He makes love to you, when you let him. But he doesn't even fuck like a normal person. It's surprisingly easy to wake up to the feel of him pressing his straining flesh into your back and just roll over and let it happen. If only he were less intense. If only it were just sex. If only he could stop looking at you like he's having a religious experience.
His hands and his mouth find every inch of your body and after you allow it the first time he can't keep himself off of you.
He takes you in every room at all times of the day. He likes to lay you across the table and suck bruises into your thighs before opening his mouth for you and bringing you to the brink, then climb over you and take you the rest of the way with his fingers while he watches your face. He likes to twine your fingers together in the sheets and kiss your open mouth as he presses you into the bed. You can tell he wishes you would initiate sometimes but you just aren't there yet.
When you're feeling it you call him 'Daddy' just to see the disapproving look on his face. You try and urge him into being a little rougher but he only seems to know one leisurely pace, he can only seem to treat you one way; as though you were made of porcelain and he your sculptor.
Even when you really need him to be rough: when the voices of the dead fill up your ears, when all you want is for him to drag your head back by your hair and tell you that it's all your fault he presses gentle kisses on your shoulders and wipes your tears away with his thumbs.
The whole time he won't stop talking.
'You are so beautiful.'
'It was always meant to be this way.'
'You and I, forever.'
'God made you for me.'
You want to scream. You want to kill him. You want to shut him up and sometimes you cover his mouth with your own simply for the silence.
Over time you mellow.
You get used to the sound of his voice. You get used to his bizarre foreplay rituals, and his obsession with the idea that god is watching everything you do. You even learn that if you whisper 'Father' into his ear at just the right moment his fingers will tighten that little bit, and he'll push into you that little bit deeper.
Life goes on.
He talks often of the day that he will open the doors and together you will march to Eden's Gate. You find the thought of that no longer bothers you. Perhaps one day you will open the doors. Who knows, maybe God will be waiting for you. Or maybe you'll find nothing but ashes and decay. Acceptance washes over you.
One day, perhaps soon, things will change. For now you have this. Joseph's arms around you, and his constant stream of madness ringing in your ears.
