Home was a little base Zero had set up two streets down from where she’d kidnapped me. Yes, I’m still calling it kidnapping, even if it ended with kisses and a vault heist.

The base was a half-collapsed apartment on the second floor of an old residential block, with the stairs reinforced, the windows boarded except for two slits, and a back exit through a hole in the wall that opened into the next building.

Smart as always. This was the kind of setup someone made when they were ready for things to go wrong. And in Apocalypse World, they often did.

Zero kicked the front door shut behind us and dropped her sack of silver on the floor with a heavy clunk. Then she stretched, arms over her head, sweater riding up just enough to be a problem.

"Food, sugar boy. Now. I refuse to do another thing on an empty stomach."

I rolled my eyes and reminded her. "You did three things on an empty stomach. You ripped a vault door off, killed four people, and gave me a heart-to-heart."

"And now I’m starving. Move quickly and make me something. Didn’t you say you’d spoil me with your food?"

Smiling, I shook my head and got to work.

I pulled out one of the grocery bags from inventory, filled with bread, cheese and a small jar of peanut butter I’d grabbed almost as a joke, plus two bottles of cola because Zero had a problem with cola and I was apparently her enabler now.

She made a noise when she saw the cola. An actual little noise, somewhere between a hum and a squeal. It was undignified and adorable and I was going to remember it forever.

"Darling. Marry me." She squealed.

"You’re already my sugar mommy. I think we skipped a step." I chuckled.

"Then re-marry me." She popped the bottle open and took a long drink, eyes closing. "By dead gods, this stuff is criminal. They stopped making the real version about sixty years before I was born. The factories’ synthetic stuff tastes like flavoured paint."

"Sixty years before...wait, how old are you?"

She lowered the bottle and gave me a look over the rim. "Darling, you don’t ask a sugar mommy her age."

"I’m asking my girlfriend her age."

"Oh, I’m your girlfriend now, am I?"

I felt my ears go hot, which was rude of them. "I mean, after the vault and the kissing and the terms, I figured—"

"Mm-hmm. Keep going. I’m enjoying this."

"You’re terrible." I scoffed.

"And you’re cute when you fluster. It’s a fair trade." She smiled in bliss.

This woman....I swear one day I’ll make her submit to me.

I made the sandwiches. She watched me make the sandwiches like I was performing an opera. When I handed her hers, she took a bite, closed her eyes, and made another one of those noises.

Definitely not a moan.

I was going to die in this apocalypse, I realised. Just from her sounds.

Cause of death: inappropriate noises from a very beautiful woman.

We ate sitting on the floor with our backs against the wall, shoulders touching, the cola bottle passed back and forth between us. She told me about Velham before the Fall, the parts she remembered anyway.

Big festivals on the river. A skyline that lit up in different colors at night. A noodle place she used to go to that she swore made better instant noodles than anything I’d brought her.

"Doubt," I said.

"Bring me a packet next time and I’ll prove it."

"You can’t prove a noodle place still exists when the noodle place has been dead for a century."

"Watch me."

She leaned her head on my shoulder while she ate and didn’t move it for a long time. I didn’t move either. My arm fell asleep about thirty minutes in and I just let it.

After food, she hauled me up, made me wash off the D-rank ichor with a bucket of clean-ish water from one of her stashes, and threw me a clean shirt that was way too big for me and definitely not mine.

"Whose is this?"

"Mine."

"It’s a man’s shirt."

"It’s a me shirt. Don’t ask questions."

I shrugged, not that it mattered much.

We crawled onto the bedroll together when the sky outside started shifting toward whatever passed for dusk in this world.

She pulled me down against her, my back to her chest, her arm slung over my waist, her chin tucked against the top of my head. Like she was the bigger one. Which, in fairness, in every way that mattered out here, she was.

"This okay, sugar boy?" she murmured.

"This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Don’t ruin it by talking."

She laughed quietly into my hair. Then, after a while, "Lukas."

"Mm?"

"Thank you. For today. All of it."

I squeezed her hand where it rested against my stomach. "Yeah. You too."

I fell asleep listening to her breathing, though we certainly changed position afterwards. As much as I liked her spoiling me as I slept, I also wanted to do the same to her.

...

When I woke up, it was dark out and she was still there, awake, watching me with a stupid soft expression that I was going to give her a hard time about as soon as my brain came online.

"Time?" I mumbled.

"Late. You should hop home." She replied softly.

"Mm, don’t wanna."

"I know. But your editor will hunt you down across dimensions if you miss another deadline, and I refuse to be widowed by a publishing schedule."

"Already a widow before the wedding, so tragic." I rolled over to face her. "I’ll be back in a while."

"I’ll be here."

"You’ll be careful."

"I’ll be me, darling. That’s better than careful." She chuckled softly.

I gave her a quick kiss but she caught my jaw and kissed me a second time anyway, slower, just because she could.

"Go," she said. "Before I change my mind."

I focused on the system and selected [World Hop].

The world shifted.

...

My apartment hit me like a different planet. Which, technically, it was.

Sunlight stabbed through the curtains. The clock said 7:48 AM. The phone said Wednesday, March 26, 2031. The air was clean, the floor was solid, and there were exactly zero zombies trying to murder me.

Civilization had its perks.

I made coffee and sat down at my desk. I opened a private tab in my browser and stared at it for about ten minutes.

’Okay. Don’t be stupid about this.’

I had forty-three gold bars in my inventory, plus the half-kilo ones, plus loose gemstones, plus jewellery, plus a tiara that probably belonged in a museum, plus rolled silver coins. The total estimated value of which was, conservatively, a number I didn’t want to type into any device connected to the internet.

So I started small. I searched generic things. Selling gold legally. Pawn shops vs dealers. Reporting requirements for precious metals.