Apocalyptic Brains and Brawn (Patreon)

This was an old idea that I came and went with a bunch. Sort of the usual small but useful guy, strong woman duo setup. Kind of a Falloutish setting, since I think apocalypses with weird resulting cultures is fun. A tech cult and the warrior cult become buds.

I got hung up for a long time right before the sex scene. Just what I was going for with it, and making it hot but sweet and how they’d both handle the experience. Could see picking it up again in the future, but no immediate plans. I hit a similar vibe with a lot of other stories, so will see if anything especially fitting comes to mind later on.

Mile had little to worry about in his settlement. There were the usual troubles of living in the nuclear wasteland that had once been a planet, but they were in a relatively safe zone. People had to work to earn their keep from the farms and traders, but he was what they called a gearer. All the machines of the old were strange and delicate, but he had a way with them. He had grown up in a small clan where he was taking apart and toying with things other cultures found too dangerous or sacred to meddle with. He left on his pilgrimage in his teens, as was tradition, arriving here in Settard. It had gotten him sour looks from some of the locals, but once he showed he could build or fix just about anything they needed, they warmed up to him very quickly.

He was pale and wiry, always dressed in his oversized coat that was a storybook of grease stains and burned fabric. His people spent more time scouring over books or with their head under the hood of a car to get much of a tan, and the only visible strength on his was his arms from cranking a wrench or carrying a toolbox. Pale brown hair was kept in a short mess, trimmed back to stay out of the way of his work and bespectacled eyes.

He went about his work, snacking on the mutated ancestor of corn for breakfast as his free hand flipped through a new book on the steps of his trailer home. Not many were fully literate beyond road signs, so he always leapt at the opportunity for a new manual or journal. He always got them as cheap as the kindling they effectively were to anyone else.

He barely noticed the newcomer at first. Some tall blonde person that he didn’t even fully look up from his work as she walked by. He’d only even be sure it was a woman when he looked at her properly later on. He didn’t even look up from his book until he heard the gunshots.

---

Strange and secluded cultures were common in the remains of the world, leftovers of cults, fanatics, preppers or families that had locked down long enough to form their own echoes of a culture. The gearers, they said, were once a batch of science wizards who sought ways to better the earth in their mysterious laboratories.

Emma was a warrior. It ran in her blood and was hammered into her since she could crawl. The clan of Marinas had been fighters since before they could remember, ritualistically bred and raised in trials of strength and combat. They were tightly knit and trained to kill with any number of weapons, of which they had many stowed away from ancient times. They could wield anything and still take out a half dozen outsiders or a mutated beast on their own. Emma 16, the woman named after her father’s favorite gun, wore the bracelet of heavily damaged animal teeth and the smashed flat bits of silver on a pendant in her cleavage to prove she had passed her rite of maturity.

In a world of filthy scavengers, she was like a Greek goddess walking the ruined earth. She wasn’t especially beautiful by most standards; she had a thick build of layered muscle, a broad and broken nose, an uneven tan, and plenty of scrapes and scars along her skin. It was more of the fact that her calm and observant nature gave off the air of an uncertain jungle cat. She wore heavy cargo pants, a snug tank top, and a camouflaged jacket; considering that there wasn’t much green left in the world, it was more ceremonial than practical. Broad shoulders supported a full set of breasts before turning into massive biceps and iron abs. Across her back was a densely packed duffle bag. The firearms were tucked away as much for safety as it was not to give thieves and lunatics the bright idea of finding out they were slower than her draw. One sleek pistol was at her hip, holstered on the opposite side of a long knife. Full blonde hair trailed behind her as the six-and-a-half-foot woman strode through town and went to the rickety old saloon.

“Car fix,” she asked, tilting her head towards a passing bar girl. She blinked at Emma quietly and shook her head. The blonde clicked her tongue and squared her jaw before walking up to the bar. “Hey. Hey, car fix? Do you have a car fix?”

“A what now?” he replied, eying her weapons warily. Emma rapped her knuckle on the bar.

“Yo. Don’t look weapons. Eyes are up here,” Emma in her same curt, clipped tone like she chose to cut out the impractical words out of her sentences. Language gaps weren’t uncommon either, assuming you didn’t get someone who was just a screaming feral person.

“Who I get to fix a car?”

“Oh! I uh… you’d want Mile.”

“Yes. Where’s?” Emma agreed with a steady but impatient frown. Her scowl broke for a moment to point behind the bar. “Drink first. Big,” she said, holding her hands about a foot apart from each other.

The bartender gave her the biggest mug they had, but when a sudden series of popping noises came from outside, she dropped to one knee. She had her gun and knife out in a fraction of a second with her pistol aimed at the door before the others could even yelp in surprise. There were a few more noises that came more clearly as gunshots to the others. A pale and sweating man threw open the doors with his eyes open wide, a banged up old rifle clutched in his arms.

“Chief! Chief, we’re under-“

Two more pops sounded off as Emma landed two clean hits. One caught him in the lower leg and another caught his gun just after, knocking it from his relenting grip. He yelped and collapsed to the floor, clutching his bleeding shin.

“What in the… whoa! Whoa, stop! He’s one of ours!” The town chief hurried down, a man in clothes that were only a little dusty. He held up some assuring hands, starting towards the disarmed man. He stopped short and stared at the Marina woman for a moment of recognition before actively stepping wide and away from her.

“Raiders, chief!” the bleeding man blurted. “The Dead Hides broke in from wester and took out the lookouts. They’re right on top of us and they mean business!”

“Cannibal bastards,” the chief huffed. He looked around and waved to the people. He was about to give the order to raise the alarm and arm themselves when he realized the Marina was staring at him. She took a long steady drink of her mug of rotgut while meeting his eye.

“You! You’re soldier folk,” the chief insisted. They have a fraction of a chance on their own. But her…

“You can stop them, right?”

“Yes,” Emma said, only taking the time to swallow before she answered with steady confidence. “How many?” she asked as an afterthought, like it didn’t change the answer.

“Around fifteen… maybe more hiding,” the scout replied.

Emma polished off her drink and shifted her duffle bag enough to pull out a large assault rifle. She checked it with a speedy little ritual of a gesture before holstering her knife and pistol.

“You’ll pay,” she said sternly. The chief swallowed nervously before she held up her hand, rustling the jingling, makeshift dog tags against her chest. “Big bounty. Give a car fix. And food and beer. I’ll take them done.”

The chief figured they could readily leave some supplies in exchange for staying alive. They had a steady enough food source out here. “Deal.”

“Hwah,” she said, raising three fingers vertically in another faith-like gesture. “Hold your ears. You fix car. I fix people.”

---

There was little hope to track what was going on. Emma stepped out of the bar, a burst of gunfire tearing into a couple of crudely armored men approaching the village. She vanished into the alleys before they knew what had hit them, and nobody could keep eyes on her for more than a couple seconds after that. They weren’t sure how a woman so big could stay hidden and move so quickly, but she moved with almost automatic speed and precision. She swapped out weapons and scaled roofs and crushed a couple of heads under her bootheel before she returned to the bar. She moved as casually and confidently as before if now splattered with blood and breathing much heavier.

“I fix,” she said with a sharp nod towards the chief. She slung her rifle over her shoulder and held out both hands with her fingers spread. “This many days of food. Now where is car fix.”

“Oh, Mile? He’s right across the road in his workshop. He’ll be glad to-”

Emma 16 nodded and turned away. “Good. I take him.”

It started to occur to the chief that a “car fix” was a person that he had promised rather than a service. He hurried after her and held up a hand in her way.

“Now hold on a second,” he rambled, knowing he was a valuable treasure of a young man. Sure, she had saved them, but…

Emma kept walking until her tensed bicep hit his palm. She turned and stared at him like he was the biggest idiot in the world for getting her way. The chief cleared his throat.

“Just… why don’t you let me talk to him for you? I’ll go get him ready for his trip.”

---

“I got it. Looks like you blew a piston. I’ve got a spare piece that’ll do the job. Not an exact replacement, but a little tweak and it’ll fit back in place,” Mile rambled.

He knew nobody really understood, but it helped him think while his head was under the hood of the woman’s jeep. She grunted and nodded as she adjusted and cleaned out her guns. The chief had given him a short rundown and tried to sugarcoat his “promotion” and “new opportunities” shortly before Emma lost her patience. She busted down the door and threw Mile over her shoulder to carry him to her car. He had to convince her to turn back for his tool box, where she dutifully carried him back for it.

“So the car didn’t die?” Emma pressed with a furrowed brow.

“What? Noooo no. These models are pretty solid. If they’re not fully crushed, it’s probably just something internal gone screwy. Kind of like people, but that’s a whole ‘nother science altogether.”

“Ah,” she summed up, almost a bark of a word. “So it moves?”

“I should top off the oil while I’m in here, but it should be in a couple minutes. So uh… the chief says I’m leaving with you?”

“Yep!” she said with the first smile he’d seen on her face.

She looked him over with the same inspecting focus as she did her weapons. That combined with the fact he was being traded like a token between the town and her made him feel a bit objectified… not that there was anything wrong with objects. Things were some of his best friends. He blushed at the implications and took another long look at the massive woman. He knew a couple of curvy girls around town, but none of them so curvy that even their biceps bulged.

“So um… where are you going?” Mile pried.

“Nuh uh.” Emma grunted and shrugged with all the intelligence he’d come to expect from the killing machine. “Away.”

“Ah. So you’re running away rather than going anywhere special?”

“Not running away. Just running.” She furrowed her brow as she tried to find a way to explain it to an outsider to the Marinas. “N… nomad.”

“Oh, so you’re on a pilgrimage too!” Mile offered hopefully. Her blank stare was to be expected.

“My clan from The Ironhearts have us set out into the world to fix everything we can at a certain age. So I wandered until I settled in at Settard since they had a lot of work to do.”

Emma’s eyes lit up. “Yes! Pilamage. On a… crusade. Kill the dangerous.”

Mile let out a small laugh. It sounded like they were closer than he thought. Skilled at entirely different things but their cultures had the same global thinking. Most places hunkered down and prayed they’d live long enough to have a family, but the secure bunkers were sending out people to try and reclaim the world bit by bit.

Emma grunted as she itched her leg aggressively. Mile didn’t think much of it until she sat in the sand and pulled down her pants, exposing her womanhood and the thick pubic hair between her powerful thighs. Mile jumped enough that he would have hit his head on the hood of the car if he weren’t so used to being under them.

“H-hey now! What are you doing?”

“Itchy blood,” she said leaning to one side of her hips.

Mile spotted a fresh, red wound on her lower thigh, too swollen and scabbed to be from the latest fight. Some torn stitches were around its edges, making it look like it certainly wasn’t cleaned properly. Emma picked up some sand and spit it in before rubbing it together in her hand.

“What are you doing?!” Mile demanded louder.

“Seal it. Old marina trick,” she explained curtly. “Rub dirt or sand. Cover up.”

“Noooo no no,” Mile rambled as he hurried over. “That’s bad. I mean, it’s better than nothing but… here, I have my emergency kit. That should be enough.”

“Enough for what?” Emma asked with a blank expression. “I have plenty of dirt.”

“That’s not what… here.” He opened his baggy coat to get the tightly sealed and secured container. Opening that revealed a variety of bandages, bottles, thread and needles.

“Oh. We had potion doctors too,” Emma noted with a nod.

“Er… sure. I can clean that up and make sure it heals right. The car can wait.”

The fact that she had so many old scars suddenly made a lot of sense. Marinas must have made much better killers than healers. He took her hand to help her up, but Emma grunted sharply and a scowl returned to her face. She pulled his hand hard and tossed him into the sand, bending his wrist around and mounting him from behind. Her intense weight and tight hold immobilized him in seconds.

“I… I was trying to help you up,” Mile gagged beneath her. “I’m sorry! But doing this in the car will be easier and I’m going to have to touch you if I’m treating you.”

Emma took a second for that logic to sink in before she released his arm.

“Alright. THIS time,” she warned. “No funny punches, though.”

“I genuinely don’t know what you’re talking about, so no worries there.”

---

It was awkward but operable. He wound up sitting in the open back of Emma’s jeep. It felt like he was working in an animal’s cage as she watched him closely. It wasn’t a warning scowl so much as she seemed deeply curious in what he was doing, though it was probably meant to be both. The woman never seemed to turn off from battle mode completely so she didn’t seem put off by the mild blood at all. Not after what she’d done in town, of course.

Mile was more nervous about what Emma could do to him than her injuries. She’d lasted this long, so he wasn’t concerned for her health, but some of them needed a good cleaning and fresh bandages. She wasn’t concerned with sitting in her vehicle completely bottomless to let him work either, however distracting it was to Mile. Even her raw scent radiated off her. She seemed washed, but in a primal and soapless way that made her smell much more distinct.

Her thick thigh muscles and curly blonde bush kept catching his eye. He found himself touching and checking some parts of her out of sheer curiosity, as he would a particularly rare vehicle. The surprising lack of give in her hardened body was impressive, especially while still keeping the feminine curves of her breast and hips. The apocalyptic amazon gave him a quick pat on the arm when he finished up the more urgent work and was simply admiring the sculpted detail of her abs.

“Little man,” she interrupted patiently.

Mile quickly looked back up at Emma’s face. “Er, yes?”

“You want to unload in me?”

It was clearly marina lingo, but he didn’t have to strain his creativity to get the idea.

“Like right now? I just met you!” he rambled his excuse.

“Yes. But you have a good touch. You’re soft. We are alone and this is a terrible spot for snipers to try and focus on us. What could be more arouse inducing?”

It was difficult to argue with her logic. Especially when Emma looked like that, wore so little and thought so bluntly. Her exotic beauty was undeniable, especially to his stirring groin. He cleared his throat and steeled himself for what looked like the herculean task of satisfying the monstrously built woman.

“Well, I guess that would be acc…”

That was all Emma needed to grab him by the shoulders. She pinned him to the floor of the truckbed like a hunting cat hard enough to rattle the vehicle. Even as Mile froze up he could feel he was rendered completely immobile by her steely grip and heavy muscle. He could feel the heat radiating off her bare groin as it pressed possibly against his bulge. Her eyes were alight with excitement above her broad and confident smile.

“Got you covered,” she said with a slight softening to her expression.

Emma leaned in and kissed him deeply. He wasn’t especially practiced in the art, but she seemed sloppy about it. It was a hungry touch, demanding and impatient like the rest of her. Her tongue forced its way into the slender mechanic’s mouth like she had a bottomless curiosity for what he tasted like. The occasional tonguey slurping and savagely playful bite at his lip only encouraged the idea.

Emma’s hands worked quickly and efficiently at stripping Mile of his clothes. Her body only yielded its firm but not quite crushing weight only when she pulled up on his, allowing herself to slide his shirt off over his head or pants around his ankles. It was only when his glasses started fogging up that he thought to remove the knocked askew spectacles. If she hadn’t expressly stated her want to mate with him, he might have been concerned.

Emma rose to her knees, still straddling his pelvis between her powerful thighs. The marina woman threw off her top and looked even more impressive to Mile’s widening eyes. She had more scars and scrapes and tons of muscle that tightened around her feminine curves. She looked natural like this. Like she was a beast that someone had put a sweater on. Mile swallowed heavily as he stared up at her like being naked and on top of him was the ideal state she wanted to be in.

“Are you fine, tiny?” Emma asked with no tone of teasing or pity in her voice.

It still echoed in her stilted choice of words. Mile shook his head, shuddering as it made his lower body shift with it. His erection bobbed and tapped against her powerful leg like a toothbrush hitting a sheet of iron.

“I’m fine. You’re just… beautiful!” he blurted.

Mile had half expected her to be blown away by the word that slipped out. She seemed mildly surprised but she smiled down at him. She leaned over, tightening her muscles again as she ran a strong hair through his messy hair. She gave him a firm, seemingly fond lick from the edge of his mouth up his cheek.

“You’re funny boy,” she chuckled, as if it was her latest pet name for him.

She descended fully on top of him. Her larger body focused on dropping her womanhood onto his manhood, swallowing it up with ease. He vanished somewhere deep into her warm folds as her full breasts leaned into his chest. Her nipples were hard as stone, scraping and tickling across his softer skin. Her long hair brushed against his arms as she started to rise and fall above him, her strong hands braced on the truck beneath them. Her muscular arms pumped her steadily up and down, even as her face shifted between grunting expressions of deep pleasure. He didn’t have to do much to satisfy her urges since she seemed to take what she wanted on that matter.

Something about that didn’t sit right with Mile. It felt amazing, to be sure, with her tight snatch and strong hips pounding him inside her. Even with her satisfied look on her face and steady smile, he wasn’t used to getting things for free. Even as he panted heavily, huffing down the scent of her arousal and stale and fresh sweat mixed together, he found the urge to push back taking over.

He couldn’t move his lower body much beyond bucking up to meet her. A low, pleased hum escaped Emma’s lips now and then, adding a charming little curl to her smile in the process. Mile smiled back awkwardly, unsure if she was really registering him any further than something to get off with right now. She was warm but intense in her current state, and getting through that felt empowering.

Mile wasn’t much with his hips or his lips, but he was always good with his hands. He set them to work, stroking and groping his way over her upper body. THAT seemed to cut through her steely defenses, making her take a deep breath and shakily let it back out through parted lips. His smaller fingers ran over her shapely breasts and massaged their way past some of her tighter chest muscles. He stroked them over her tight abs and pubic hair, coating them in her sexual aroma before rubbing down her bulky arms. He found her hand at the end of it and gave it a fond little squeeze, even if hers dwarfed his own.

Emma was still humping him but she had shifted her angle for more of an upswing. She raised her upper body, clearly making herself easier for him to caress as she held herself steady. Her breathing grew heavier, more labored despite the tireless muscles presented to him. He watched them shiver as his cock brushed over particular spots, angling himself to keep pressing the right stimuli on her. He didn’t have any real experience as a lover, but he could recognize a pattern like a pro. She tensed up when he brushed her clit. Gasped when he kissed and suckes her nipples. Gasped softly when he rubbed a hand around her neck. He knew all about pressing the right buttons.

Mile shivered to feel her respond like a well-oiled machine. Her heart raced while staying steady, pounding through the skin against his palm or lips, and her long and hungry moans and growls were like a roaring engine. She rode him hard until the truck was bucking and creaking beneath the force of her thrusts, ramming Mile into her while he did his best to match her pace. It resulted in some wet, fleshy slapping around their hips as she locked eyes with him, watching him with an intense stare that seemed to melt its way into his soul. Like she wanted to consume and please that too while she was at it.

Mile felt like he’d let her if she’d tried.

Instead, his whole body shook as he finished inside her hammering pussy. Emma quickly grabbed him, holding him close as her hips pinned his to the truck with one more aggressive thrust. She clung to him in her muscular hug, burying him in sweat, breasts and muscle. He felt some short, wordless grunts in his ear as the engulfing muscles twitched, briefly vibrating as he felt a thicker substance coat his inserted erection. Mile’s own head was spinning too much to register she had orgasmed just after him until much later.

She still recovered quicker than he did. A few seconds of her twitching and she was back in ready mode, still hanging onto him. She ran a hand through his hair, giving off soft, not quite shushing whistling sounds in his ear.

“All clear. Easy, little Mile,” she told him gently.

He was overwhelmed, to be sure, but not afraid after what he’d just gone through. It was intense enough for him to want more, even knowing it would be impossible for his exhausted body now. He decided to accept her assurance anyway and collapse in her arms, tuning out to recover from his exhausting and rewarding efforts. The sweet words coming from someone so capable made them feel especially comforting.

Mile lost track of time in the protective blanket that was Emma’s body. Her body still felt solid and alert, but it was more relaxed than he’d seen her before. After an unclear amount of time, she finished resting and sat up. She sighed happily and started to redress. She put her shirt and panties on, then she started slinging guns back into place before she bothered with pants.

“We should probably get moving. Trouble should be over, yea?” Emma suggested.

Mile blinked back at her, slowly regaining his wits.

“I mean I have my room over the garage. You can sleep there if you want, but it’s a bit… cramped.”

Emma shook her head decisively.

“No. Can pack in the morning. We’ll want to get lots of rest and head out early when the hunters are still resting.”

Mile dissected the sentence for a moment. “We… head out?”

Emma nodded and pointed towards the wasteland in general.

“North. I’ve followed it for a while now on my deployment. It should go much easier with a heater traveling with me. And such a pretty little one too,” she giggled, tussling his hair again.

It occurred to Mile that he hadn’t gotten the clearest explanation of what was going on with the town’s bargain. That he had been committed to being the full-time mechanic and travel partner for the hardcore warrior woman of the wastes. He would have imagined feeling a lot more dread if somebody had told him a few days earlier. After meeting Emma and having their wild lovemaking in the back of the truck, he could only smile.

“Can’t wait,” he sighed, just before Emma tossed his pants to land neatly over his face.