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fleurdeplomb · 9 years ago

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Nothing At All (Joe Macmillan x Reader)

Summary: Joe doesn’t feel very deserving of her.

Warnings: Self deprecating, kind of angsty.

Word Count: 1,374

A/N: I started writing this by the end of Season 2, so it’s kind of AU now (but I didn’t get started on Season 3, so wouldn’t know). Idk what I was aiming for or if I’m happy with how it turned out, but I hope you guys like it. This is the first thing I post here on Tumblr and English is not my mother language, so I’m kind of uncertain? There may be some grammar mistakes. Feel free to tell me, tho.

It was not the first time she slept in his apartment. Many were the nights they spent wandering around San Francisco, visiting new places, meeting new people and ending up in his fancy penthouse. Way after midnight, all giggles and laughs and flushed cheeks, talking about everyone and everything and dancing to no music at all. They would always end up laying together somewhere. Sometimes he talked her business and projects to sleep, but most of the times he would end up being the one fighting the sleepiness just because Joe enjoyed hearing her speak about art, the sun and the trees and the stars and could do so for hours and hours on end.

She made him forget who he was and she made him remember it. She made him smile and wander about when was it that they had met again? Every time he stared at her shining eyes and her perpetually slightly disheveled hair, Joe felt like he had known her for ages and ages past. But then he couldn’t have, again. It had been at maximum seven months since he had moved to California. He would question how was it that they were so close for such a small amount of time. Then he would frown and stare down at her but the carefree look on her face would always make him smile instead.

When he had brought such questions up, she just waved them off like dust on one of her favorite old books piled up in her way too small apartment. She loved everyone and everything and she made Joe feel love too. Tough at what he couldn’t quite place.

Sometimes he would hear people talking ill of her. About how she didn’t and couldn’t and wouldn’t fit in because she loved too much, enjoyed life too much. And then some sort of wicked condescending anger would coil up in his stomach because they couldn’t get her. Sara – Sara – used to call him a force of nature and tell him how ahead of his time he was, and Joe used to believe her. But his ideas seemed old and boring next to hers, partly because she had passion over so many things at the same time, but mostly because she didn’t expect to gain anything from what she had to give to the world. And he cherished her for it.

Every time she came by his office to drag him to lunch, or made him watch some endless black and white French movie or invited him to bonfires with her equally light-hearted and intelligent friends, Joe felt his heart thump in his chest and he felt afraid. So many people in his life were once ‘the best this that had ever happened to him’ and he ended up giving them up or losing them and he wanted neither happening to her. He was afraid of acknowledging it for the solemn purpose that he knew if he said out loud how he couldn’t imagine his life without her anymore, she would just walk away.

He felt like if he didn’t hold on tight to her, the wind would snatch her away and if he held onto her with all his might, he would end up crushing her like he did with everyone else in his life. But then her bright happy eyes would smile at him and he could do nothing but force himself to shoo such thoughts away and try his very best to just keep her there. Right there.

That’s how Joe Macmillan found himself hanging dangerously and precariously between the safe land of a strong friendship and the cliff of something he didn’t really know what it was and therefore it scared the shit out of him.

He was violently tugged from his thoughts when he felt one finger poke his left cheek and it only took one sideway glance – one of those she hated so much – to confirm her pouting lips and furrowed brows. Her cute annoyed face amused him so much he decided to add to the sideway glance one of his trademark smirks, just to see her eyes glint with something between challenge and anger and her lips part to take in a deep breath. He held himself for exact six seconds before breaking in laughter.

“You didn’t listen to a thing I said, did you?” She asked while retreating from his body to take a better look at his face. He instantly missed her warmth wrapped around his left arm.

It must had been about an hour since they got to his apartment and fell to the grey carpet, by the sofa, both pairs of legs extended under the coffee table, drunk enough to be laughing at every little thing that seemed remotely funny. She then rested her head on his shoulder and seemed to have spent the past hour or so talking about everything and anything at the same time and Joe’s mind was left to wander.

“Of course I was.” He responded instantly and she raised her eyebrows. “No, sorry, I wasn’t.”

Anyone would have expected her to get even more annoyed at him – angry, even – and snap something offended right back at him, but Joe knew better than to assume such thing from her. She only shook her head, her locks dancing around her face, and returned to her previous position with her back against the couch and her arms wrapped around his.

“And may I ask, fine sir, what is it that’s keeping you from listening to what I have to say?”

He fought to keep his smile still, because he knew she would notice if it didn’t, even if she wasn’t staring right at him. He didn’t really want to tell her how there was a small possibility of him being in love with her. Even though every cell in his being begged him to always be sincere and never, ever lie to her, Joe didn’t want to admit something so strong and deep to himself or any other human being. At that moment he felt so over relationships, certain or uncertain ones.

But she shone so bright. Her every single movement looked like she was dancing to a song only she could hear. And she loved everybody in a way Joe couldn’t possibly imagine or imitate. She made loving look so simple, so uncomplicated, so natural. He knew he wasn’t able to love anyone that sincere way, not asking for anything in return. He was too Joe Macmillan for that. But the only thing he wished for when he saw her smiling to a stranger or crying her heart out over the children in Africa dying of hunger was to love her like that. At least her, because she deserved it.

But he turned out to be too selfish for that, because every time he thought about her, his heart was filled with such joy and want for her to be his and his only. He wanted all the love she had to give and do the same for her. He didn’t know if he deserved it, only that he wanted it. He knew himself all too well to realize he couldn’t ask that of heBut then she smiled, and laughed and spun around. She gave and she received, she frowned when playing Scrabble with him, looking intently at the board. When he showed up at her place and found almost every inch of her exposed skin covered in various colors of paint and she swore she knew how to paint and said he didn’t understand her technique. She was so unique in so many ways. She was a pearl, so rare and beautiful and so absolutely not his.

The smile he was holding in place turned into a sad one and as expected, she noticed it. She shifted in his arm, turning to look at him and he only stared at her the way he wanted to for the rest of his life and beyond. She frowned and he raised his eyebrows, in a weak attempt to mask his sadness.

I love you. I do. With all my heart. More than I should and more than I deserve to.

“Nothing.” He smiled. “Nothing at all.”

#joe macmillan #halt and catch fire #joe x reader #reader insert #joe macmillan x reader #hacf #oneshot

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