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[lovehappyloki]

I AM YEARNING SO HARD RIGHT NOW

morning run

TLOU AU - joel miller x fem!reader

[18+] | wc: ~ 2.8k summary: Joel overhears your argument with the neighbor. masterlist | AO3

warnings: dubious consent (i'm so serious, don't read if it makes you uncomfortable), NSFW, pre/no outbreak, some proofreading, Joel is a tall and very strong man, older man/college-aged reader, Joel lives in a wealthy neighborhood with an HOA (homeowners association), no use of y/n or too many details on reader's appearance, somewhat public setting, breeding kink (kinda), fingering, squirting, unprotected sex, creampie

“These HOA people are vultures,” your sister mutters. 

You look up from your laptop and watch out the window as the committee leaves on their golf cart, most likely on their way to torment another house on the block. 

“Is it that big of a deal that my flower garden has the wrong color of roses?” 

“There’s a wrong color of roses?” you ask in confusion. 

“Yes! The president of the HOA, Susan,” you sister spits out in disdain, “only wants light pink roses on this block.” 

She slams the written warning on the entrance table and storms off into the kitchen. “I’m not sure how her husband stands her. I guess that’s why he spends so much time at the golf course.” 

You follow her into the kitchen, partly because you want a break from your assignments and also because you want to hear more gossip about her new neighborhood. 

“You know she made me pay a fine because my car was left on the driveway after hours? It’s my driveway!” 

You raise your eyebrows in surprise. “Suddenly, I’m not so jealous about your new place.” 

She throws a sponge at your head. 

“Why don’t you just say no?” you ask as you narrowly dodge the sponge. 

“I’ve tried so hard to be nice to everyone here. But all Susan does is turn people against me. Everytime I walk outside to grab the mail or go to work, people give me dirty looks!” 

You don’t like seeing your sister like this. It’s her home. One she worked very hard to buy in this wealthy neighborhood. No one has the right to make her feel like an outsider. So you develop a plan. 

You find out Susan’s schedule fairly easily. Every morning at 8 a.m. she walks her husband to his car and kisses him goodbye before he leaves for work. She then walks back inside for her notebook and pen to then walk around the neighborhood. 

She stops at every house to ensure it fits her standards and if they don’t, she leaves a written warning on the front door. During the weekends, she and her gang of friends drive around on a golf cart to give out even more citations. 

So at exactly 7:55 A.M., you make your way to her house. You’re careful in the outfit you chose this morning: a tight sports bra and running shorts. She, and most importantly her husband, are definitely going to notice you. 

You slow down as you round the corner, already seeing her husband place his briefcase in the backseat of his beamer. She walks right behind him with a lunch pail and kisses his cheek. You shout out a good morning and watch as they both turn to look at you. 

Her right eye immediately begins to twitch and she plasters on a fake smile. His eyes do an appreciative sweep of your body as he walks to the end of the driveway. 

“Good morning! Susan,” he says turning to his wife, “why didn’t you tell me we had a new neighbor?” 

He grasps your hand and gives it a firm shake. His thumb caresses the back of your hand as he slowly lets go. Susan finally reaches the both of you and grabs onto her husband's arm to pull him away. 

You give him a sweet smile, pushing your chest out in a calculated move so he has no choice but to look.   

“I’m just visiting my sister over on Ocean Avenue. The neighborhood is so nice I thought it would be perfect for my morning runs.” 

“I agree, you can run anytime you want–” 

“Sweetie,” Susan interrupts in a high-pitched voice, “you’re going to be late.”

He asks for your name and what you’re studying in college, then shakes your hand again while Susan seethes next to the driver’s side door. He drives off, promising a tour of the country club later that day. You're left standing alone with Susan, just as you wanted.  

“Look here, young lady,” she snarls, “this is a neighborhood full of families. Not some frat house. We do not allow blatant displays of–of–well this ,” she says as she motions to your workout attire. “I am going to write your sister a citation for this disrespectful action.” 

“Well, that does make me sad. I guess I’ll have to ask your husband to cheer me up later when I visit him.” 

Her face turns beet red and you wonder briefly if steam will come out of her ears. “What did you just say?” 

“Your husband was so nice in inviting me to the country club, how can I say no? I really need to work on my swing–” 

“You stay away from my husband,” she whispers, pointing a finger at your face, “or I will find a way to run your sister out of this neighborhood.” 

“Leave my sister alone,” you say as you walk right up to her and push her finger out of the way, “or I’ll fuck your husband.”

Susan gasps, dramatically placing a hand over her mouth. 

“I’ll make sure he finishes inside me, too. Maybe give him a baby.” 

With that, you continue your jog down the sidewalk. You don’t notice Susan’s neighbor, who stands by his gate and watches you run off.  

- 

You continue your jogs for the next few days, waving at Susan and her husband every morning. You and Susan come to an unspoken agreement: she stops bothering your sister and you make sure to stay away from her husband. 

Just as you jog past her house, you notice an envelope on the sidewalk. It’s next to a brick mailbox that has the name Miller written on a plaque. You check the envelope and sure enough you see it's made out to a Joel Miller . 

You walk up to the iron gate that matches the address and call out a hello , but no one answers. There’s red roses that wrap around the expansive gate which look and smell beautiful, but block your view inside. You test the handle of the gate and luckily it opens. 

“They must’ve dropped it when getting the mail this morning,” you mumble to yourself. 

“Mornin’, doll,” a gruff voice calls out to your right. 

You jump slightly and turn to look, finding a man crouched by the gate. He stands to his full height and you have to tilt your head up just so you can keep eye contact. 

“Good morning,” you whisper. 

He’s older and handsome, much more attractive than the college boys you're used to. He places his gardening shears down and takes off his gloves to shake your hand. You do your best to control the shiver that courses through your body at the touch of his warm skin. 

“Joel,” he states, swiping his other hand through his salt and pepper hair. 

You open your mouth to say your name, but he beats you to it. 

“How did you know–” 

“I heard your conversation with Susan the other day,” Joel interrupts with a slight smirk. 

His hand tightens for a moment until he lets go, dragging his fingers over your palm. You feel embarrassment wash over your body and you quickly hand him the envelope. 

“Right–um, how much of the conversation did you hear?” 

He lets out a laugh and drops the envelope into a basket that you’ve now just noticed. It’s full of the same red roses that cover his gate. 

“Just the part where you threatened to fuck her husband if she didn’t leave your sister alone,” he says, placing his hands on his hips. “Effective threat, it seems.” 

His eyes sweep over your body and you become hyper aware of the workout clothes you're wearing. Once again, a sports bra and running shorts. 

“She’s backed down,” you say after a few moments, crossing your arms to cover your pebbling nipples. 

“So,” he continues while walking closer, “you offerin’ to fuck every man on the block or just her’s?” 

His words send a shock wave through your body, landing right between your legs. You ignore the pulsing in your cunt and instead lift your hand to slap him across the face. 

As if he’s able to sense what you’re about to do, he catches your wrist before your hand makes contact with his face. 

“How dare you–”  

“Don’t act so innocent now,” he growls, pushing your body against the gate. “You told Susan you were going to let ‘em fill you up. Put a baby inside of you.” 

Your back makes contact with the gate, luckily in a place where there’s no thorns. You try to push out of his hold, confused at how much you enjoy being manhandled by an older man you just met. 

“Let me go or I’ll scream–”

“Joel?” a familiar high-pitched voice interrupts you. “Are you there?” 

Your body stills at the sound of Susan’s voice. Theoretically, you could use this opportunity to scream for help. Sure, you’d have to face Susan again, but you’d be able to escape. 

Except, Joel manages to pick up your lower body and push his jean-covered cock right against your cunt. You wrap your legs around his waist to not fall and place one hand on the iron gate behind you.

He rocks against you, moving a finger in front of his mouth, motioning you to stay quiet. Your mouth drops open in surprise as he grabs your hips and begins to grind you down on him. 

“Yes, ma’am. What can I help you with?” Joel responds. 

She tries to open the gate and you press your body back so she won’t see you. You’re not quite sure why you’re trying to hide. 

“Joel, honey. Your gate is locked,” she says. “Come unlock it and let me in.”  

Through your daze, you faintly register her tone. Did she just call him honey?  

“Sorry, Susan. It does that sometimes. I’ve got my hands full at the moment,” Joel calls out, giving you another hard thrust. 

You bite your lip to stop the moan that threatens to escape. 

“That’s okay, I just wanted to stop by and warn you about the young lady that’s staying with her sister over on Ocean Avenue.” 

Joel raises his eyebrow and stops his movements, dropping your thighs from his hold. You're shocked again, feeling dejected that he’s stopping.  

He quickly spins you around and bends you over, pushing a hand between your thighs. You grab onto the iron gate once more and slap a hand over your mouth as he begins to rub a big hand over your thin shorts. 

“Warn me?” he calls out. “What’s this young lady been up to?” 

“Well, that–that– tramp ,” Susan spits out, “is acting in ways that she shouldn’t. I know you’re a hardworking man who has done so much for our community and the last thing I want is this girl making you uncomfortable.” 

Joel yanks down your shorts and plunges a thick finger inside of you. You’d roll your eyes at her words but instead they're rolling into the back of your skull. He thrusts his finger a few times and calls out a is that right to Susan. 

Joel adds another finger and you almost fall at the stretch. If those are just his fingers, you wonder how big his cock is. He uses his other hand to keep you steady and continues to fuck you with his thick fingers while talking to her. 

“I just,” Susan continues, “I don’t know what to do. Maybe we can find a way for the sister to leave? If we all band together?” 

Joel removes his hand from between your legs and places it on your back to keep you in place. This time you actually struggle in his hold, wanting to face Susan and give her a piece of your mind. 

“Now, Susan,” Joel admonishes, “don’t go blaming the sister for the younger one’s actions. There’s no need to be spiteful to our new neighbor. There’s more than enough room in this neighborhood for everyone.” 

You stop, surprised that Joel is standing up for your sister. He presses against you and you feel the roughness of his jeans on your bare skin. He brings you in close, gently rubbing his crotch on your slick cunt. 

“Oh, you’re so right, Joel. I just get so caught up in the politics of the HOA. I want this community to be perfect.” 

A wet glob of spit lands on your asshole and you clench in surprise. Joel quietly unzips his jeans and takes out his cock. 

“Fucking perfect little asshole,” he whispers, pushing the tip of his cock right on your hole. “Not today, baby. Today is that juicy, little cunt.” 

You arch your back and barely manage to stifle a whimper when he teases the tip of your entrance. 

“What was that, Joel?” Susan calls out. 

“That the community is already perfect, Susan.” 

His voice sounds annoyed at this point. 

“You think so, Joel? Thank you, I–” 

Joel uses that moment to plunge inside of you, bumping your g-spot and reaching so deep that you choke on your own spit. 

“I’m getting a call, Susan,” Joel says through gritted teeth, “I’ll speak to you later.” 

Susan gives a sad goodbye while you bite on your hand to stop your moans. Joel is big, much bigger than any of the boys in your past. Your pussy spasms and flutters over his length and you breathe in deep to adjust to the size. 

“S’tight,” he mutters, ”keep quiet f’me, doll. Too many people on the sidewalk at this time of mornin’.” 

You hum in response, wanting him to fuck you, to stretch you and make you come on his cock. He starts a rhythm, keeping one hand on your waist so you match his thrusts and the other slips between your thighs. 

Sticky wetness drips down your inner thighs and he swipes two fingers through the mess to bring them up to your clit. Joel pistons faster, rubbing harsh circles on your clit that have you accidently whimpering in pleasure. 

“I know, baby,” he coos, “feels so good, doesn’t it?” 

“ Y–yes ,” you whisper. 

“Showing off that pretty body when runnin’ around the neighborhood,” he groans. “Picking fights and trespassing. Just needed someone to fuck some manners into you.” 

Your fingers curl into the iron gate and your back arches even deeper. He speeds up, becomes harsher in his thrusts once he notices your pussy become softer, wetter, gripping his cock with each plunge. 

“Little cunt can barely take my cock,” Joel groans, “fuck, doll. You’re choking me.”

You wish you could bite his neck, leave red hickeys on his tan skin that you imagine tastes like salt and roses and spearmint. Your head spins from lust and you feel the coil in your belly, ready to burst at any moment. 

You hear voices, people walking past on the sidewalk for some early morning exercise. Joel lands a quick slap, slap to your clit and your cumming, clenching hard on his length while you fall apart. 

Your vision blurs and you faintly hear him say there you go, make a fuckin’ mess on me . Wetness spills from your cunt, only making it easier for Joel. You bite hard on your bottom lip to stop the whimpers and your fingers curl into the iron gate. 

“Gonna cum inside this pussy, put a baby in there,” he whispers. 

“ Please, Joel,” you whine. 

He brings your back to his chest, molds his lips to your neck and bites down, moving you like his personal fleshlight. Joel groans in your shoulder and then you feel it, hot pulses of cum, filling you up. 

You hold onto his arm that's branded across your chest and squeeze down on him, milking every drop from his body, wanting it to mark you deep inside.

Joel's body trembles from the exertion and he stumbles as he finishes, turning his body to lean on the iron gate with you still attached to his cock.

He keeps you pressed to him for a few moments, keeping his nose pressed to your neck as he breathes deep. Your own breathing regulates and you become aware of the sensitivity all over your body.

Joel stands straight and gently pulls out. He reaches into his jeans pocket to reach for a clean handkerchief that he uses to clean up between your thighs.

"Same time tomorrow?" he asks.

You manage a rough fuck off and lightly push at his shoulders. He laughs and helps you fix your clothes. He swipes your phone that fell on the ground the moment he pushed you to the gate, having you unlock it so he can put in his phone number.

You make it back home a few minutes later, sore but for the most part, satiated . Your sister gets home hours later, once you've relaxed in her ginormous bathtub and washed away the evidence of your morning run.

"Are you seeing someone?" she teases as she walks in.

"What? No, why?"

"Someone left a giant bouquet of red roses on the porch." 

Sure enough, you find a bouquet of familiar red roses on the front doorstep. You don’t need a notecard to know who they're from. 

[lovehappyloki]

So Hear My Voice Remind You Not to Bleed

Pairing: Daryl Dixon and Fem!Reader (pre-relationship)

Setting: Alexandria

Warnings: Typical TWD violence and gore; Injuries; angst

Summary: You're injured and benched, unable to go with Daryl on runs. When someone else is brought in to take your place, it does not go well.

A/N: for @darylsgarden. I had mixed feelings about this and had a couple of wonderful friends ( thank you @shadowcitrine and @enlightndone!🩵) read it and help me out. I hope it's at least close to what you were looking for 🩵

“It doesn’t even hurt.”

“Uh huh.” Daryl stopped preparing his bag and stepped across the living room, beckoning you with a wave of his hand. “Then walk over here without limpin’.” You narrowed your eyes and pushed yourself up off the couch, setting your jaw. 

You didn’t even make it a single step before falling forward with a choked off shout. 

And, of course, he was there to catch you as you crumbled. 

“Thought so.” He said with a hint of a smirk, depositing you back onto the couch. “Doc said ya gotta stay off’a it a couple’a weeks an’ that’s whatcha gonna do.” You whined and flopped around like a fish out of water. “Stop.” He chuckled, grabbing his bag. “Got paired up with someone who just got here ‘til ya get better.”

You stilled, brow creasing. “You got a new partner. Who said? Rick?”

Daryl continued to shoulder his bag, then his crossbow. “Deanna.” Why would Deanna step in? “Said she needs to see what the woman can do to help. She’s s’posed to be good with a bow but I dunno.”

Woman? Bow? You already didn’t like this suggestion. “Oh.” It was all you could think of to say. You didn’t want him to go before when you thought he was going out alone. Now that you knew he was going with a strange woman, you really didn’t want him to go. But why? Daryl was your best friend. You didn’t have any say in his comings and goings, and why should you? 

A knock on your door startled you out of your thoughts, Daryl watching you with a flat expression. 

“Guess that’s her. See ya.” He started toward the door, and you found yourself leaning nearly off the couch to see who was on the other side. When he opened it, your breath caught. 

Her long blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, a bow and quiver somehow anchored to her back. She was almost as tall as Daryl, lean and curvy in all the right places. Shit. She was gorgeous. 

“Uh, bye.” You muttered. Daryl didn’t even regard you. Maybe he hadn’t heard. Or maybe he was too busy ogling the beautiful woman in front of him. You couldn’t tell from his position. What you could see was the woman giving your run partner an appreciative once over before smiling. 

“Hey! You must be Daryl. I’m Angie.” She held out a hand, which the archer ignored with a grunt, pushing his way past her to walk to his bike. He was taking the bike? You sighed. You weren’t supposed to care. Daryl was your friend. Not your—he was your friend. 

And you just kept telling yourself that. 

Even a week later, when you were able to be up and about but not without difficulty, things felt—different. Daryl was always gone with Angie, like he was at that very moment. Now that you could actually move, you went about slowly cleaning up the house the two of you shared and started making something for dinner. You could leave Daryl’s in the oven for him to eat later. 

You had just finished your own when you heard the roar of the bike, saw the headlights illuminate the walls inside the dining room window, sending the shadows scattering. You found yourself excited to see him, to show him you were mobile. Hobbling over to the window, you felt silly for the ridiculous smile splitting your face but you didn’t feel that way for long. 

Angie was standing in front of Daryl at the bike, her bow in her hand at her side. He had already unlatched his crossbow from the back of the bike and had it across his back. She was smiling brightly with her perfect teeth and small creases next to her bright blue eyes, looking every bit like a model in the middle of the apocalypse. And Daryl—his lips were turned up on one side, a very Daryl smile that he gave when he was relaxed and in a good mood. 

You had known the man since the quarry and it had taken months to earn that smile. Angie was getting it in less than a week? 

You should have turned away. Spying on them wasn’t right. Daryl wouldn’t be pleased if he caught you, no matter what he was doing. He never liked feeling as though he was being watched too closely. 

You should have turned away but you didn’t. 

And then you wished you had. 

Angie reached out as she spoke, her words muffled and distorted through the glass. Her long, slender fingers wrapped around his bicep and squeezed, her thumb stroking the skin there. Daryl glanced at her hand but that was it. He didn’t ask her to remove it, didn’t step back to increase the distance between them. 

You didn’t want to admit that you were jealous. Even as your mind and heart both screamed only I can touch him that way—for two entirely different reasons—you refused to grant it a name. 

You couldn’t take anymore, limped away from the window and climbed the stairs with more than a few whimpers of pain. Daryl would usually help you to your room at night and back down in the mornings. But you didn’t want to see him, felt an anger toward him that was just as confusing as it was unjustified. You felt the same anger toward Angie, a woman you knew nothing about beyond the things Daryl would tell you. 

And he didn’t tell you a lot. 

You still should have been happy that Daryl both wanted to share something with you and that he had found someone that seemed to make him happy enough to gab about them, limited as it was. 

But you weren’t happy. 

It hurt. You hurt. Your heart felt constricted, wrapped in a cord that would tighten with each breath, faster and faster with each moment you spent thinking of him just outside, smiling at her. 

She didn’t deserve his smile. 

She hadn’t been there when Merle was left behind in Atlanta. She hadn’t been there when Sophia went missing and Daryl ran himself ragged trying to find her. She wasn’t the one to care for him after he’d fallen and was shot. She hadn’t been the one whose arms he’d finally chosen to let hold him when Merle died. She hadn’t run to him and felt his relief at being reunited after Terminus. She hadn’t walked along with him and coaxed him to drink just enough water to stay alive on the road. And she damn sure hadn’t stood up and told everyone he needed his own place in Alexandria so he wouldn’t feel more trapped than the gates already made him feel. 

That had been you. Always you. 

The door opened and closed downstairs, your name being called. You could hear the concern, knew it would be there at not finding you downstairs. You shimmied out of your jeans and climbed into bed—your back to the door—and just listened. Daryl methodically looked around, his voice carrying from different rooms throughout his search. Your room would be last because it would be the last place he’d think of you being. Not without his help. 

The oven door opened and closed, too quickly for him to grab the food. He was checking to make sure you had been there. Likely spotted your used dishes as well. You barely heard his boots on the stairs. Daryl, for all his height and muscle, moved like a spirit. Still, you knew his gait, what to listen for that signaled his approach. 

You drew up the comforter just as the soft knock came and a quiet call of Y/N? that you decided to not answer. The light from downstairs was pale in your room, starting on the floor and soon bathing your bed and walls. He didn’t say anything, simply closed the door and descended the stairs just as quietly. 

And somehow, that’s what made the tears come. 

There were two days of tense air in the house before Daryl’s next run. Your ankle had improved but you were still unable to put weight on it. Denise advised you to stay off of it but you had waved her off with a yeah yeah, absolutely zero intention of heeding her advice. 

When you arrived at your home, Angie was already leaning against Daryl’s bike like she belonged there. The sight infuriated you. Your attempt to pass her by was quickly foiled by the woman herself, her hand coming up to tap a finger on your shoulder. 

“It’s Y/N, right?” 

Sighing, you turned, sitting your bad foot up on the toe of your boot to keep the pressure from taking you down. “Yeah.”

“I’ve been dying to meet you. Daryl’s told me a lot about you.”

“Funny. He hasn’t told me much about you.” She didn’t seem fazed. I’m glad he’s so chatty with you. “Nice to meet you.” You said in place of your inner monologue. “Excuse me.” You started to turn when she stood straight. 

“Hey, uh—I was just wondering. Are you and him a thing?” She flipped her hair—braided today—over her shoulder. 

“A thing?” You knew exactly what she meant, but feigned ignorance. It was not a conversation you wanted to have. 

“Yeah, you know—a couple.”

Closing your eyes, you inhaled through your nose and exhaled through your mouth. “No. Why?” You didn’t even realize you had clenched your fists until her eyes flitted down and back up, forcing you to relax lest she tell Daryl you were being hostile toward her. 

“No reason. He’s a great guy, isn’t he? Handsome too.” Now she was just trying to push your buttons. 

“Yeah. The best, actually.” Don’t cry, don’t cry, do not cry. “Don’t hurt him.” You said flatly—a clear warning—and limped your way up the steps and inside. 

“Where ya been?” Daryl’s voice greeted you before the door had even closed. He was on the couch, lacing up his boots. You regarded him silently for a moment, allowing Angie’s words to sink in before setting your jaw and squaring your shoulders.

“I’m going with you today.”

His hands stilled, frozen for a moment before he sat back a little and placed his forearms over his knees. Piercing blue eyes scanned over you before settling on your bum ankle, the urge to place your foot flat on the floor too intense to disregard. “Nah. Y’ain’t ready.”

“You don’t get to make that call.” You snapped, more harshly than you had intended, but it got your point across. His eyes narrowed, his own jaw tightening.

“Maybe not, but I do get to say who goes with me an’ it ain’t you. Not today.” The archer went back to his boots while you gaped at him, lacing the right one up before getting to his feet and grabbing his things.

“Why not? Because suddenly Angie is better than me?”

Daryl scoffed. “Stop.” He went for the door, opening it a couple of inches before your palm landed flat against the surface and shoved it closed. “The hell ya doin’?!”

“I won't stop.” You mocked, drawing your lips back in a snarl. “You’ve been up her ass since you met her. Hardly ever here and when you are, you don’t even talk to me.” 

“The fuck you on ‘bout? We go on runs, get the things people need. Ya forget food an’ meds ain’t just down at the convenience store anymore, Y/N?” He pulled the door open again, and again, you pushed it shut. “Let go.” His voice had dropped into that serious tone, the warning before the anger.

“No. I’m going with you. I’ll let you open this door when you agree to that.” You stood straighter, tucking your lip between your teeth to stave off the whimper when you dared place your weight on the healing ankle. Of course, Daryl and his hyper awareness caught it.

“Guess it ain’t openin’ cause y’ain’t goin’.” He tried once more with the same result, this time letting his burdens fall to the floor in order to face you, nearly nose to nose. “Alright, ya got my attention.” He growled. It had been so long since he had spoken to you with such enmity, you couldn’t suppress a jarring flinch. 

Swallowing hard, you attempted to control the wobbling of your bottom lip. “Please, take me with you.”

“How many times I gotta say no?! Y’need to take your ass to that couch an’ let your damn ankle heal ‘fore I even think ‘bout lettin’ back out there.”

“Daryl.”

“No, Y/N.”

With a deep breath through your nose, you stepped backward, freeing up the space. “Fine. But maybe you should stay with Carol for a while when you get back.” Giving him your back, you didn’t bother to hide the limp. 

“Y’don’t mean that.” 

You needed to force yourself to keep walking when you heard the dejection in his tone. “I do.” You didn’t. “I don’t need you here.” You did. 

“Y/N—”

“Angie’s waiting.” You detoured at the last second and veered into the kitchen, seeing him from the corner of your eye, his hand lowering as if he had been reaching for you. Your heart was beating in your ankle by the time you were leaning heavily against the countertop. 

When the door closed, the floodgates opened. 

Two days. Daryl and Angie had been gone for two days. It wasn’t anything new to be held up on a run, but there were always close calls involved and you couldn’t imagine Daryl battling his way through herds or humans without you at his side. The two of you predicted one another’s movements, flowing and fighting together like a well oiled machine, always ending up victorious and on your way home. 

Did he have that with her now? 

“You know it’s not like that with the two of them, right?” Carol looked up from beneath her lashes as she chopped up the herbs and available vegetables for the stew. You knew it was more of an admonishing statement and not entirely a question.

“I don’t know that and neither do you.” You replied bitterly before tipping your glass to your lips. Carol smiled, that suspicious grin like she knew something you didn’t. 

“I know Daryl.” She picked up the cutting board and used the knife to scrape the occupying ingredients into the pot. “Why does it bother you so much anyway?”

“He’s my best friend.” The answer came out a little too quickly.

The other woman chuckled. “Is that all?” 

“Yes.” You countered almost gibingly. She only spared you an arched brow before turning to place the pot on the stove. You decided to ignore the intensely foreign fluttering in your chest and began spinning the glass between your palms. “Do you think they’re okay?”

“I—”

The knock at the door was sudden and urgent, repeating after only a few heartbeats. Your questioning expression met Carol’s. Spinning on the island stool, you eyed the door until it was opened. Carol’s hand on the edge tightened until her knuckles were white, but you could only make out quiet words and someone’s heavy breaths. Hobbling from your perch, you grabbed the door and pulled it back further. 

Angie was a mess, covered in dirt and blood and walker innards. “Y/N.” She panted. 

Your heart dropped into the pit of your stomach. “Where’s Daryl?” You didn’t remember ducking beneath Carol’s arm or pushing past Angie. The pain in your ankle became a mere afterthought as you walked backwards toward the steps, awaiting information. 

“He’s in the infirmary. He’s asking for you.” 

You didn’t wait, running with only the slightest hitch in your step. Daryl was more important than any amount of discomfort. Your mind was running rampant with scenarios. What if he was bit? Dying? What if he died before you made it to him? The last thing you had said to him was that you didn’t need him. 

And it was such a lie. 

“Y/N, wait!”

You tried to ignore her, the infirmary within sight. You needed to get to him so that you could breathe again. 

When her hand caught your shoulder, you reacted almost violently, throwing her away from you and almost to the dirt. “What?!” You bellowed. “What could possibly be more important than Daryl right now?!”

“Lana is!” She answered quickly. “My Lana!” Breathing heavily, you shook your head and threw out your arms, a silent but gestured question. “My wife.”

You felt like the wind had been punched right out of you. “Your—your wife?” Damn you, Carol!

“Yeah. I think there’s been a huge misunderstanding.”

“You’re telling me.” You muttered, looking toward the infirmary with an expression of remorseful longing. 

“I asked those questions because—because that man is so obviously head over heels for you that it’s absurd he hasn’t made a move. I thought maybe—maybe I could push things along.” She rubbed at the back of her neck, her eyes brightening at something she saw just over your other shoulder. When you turned, a dark haired woman was making her way over, a toddler on her hip. “I just—he’s not much of a talker—until I mention you.” Another glance at the other woman. “I’m sorry.”

When she started to leave, you reached out a hand, the new information still pinballing around in your head. “I’m sorry.” You had treated her—thought of her—so unfairly, and still, she smiled at you. 

“Go on. He’s waiting for you.” And then she was walking away to kiss her wife before converting to a motherly gentleness, her lips pressed to her son’s forehead.

God, you were an asshole.

To her. 

To Daryl. 

Your ankle only received a moment to remind you it was still weak before you continued your journey to the infirmary. 

“M’fine! Quit proddin’ at me!”

The sound of his voice gave your heart permission to beat again. You stood at the door, listening to him argue with Denise until the woman finally gave up with a huff and a clang of metal. Opening the screen door, you limped inside with a hiss, the adrenaline draining out of you, no longer blanketing the pain. You would definitely be set back a week or so after this. 

Daryl was on the exam table, filthy and cut up, shirt open and left foot propped up on a pillow. You could have laughed at the irony if you weren’t so relieved at seeing him there and breathing and whole. Alive. 

His ranting came to an abrupt halt when he noticed you in the doorway, eyes softening. His entire body seemed to visibly relax with an audible exhale. 

“Y/N.”

You didn’t even try to control your quivering lip this time and rushed to cross the distance even with Denise scolding you in the background. 

Your arms wound around his neck and his around your back. “Daryl. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it—I didn’t—”

“S’fine. Know ya didn’t.” He whispered against your temple. Denise cleared her throat behind you and the weight of one of Daryl’s hands disappeared before returning with renewed pressure. The sound of the door opening and closing signaled that he had—in one way or another—told Denise to get lost. Neither of you spoke until you pressed your face into the side of his neck and began to sob. “Hey, m’okay. Just fell on my ass.”

“How?” You sniffled. 

“Window was in my way.”

You laughed wetly, his shoulders bouncing with a breathy chuckle of his own. 

“Idiot.” You chided, pulling away to wipe at your eyes. He watched you gather your bearings, blue eyes dancing between yours. “Are you really okay?”

“Yeah.” His hand was so gentle against your face, thumb sweeping over your cheek to wipe away the tears. “Need to talk to ya ‘bout Angie.”

You shook your head but placed your hand upon his so that he didn’t dare move it. “She beat you to it. I’m so sorry. I was being a jealous asshole.” He tilted his head and squinted. 

“Jealous cause I was spendin’ so much time ‘round her?” It was like he knew the answer that you hadn’t quite accepted as truth yourself. 

“Among other things.” You rubbed your lips together and ducked your head. Daryl hummed in question, his hand sliding down to your jaw, thumb absently stroking across your bottom lip. Your voice instantly decided to become lost in your throat, your mouth opening when his hand fell away. “Daryl, I—” You almost bolted, felt the insane urge to run begin to vibrate throughout your legs from a nervous twitch that started in your stomach and spread throughout your chest.

“That man is so obviously head over heels for you—”

Your lips were on his before your brain had even fully given the order for you to move, likely startling you just as much as it had him—if the sharp inhale through his nose was anything to go by. So, you stayed there, frozen with your mouth against his, neither of you moving until it was so awkward that you thought more than once of how great it would be for the earth to open up and swallow you. Humiliation coloring your cheeks, you began to pull away—and then his mouth moved over yours, his warm palm coming to rest on the side of your neck. Brilliant as you were, you pulled back in shock, wide eyes blinking at him. Cerulean pools were shimmering with horror and shame.

“That bad, huh?” He asked, dropping his hand and picking at a patch of dry skin on his palm. His eyes lowered to follow the movement.

“No!” You blurted. Daryl actually flinched and reeled back. “No, no. It wasn’t—there’s no way it could be—ah, fuck it.” Your hands cupped either side of his face, pulling him to meet you in the middle. There was no hesitance on either side, mouths moving, tongues dancing, a delicate exploration of new territory, both literally and figuratively. His hands settled on your ribs, fingers flexing, trying to pull you closer when there was already so little space between you. 

When you parted, it wasn’t from a lack of oxygen, but from Daryl attempting to alter the angle, forgetting that you were no longer alone in the land of bum ankles.

“Ow, ow, ow!”

You pulled away and jumped back, hands in the air to ensure he knew that you were no longer touching him—as if he weren’t already missing it. “What? What happened?”

“Ankle.” He hissed, gingerly placing his foot back on the pillow. Once the pain had ebbed, he chuckled and beckoned you back over with a wave. “Looks like we’ll both be trapped at home, sunshine.”

“There are worse things.” You brushed a strand of hair away from his face. “We have to talk about this.” You knew you sounded scared, and you were. Everything had just changed in the blink of an eye, the man you knew as your best friend had just suddenly become more, and it was terrifyingly exciting.

“Yeah, I know. Couch ain’t big enough for both’a our lame asses.”

You giggled and shook your head. “Guess it’s off to Carol’s extra bedroom.” When he arched a dark brow, you etched the most serious expression you could summon onto your face. “Strictly for logical reasoning, Mr. Dixon. We can’t climb stairs. She has one bedroom on the first floor. Lecher.” 

“First time I been called that.” He gave you that smile, the one that was so special, and seeing it then, you realized that he hadn’t given Angie that smile at all. It was yours and yours alone.

And you’d need to thank the gorgeous woman with the bow.

[lovehappyloki]

thinking about husband!joel and his wife, and their many kids—i’m talking four or five or six. and they haven’t had a night to themselves in so long. until the opportunity finally arises, and being the dutiful husband he is, joel would take advantage of making his hard working mama feel so good, over and over again.

he would worship every inch of her body, especially her belly. murmuring into her skin how beautiful she is, and how amazing she is for growing this family, for giving him all his beloved babies.

and when he’s buried deep inside of her for what feels like the first time all over again, he can’t even stop himself from wanting to fill her up. pump her full of his seed for the fifth, or sixth, or seventh time, grumbling on and on about “gimme another one, honey. just one more.”

[lovehappyloki]

The Importance Of Secret Keeping | Daryl Dixon x Fem! Reader

Summary: When Rick brought in the former Woodbury residents, Daryl tried to stay away from them. However, a little girl had made him her unofficial best friend, and she revealed some pretty interesting things to him about you.

Genre: Fluff.

Era: Prison, pre season 4.

Warnings: Swearing.

Word count: 1.3k.

A/n: This isn't the best because I couldn't really focus while writing this, but I wanted to get this done. I hope you like this nonetheless!

“Daryl, are you a tree?” Hazel asked innocently, skipping alongside the archer who had just returned from his run.

Daryl raised his eyebrows in surprise at the six year old's question. He sent a nod in Rick's direction, before extending his hand to the little girl to help her bound up the stairs that lead to the cell blocks.

“No, I ain't a tree,” Daryl replied to Hazel's question, pushing open the door that lead into the cell blocks.

“I didn't think so,” Hazel responded instantly, using her hand that held Daryl's to swing their arms in a childlike manner.

Daryl's lips twitched up into a small smile at the girl's antics, allowing her to swing his arm as they walked. “Then why'd ya ask, kiddo?”

“Because Mama said you have arms like tree trunks,” Hazel replied, before giggling and shaking her head. “Silly Mama. She thinks you're a tree. You should tell her you're not.”

Daryl's eyes widened in shock at Hazel's confession. He stopped in his tracks and withdrew his hand from the small girl's grip, making her turn around and look at Daryl in confusion.

“Daryl?”

“Yer mama really said tha'?” the archer questioned in surprise.

“Yeah! Mama says a lot of things about you. She talks about you with Michonne all the time,” Hazel happily told him. “Her thinking you're a tree is silly, though.”

Daryl hummed in acknowledgement, willing the blush spreading across his face to go away. He started walking again and Hazel bounded next to him. “Wha' else does yer mama say 'bout me?”

“She says you have a cute butt,” Hazel began, before making an over exaggerated disgusted face. “Butts are gross.”

“Yeah, butts are gross,” Daryl chuckled, leading the six year old into the cellblock and up into his own cell. “Dun' know why yer mama would think mine s'cute.” He allowed Hazel to rush into his cell, her attention instantly going to the boardgame they had been playing the day before.

“Are you going to be my new daddy, Daryl?” Hazel asked suddenly, eliciting a confused scoff from the man.

“Why ya askin' tha'?” he inquired, sitting down on his bed. He toed off his boots and grabbed some jerky he had made, before flopping down onto his back, the thin mattress offering some form of relief for the tired archer. He began chewing on the dry meat, turning his attention back to the young girl.

Hazel climbed onto the bed, making herself comfortable by his feet. “Because Mama said that you have daddy vibes.”

That caught Daryl off guard. He choked on the jerky, his airway cut off. He sat up and hit himself against his chest, soon successfully ridding his airway of the thing that almost killed him. He looked at Hazel in shock, the little girl looking back at him in confusion.

Catching his breath, Daryl shook his head at Hazel. “Nah, I ain't gon' be yer new daddy. Yer mama must've been talkin' 'bout someone else.”

Hazel shook her head in disagreement. “No, Mama was talking about you, Daryl. She said your name when she said that.”

Daryl looked at Hazel in shock and slowly nodded. He had a hard time believing that you, the no-nonsense lady who was one of the very few Woodbury residents who actually knew how to handle herself against the dead, had taken an interest like that in him. There was no way that the woman he had taken an unexpected liking to, a liking that had soon morphed into something that wasn't platonic, liked him like that. He just couldn't believe it.

“Mama also said she'd look better in your shirt,” Hazel said, interrupting his train of thought.

Daryl inhaled sharply. He thought about her words for a moment before nodding to himself, picturing you in his shirt. “Yeah, she would,” he mumbled to himself.

“What?” Hazel asked, tilting her head in confusion.

Daryl quickly shook his head. “Nothin'. S'nothin'.”

As if appearing out of thin air, you showed up at his cell, quietly knocking on the doorframe. Hazel's attention shifted towards the door and she quickly clambered off the bed. She excitedly sprinted towards you and you caught her in a big hug, placing a small kiss on top of her head.

“Hey, Baby,” you greeted her, looking up at Daryl and sending him a shy smile. “Hey, Daryl.”

Daryl, now cursed with knowledge about what you thought of him, could feel his cheeks heating up. He sent you a small nod. “Hey.”

You looked down at your daughter again, about to usher her out of the cell with you, but she saw someone walking outside, and she wiggled herself out of your arms to run to that person. “Michonne!”

“Hazel!” you called out to her, peeping out of the cell just in time to see Michonne embrace the girl in a hug.

Michonne looked up at you and waved you off. “I got her. I'll get her settled down for the night. You say goodnight to your crush.”

You ducked your head in embarrassment and sent her a crude gesture with your middle finger, eliciting a laugh from her. “Fuck you, Michonne,” you mouthed to her, watching her leave with Hazel.

Shaking your head, you turned back around and almost ran into the archer. Daryl steadied you, and you could feel the heat seeping from his hands to your arms.

“Ya alrigh'?” he asked you, his blue eyes gazing deeply into yours.

You nodded, your breath leaving you due to the close proximity you had with the man. “I'm good,” you whispered in confirmation, your heart speeding up.

Daryl, overcome by a rare sense of confidence, hummed and smirked slightly. “Ya sure? My tree trunk arms didn't chaffe yer shirt or anythin'?”

Your eyes widened in surprise, and you took a step back. “What?”

“Ya need my shirt instead? I bet ya will look better in it than any of yer own shirts.”

Realization dawned on you. “Hazel—”

“Yeah,” Daryl cut you off, smiling slightly at the way your eyes widened. “Said ya think my butt looks real cute, too. She said other things too, but m'not gon' embarrass ya any more.”

“God, she really exposed me, huh?” you laughed shyly, ducking your head to avoid the archer's eyes.

Daryl moved forward and cupped your chin, lifting your head to look at him. The air between the two of you shifted, an unexplainable electricity forming. His eyes flickered between your eyes and your lips, silently asking for permission.

However, before anything could happen, Hazel came bounding into Daryl's cell again, Michonne hot on her tail. Daryl quickly pulled away and took a step back, and you straightened yourself.

Michonne looked between you and Daryl with a knowing smirk. Daryl blushed and ducked his head, while you pursed your lips and sent her a warning glare. “Don't even think about it,” you mouthed to her, moving away from Daryl to pick up your daughter. “What are you doing here, Baby? I thought auntie Michonne was putting you to bed.”

“I want you to do it, Mama,” Hazel explained, lowering her head to rest on your shoulder. She waved at Daryl, giggling into your shoulder. “Goodnight, Daryl.”

“Nigh',” Daryl greeted her, sharing a shy nod with you. “I'll, uh, see ya tomorrow, righ'?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, casting your eyes away from him. “Goodnight, Daryl.”

With that, you turned and walked out of the cell with Michonne, leaving Daryl alone in his cell. The archer, confused by everything that happened, sat himself down on the bed. However, he chuckled to himself when he heard your voice from down the hall.

“Hazel, how about for tonight's bedtime story, I teach you about the importance of keeping secrets?”

Yeah, Daryl thought, Hazel definitely wasn't lying. And he took that as an invitation to finally confess to you.

Which he did, that very next day, while you were on watch duty.

[lovehappyloki]

Blood Ties Chapter 31

Series Masterlist

Warnings: Typical TWD violence and gore; parents of a newborn just going through it

gif by @reedusmcbridedaily

You felt like you had just fallen asleep when Birdie began to stir. With a grunt, she made tiny squeaking noises to wind herself up for a mighty wail. You had yet to open your eyes, when you felt the mattress shift. 

“Ssh, quiet lil’ Bird. Give your mama a chance to wake up ‘fore ya start your fussin’.” Everything was bleary from tiredness but when it cleared, Daryl was already on his feet, Birdie on his shoulder with a large hand rubbing her back. “S’alright. She’ll be awake in a minute.” There was a gentle bounce to his steps as he paced back and forth. “Ain’t even tryin’ the diaper thing by myself. Sorry, kid.”

Birdie wiggled and rooted against Daryl’s shoulder, and you heard him chuckle. Watching him with the baby, it just looked so—natural. His head angled so his eyes were on her, a gentle smile curving his lips when she turned her little head to press her mouth against the side of his neck. 

“Alright, alright. Let’s getcha to your mama.” 

When he turned to find you awake, he actually appeared startled, freezing mid-step.

“Hey.” You whispered, sleep still lacing your voice. It was your first full night with the new baby and the first time she had woken the two of you. There was a twinge of guilt finding Daryl up first with the newly named Birdie, especially since he planned on hunting the next morning. That guilt, however, was rivaled by the overwhelming adoration you felt warming your heart when you saw the new father interacting with his daughter. 

“She’s hungry. Prolly needs a diaper too, ‘cordin’ to Carol.” 

The saint of a woman had sat with the two of you for over an hour going over the different cues Birdie would give you for different things; when she was hungry, needed changed, or just wanted to be talked to. She taught you ways to position her for nursing. Rashes to watch for, the correct way to clean her with the wipes. 

“Always front to back.” Carol demonstrated with the next pee soaked diaper. You were front and center, soaking it all in, desperate for all the help you could get. Daryl was still reeling back and away from the scene with discomfort at seeing his daughter’s anatomy, but that had him leaning forward to catch Carol’s eye. 

“She’s got a pref’rence?”

The other woman fastened the diaper and scooped up the baby. “To be so smart, your daddy is so clueless sometimes.” She cooed in baby talk. 

You unbuttoned your flannel and lowered the right side of the bra as Daryl repositioned Birdie to the crook of his arm before he gently deposited her into yours. She was ridiculously eager and latched on right away, making those sweet noises that had you staring at her in awe. 

The mattress dipped on the other side and you found your partner making himself comfortable against the headboard. 

“Why don’t you go sleep with everyone else? You’re going out hunt—”

“No.” He answered around a yawn. 

“Then go back to sleep?” 

He scrubbed a hand over his face with a quiet mm mm. “Gonna need changed. Wanna help.” Crossing his arms, he rested his head against the wood behind him and closed his eyes. “Need the practice.”

“You need the sleep too, Daryl.” After he opened one eye but before he could speak, you moved one of your hands from beneath Birdie, balancing her weight on your arm so that you could hold out your palm in an attempted display of acquiescence. “I know, I know. Her mama, not yours.”

He snorted, closing his eye again. 

The silence—aside from the little suck gulp breath from Birdie—was not uncomfortable. Daryl was dozing. You weren’t concerned about his tired state, even if the only time you’d ever seen him actually do something about it was when he had been so ill. It had been a wild couple of days. You, yourself, could have fallen asleep if not for the task at hand, actually finding that you needed to chew your lip to keep from nodding off. 

With the baby sitting on your thigh, your hand supporting her head with a hold just beneath her chin, you patted her back, just like Carol had shown you. “Can you grab a diaper and the wipes?” 

“Mhm.” You didn’t need to try any harder to rouse him. He was up and moving to grab the bag containing those specific supplies. Birdie let out a quiet hiccup of air while he was still up, making it possible for you to get her situated on the mattress. “M’gonna do it.” 

When your exhaustion-burning eyes trekked upward, Daryl was shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot while tapping the diaper against the side of his leg. You smiled affectionately, yet sympathetically. He was still so nervous about seeing that part of her. 

“I’ll be your backup.” Scooting slightly, you kept a hand on Birdie’s belly so as to not allow the shifting of the mattress to jostle her. “Your wingwoman.” He was already curling his lip while situating himself cross-legging. 

“That ain’t helpin’.”

“Sorry. Sorry.” You chuckled. He reached for the zipper on the sleeper and pulled it down to maneuver that baby’s bottom half out of the legs, her little limbs drawing up. His hands were shaking. “You’re her father, Daryl. What you’re doing is okay. You’re just taking care of her.” His attempted scowl was belied by the desperation in his eyes. 

He had never experienced the tenderness he was trying to bestow on his daughter, afraid of every little thing he had to do for her somehow being frowned upon or causing her pain. You were nervous too but the demonstration by Carol had made you feel a bit more comfortable. 

For Daryl, it had done little other than give him the correct methods. He was still battling to understand his role, to feel confident in his ability to show affection to the little one beyond carrying her around. That part, he had down to a science. 

He paused after pulling loose the tabs on the diaper. You thought for a moment that you’d have to take over, yet just as the offer began to form into spoken syllables, he continued. The soiled diaper was removed and the clean one placed beneath her bottom, just in case the unexpected chill in the air resulted in her urinating again. There was a deep breath beside you, a deliberate shifting of his gaze before he schooled himself into actually watching what he was doing. 

The tremble in his hands was sending fine vibrations into Birdie’s legs. You wanted to allow him to do it on his own, but not at the expense of the baby’s comfort. Reaching slowly, you ran your fingers over the top of his hand before taking over with at least keeping her little limbs still and raised so he could clean her. 

Wiping her the way Carol had shown him took longer than it should have, what with him pulling back several times with an uncertainty that made your heart both warm and break. The swipes of the wipe were gentle yet thorough, ensuring she was clean. When it was time, you let him take hold of her legs to draw the fresh diaper up between them and fasten it before he wrestled her flailing feet into the onesie. 

“Quit squirmin’, kid.” The words were spoken softly, not even a command but more of a plea. Job done, you expected to be the one to lift her and get her settled back into sleep, but Daryl beat you to it. Scooping her up under her arms with his long fingers supporting the back of her head, he placed her against his chest and laid back. Birdie was instantly content, stretching before curling back up. Folding one arm behind his head, he placed the other hand on the newborn’s back. 

Lying back, you gingerly turned onto your side to face your little family, your core still aching. Carol had mentioned using ice pads made with aloe vera and witch hazel after Sophia was born but without a freezer, that wasn’t an option for you. Watching Daryl move his hand and run his fingers over Birdie’s soft little cheek, another ghost of a smile on his lips, you couldn’t even remember the discomfort. 

“Get some sleep.” 

You had utterly zoned out, blinking and meeting blue eyes that reflected the exhaustion you were feeling. “You too?” He dipped his chin in a nod and you let your eyes close. 

The next time Birdie woke you up, it wasn’t a gradual process. There was no build up to the squalling. You and Daryl shot upright at the same time, his hands instinctively coming up to secure the little squirming bundle to his chest. 

While you began unbuttoning your flannel, Daryl was moving the baby all over, inspecting her almost frantically. 

“Why’s she cryin’ like that?” Wide eyes looked to you. 

“Hungry, I guess? Carol said she’d wake up a lot and want to nurse.” Bra unhooked, you held out your arms. Daryl winced, one shoulder lifting toward his ear. 

“Kid’s got a set’a lungs.” 

You couldn’t help but mirror his actions, bringing her closer to position her at your breast. Her cries ceased when you accidentally brushed her cheek, her little mouth falling open in search of the nipple. 

Daryl snorted. “Like a lil’ bird.”

You tossed him a brief look and continued to help the baby latch. “Is that why you wanted to call her Birdie?” The little red face was starting to lighten to pink after a few moments of eager nursing. 

He smiled, one-sided, and brushed the back of the baby’s hand with his index finger, her tiny digits rising from where they flexed on your breast to wrap around it. “Nah.” 

You waited, desperate to keep the conversation going lest you fall asleep sitting up. “So, why Birdie then?” Daryl ducked his head, his cheeks flushed. 

“Was, uh—I was by the window yesterday, holdin’ ‘er. She just kept—starin’, like she was tryin’ to figure me out.” He was refusing to unglue his eyes from the baby at your breast. “There was a, uh—a blue jay. Carol said she can’t see much right now but she saw that bird. Won’t never convince me that she didn’t.”

“Like you saw a chupacabra?” He glared at you from beneath his lashes, only succeeding in making the battle not to laugh more difficult.

“Stop.” He drawled. 

“Okay, okay.” You pinched your thumb and forefinger together and drew them across your lips, but he waited, just in case you weren’t finished. 

Satisfied that your jesting had ceased, he sighed. “She watched that bird fly back an’ forth.” Pulling a face, he lowered his head until his chin nearly touched his chest. “Asked if she liked the lil’ birdie an’ she looked at me. Was diff’rent that time. She knew me.” Using his thumb, he pushed the little hand off of his finger. “So—Birdie.” He sniffed. “An’ Jade just kinda—I dunno—fit?”

“That’s—” He looked up, a step shy of wincing, waiting for you to change your mind about the name. “That’s really sweet, Daryl.” It appeared that he almost smiled before scowling. 

“Shuddup.” He slid a hand over his face, feeling the pull of exhaustion that he would never voice to you even though it was as plain as day. He may not have pushed the baby out, but his nerves were shot. 

“Get some sleep. I’ll lie back down when she’s done.” You attempted but were met with what was bound to be a repetitive refusal. 

“Ain’t making ya stay up alone with ‘er.” Pushing himself off the bed, he stalked over to the window and peered out. “Need to stay at least a lil’ alert anyway. Don’t know when we might hafta move on.”

“I’m sure one of the others is on watch. We have everything still in the bags. There’s no reason you can’t lie down and get some real rest.” You were shifting Birdie onto your shoulder to burp her, but watching your partner scan over what he could see outside. Daryl hummed and crossed his arms, laughing with a breath through his nose when Birdie burped, loud and sudden. 

“Maybe we should’a named ‘er after Merle.”

You chuckled and moved the baby back into the bend of your arm, her little hand making its way into her mouth. The sounds of her sucking her fist were deafening in the otherwise silent room. You watched her for a moment, just enjoying the way she cooed and gurgled in between the attempts. 

Daryl’s steps were near silent. In fact, you didn’t even know he was moving until the bed dipped beside you. 

“Don’t she need, uh—well, both’a ‘em?”

“Huh?” His eyes were on your bare breast, still uncovered, your nipple pink and puckered. “Oh.” Daryl’s ears burned red. He was quick to throw his leg off the edge of the mattress and turn his back to you. “You’ve seen them before, Daryl.” He merely grunted so you left it alone. “She seems content, so I guess we can try for some more sleep?” 

“Yeah, uh—” He rubbed at the nape of his neck. “Guess we should.” 

You wrapped Birdie snugly in the blanket and placed her between the two of you. She wasn’t asleep but she seemed quite content with her fist. You’d take what you could get. Daryl laid down at the same time you did, but with his back to the two of you. 

“Are you okay?” You chanced asking. 

“Mhm. Sleep.”

He wasn’t very convincing, but lucky for him, you were too tired to try and coerce the truth out of him. Still, as your eyes closed and sleep began to carry you away, you could have sworn you heard him say your name within a troubled sigh. 

All initial thoughts that Birdie was a quiet baby were gone by the next morning, before the sun had even graced the sky with its presence. She wailed relentlessly several times after only a brief reprieve. Feedings and diaper changes failed to soothe her, as did Daryl walking her around the room. You could see the dark smudges beneath the archer’s eyes and were certain your own would mirror them. 

“Y’all gonna be alright?” He asked, his voice raspy, his feet dragging.  

“Are you?” You countered, yawning and rocking the baby, the motion seeming to soothe her for the moment. Her eyes continued to slip shut until she somehow managed to startle herself awake, wriggling within her blanket before tiring out and repeating the cycle. 

“M’a be fine.” He grunted and placed his bag and crossbow on the foot of the bed, a pause in his actions while you carefully laid down the baby, her little fists swinging outward and pulling back in a sedated motion. “Maybe she’ll sleep for ya now.” 

“Maybe.” You stared at Birdie with the warmest of smiles, simply admiring how perfect she was, features of both you and Daryl already so prominent in her barely two day old face. 

“Hey.”

“Hmm—oh.” You hadn’t even noticed him move, turning to find him standing over you, his hand already beside your face, tucking your hair behind your ear. 

“So fuckin’ beautiful.”

Catching his wrist, you pulled his palm to your lips. “So fuckin’ sleep deprived.” He shrugged a shoulder and turned his hand to grip yours and pull you to your feet, flush against his chest. Dipping his head, he pressed his lips to yours, just as gentle as the hand that now cupped your cheek. 

It didn’t take long for things to grow a little more heated, your fingers tugging at his hair while his gripped your waist, your mouths moving in sync, tongues exploring eagerly. When you felt the first rush of arousal, it burned, eliciting a squeak against his lips, and you pulled back. 

“Ow, ow, ow.” Both hands clutched the crotch of your sweats. 

“Ow? S’wrong?” It was difficult to focus on him reaching toward you—but not touching—when he was so obviously hard beneath the rough fabric of his jeans.

“Six weeks, remember?” You moved slowly to seat yourself on the mattress, your core aching. “I think half of my vagina is still in the van.” 

“Ya gotta be so vulgar?” He ducked his head, face flushed all the way to the tips of his ears. 

You laughed, covering your mouth to quiet yourself, your eyes darting over to the sleeping baby. When you turned back, Daryl was giving you that smirk that might have melted your panties had you not been so sore that you were certain the pain had already finished that job. 

“Hey, pot, I’m kettle.” Lips curved into a smile, you pushed yourself from the bed and wrapped your arms around his middle, head on his chest. “We’ll be fine. You go, so you can get back to us.” 

Daryl pulled back just enough for you to look up, his finger hooking beneath your chin. This kiss was gentle, unhurried, ending before it could once again attempt to transform into something you couldn’t have. 

“I’ll be back soon. Keep ‘er safe.” He stroked the apple of your cheek with his thumb. “You stay safe.”

You nodded. “I will. I promise.” After a moment, he dropped his hand and returned your nod with a jerk of his chin. Watching him grab his gear, you frowned. You didn’t want him to go, but you knew he was right. You needed the meat. You needed to be able to nurse Birdie. Finding formula would be next to impossible, one of those things survivors would have fought, killed, and died to obtain. 

Daryl stopped at the other side of the bed, bending carefully to press his lips to little Birdie’s forehead. “Be good for your mama.” The baby slept on, completely unbothered. When he straightened and adjusted his bag, his attention turned to you. “See ya soon.”

He was halfway out the door when you quietly called his name. “I love you, asshat.” He smiled at you, warm and genuine albeit small, patting the door frame before stepping out. With a sigh, you dropped your eyes to your sleeping daughter. “Just you and me for a bit, Birdie.” Lying down continued to be one of the best reliefs you had ever felt. “And I am going to sleep.” Your eyes had no more than closed when the newborn grunted and began to shift around. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Sunrise came and went, dousing your hopes of any real rest. Exhausted, you wrapped a crying Birdie in her blanket and shuffled out of the room where Carol was tending to some oatmeal over a small fire. “Carol.” You sniffled, lip wobbling. You were just too tired to try and hide it. The woman looked up with a smile that vanished as soon as she saw your state. 

“Oh, honey.” The smile returned, softer and full of understanding. 

“How do I turn her off?” You stood a few feet away, softly rocking and bouncing to no avail. Birdie was determined to call every walker in the vicinity. 

“Here, let me take her.” You turned to find Lori approaching, arms open, and passed your bundle off to her without a second thought. “Come on.” Supporting Birdie on one arm, she was able to take your hand and lead you back to the bedroom. 

“She just—nothing helps. Not even Daryl taking her. I don’t think she likes us.” You gingerly sat down on the bed and observed, Lori bending awkwardly with her rounded belly and your daughter. She grabbed up one of the bags and sat it beside you. 

“She loves you both, sweetheart. She’s just doing what babies do. Can you get a pacifier out for me, please?”

You nodded feebly, wiping at your face before beginning the search. You were pretty sure you knew what a pacifier looked like. You couldn’t rely on packaging. Carol had removed everything that could possibly go in Birdie’s mouth and boiled it. 

“One of these?” You held up a small bag of binkies with a desperately hopeful expression. Lori smiled. 

“That’s them. Good job, mama.”

You passed one to her—green with a little frog on the end—while she shushed and cooed at your disgruntled baby. “Is something—did I do something wrong?”

“Not at all. She may be gassy or—has your milk come in yet?” With a finger gently holding the pacifier in Birdie’s mouth, she watched you. The baby finally accepted it and quieted almost immediately. You sighed in relief. 

“How would I know—about the milk?”

“Well, for starters, if those bra pads aren’t drenched when you’re getting up to feed her, then it likely hasn’t.” 

Your stomach clenched and rolled. You shook your head. “Is she—am I starving her?”

“No, honey.” She sat next to you, patting the baby’s bottom rhythmically as she swayed side to side. “She may not be fully satisfied, but she’s not starving. Maybe we can send the boys out to find some formula to supplement.”

You couldn’t mask the stricken expression, just too damn tired. “When—how long does it take?”

“Stress and nutrition have a lot to do with it, and let’s face it. We’re abundant in one and lacking in the other.” Using her belly to help support Birdie’s weight, she reached out and smoothed a hand over your hair and then cupped your cheek. “Why don’t you lie down? Carol and I can watch the baby and—”

“Birdie.” You smiled fondly. Lori beamed at you. 

“That’s so sweet.”

You nodded, feeling proud of your partner’s choice. “Daryl picked it. Birdie Jade.”

“Well, Carol and I will watch Miss Birdie Jade. I’ll bring her in to nurse and you can get some good sleep in between. How’s that sound?”

“Like you two are fucking angels.”

“You Dixons and your mouths.” She chuckled. You straightened and blinked. You weren’t a Dixon. Is that how they saw your relationship with Daryl? Swallowing hard, you ducked your head, actually being the one to blush. “Don’t think on it too hard.” Lori chuckled with a wink, levering her way upright. “Get some sleep.” 

As intriguing and terrifying as the thoughts she had sparked were, you didn’t need to be told twice. 

“Y/N! Y/N, wake up!” Carol’s voice was frantic, her grip on your shoulder tight and hurried. You shot upright, the fog of sleep clouding your awareness, panic gripping your heart from her tone. 

“What? What’s wrong? Where’s Birdie?” You were clambering off of the bed, Carol steadying you when you staggered, still under the intense clutches of exhaustion. 

“Lori has her. Come on, we have to go.” She shouldered one of the bags and shoved the other toward you. “A herd, we have to move.” She bolted toward the door and out of your sight. 

“Okay, okay!” You stumbled out after her clumsily pulling the bag over your shoulders, looking back to ensure you had everything. The room was so simple, even under the gaze of your bleary eyes. It was the first room you had shared with Daryl and Birdie. Where you had felt like a family. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it did. The farm was a sensible loss to mourn, but this was a room. A simple room in a random house. 

“Y/N!” You heard Carol’s voice ring out from somewhere nearby. 

“Fuck.” You said with genuine sorrow. The moment the little bundle in Lori’s arms came into view, a weight lifted from your chest. “Please.” You held out your arms even as Rick and T-Dog bellowed for everyone to run. Lori passed Birdie to you, barely a glimpse of her little face before you began to run. 

“The truck won’t start!” Glenn was running toward you, taking down two walkers in his path. 

“Damnit! Everyone to the van!” Rick ordered, stopping to usher everyone ahead of himself. 

Birdie jostled against your chest as you ran, thankfully she seemed content with the movement, continuing to sleep. The walkers’ numbers were growing thicker around you. Carol, Maggie, and Glenn were circling you, Lori, Carl, and Beth but it wasn’t enough. 

Daryl. 

Using your forearm and hand, you stabilized Birdie as best you could, drawing your knife. Stabbing the closest walker, you kicked it off your blade and spun for the next, repeating the process. Over and over, you held your ground until you were panting and aching, but they just kept coming, hindering your slow trek to the van. It wasn’t until a cold, dead hand twisted into the baby’s blanket and tugged that you absolutely saw red. Your hold on her was unyielding, the strength of a mother that you didn’t realize you had until that moment. 

Daryl, please. 

Severing the hand at the wrist, you stabbed the walker in the eye, kicking it to the ground. Bowing over your baby, you ran, using your momentum and your body to plow through the undead toward the van, knocking them off balance just enough to allow your continued sprint until you were opening the back hatch and climbing inside, closing it behind you. 

Daryl, we need you. 

You knew that extra second that one of your friends would need to take to open up the van could mean life or death, but your sole focus was on Birdie. You unwrapped her and pulled down the zipper of her sleeper, turning her this way and that to inspect for scratches or bites, finding her skin unmarred. 

“Oh, thank god.” She was wailing by that time but calmed into hiccups on your shoulder, the warmth of your body and her blanket enough to soothe her for the time being. “Good job, baby. You’re okay. Mama’s here. You’re okay.”

 She’s okay, Daryl. 

The hatch opened, your knife in your hand as if walkers had suddenly evolved and could work the handle, but as Carol and the others began to filter inside, you exhaled and sank against the back of the passenger seat. Lori made her way to you with a certain amount of difficulty. 

“Is she okay? Are you?”

You nodded, unable to articulate the relief that was suppressing your ability to form words. 

Both front doors swung open, Rick and T-Dog climbing inside. 

“Roll call!” The former deputy shouted, starting the vehicle just before you heard—and felt—the tires catch on the gravel in search of traction. 

You could already see every face accounted for, but allowed the system, if for nothing more than to ease Rick’s mind. 

“What about Daryl?” You asked quickly, the words tripping over one another as they exited your mouth. 

“We’ll leave him some clues. You know how good he is at tracking. He’ll find us.”

Rick spoke nothing but the truth. Still, the thought of Daryl alone was enough to make your stomach hurt, your heart beat a little faster. He’d be beside himself with worry for his daughter, for you. You didn’t want to imagine that experience. Birdie was safe in your arms, but Daryl wasn’t at your side and you could hardly stand it. 

Birdie stirred, squeaking, her little face growing red. “Ssh.” You soothed, turning your back to everyone, facing the side of the interior and the window. Arranging your shirt and bra, you situated the baby to your breast, her little lips wrapping around the nipple to suckle eagerly. Still, you could sense her unease. She knew as well as you did that her daddy wasn’t close by, a stressor she’d expressed even from within your womb.

“It’s okay, Birdie girl. Daddy will find us.”

Hopefully soon. 

Gazing out the window, you watched the trees fly by in blurred mixtures of brown and green, most of the leaves still missing from the cold weather. You saw Daryl’s face in every gap, heard his voice whisper reassurance. 

Stay safe, love. 

[lovehappyloki]

Himbo joel is definitely into humping

Call this bitch humpty dumpty because all he DOES is hump anything reader has when she's not home.

Warnings: humping, pillow humping, dry humping, public humping, cumming in pants, cum eating, mommy kink, typed out on my phone at lunch and not proof read one bit

18 + ONLY

- - - -

He loves curling up in her bed, sniffing her bedsheets and pillow case. The remnants of your scent sending rivers of arousal right down to his cock until its stiffening. Can't help but hump the matress as he inhales your smell.

The need is so strong that he pushes your one pillow between his knees, the other right in his face. Lying down on his stomach and smashing his nose into it as he start experimentally grinding down on the soft plushness. He groans with a laugh. You'll be mad, no doubt, but so long aa he can enjoy it, he'll just be sure to put it right back.

He keeps rocking his hips into the pillow, suffucating his thick length. It encompassed it perfectly. Just the right amount of pressure to make him grunt with each roll. He props himself on his knees a little higher and angles the pillow to bend taller. The position nudges his balls effortlessly. He whimpers face down into your sheets, his teeth tearing into the fabric with damp Saliva forming while he Bounces along the pad. "M-mommy," he whines, wafting the scent of your sweat and shampoo. He fucked you right here just a couple hours ago but he'd give anything to plunge his length into your soft sweet wet tight pussy right now.

Fuck, it's cruel you leave him like this. Mommy is so cruel sometimes and he doesn't always understand it. Maybe he should be bad, make you spend time with him (punish him) and remind him why he needs to be kept close at all times.

His jaw drops as he stills and starts cumming in his pants. Creamy white slick pours through his sweats and begins to seep into the soft once dry pillow below him. It feels so fucking good, making a mess just for you that he pushes his crotch further in and slowly rubs his cum into your pillow. Sticky and wet, Joel smears it all over like a giddy Painter who's satisfied with his art.  He knows he should clean up before you come home, but he can't bring himself to care. Instead, he keeps his softened cock messy cum covered pants and pillow tightly wedged against him and falls alseep wrapped up in your distant presence.

-

When they are together, and he's too horny just looking at her and begging Mommy to take him home and let him have you, he pulls you close in a crowd and humps your legs or ass. Just enough that it looks like swaying. But the immediate relief he gets from the burning ache in his jeans does wonders to calm yet agitate his brain further.

"Stop it," you whisper warningly. Not even looking his way as you try to brush him off. But joel just takes your hand below and presses it against his Jean clad errection, grinding himself into your palm with a slutty sigh.

He likes brushing his cock against your jeans. The curve of your butt providing the perfect cavern to put his tented cock, rolling up and down on his heels or back and forth with little pats in each Crash.

"Cum in your pants and you're getting punished tonight, you threaten. He has to hide his smirk as he pushes himself fully against you and starts shivering, undoubtedly spilling his load right into his trousers with a raspy groan only for you to hear.

Hes so bad sometimes. He does it on purpose. You know it. He knows it. And he knows you won't do anything right now in public in front of others.

You grin and drag your pointer along his bulge, now slowly dampened with cum. He jitters from your touch, watching with parted lips and hazy eyes as you push your digit into your mouth and hum.

His mouth twitches, ans he can already feel his dick pulsing again with excitement, just thinking of the million ways you're going to make him suffer tonight for directly disobeying Mommy in front of everyone.

Anyway what yeah himbo!Joel likes humping and stuff.

- - - -

Taglist

@harriedandharassed @lola8888673 @its-nebuleuse @zliteraturehoe @merz-8 @joeldjarin @pascalscoffin @pedroshotwifey @ghostslillady @innerpersonunknown @missladym1981 @mrsoharaxx @survivingandenduring @milla-frenchy @cockykookiee @fairytale07 @daddy-din @pedropascalsbbg @spookyxsam @somehopeatlast @millercontracting @pedrostories @mishala005 @theoraekenslover @animez96 @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @puduvallee @cassiecasluciluce @loohoop

[lovehappyloki]

𓇢 𓆸 𝑚𝜎𝑛𝑠𝜏𝜀𝑟

summary: daryl blames your daughter for your death. warnings: birth complications, blood, gore, death, daryl hating your daughter, grief. pairing: daryl dixon x reader. setting: prison. a/n: i had been planning this fic for a while and since @louifaith asked for angst and she shall receive, i finally decided to finish it! broke my heart and in the kindest way possible i hope it breaks your too.

“i think i'm gonna die!” you cried, eyes shut as you pushed, encouraged by carol and maggie while daryl held you, your back against his chest. hershel hovered above the two women on his crutches, giving them instructions and supervising the birth.

daryl was breathing heavily, his entire body tense, eyes frozen open, and his mind raced for a solution to ease your pain but he couldn't find any. he wanted nothing more than to yell at the other three to stop and leave you alone, but he didn't want to scare you, and he knew it was a stupid idea.

“make it stop,” you weakly sobbed, interrupting yourself with a grunt to push once again.

it felt like you were being ripped in half. the pain was like nothing you had ever experienced, and you had been shot once before. no matter how much you screamed and pushed, it seemed pointless, and the happiness of finally meeting your baby was being supplanted by fear and discomfort.

“breathe, (y/n), please,” carol's soothing voice reached your ear, concerned but encouraging eyes finding yours.

“push, (y/n), i can see the head!” maggie motivated you.

still, daryl remained silent. too afraid. afraid that if he spoke, he might ruin the moment, that if he moved, he could hurt you. his heart was hammering in his chest, and he licked his lips over and over but they remained dry.

with newfound determination to meet your baby, and an agonizing cry that was probably heard by the entire prison cell, you gave a final push, hearing flesh rip in your womanhood as the baby's head came out, the rest of their body slipping out with ease.

“it's a girl!” daryl heard one of the two women exclaim, not caring who as he was only focused on you, who so weary and exhausted to your very core collapsed on his chest.

your eyes fluttered, trying their best to stay open as you watched maggie quickly but gently wrap your baby girl in a towel as carol carefully cleaned her face with a washcloth. “a girl,” you mumbled with a scratchy and strained voice, wincing as you tried to get comfortable in daryl's embrace.

as carol approached with the newborn to hand her to you, you reached your arms up, yet, they barely made it halfway as you slowly began to struggle to breathe.

“wha's wrong?” daryl begged, “hershel, wha'- wha's wrong?”

“there's to much blood... maggie!” and the vet's voice barking orders at his daughter turned into white noise in daryl's ears.

“stay with me, sunshine, stay, please,” he panicked, incoherently pleading as his red eyes pooled with unshed tears. “DO SOMETHING!” he crowed at the trio that was just as panicked as himself trying their best to save you somehow, but you were inevitably slipping away.

yet, even at that moment, when speaking and breathing were impossibly hard for you, you implored them to make sure the baby was okay. and without warning after one last adoring caress to daryl's cheek, the light in your eyes dimmed.

your body went limp in his hold, and your chest ceased its up-and-down motion that indicated you were breathing.

“(y/n),” he choked out as realization set in, cupping your face oh, so delicately as he always did, trying to cling onto the fading warmth his hands were always welcomed by.

he heard carol gasp, bringing her hands to her mouth as tears streamed down her face. maggie was a mirror, sobbing as her dad held her, and he too, let tears roll down his cheeks.

they all looked broken, but not as much as daryl.

the hunter wept, his body shaking uncontrollably as he squeezed you tightly but still careful not to hurt you, as if you could still feel it. the word no left his lips as the most heartbreaking mantra.

they had lost lori no more than 6 months ago and now you were gone too, ripped away from him the same way the latter had been from her family.

the wail from the newborn was suddenly louder than daryl's sobs, and he looked up to see carol bringing her to him. “you need to cut the cord,” she suggested softly between sniffles, but the way the hunter glared at the baby left no doubt that he wanted nothing to do with her.

his chest burned when he looked at her, but not in a good way; not in the way a father was supposed to feel when his kid was born.

without making eye contact with carol and his teeth grinding, daryl gently laid you back down onto the mattress, delicately brushing the hair out of your face and giving your cooling lips one last kiss.

he sniffled, drying his nose with the back of his hands as he got his red rag from his back pocket to dry off the beads of sweat off your forehead with utter affection, lips twitching as he held back tears from seeing your pale, unexpressive face.

carol bit her lip as more tears streamed down her cheeks, “dary-” she began, but the sudden, jerky way he turned around to face her made her stop.

face red and eyes narrowing, he snapped, “she killed 'er,” he pointed almost aggressively at the unaware baby in carol's arms. “ya cut it or whatever.”

“son...” hershel stepped closer to the archer, but he backed away, shaking his head frantically.

“ain't gonna repeat myself,” he warned, his fists balled before turning back around to sit at the edge of the bed, getting his hunting knife out, gulping as he prepared himself to stop you from turning, however, it only caused tears to make the way back into his eyes again.

he cursed, turning away from you, still sitting on the bed and leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, slumped forward as he hyperventilate, his cries echoing on the walls and mixing with his daughter's.

“i don't want you to do it,” you said suddenly, voice hushed to not disturb your group.

it was the middle of the night the day lori had died and judith was born. you had found out about your pregnancy a few weeks ago, and it had made you fear you could end up like the late mother.

daryl, who was just falling asleep tightened his hold on you, pulling you closer. “whatchu talkin' 'bout?” he inquired in a whisper.

“if i die too, i don't want you to... put me down,” you answered, looking up to meet his sapphire eyes, being welcomed with a confused and almost offended frown on his face.

“stop, tha's not happenin'.”

“if it doe-”

“it won't,” he concluded, preventing further discussion with a sweet kiss to your lips, “sleep, peach.”

sparing your body one last lingering glance as he tried to dry his red, puffy eyes, he left the cell.

as if soothing himself, he rubbed the nape of his neck while walking to the kitchen, eyes searching for rick immediately when he got there, whose eyes, as everybody else's, looked at daryl with pity, though the fellow widower could actually relate.

with slow, careful steps, rick stepped closer to daryl, who shook his head, gulping down the lump in his throat before he spoke, “she- someone has to put 'er down. she didn't wan' it to be me,” he said with a tight and unsteady voice as he fought to control his emotions. “can't,” he added with a tearful rasp.

rick's head dropped momentarily, hiding his watery eyes before he took the knife daryl was offering him. after hugging the archer shortly but tightly, rick walked upstairs to finish the task.

you were so loved by everyone.

it showed in the way the entire prison seemed to be in a permanent state of grief. even the ex-woodburians seemed sorrowful, but it was no surprise, you were friendly to everyone. kind and cheerful.

daryl hadn't cried again since the day you died. but that day he couldn't stop.

in the privacy of his room, he cried all night and stayed there, isolated for almost a week. it was so unfair. he protected you and kept you safe from walkers and bad people, but the one thing that killed you was someone he created. someone you were so excited to meet and hold, but didn't even get the chance to.

he only left his room to stop listening to carol and rick beg him to, but instead, he isolated himself in the woods. he spent almost all day hunting in nature, keeping his mind off you, off the baby he had yet to look at, let alone hold.

he left the prison as the sun was rising and returned when it was setting. when he brought back game he skinned it, and if not he went to clean up and go to bed. he ate sometimes. again, just to get people off his back about it.

he couldn't sleep. not with the baby crying every two or so hours. he didn't mind when it was judith, and he learned how to tell the difference, but when it was the other baby, he hated it because it made him think of you.

sometimes he tried to sleep with the pillow on his head, some other times he walked outside to smoke a couple of cigarettes, hating himself by the end of the night, remembering you wanted him to quit it.

a month and something went by slowly this way until the governor attacked the prison again.

he fought with his you in mind, hoping to keep the prison safe since he knew you liked it there, and you would want the baby to grow up there, so when it was all gone and the baby was nowhere to be found the guilt that ate him from the inside was massive.

yet, there she was. the little monster wrapped in a cloth with flower print in the arms of the youngest greene.

“i went back for judith and (y/n) but i only found-” the blonde girl started, but the archer interrupted her.

“(y/n)?”

she stammered, eyes widening, “uhm, it's... that's what we call her, 'cause you never named her,” she explained. “you should see, she looks just like her.”

but he didn't. he couldn't. so he just turned around and walked away, expecting the teenager to follow, which she did, baby in arms.

daryl looked in disgust and discomfort as beth tended to the crying infant, feeding her some formula they were able to scavenge from the ruins of the prison.

they were now in a little cabin in the woods daryl had found with you months ago, one of those times when you asked him to take you for a walk in nature when it felt overwhelming to be within the thick and dark walls of the prison. he loved those moments when it was just you and him. the memories made his heart ache.

“she has (y/n)'s whole face with your eyes,” beth commented shyly, trying to spark some conversation since other than the newborn sounds and her crying every now and then, they had been in silence for two whole days.

“didn' ask,” he said dismissively, taking another sip from the moonshine in his cup.

still, the blonde girl didn't give up, firmly believing that if he could just look at his daughter, or get to know her, he would change his mind. she was so easy to love after all.

“well, they look lighter than yours, but carol says they might get darker when she gets older,” beth giggled, moving the baby to burp her when she was finished eating, missing the killing glare the hunter was shooting her way. “the rest is (y/n), one hundred percent. except the hair, it looks like yours, but maybe it's because she is still bald and-”

abruptly and aggressively, daryl threw the glass he was holding toward a wall. the bang interrupting the girl successfully and scaring her and the newborn in the process. beth sighed, disappointed and annoyed as she stood up to soothe her, “she had just calmed down,” she muttered.

“AND I JUST TOLD YA I DUN' GIVE A FUCK ABOUT 'ER,” he snapped, stabbing his finger in the air as he pointed at his daughter.

bouncing the baby gently in her arms whose cries were ceasing, beth's eyes watered, her browns knitted in an exasperated frown, her lips pursed as she looked like she considered if speaking her mind was a good idea.

“why are you like this?” the young greene snarled. “you're not the only one who lost someone!”

silently, he scowled, almost challenging her to keep going. beth accepted the challenge with a glare of her own, newborn settling on her chest.

“you lost (y/n), but at least she left you with half of her! not many of us can say that about the people we've lost,” she hissed, trying to keep her volume down to not disturb your baby further. “you know (y/n) wouldn't have w-”

“ya dun' know shit!”

“yes i do, and you know that too!”

he stilled.

she was right.

his eyes were filled with unwelcomed tears as he chewed on his bottom lip, “she killed 'er,” he choked out.

“no, she didn't,” beth whispered, taking a tentative step in his direction.

“she's a monster,” he fumed, anger masking where his composure truly laid.

“she's your daughter. (y/n)'s daughter.”

his daughter. his baby girl. the life he made with you.

that was like the arrow to his chest that made him break into tears. all this time he had been seeing her as the murderer of the love of his life, forgetting she was half of her. she was the life made out of the love he felt for you and you had once felt for him.

hesitantly, beth handed him the baby, carefully helping her settle her in his arms. he felt like his arms were made for this moment; to hold this little bundle of joy that did, in fact, look exactly like you.

had he had been acting like his own father? hating the little innocent life he brought to the world. the thought made his scars feel like they burned, yet they were soothed with the gentle touch of beth's hand on his shoulder.

“she hasn't left you, see?” she smiled at him, and he nodded, letting the tears stream down freely, one landing on the baby's cheek, making her smile. “look, she loves you already. she loves her daddy.”

he brought the baby closer carefully, pressing his lips ever so gently on her forehead, letting them linger as he took in the warmth of her skin and the sweet baby scent of her head.

“an' i love 'er.”

taglist. @ledgeria16 @poisonmedixon

[lovehappyloki]

reborn

1.4k / pairing: jackson!joel miller x f!reader

main masterlist | notifications blog

summary: Joel’s long hair is a testament to a long life in Jackson, Wyoming. He hasn’t had time to get it cut since the birth of his daughter. 

warnings/information:  joel’s long hair appreciation post!!!!!, fluff, established relationship, a little swearing, soft!joel, girl dad!joel, jackson!joel, mother f!reader, ellie and joel are just fine okay!!, obvious maria appreciation, reader doesn’t have a physical appearance but has given birth

A/N: this is super short and I wrote it in 24 hours - you all know why we’re here, we saw that new picture of long haired joel miller and yadayadayada now we’re here! graphics by @saradika-graphics

There’s a new baby in Jackson. 

One more teeny tiny resident. The population sign must be repainted to acknowledge its three hundred and fifth resident. 

And she’s your little girl. 

She’s not just perfect, she’s the center of your universe. Wrapped in a freshly hand-washed baby pink blanket, a testament to the hours of labor in Jackson’s makeshift delivery room. Joel held your hand throughout. 

This was his second child, but his first with you. The flood of emotions was overwhelming, and you promised to stand by him, even if you could never truly understand the pain tangled with newfound joy. 

But you should have seen the way his eyes softened at the first sight of her. Everything changed, for the both of you. His once-buried fatherly instincts took over, walking with the delivery nurse from your bed to the small cleaning station. He couldn’t let her out of his sight.

Already so protective and wound around her little finger from the moment she took her first breath and wailed her first cry. 

Scream it, little one, tell the world you’re here and that you’re ours. You are already so loved with your big glowing eyes and round cheeks, your small hands curled into your chest, and you kick your tiny little feet. Stomp, roar, live. 

You’re born into the most dangerous time in history, but your parents are here to protect you. The moment your baby girl was born, you and Joel were reborn. 

One month old, and nothing has changed. Except for your and Joel’s sleep schedules. Tommy gave Joel temporary leave from patrol duties, which Joel did not protest. He found it impossible some days to leave the house for food and supplies. 

Ellie was helpful. Despite no blood relation, she and Joel shared many qualities. She didn’t let you lift a finger if she could help it. She had moved into the garage a few months back. After all, she was a teenager who loved having space.

“You sure you don’t just wanna move back inside the house, Ellie?” She was here more often than not, and her company and help were dearly appreciated.

“And wake up to a crying baby twelve times in the middle of the night? I love you guys, but no thanks,” she teased as you playfully rolled your eyes. 

“That’s fair. But the offer still stands.”

Ellie shrugs nonchalantly and lands beside you on the couch, laying her head on your shoulder as you both stare lovingly down at the baby sleeping soundly in your arms. 

“I know, but you should make my old room the baby’s new one. Besides, Joel just set up my stereo, and I blast that thing non-stop. No baby is gonna like that.” 

“Oh, trust me, we know.” You whisper as you kiss the top of her head, your cheek nudging against her brunette tresses tied back into a ponytail.

Ellie cooks some sort of monstrosity in the kitchen upon Joel’s return from Tommy and Maria’s. He holds piles of Maria’s hand-sewn diapers and onesies. She was a God send, a woman you consider a Jill of all trades. 

Oh, Maria. She always desired that Jackson would not fall into turmoil like most of the country had surely found its way to. In her eyes, Jackson would remain a thriving and welcoming community to those who were good of heart. 

That woman worked to the bone to ensure that Jackson’s residents were safe and happy. Living here was like living in a snow globe, safe from the outside world and protected from danger. 

As the de facto leader of the Jackson settlement, she wore many hats. From trading and supplies to security and community welfare, Maria made it her mission to ensure that all new families found their new home in Jackson to be an inviting one—a safe haven from their old lives and here to start anew. 

“Maria bartered for new cotton,” Joel whispers as he enters the living room, quiet so as not to stir the baby. 

“She did?” You ask softly, sitting up slightly as you feel his hand cup your cheek from above, tilting your head back so he can give you a proper kiss. 

“Yeah, she was gonna try and find somethin’ alternative to cotton for the diapers, but they set her up with some scavenged materials and clothing to make lots of diapers out of. Plus, gave her some stuff to cultivate it here. Y’know, be self-sufficient.” 

“Wow,” you mutter tiredly, rubbing at your eyes as your daughter begins to twitch in your arms. “I think she hears her daddy’s voice.” 

Joel cooes softly, quick to drop the items off on the kitchen counter with haphazard abandon. He grunts quietly as his knees scream for rest until he sits beside you on the couch with open palms. You delicately hand him the baby, and his eyes twinkle at the sight of her. He was adorably cute when he baby-babbled, though he swears he never does. 

“Hi sweet wittle girl, pretty pwincess, did you have a good day with mommy?” 

It takes you this long to realize how much his hair has grown out. Your fingers softly weave into the greying curls, twirling one around your finger before you let it fall into its natural waves. 

“It’s so long, baby,” you whisper like honey.

He lets out a quiet chuckle and absentmindedly leans into your touch. “I’know. Haven’t had time to get it cut,” he turns his attention back to the little girl swaddled in his arms, “and I think I know who’s been keepin’ me so damn busy.” 

You hum and gently clutch the curls at the nape of his neck, truly in awe of how long they were. You’ve never seen him let it get this long. As Joel would say, this is Tommy long. But was there really a look he couldn’t pull off?

“I, uh, I don’t want you to cut it.” Your words come off shy and sweet, making him melt as he slowly turns to look at you with a raised brow. 

“Is that so?” His southern twang rolls freely off his tongue. 

“Mhm, you look so handsome. I think I would cry if you got rid of that thick mane of yours.” 

He chuckles again, a low and sultry one. “Alright. I’ll keep puttin’ up with it.”

“Mmm, please do. It’s sorta doin’ somethin’ for me.” 

Joel pauses and watches as the aging sunlight shines over your face. He takes your hand in his large calloused one and squeezes, circling his thumb along your wrist. “You’ve given me a life I sometimes don’t feel like I deserve. A happy one. I don’t think there’s a way I can ever say thank you or I love you enough for how my life has turned out. Without you, I might be dead.”

“Oh, Joel,” you whisper as you rest your forehead against his own, both of your eyes falling closed. “You are deserving of every moment of happiness in this life. You make my life worth living. You saved us.” 

Joel lets out a wet chuckle, kissing the tip of your nose before meeting your lips delicately. 

In this light, the amber glow of the sun setting just beyond the walls outside, he’s so handsome. It truly makes your heart skip a beat. After all these years of pain, loss, and suffering, Joel is happy. It’s all you’ve ever wanted to make him. 

During the first few weeks in this new and unfamiliar settlement, Joel would shoot up in the middle of the night, upset that he had fallen asleep. He hadn’t slept in a home with four solid walls in so long, none of you had. You remember the first night he slept soundly, snoring like a madman and nuzzling into his pillow. He was safe. There were no clickers in waiting, no scavengers to fend off. His people were protected. He could breathe. 

Never did you once think that at the ends of the world, there would be room for you to feel like this. Reborn. It led you to Joel and Ellie and continued with your baby girl. Your lives are getting a second chance. 

You didn’t know how long it would stay like this because nothing was forever. But you would wake up tomorrow morning and run a hand through Joel’s hair, through the pretty curls that tickled his neck, and the opportunity for it to keep growing would be another sign that your lives weren’t ending. They were only just beginning.

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[lovehappyloki]

Yearling - Ch. 36: Severed

Joel, Tommy and Ellie search for you. A continuation of Yearling ch. 1-35 found on Tumblr here.

I'm sorry I couldn't resist.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings: Canon-typical violence and a step beyond. Torture. Mention of past sexual assault (not described). No use of Y/N. Minors DNI 18+ Only 

Length: 8.2k

A/N: I want to state, real quick, that Bambi is NOT going to be sexually assaulted again. This is a highly triggering subject and, given the situation she's in, I understand if folks are bracing for it. That's not going to happen. The threat of it is there but it's not going to happen.

We are into the final arc of Yearling and we are going to see some TLOU 2 OVERLAP again. There isn't any this chapter but there will be in this arc and here's how: a character from that game will be mentioned as will the spoiler-y incident from a few chapters ago. What happens plot wise in this arc is completely separate from the game and entirely original content BUT there is that character overlap and more specific mentions of the incident and the motives behind it. This character returns NEXT CHAPTER. If you're trying to go in blind to season 2, it might be wise to step back. Feel free to send me a DM, I'm happy to answer any and all questions!

AO3 | Chapter One | Previous Chapter

Joel had rarely paid much mind to how long it took to get out of Jackson before. 

“Tommy,” Maria was stalking after her husband as he, Joel and Ellie headed for the stable. “Be reasonable, you can’t just take off…” 

“Sorry, babe, but I can’t just sit here and let ‘em have a piece of her,” Tommy said as they went to the stable. There were the two horses Tommy and Joel had just returned on, the three that had carried the kids back, and some horses you’d been working with. You’d been telling Joel about their progress, how one was nearing well broke and you wanted him to go with you to the shooting range with her soon to get her accustomed to the sound of gunfire. 

“Do you have some kind of death wish you haven’t bothered to tell me about?” Maria planted herself in front of her husband, her arms crossed, defiant. “You have responsibilities here, Tommy! People who depend on you, people like me and our fucking son! You don’t get to just take off at your brother’s command anymore!” 

Joel stiffened at that. He and Maria had gotten to a good place in their relationship over the years, her moving past the thought that he’d been the driving force behind all her husband’s misdeeds. They’d settled into a mutual respect and eventual affection since he’d come to Jackson, Maria seeming to appreciate what he did for the community and the way he loved her son and Joel admiring her leadership and the way she was a partner to his little brother. He thought they were past this. 

Maybe he was wrong. 

Tommy took his wife’s shoulders in his hands, his thumbs rubbing little circles against her. 

“If it were you, he’d be going with me,” he said gently. “That’s my baby sister out there, Maria. Can’t live with myself if something happens to her and I didn’t do everything I can to stop it. I’m goin’. You can either help and hope we get back soon or you can be pissed while I’m gone but I’m goin’, you can’t stop me.” 

He pressed a kiss to her forehead and went and stood beside Joel, looking over the horses. 

“What’s better,” he asked. “Tired mounts or ones that might spook?” 

Joel looked at his brother for a moment, thankful that he had him to rely on, and ground his teeth. He didn’t know the answer. 

“They’re on foot,” Ellie said, joining them. “Tired is probably better, we’re still going to catch them. But I don’t expect this to be quiet and if we’re on horses that spook, well…” 

Joel gave her a stiff nod and went to get the horses ready to leave. He was moving as quickly as he could but it felt slow, everything felt so slow. It felt like he should be running, pushing himself to the brink so he could reach you sooner. Every second you were away from him hurt. It was worse than when you’d left Jackson to search for Savvy in the blizzard. That had been bad enough but at least then he could believe that you were in one piece, that you could take care of yourself. 

That wasn’t the case now. He knew you weren’t safe. He knew you weren’t OK. He knew he’d vowed to protect you, the night the two of you made promises to each other in his bed he had sworn to keep you safe and never let anything happen to you. 

He’d failed at that. 

He’d failed and now he was here, doing what he had to do to make sure he could reach you. It just didn’t feel like enough. Nothing would, not until he held you again. 

Tommy and Maria talked in low, harsh voices until they had things situated. Food, water, ammunition, medical kit.

“Tommy,” Joel said, jerking his head toward the horses, voice sharper than he’d meant it to be. His brother jogged over to him, taking the reins of his horse from him. 

“The guys who brought the kids back are going to wait here until a few more crews come in,” Tommy said. “Then they’re coming out after us. We can mark a path. With fresher horses, they’ll catch us quick.” 

Joel nodded stiffly and the three of them led their horses to the gate, Maria following with her arms crossed over her stomach. In another situation, Joel would have taken the time to talk with her and reassure her. He didn’t have the luxury of time now. 

He mounted up as the gates opened, Ellie and Tommy following suit, the three of them riding through the gate the moment there was room. 

“Joel!” Maria called after a moment. He looked back at her. “Bring my husband home.” 

He watched her for a moment, at the fear on her face and in her wide eyes, a mirror of what he was feeling now. But she was still letting him go. He wasn’t sure he could do the same in her position.

“I will.”

 Ellie took the lead, pointing out the spot in the fence where kids left town. Joel ground his teeth and resisted the urge to yell yet again. What good would it do? What was done was done and this lesson was one he doubted Ellie would forget. She didn’t need to be taught it again.

They rode for nearly two hours when they came upon a small clearing and Ellie jumped off her horse before it had even come to a stop. 

“We were here,” she said, looking around, almost panicky. “We were here, I know we were, they had us behind that tree…” 

She ran over to it, walking around it until Joel couldn’t see her anymore. 

“Ellie!” He called. He couldn’t have her out of sight, not right now. 

“I was right,” she called back, coming around the tree. “I took a chunk of bark off of it, this is where we were but they’re gone, completely fucking gone, I don’t…” 

Joel was less surprised than Ellie. 

“They weren’t about to sit and wait for us to find ‘em,” he said. “We need to track ‘em. We’ll find them.” 

He, Tommy and Ellie circled the clearing on foot, looking for signs of a trail. It didn’t take them long to find one. Unfortunately, they found more than one. 

“The fuckers split up,” Tommy kicked a plant in frustration. “Any way to tell which group had her?” 

“Smaller boot prints, maybe,” Joel said, looking closely at the ground. 

“But there were other women,” Ellie said. Joel’s head snapped toward her. “They had a few women. I didn’t talk to them but… She wouldn’t be the only one.” 

“We can’t split up,” Tommy said. “It’s too goddamn risky, there are too fuckin’ many of ‘em, we have to stick together…” 

Joel nodded, trying to think. He tried to keep his shit together but he could feel it happening, the panic setting into his bones. He could hear the blood in his ears, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He was having a hard time taking a full breath, his head spun. He reached out, his hand finding a tree trunk, giving him something to root him to the ground. 

“Joel?” Ellie’s hand appeared at his back. “Hey, you can’t die on us right now, we have to get her back, you can’t do this now, you gotta keep it together, you hear me?” 

He nodded quickly, closing his eyes for a moment. His mind scrambled for something - anything - to hold him here, something to make him push past the fear and do what he had to do. 

He thought of you. 

He thought of the first time he’d felt your body against him, on the back of a horse in the snow-covered forest. The first time he’d held you because you wanted him to, how you’d sought comfort in him. The first time he’d kissed you, how your lips had fit softly against his, the quick little breaths you’d made, the way you’d felt so close to him. The first time he’d touched you as his wife, how your body was so familiar to him but was brand new, too, with this new context. You were his, he was yours and he needed to keep himself together long enough to get you home. 

He took a deep, shaky breath. 

“We follow one trail,” he said. “We either find her or we find the people at the end of it. If she ain’t with ‘em, we get ‘em to tell us where she is.” 

“You really think they’re just going to, what, tell you whatever you want to know?” Ellie gaped at him. “They’re not going to just answer your fucking questions, Joel!”

“Wasn’t plannin’ on askin’ nice,” Joel said, stalking back toward the horses. “We follow the middle track. See where it leads.” 

Joel knew he should feel some kind of shame about what he was about to do. What he wanted to do, how he wanted to hurt them. He’d never told Ellie the finer points of what he and Tommy used to do - still did, when the need arose. He’d never told her what he did to find her when David had her and he was desperate. She knew he used to kill people, he thought she had some idea of just what that entailed but he’d protected her from the worst of it, the most shameful parts. 

Now, he was hungry for it. If he were a dog, he’d be salivating for it, aching to get his jaws around the throat of the man who had taken you from him. He didn’t want to just kill him, that wasn’t enough. It hadn’t been enough the year before when he’d sent him away from Jackson and it wasn’t enough now when he was doing who knows what to you. He was going to enjoy pulling him apart, piece by fucking piece. He almost hoped that Cody wasn’t with the men they were tracking, that he’d find you and have the chance to take every ounce of pain from them before finding Cody and taking it from him, too. He couldn’t even regret the drive to do it or the fact that he knew he could do it and do it well. His only concern, after finding you, was exposing Ellie to that. 

But they lived in a harsh world. Maybe it was good for her to know the harsher parts of it. 

Joel led the way, slower going now that they were beyond where Ellie knew the group to be. They were carefully tracking a group of what looked like seven people - including two women - for hours. It was dusk when Tommy noticed the signs of people first, giving a low whistle that sounded something like a bird. Joel looked over his shoulder and Tommy nodded toward a patch of sky he could see through the trees. Joel looked up. There was smoke. 

He dismounted and tied his horse off, Ellie and Tommy doing the same, before the three of them prowled, quiet and slow, toward the smoke. It wasn’t long before they could smell it, hear the quiet laughs of men. Joel tightened his jaw and his grip on his gun. His heart raced. 

The group they came upon largely had their guard down. Joel spotted someone through the trees, beyond the fire, looking like they were patrolling. Otherwise, they weren’t paying any attention. Joel gestured to Tommy and Ellie, sending them behind larger trees, Joel going to one himself. He peered around the thick trunk to find them there, make sure these weren’t just innocents passing through and seeing if he could catch a glimpse of you. 

But they weren’t innocents, a woman with her hands bound sitting beside one of the men at the fire, another one - also tied - with her back against a tree. There was no sign of you or Cody. 

Tommy met Joel’s gaze, his face set and determined. Joel gave him a stiff nod before turning to Ellie, her own expression hardened with barely controlled rage. She didn’t even look at Joel, too busy watching the men around the tree. 

Joel took a deep breath and raised his gun, stepping around the tree and firing, catching the man with his back to them in his head. He fell forward with a thud. 

There was a moment of stunned silence, the only sound birds fleeing the crack of the gun. Then, it was chaos, the men scrambling for weapons. One of the women screamed. 

“Need two alive!” Joel yelled to his brother and daughter, pressing closer and firing again, felling another man. 

Tommy shot next, a third man going down. A bullet whizzed past Joel’s head, close enough that he felt the heat of it on his skin, the shot clipping his ear. He ignored the sharp pain of it, watching as the shot Ellie got off dropped a fourth man. The fact that they’d caught the men when they’d stopped for the night was to their advantage. They were clearly used to traveling in a larger group and running unchallenged, only watching for infected who often made themselves known with crackling breaths, the sound of crunching through the brush and sharp clicks. They weren’t expecting a small group to come in, guns blazing. They were slow getting their weapons, rifles on the ground and out of reach, making picking them off like shooting fish in a barrel. Joel shot the man on watch as he came running toward the fire, his gun raised and aimed at Joel. 

Tommy charged forward and grabbed a man who was just getting to his feet, his back toward the three of them. He was just raising his gun when Tommy swung the butt of his rifle at his head, catching the man in the temple and knocking him off balance. He took advantage of the moment and ripped the weapon out of the man’s hands, casting it aside before shoving him to the ground and putting his boot in his chest. Tommy leveled his rifle at his head, holding the man in place. 

“Got one!” He yelled to Joel. 

There were two men left standing now, one reaching for a gun. Ellie shot him in the shoulder before Joel got a chance to react, sending him sprawling on the ground. The other was smarter. He grabbed the nearest woman and pulled her in front of him as she screamed, pressing a gun to her head, his eyes darting between Joel and Ellie. 

“Keep coming and I kill ‘er,” he panted. 

“Joel,” Ellie’s eyes darted toward him. “What do we do?” 

“Let me go,” the man said, the woman in his grip trembling. “Him too, and I leave her alive.” 

Joel didn’t have time for this. He moved quickly, raising his gun and firing, hitting the man in the middle of his forehead. The woman screamed again, covered in his blood and stumbling forward as his body went limp on of her. 

“Shit,” Ellie lowered her gun, looking at Joel. “I thought we needed two.” 

“Think we got two,” he stalked over to the man Ellie had hit in the shoulder. He was whimpering on the ground, clutching the hole that was gushing blood. 

“Please,” he said, eyes wide. Joel ignored him, grabbing a fistful of his shirt and dragging him to the man Tommy still had at gun point. He dropped the man there with a pained groan and he looked to the women, the one who had been a hostage sitting up next to the body of the man who’d had her. 

“C’mere,” Joel said. They looked at each other quickly but stayed still. Joel, again, resisted the urge to yell. He didn’t have time for this. “Ellie, cut ‘em loose, tell ‘em how to get to Jackson if they want. Give ‘em whatever they need. See what they know.”

Joel turned his attention back to the man on the ground, going down on one knee beside him. He grabbed his hair in his fist, forcing his eyes to meet his own. 

“You’re gonna tell me what I wanna know,” Joel said. “And you’re gonna do it quick. Understand?” 

“Why would we tell you a goddamn thing?” The man below Tommy asked, watching Joel. His words were quick, panicky. Joel looked back at him for a moment before he ripped the injured man’s hand away from his wound with one hand and thrust his thumb inside the bullet hole, pressing up into the tendon below his skin. The man thrashed and screamed, the shrill sound sharp and cutting. Joel left his thumb jammed inside him until the other man spoke again, his eyes wide. “Fuck, OK! OK! What do you want to know, we’ll tell you! We’ll tell you, please!” 

Joel pulled his thumb free of the man’s body and wiped the blood on a clean spot on his shirt, turning his full attention back to the man below him. 

“Should get one thing straight now,” Joel said. His voice was flat. “I don’t mind hurtin’ you. In fact, I like it. Like gettin’ justice for everything you’ve done wrong in this life. I can promise you’ve done a lot wrong and I can promise I can make you pay for every goddamn ounce of it in blood. I know how to make it last. But I’m in a hurry and I want this over quick. It’s in your best interest to give me what I want. Got it?” 

The man gave a shaky nod. 

“Your boss has got my wife,” Joel said. “You split up. I need to know where he’s takin’ her.” 

“He gave us a meet up point,” he said, voice shaking. “We were afraid of someone coming after her, he had us split up, he’s got her not us, I swear…” 

Joel ground his teeth. 

“Where.” 

“I don’t know where he’s taking her,” he said quickly. “I know where we’re supposed to meet him tomorrow, that’s all! I swear, I don’t know where he’s going.” 

Joel thrust his thumb inside the gunshot wound again, plunging it deeper, pulling harder at the structure of him as he screamed and writhed. 

“No, stop!” The man below Tommy begged. “We don’t know, we don’t know! We just know he was taking her to trade, that’s all we know!” 

Joel froze before pulling his thumb from his body. He grabbed the man’s hair again, forcing him to look at him. 

“Trade?” His heart was pounding. “Trade for what.” 

“Territory,” the man panted. “Please, there’s a guy who wants ‘er, promised us territory if we got her for him, that’s all I know. He was going to try and meet with him, see if they can cut a deal. If he couldn’t find him or couldn’t get what he wanted, he’s meeting us in the morning.” 

Joel looked to Tommy, his face hard. Tommy just gave him a nod. It seemed like the truth. Joel turned back to the man. 

“You’re gonna tell me where the rendezvous point is,” he said. “And you’re gonna keep it real quiet and then we’re gonna ask your friend the same question and he’d better say the same place as you. Got it?” 

Joel leaned in close, the rattle of the man’s pained breaths hot and wet on his ear. 

“North, ten miles,” he said. “Where the rivers meet.” 

Joel sat back from him and looked to the other man. 

“Now you,” he said. “Better say the same damn thing as your fuckin’ friend.” 

The man’s eyes darted toward Tommy, who pressed the gun closer. 

“Don’t look at me,” Tommy said. “I ain’t savin’ ya. You wanted to live? Shouldn’t have taken my brother’s girl. Answer the question.” 

“North of here,” he said, looking back to Joel. “Said they’d be there in the morning, we were just stopping to rest for a bit, that’s all…” 

“Where north of here.” 

The man’s eyes darted to his friend before looking back at Joel. 

“Ten miles or so,” he said. “There’s a spot where two rivers meet…” 

Joel nodded slowly and looked to Tommy before getting his knife out. 

“No,” the man below him shook his head. “No, I told you what you wanted to know, I didn’t lie, it was the truth I swear it was the truth!” 

“Oh, I know it was,” Joel said, adjusting his grip on the knife. “But you took my daughters, took my wife. Not about to just let you live.” 

He thrust the knife into the man’s stomach and he gasped, his eyes and mouth gaping wide in a silent scream. Joel angled the blade up, forcing it towards his lungs before twisting it and pulling it free with a harsh tear. He wiped the weapon on the man’s pants before getting to his feet, watching as he tried to hold himself together, not able to take a full breath. He’d drown in his own blood before too long and Joel wanted to watch him do it. This man had taken everything from him. He was owed his suffering. 

“Joel,” Tommy said, nodding down at the remaining man at the end of his gun, one who was clearly about to make a run for it. He knew he was done for, he was desperate. “What are we doin’?” 

“Shoot ‘im,” Joel said. “Not worth the risk.” 

Tommy obeyed, the man dead even had a chance to flinch. Joel went back to watching the the first man gasp and gargle, fighting to breathe and failing. He should feel something, he knew that. He should feel guilt or some kind of pity. He didn’t. He barely even felt satisfaction. You were gone. He was hollow of everything beyond pain and fear and rage. 

“Joel,” Ellie’s voice was quiet behind him. He turned to face her, her eyes wide as she looked between him and the dying man. He’d almost forgotten she was there. 

“Get the women out?” Joel asked, shifting instinctively to block her view of the man suffering at his feet. She peered around him, anyway. 

“Yeah,” she said. “They didn’t know anything. Gave them directions back to Jackson and some guns from these assholes. I don’t know that they’ll end up there but…” 

She looked at the man again for a long moment before looking up at Joel. 

“Did you get an answer?” She asked. “Do we know where Mom is?” 

His chest got tight, hearing Ellie call you that, knowing that he shared children with you and you were gone. 

“We know where Cody’s headed,” Joel said. “Let’s get what we can from here and head out.” 

The three of them took ammunition and weapons and food from the dead before mounting up, Joel taking the lead again. 

It only took a few hours to reach the place the men indicated. The group had stopped here before, Joel could tell. There were signs of fire pits, places where fallen logs had been dragged over for places to sit, cleared brush. 

“What do we do now?” Ellie asked. 

“We wait,” Joel said, not happy about his answer. How was he supposed to just sit here when you were out there, with them? But he didn’t have another choice. 

They got the horses settled and found places to watch and wait where they should see people coming and have the advantage. Joel settled in, Ellie sitting beside him while Tommy kept watch. 

“Where’d you learn how to do that?” She asked eventually, quietly into the dark. 

“Do what,” he asked, even though he knew. 

“Hurt someone like that,” she said. “Make them give you information.” 

Joel was quiet for a moment, twisting his wedding band over and over on his finger. 

“You know some of what me ’n Tommy did after the outbreak,” he said. “Did some of that, too.” 

She nodded slowly.

“You never talk about it.”

Joel shrugged. The sound of crickets seemed loud, louder than they should be. 

“Not exactly somethin’ I’m proud of, baby girl.”

“But it’s useful,” she said pointedly. 

He sighed. 

“I’ve used it a few times since, when it’s important,” he said. “When it’s to protect you or her. It’s not somethin’ that’s good to know how to do.” 

“I want to know how to protect people, too,” she said, her voice dark. “I have shit to protect, too, Dad. I want to know how.” 

Joel sighed, looking over at her, the outline of her barely visible in the light of the moon as it filtered down through the trees. 

He wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to know this stuff. That he would always be there to look after her, to do these ugly things that needed doing. But he knew that wasn’t true. 

He’d doomed her to this life, in a way. One where she wanted to know how to pull answers out of someone with pain, how to turn the love you carried for the most important people in the world into a deadly weapon. There was no other way to be in this reality, one with infected and raiders and the last gasp of human kind struggling to continue on. If he’d left the doctor alive, at least, maybe things would be different. Maybe he’d have succeeded without Ellie, maybe the world would have been better for her eventually. 

But he would have come after her and there was no point in fixing the world if it had to continue on without her in it. Good, bad, indifferent, there was no point to any of it if the price was her life. Hers or yours or Savvy’s, the three of you were all that mattered. And he liked knowing he had skills he could fall back on if he needed them. 

“We’ll take care of what needs doin’ now,” Joel said. “Then we can talk.” 

The three of them took turns keeping watch. Joel wasn’t able to sleep. Instead, he thought of you. How he’d had to coax you into life in Jackson, how you’d come to find your place there, how you’d chosen to do all that with him at your side. 

There was a lot in this life he knew he didn’t deserve. He’d never deserved Sarah, that was for damn sure. The world hadn’t deserved her, either. He’d squandered the gift that was her existence, let her down when she’d needed him the most and he’d bourn that weight the rest of his life. He didn’t deserve Ellie, either. He certainly didn’t deserve you, something so strong but soft, vibrant but centering. You were meant for something more than him but you’d chosen him, anyway. He remembered when your fingers first brushed his, when he first heard you play guitar, when he first saw how you loved his daughter like she was your own. He wasn’t sure how he was meant to keep going if he didn’t get you back. What would be the point? Ellie was grown now. Savvy had survived all on her own for years and Ellie had taken her under her wing. They didn’t need him. But he needed you. 

Dawn was just beginning on the horizon when Joel heard it, the sound of people coming in from the north. He roused Ellie and Tommy and the three of them stood, lying in wait amongst the trees, rifles at the ready. 

Joel wanted to come out guns blazing but then he saw Cody, riding on horseback with just two other men. 

They weren’t outnumbered. You weren’t with them. 

Joel readied to step out from the trees, rifle raised. 

“Joel,” Tommy hissed.

“Go around the side,” he said, voice low. “Kill the others. But he’s mine.” 

He moved from behind shelter then, weapon leveled at Cody’s chest.

“Cody!” Joel called, watching as the men’s heads all whipped around to focus on him, scrambling for rifles. “You have what’s mine.” 

Cody lifted a hand to his henchmen and they lowered their weapons as he smirked at Joel. 

“Think she was mine before she was yours,” he sneered. “Seems to me I just took back what got away.” 

“Where is she,” Joel said, prowling closer, straining to keep his voice calm. 

“Back where she belongs,” he said, fishing in his pocket for something. He found it, pulling it out, unwrapping it from a kerchief and throwing it onto the leaves at Joel’s feet. “But you can have the part of her you laid claim to.” 

Joel looked down and his vision narrowed to a sharp, bloody point. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, the soreness of his legs and back and the pain at his ear that had been nagging at him suddenly gone. His hands shook as he dropped the rifle and lowered himself, slowly, to the ground. Lying there were two fingers. Your fingers. The wedding band that had been there since Joel had slipped it onto you was bloody, ragged flesh dangling from the ring he’d made you. 

Something inside of Joel snapped then. It was a sharp, clean break, one that he could he could feel deep at the core of him. A severing of his humanity, a setting aside of the things that made him who he was. The love he held for his family, the care he had for the place he called home, the remaining parts of him that were gentle and good - those things were closed to him now. Joel Miller had been called monster many times in his life but he knew he’d never become one. Not truly. He knew it because this had always been there, lurking below the surface, brought forward when he needed it most but always controlled, always contained. It wasn’t contained now. It couldn’t be. 

Joel left the gun on the ground, gently picking up your fingers - sticky and cool - and putting them delicately in his pocket before getting to his feet.

“Thought about sending you back with her whole hand but,” Cody shrugged. “Mitchum has use for it. Nothing she can’t do down a few fingers, though.” 

Joel didn’t even see Ellie and Tommy getting into position when he roared and lunged for Cody, ready to kill him with his bare hands. 

***

The Day Before 

“Move.” 

You glared at Cody, your wrists chained in front of you. 

“Not telling you again,” he said. “They’re still close enough, we could run ‘em down if you want to try me.” 

Your stomach got tight. 

“Fine,” you said. “Let’s go.” 

He split his men into three groups, hauling the man you’d killed to the brush and leaving his body behind. There were three women you hadn’t seen yet, one going with one of the groups, two with another. You didn’t get a chance to say anything to either of them, just sharing a look of desperation before you were led away. 

“You’re going to regret this,” you said as he shoved you forward. 

“Why, because you’re fucking guard dog is going to run me down?” He sneered. “Think we’ll handle him just fine. Besides, by the time he finds us, you’ll be long gone.” 

You followed his command, trudging through the forest and trying to find some way to leave a trail to follow. Joel would come for you. It would likely be hours yet before he was back from patrol, hopefully long after Ellie and Savvy made it back to town. You knew he’d come looking for you the moment he discovered you were gone, that he’d do anything to get to you. You just needed to make sure he could find you and that you were in one piece when he did. 

“Why are you doing this?” You asked once you’d been walking for hours, looking at Cody. “You said you knew it was wrong, you helped me. Now you’re doin’ this? Takin’ me and other women?”

“Let’s just say I learned my lesson with you, Doll,” he said. “Could try to be a ‘good’ man all I wanted, try to do the ‘right’ thing but it wouldn’t get me anywhere. Not like there’s much left here to live for, right? I should just take what I want while I can, no one is going to give it to me, even if I deserve it.” 

“Deserve it?” You stopped and turned to face him. “You think you deserved something from me? You held me prisoner, you fucking raped me, you…” 

His backhand caught you off guard, sending you sprawling to the ground, unable to catch yourself with your bound hands. He stood astride over you, grabbing your face sharply and forcing you to look at him. 

“Don’t fucking call it that,” he hissed. “That’s not what it was.” 

You spat in his face. 

“Fuck you.” 

He squared his jaw, like he was considering doing something more to you before he straightened, wiping your spit from his cheek. 

“Get her up,” he said. “We’ll stop here for a bit, take a break. Make her take a piss, get her cleaned up a little. Maybe we’ll have some fun before we hand her over.” 

You hoped the fear didn’t show on your face, that the way your stomach dropped and heart stuttered wasn’t obvious. 

It’s not like you didn’t know, consciously, what this was all leading to, what you were going back to. You’d been there for long enough before, you knew what it was and what this meant. 

But you weren’t sure you could survive it again. It had nearly killed you before. If you hadn’t escaped when you had, you weren’t sure how much longer you would have really lasted living that way and now you were going back to it. It would be worth it to protect your children but the fear of it was still there, the claws of it sharp and harsh inside you. 

Cody smirked. 

“Maybe I’ll show you just how nice I was before,” he said. “Show you what you took for-granted.” 

Two men pulled you roughly to your feet and shoved you into the trees, off the trail you’d been walking. Your chest got tight and your stomach turned and you found yourself flexing your fingers, clenching and unclenching your hands into fists as you tried to focus. Your vision threatened to narrow but you forced yourself to see beyond your own body, think beyond the fact that your lungs couldn’t seem to fill and your head was getting light. 

The men pushed you for a few minutes away from the rest, toward a stream. One stayed further back, watching the forest for signs of infected or someone who might come to take you. 

“Alright,” the other said, nodding to you. “You heard ‘im. Piss, get cleaned up.” 

“You think I’m gonna just do that with you watching?” You sneered, brows raised. 

He stalked forward, drawing his gun and pressing it to your chin. 

“You really think I won’t blow your goddamn head off?” He asked, his breath reeking of rot and liquor. 

“No,” you smirked back. “Your boss has you by the balls. You can’t do shit to me.” 

He stepped back and you saw the strike coming that time, dodging it enough that he caught your cheekbone more than your chin and you stayed standing. 

“I can do that,” he snapped. “And I’ll do it again.” 

“Go ahead,” you said. “Because you’re a little bitch. I’ve had good sex that hurt worse than that.” 

He bared his teeth and he went for you again. 

But he was stupid and big and slow and you knew where he was going to be now. You dodged him, not fully thinking and with no real plan. He stumbled where you’d been standing and you stepped behind him, looping your arms around his neck and pulling back so the chain constricted on his throat. 

He choked and gasped, dropping his gun on instinct as he clawed at your arms, trying rip himself free and trying to make a sound but you were pulling too hard, the other man too far to hear or see what was happening. 

The weight of him thrashing against you sent you off balance and you fell, taking him down with you, his body heavy on top of yours. But you didn’t give in, keeping the chain tight over his throat as he kicked and flailed. You held it there until he went limp and you released him, shoving his body off yourself and panting for breath as you did. You didn’t have time to get the feeling back in your body or to ease the panic, though. It was sheer fucking luck the other man who was standing just out of sight hadn’t heard something and you had to take care of this now. 

You found the gun where the man you’d killed - thought you’d killed, at least, you weren’t about to risk shooting him - had dropped it and took a guess at what direction to run in. 

You didn’t make it far. 

“Hey!” You heard the crush of leaves, someone moving for you. “Fuck, she’s running!” 

You turned and shot, the first bullet going wide as your hands shook but you were able to keep it together enough to get off another shot, this one hitting him square in the chest and he dropped like a stone. 

You kept running. 

You weren’t sure how long you ran for when you heard them, the men closing in on you. You couldn’t afford to look back and take the time to shoot, you had to keep moving, even as the sound pressed closer and your head was swimming. And then a hand closed on the collar of your shirt - Joel’s shirt - and ripped you back and down. You twisted on the ground, trying to aim the gun but it was kicked away from you. 

“You’re gonna regret that you little bitch,” the man panted over you. “We could’ve made this easy on you. We ain’t now.” 

He hauled you to your feet by your bound hands and forced you back to where the group had stopped, finding the two other men who had been sent after you on the way. Cody was standing where you’d stopped before, a small fire built on a patch of dirt in the middle of the trail. 

“You really think that was the smartest thing you could have done?” He asked, his voice almost eerily calm. 

“Did you really think I was just gonna let you hand me over?” You replied. “That I’d just go quietly into being a prisoner?” 

“I guess that’s why Mitchum’s so obsessed with you, isn’t it?” He asked, prowling closer. You wanted to shrink away but you couldn’t, not with the man at your back. “Because you just keep that fight in you. You didn’t give up like the others and he’s a man who likes a little fight.” 

He nodded toward the stump of a tree and the man at your back shoved you to it, forcing you to your knees beside it. 

“Thing is,” Cody said, pulling his knife free of its sheath at his belt. “You don’t need to be… intact for the shit he likes best about you.” 

Your eyes darted. You were surrounded, there was nowhere you could go and nothing you could reach. 

“Don’t be too worried about it,” he continued, kneeling on the other side of the stump. “Think he’d be pretty pissed if we took your whole hand, for example. But I don’t think he’ll miss a few fingers.” 

Your heart raced, the blood pounding in your ears. 

“That a risk you want to take?” You fought to keep your voice calm as you clutched your hands tightly to your body. “You really want to go through all this trouble for nothing?” 

He shrugged. 

“Think we’ll be fine.” 

The man at your back took your wrist in his grasp and shoved your arms down to the jagged wood of the stump, your hands clenched in tight fists. Cody took your left one and pulled at your fingers, trying to pry it open as you grimaced and fought him on it. After a moment, he gave up. 

“Fine,” he said. “Don’t want to cooperate?” 

He took the knife and slammed it through your forearm, on the side of it so it missed bone, making you scream as the blade went through the muscle and skin and into the wood on the other side. Your hand went limp on instinct and Cody spread your fingers with one hand, holding the other out. Another man handed him a knife and he lined it up with the base of your ring and pinky finger, smirking a little as he did. 

“Would you look at that,” he traced your wedding band and you tried to look at your hand through the blur of pain and tears. “The feral woman got hitched. You marry that animal of yours, that it?” 

You considered begging. If you thought it had even a chance at working, you’d have done it. But it didn’t.

“Fuck you,” you said instead. 

“Think this’ll make for a nice keepsake of you, if he ever comes looking,” he said, pressing the knife in just enough that you could feel it, even through the pain of the blade still lodged in your arm. “Wedding ring won’t mean much where you’re going, anyway.” 

He started cutting then, the automatic response your body had to pull away ripping and tearing against the knife holding you to the wood. You couldn’t look away from it, even though what little there was in your stomach was threatening to come up and the pain had deafened all the sound around you. You weren’t sure if you were screaming or not but you couldn’t breathe and couldn’t think as you watched part of your body be cut away. 

Cody finished, wiping the knife on your shirt - Joel’s shirt - before passing it back to one of his men. He held your bloody, jagged fingers up, turning them slowly in front of his face. You could hear again, the ragged sound of your breath and the rustle of leaves on the trees, the breeze moving through as though you weren’t being dismantled on the forest floor. 

“Think your guard dog will even still want you now?” He asked, holding them in front of you. Your blood dropped from them onto the sleeve of the shirt. “Not sure he’ll be interested in such… damaged goods.” 

You stared at the fingers in his grip in disbelief. It didn’t seem real, the things you’d used to play guitar and grip the reins of your horse and hold your husband’s hand were separate from you now. You remembered, for a moment, marrying Joel. The clarity of it was almost visceral, how he’d taken the ring that was now slick with your blood and slipped it onto the finger that was dangling before your eyes. It was a part of you then. It wasn’t now. 

Cody held his empty hand out and the man he’d given the knife to returned it. 

“No,” you shook your head, your voice wet and raspy. “Please, I…” 

“Not taking anything else,” he said, his tone almost kind. “Just going to make sure you don’t bleed out on us.” 

With that, he pressed the blade to the place he’d cut part of you away and you screamed, the metal scalding hot. You realized they must have put it in the fire, using the heat to cauterize the wound. Without warning, one of the men pulled the knife that was still in your arm free and the heated blade moved there, too. You could smell your skin burning, the man at your back holding you still as your body fought to escape the pain of it. They moved you around like a rag doll, cauterizing the other side of your arm, too, before stepping back from you. 

“There,” Cody stood, handing the knife off and taking a kerchief from his pocket, wrapping your bloody fingers in it before stashing them away. “Now you should know I’m not fucking around. Get up. We’ve wasted enough time on this shit and Mitchum won’t wait on us forever.” 

The man behind you pulled you to your feet by your shoulders and you swayed on your feet for a moment, your head swimming before you doubled over, vomiting mostly bile before your legs gave out, the man catching you before you hit the ground. 

“Shit,” Cody’s voice sounded far away. “We’ll have to find a way to move her…” 

You passed out. 

When you woke up, it was dark, a hand around your jaw. 

“There she is,” Cody said, releasing you and patting your cheek twice. “Need you up and walking, can’t trade you half dead. Move.” 

You tried to orient yourself, get some kind of understanding. You weren’t where you’d been when you’d passed out. You were on some kind of makeshift litter, your left arm and hand throbbing dully. Your hand was bandaged. Cody grabbed a fistful of your shirt, pulling you upright and you all but collapsed against him, stumbling as you tried to find your footing. The second you did, you pulled away from him. You couldn’t bear to touch him, even if that meant you ended up on the ground again. 

“Just gotta make it about 100 yards,” he nodded toward a flickering glow in the distance. “Then you’re not my problem anymore.” 

He nudged you in that direction and you moved, almost mindlessly. You weren’t strong enough to fight it. You were barely strong enough to walk. You cradled your injured arm to your body as best you could, watching as the glow of the fire drew closer. 

“Stop right there,” an unfamiliar voice said, a man coming through the trees with his rifle raised. But he lowered it as he drew closer, looking the group you were with up and down. “Cody. Starting to wonder if you weren’t going to make it.” 

“Got held up,” he said. “But I got what he’s after, if he still wants to meet.” 

The guard just jerked his head toward the fire and led the way, you trailing along behind him with Cody and his men at your back. 

The fire was in the middle of a large clearing, one with a cluster of about 20 men around it, the man you feared more than any other sitting at the back of it. 

A wide smile came over his face when he saw you, the spread of it sinister and slow. 

“Well well,” Mitchum said, getting to his feet and walking closer. He was still so much bigger than you, tall and broad and you knew just how well he could force you to do what he wanted. “The prodigal son returns, with my favorite toy no less.” 

“Told you I could get her,” Cody said, pushing you toward him. “And I believe we had an agreement.” 

“Sure, sure,” Mitchum waved him off before looking you up and down, just feet away from you now. Your head spun. “Jackson is yours when we take it down, as is anyone who survives. S’long as you remember who gave it to you.” 

Mitchum reached out, grabbing your injured hand roughly and you cried out with it as he pulled your arm toward him. 

“The fuck is this?” He held it up. “Thought I told you I wanted her intact, there’s no deal if you fucking maimed her.” 

Cody shrugged. 

“She killed two of my men,” he said.

Mitchum dropped your hand and clenched his jaw before snatching his gun from its holster and shooting Cody’s man who was at your side, making you flinch away from the sound. 

“You think I give a fuck how many of your men make it?” He asked. “You think their lives matter? Got fuckin’ news for you, theirs don’t and neither does yours so you better do a damn good job of explaining why you brought her to me damaged.” 

“She tried to take off,” Cody said, eyes darting down to the man who was dead  on the ground. “Had to do something to keep her under control. Figured you’d want her at all, even if that meant damaged.” 

Mitchum holstered the gun with a huff and pulled you away from Cody, your skin crawling where he touched you. 

“Well, she’s back where she belongs now,” he passed you off to one of his men before turning back to Cody. “Jackson’s yours, when we take it.” 

“And I want horses,” Cody said. “For my trouble.” 

Mitchum seemed to think for a moment before giving him a stiff nod. 

“Fine, three horses,” he said, waving them forward. “Take ‘em and go. Don’t want to see you again for a while or else I might change my mind.” 

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Cody smirked before looking to you. “Told you you should have given me what I deserved.” 

You didn’t say anything. Instead you just stood there, in the hold of one of Mitchum’s henchmen, watching as the man who’d stolen your freedom rode off into the night. 

Taglist: @ashleymsnodgrass@planet-marz1@kalea-bane @juneswonderlust @ilovepedro @h-annahayy @starstruckmusiciansartghost @beccerjune @mumma-moonchild @netonetoneto @mellymbee @purplelye @n7cje @flugazi @evyiione @randomhoex @aliengirl99 @orcasoul @reds-ramblings @pedropascalsbbg @fupoola @tinypotatothing @knopes-waffles @lilmizmoz @ayamenimthiriel @jenispunk @panda-pascal @sarap-77 @flugazi @your-slutty-gf @daniegraceg @partyofone3413 @cumberpegg @noisynightmarepoetry. @fifia-writes @grumpygrumperton @srmacaroni @txlady37 @bigboiseason123 @ashleyfilm @arizonadreamingg

A/N: I know it's a rough chapter but... feral!Joel?

We've only seen the beginning of him, he's about to go on a rampage like no other I can promise you that.

Also, I'm sorry for making this chapter quite so brutal. I really didn't want them to get off easy in this situation, I wanted to make sure we know that there are going to be some long term repercussions from all this - in this case, Bambi's missing fingers. They live in a brutal world and they're facing brutal things and I wanted this to be reflective of that.

Thanks for sticking with the story. I really do love you all!

[lovehappyloki]

Someone To Love | Young!Daryl Dixon x Young!Fem!Reader

Summary: Daryl treasured his friendship with you. You were everything to him, someone he could go to when he needed you. On his sixteenth birthday, you did something for him that made him realize that his love for you ran much deeper than he had initially thought.

Genre: Fluff.

Era: Pre apocalypse.

Part of the Shopping Spree, Hangout Dreams AU.

Warnings: Swearing.

Word count: 1.8k.

A/n: I'm really sleep deprived, so this potentially sucks really bad. It's also not exactly like what was requested, but I went with my gut and this was born. However, I hope you like this! (Requested by @ddamm. I'm not gonna be home this weekend and won't be able to write something for your birthday, so I wrote this for you as an early birthday present!)

➳༻❀✿❀༺➳

“Where are ya takin' me?”

“I can't tell you that. It's a surprise, Daryl.”

“Y'know I hate surprises.”

“This one you'll like, I promise. Now shut up and just follow me.”

Daryl rolled his eyes at you, a small, affectionate smile annoyingly tugging at the corners of his lips. He walked with his hands tucked into his jean pockets, carefully stepping over any logs and big rocks in his path. You were walking slightly ahead of him, a skip in your step as you lead him somewhere—to his supposed surprise or his death, he wasn't sure.

“Ya sure ya didn't jus' bring me out here to kill me?” Daryl questioned playfully, chuckling at the glare you threw his way over your shoulder. “Jus' askin', sunshine. No need to get mad. S'a valid question. Most'a those murder books ya read start in the woods, so m'jus' curious if yer takin' a page outta those characters' books.”

You looked at him over your shoulder. “Believe me, if I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't do it in the most common, boring way. I'm more creative than that.”

Daryl raised his eyebrows at you. “Should I be scared?”

“No, of course not!” you laughed and shook your head, reaching over to grab his wrist. You tugged him along behind you, taking off into a steady run.

Daryl stumbled over his feet for a moment before laughing, quickening his pace to keep up with you. “Jeez, girl! Ya dun' have to rip my damn arm off.”

You giggled. “Sorry, I was excited,” you apologized, stopping in your tracks. You turned to Daryl when he stopped next to you, releasing your grip on his arm. “We're here. Happy birthday, Dar.”

Daryl looked ahead and was surprised to be met with a small, intimate setting—a picnic basket resting on top of a blanket. You had really gone above and beyond, Daryl thought I'm surprise, trying to ignore the odd feeling of warmth that spread through his body when he looked back at you and saw an excited smile on your face.

“You said no parties, so I thought we could have a little picnic instead, just the two of us,” you explained, taking Daryl's hand in yours and leading him over to the blanket. You motioned for him to sit down, following suite and getting comfortable on the blanket you had swiped from your mom's closet.

Daryl eyed everything around him curiously. The two of you were in a part of the forest he wasn't familiar with. It was rather surprising, considering he spent most of his time either at your trailer or in the forest, so seeing that you were able to locate a spot he didn't know was rather impressive.

The movement of your hand towards the picnic basket instantly peaked his interest. He watched as you pulled out an old portable CD player that your mom had gotten you a year prior, settling it onto the blanket and fiddling with a few buttons before pressing the play button.

Daryl's eyes widened when the melody to Ozzy Osbourne's “Crazy Train” flooded the relatively quiet air. His eyes met yours and he let out a shocked noise. “Where'd ya get an Ozzy CD?”

You shrugged nonchalantly, leaning back on the palms of your hands. “Mr Jones owed my mom a favour. She finally called it in and borrowed a bunch of music for us for this.”

“Ya got other artists?”

“Yeah,” you nodded. “Guns 'n Roses, Dio, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Queen—”

“Ya got Queen?” Daryl questioned in amusement. “Ya know I dun' listen to 'em.”

“And you know that I don't believe that,” you countered, sending him a teasing smirk. “I've seen you quietly sing along when I play Queen in my room. There's no hiding the truth from me, Daryl.”

“Nah, yer only seein' things. Gotta get yer eyes checked out or somethin',” Daryl replied defensively, crossing his arms over his chest in mock annoyance.

You rolled your eyes and sat upright, reaching into the picnic basket to grab a sandwich to hand to Daryl. “Whatever you say, birthday boy.”

Daryl accepted the sandwich and took a bite from it, humming in approval at the taste. “Taste's real fuckin' good. Thanks.”

“Only the best on your birthday,” you mused, reaching into the basket to grab your own sandwich. “You deserve it. And as long as you have me around, we'll always celebrate it.”

Daryl gave you a small smile, taking another bite from his sandwich to avoid saying something that could potentially ruin the moment. As he looked at you, he couldn't help but admire you. From the beautiful colour of your eyes to the way your lips curved when you smiled, to the outfit you were wearing that day that hugged you in all the right ways. Everything about you in that particular moment was perfect, and Daryl found himself very confused at the feeling that entered his body. There was a strange knotting in his stomach when you met his eyes, and he froze at the weird sensation.

Thankfully, you started talking about some band you had discovered that snapped him from his thoughts, and Daryl pushed the strange feelings down. He wouldn't ruin a perfect moment with his best friend because of some stupid sickness he was getting. He would worry about his health later. For now, he would appreciate your company on a day that he rarely celebrated anymore.

➳༻❀✿❀༺➳

“Stay right here. I'll be right back.”

Daryl looked up at you in confusion when you got up from the blanket, the Lynard Skynyrd song that was playing in the background forgotten for the time being. “Wha' do ya mean? Where are ya goin'?”

“Just wait here. I need to go grab something I put here earlier,” you explained, turning on your heel and walking off.

“Ya sure ya ain't jus' gon' get yer gun to shoot me? I knew ya were plannin' on killin' me.”

“Very funny, Dixon.”

Daryl chuckled and shook his head, watching your retreating figure in wonder. He leaned back on the palms of his hands, humming along to the song playing. He looked around at the wildlife that looked even more beautiful in the light of the setting sun, content for the first time in a while. The day had been uneventful; he had spent most of the morning and early afternoon in your trailer watching movies while you were busy setting up the surprise for him, then he had a calm picnic with you, swapping jokes and stories, and after that, he would go back to your trailer for the night.

Daryl felt calm, and it was all because of you. All because you refused to let him spend yet another birthday on his own, cooped away in his room.

The rustling of the leaves alerted him to your presence. He looked up at you, instantly noticing the box in your hands.

“Wha's tha'?”

You sat back down on the blanket and extended the box to him, giggling when Daryl only eyed the box in suspicion instead of taking it. “Daryl, it's just a box. It can't hurt you.”

“Las' time someone handed me a wrapped box, I found a bunch'a spiders inside tha' crawled all over me,” Daryl told you, still refusing to take the box.

You shook your head and laughed lightly. “Let me guess, Merle?” When Daryl simply nodded, you continued. “I promise there aren't any bad surprises in here. Only a good one, I hope.”

Daryl hesitantly took the object from you and lowered it onto his lap, slowly starting to peel the wrapping paper away. Once the simple brown box underneath was revealed, he looked up to you, but was only met with an encouraging smile. He opened the box at a snail's pace, but once the object inside was revealed through the small opening, Daryl practically ripped the rest of the box open.

Daryl carefully picked up the object, inspecting it carefully as his eyes widened in surprise. He looked over at you again, a shocked smile on his face. “A Walkman?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, a smile on your face at his obvious excitement that your best friend failed to hide. “I know you've wanted one for a while now, so I spared up some money to buy one for you. It's not new because I didn't have seventy bucks to buy a brand new one, but it works and it's not all banged up. I made you a tape as well. It's already in there.”

Daryl looked surprised. Unwillingly, a few tears started to well up in his eyes, but he quickly wiped them away. There was no need for tears in a moment like that. He sent you a small, unsure smile, feeling that same strange feeling from earlier creeping up on him again.

“Thank you,” Daryl whispered, moving the Walkman around in his hands. “This is the best birthday I've ever had. S'jus'... Ya gave me somethin' I've been wantin' fer so long, even though ya didn't have to. Yer amazin'.”

Not realizing the true, deeper meaning behind his words, you leaned forward and hugged Daryl tightly, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. “Anything for you, Dar. You know that.”

Daryl hugged you back tightly, lowering his head to rest on your shoulder. Daryl's feelings hit him with the force of a hundred freight trains—he was falling for you. He was falling for his best friend, and he didn't even realize it until that moment. The only reason he realized it was because of the gift you gave him. And it wasn't the picnic or the snacks or even the Walkman. No, it was something much deeper than that, something much more valuable to Daryl than anything else in the world.

You gave him someone he could trust. You gave him someone he could go to with his problems, someone who never judged him or belittled him for feeling emotional. You gave him someone he could love without the fear of being disappointed, someone he knew would be there for him.

You gave him you, and that was more than enough for him.

[lovehappyloki]

Alright with a Slow Burn | (joel miller x reader) (18+)

A Bonus Meet Me in the Back Oneshot

[Moodboard for aesthetic purposes only]

pairing: sleazy gas station clerk!joel miller x fem!reader summary: Just a casual cockwarming competition on a weekend afternoon. warnings/tags: [18+ MINORS DNI] age gap (no specifics), size!kink, daddy!kink, degradation!kink, cockwarming, unprotected piv, creampie, assplay, clothes-ripping, brief spitting, v brief over-the-pants footjob action ig, bad casino metaphors, some friendly competition with stakes <3, Olivia Benson appearance, random fluffy moments??? word count: ~5.4K | ao3 a/n: surprise! a dirty little oneshot for you. this takes place a while after part 6, probably a couple months post. title is from Slow Burn by Kacey Musgraves which feels very fitting for them.

Series Masterlist | Masterlist | Kofi

You love when Joel has a weekend night off of work. Your schedules are so misaligned, you often find yourselves stealing frantic early evenings together between your workday ending and his beginning.

The more you’ve taken Joel inside you the more your body molds to him — craves him on the daily. He still takes your breath away each time he enters you, and he still swears up and down about how tight you are every goddamn time. It’s symbiosis at its finest as far as you’re concerned. A mutually beneficial, delicious destruction of your respective selves at the hands of the other.

You fuck and you chill. You chill then you fuck. It’s a lazy cycle, but it works.

Right now you’re relaxing, Joel sitting on the couch and you lounging with your legs draped over his lap. Olivia Benson is solving especially heinous crimes on Joel’s crappy television, filling the leisurely silence of the trailer with a marathon of your shared comfort show. Joel had slept until 2 PM, as is his standard. You’d found yourself at his door as soon as he was once again alive to the world. There’s something about you appearing on his doorstep in fully done face, hair, and dress with him scruffy and bleary-eyed in nothing but joggers that sets your heart alight.

You like him simple, uncomplicated. You bring enough complications of your own. He’s a welcome reprieve with unceasingly open arms and a predictably hard cock. There’s not much more you could ask for.

Joel rubs circles into your ankle with his thumb, occasionally slipping down to the sole of your foot to apply pressure to the arch. Quiet moans of approval creep out of you at the treatment, and you can feel Joel responding to your sounds against your lower leg.

“Hi there,” you giggle, pressing the side of your calf into the initial stages of his bulge.

Joel’s grin gives way to a shallow grunt at the friction, and he clasps a hand around your ankle.

“Better be careful. Snake’s gonna start rattlin’.”

“Well, they don’t call me the snake charmer for nothing,” you joke, sliding your leg over his crotch again.

Joel snorts, quirking his brow. “They call you that, do they?”

“Yes they do,” you assert, nodding resolutely. “I get yours dancing easily enough.”

Joel exhales a laugh through his nose and squeezes your ankle. “Someone’s gettin’ a little big for her britches, ain’t she?”

“I’m not the one bursting the seams of my pants right now,” you retort, a smile playing on your lips.

Joel clears his throat and readjusts his seat, nonchalantly fixing his dick inside his joggers. “Don’t know what you’re jawin’ on about. I am one hundred percent unaffected by those sexy little moans of yours.”

“Oh yeah?” You challenge with a smirk, entirely unconvinced. You bend your leg and inch your foot back slowly, placing it directly onto his growing erection. The arch of your foot starts to massage him gently and Joel’s eyes drift closed for a mere moment before he snaps them back open.

“Yup,” Joel responds matter-of-factly, while noticeably avoiding your eyes.

“Mmm,” you hum, nodding and feeling Joel harden rapidly under your dedicated ministrations. “You, the same man who has never seen me and not popped a boner at some point during the interaction?”

“Don’t know who you're talkin' about,” Joel dismisses, attention honed in on the screen in front of him, but you can see the corner of his mouth fluctuating and his fist clenching at his side.

You catch your bottom lip between your teeth as your grin broadens. “Daddy?”

“Mmm?” Joel answers, like he’s afraid if he opens his mouth again, his whole cover will be blown and a much more vulgar sound will escape.

“You’re hard as a rock right now.”

Joel finally glances down at his crotch and swears. “Fine. You got me. You happy?”

“I will be soon,” you say with a shit-eating grin adorning your face.

Joel rolls his eyes and tugs at your arm, hauling you up onto his lap. “Come here, you little temptress.”

You giggle, swinging a leg over his and sitting on top of his undeniable arousal and grabbing onto the back of the couch. Joel’s smile matches yours now, eyes going hooded as he revels in having you in his lap once again — where you’re pretty sure he would like you to be at all times.

You dip your head down, stopping just short of your lips becoming one, and whisper, “This position familiar enough for you, big boy?”

Joel’s expression crumbles, a defeated moan pushing out his throat before he’s closing the distance with gusto, clutching the back of your head and burying his fingers in your hair as his tongue intertwines with yours.

You sigh into his mouth with a pleasurable sound of your own and begin rocking your hips down onto his straining cock. “Turn the TV off,” you utter against his lips. “Feels weird to fuck with this show in the background.”

The breath from Joel’s laugh puffs over your face as he snatches up the remote and hits the power button. The room goes quiet, save for the sound of your increased breathing and a barking dog outside. Joel’s hands run over the sides of your calves and the tops of your thighs until he reaches the hem of your sundress. Joel already knows what he’ll find underneath, but he moves it up glacially, building the tension rising in your bones.

“Lean back on your hands,” Joel instructs with soft authority.

You plant your palms solidly on the coffee table close behind you and lean back as your dress rucks up along with Joel’s upward movements. When the skirt hem meets your hips and reveals your lack of panties, Joel exhales heavily out his nose and shakes his head incredulously. “Perfect every time.”

You spread your knees further apart on either side of him and bait him with, “So make it not so perfect.”

“Not possible,” Joel mutters reverently, sliding a thumb between your glistening lips and stroking up from your dripping entrance to your throbbing clit. “Perfect now, different kinda perfect when she’s full o’me.”

“Joel, that is so…filthily sweet,” you admit, your voice pitching higher as his thumb makes another pass up the line of your cunt.

“Ain’t never wanna be nothin’ but that with you, sugarplum,” Joel replies huskily, spreading your outer lips with his middle and pointer fingers as he deftly works his cock out from his pants, tucking the elastic band under his balls. His length slaps weightily against his bare stomach and your pussy pulses in response.

Joel’s mouth shift for a moment, his cheeks concaving slightly, and then he reaffirms the spread of your lips and spits down onto your already dripping pussy.

You moan at the gesture and roll your hips onto Joel’s fingers as he rubs his saliva around your lips and pushes it into your waiting hole. “Put your cock in me, daddy.”

“So excited for him,” Joel chuckles lightly, but slides a supportive arm around your back for you to push yourself upright and fully into his lap again.

A gasp leaves you as your bare pussy descends on the underside of his exposed cock for the first time today and adds pressure to your clit. You allow yourself to grind on him a few times as you press your lips to his ear and say, “I’m gonna drop it down on you so good, daddy. I know how much you love this pussy.”

“I do love this pussy,” Joel sighs, his hands gripping your hips as you grind, “But I’ve got a little idea for you.”

“An idea?” You ask breathily.

“A little wager.”

Your hips still in his lap and you rear back to take in his expression. He’s got a mischievous look on his face as his thumbs stroke at the tops of your thighs.

“What kind of wager?” You ask skeptically.

“If I win, I get something I want. If you win, you get something you want.”

You furrow your brows at him. “You’re putting your cock in me. We both win in that scenario.”

“And what if I just put my cock in you? And I don’t do nothin’ else?”

“Like you’re not gonna move?” You ask, perplexed.

“That’s right.”

“So how do you win?”

“First person to give in. To start beggin’. To start movin’.”

“And you really think I can’t handle that?”

“Oh, baby, I know you can’t handle that.”

You scrunch your face up at him. “Rude.”

“Now, now, you said it yourself. I’m about to put my big fat daddy meat inside you. That don’t sound rude to me,” he chides, gripping his cock with his hand and stroking it to maintain his erection as you work through his proposition.

You roll your eyes. “Ok. What are the stakes?”

“What do you want, baby?”

You mull over a few ideas in your brain, humming thoughtfully as you parse through them, until you arrive on one. “You have to go to see Les Mis with me when it comes to town next month.”

Joel’s nose crinkles immediately. “Ain’t that the one where all those sad people singin’ and cryin’ about bein’ sad for five hours?”

“Three hours. You’ll survive. And I’ll let you fuck me to tears afterward if that’ll make you feel better.”

“Deal,” Joel whips out immediately, and you laugh at his haste.

“Ok. What do you want?”

And Joel is already locked and loaded with his answer. “You let me fuck your pretty, puckered backdoor.”

“Joel,” you groan, elongating the vowels in dreadful hesitance.

“Within the next two months,” Joel negotiates, cupping your face with his palm. “I’ll give you time. We’ll prep you real good before we do it. I just need to shove my cock into that juicy forbidden fruit at least once, babygirl. I gotta. Please let me.”

You know how badly he wants this. You’ve known he’s wanted it for a long time. But he’s just so huge. You have no idea how you’re going to fit him, and you mean that so honestly. But people do it, right? He’s done it with other women. He’s told you about them. It’s possible.

And shit. You are curious. You want to see if you could take it.

You sigh and say, “Two months. Lots of prep. And I can say to stop at any time.”

“Of course, baby.”

“Ok,” you say, wrapping your arms around his neck. “Deal.”

Joel’s eyes brighten with heartbreaking earnesty, a smile breaking across his face. “Really? Deal?”

“Don’t ask me again,” you advise sternly. “I said deal. Put your cock inside me.”

“Yes ma’am,” Joel replies hurriedly, giddily, guiding your hips up and positioning his cock at the entrance of your cunt. “Make it count, baby. Ain’t gonna feel me rubbin’ on them pussy walls again for a long time if I got anything to say about it.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” you taunt, taking just the head of him inside you as you drag out the descent. “I know how you get when you’re buried inside me.”

“And how am I?” Joel banters back, his hands flexing on your hips as you sink down another inch.

A lazy smile cracks across your face as you poise your lips at his ear again. “Rutting into me like a mangy mutt until you get your nut out. Like your only purpose in life is to breed me like your bitch.”

Joel grunts at your words, his fingers digging into your flesh as you continue to slide down onto him. “So we’re playin’ dirty, are we?”

You laugh softly in his ear and say, “Don’t remember us ever playing any other way, daddy.” You give a sharp nip to his earlobe and hear him moan.

“Such a naughty fuckin’ girl,” Joel purrs, slipping a hand up your torso and between your tits until he’s cupping your neck delicately. No pressure, just a reassurance of his presence and a daring power move. You hum into the crook of his neck as you finally bottom out, your ass flush with his thighs and the tip of his cock nestled as deep as he can reach in this position.

Joel’s hand glides from your throat to your jaw and guides your face back up to his, his nose nudging yours as he says, “Let the games begin, baby.”

Your mouths fall into each other so naturally like this now, Joel always searching for your lips when he’s breaking you apart, like that will hold your pieces together. When the kisses grow deeper, you have to police your own movements carefully, resisting the urge to roll down onto him as the passion ramps up between you.

Coming up for air is bittersweet, knowing you can’t compensate for the loss of contact with renewed vigor in your hips. You gasp when you feel Joel’s cock flex inside you.

“That’s not allowed,” you whine, leaning your forehead against his and tucking your fingers into the hair at the back of his head as he smirks at his little loophole.

“Ain’t grindin’, ain’t movin’. Not against the rules.”

“You’re making shit up.”

“Am not.”

You groan a little as he flexes again, racking your brain for an idea until you come up with your own sweet revenge. Silently thanking your kegel exercises, you focus your muscles to contract around his cock in retaliation.

Joel groans in response, his head falling back against the top of the couch. “Fuck me, you little devil. That’s so fuckin’ not fair.”

“All’s fair in love, war, and sex wagers,” you tease, squeezing around him again just to hear him grunt again.

“Well, I’m callin’ a truce then,'' Joel says, nipping at your bottom lip. “I don’t move him, you don’t squeeze her.”

“Fine. Truce accepted.”

“Good girl.”

You hum and capture his lips again, sighing as he eagerly melts into you once more. Your pussy feels full, in a sensation that is both incredibly frustrating and oddly satisfying. You’ve longed for a simplified scenario of this for a while — to just exist with his cock stretching you open until your pussy doesn’t remember how it’s ever felt any other way. For time to pass and your bodies to remain as one. For him to take root inside you, cast out tendrils that affix to your walls and imprint their memory in the plush welcome of your cunt. This ever-present, almost anxious instinct to entreat your body to remember him and how he makes you feel.

This wasn’t exactly how you imagined it happening, a silly competitive sex game, but you’ll take it. This route seems much more organically Joel than anything else would anyway.

Your lips part from each other again and you rest your head on his shoulder, a sneaking suspicion that the two of you will be in this for the long haul. Joel’s hands slip under your dress and up your back, thumbs grazing back and forth at the sides of your tits.

“‘S kinda nice,” Joel mutters into your hair.

“It is. Unexpected side effect of our competitiveness, I guess,” you reply, words slightly warped by your cheek smushed against his shoulder. “Better not go soft on me, old man.”

“Can’t help it. You make me a little soft,” he says, a bit of solemnity in his voice.

You feel your heart flip over in your chest for a moment at his words. “Oh. I—I mean. I meant something much less appropriate than that, but…”

Joel expels a brief laugh and shifts his thumbs to your nipples, fussing with them as they harden under his attention. “I think you know, little sugarplum, that you’ve made me hard in the cock and soft in the heart for a hot minute now.”

“Shut up,” you mumble bashfully, but you close in and place a kiss onto the side of his neck. “Say something dirty, please. You’re actually going to go soft at this rate.”

Joel laughs again and tweaks your nipples between his fingers, making you squeak quietly in cheery arousal.

“You wanna know my favorite part of tearin’ up this tiny slit?”

Your giggle mingles with a moan as he shifts tone so effortlessly at your behest, but indulge him. “What, daddy?”

Joel’s hands skip down to the creases of your hip and thigh, rough fingertips running over the divots in your skin where you’ve sat on him for what feels like ages. “When I fuck into you just right and I feel your tight little snatch clamp down on my cock. Jesus.”

You whimper into his neck, actively fighting your body’s need to grind on him, ride him until he loses control and spills inside you.

Joel groans himself as he recounts his memories of you and him together. “Or when I’m hittin’ it so deep you can’t say a goddamn thing. No fuckin words, no slutty little sounds. Just braindead on my fuckin’ pussy pounder like the dick-drunk cumslut you are.”

“Fuck, Joel,” you whine against him, nails biting into the back of his neck as your hips scream at you to move. “You can’t say shit like that to me and not…”

“Not what, baby? Do some pussy pounding? You want Daddy Joel to treat you like a whore, sugarplum? He ain’t do that enough? He too nice to you?”

You moan as you feel wetness flowing out around Joel’s cock at his words. Joel really is usually so nice to you with only a few exceptions. He’s dirty and filthy, but he’s become annoyingly respectful to a degree. “I want you to treat me like a whore, daddy.”

“Poor baby,” Joel placates, raking his nails lightly over the tops of your exposed thighs until you shiver. “Better watch what you’re wishin’ for. Your resolve's lookin’ a bit shaky. And you wouldn’t wanna lose, would you?”

One of Joel’s hands drifts behind you, dipping a finger down between your cheeks and ghosting directly over the site of his potential earnings if you don’t pull your shit together.

You swear quietly and regroup, taking a deep breath. “Not a fucking chance, old man.”

Joel chuckles tauntingly, gripping your asscheek in his hand before relinquishing you and settling his hands back at your hips.

“Can you put on the TV or something so I can distract myself?” You whine, placing your hands on his chest.

Joel puts on a mocking pout and says, “Aww, you need a distraction from daddy’s cock filling you up? Are you daddy’s little bunny rabbit? Just need to bounce, bounce, bounce?”

“Fuck you,” you grumble, burying your face in his neck again. “How is this so fucking easy for you?”

“Who said it’s easy for me?”

“You’re just acting so breezy about this.”

“I still got it up, ain’t I?”

He is still rock hard. You can assess that with no trouble. You’re filled to the brim with him, and you imagine that his precome is coating the entrance of your cervix with how perfectly he’s made his home there.

“Yeah, very much so,” you admit.

Joel’s thumb strokes over your cheek delicately. “Believe me. As long as I’m hard, stayin’ still inside you ain’t gonna be easy for me. My goddamn brain is programmed to bust your fuckin’ walls down.”

“And you do it so well,” you coo, snaking your hand down between the two of you and slotting it into the small opening between your converging hips until your fingers are in reach of his ballsack.

The moment your fingers graze against the sensitive skin, Joel releases a helpless sound. “Oh, sugar, you can’t—” His words are cut off with a deep moan as your hand lightly contracts around his balls.

“Ain’t grindin’, ain’t movin’,” you imitate poorly back at him, cupping his sack and softly massaging the skin between them as he bites his lip and groans at your devious discovery.

“When I win, that little cock box ain’t gonna know what hit it when I’m done with you, little girl. And that asshole’s gonna be puckerin’ in fear knowin’ I’m gonna ream it out just as hard when the time comes,” Joel threatens, the severity of his words significantly weakened by the pitiful desperation in his voice.

“Big talk for a man I’ve got by the balls right now,” you deride with an impish grin, kneading the rounded pair of flesh in your palm, dutifully enough that it makes him keen. You feel the head of his cock twitch against your insides, and you’re fairly certain it was unintentional on his part. “Daddy’s getting a little excited in there, isn’t he?”

“Smug little shit,” he retorts, inhaling deeply through his nose to ground himself while in your clutches. Too lost in the amusement you’ve found in toying with Joel’s testicles, you nearly jerk up on his cock when you feel a spit-slick finger prodding at your unoccupied hole. “Still feelin’ smug?”

“Joel, don’t that’s—ohh,” your words trail off in a moan and your hand stalls below his cock when the tip of Joel’s finger pushes past the ring of muscle to the first knuckle.

“Said we were playin’ dirty,” Joel says huskily, wriggling his encased fingertip in a coaxing circle around the rim of your asshole from inside, pulling a whimper from you. “Figured I’d play where my whore is dirtiest.”

“That’s fucked up,” you argue breathily as his finger pops languidly in and out of your clenching hole. You give a slightly tighter squeeze to Joel’s ballsack and feel his cock twitch again. “You can’t pilfer through the goods before you’ve won. I should make you sit through my shitty rendition of I Dreamed a Dream if that’s how you’re gonna play.”

“Sing your heart out, little songbird. Ain’t gonna get you any closer to winnin’,” Joel says, voice straining against the pleasure you’re driving with your dexterous hold on him.

You whine as your body wrestles with being penetrated in two holes at once by Joel, your clit throbbing at the delicious noises Joel is making at your hands-on treatment, and you feel your determination dwindling by the second. You have no idea how long Joel has until he breaks, and your brain and body are screaming at you to allow this man to do what he does best and let him rearrange your guts with unbridled ferocity.

You know you could convince him to go to Les Mis with you regardless.

And you‘ve been planning on gifting him anal soon anyway. But he doesn’t need to know that. You can let him think he won it from you.

You don’t give a shit about the competition anymore.

You just need to get dicked down.

So you finally blow the whistle, wave the white flag with a, “Fuck it,” and smash your lips against his, ratcheting your hips back and forth like a snapped rubber band.

Joel’s reactionary groan is loud and raspy as his fingers sink into the meat of your ass, hauling you with impassioned movements to assist in your primal need to make up for lost time.

“Fucking finally,” he growls into your mouth, starting to lift your hips and pull you back down onto his length as you moan like a shameless whore at the friction. “‘Boutta make you the sorest fuckin’ loser this side o’the Miss’ssippi, sweetheart.”

“Do it,” you cry out, pressing your foreheads together as your fingers tug at the hair on the nape of his neck and you begin to bounce on his cock with all the tenacity you brought to your stupid competition. “Fucking destroy me, daddy.”

You feel like your cervix is bruising from each punch of his cock inside you, from the way he’s yanking you down on him while fucking up into you with a deafening grunt on every thrust. He gives a final, punishing thrust before pulling you off his cock entirely and nudging you back.

“Get on the fuckin’ floor. On your back.”

You narrowly miss smacking your head on the coffee table in your haste, scrambling down to the carpet and falling onto your back for him. Joel loses his sweats in no time flat, swiping them across his sweat-dappled forehead and tossing them to the side before kneeling between your spread legs.

Joel’s fists clench around the rounded neck of your sundress as he looks you dead in the eye. “You love this dress?”

You swallow and shake your head vigorously. Even if you did, you didn’t give a single fuck in this moment what happened to it. Which is fortuitous, because Joel rasps out a single low grunt and the cotton dress tears like tissue paper at his hands. He rips it right down the center, collar to hem, the straps over your shoulders the only fabric keeping it attached to your body. But Joel, having revealed precisely what he wanted, doesn’t bother with further destruction.

He just takes a few moments to drag his eyes up and down your now fully exposed body, nipples peaked and hard, pussy spread, stretched, and drenched, and your chest rising and falling as you catch your breath for the brief, heavy few seconds you’re sharing before he pounds you into oblivion.

You remember the last time he ripped clothing of yours. That very first time in the backroom when he wrenched your panties clean off your bottom half to give himself unfettered access to your enticing offer. It feels appropriate that the second time he wrecks your wardrobe is to once again lay claim to his spoils.

You love feeling conquered by him. Vanquished.

There really wasn’t much of a point in you winning. He’d won a long time ago. The moment he sunk into you the first time. You were done for.

Joel corrals your legs onto his shoulders, folding you in half as a balancing hand appears next to your head on the shag carpet and the other guides his cock to your waiting heat.

He notches at your opening and looks down at you, halting there. “Tell daddy he won.”

You whimper at the tease of his thick, slickened head at your hole, but concede with no ambiguity, “You won, daddy.”

Your mouth falls open in a breathy gasp as he splits you open around him again, pressing back in to the hilt with no resistance. The hair at Joel’s base prickles at your folds, dampening them with your accumulated wetness. His hands bracket your head as he drops down to steal a sloppy kiss from your lips, sucking your blatant arousal off your tongue.

“Daddy’s gonna enjoy your little slot machine, baby. Heard she’s as loose as a fuckin’ whore in Vegas.”

“She feel loose to you?” You counter, squeezing around his cock again, now that you’re free to do so.

Joel groans, retracting his hips inch by inch, pausing with a smirk to say, “Sure feels like a jackpot to me,” before plunging back inside you.

He hits so different from this angle, and you never seem to remember just how much until he dives in. You feel winded on the first thrust, but it’s an addictive sort of high. It’s like he’s got a hand around your throat, commanding your breath with his strokes, but, as disgusting as it is, the only hold he has on you in this moment is your heart.

Maybe you’re “dickmatized” as your friends say, but you can’t help but think that with a cock like his, it’s so easy to fall for this man. And then he follows it up with attentiveness and affection, and it feels like a fucking rabbit hole you’re tumbling down. Only he has ever been able to steal your breath with his dick, and then steal it again with his sincerity, just to breathe you back to life when you see him again.

It’s terrifying and exhilarating, two sides of the same coin that seems to be spinning indefinitely. Part of you wishes Joel would catch it, flip it onto the back of his hand, and reveal the result for you. But he would never do that on your behalf. So you just let it spin.

The buildup has Joel relentless in his mission to show you just why you lost to him, and what you were missing by thinking you could win. Although, you have a sneaking suspicion that he fabricated this entire game to all but guarantee his chances at exploring your “forbidden fruit” as he’d called it. You can’t fault him for that. The man is clever.

The noises falling from your lips are unfiltered and raw. You couldn’t restrain them if you tried. Joel’s cock is mind-numbingly agonizing, slamming into you with undeniable intent to demolish you. You’re vaguely aware of the scrape of Joel’s flesh under your fingernails as they rake for purchase on his back, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Joel is definitely babbling to you, but with all the noise in your brain it’s fragmented as it meets your ears.

“…pussy’s so…chokin’…big cock…lucky girl…rolled daddy’s snake eye, didn’t ya…”

Your eyes are rolling around in your skull as he hammers into the end of you with unfathomable stamina. Joel offers what you sense are filthy encouragements as your pussy welcomes the onslaught and your sounds begin to fail you, exactly as he said happens when he’s fucking you just right. Your mouth lies open with nothing to fill it, even your own vocalizations.

You can feel two rough fingers on your clit, but it’s blurred on the edges of your mind. Your brain doesn’t comprehend it, but your body does, because you can feel it seizing, clenching in preparation for the inevitable release. And release it does, your back arching off the ground, forcing the last remnants of sound from your throat in a final, high-pitch whimper as your vision flashes white and your hearing goes staticky.

You think you hear a telling groan from Joel indicating his own completion, but it gets lost in the haze. Your body comes back to you in gradual sections. You feel your fingers first, still earthed in Joel’s back like they were dead-set on drawing blood — which they may well have done. Then up your arms and down your abdomen, where you soon recognize the press of Joel’s face in your neck and his hot, panting breath over your skin. The sensation in your feet trickles back to you and you pinpoint them locked in a vice grip around Joel with your heels still digging into his ass like the masochist you’ve spectated yourself becoming since you met Joel.

You find your voice again, and it feels like sandpaper, but you’re compelled to ask, “Wait, did you already come?”

Joel breathes a laugh into your neck. “Like Jesus Christ himself, sweetheart.”

“No, I missed it,” you groan, dragging out the first word in disappointment.

“‘S alright, baby,” Joel consoles, stroking down your hip soothingly. “There’ll be a million more where that came from if I got anythin’ to say about it.”

You flex your pelvic muscles to suss out the situation down there. It feels empty, evidence of the gaping absence of him. You clench, and your pussy might as well be crying. To be refilled, to be left alone. To lick its own wounds, to have more inflicted before you even bother. And then there’s the drip of him from inside you, a crude balm to the aching gash between your legs. The only remedy that you think—that you hope—you’ll ever need with him.

Your orgasm had clearly taken you out of commission for a few minutes, because Joel’s cock already lies completely flaccid against your stomach, rung dry by the iron grip of your cunt. Joel’s lips find yours and it’s messy and perfect. Like an ardent forgiveness for your self-imposed sin of not witnessing his achieved euphoria. It’s healing precisely where you need it to heal.

“You’re fucking incredible,” you sigh, your limbs going limp around him, sliding off to land where feels natural. One of those places happens to be your hand intertwining with his.

Joel’s grin presses into your neck as he plants a kiss there. He slips his free hand around the curve of your ass, fingers dipping into the split of your cheeks in a cruel foreshadow, chuckling as he says, “Hope you’re still sayin’ that when I cash in my chips.”

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[lovehappyloki]

Joel Dealing with Preggo Wife: Baby Fever

Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: You love watching Joel adapt to being a dad so effortlessly. You make it your mission tonight to give him another baby, whether he wants to or not.

Warnings: unprotected sex, breeding kink, ovulating reader, dubish-con for Joel but he ain't complainin', cum eating, ball sucking, oral both male and female receiving, cowgirl / riding, missionary, rough sex, dom! reader, slight sub!Joel if you squint, mentions of condoms (wow rare one for me huh--no plz wrap it up), Daddy kink

18+ ONLY

- - - -

It’s probably the first time Joel has absolutely no care for Sunday night football. Instead, you watch with heart eyes as he lies against the opposite couch, head propped only by a pillow. He’s exhausted today. Grunting when he finally collapsed on the couch, sighing heavily as his joints ached and cracked. His eyes are puffy, near closed and fighting sleep. It’s been a restless 7 months for him just as much as you.

Meanwhile, wide eyed, giggly , and conveniently 7-month-old Sarah has become obsessed with Daddy Miller now. She sits in her diaper on Joel’s chest, watching him with admiration. A big curious smile plastered on her face as she bounces and slaps his face with her uncoordinated hands. 

They’re just looking at one another, in their own world. She brings a fat bitty palm on his cheek, watching the way it smushes his whiskered skin each time she rubs. Almost about to giggle with fascination, she instead decides to adjusts herself hunched over his face. Joel chuckles with her. He makes pouty fish faces, and she bursts into laughter each time. 

You watch as her little finger hooks into his mouth. “Ow!” He says softly, faking pain. She laughs again and smashes her cheek onto his scruffy beard. Sitting back again, she just looks down in awe. 

Your heart could burst right now. They pay no attention to you in the room, but you could watch them all night if you could. A gentle, heartwarming thrum tugs at your chest. 

This. This is what it’s all about. This is what your mom meant all those years. You would never have understood her words about family, about love, about the greatest moments of your life being the smallest, simplest ones too, like sitting in the living room together quietly.

And Joel—Joel being so incredibly perfect like this. He’s graying and his grouchy and he’s got bags under his eyes, but this moment makes him the perfect husband. The perfect father. The perfect person you could see every morning and fall in love with every time. It makes your body jittery with excitement on impulse now.

Sarah knee’s forward a little too much, her chunky knee falling onto Joel’s jugular. She laughs loudly as he chokes, his hands coming to grasp her securely from falling. Her bum scootches back on Joel’s chest as she sits up, patting his eyes affectionately. He doesn’t say anything, just smiles and blows kisses to her.

The baby bares her gummy mouth and tiny teeth back. She pets his cheek gently, watching him closely. Her little eyes working over every detail, almost like she’s etching him to memory. The different colors and textures, features like the point of his knows and the crinkle of his forehead. Her big head falls forward, forehead bumping his eye again. 

You laugh as Joel squints. Unfortunate for him, she props herself on a wiggly ankle and then completely launches her whole body over his face. Joel yelps from below and starts blowing air into her belly, making farting noises as she erupts into a fit of loud squeals and wiggles. The squirmy wormy fat belly keeps getting gobbled up by Joel’s playful eating.  He lifts her like she weighs nothing, because truthfully she does, and sets her bum back on his chest.

Little Sarah can’t be kept away from Daddy for long, and she immediately hunches over his head again and stares into his eyes. Eventually she settles along his shoulder. She smushes her chubby smooth cheek against his rough, scratchy one. His whole head is almost the size of her, but it doesn’t both either of them. She’s so at home with him so close. 

You wave to her and whisper “Wanna come to Mommy?” with open arms.

She giggles like that’s sooo fucking funny before rubbing her face on Joel’s lips to say nah uh. She sneezes once, thankfully on his beard rather than eyeballs, before tucking herself against his neck and slowly closes her eyes, falling asleep on Daddy. 

A few more minutes pass until Joel can tell she’s completely out. Her body curled up like a pill bug, a bit of drool starting to creep its way into his nostrils. It’s time to put her to bed.

Joel carefully cradles her into his arms and lifts himself up from the couch. He takes his babygirl, the softest, warmest, most delicate thing he’s ever held with his callused hands, all the way down to her bedroom. His palms cupped tightly under her bum while the other caresses her back, her cheek against his collarbone as she sleeps soundly.

With utmost care and precision that he’s practiced a million times, he puts her into the crib. She lays out on her back and stretches comfortably without stirring. With his hand the size of her entire torso, he always rests it against her to feel each big inhale of air filling her belly and lungs before exhaling. Marveled that this little tiny thing alive and real, here, every day like the most miraculous thing in the cosmos, and its all because of you. 

He’ll never get over it. Never go a day seeing her without thinking she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on. Nothing he’s ever made with his hands—not this crib or this room, that rocking chair, the bear he stitched up, nor the ceiling fan or table downstairs that he built from years steady craftsmanship—nothing will ever come close to the love and pride that fills him when he sees this little thing right here. His daughter. His babygirl. His whole life now.

He’d stay in here forever and watch her from above like some creep if he could. Instead, Joel leans down and plants a soft kiss on her forehead, brushing her curly hair before carefully sliding out of the room and cracking the door.

He’s barely pulled away from the door knob when aggressive hands yank him back and push him against the opposite wall with such force, he nearly shouts. Picture frames shudder crookedly as wet lips attach themselves to his own. 

Joel’s never been pinned to a wall like this, but he’s not opposed to the way desperate, famished whimpers translate from your mouth to his, the way your tongue forces its way to glide over his teeth and tangle with his. Your hands wring the collar of his shirt in tight fists, and his back keeps getting smashed against the wall each time he tries to lean closer to you.

“W-mm-wha—mmmm-mmfff!—what are you—?“

“I want another one,” you growl. He shivers at how wracked your voice is. Beyond desperate, beyond control and savagely hungry. “Right. Now.”

He furls his brows. “W—?“ but you immediately latch yourself onto him again. 

His hands gently cup right above your ass, trying to be intimately appropriate, but you have other ideas. Your palms splay on his chest as you scratch your nails down to his crotch. Immediately fisting his rapidly hardening length out of his sweatpants. Joel’s head falls back against the picture frames.  He groans softly as you begin to pump him. Your tongue swipes your lips with a devilish grin, feeling him swell.

“Don’t you wanna put a baby in me?” You coo. Little nips to his lips don’t phase him, nor your words, as he slowly falls apart.

“Fuck—shit—“ he rasps. “But you just—“ he glances down to Sarah’s cracked bedroom down the hall. And how you specifically said you weren’t ready to try for another kid until Sarah was at least 3. “What has gotten into you??”

“Your seed—hopefully soon,” you smirk. 

He’s struggling to keep his trail of thoughts as you spit in your hand and continue to jerk him off expertly. Despite his size, the sheer force of your conviction right now has him pinned helplessly as you kiss and fist him.

“I—“

“Cmon Daddy, don’t you wanna make me a Mommy again? Get me all knocked up and show me off, how much you like breeding me…”

Joel Miller is not a strong man. Maybe he can lug concrete and lumber all day, pull wasp stingers and blisters from his own hands, carry a pregnant woman who’s gained 50 pounds in milkshakes alone—but god he’s a weak weak man for you when you’re like this. The greatest danger of all:

“Shit, are you ovulating???”

To his horror, you nod eagerly. 

You get to your knees quickly, and he sees how blown your pupils are staring up at his erect length. The little bob in your neck as you pinch the tip, licking the salty precum from your fingers. 

“I don’t think this is a good—“

All his words evaporate from his mind the second you wrap your lips around his fucking balls. He grits his teeth and slams his head back against the wall, fighting the demons, particularly the one on her knees right now who’s generously sucking each one into her mouth.

With one hand pumping his cock over your forehead, your tongue swilrs and massages his sack. Suckling and releasing them with a pop before transferring to the other. 

He covers his mouth with a slap. 

Christ, you’re literally prepping them. Getting his seed ready and raring for your eggs to accept with loving arms.

You cup them in your warm hands, continuing their massage as your mouth engulfs his dick. bobbing your head obscenely, you take his tip to the back of your throat. The pressure on his mouth tightens from the whine burrowed in his throat when his tip nudges your esophagus like its nothing, squeezing around him before pulling away again in the tight heat of your skilled mouth.

He can’t compete. Can’t think. Not when you’re sucking him off like the tastiest, juiciest hot wings, all meat slurped clean from the bone in a single suck. 

His eyes feel hazy as you work him, gargled noises filling his hears. He wants to blow his load. Yeah, maybe that’s it. He’ll cum down your throat right now, and you won’t get any—

As if reading his thoughts, you pull off his throbbing cock. A wet string of saliva connecting his tip to your lips. You look so gorgeously sinful right now: swollen lipped and crazy eyed. 

He’s in serious trouble.

Inhuman strength yanks him down the hall and into your bedroom like a leashed dog. You chunk him on the bed, his back bouncing once before you’re shoving him down, crawling over his body and pinning him like a wooden slat.

No. Bad bad bad idea. 

‘Maybe…” he gulps. You don’t listen as you pull his pants all the way down to his ankles—effectively keeping them trapped around the fabric so he can’t get away.  “—I should get the condom…”

Your head snaps to him with an angered snarl. 

He tentatively reaches for your face, but you snatch him down and pin his hand above the bed. “Fuck your condoms,” you growl.

He nods fearfully. He prays to the horny devil, who overcomes women once a month and helps procreate the human race, to please have mercy on his wife and release her from the chokehold possession the demon has wrapped around her.

He didn’t even notice when you had striped your underwear, but your naked pussy is already slobbering atop his tip. He gasps at the warm, wet drool, thick like syrup, coating his tip. You giggle vivaciously and begin to rub it between your folds.  “You ready for it, baby?” You coo. “You’re gonna give me another one, Daddy. Right. Now.”

You soften just a bit, if possible with carnivorous crave licking your tongue over your teeth. “I’ll take care of everything, just sit there and let Mommy handle the breeding.”

WeakWeakWeakWEAK fucking man, Joel Miller.

You gasp loudly as you sink down onto his pulsing length. Joel’s whole body goes taught, the veins in his neck strained so tight they may burst before his cock does.

“Ugghrrmmgmgmmmmhgggffff Fuck yeah, Shit, that’s sooooooo fucking good, Joel, Fill me up, been needing this fat cock buried in my tight pussy all fucking night. Oh my god!” You squeal, quickly bouncing up and down on him until your ass is slapping his thighs. 

F-F-f-f-f-f-f-f-fuuuuucccckkkkkkk.” He daringly tilts forward to see you hungrily riding his dick back and forth, your hips working so effortlessly. Tongue lolled out with a big grin on your face.

“Fuckin love watching you be a Daddy! M’gonna take it, take your fucking cum in my fertile little cunt until I’m bursting with your baby again.”

He needs to tell you that you need to heal more first. That you’re still tired, and new as a mom, and freshly off the first child. But when he sees your tits jumping up and down with each movement, the way they’re still heavy and forever changed from the last time he knocked you up, he keeps his lips shut, except for the huffs of pleasure flowering in his body.

You’re bouncing fast for his seed. Not even god’s entire army of angles could deny this. He thinks about how your droopy tummy right now reminds him of when you were first starting to show while pregnant with Sarah, and the realization only then that you were really pregnant dawned on him. It was the period of best sex because he could still be rough with you, but admire that tiny swell that he put inside of you. Reminds him of right now, that he could do it all over again right fucking now and you’re letting him. So greedy and desperate for it, just for him to flood your womb with more cum and more babies and—

Fuck, fuck don’t cum Miller. 

But the image of your swollen body again, milky fat tits and wide hips  accepting him—shit no that’s making it worse!

Ok—he thinks about the 9 months straight of pure hell: your attitude, demands, yelling, crying, exhaustion. How bitchy and annoying you get, pushing him past his envelope to serve your needy wants until he’s over the edge and pins ya both right back in this exact position with him pounding the shit out of you—

He thrusts his hips up and grasps your waist. Taking over and fucking up into you because the thought of Pregnant Wife You all over again and needing to take care of you once more has him in a feral deathtrap.

You yelp as Joel flips the two of you over. Your thighs fall even further apart as he completely slots his body between them and goes to pound down on your cunt. “Oh SHIT OH FUCKYESDADDY!” You cry with a smile, arms slinging over his shoulders to hold him down close to you.

You keen, so high and dumb you’re begging for it. Legs wrapped around him securely with no room to pull out. 

He grunts anomalistically, over and over again with each fast rut into you. Your fingers grip his hair tightly and pull his face next to yours. “You’re gonna fucking cum inside me,” you growl through bared teeth. He fucks you faster. Eyes so dilated, heart pressed against yours like a race. 

“Fill me up baby, breed me—breedmebreed-breed-breedmeDaddy fuck oh my god yesyesyesyesYES!”

He can’t stop his hips from moving, can’t stop the delicious plunge of his angry dick into your sweet sweet tight slit. He probably looks ridiculous—knees spread so wide on the mattress to really dig each thrust deep inside, wearing only a T shirt with his ass and swollen balls hanging out and humping desperately into your mound. 

He hisses through clenched teeth into your neck, cheeks puffing out with each blow. You keep encouraging him with more naughty thoughts of making him Daddy over and over and over again and any sane man would be insane right now. 

He’s thought about breeding you every day since you even found out you were expecting. He mourns the loss of your pregnant glow. Joel loves you, beautiful each day, but something about seeing his wife swell with the clear evidence of his love, her own body and mind changing by the minute because of him …he wants you pregnant again. For the rest of your life. Stuffed full of his kids. Round and fertile like a goddess. Once he got a taste of you like that, no husband would ever miss the chance to do it again. 

He wants it so badly, so little clarity left in him that is screaming ‘pulloutpulloutpulloutpullout’ as he pounds pounds pounds your womb. He may break his jaw from how tightly clenched he is. Nothing matters more than giving you exactly what you’re begging for.

He grunts even louder, and you tighten your legs around him even more, knowing he’s close. 

“Oh fuckFUCK Yes Baby give it to me!!—FUcking cum, Daddy oh shit—oh RIGHT—RIGHT FUCKING THERE! Come inside, I know you wanna Daddy just fucking cum in my little womb, let’s make a fucking baby, knock me up right now!!”

He shouts, and fate grants him mercy at the last possible second; his cock slips out and nudges itself along your ass as he spills his load onto your slit and the bedsheets.

You shake your head and start swearing, but he’s still on top of you, whining and jerking with each pulse of seed that is just shooting like a geyser from his tip. He lets out a long moan, closing his eyes. His cock twitches a few more times before finally going empty.

He sits back just a bit, trying to even his breathing. Joel Miller has never been so overwhelmed by an orgasm before that he loses sense of where he is for a few seconds. All covered in sweat, his heart rate dangerously high from such a fantastic cum.

He hazily opens his eyes to see you scooping his cum from your ass and the mattress, dragging it up along your slit and pushing as much of his cream into as you can salvage.

“NO!” He shouts, quickly grabbing your wrists and pinning them to your side. You wail out, physically squirming and trying to wiggle from his grasp. He watches you thrash madly but to no avail. Your poor cunt clenches and unclenches, his probably trying to make its way from your folds to your womb right now…

Joel quickly bends down, hands still firmly on your wrists, and puts his mouth on your cunt. You gasp out, strained and pathetic, as he begins to suck out of his seed from your slit. For good measures, he licks it from your crack and ass too, everything rapidly being scooped by his talented tongue gulped down his throat, away from your dangerous eggs.

Your heels come up along his back and press down hard. He shouts into your cunt when you cum. Clit twitching like a heartbeat while your much needed orgasm rolls through you. Your walls clench so tightly around nothing, you can’t help but whimper at the loss despite shaking through the euphoria for so long. Joel does what he can, working his tongue through it all until your sounds get softer, more satisfied. 

“Euughh—salty,” he says with a shiver, wiping his lips clean of all his and your cum. You both pant together with the last ebb of your orgasms settling.

“You alright, babe?” 

Tears begin to well in your eyes. Lips trembling with a pathetic mewl spilling past your lips.

It takes 3 seconds of Joel hugging you close before feels you begin to hump his thighs.

“Honey—Honey please don’t cry, its just—you get this way when you’re ovulating, and ya’d be mad at me if I actually did breed you—“

You nod solemnly despite wiping your tears and burning your face into your hands. No he’s right. you weren’t thinking straight. So horny and desperate to be filled, you didn’t think anything through it. Just needed him balls deep emptying every bit of sperm into you like you were made for nothing else.

“Oh—oh no—“

Joel snatches your arms and throws you off him. He quickly snatches his pants and runs out the door, closing it behind him. You slam against the frame and shout, “GIVE ME YOUR FUCKING COCK, MILLER!”

You nuzzle your face into his shirt and inhale, getting yourself high on his scent while your slick pussy does a number on him. Your smooth, seductive, temptress voice nearly lulls him under your spell again: “Fuck—fuck Daddy—can we do it one more time—please?My pussy—she’s so—nnnmm—feels so empty…I’ll—ugghhhhhh oo ff-ff—fuuccckkk—I’ll let you—ah—haaa!—pull out—“

He yanks back. “THE HELL YOU WILL.”

He holds the knob tight despite its aggressive rattling. Joel quickly ties his sweatpants legs from the door handle to the hallway guard rail, stretched to keep them at odds and effectively locking you in. 

“Not till you behave!” 

He hears you go quiet for a moment before you erupt into a long wail like a baby. At the same time, poor little Sarah can’t handle all this raucous, awakening from her sleep and crying through the cracked bedroom.

Joel wipes his face, knowing he’s done the right thing. But now at the cost of an irritated baby that’s gonna make him carry her all night, he’s reconsidering having just pumped you full in the first place and calling it a day.

- - - -

Taglist:

@harriedandharassed @lola8888673 @its-nebuleuse @zliteraturehoe @merz-8 @joeldjarin @pascalscoffin @pedroshotwifey @ghostslillady @innerpersonunknown @missladym1981 @mrsoharaxx @survivingandenduring @milla-frenchy @cockykookiee @fairytale07 @daddy-din @pedropascalsbbg @spookyxsam @somehopeatlast @millercontracting @pedrostories @mishala005 @theoraekenslover @animez96 @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @puduvallee @cassiecasluciluce @loohoop

[lovehappyloki]

This is a bit weird but hear me out. Truck driver Joel. Having to sleep in cheap motels and inside his truck. Picks up sweet, pretty hitchhiker reader, who ends up travelling the country with him and fucking in his truck, those cheap old motels, and in the middle of nowhere.

Giving joel handjobs and blowjobs while driving and joel fingering her while driving...

🫠🫠🫠

Trucker Joel. . . I love it. Sexy and fun.

@tashibum sent the middle pic one time and I love the vibe. 💛

On the first day, you're riding in silence, and he keeps looking over, checking you out. To make conversation, you ask him about his load. His neck gets pink, and he clears his throat. "my, uh--" before telling you what's in the trailer.

You get a kick out of him being flustered so later you ask him what he's gonna do with his load. When he's flustered, sometimes he adjusts his net hat (his curls stick out under it).

He's proud of his truck. It's humble but he takes good care of it. He's made the cab cozy, but you can tell he did it himself, there isn't much of an eye for design. There's definitely only one bed.

You're fixing the fitted sheet on the bed in his cab and there's a bottle of lube under the corner of the mattress.

He has a TV screen set up near the bed and offers you can stream something but it accidentally opens to porn.

The first time you stop at a motel, he takes a shower, slicks back his hair, and puts on a nice t shirt and belt, and even foregoes the hat. He takes you to eat at a diner.

He doesn't like belts though. Before the motel room door is even shut behind you, he takes his belt off with one hand in one swift motion. He does a double take at your face and can't help but smile to himself at the effect it has on you.

When you're sucking him off and he's about to cum too early, he's like "whoa, back it up now, darlin'."

Maybe he calls you bambi cause he almost hit you like a deer before picking you up.

You might have to cockwarm him in the driver's seat sometime.

He gives you back-to-back cream pies, admires the mess, and says "damn near got you bundled out" (loaded to max capacity).

feel free to add or write

[lovehappyloki]

feeling so high school when i look at you

joel miller x reader

summary: you’re at the tipsy bison for the night, waiting for your man. and he looks good.

warnings: fluff, joel miller and his hair, one taylor swift reference (the one who finds it gets a kiss), no description of reader, no use of y/n

word count: 518 words (it’s a baby 🥺)

a/n: how are we feeling joel miller girlies (gn)? 🥴 this is just meant to scratch the itch of finally having a jackson!show!joel image. i wrote this in an hour and as i told @reddedmiller it’s not jane austen’s long lost novel, just a silly little thing to cope with…the man™️ anyway hope you enjoy, love you 💗💗

dividers by the talented @saradika-graphics

The Tipsy Bison was crowded. Probably more than it had ever been since you had arrived a few months ago. Music booming, barely covering the loud chatter and laughing around you. The atmosphere carried a cheerfulness you realized was just the norm in a place like Jackson. People dancing, kids running around, the smell of mulled wine and fairylights bathing the room in a gentle glow. The cold, unforgiving wind outside was long forgotten in the safety of the room, your cheeks now warm, bearing a sweet ache from laughing.

But even though the night felt perfect, you knew there was one thing missing. Well, one person. He had promised he would come. Grumbled something about one hour, not more. And you had smiled in that way you knew made it impossible for him to resist.

You weren’t worried about him showing up. He promised so he would. But you couldn’t help the tapping of your fingers on the table, the slight shake in your leg, looking around every time the door opened. You just couldn’t stay put, bitter sweet sixteen suddenly at the idea of seeing his broad frame across the room, eyes as dark as the coffee he loves staring right at you.

You tried to focus again on Maria, listening intently as she told you about Charlotte’s first birthday party. But whatever she was saying seemed to fade in the background as you felt a gush of wind coming from the door.

You lifted your head from your drink and there he was, his jacket snug around his strong arms, a characteristic frown between his brows as he looked around the room. A soft smile graced your features as you raised your hand, waving at him. Maybe it was a light effect but his face seemed to relax at the sight of you, something close to a smile in response to your gesture.

He moved easily in a crowd that vanished, only for him to remain as he walked closer to you.

“Hey there, cowboy,” you greeted, flashing at him that same smile that made his knees buckle.

His hand found your waist as you leaned in, kissing that spot on his jaw where hair didn’t grow. His face was cold, his cheeks slightly flushed—from the wind or from you, that you couldn’t say.

“I missed you,” he uttered close to your ear, close enough you knew it was meant just for you.

You kissed him again, on the lips this time and you felt his arm tighten around your waist, holding you closer. Both your schedules had kept you from spending time together in the last few days and it showed. Joel wasn’t one for public displays of affections but it had been too long since he had properly held you to care about others. Your fingers threaded through the silver locks you adored—he had let his hair grow in the past few months, the strands longer than when you had met him. Your hands rested around his neck, warm fingers against colder skin as you smiled against his lips.

“I missed you too.”

[lovehappyloki]

Headcanon: Marcus tells you about his meeting with Teresa...(MarcusPikexf!reader)

Since you liked the first part so much, I decided to add something more to this situation. Domestic fluff.

On the way back home, your toddler's mouth wouldn't close. You watched in awe as Marcus listened to everything patiently while driving the car.

At home, as promised, a delicious dinner was waiting for you.

And you didn't have to worry about anything. Marcus even took care of your son's evening routine. He bathed him, helped him brush his teeth, and read him a bedtime story.

You knew he was a great father to your son. And soon he will also be the perfect daddy for your little daughter.

You were just finishing applying lotion to your pregnant belly when Marcus walked into the bedroom. He looked so comfortable in a t-shirt and sweatpants. And yet it didn't escape you that he was a little tense. You noticed it at the station.

Marcus looked at you tenderly and sat down next to you with a quiet sigh. You immediately grabbed his hand and asked:

"Have you had a hard time at work?"

"No… It was actually fine. Why do you ask?"

"Because you seemed tense at the station and then on the way home."

Marcus immediately felt his heart warm. You knew him so well that you noticed even the slightest change in his mood.

"It's about that woman you asked about."

You frowned and had to remember. This woman was so insignificant to you that you had already forgotten about her.

"The one with the sour face… What's wrong with her?"

"It was Teresa… Teresa Lisbon."

You immediately sighed, understanding who this woman was.

"Oh, baby… I'm so sorry."

You placed your hand on his cheek.

Marcus smiled warmly and placed his hand on yours.

"I'm not sad… That's not the point. My broken heart was healed a long time ago thanks to you."

He turned his face to the side and kissed your hand.

"So what is it about?"

"She upsetting me. She acted like I was some backup boyfriend she could always go back to… I should have said so many rude things to her…" A hint of anger crossed his face as he remembered her inviting him out for a drink. "I should have screamed in her face that I have the greatest wife in the world and that I would be a complete idiot if I left you for someone like her… But…" He sighed heavily. "I was so shocked I didn't do it."

His confession touched you. This is your husband. Your beloved Marcus, who always wanted to tell the whole world how much he loves you. You knew that on his desk at the FBI office, he kept your wedding photo, a photo of all three of you, and, recently, a photo of ultrasound. (He will probably add a photo of your newborn daughter soon.)

You cupped his face in your hands and said calmly.

"Honey, your actions are much louder than your screams. Believe me… Teresa saw it all perfectly. She saw a loving husband and father. A man who has everything. Family, love, job, and future."

Marcus smiled widely and kissed you on the lips. Your words gave him so much comfort. But after a while, the worry returned.

"You are not angry at me?"

"For what, darling?"

"That I didn't tell you right away."

You shook your head. You really didn't feel angry. You understood why he didn't tell you right away.

"It wasn't the right time there at the train station. I know you didn't want to hide it from me."

Marcus kissed your hand and nodded.

"Exactly. I just wanted to take you home as soon as possible and enjoy you, not talk about someone who really is nobody to me."

He leaned back on the pillows and pulled you closer to him. He wrapped his arms around you and kissed your head.

"Thank you for being such a wonderful wife and always being able to put my mind at ease. I love you, my love."

"And I love you."

Marcus began to tenderly stroke your belly. He rested his head on yours and closed his eyes. There was no reason to worry about anything.

Teresa was a hazy memory, a woman not worthy of his heart.

Now he had everything in his arms, his whole world. And he wasn't going to lose it.

Pernament tag list: @harriedandharassed

[lovehappyloki]

❤︎ mama bear roars

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader no outbreak AU

Summary: Sarah calls you mom for the first time 🥺

A/N: This is a little 500 word drabble for Moth and Birdee's Mother's Day Challenge.

Of course, this had to happen when Joel was at a job site a few hours out of town. Of course, it had to be on you to take Sarah to the emergency room, when a hellion from the opposing team took her out on the soccer field so hard, it was obvious to everyone that something was wrong with her ankle.

Not because you didn't feel up to the task, but because over the years of being with Joel and eventually moving in with the two of them, not only had your love for Joel grobe but you also grew to love his precious daughter. Knowing she was hurt and there was nothing you could do for her but take her to the hospital made you feel useless.

Sarah was the brave one when the two of you sat in the waiting room for what felt like hours. You on the other hand were probably a menace in the eyes of the hospital staff because you could see Sarah was in pain and everything was progressing entirely too slowly.

"Okay mama bear, calm down. The doctor is already on his way."

You know it was meant to be patronizing, but that's exactly how you felt in that moment. Like a feral animal, ready to pounce protecting it's young.

When the doctor finally did come and asked if you were Sarah's guardian and if she wanted someone to come with her, you were just about to speak. But before you could open your mouth to say anything, Sarah's small hand made it's way into yours. "I want my mom to come."

For a few seconds you were to stunned to do or say anything and then, when if finally sunk in, that Sarah had just called you mom for the first time, you had to try really hard to keep your composure and hold back some happy tears.

You knew that Sarah knew you loved her and you knew she also loved you but hearing her say that word made you feel whole in a way you had never felt before.

When Joel finally came into the hospital room later on, he found you in a chair next to the bed, holding a sleeping Sarah's hand. He quietly dragged a matching ugly plastic chair to the other side of her bed taking her other hand in his and reaching for your free one, linking them on Sarah's lap, a gentle smile on his face.

"Hey, how are my two favorite girls doing?"

You had kept him updated the whole time and texted him with a bunch of happy crying emojis while they had been taking care of Sarah.

"She called me her mom."

His eyes were soft and shiny with some unspilled tears of his own. "I know. Because you are."

[lovehappyloki]

Have A Good Night

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

Summary: Every week like clockwork, the same devastatingly handsome man comes into the grocery store where you work to buy flowers. It's not until he asks you out when you realize the flowers aren't for his wife or girlfriend.

Warnings: no outbreak AU, language, flirting, alcohol and food consumption, smut (18+ MDNI), protected piv sex, size kink, shy!joel, fluff, mutual pining, cringy/embarrassing crush interactions

WC: 7.9K

Written for @morallyinept's Flora & Fauna Challenge (masterlist here)

dividers by the one and only @saradika-graphics

It was never roses that he bought. That should have been your first clue.

Every Friday he came through your checkout lane with a beautiful flower arrangement. Sometimes it was lilies, sometimes it was daffodils, but never roses.

He hardly spared you a glance when he slid his card through the machine. Occasionally he would comment about the weather or how busy the store was, but he rarely ever made eye contact.

It wasn't unusual and it didn't offend you. Most customers had other things on their minds and they preferred to get in and out of the store as quickly as possible. But this particular customer, the one with dark hair and eyes, broad shoulders and patchy beard always caught your eye. It was the best part of your week. You never had the nerve to say anything to him, but your friend Andy noticed the way you always got nervous when you saw him standing in line, how your demeanor shifted and your hands shook just a little bit.

He's not wearing a ring, Andy pointed out one day as you counted your drawer. You rolled your eyes.

That doesn't mean anything, you replied. Why else would he be buying flowers?

Then one day, as you scanned your handsome stranger's flowers, you noticed a few of the daisies were wilting.

"Do you want to pick out a different bouquet?" you had mustered up the courage to ask. The store was quiet, no one was lined up behind him. There was a big football game that night and it kept most people at home.

His eyes snapped up to yours and he froze like a deer in the headlights. You raised your eyebrows, waiting for an answer while trying to think if you said something stupid to warrant such a delayed reaction. "A few of these flowers are already dying. See?" You tilted the bouquet in his direction so he could see the flowers with the petals that were turning brown.

"Oh," he finally said, then nodded his head. "Y-yeah, thanks. D'you mind if I just-" he jutted his thumb over his shoulder.

"It's no big deal, I'll wait."

He gave you a crooked grin and disappeared back into the store. The florist department wasn't far from the registers but it was enough time for Andy to lock eyes with you from customer service and give you a look. You rolled your eyes at him and turned back around just as the hot flower guy was returning with a new selection.

"Thanks," he said again once you handed him his receipt. He didn't make a move to leave.

"Don't mention it," you replied, feeling Andy's stupid grin burning into the back of your head the longer hot flower guy stood there.

"Have you worked here long?" he asked after a brief silence that was bordering on uncomfortable. You blinked, taken aback at the random question and tried to ignore your heart fluttering excitedly in your chest.

"Um, just over four years," you replied. His beautiful dark eyes drifted over your face as he nodded and swallowed before looking back down at his flowers.

"You work most Fridays?"

You could feel your cheeks warming up and you wished the ground would open up and swallow you whole. How can someone be embarrassed for being embarrassed? Jesus, you were such a mess.

"Yep," you said, tucking a stray piece of hair behind your ear and praying he didn't notice how flushed you were.

He rubbed the back of his neck and shifted his weight. If you weren't so absorbed in your own uneasiness you might have noticed he was acting just as uncomfortable as you.

When he opened his mouth to say something else, a middle aged woman pushed her cart up behind him and began to unload her groceries onto the belt. He glanced quickly over his shoulder and nervously swiped his palm over his mouth.

"Have a good night," he told you abruptly, and before you had a chance to reply he was halfway to the front door.

The following week was busier and you lost track of time. Typically, as your shift dragged on, you began to anticipate his arrival but on that particular day, you were distracted. Andy ended up having to help out on another register, it was so busy.

"You wanna come out with us tonight?" Andy asked you over his shoulder. He was closing down the extra register while you were finishing up with a young mom who had her hands full wrangling her toddler away from the candy.

"Uh, yeah, sure," you agreed absentmindedly, lifting the last paper bag into the cart. You tapped a key on your register so she could slide her card through the reader and looked over at Andy. "Where are you guys going?"

"Murray's," he replied immediately, his focus still on counting the coins in the drawer. You rolled your eyes and grinned.

"Why am I not surprised?"

It was well known Andy harbored a huge crush on a bartender there and he had been trying to work up the courage for months to ask for her number.

"Thank you, have a good night," you told the young woman, handing over her receipt with a smile. When you glanced up to greet your next customer, you felt your heart skip a beat when you were met with those dark brown eyes you had grown so enamored with.

"It must be later than I thought," you said, without even thinking twice. Surprise passed over his beautiful features as you scanned his flowers and then your nerves finally caught up with you. "I-I mean, you usually come in around the same time every week," you explained hurriedly. Andy was smirking at you from behind hot flower guy's broad shoulder and you made a mental note to punch him later.

"I didn't realize you noticed," he replied after he cleared his throat.

Oh, you idiot. You could tell you made him uncomfortable with your comment and you just prayed he didn't figure out you had been lusting after him all these months with the little observation you made.

"You always pick out the best flower arrangements, it's hard not to," Andy piped up. Relief flooded your veins for the save. Maybe you should rethink that punch. "Must be one lucky girl," he added with a mischievous wink in your direction before picking up the drawer and walking towards the office, leaving just the two of you with Andy's loaded comment hanging heavy in the air.

He took his time pulling his credit card out of his wallet, wracking his brain for something to say. His cheeks dusted with pink the longer he took to formulate a sentence.

"So... Murray's, huh?" he asked, cringing inwardly at the stupid question as he swiped his card.

You blinked, confused at the change in topic until it clicked. "Oh, yeah. He drags a bunch of us out after work sometimes because he's got a thing for a girl who works there." You gave the man behind hot flower guy a smile as he unloaded his groceries on the belt.

Your handsome stranger froze, his hand still holding the receipt midair while the gears turned in his head.

"So, you two aren't-"

"Oh, sorry, excuse me," the customer behind him mumbled when he accidentally bumped into him with his cart.

"Have a good night," you told him with a sweet smile, then quickly turned away, hoping your hair would hide your embarrassment.

"I am not playing darts with her! Don't you remember last time? She almost took my eye out!"

"Oh, shut the fuck up!" you laughed, shoving Courtney, another co-worker of yours, in the shoulder. There were only five of you that night, Courtney being the only other girl in your group, but you were fine with that. Over the past few years you all bonded over the shared trauma of nasty customers and terrible management to the point where you were like family, and nights where you blew off steam only brought you closer together.

"Anyone need anything? I'm heading up," Andy shouted over the live band.

"Didn't you just get a water a minute ago?" you teased, knowing full well he was looking for an excuse to talk to the bartender.

"What can I say? I'm thirsty," Andy replied with a smirk before pushing his way through the crowd to get to the bar.

"When the hell's he just gonna ask her out? We've been coming here for months," Courtney said, turning away from the bar to look at you. You took a sip from your mixed drink and shrugged.

"Probably for the best. You know if he makes things weird then we'll need to find a new spot to hang out."

She giggled and winced when the band began to sing Journey off-key. "God, these guys are... not it."

"I think it's the owner's way of making us drink more!" James shouted from across the table, the four of you dissolving into laughter. He had a good point because your drink was nearly empty.

"Why didn't you just have Andy get you one?" Courtney asked when you slid down from your barstool.

"If I did, there was, like, a one percent chance he would bring it back to me within the hour," you told her, nodding towards Andy setting up shop against the bar, his eyes trailing after the cute bartender.

It took several minutes but you were finally able to wedge yourself between other patrons and secure a refill of your drink, but when you turned around to walk back to your table you nearly ran right into someone's chest.

"Oh! Sorry, I - " your eyes widened when you tilted your head up to find those familiar brown eyes staring down at you. "It-it's you!" you finally said as the shock began to wear off. He gave you a lopsided grin and nodded.

"Joel," he offered, sticking his hand out. Joel. Joel. Joel. You rolled his name around in your head like a ping pong ball. It suited him.

You took his hand, his long fingers dwarfing yours. "I'm-"

Then he cut you off and said your name and once again, you struggled to keep the shock from your face. "Your nametag," he explained, letting your hand go and gesturing towards his own chest where a nametag would sit. "I remember."

"Yeah," you said breathlessly with a smile. You glanced around the room while people shoved past you to get to the bar. "What are you doing here?"

His smile faltered a bit and he rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't live too far. Had the night to myself so I came out with my brother. He's over there," Joel pointed to the opposite corner of the bar but it was impossible to see him through all the people.

"Oh, cool," you nodded and took a sip from your glass. His eyes drifted to your lips, getting lost in the way they puckered around the straw. "Do you guys come here a lot?"

He chuckled and dropped his chin shyly to his chest before shaking his head. "No, um," he cleared his throat and looked back up at you. "Was hopin' I would run into you, actually."

"Me?" you squeaked and your heart began to race. He nodded and grinned.

"Yeah. Wondered if maybe you'd-"

A huge, burly man who definitely had too much to drink shouldered past you, accidentally shoving you into Joel's chest. His arms immediately wrapped around your ribs to steady you and somehow you didn't spill anything on his clothes.

"God, I'm sorry," you mumbled, his scent making you dizzy. You always had a register between you. Never before had you been that close, noticing he smelled like he had just gotten out of the shower and it was instantly overwhelming.

"It's alright," he said, his arms still loosely wrapped around your midsection. "But I gotta get this out before I lose my nerve, darlin'."

Darlin'. Your brows furrowed and before you could reply, he spoke. "I wondered if you wanted to go out on a date sometime? Maybe a movie or somethin'? I know you work alotta nights but I -"

"You want to go out with me?" you asked in disbelief. He looked at you like you had two heads.

"'Course I do. Wasn't it obvious?" he could feel the heat creeping up his neck.

"No! I thought... nevermind, it doesn't matter," you told him, a smile pulling across your lips. "Yes, I would love to. God, if you only knew-" you stopped yourself by slapping your hand over your mouth and he quirked a playful eyebrow at you but he was too excited that you agreed to go out with him to ask you to finish your thought. He handed you his phone as you shakily typed in your number, hoping your trembling fingers didn't mess it up before giving it back to him.

"I'm gonna text you tomorrow, set somethin' up, yeah?" he asked and you nodded numbly, your mind reeling as you tried to process everything that was happening. He grinned and slid his phone back into his pocket. "Have a good night," he said, the familiar phrase making you smile before disappearing into the crowd.

"Um, who the hell was that?" Courtney questioned the second you arrived back at your table.

"I need a fucking shot first and then I'll tell you, holy shit," you said, taking a deep breath to calm your nerves with no success. She laughed and got you each tequila shots, then you spent the rest of the night telling her all about Joel the hot flower guy.

The next morning, you paid for your crimes. Your head throbbed and your mouth was dry as sand as you stumbled into your bathroom to scoop water from the faucet, desperately trying to quench your thirst. You weren't normally a huge drinker, but after your run-in with Joel, you were so nervous that you found yourself tossing back a few extra drinks than normal. Fortunately, you didn't work until late afternoon, so after you fumbled around your cupboards for some crackers, you fell back into bed. Your eyes widened when you saw a missed text from an unsaved number an hour ago.

Hey, it's Joel. It was great running into you last night. I was thinking we could go to dinner this week, if you're still up for it. What nights are you free?

"Shit," you muttered, running a hand anxiously through your hair. Now that you were sober, the prospect of seeing hot flower guy outside of work made you inexplicably nervous.

You must have typed out and deleted fifteen responses before going with I would love to! I'm free Sunday, Monday and Wednesday nights. Or we could do something after I get out of work, we close at nine.

Did you sound too desperate? You chewed on your fingernail as you read your sent text over and over, then shrugged and put your phone down. Too late now, anyway.

It took a while to get his response, but to be fair, you didn't reply to him for an hour.

I can make Sunday work.

Sunday? As in, tomorrow?

"Oh, fuck," you groaned, fully not expecting him to set something up so quickly. You needed time to mentally prepare, but of course you agreed, then quickly texted Courtney, begging for her help on what to wear and how to do your hair.

Yay!! We can talk about it at work tonight!

After you ironed out a time and restaurant with Joel, you popped two pain relievers and chugged some water, hoping to get rid of your hangover before work.

"Okay, so where's he taking you?" Courtney asked excitedly as you stocked cereal together.

"This Italian place on Westwood. Here, I looked it up," you said, pulling out your phone and showing her the menu. "Have you been there before? What do I wear?"

She squinted at your screen and shook her head. "I haven't been there but we can figure this out. It doesn't look that fancy, but you should probably wear a dress or skirt."

"Ooo, do you finally have yourself a date?" Andy asked from halfway down the aisle, clearly overhearing part of your conversation. "Hot flower guy is going to be so disappointed."

You laughed and pocketed your phone. "It's with hot flower guy," you said triumphantly. Andy's eyes bugged out of his head, confused, until you and Courtney explained what happened the night before when he was busy staring at the bartender.

"You should have told me last night! So I guess that means he really is single."

You paused and cocked your head to the side, realizing all of the sudden you still didn't know why he bought flowers every Friday.

"Uh, yeah, I guess so," you replied, turning your attention back to the cereal. Andy and Courtney exchanged worried glances behind your back.

"I'm sure he's not stupid enough to buy flowers from you for another woman every week and then ask you out," Courtney said, glaring at Andy. He cleared his throat and nodded.

"Y-yeah, I mean, maybe they're for a grave or something."

You both turned to him and gave him an incredulous look.

"Hey, I'm just trying to help," he said, throwing up his hands and walking away. You bit your lip and glanced at Courtney.

"Don't worry about it. There's tons of reasons why guys would buy flowers weekly... maybe he just likes to have fresh flowers in the house. Maybe they're for his mom!"

"Yeah, good point. I bet they're for his mom," you agreed, feeling a little better as you ripped open the next cardboard box full of cereal boxes.

When you woke on Sunday morning, you were already nervous. You could have sworn your heart was slamming in your chest from the moment you opened your eyes, already overthinking your date with Joel.

You spent the afternoon texting Courtney pictures of outfits you hauled out of your closet and tossed on your bed, then decided you needed to try them on for her to get the full effect. You were sitting on your bed, wearing a light blue sundress, the last outfit you had tried on as you gathered your pictures. Your thumb quickly tapped all of the photos of you modeling your options and typed out what one looks the best? then hit send.

As you were unzipping your dress and sliding it down your legs, you heard your phone ping from your bed. You hung up the dress and pulled your sweats back on before reaching for your phone, hesitating when you saw Joel's name pop up. You felt a pit in your stomach, worried that he came to his senses and was asking to cancel, so you sat down on the bed before sliding your thumb over the screen to open his text.

You look great in everything, but I really like the pink one.

Your palms instantly broke out into a sweat and you felt lightheaded.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no," you mumbled, scrolling up in your text chain before cursing and throwing yourself into your pillows to scream. In your rush to send your text, you accidentally sent the pictures to Joel instead of Courtney. You waited until you got your bearings and tried to convince yourself it wasn't really that bad, that it definitely could have been worse, before replying.

Ha, sorry. I meant to send those to a friend, but if you like the pink one, then I guess that answers my question

You stared down at your phone, anxiously waiting for his answer, which didn't take very long at all.

You could wear a paper sack and you would still look beautiful.

The grin that stretched across your face was massive. He was probably just sweet talking you and trying to make you feel better about making such a stupid mistake, but damn, it worked.

Looking forward to tonight :) you said in response, then bit your lip and flung yourself backwards on your bed. Your eyes drifted to the light pink dress hanging in your closet and you smiled.

As it turned out, the Italian restaurant was owned by Joel's brother, Tommy. You met the younger man at the host stand when you walked in the door. He had a huge grin plastered across his face and although you were an only child, you could still tell when someone was itching to tease their sibling. Tommy's eyes flickered back and forth between you and Joel, silently communicating with his brother as you introduced yourself. You managed to catch Joel shooting Tommy a warning glare before nervously resting his hand on your lower back and guiding you through the restaurant to an empty booth in the back.

"Have I told you how beautiful you look?" Joel asked, his dark eyes sparkling even under the dim mood lighting. You giggled and shyly looked down at your lap.

"A couple times."

Joel smiled warmly and leaned forward, his eyes trailing over the soft curves of your jaw and the way your plush lips stretched when he made you smile.

Before the food arrived, you learned a little more about him. He worked in construction, doing mostly residential but some commercial property work. He was trying to go into business for himself, which he told you was difficult but he already had years of experience and contacts in the area. He preferred to do most jobs himself or with as little help as possible because he only trusted his own work, but sometimes he did hire Tommy for a job to help his brother earn extra money.

"And in return, he lets me eat here for free," Joel finished, wiping the small smudge of red sauce from the corner of his mouth.

"That sounds like a win-win," you joked, and Joel chuckled.

"Tell me 'bout yourself. You said you been workin' at the store for four years?"

"Yeah," you nodded, pushing your empty plate to the side. "It's just meant to be temporary. I'm going to community college three days a week. Trying to get my degree so I can get a job with normal hours."

Joel hummed and leaned back in the booth. "What'dya wanna do?"

You shrugged. "I'm not sure, really. Hoping I figure that out as I go. I just know being a cashier for the rest of my life isn't for me, you know?"

"Yeah, sure," he agreed. "I could ask 'round if you want. Maybe some place is hirin' a receptionist or somethin'?"

"Oh, it's okay," you waved him off with a smile. "I appreciate it, though."

Afterwards, he took you for ice cream. You sat together outside the ice cream stand on a bench. The temperature outside was perfect and the place was mobbed. Kids ran around playing tag while other families gathered around picnic tables, laughing and telling each other about their days while you tried not to stare at Joel licking his ice cream and fantasizing about what that would look like between your legs.

"I wouldn't've pegged you for a strawberry girl," he said, nodding towards your rapidly melting ice cream.

"It reminds me of when I was a kid. My grandma liked to take me out for ice cream when she babysat me and strawberry was her favorite."

He smiled, listening to you talk about your family, getting a brief glimpse into your life, leaving him wanting more.

You thought everything was going so well. The date went perfectly. There wasn't as much awkwardness as you originally thought there would be and Joel was very easy to talk to. So when he dropped you off at your door and you invited him inside, you were surprised and somewhat hurt when he declined after a quick glance at his watch. He only kissed your cheek before telling you have a good night and backing out of your driveway, leaving you confused and a little self-conscious.

"He's probably just a gentleman," Courtney assured you the following day, "wants to take things slow and all that."

And you agreed. Once you had time to process everything, that seemed like exactly what it was, and you began to feel better.

But then Joel took you on a second date, and then a third, and he still hadn't tried to kiss you or make a move whatsoever.

"Maybe he's just rusty," Courtney offered after the fourth date and still finding yourself being shot down. "He wouldn't keep going out with you if he didn't like you."

Once again, Courtney made sense and you agreed he just liked to take things slower than you were used to.

But on your fifth date, where he took you to a baseball game, you misjudged the size of the beers they sold and you found yourself tipsier than you expected. Joel seemed really into the game but turned his focus on you whenever you searched for it, which, as the night wore on and the alcohol buzzed in your veins, became more and more frequent. You would ask him questions about how the game was played, even though your father watched baseball your whole life, just so you could listen to him talk. You looped your arm through his when the game was over and you both shuffled out of the stadium with a whole herd of drunk fans, back out into the parking lot. You tightly held onto his bicep, the feeling of his muscles under you fingertips more intoxicating than the beer, as he escorted you to his truck.

On the drive back to your place, you could feel your confidence building. Maybe he's just shy and doesn't know how to make a move. Maybe he just needs a clearer sign. Maybe he's waiting for you to make a move.

So, when he walked you to your door and he leaned in to kiss your cheek, you turned your face at the last second and locked your lips with his.

You could feel his surprise when your lips met. He froze and stopped breathing as he tried to figure out what to do, so you decided to make things easier for him and draped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer and massaging your lips over his, urging him to reciprocate.

And finally, his hands flew up to your waist and tugged you against him. His mouth began to move and he crowded you up against your door. When your back made contact with the wood and his large palms squeezed gently at your hips, you moaned into his mouth. You had been dying for this for weeks and you would be damned it you were going to let it stop too soon.

Without even asking this time, you reached behind you and fumbled with your doorknob, twisting it blindly without breaking the kiss so you could both stumble inside. He kicked the door shut behind him, tongue licking at the seam of your lips while he brought one of his hands up to cup the back of your head. You granted him access, parting your lips and tangling your tongues together as he continued to walk you backwards. He opened his eyes and glanced around the dark living room quickly before pulling away and whispering one word: bedroom?

The way he said it made your knees weak and your heart flutter excitedly in your chest. You pulled him down for one more kiss before grabbing his hand and practically dragging him down the hall. About halfway to your room, his lips latched onto the crook of your neck and you slowed down, closing your eyes and twisting around in his arms so you could kiss him again. He pinned you against the wall with a groan, his thumb and forefinger clutching your jaw, prying it open so he could devour you. You hooked one leg over his hips and he let go of your jaw so he could grab the backs of your thighs and haul you off the ground.

You tugged at his hair impatiently, then gasped when he ground himself against your core, your body jolting in his arms and knocking a canvas print off the wall.

"Shit," he muttered, barely sparing the picture a glance before peeling you off the wall and carrying you towards your bedroom with your ankles hooked together at his lower back. You giggled against his mouth then squealed when he tossed you onto your bed. His hands glided underneath your dress and up your legs, slipping his fingers around the the waistband of your panties and tugging them down, pausing once he got to your knees. He blinked a few times like he was snapping out of a stupor and glanced up at you.

"Is this okay?"

"God, yes," you said, reaching behind you to tug at your zipper. You tried to shrug off your dress but his lips found yours and you quickly got distracted. You nibbled at his bottom lip while simultaneously tugging at the hem of his shirt, pushing it up over his soft stomach and stopping at his broad shoulders. He broke away just long enough to lean back and toss the shirt over his head and he was back on top of you before you could even drink him in.

You dragged your mouth over his chin, biting and nipping as you went. He groaned as you left open mouthed kisses across his jaw, his prickly beard tickling your tongue. "My dress," you whispered against his cheek before mouthing at the skin there, "take it off."

His palms slid over your shoulders, pushing the straps of your dress down while you wiggled a bit, helping move the fabric down your body. You arched your back so he could pull your dress all the way off, his breath getting caught in this throat when your nipples brushed against his bare chest.

He couldn't resist. When your dress was discarded on the floor, he sat back between your legs to admire your naked body, completely transfixed. Too much time had passed without him saying anything and you grew self-conscious, so you slowly began to cross your arms over your chest, but he stopped you.

"No," he rasped with a shake of his head. "You're so beautiful, just wanna look at you another minute."

Your cheeks flared with heat but you dropped your hands and gazed up at him, watching his eyes flicker excitedly over your body, memorizing every curve and freckle he could find. Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed a twitch in his pants and you glanced down at the outline of his cock through his jeans. You bit your lip and he followed your gaze, palming his erection briefly before undoing his pants.

"Oh," you whispered to yourself when you saw his cock spring free. He wrapped his hand around his thick shaft and glanced up at you as he crawled back up the mattress on his knees. "You're big," you added, unable to look away. He blushed but didn't reply. Instead, he leaned forward and kissed you, this time slower. You shuddered in anticipation when you felt the tip of his leaking cock brush against your pussy and he froze.

"Shit, wait," he grumbled, sitting back on his heels before reaching for his wallet, which was still stuffed inside his jeans. You figured out the problem and leaned over to your nightstand, fishing around in the drawer until you found a condom and held it out for him. He looked relieved when he saw the little foil square and tossed his wallet back onto the ground before ripping open the condom and rolling it on.

"Sorry. It's... been a while. Wasn't exactly prepared," he explained, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. The endearing confession just made you want him even more.

"It's okay, come here," you murmured, reaching your arms out for him. He grinned and fell down onto his elbows, kissing you slow and deep. When you felt him rest his tip at your entrance, you tensed up.

"Relax," he whispered in your ear. You slid your eyes shut and snaked your arms around his shoulders, gasping sharply when he pressed forward. When he sunk his teeth into your shoulder, your eyes rolled to the back of your head, the pain mixing with the pleasure in a way that made you dizzy.

"Oh, fuck, Joel," you whimpered when he bottomed out, your body stretching around his girth, the sting setting your nerves on fire.

He groaned against your neck and began to rock his hips steadily, making sure to not go too fast. He could tell you were still getting adjusted but it had just been so fucking long and he liked you so much, it was difficult to hold back. He could feel the sweat collecting between his shoulder blades as he focused all his energy on going slow, and when he felt your thighs relax around his waist and your back arch underneath him, he sighed with relief.

"More," you moaned, pressing your body against his, trying to get as close as possible. He growled and dipped his mouth down to capture one of your nipples, swirling his tongue around the sensitive bud, releasing it with a wet pop and reveling in the sweet noises you made for him.

He wanted to tell you everything. He wanted to tell you how much he thought about you, how long he wanted to ask you out, how he wanted to know everything about you, how nervous you made him with just a simple glance. But he didn't say any of that. It had been so long since he had gone on a date that he wasn't even sure what women liked anymore. So he remained silent, focusing on not coming too soon while paying close attention to your cues, memorizing what you liked based on the breathy whines in his ear and the way your fingers clutched frantically at his hair. You, however, took his silence to mean he wasn't enjoying himself and you really, really didn't want that, so you pushed gently on his shoulder, drawing his attention.

"Let's switch," you murmured, and he gave you a quizzical look. "Why don't you lay back and let me do some of the work?" you explained, nipping playfully at his jaw.

When his head settled into your pillows, watching with heavy lidded eyes as you straddled him before catching his gaze and slowly sinking down, taking every inch of his cock with a low moan, he thought for sure it would be the death of him. You looked so beautiful all spread out and full of him that he had to squeeze his eyes shut so he wouldn't come just looking at you.

Then you started riding him and his eyes flew open, his chest heaving as he watched your tits bounce and your head tip back in ecstasy and he knew he was done for.

"Wait," he rasped, grabbing your waist and stilling your hips. You stopped, swollen lips parted as you panted for air and looked down at him.

"What's wrong?"

"N-nothin'," he stammered, taking a few deep breaths in before chuckling. "I'm just... I need a minute, is all."

You could see the red beginning to stain his cheeks and the look of embarrassment flicker across his face, melting your heart. Leaning down, you cupped his jaw and kissed him tenderly.

"Is that why you've been so quiet?" you asked softly, leaning back so you could look into his eyes but still holding his cheek in the palm of your hand. He nodded, his fingers gently wrapping around your wrist.

"I'm sorry. I haven't been with anyone in years and I've been tryin' to take things slow with you but I think all the buildup just made it worse." You grinned and took his other hand.

"Don't be sorry. I think it's hot," you whispered, pulling his free hand down between your bodies. He splayed his hand out across your lower abdomen and you took his thumb between your fingers, pulling it down so it made direct contact with your clit. You sucked in a sharp breath when you felt the pressure and a slow smile spread across his face when he realized what you were doing.

"Yeah? Why's it hot?" he asked, drawing slow circles over your clit and watching your jaw fall open and your eyes flutter shut. Both your hands dropped to his chest, holding yourself up.

"Because," you began, then bit your lip and moaned when he picked up the pace. "Because it's l-like you c-can't control yourself. Like y-you need me so badly, you can't hold back." You knew it sounded pathetic but you didn't care. His touch was intoxicating and you needed more.

"I can't," he admitted, his eyes glued to your face, taking pride in how good he made you feel. "I can't control myself. Wanted you for so long. Been thinkin' about this for months."

You gasped and your eyes snapped open, locking onto his. "Me, too. I never thought, shit, never thought you noticed me."

"Are you kiddin' me? I noticed you the first day." Now that the truth was out there, the words wouldn't stop coming. "You were wearin' a yellow shirt and I saw these perfect fuckin' tits when you bent over. Went home that night and-"

He stopped himself, wondering if he was going too far, but you dug your fingers into his chest and urged him to continue, desperately gasping for air as his thumb applied more pressure.

"Say it," you whispered. His cock pulsed angrily inside you, begging for release.

"Went home and fucked my fist thinkin' 'bout you."

You groaned loudly and leaned back, grabbing your breasts and playing with your nipples. "Fuck, I'm close, Joel."

"Yeah? Can you ride me, baby? Wanna come with you," he begged, his voice strained. Immediately, you resumed bouncing on his cock, letting go of your tits so you could brace yourself on his chest once again.

He watched in awe as you gasped and squeezed your eyes shut, stilling for just a moment, pulsing around his length as you came, his name and curses tumbling from your lips.

He couldn't hold back any longer.

He grabbed your hips with both hands and slammed up into you, grunting louder and louder each time. And it didn't take long. You had barely recovered from your own orgasm before he groaned, his eyes trained on where you were connected, thrusting as deep as he could go while his cock throbbed inside you.

"Fuck," he whispered, his head falling back limply onto your pillow. You slumped forward and buried your face against his neck, each of you trying to regulate your breathing.

"That was..." you began, trailing off when you realized your brain was still a pile of mush.

"Better than I ever imagined," Joel finished for you, wrapping his arms around your ribs.

Regrettably, he eventually pulled out, making you both wince. You rolled over onto your back and watched as he made his way to the bathroom to dispose of the condom. If you had any energy left, you might have shot off a quick text to Courtney, but you were barely coherent by the time he slipped back into your bed.

You didn't even need to ask if he was staying the night. He pulled you into his arms, his chest pressed up against your back when you fell asleep, completely at ease.

It could have been the beer or the sex, but you didn't hear his phone go off in the middle of the night. You didn't feel him slip his arm out from under you so he could answer the call in your living room, and you definitely didn't hear him quickly dress and leave.

It was finally Friday and you were moments away from calling off from work. The thought of facing him again made your stomach roll and your head swim.

You hadn't heard from Joel since he left in the middle of the night after you slept together, days ago. You foolishly texted and called him multiple times, but he never answered. Eventually, you got the message.

Countless hours were spent crying, then more were spent stalking around your place angrily, and a mixture of the two happened at work when either Courtney or Andy asked you about hot flower guy.

They eventually learned not to ask.

As badly as you wanted to call off, you dragged yourself into work. Andy offered to take over the registers so you could hide in the aisles stocking shelves during the hour Joel typically showed up, and you shamefully took him up on it. But when it was close to closing time and you made your way back to the front, Andy shrugged his shoulders.

"He never came."

You had a moment where you worried that something happened to him and you considered texting him just one more time, but when you got into your car that night and opened your text chain to a long list of unanswered texts, you changed your mind.

However, the next morning you awoke to a handful of texts from Joel. At first, your heart raced in your chest, but then your anger crept up and you had half a mind to just delete them. After you had some coffee and a chance to think clearly, your curiosity won and you opened the texts.

I'm so sorry

Something came up

Can you call me back?

Please let me explain

Your fingers hovered over your screen as you debated on what to say. Then you decided to leave the messages unanswered. At least for a little while. If he left you hanging for almost a week, he could wait a few hours, right?

What you didn't expect, however, was for him to show up at the store on a Saturday. He only ever came on Friday evenings. You were cashing out a customer, zoning out a bit, grateful for the distraction. When you reached for the receipt, your eyes locked with his and your pulse began to race. He was holding a bouquet of white roses and looking at you with a guilty expression. Your fingers froze around the paper momentarily until the little old lady in front of him cleared her throat and you blinked, snapping out of it and handing her the receipt with an apologetic smile.

"Hey," he said, but you kept your gaze trained down at the scanner.

"Hi."

Your hands shook as you scanned his flowers, doing your best to get the interaction over with as quickly as possible. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Andy at customer service notice Joel in line, watching from a distance in case you needed rescuing.

"You didn't respond to my texts," he said quietly. You shrugged.

"I've been busy," was all you said, tapping the button on the register for credit.

After he paid, you handed him his receipt and forced yourself to look at him. You could see in his eyes he looked exhausted and run down and despite how upset you were, you felt bad. But you felt even worse after he pocketed the receipt and handed you the flowers.

"They're for you."

"Oh," you said, surprised, as you looked down at the roses. "T-thank you."

Joel looked over his shoulder when a young couple began to unload their groceries on the belt. You panicked, not sure what to do or say, and then you felt a tap on your shoulder.

"Why don't you take your break?" Andy offered, "I'll cover."

You gave him a shaky smile, both of you knowing full well you already had your break. "Yeah, okay." Glancing over at Joel, you tilted your head towards the front door and he nodded.

"I'm so sorry I left without sayin' anythin'," he began when you sat down together on a bench outside the store. "There was an emergency and I had to go."

"You could have texted me or left a note," you said sadly, looking down at the flowers clutched in your hands.

"I know, and I was gonna, but my damn phone died and I was in the hospital for days. I was outta town, couldn't leave, I even wore the same clothes the whole time," he rubbed his face and sighed. "And once we got back home, I wanted to explain in person what happened."

"We?" you questioned. He dropped his chin to his chest and nodded solemnly.

"I have a daughter," he confessed, and your jaw dropped in surprise.

"W-what?" you whispered softly, "why didn't you tell me, Joel?"

His eyebrows pinched together, still avoiding your gaze.

"I don't know. In the past, women haven't exactly been thrilled findin' out I come with baggage and I guess I was bein' selfish." He finally looked up and you could see the pain behind his eyes. "I was tryin' to find the right way to tell you but I was so scared of losin' you."

You shook your head in disbelief. "It doesn't bother me at all that you have a daughter, Joel," you told him, "it bothers me that you lied."

He inched forward on the bench and put his hand on your knee. "I know. I'm so sorry. It was stupid. If you gimme another chance, I promise I'll never lie to you again."

Your chest tightened and you had to look away. He was so sincere, you could feel your resolve crumbling. After a moment, you dragged your eyes back up to him and you could swear he looked like he was on the verge of tears.

"Is she okay?"

He blinked rapidly for a moment, surprised by your question, then nodded.

"Yeah. She's okay now. She had appendicitis. She was with her mom last week. She lives an hour outside Austin and I just went right there from your place. Scared the shit outta me," he finished with a dry chuckle. Then something clicked.

"Your daughter..."

"Sarah."

"Sarah," you repeated. "The flowers you bought every week. Were they for her?"

He smiled shyly and nodded. "Yeah. She gets nervous goin' to her mom's still. The situation is a little rocky so I always get her flowers. Whether she's goin' there or comin' back. They make her smile," he said with a little shrug, and your heart melted.

"That's... that's really sweet," you said, looking down once again at the roses he bought you. He watched you closely for a moment then sat back on the bench, scratching his chin and trying to read your mind. Everything was out in the open now. He should have listened to Tommy and just told you the truth from the first date, but he couldn't remember the last time he ever felt so strongly about someone else before.

Just when he was about to leave, wanting to give you your space to think things over, you spoke again.

"So when are you free next?"

Joel exhaled in relief, then laughed. "Tomorrow?"

You bit your lip and nodded, then leaned forward and cupped his jaw, giving him a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth.

"It's a date," you whispered before standing up. He watched you from the bench as you walked towards the front doors. At the last moment you turned around, the white roses clutched against your chest, and called out, "have a good night."

He grinned.

"Have a good night."