#the store i got them from is so good tho

[messedupessy]

So guess who have fallen into such a deep hole when it comes to the Legend of Zelda franchise? ME! UwU✨

I can't believe it has taken me this long to give the games a proper chance, but holy shit am I loving it, finished BoTW which is the game I started with yesterday and it took me just over 190 hours to complete and I 100% it as well xD

It was such a fun and wild ride, did so much dumb shit and the only regret I got is that I ended up reading too many guides and didn't attempt many things by myself, as I got scared since it was my first ever Zelda game and especially with the korok seeds, but other than that I had such a blast and I plan to replay it in the future after I have played some of the others!

Some which you see in the above photos, as it started out with me wanting to get the wolf Link amiibo so I could have him with me in BoTW, but then found out after getting the amiibo I needed to level him up in Twilight Princess! So went back to the site I brought him and also regular TP Link for Epona, and found a Wii U and these two box sets of TP and Windwaker, so of course had to buy them both and I am so happy!

So yeah just wanted to show these off a bit as I am so happy with these and I am so excited to play them, have started TP today and I am having way too much fun!

[snekdood]

idk who needs to hear this but growing native plants is not hard at all, at all

[infinitycarrot1]

I redecorated my bag after getting rid of all the ants. It's so blue hair and pronouns core now 🐟

[bandana-fox]

the struggle between not wanting to buy industry food super market garbage but having anxiety on the weekly market because you actually have to talk to people

i'm so glad once my garden is finished so i can have my own veggies, fruits and herbs

[frankensteindotpdf]

just bought a monster high doll...... the absolute BLISS. i am feeling.

[babsaros]

i figured this week was gonna cause a meltdown, i just hoped i’d make it til friday :/

[be-good-to-bugs]

i need to go to bed but i dont wannnaaaaa

[todayisafridaynight]

YIPPEEEEEE I'M SOSOSOSO EXCITED FOR THE FIC I'm glad it sounds like you've had a pretty good day, it's well-deserved! :] I love Barbie aesthetically... I love Meta Knight...

OH BUT YEAH this was actually my third time watching The Deer King but it is JUST as good as the first... As I've Said I really love Tsutsumi's character and his little daughter and how their relationship progresses [Top Ten Most Doting Fathers Every Other Scene Makes Me Violently Clutch Whatever I Can Get My Hands On], BUT ASIDE FROM THAT the cast as a whole is very enjoyable!

Although it's a novel adaptation, it's also really intuitive to understand the setting and lore thanks to its decision to put personal conflicts in the foreground while the politics and major themes develop in the background, on top of some pretty well-utilized exposition and the movie's strong visual storytelling/direction/editing.

Visually It's Stunning, there isn't a single frame that's not SEAMLESS, but what stands out to me consistently throughout every scene is definitely how much weight there is to every movement [like The Physics Are Off The Charts, but it's also exaggerated to emphasize things in the way only animation can], and how strong the character "acting" is.

OVERALL. MAGNIFIQUE. I do Highly Recommend checking it out if you were interested :] Tsutsumi's character isn't the type to talk much but y'know... proud of him...

DON'T BE EXCITED YOU'RE SETTING YOURSELF UP FOR DISAPPOINTMENT but if i release it any time soon.. i hope you find some enjoyment from it.. but omg meta knight :)

THREE TIMES WATCHING well now i have to watch it if you've watched it three times: it MUST be worth its salt then.. 👁️👁️

[gloomygumi]

quirks - satoru gojo x gn!reader

summary: part two︱you like to think you’re aware of all of satoru’s quirks, but shoko thinks you may have missed a few.

contents: fluff, newly realised feelings, highschool!gojo, he's honestly not even actually there for a lot of it, shoko and geto are tho, honestly a little bit of whipped gojo, probably ooc but definitely self indulgent

word count: 1.2k

a/n: how are we coping since 236 guys ????? wrote this feeling like i’d been widowed so i guess this counts as my coping mechanism 😭 hope you enjoy anyway, constructive criticism and any ideas or opinions you have are always welcome !!

in your past year of knowing satoru gojo, you’d made a note of his multiple quirks.

you noticed how when the group of second years went out to eat together at the weekends, he would whine about how good everyone else’s food looks until everyone at the table took pity (or annoyance, in suguru’s case) and spooned some of their meal onto his plate.

you noticed how when he was in class, listening to yaga drone on about the different types of curses, he would never let all of the legs of his chair rest on the ground. he was constantly swinging back and forth. it’s a miracle that he’s never fallen back, you think.

you even noticed how he somehow kept a momento from every single hangout and mission, each of them stored in a little wooden box he kept on his bedside table back in the dorms. in the past, you’d seen him slide seemingly worthless ticket stubs and receipts into his pockets, and when the curiosity finally got the better of you and you asked what he did with them, you only received a cheeky grin and a wink from your friend.

so, when shoko finally told you some of her own observations of his behaviours and habits during your lunch break one day, it’s safe to say it shocked you.

“i think it’s pretty obvious that he likes you.” she speaks casually, as if her words hadn’t caused you to choke on your own food. she passes you her bottle of water and pats your back. “you couldn’t tell?”

after gulping down half of her water, and spluttering a few times, you finally found your voice, letting out a strangled “he’s my friend - he does not like me like that!”

the look shoko gives you is one of ridicule, but before she can say anything else, you quickly continue.

“how’d you even come to that conclusion anyway, you’re not usually much of a gossip. that’s suguru’s job." you attempt to joke, but you feel the strained smile drop from your face as the boy you mentioned approaches the table and plops down beside your friend.

speak of the devil...

you see shoko's eyes light up, but before you can even attempt to cut her off again, she turns to suguru. "geto! back me up here, isn't it so obvious that gojo likes (y/n)?"

"mhm." he hums, barely even acknowledging the fact that his confirmation has sent you spiraling for the second time. "he's not exactly subtle about it."

"you guys are being ridiculous."

now it's suguru's turn to look at you like you've suddenly grown two heads. "you really didn't know?"

shoko lets out a laugh at his genuine confusion, and reaches into her bag to pull out a cigarette. you quickly hand her a lighter you keep on hand just for moments like this and she quietly thanks you before continuing. "have you never noticed how he's always touching you in some way?"

"that's just how he is!" you defend. "he's always hanging off of suguru too!"

the pair in front of you share a look, before geto continues. "what about how he never lets you walk closest to the road?"

you stop for a second, trying to pinpoint an occasion - just one - where he had only to come up empty handed. in fact, the more you think about it, the more sense it makes. you replay your moments walking back to the dorms after class with satoru, with his arm always casually wrapped around your shoulder. you remember how he always looked comfortable and at peace. you even remember how he would gently bump you closer into the sidewalk if you were walking with someone else, sticking his tongue out at you and ruffling your hair if you voiced a complaint at his behaviour.

your mouth dries up as you try to come up with another excuse to brush off your friends' observations, but you start to question yourself.

maybe they're right...?

you shake you head, as if trying to clear your head of these thought. "he does that for everyone, you guys are just reading too much into it."

between drags of her cigarette, shoko chuckles. "he's never done it for me." geto leans forward from his seat across from you and gently flicks in between your eyebrows. your hand immediately clamps down on the spot, and you groan at him. "what was that for!?"

he ignores your dramatics. "why are you so sure that we're lying?"

his genuine question makes you stop to think. it wasn't that you didn't like gojo, in fact, you hadn't dedicated much time to thinking about him in that way at all. your friends being so insistent on the fact that he liked you made you slowly start to realise that maybe you did share some affections for the ill mannered boy.

you continue to mull over as many interactions and memories that you have shared with satoru, slowly connecting the dots in your head. he always was more gentle with you, never polite but always kind. he regularly brought you souvenirs back from missions that you weren't assigned to and he always insisted on sitting next to you on the train home, offering you the window seat every single time.

almost as if they can hear your inner monologue being to spiral, shoko pipes up once more. "he gave you a different ring tone so he'd know every time you call."

you feel your heart stop for a second, unsure as to why this in particular made you finally believe their words, but before you even have the opportunity to dismiss them again (now in an attempt to convince yourself more than them) you feel the seat beside you sink with additional weight and a familiar arm flung around your shoulder. you barely even register the smug smile shoko is flashing you from across the table as you focus on attempting to cool your face.

"i can't believe you guys started eating without me!" satoru whines, leaning even more heavily into your side. he makes quick work of plucking a large chunk of meat out of your bento, sending you a sly grin as you look up at him in dismay. "what were you guys talkin' about?"

suguru meets your eyes, raising his eyebrows as he meets your glare, urging him to shut his mouth. "oh nothing." he hums, before completely changing the subject.

the conversation from moments prior is still fresh in your mind, and you're now very aware of the soft glances gojo keeps sending your way. you suddenly feel a lot more awkward in his presence, and you barely notice how you're fidgeting with your hands under the table and not participating in the conversation anymore.

that is until you feel warm hands grip your own, effectively halting their movement. "you okay?" you can barely hear satoru over the blood pumping in your ears, and you're unaware of the laughs shoko and geto are trying desperately to hold back whilst watching the scene as you try to speak.

you start to wish your friends had kept their observations to themselves.

[deegeemin]

❄️✨❄️REMINDER THAT IDW SONIC WINTER JAM IS OUT!!! ❄️✨❄️

I'd love to talk about some neato things I got to draw in the comic! Spoiler warning for some contents below! If you haven't read anything yet, come back after reading the comic!

Let's start off with the cover thumbnails! I was more inclined to do A since it wouldn't spoil the big surprise Orbot and Cubot had in store! Otherwise I probably would've gone with B or D! It has that bombastic party sort of feel that I think would've been super fitting!

Here, Eggman is temporarily staying at one of his many bases throughout the world after the collapse of his Eggperial city! This base is inspired by Industria from Future Boy Conan and a bit of Eggmanland!

He also sure loves his chicken and fries!

A little beachside balcony in Green hill! I felt like we generally don't get structures there as much so I thought it'd be a nice addition!

The design on the floor is the stage from the JP Sonic X intro! It gets covered up by snow after but still neat to include!

Look at this magnificent cast of characters! I wanted to use the poses that each pair had when they were first seen together! I'd considered giving Big his winning animation pose from SA1 but alas no space haha!

Cubot's taped on eye brow gag was one I suggested and it's a reference to the same gag from FLCL!

Lil sonic team logo Iasmin asked for! Sonic sure knows to appreciate himself! Good on him.

And here's a sonic 3 wreath and the SA2 lock on reticle from the mechs!

Amy and cream's spread of delicious looking food beautifully rendered by the coloring god Reggie! I wanted to include all their items from the Official Sonic the Hedgehog Cookbook! So if you want to make them yourself, YOU CAN! (except for uhh the experiment on another panel. you guys can figure out what's in that yourselves haha)

Also made sure to list all the pages you can find the recipes!

This is one of my fav gags that Iasmin wrote in!! Can you all guess what this is meant to vaguely resemble?

Quick round of character refs from Eggman's screen going in order from left to right! [Conductor's wife and Conductor, Barry and Gadget, Early Conductor design, Early Barry design (his outside eye markings are white tho), My uh Sonicsona lol]

Mecha Sonic mark 3? Yep Iasmin wanted him to be there and so there he shall be!! Hopefully we get to see him again!

I remember seeing the story Iasmin made and it really felt like it could be something you'd see in a sonic anime episode if it were made nowadays. I drew the comic with some influence from Sonic X because of that. I think the most telling detail fans might notice is the constant 3 spines for Sonic.

but YEAH another absolutely wonderful comic I got to work on! See ya'll on another issue!

[dokyeomini]

yk what's crazy? yesterday i was still feeling like absolute shit and all and today every single person i came across wether they knew me or not was do nice

[nininikki]

divorced-ish — n. kento

content warnings: ex-husband!nanami, delusional!nanami (he’s cute tho)

author’s note: sigh i need him

ex-husband!nanami who just couldn’t stay away from you if he tried

ex-husband!nanami who you’d originally separated from on account of his work seeming to hold more priority over you, and then your newborn daughter.

ex-husband!nanami who still keeps a photo of you and the baby on his desk at his job (which, ironically, was the thing that ultimately led to his marriage failing). when asked by his nosey secretary why he still kept the photo, he only responded, “it’s my family. why wouldn’t i?”

ex-husband!nanami who had yet to actually finalize the divorce. but really, it wasn’t his fault. he just hadn’t gotten around to sending the papers over (or having them printed up at all), what with all those crazy shifts at work. oh, well, it didn’t matter. he would do it at some point.

ex-husband!nanami who had left you virtually everything in the not-so-finalized-divorce. the four bedroom, four bathroom house, your diamond 6 carat engagement ring, your wedding china, the aston martin db9 he had gifted you for your birthday, the park avenue apartment, the country house in monaco—all of it.

ex-husband!nanami who you had never been able to turn down whenever he stayed over just a little later after dropping the baby back off with you. the two of you would sit on the couch and catch up over a glass of wine. then one glass turned to two, then two to three. and for a minute it would almost feel as if you were still married.

nanami never ended up leaving until the late hours of the night. by which point you began to wonder where he’d gotten all the free time he couldn’t seem to find when you were actually married.

ex-husband!nanami who internally scoffed whenever you mentioned going on a date with another man.

“do you think you could watch her on saturday? i’ve got a date i really don’t wanna miss.” you’d asked at the tail end of an already too long (thirty minute) phone call.

nanami breathed a recognizable, pensive sigh on the other end, chewing through what he’d earlier told you was tempura, but considering how long it was taking him to answer, it may as well have been your nerves.

“you know i will, but, uh,” you heard him swallow. “a date?”

although your ex-husband didn’t exactly sound like he was joking, you couldn’t help the giggle that vibrated through your body. glancing at the clock on your nightstand that read eight-thirty and the baby sleeping soundly in the crib next to your bed, you propped the house phone between your ear and shoulder. what was the harm in killing another thirty minutes?

“yes, kento, a date. his name is scott. he’s an art dealer. i think you’d like him.”

“does scott know you’re still married?”

“separated,” you corrected him. “and no, he doesn’t. do you tell every woman who asks you out that you’re married?”

nanami hesitated for a second before answering, “yes, i do.”

ex-husband!nanami who came to your house with flowers and a store bought pumpkin pie for thanksgiving. more than you’d like to admit, you liked having him around for the holidays. he was so good with the baby, and so attentive to everything else. cleaning up all the leftovers and stray baby toys as the night came to an end.

it was nearing ten o’clock when he had successfully put the baby to sleep, and then came down to help you tidy up the downstairs. “y’know you didn’t have to buy a pie, right?” you told him after you’d discovered it hidden amongst the array of leftover pots and aluminum pans. “i know it’s your favorite. i’d have made you some.”

nanami brought his task at hand (loading the dishwasher) to a stiff halt and joined you at the island countertop. “but hey,” you added, tearing the lid off the pie. “we could see if it’s as good as the real thing.”

your ex-husband, usually the most well-spoken man you knew, could only stiffly nod in your direction while you retrieved a pair of shiny silver forks, still in the drawer they’d always been in. “and i got some whipped cream if you want.” you added as you gave him a fork, now taken aback by his sudden lack of speech. seriously, he hadn’t spoken this little since the year leading up to your separation.

what you didn’t know was that nanami couldn’t speak if he wanted to. he needed this. the three of you hadn’t had a real holiday together since last halloween, and even that was admittedly very bleak. “i miss you,” nanami blurted.

and he did. he missed your desserts for every holiday—savory pumpkin pie for thanksgiving, sweet apple pie for christmas, strawberry eclairs for valentine’s day. he missed opening his eyes every morning to the sight of your face smushed into a pillow, or a bit of drool gathering at the corner of your mouth. he missed coming home from work to the sight of you and the baby sound asleep on the couch. he missed being your husband, and even more knowing you were his wife.

ex-husband!nanami who spent the night fucking his ex-wife into the couch as though they were still married. wrapping you in his strong arms, while murmuring promises of change and betterment. “i’ll never go to work again, swear,” he said, shuddering between deep thrusts. “please just take me back, baby.”

[redr0sewrites]

Adam x Reader General Hcs

HAD TO WRITE SOMETHING FOR HIM HES JUST SO. AUGAHGEHEG. i love him. characterizing him is so fun, but so challenging at the same time.

🥀 Cw: adam being adam, sfw + nsfw hcs, smut, breeding kink

🥀minors dni with the nsfw portion

sfw:

Adam is more prone to casual flings and hookups, hes def not huge on relationships and longterm partners

this means that if your with him, you must be pretty special bc hes a huge ass handful

while he is a pretty big douche, adam is definitely loyal imo

deep down, hes still pretty insecure about both lilith and eve, and im a firm believer that he would never cheat on a partner if he was in a serious relationship

adam comes up with very.... interesting nicknames for you that are 10x more vulgar than the ones he uses for everyone else

hes HUGE on nicknames and petnames in general, at the start of a relationship theyre pretty crude and flirty but over time they start to become sweeter

sugartits, doll, sweet cheeks, bitch boy/babe, babycakes, BAE, lemondrop (idk it just fits), mama/mami, honeytits, honestly anything that comes to mind

adam likes to put "my" in front of most of your petnames, its not so much in a possessive way, moreso in a bragging way, he just loves telling the world that your HIS

he also definitely calls you bro, brah, dude, etc he doesn't care that it "doesnt sound romantic" 💀

adam finds the MOST unhinged things hilarious, hes the type to watch those ten hour long youtube videos of a spinning potato chip and laugh every ten seconds

speaking of, he has one of those loud, booming laughs with a slight wheeze to it

"BAAHAHAHAHAH BAE COME HERE LOOK AT THIS HAHA" and its just a low quality video of a water bottle falling over???

100% a shitty pickup line user

and also a shitty flirter in general

his flirting is just

obnoxious

adam is very proud of you, when the two of you officially got together he probably called half of heaven to announce that you two were dating

"THATS MY PARTNER‼️‼️‼️" type of vibes

adam acts like he isnt big on cuddles bit is secretly the clingiest, most touch starved person alive

PLEASE let him hold you, this man is tall af and loves just swallowing you in an embrace

when he was "courting" you (irritating you constantly and flirting with you obnoxiously until you caught on that he was serious) the biggest tell that his feelings were genuine was the amount of physical contact he initiated

adam was always leaning on you, throwing an arm over your shoulder, resting a hand on your thigh, hooking his arm through yours, overall invading your personal space

he was incredibly happy to FINALLY be able to cuddle with you when you both got together, and HAS to fall asleep touching you in some way every night

adam is almost always wearing his exterminator helmet, but he really likes it when you take it off for him at the end of the day. even he doesn't really understand why, but there's something so intimate to him about the fact that you love his real face more than the persona he puts on

he would rather die than admit it tho

hes not good at words or communication in general, and prefers to express his appreciation through actions

he brings you foods that he knows you like on days where you're especially busy, he gives you song recommendations that he'll think you'll like, he'll buy you a trinket he saw you eyeing at the store, just tiny things like that

adam genuinely does care about you, but as per his usual adam-ness, he would rather go bald than live up to that 💀

nsfw:

you cant tell me this man isnt kinky as shit

hes tried pretty much everything

HE LOVES TO HIT FROM THE BACK, DEF LIKES DOGGY STYLE

i also think he would like the mating press too, getting to watch your face as he wrecks you while also having the opportunity to leave bites all over your thighs, and feel them tremble as he fucks you? sign him up!

his dick is big big

i think hed be a little thicker than average, with a few veins running up the underside, but its his length that's downright heavenly

adam keeps himself pretty well groomed, but has a prominent happy trail and light fuzz at the very base of his cock

listen, this is the first man we're talking about, he KNOWS what hes doing

whether you're male or female, he will go down on you

once he buries himself between your thighs youre done for, adam barely comes up for air as he devours you

hes def sloppy w it too, loves when you cum on his face so he can lick it up

enjoys it when you return the favor as well, i actually think hed really realy like receiving head

would def fuck your face until your drooling

if you hve an oral fixation, you're in luck bc he LOVES watching you suck his dick, his fingers, anything really

adam always makes you lick and suck his fingers before fingering you, and will sometimes trigger your gag reflex by shoving them down your throat to watch you gasp and whine

adam has STAMINA, expect to stay up all night bc this man will stop at nothing to make sure you're both satisfied

i swear this man is built to breed, he has a HUGE breeding kink and goes crazy at the sight of his cum dripping from your hole. even if it's physically impossible for you to get pregnant, adam still babbles about "fucking a prety little babe" into you when he cums

adam likes using plugs to make sure his cum stays inside you, he'll also finger it back inside and loves smearing his cum on your thighs and ass

he also brings his fingers up to your face and has you lick the cum off of them

LOOOVEEEESSS marking you, by the end of the night youre always covered in bruises and scratches and hickeys galore

i love adam guys yes ik hes a douche but hes my douche <3

i wish i characterized him better but whateverrrrrr i dont want to write him as a total asshole but hes def not an angel either (haha im so funny💀)

[netherfeildren]

Kiss, Kiss, Kill, Kill!

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: Joel is a long haul truck driver. One day he finds a pretty girl in a diner and decides he’d like to keep her. 

Murder and sex ensue!

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: No outbreak; Graphic depictions of violence; Murder; Blood; Gore; Threat of SA; Impotence; Unprotected sex; Creampie; Loss of virginity; Virginity kink; Breeding kink; Spit kink; Rough sex; Pussy slapping; Dark!Joel; Mean!Joel (also kinda crazy and pathetic); Obsessive behavior; Possessive behavior; Discussions of suicidal ideations; Unreliable narrators; Alcoholism; Consensual non consent kind of (But not previously discussed - they're both into it tho); Use of misogynistic language; Grief

A/N: Hi :) Another one just bc I have no self control. 

Parts of the narrative read a little disjointed and/or confusing. This is intentional. I was kind of trying something weird out here, I guess.

Word Count: 9.7K

Read on AO3

The first time Joel sees you, it’s a Thursday. His least hated day of the week, but not his favorite, for he doesn’t really have any favorite things anymore. Your eyes’d stunned him at that first look. They sparkled as if dusted with frost – speared him with an intensity that burned. 

But no… that was a lie, and Joel is trying not to be such a liar anymore. He does have one favorite thing now. This middle-of-nowhere diner, this place where’d he’d found you. 

The first time he’d actually talked to you, you’d interrupted his own stubborn, sour silence with a silence of your own. Different, agonizing, compared to your usual persistent fishing for his attention. 

“What’re you doin’ out here in this wasteland, sweetheart?” Because you look sweet as that cherry pie you’re always trying to push on him. 

“Been here my whole life.” It’s verging on evening, the sky gone to melancholy, and there’s a young girl with dark hair weeping on the shoulder of an older woman in the booth over. He wants to snap at her, demand to know what the fuck she could possibly have to cry over? He’s sure she mustn’t have a dead daughter like him, and so there really seems to be no reason for tears. 

“No plans to leave?”

You shake your head, hum a little, set the coffee pot down on the edge of the table to pop a hip out and think on your answer. “Guess you could say I’m a little bit weak or scared, don’t know.”

“Doubt that,” a surprised laugh forced out of him. Entirely improbable, he knows this just by looking at you. “You’ve got eyes that seem as if they’ve never held fear within them in your entire life.” And he makes you laugh at that, head thrown back, throat rippling. The sound like the tolling of the bell indicating the start of the rest of his life. 

When you’re done gifting him your laughter, you ask, “What about you? Why are you here?”

“My daughter died.” Plain. 

Your eyes seem to shutter or flicker, something like a chimera about them, “When?”

“Two years ago.” He watches the crying girl and the old woman get up to go. And then the two of you are alone. You move to sit in the booth across from him. He’d been coming in here to see you for more than half that time since, and now, the first time the two of you are having an actual conversation, and this is what he’s decided to open with. But really, it’s the only story he has to tell anymore. He watches you watch him for a long moment, as though you’re searching for something within him, or mulling over what it is you want to say to him, the shift of your jaw from side to side as you chew on your words. He feels easily frightened now – fragile – and yet vibrantly malignant, at the same time. A juxtaposition on two opposite ends of the spectrum of good and not so good, or perhaps, verging on very, terribly bad, in the grocery store line of human morality. Two Joel’s at the start and end of the queue who could not seem to come to terms with one another. Enemies – they were enemies of each other. A Joel who’d once had a daughter, and a Joel who now did not. A Joel who’d pulled a trigger at his own temple, and one who’d never even considered such a thing. He draws his finger along the line of scar tissue at his temple.

For a long time he’d wanted to tear a hole in his world and escape, but he was no master of inventiveness. On the contrary, he found his attempt rather miserly – had short changed himself at the last moment and flinched. But perhaps, it had been for this reason – for you, to find you. He wishes he could peer inside your mind, crack open your skull and read everything you’re hiding away from him inside there. A violent thought, but you make him feel slightly violent, or – no, that’s not it – for Joel is already a violent man. It’s more that you pull a specific hue of violence out of him, incite it, like he needs to move, to howl, to claw at something, at you, scream and scream and scream to keep your undivided attention on him forever. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” you say finally, voice quiet. “How old was she?”

His loss. That was a funny way of putting it. It had never felt like a loss. The word was too small. Four letters was not enough to describe what it really was. There was no word for what it felt like. An emaciation of his very self until he simply ceased to exist. Something that had sucked his soul, his heart, his brain out of his body, but they didnt feel lost. They felt destroyed, decimated, or like they had never existed. Sometimes the feeling left him confused, disoriented – this strange purgatory he’d been relegated to, it was like it had never happened in his mind sometimes, or like it had happened to a different man. Like that life with that beautiful little girl with the green eyes who’d had a father who loved her, who’d then died, had happened to someone else. Someone who wasn’t Joel. Like a war that had raged and raged for centuries, and now nothing was left in its wake. Only that terribly fraught reminder of a violence too grotesque for a human mind to conceive. 

How could he miss something, wish for something so, so, so fucking desperately he’d peel his very skin from his body himself to get it back, but also feel like it didn’t belong to him anymore? Like it had never happened to him, like he remembered it out of his own body? A dream that belonged to someone else, and Joel’d only been told of it second hand. His mind was fractured now, he knew this. He wasn't right – broken or glued together the wrong way. His bones didn’t fit in his joints the way they were supposed to anymore. He was all wrong and ugly and fucked. 

“She was twelve.”

“My whole family’s dead,” you say it almost casually, with a half shrug of your shoulders. “Is that why you started driving? To get away?”

He’s been a long haul truck driver for going on two years now. Started just after Sarah – needed to get away, to get lost. He didn’t enjoy it – he does not enjoy it. Not because the work is bad or boring or what have you, but because he doesn’t enjoy anything anymore. But it’s productive and pays well and… well, he does appreciate the solitude. There is that, at least. He’d been on the route from New Mexico to Washington for several months now, and it was fine. Occasionally, he’d head up to the Dakotas – not so fine, longer, harder trek, but he managed it. He preferred this one, preferred the darkness of the north west corner of the country. He never went further south than New Mexico, though. Absolutely never into Texas. He’d never go back there again. 

“Sure… to get away.” He couldn’t be there anymore afterwards, had nothing left. “My neighbor, Anna, she’s got a teenager, Ellie. Sweet kid. Weird kid,” he laughs fondly, remembering the two of them. “The kid was friends with my daughter, Sarah. And after everything– well, after everything, Anna made sure they both stuck around. Didn’t let me shut myself away the way I wanted to,” ill-shaven recluse, confused, fractured, “They’re good people. You’d like them, I think. They’re… they’re my friends.” They were another reason he kept doing the driving, he liked to send money back to Anna and Ellie. He knew they didn’t need it, didn’t want it, but he had to. He needed to feel like he was still taking care of someone, contributing to someone’s well being. It was just part of who he was. 

“I’m sure I would.”

He watches your silent enrapture as you listen to him tell you of his pseudo life. After a while he’d realized that was all he’d started doing, making his way back to you, to this diner where you work. A sad place for ugly men to stop in on a pause from their interminable journeys and lay eyes on an angel. He hadn’t even really realized that’s what he was purposely doing or that it’d become a pattern. He just needed something to see at the end of the tunnel, a light to look towards when he was lost in the darkness. That’s what you are, a single flickering light in the abyss of darkness he exists in now. 

You’re small – tiny compared to Joel’s own hulking size. He thinks he could break you, easily, if he isn’t careful, if he so felt like it. And you were – you are so fucking pretty. He thinks of you so often. Almost as often as he thinks of his dead daughter which might seem wrong or strange, but it’s really nothing more than the two opposite ends of a spectrum of perfect beauty that he’s known within his lifetime that now he cannot reach either end of. Sarah – dead, forever out of reach. And you. Too perfect for consideration, too beautiful and good for these monstrous hands of his. The thing he’s become in his grief is not worthy of a gorgeous creature like you. His existence post Sarah’s death had become some sort of apocalyptic dysphoria where the only monster here was Joel. But he does like to watch, and he does like to think of you. To come to your diner and sit and watch you serve coffee to your customers – the scum that muddles through here isn’t worthy of laying eyes on you – men like him. Sometimes, when he sits here silently, pretending to ignore you and not be entirely beguiled by you, he feels as if he has a purpose again, like the money for Anna and Ellie, getting to inconspicuously watch over you, make sure no one gives you a hard time gives him purpose. And when he goes, even though he never really wants to, he takes you with him in his mind through the long stretches of his hauls. When there are nothing but ghosts to keep him company. When thoughts of Sarah and that dead life become too overwhelming, he calls you to mind, plans his routes to make his way back to you. 

You’re also fucking persistent – not giving him the chance to wallow away in his silence and brooding. He was rude at first, gruff and unresponsive and wouldn’t ever acknowledge your queries of, How’s it going today, and, Oh, back again I see. Sometimes he wanted to snap and just spit the truth at you, ‘course, I’m fuckin’ back, I’m here to see you, I’m obsessed with you. And rounds and rounds of, Can I get you another cup of coffee? The same as usual? You’d memorized his order. Pestered and pestered and pestered for his name until he’d finally ceded it to you, and, How ‘bout some cherry pie this time? After a while you’d gotten sick of his recalcitrant bullshit and just dropped off the piece of pie, slipping it onto the edge of the table and sliding away without a word or a half look back at him. He’d eaten the whole damn thing, savored it, and caught your sassy, little smirk after he’d finished. He’d wanted to bend you over the counter and spank your ass until you cried after that. He bets you’d taste as sweet as that pie, that if he slapped your cunt enough times he could get it red as a cherry. He bets you’d like that – that you’d like it a little rough, a little dirty, a little mean. You might look like an angel, but Joel’s seen the way you look at him, the way you follow him with your eyes, leaning against the counter, chin cupped in your small palm watching him eat his eggs and drink his coffee. 

You want him. 

But Joel is frightened – frightened and cowardly and not right, and as much as you look like an angel, he also worries you might have the ability to entice him into very, very bad things – to provoke him into depravity, even. There is a part of him, large or small given the day and the mood and the weather that he walks in here on, that has the rotten half of his mind whispering at the not-so-rotten half that he wants to defile and debase you, and that he’s pretty sure you’d like it if he did. He wants to fuck you full of his come and then watch it leak out of your used, gaping hole. Then he wants to lick you clean, kiss it all better so that he can do it all over again.

The first few times he’d stopped at your diner, he’d pretended he hadn’t even noticed you, would lie to himself in his mind and tell himself that he had no interest in a little thing like you. He had no interest in women, in making connections, in having conversations. Occasionally… well– no, not occasionally. Twice, it had happened twice now, when the urge had struck, the itch had become too persistent, and his hand not enough, he’d gotten a hooker. The first time he’d shut down completely, lost his hard on and not been able to finish. The second time… he’d finished. He might’ve even made the woman come, he hadn’t bothered to ask, but he thought he might have. Then he’d gone back to his truck and cried great heaving sobs. Like he’d said… not right, he wasn’t right anymore. Couldn’t even fuck a whore without blubbering like a baby. He’d wondered if perhaps his grief had made him impotent. That’d be funny. That type of funny thing that is also a humiliation… you know the sort?

But after a while, the lie had become too much of a farce, even for his own mind. He knew, from that first moment he’d walked in, and you’d spun around, a bright smile and chirpy, little voice telling him to sit anywhere you’d like, be right with you, mister, that he’d taken notice. More than notice. He’d put you in his pocket that day and had carried you with him in some way since. Like a stone chosen off the beach, washed up by the tide and deposited in the sand just for him to come across, or maybe like a fucking infection, like the plague, for he did not want this. He did not want to think of you. He did not want to think of anyone or anything. He wanted to be alone and without anything or anyone for the rest of his life. If he did not have anyone, if he remained alone, then he could never again experience that loss which was not truly a loss, but something much worse and devastating, and even, perhaps, a little hilarious, in that way that a hilarious thing can also sometimes be humiliating and shameful… there it is. A loss that is not a loss for it is a thing so devastating it becomes something else entirely. A humiliation to one’s very existence, a decimation, emaciation, all the things, all the things, and nothing at the same time.

His mind was wont to ramblings, on occasion now. Perhaps, incoherence, was the better word. Anxiety, as well, panic, tears. Couldn’t even fuck a hooker without weeping, howling, a few sobs. 

He had wandered so far, and sometimes he thought, I want to go home, but of course, that home no longer existed. It had been put in the ground two years ago and lost forever. The dissatisfaction of constant ennui. He could, perhaps, return to the geographical place, but nothing familiar would remain. He couldn’t live with the memory, he couldn’t live away from it. It was like it had simply ceased to exist that day that she’d died, and every moment since that moment was just a series of moments filled with a yearning for some place that no longer existed. He didn’t think he’d ever again feel at home anywhere.

And yet…

He turns back to look at you. 

“How did they die? Your family.”

“Home invasion – murdered. He never found me, hid in the boiler closet.”

“Little rabbit.”

“Hmm,” a huff of a laugh, “Maybe. Someone once said I was lucky. Pretty fucked up, no?”

“Do you feel lucky?”

“Never. Angry – that I’d been left behind.”

“Yeah…”

“Alone.”

“Are you alone?”

You turn back to him. Inspect him. He watches the slant of your eyes take in his hair, his face, wrinkled, haggard, his chest, his arms – he feels a flush flare beneath his ribs, then back up to his eyes. He wonders if you’ve ever been fucked before. You’re young – but he can’t imagine how you wouldn’t have been. He thinks he’d do anything in this moment to get between your thighs, but also, he hopes you haven’t, hopes you could be all his, only his, his his. Mine. 

He hopes he won’t cry if he gets the chance. 

“Entirely,” you say finally. 

“I had– have– ” shakes his head, “I have, I guess, a brother. Tommy. But the last time I saw him… I was horrible.” They seldom saw each other now – lie – they never saw each other now. Truth, Joel. We’re telling the truth now. 

You laugh lightly, shrug, “Happens.”

“Sure…”

“What’d you do to him?”

“Ah, just couldn’t get a handle on myself after everything. Things got bad enough eventually, and we fought… a lot. Violently. I was violent. One morning I got out of hand, terrible – one of my biggest regrets. We hurt each other with our words and our fists, and in that way only two people who know each other too well can. He cracked my ribs, gave me half his orange in the evening, afterwards – said our apologies. He was gone the next day. Haven’t heard from him since. I just got to be too much for him,” he says again, needs to reiterate it, make sure you understand that he is too much and too dark, too unmanageable – ugly. That you should not be sat here with him. That he has a violence within him, and that you should probably run as fast and as far as you can, but that he cannot promise he will not follow. “I had…” he is ashamed of this part, surprising for he sometimes wonders if he still possesses the heart to feel shame, “I had a problem with drink for a while – not anymore, though,” he says quickly. “I promise, not anymore.” He should not be promising you anything. “I got control of it – knew it was making it all worse rather than better. Felt like I was trapped underwater with my damn ghosts – that … What's that thing called when – when sick people get like – like trapped inside themselves or somethin’? You ever heard’a that?”

-

“Locked-in syndrome.”

“Yeah– yeah. I read about that once or heard it somewhere – that’s what it felt like when I was drinkin’ – fuckin’ terrible. Let it go after a while… but by that time… Tommy was gone, done with me. I was – dunno… like some sort of demon or somethin’ – somethin’ bad.” He huffs a small, derisive laugh, looks at you with that ridiculously charming, crooked half smile. 

That laugh sparks a kindling of anger inside of you for him. This is a broken, angry, creature of a man, you think. Something fractured – not whole, and he must be handled with care and gentleness. “How could he just leave you?

“Didn't give him a choice. Sometimes people deserve to be left.”

“I wouldn’t have.” That sobers him, wipes the smile right off his handsome face. You think of the invisible giants hurting this man in some unimaginable fashion; of the endless tenderness coiled up inside of him and how the crushing of that tenderness – the death of it – has given way to what may be considered madness. Because after all these months of watching him, of him watching you, you can see it, recognize that tenderness for what it is, but also the madness, for it is impossible to ignore if you’re really looking. Soft marrow at the center of a hard man. 

“I did other things… worse things.”

“Try me.”

“I tried to kill myself.”

You whistle, long and low. You actually had not been expecting that one, at least, not the admittance of it, “You’re just full of truths,” for looking at him – the sort of man he’s built as, the thought that he could be felled by anything, even his own hand, is a little hard to believe. 

“Feels like a sort of confessional in this–”

“Shithole–”

“Diner–”

Your voices overlap. You both laugh. You think you quite like the sound of your voices intermingling one on top of the other. 

“What happened?”

“Flinched–”

“I flinch all the time.”

“Have you ever thought about killing yourself?”

You hum, tilt your head side to side on your neck as if you’re letting the thought slide from ear to ear within your skull. “Perhaps only the peripheral idea of it, but never with much imagination or dedication. I don’t think I have that much to kill myself over, you know?”

“Your family?”

“Not really – it’s sort of become just this… this thing that happened once. I don’t feel much ownership over it anymore. Don’t know why, exactly.”

“Sure, that’s how I feel about it sometimes too. That belongs to a different man now – like– like some actor or a facsimile, and I just look in on it as if from a distance. Enjoy the sight of someone else's suffering…” He shakes his head, “That doesn’t make sense.”

“No, no, I understand. Something to do in the way that a tragedy can be compelling to watch. You can let go, let go of your awareness of yourself and experience it in a way you’d never do so in the present moment.”

“A dissociation.”

“Yes. Why would you want to go and relive the basest parts of yourself all alone, over and over again? Not likely.”

“But it was me.”

“A dissociation,” you repeat, smile. 

“Yeah,” he pauses, turns the coffee cup round and round with the slow spin of his wrist as if to dissolve the remains of the grounds you know the shitty machine has left deposited at the bottom. There is a small dusting of golden brown hair covering his wrist and disappearing up his forearm beneath his flannel. You want to taste it, follow the trail to places unknown. “Not so well adjusted, us two,” And he laughs then. A real laugh. He lets you have a real laugh of his, and it is powerful – special. 

“Well… no.” Of course not. “I don’t think either of us could ever claim that.”

“Bet you’ve never been bad a single day in your life, have you?”

You cock your head, let your eyes slide from him to peer out the dark window. His lonely semi is parked under the single flare of light out there. The evening has sunk into a deep blue, the hue of mourning, of melancholy, and the pavement is wet with evening rainfall.

You'd heard that some trucks had spaces behind the seats where truckers could put a bed, have a place to rest. You wonder if he’ll take you back there and fuck you in his little bunk. And honesty is a fickle thing when discussing a topic like this, isn't it? There’s a depravity about him, and you can’t tell if the truth or the lie would placate him – incite him – more. To be similar in such a way as that which he’s imagining. A little bit of both, then. After all, intent holds weight – imagination, desire, it has a mass to it that can, if enough pressure is exerted upon it, be transformed into something else. 

“Not yet,” you tell him, sliding your gaze back to meet his, “Haven’t had a chance – but there’s still time.”

-

“What would you like to do?” He wants to take a bite out of that soft flesh you’re encased in, draw blood.

“Something depraved?” You’re taunting him – trying to provoke. It makes him slightly angry, but also hard. You should know what it is you’re toying with here. 

He frowns at you, at the lilting song of your words trying to beguile him into doing whatever it is you think you want him to do to you. “What is it that you think you want here? You don’t know what I was, how I lived. Shouldn’t be sat here with me, little girl,” he scoffs. “I was– was not– I don’t fucking know, not a man. I’m not, I’m not. Not a person anymore, just this thing that continues to exist. I should not have been expected to survive. This should mean something to you too. You also have no one. You’re alone too. You’re alone in the world. You know what it feels like to only live in the winter.”

You’re quiet for a long moment, and then you say: “I think I’ve come to quite like the winter.” And at that he knows he’s taking you for himself, whether you agree in the end or not. You’re going to be his. 

But he knows he must also let this roiling anger, this depraved hunger settle before he lays hands on you. Like this, in this state, he’d be too rough, break you, nothing compunctious about him or his jaggedness. He excuses himself for a smoke, your only response simply more of that inciting silence – more thoughts of cracked skulls and a cherry red cunt and tears after failed trysts with someone who doesn’t even know his name. He’s fucking embarrassing. What would Tommy say if he knew Joel couldn’t even get it up for a paid fuck anymore? He’d laugh in his face, never let him live it down. He misses his brother very much. He misses lots of things. 

He’s sucking on his Red under the awning of the diner’s entrance, imagining what it’ll be like to suck on your little clit, when he hears them. 

“She’s usually out about midnight. We’ll snag her then.” Grating, guttural voice.

“But I get to fuck ‘er first. This was my idea so I go first.”

“Yeah, whatever. S’only happenin’ ‘cause of me. Too fuckin’ stupid to see the plan through after all these months of watchin’ ‘er.”

“Fuck off.” Silence, and then almost with giddy elation: “We gonna kill her too?” Something cold and terrifying settles within Joel. 

A beat, “Should we?”

“Dunno, man. Might be fun, huh? Never done it before.”

“She’s fuckin’ pretty,” the voice draws the vowel out in a high pitched, sacharine whine. “Got the face of an angel.” Joel’s angel, his, his, only his.

He’s got his Bowie in a sheath on the back of his belt. Perhaps, this would be a useful exercise in release. After he’s dispelled his excess energy he can come back and touch you, take you. 

“Can’t wait to taste that cunt.” His cunt.

“Seen her tits, man? Fucking round and bouncy. Wanna make ‘em bleed.” And there’s only one avenue of consequence after that. After all, this is not the first time Joel’s done this. 

His most well kept secret.

Sometimes, when the itch cannot be eased, abated, by his hand or a fuck or a drink or any of the other readily available vices, he turns to this. Only when the straits were dire. Only when he saw no other recourse. Only after his daughter was dead and in the ground and his brother gone away from him

. 

But sometimes… sometimes it’s just fun. Sometimes it’s useful for a man to do that thing that he really feels he wants to do, if only to enjoy himself, if only to let go of some of that suffocating tension. If only to keep vermin like this away from an angel like you. 

“We’ll chill in the woods for a while, wait the little thing out, yeah?” Joel edges his way towards the edge of the building closer to them, peeks a lone eye around the corner. Two men, middle aged. Not a problem. Not for a man like him. 

He waits for them to make their way to the edge of the tree-line, watches them disappear into the gloom. He looks back into the diner through the murky windows. The warm glow of the overhead lamps washing you in a hue of golden light that brings out all the warm goodness in you he’ll take for himself once he’s snuffed out this issue. 

No one’s going to touch you but him. No one’s going to hurt you but him. 

As he rounds the corner of the diner there’s a piece of metal pipe propped up against the building by the dumpsters. Very nice. 

He goes after them. 

At the edge of the tree-line, under a swaying, low hanging branch, there is a tiny unfledged bird, helplessly twitching its way towards death in a puddle. He pauses to watch its struggle, gathers his skin about him, tightens his seams – prepares to gorge. He watches the inch by inch pilgrimage towards its last breath, then stillness. He feels so much older than his years, like he’s lived a thousand terrible years, watched a thousand terrible deaths. But there is a buoyancy about him, as well. Filled with a saccharine sweet fizz of sticky anticipation. He’s going to taste your cunt after this is done.

 He moves into the gloom. He’s going to kill them for you, and his cock is hard at the thought.

Stepping beneath the canopy of the trees, into that cold, damp darkness, he sees the absolute truth of the world. On the heels of two men who’d do you harm, he knows that he’d failed to save someone he cared about once, he’d not be bested by failure a second time. Darkness implacable, the crushing black vacuum of their overheard words buzzing in his head like flies, of the harm they’d do you. Two hunted animals moving away from a creature much darker than they could even imagine, scurrying on borrowed time. What most moves him is that the things they’d do to you are not so dissimilar to the things he plans to do to you, as well. The only difference being that after he’s done defiling you, he’ll keep you for himself, with all the care and gentleness a little thing like you so deserves. 

-

You press your ear to the cracked open door leading to the back of the building. It’s not the first time those two’ve talked their filth regarding you. The murdering is new, though. You’d not thought they were smart or inventive enough to come up with an actual kill plot. Rape enough of a hardball for minds as shallow and small as those two’ve got. 

You’d never really considered them much of a threat. Or maybe you’d just never really cared enough to pay them much attention. But as you watch the broad, rippling expanse of Joel’s muscled back stalk after them, his pause at the tree-line to look down at something on the ground, you think he must be more in the vein of taking a stupid man’s shit talk to heart than you’ve ever been. 

He has a thick, forearms-length of steel pipe gripped in his huge fist, and there’s a wicked looking knife strapped to his belt on the back of his hip. 

Interesting. 

You look back at the empty diner, the lonely parking lot beyond the glass of the windows, only Joel’s semi still taking up residence on the wet pavement. You turn back to follow after the three men. 

One you want, two you’re interested to see what fate awaits them.

For some reason, when you step outside, you’re expecting there to be snow on the ground, but there is none.  

You move across the pavement towards the forest-line, and the pilgrimage towards the verdant darkness feels very much like your one-way ticket out of this forlornness you’ve been trapped in your whole life. You’ve been stuck in this small town for so long, for too long. One man had already tried to forcibly evict you, had taken your entire family with him, maybe this one, maybe Joel, would do so in a way you’d more likely enjoy. 

There’s been a steady, faint drizzle all day long, and the puddles of rain look like holes in the dark pavement, apertures into some other realm that glide past underground. You wonder if you stepped through if you’d disappear below into some other place. You wonder if he’d be able to find you even in that unknown other. 

You cross the line into darkness. 

The familiar terror of silence – you don’t seem to find it here. There is only the sound of your rushing blood, the cadence of his voice rumbling through your psyche, firing your neurons up into a frenzy. There is a twisting heat low in your pelvis, dampness between your thighs. What’s he going to do? Why’s he going to do it?Is it for me? Is it for me? It’s for you.

You let out a low whistle between your teeth and move beyond the trees. There is a giddiness about the darkness of the wood – the motley of shadows, the aroma of mushroom rot. 

The familiar terror of silence. Perhaps, that is what they are experiencing now. The great horror of being set upon by a beast more terrifying than anything they could have ever conjured up on their own. 

That infinite tenderness from before, that acute madness – it coalesces in the gap in the trees as you come upon the three men. 

Joel has already started on the first. He murders almost tenderly. With great care, but infused with an aroma of agitated frenzy that seems flavored in the same notes of erotic buzzing that hums beneath your own skin. There is blood and viscera splattered on his face and clothes, in his hair. That great hunting knife embedded in the throat of the first man. The body lays facing you now, eyes open, shocked at his own death. Funny. Perhaps, that’s how they would have liked you to have ended up once they were through with you. 

Oh, how the tune changes when the monster is on your side. 

What are you? Be a creature. Be a creature. Be a creature!

You take Joel in. Thick, massive frame. You love his hair, it was one of the first things you’d noticed, thick dark curls streaked with the silver veins of his age and experience. Something that promised of care and knowledge and patience. His patchy beard with the heart shaped gap in it, you’re going to write your name into that space. His powerful arms, muscles coiled tight, his shirt stretched tight across his broad shoulders as he brings the steel pipe up above his head, pauses to look down at his next victim. 

“We won’t bother her anymore, never again – p– please, please, I swear,” the man on the ground begs and cries. There are tears and snot bubbling down his ruddy, pocketed face. 

Joel is silent and terrifying and glorious above him, and then a small nod: “That’s alright… I believe you.” The metal comes down in a whistling arc, makes contact. 

Flesh and blood splatter, the sound of it is pulpy and wet and vindicating. He starts with the man’s knees, then his head, caved in like the shell of an egg, the yolk spilling out like vermilion drool. 

He heaves silently above the man that would have done you harm. Makes the threat go away. 

You step forward, cunt pulsing and wet and eager for him. When he’s gotten his fill of bludgeoning he turns slowly back towards you, as if he’d known the entire time that you’d been stood there watching. 

And the look on his face, it makes something electrifying and sticky buzz up your spine and ooze down your veins. You shift back on your heels

He shakes his head, his eyes are huge, pupils blown wide. “Don’t run,” he says slowly. If you hadn’t just watched him murder two men in cold blood – no, in your defense, he saved you, he protected you, fizzy heart full of satisfaction – you’d say he almost looks a little doe eyed. 

A hollow pounding begins in his heart, as if it had remained silent for the past two years and was only now taking notice of its own silence. His cock, hard enough to burst, angry and throbbing beneath the confines of his blood soaked jeans. Fuck this scum laying on the ground beside him, look at what he has infront of him. Nothing else matters but you. A goddamned angel. Damned for he’s found you now and nothing good can come of this. He takes a step towards you, and you match him with one backwards, away from him, his blood starts to howl in his veins. Different to the humming frenzy that had filled him as he did his murdering. This is hot and viscous and ravenous, and he knows he’ll get to keep his catch once he’s gorged himself on it. He knows he’ll get to keep you once he’s caught you. 

You take two more nervous little, quick steps away from him. Your eyes are slightly manic, face flushed, frame jittery, excited. A rabbit that knows it’s about to be caught. He watches the pause of your limbs as they fill with coiled energy, getting ready to make the bound and leap towards escape. He lunges, goes in for the kill, teeth bared, talons  brandished. 

Faster than you can even comprehend, he lunges, takes you to the ground with one massive, powerful shoulder to the vulnerable, soft of your belly, one huge paw cradled at the back of your skull to protect you from the hard ground. Your spine hits the cold, wet earth, the breath knocked out of you. You think you let out an animal noise, high pitched and supplicant. A thing that knows it’s been caught and is soon to be devoured. Your limbs scramble against the dirt, heels digging into the ground for purchase, you feel the loss of one of your shoes, as you try to get away or to crawl closer, who can be sure. A spider caught in the web or a larger, hungrier arachnid. He sets the huge heaviness of his muscular weight over your much smaller frame, one strong hand caged around the column of your throat, the other pushing your chest into the earth as he shoves his hips into the cradle of your own, forcing your thighs apart and your skirt to pool at your waist. You feel the stretch of the center plaque of your tights as his wide breadth settles between your legs, making room to take you for himself. You bring your own hands up to the wrist holding your throat and dig your nails into the skin there. You can feel the light smattering of hair covering his forearm beneath your soft palms, the cold, wet dirt beneath you, the searing stretch of the inner muscles of your thighs spread wide for him, the damp of the air surrounding the two of you. He leans forwards, pressing you down into the ground, and you have the fleeting thought that you want to transfuse yourself into the earth, into him. 

He pauses then to look down at you, appreciating the gloriousness of his catch. “Caught ya.” And he’s filled with an exuberance, a sort of victory. Look at what he’s snared – all for himself. 

You try and struggle again, if only to see the flare of annoyance in his eyes. It makes your cunt tight and achy. Even more than it already is. There’s a part of you that thinks you want him slightly angry – rough or mean. That you might like it even more if it hurts. Be kind enough to be cruel about it, you want to beg him. He leans forward to press his nose to your cheek, drags the cold vermillioned flush of it along your jaw, down the line of your throat, bites harsh and painful at your collarbone then over the peak of your breast. 

“Are you a virgin?” He whispers into your skin. It sounds very much like a threat. 

“Yes.”

“Saved this cunt all for me.” And it is not a question. Yes, you moan anyways. Let him know. Let him know that this defiling is a gift you’re granting him. He sits up on his haunches between your thighs, his hands sliding down to press on your lower belly and digs his fingers into the center of your tights and pulls, ripping a hold in them for his pillaging. You try and press your knees shut at the feel of the frigid air on your sensitive inner thighs, dig your nails into the ground above your head to try and drag yourself away from him. 

He digs his own fingers harshly into your flesh, his nails biting painfully into the soft skin of your thighs and ass and brings you back towards him. There’ll be streaks of pain left in his wake after this. Bad little rabbit. He smacks the inside of your thigh, watches the smooth flesh ripple for him. You let out a warbled, angry screech, little nails still trying to claw yourself away from him. He laughs then, a little mean, condescending. “Fight harder, little baby. This is pretty pathetic.” He rips your thighs apart, keep your fuckin’ legs open for me, his hands slick with the blood of his victims slide up the back of your thighs, anchoring his palms beneath the damp creases of your knees to press you open and wide for him, slaps your cunt, hard, over the soaking gusset of your panties. 

“Who the fuck’re you wearin’ this tiny little thong for?” he growls. It’s white lace, with a sweet, little pink bow adorning the front. “Me? Wrapped yourself up all nice and pretty for me?” Your little foot sneaks up under his armpit and tries to push with, what he’s sure is all your valiant might, at his chest, trying to unseat him from his conquering position above you, but he takes your ankle in a vice like grip, bites harshly into the meat of your calf so that an animal squeal of pain is clawed out of your throat at the same time that he slots his fingers under the damp center of your panties. “Sing as loud as you want, sweetheart. No one’s gonna hear you out here.” He can feel the soaking wet seam of your cunt against the backs of his knuckles, and he rips them clean off you. The sound of the last remaining barrier of protection of your cunt against his ravaging being decimated has you going shock still – prey that knows it’s caught and has decided to give up. Good, this is how he wants you. Your big, wet eyes look up at him as he flings the lace towards the still steaming dead bodies. That’s all they’ll get of you. The rest is only his. Mine, mine, fucking mine. 

You let your arms go limp above your head, soft and pliant and ready for ravaging, melting into the earth.

He presses your knees back and up, letting the red blossom of your wet cunt bloom for him. It’s slick and swollen, and he knows when he shoves his cock inside it’ll be burning hot. “Look at this gorgeous virgin pussy, baby. All for me. Only for me…” he murmurs, hypnotized, mesmerized. He drags the back of his knuckles over your slit, uses his thumbs to spread your lips apart, admires the swollen nub of your clit. You’re just as hungry for him as he is for you. Messy, eager little whore. He moves to undo his belt and free his aching length. Huge and brutish, thick veins pulsing just beneath the thin skin. He’s going to split you in half, break you, mold you in his image. 

He spits right onto your soaked folds, watches the thick glob of saliva slide down to mingle with your own leaking slick. He’s not even going to make you come first. Little virgin cunt and he’s not going to even bother getting you ready – just gonna shove the whole, unforgiving length of himself inside of you. Force you to take it. He fists his thick fist around himself, jacks his cock once, twice, squeezing at the bulbous head so that a trickle of precum seeps out of the slit. He presses his head to your clit, slides down to give you a small threat of pressure at your opening. When he looks back up at your face your eyes flutter shut, a look of pure contented submission washing over the gorgeous planes of you. 

“Not gonna be gentle, baby. Don’t got it in me.” He notches the fat head at the slick mouth of your entrance and crams his cock inside of you in one go, meets that thin barrier that says you still belong to yourself and rips through it. Mine now. No reprieve, no respite. And God, the feel of it, cleaved in half, scorching hot, filled to the brim and never deep enough. He is a rabid, snarling beast of a man as he hits the very end of you, grinds his cockhead at the mouth of your womb. You let out a warbled, pained moan, little fingers coming up to claw at his throat and chest with kitten-strength, down to dig into his thick thighs as he pins you down, and you tilt your hips to let him in deeper or escape him, he doesn't know. He doesn't care. He pulls his hips back and forces himself back in, too thick cock wedged into the too tight space. “Christ, goddamn tight fuckin’ pussy – made for me,” he grits through bared teeth.

He fucks you raw and cruel, and he needs you to just lay limp and still and take it.

And you do. And he does not cry this time. 

He sets a brutal pace, throbs deep in your belly at every pause as he grinds at your cervix. It must be painful for you, perhaps, but the flush in your cheeks, the fever in your eyes, the ripple of your cunt around his driving length tells him you also like it. “What a good girl, taking my big cock,” he coos. You preen, tilt your hips this time in supplication he’s sure, hitch your feet higher along his sides. There are tears running back down your temples and into your hairline. His cock makes you cry. If he could, he’d split your throat and drink, he would. But he cannot, so he’ll split your cunt instead. He thrusts into the hilt, complete negligence for care, for gentleness lost in the dark wood, for the desperate necessity of feeling your virgins blood coating his cock. Your protestations lost to the louder song for more, for harder, for deeper

Joel, Joel, Joel. 

He’s going to listen to you sing his name for the rest of his life. 

He feels unhinged, a thread picked at too many times, spun loose, unraveled and frayed. That edge that separates good and evil – his bloody fingers clamp down hard on the edge of your jaw, forces you to open for him, and he spits into your mouth – direct, dirty … warm. “Lemme see…” he rumbles, and you stick your tongue out for his inspection. Once he nods, pleased and smug and conquering, you close and rub the slick of his saliva onto the roof of your mouth with your tongue, savor the taste of him. This was the taste that you’d longed for… that which teaches you what that professed edge really is. Is he good, is he evil – he’d just killed two men, you’d watched him, cunt wet at the sight of it. Albeit to protect you… sure – but does it even matter? You swallow his spit down. Probably not. 

He is huge and life altering inside of you. Your virginity scoured away on his invading length. 

He leans forward, hand clamped around your jaw to pierce you with his manic gaze, like his cock pierces your cunt. He smells like the forest and sweat and power. “Little fuckin’ tease,” he grits, “Bringing me cherry pie like that all the time – fuckin’ provoking me. You just wanted me to pop your cherry for you. Didn’t you, little girl?” All you can do is nod dumbly and take what he gives you. He hooks one of your knees over his elbow, the other propped over his shoulder, foot bobbing limply at each slam of his hips. He has you bent entirely in half, cunt splayed wide open for him to fuck down into the deep, devastating end of you. Your vision goes blurry, black stars streaking across the back of your eyelids. All you see is him. Perhaps he’s all that exists now. Maybe you’re just as dead as the two bodies laying beside the two of you. You wonder peripherally what the sight of the four of you must look like. Joel’s hulking form fucking you like an animal into the dirt. You open your eyes to look up at him, there’s blood splatter across his face, in his hair. His skin is burning hot against yours. You think that perhaps you’ll have scorch marks in the shape of his fingers in your skin after he’s done with you. Two dead, brutalized bodies cooling beside the place where the two of you are fucking. 

“Can feel ya tightening up, baby. Gonna come all over my cock.”

He does something to change the angle, and it fucking hurts. “Too much,” you beg, try to push him back weakly, but your cunt pulls sharp and tight, and then your muscles are rippling around him, womb contracting painfully as your orgasms blinds you with its sudden intensity. 

“Don’t care,” he growls back. “Do not fucking push me away.” No, he must not care. Prey doesn’t decide how it’s felled, after all. 

He pulls out and back then, suddenly, slaps your cunt harshly, once, twice. You mewl, high and shocked, writhing around in the dirt. He grabs you by the hips and flips you so fast you’re left disoriented, pulling your ass up, up, up. 

“Fuck, you’re so fuckin’ pretty,” he croons, bends to bite down on the meat of your asscheek, and then notches back at your gaping, fluttering hole, orgasm still running through you, and pushes back in. You’re soaking wet, slick and fucked open by him and the taking is much easier this time. You feel his thumb press down on your asshole, “Gonna take this too. Gonna have every part of you, every piece. Gonna swallow you whole.” All you do is arch your back further, cheek smushed into the dirt, fingers digging into the cool earth for purchase, for salvation.

The sight of you stretched around his thick base, so slick he feels you dripping down his balls and further below, into the bloody earth. There’s a red tinge of your own blood coating his skin, and he’s going to come. He’s going to fill you up with his spend and fuck it deep into you until it takes. Until no matter how far you want to run, he’ll be with you, always. He lets his head fall back on his neck and stares up at the dark canopy of the trees, groans low and deep.“You’re gonna be my little hole now,” he promises, presses one large palm into the small of your back to deepen the angle and fuck down into you. “Gonna take you with me and fill you up whenever I feel like it. My gorgeous little cumslut.” The ramming of his hips starts to grow sloppy and stuttered, close to the edge now. Victory is so, so near. 

You start to claw at the dirt and wiggle again. Little knees chafed raw and scrambling against the hard ground trying to get away. He slaps your ass hard, hopes there’ll be the print of his hand to appreciate later. 

“Not inside, not inside – not – no birth control,” you stutter, beg.

“I’m not fuckin’ pulling out.” He twists a cruel and unyielding hand into the back of your hair and presses your face harshly into the ground. Your eyes pinch and tears seep and mingle into the blood and dirt beneath you. “Gonna pump you raw and full. You don’t gotta worry about anythin’ anymore, baby. Gonna take care of you,” he grits and you press yourself harder back into him. There is an existential seesaw inside of you – a volleying of your wants – you want him to hurt you, to force you, to take care of you and keep you, all at the same time.

“Promise – promise me you won’t leave me,” you cry and beg because really, that’s all you want. All you’ve ever wanted. For someone to stay, for someone to never leave, no matter what.

“I promise – fuckin’ swear.” And you go loose and passive again at that – his to do with as he will. Nothing else really matters after all that.

He senses the change. The loosening of your muscles into capitulation. He stops his thrusting and grinds, strums at your clit. “Oh fuck, you want me to fill you up? And what happens if I do? What happens if it takes? Want me to get you fuckin’ pregnant?” Starts to fuck into you again, “I think you do.”

Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care.

“You’re mine. Fucking mine.” He says it again and again and again, yes, yes, yes, lets himself fall forward, anchored above you with one strong arm as he presses as deep as he can physically go and starts to fill your pulsing cunt with his come, the heat of his spend inciting you to roll into one more throbbing orgasm. He brings his face down close to yours, open your eyes, little thing, lemme see you. The fluttering of your lashes, sweaty, dirt-streaked face, and you are seraphic, the wet crimson heat of your blood pounding beneath the delicate membrane of your skin. Gorgeous, perfect, conquered and his. 

“Fucked full’a me now,” he whispers, presses a soft kiss to the tender skin of your eyelid. You nuzzle into him, and then look up at him with the warmest, most vibrant gaze he’s ever seen. Fucking pleased and sated. 

“They wanted me, but only you get to have me now,” you whisper. “How does that make you feel?” Provoking, provoking again. 

“Like I fucking own you.” He grinds his still spitting cock further, feels the pull of your muscles milk him deeper. 

He lets his weight fall partially over you, too heavy for the full mass of himself. You are, after all, a delicate thing, and he must remember to handle you with care, occasionally. He feels the pulsing and quivering of your cunt around his softening cock, and the two of you settle to lay there in the dirt, bodies still dead, virginity scoured and stolen, and stare at each other. 

“Have you ever been in love?” you whisper, dragging the tip of one little finger, whisper soft, over the arch of his brow, the slope of his nose.

“I feel a little in love with ya right now,” he confesses, and you press that finger against the seam of his mouth, begging for entrance, and then inside, against the flat of his tongue to inspect the wet gleam of it. It’ll be inside of you soon enough, you should take a look at that which you’ll be writhing against in due time. 

“Good. That was my plan all along.” Smug, conniving little creature. 

-

Once it’s full dark, he packs you into his truck, buckles your seatbelt for you, tucks a blanket around your dirty knees and drives off as if he hadn’t just murdered two men and taken your virginity with their blood still hot on his skin. He goes for miles and miles, eventually finds a dark, secluded spot to park the truck for the night. He takes you into the back bunk and fucks you like you’d wanted him to, on your side, one leg slung over his shoulder, hand gripping the lush of your ass to pull you onto his impaling cock, watches your ass bounce against his thrusts. A demanded play with it, lemme see ya push it back in, as he watches himself drip out of your messy hole. Eats your cunt until you cry. Afterwards, the two of you lay, naked and damp, facing each other, tracing the lines of one another in the quiet dark. 

Sometimes he’s worried he’s blood hungry – or pain hungry. Starving for something he doesn’t have a name for. But he thinks that, perhaps, he can use your name to fill in the blank space now. He’d always felt as if his devotion was a punishment to the receiver. After all, everyone Joel has ever loved has left him. But as he looks at you, there’s something in your eyes that tells him that perhaps, you’ll remain. Perhaps, he can compel you to, force you to. Perhaps, he can anchor you to himself, and in turn, give you everything. 

“Are you a ghost?” he asks.

“No. Are you?”

“Sometimes I think I am.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re like a fuckin’ angel or somethin’. What were you doin’ out here in this wasteland?” He asks you again.

“Maybe I was waiting for you.” This answer he likes.

He’s quiet for a long time after that – taking you in, cataloging you, memorizing you. His fingers ghosting over your face, your hair, strumming the fan of your lashes. Later he asks: How do you remember the memory of someone else? How do you keep them when they’ve gone somewhere entirely unreachable?

“Because you love them,” you tell him.

“That’s enough?”

“Of course. Will you ever forget that you loved her?”

“Never.”

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

[blue-jisungs]

PLSPLSPLS do the sleeping w plushies FOR SVT PREFORMANCE UNIT 🙏🙏🙏💕💕

you still sleep with plushies ♡

author's note. here u go! hope you like it <3

you can find vocal unit ver here, hhu here

┆彡 SOONYOUNG [ 순영 ]

im sorry but this man believes he’s a tiger and you’re not making a fuss about it…

so why would he mind your plushies?

actually, he thinks it’s so so cute and it was one of the first things that he noticed in your apartment

he often talks "through" them (?) like,, he’ll grab a plushie n be like

"sooyoungie told me he wants a kiss…"

cries.

anyways.

he won’t admit it but he loves the feeling of your warmth and your plushies surrounding him when u two fall asleep together

sometimes steals one or two when they’re about to go on tour

and actually makes it his life mission to bring you a new plushie (preferably tiger one) from each place you/they visit

in no time you’ll have to find a new storage because your bed started running out of place…

┆彡 JUNHUI [ 文俊辉 ]

i���m so sorry but he was very flabbergasted at first when you told him that one day

"plushies… like… plush animals? like, those for kids?" he repeated, frowning

no mf, rocks. of course plushies as in—

he noticed your mood got a little down by his reaction :(

and sure, he was surprised because he never stumbled upon a grown person still sleeping with plushies but it wasn’t like he minded?!

so he suddenly left your place, saying that he’ll buy some snacks

and he comes back with like,, a bag of plushies ☹️☹️☹️ and snacks too.

he apologizes n explains himself and you’re just so taken aback that he has to shake your arms <\\3

n then you two spend the rest of the evening naming the plushies he bought,, obviously falling asleep w them too

and… he’d rather die than admit it…. but he started to like this

n he started a small collection at home too… 🥹

┆彡 MINGHAO [ 徐明浩 ]

when you first started dating, you’d usually sleep over at his place (because it’s a mf villa u can do whatever u want there lmao)

but one day hao shot u a text that he’s gonna be over at yours in 10 with his pjs

so you texted him: "i have weird sleeping habits tho… i still sleep with plushies…"

and mans genuinely went "so?"

like, he couldn’t care less in a good way,, yk?

he’s been living with 12 guys for a couple of years now…. what is a bunch of stuffed animals to him?

ever since then you transferred some of your babies over to his place so they were there just in case hehe

and he loves that,, he’ll hug them if you’re not sleeping together :(

also will punch them occasionally,, like a cute aggression 😭 never tells u that tho….

┆彡 CHAN [ 찬 ]

honestly when chan saw your plushies for the first time his eyes went as wide as a kid’s eyes in a candy store

he genuinely thinks it’s so cool !!

"omg y/nnie those are all yours?! and this one is your childhood one? and this is from the arcade date?! huh— you named this one after me???” (and it’s an otter btw)

he’s so obsessed 🥹

will steal some of them n just carry em around, sometimes pulls a plushie out when practicing alone

because the guys laughed at him because of that… welp,, they did until you joined them for practice one day and there was a sad pout forming on your lips when mingyu teased chan about "how silly that plushie looks"

(then chan made them apologize to you and it may have been one of those moments when the maknae was scarier than the leader >:) )

chan also developed a habit of buying every plushie in sight that reminds him of you OR he thinks he’d like

especially if you have like an fav pokemon or tv show character,, literally whatever – he’ll buy it the second his eyes land upon it

anything to make his partner happy 🥹

(deffo bought this big ass teddy bear too and until this day it sits proudly in your bedroom <3 )

masterlist <3

taglist. @mirxzii ,, @primoppang ,, @l3visbby ,, @nicholasluvbot ,, @planetkiimchi ,, @weird-bookworm ,, @slytherinshua ,, @kazmura ,, @laylasbunbunny ,, @dazzlingligth ,, @eternalgyu ,, @rubywonu ,, @haecien ,, @mine-gyu

[macfrog]

jet

🎉 thank u guys so much for 1k followers 🎉 i don’t know how we got here but i love you all endlessly and can’t thank you enough for all the love n support. here’s some smutty joel to celebrate 🤩 this might become something, it might not. i dunno. wanted to try it out tho. lmk your thoughts ✨

pairing: joel miller x fem!reader

summary: you and joel have an agreement: follow his movements, follow his orders, stay alive. what happens when, one night, he asks you to break the deal?

warnings: 18+ (minors dni!!!) post-outbreak!joel, pining i guess?? when don't i pine for this man, praise kink, light bondage, fingering, unprotected p in v sex (don't u dare), creampie, dom!joel, soft!joel, age gap (late 20s reader, late 40s joel), cursing, cute horsies

word count: 6.9k

main masterlist

Somewhere between Missouri and Illinois, last time you checked. Joel has the map, and you don’t bother asking him to see it much. You’ve been following the Mississippi north, on his orders, looking to hit St. Louis sometime tomorrow. Provided you don’t run into any trouble, that is.

It’s been three days with no safe refuge. Camping out in deserted houses with wood for windowpanes, stores infested with rats, office buildings with infected roaming. Joel figures the outskirts of the city are a good spot to stop for a couple nights, regain your strength, find supplies.

You’re a few paces ahead of him, only turning your head slightly when you notice an offramp, and looking back ahead when he doesn’t give any direction. You weave in and out of abandoned cars, hips swaying with the clipping of your horse’s hooves on broken asphalt, Joel’s horse in time at your heels.

You’d untethered the pair of them on a farm back in Nebraska. Joel had told you to stay put while he cleared the house, but you’d wandered over to the field when you spotted them. Timid, skittish, starving.

Five minutes hooked over the fence and they were both eating grass you’d pulled from the earth, right out of your hand. Joel’s heavy footsteps approaching had spooked them back a few steps, but you’d petted their muzzles and when he did the same, they soon warmed to him, too.

He’d jerked his head in a nod and muttered, “Good job,” before finding two saddles, strapping them on, and helping you onto the chestnut brown one – who you’d named Jet.

Joel had found tins of food in the farmhouse, and a switchblade for you to carry. He had a new stain on his shirt.

“Infected?” you asked.

He grunted in reply. Then rolled the tins into his backpack and hoisted himself onto his own horse, giving her reins a tug.

You knew that meant that yeah, there’d been infected inside. And recent, too, going by how well-kept the horses looked. It can’t have been longer than a week.

Joel’s silence as you both wandered down the farm track probably meant that there weren’t just adults in the house, either.

You’d glanced over to him, giving him a small smile. Bent over and reached for his horse’s ears, scratching where her soft black coat met her mane. The reins lay loose around Joel’s knuckles.

Protecting and providing for you was more important than some infected kids in a farmhouse. Joel had made that more than clear over the time you’d been with him. But somewhere, buried deep underneath years of fighting and killing, tucked away under a dusty flannel shirt, you knew his heart was hurting.

That was two weeks ago. Joel hasn’t talked about it, and you’re not interested in bringing it back up. Y’all got to the farm, took everything it had to offer, and you left.

Jet clicks her way along the highway somewhere south of the city. It’s still bright out; Joel reckons probably a few more hours of sunlight, so you know he’ll be scouting for places to camp out soon.

You lean back to stretch your spine, hand steadying yourself on Jet’s rump, her tail swishing as she walks. Her head bobs, looking from left to right, from the trucks with smashed windows sprouting moss, over to the trees losing leaves in the fall breeze.

It’s peaceful. Not much is, these days.

It’s quiet enough that Joel can listen for any sound of oncoming threat, and quiet enough that you can shut your eyes and pretend like you’re on some trail in the Texas country, on a warm summer evening; not exhausted, covered in dirt, weeks since you washed, days since you slept.

You’re humming gently to yourself, imagination taking you down by a creek where Joel pulls you by hand off the horse and you sit down to a picnic or something. He’d bring a basket. Maybe a bottle of wine, or a cheese board. Maybe he lays you back and kisses you on the blanket. Maybe his hand starts to wander up your thigh, skirt ruffling as he goes…

“Not much out here, is there?”

His voice startles you, bursting the seams of your daydream. He isn’t much of a talker, not unless you start it. You sit up straight and give your head a shake, as if dislodging the fantasy from your mind.

You twist around to look at his face; squinting under the bright white sky. Tired, same as you, lined, flecked with years and sun and survival.

“Hm?” he asks when you still don’t reply.

“Not a lot,” you finally say, clearing your throat and turning back to the road.

Finding the horses isn’t the only thing that’d happened two weeks ago.

Joel hadn’t wanted to camp in the farmhouse, hadn’t wanted to have to shift the bodies. Too much effort, or too much for you to see, maybe. You’d protested, heart set on a night’s sleep in an actual bed, but he hadn’t budged.

And you knew not to push him.

The sun was setting, though, so Joel led you down a dirt track toward a barn and burst the padlock. He tied the horses up just inside the door, used bundled up hay as a makeshift mattress upon which he laid out a blanket for you.

He barricaded the door as you lay back, did a walkaround of the place just in case any infected – or worse – were waiting to surprise y’all, and then sat down next to you.

Your head by his thigh, you put a hand on his knee.

“You can lie down, too, y’know.”

He grunted in response, breathing deep and steady.

“Joel.”

You took his shoulder and tried to pull him down to you, but the man is stronger than anyone you’ve ever met, even in his late forties, and you were convinced he’d only pretended to be yanked toward you so as not to hurt your feelings too much.

He remained upright. “Just want to keep watch for a while.”

Joel’s like this when you’re on the road. He’s cautious. On high alert. Always watching ahead, always listening out for whatever he thinks he might hear in the distance. Sometimes you can say something to him and have to give his leg a kick for him to answer you.

You’d sighed and pushed yourself up to lean your bicep against his. He furrowed his brows and scanned you from your jeans to your jaw.

“If you’re up, I’m up,” you told him.

“You need sleep,” he replied flatly.

You shrugged. “So do you.”

“What good is both of us tired?”

You sighed again and shook your head. You weren’t gonna argue with him.

Good thing he didn’t feel much like arguing, either. Ten minutes later he was on top of you, jeans loose on his thighs, head buried in your shoulder, fucking you senseless. Grunting and groaning into your skin.

You’d scored marks into his shoulder blades with your nails that you’re sure, if you peeled back his shirt right now, would still be there.

It’d tired you both out enough that Joel settled with your head on his chest, his hand in your hair, eyes trained on the barn doors. You don’t know if he slept a wink. You never know if he sleeps these days.

Joel hears the hoarseness of your voice and knows that you’re tired, ‘cause he clicks to his horse and she trots up alongside you and Jet. He pulls the map from his backpack. You tilt your head to take a look.

“Keep ridin’ for another hour,” he mumbles. “’m sure we’ll find somewhere soon. Looks like we’re still a little way out of St. Louis.”

You nod, rolling your head back. The cloudy sky burns your corneas as you watch a bird fly overhead. Joel slips the map back into his bag and you feel his hand on your thigh.

“You okay?”

“Mhm. Tired,” you whisper.

“Only a little while longer.” He gives your leg a small squeeze and his hand returns to the reins. He doesn’t fall back, instead, stays ambling along by your side. It feels like company. Feels nice. Feels…normal.

Two weeks is a long fucking time. Especially when your adrenaline peaks on the regular, sometimes multiple times in one day, and you’re alone with Joel all day and all night. Trusting each other, relying on each other. Saving each other time and time again. It was only natural that you began to rely on each other for…more than just survival.

You can’t remember when you found him. It was in the QZ, back when you believed in stability and structure. When you believed in people. Now, the only thing you believed in was Joel. Broken, hurt, shut-off Joel, who’d grumbled an apology when his shoulder brushed yours in the hallway and changed everything.

You like to think you were something new to him, something different. A challenge, maybe. Something worth holding onto, anyway, for reasons he was yet to let you in on.

He had an apartment of his own, with a bed of his own, which was something you weren’t used to. You shared a cramped apartment with Luce, a single mom with a two-year-old. Joel’s was where you went when the tantrums, the screaming in the middle of the night, the ration cards being destroyed either by ripping, by eating, or else by other means, became too suffocating.

Joel didn’t believe in anything or anyone, either. That’s what kept you coming back.

He’d just open his door and step aside to let you in. Barely a word. He’d ask if you’d eaten, and share his plate with you either way. Wordlessly picking away at the same food, making sure you got the last spoonful of soup, the last strip of jerky.

Most nights he’d fuck you until your mind went blank, nothing but the smell of him, feel of him, sound of him. No talking, no kissing, no touching. Just the sound of the bed springs, Joel’s soft groans as he bottomed out inside you. The feel of his hot skin, hips rubbing against the inside of your thighs. The bare, cracked brick walls of his apartment would fade away with each thrust, and then slowly seep back in when your orgasm began to wash away.

You knew it was time-wasting, for both of you. Scratching an itch. But some nights, it felt like more. The nights when he’d be so caught up in what he was doing, so caught up in you, that he’d forget to pull out. The nights his hips would snap messily and suddenly he was spilling inside of you, a deep groan humming against your skin between his teeth.

He wouldn’t care to ask, and you wouldn’t offer the information for free, but you remember every fucking time he did it. Where it’d happened, the position he had you in, how long it took for him to finally peel his body off of yours.

And afterwards, he’d let you sleep with your head on his chest. Let you play with his fingers. Let you talk to him; let you ask questions.

Didn’t mean he answered all of them. Didn’t even mean he answered much. Some, he’d give away more openly than others, but you soon got used to clocking when he was keeping a secret. Make a mental note of it, remember to chip away at it.

He trusted you, though; you knew that. Knew it by the way his fingers knotted safely in your hair, the way he’d lie naked with you until the sun came up. The way his breathing would slow, the way he’d mumble in his sleep.

You never talked to him about the incoherent words he’d breathe – but you could piece them together well enough to understand him better than his waken self would ever reveal.

When you brought up leaving, one rainy night weeks ago, he thought about it maybe twice over. Asked how he was supposed to keep you safe.

You do that already, you told him.

‘s different outside. You don’t understand.

It can’t be any worse than in here.

You’d taken a step forward, and he’d flinched, but allowed you to take his strong jaw in your hands. You tried to form a sentence, and when your throat closed up, eyes flitting between his, he took your wrists and lowered them. The shadow of a rain-spattered window doused in a sickly amber glow across his face.

You’d wanted to kiss him. And had he left your hands where they were just a few seconds longer, you think you might’ve. Joel saw it in your eyes, and stopped it.

Whatever. It had still convinced him. He packed his bag and you snuck down the fire escape the following night. Joel’s fingers were hooked around your belt loop the entire time, keeping your hip in stride with his all the way until you were at least a hundred feet away from the QZ wall.

His other concern was his age. Why someone like you would want to run away with someone like him. Forty-something, graying, past his peak. He has, like, twenty years on you. Once he made some reference about Bruce Springsteen and, when your face blanked, he sighed and took the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

I know who Bruce Springsteen is, asshole, you’d said, just didn’t get that reference.

He’d shaken his head and given you a sly, twisted smirk, then pushed you out the door of the apartment block you guys were searching.

Still, despite the years between you, you have one major thing in common.

You’re both good at getting each other…there.

Joel knows exactly what to do to make you tick. You know exactly how to push him until he does it. It’s in the way you look at him, the way you touch him. Things you say that make his stony eyes flit once down your body, and then you know you’re in.

It’s a little harder to do while on horseback, you gotta admit. The best you can do is look at him, say a sentence or two laced with want and need. Hope that he reads through the lines.

It’s worked a few times, when Joel’s suddenly found a shed or basement you can camp out in and then made it difficult for you to walk for the next couple days.

Right now, you feel too tired to even bat your eyelashes at him, never mind coming up with lines to turn him on. You’ve been on the highway for a few hours by this point, little sign of shelter anywhere nearby. Joel holds his hand out and you bring your horses to a stop in view of a hospital a couple miles ahead.

“That’s gotta be teemin’ with them,” you say, looking over to study his expression.

“Hm,” Joel agrees, and glances to the right.

“What you thinkin’? Sun’s getting lower.”

He takes a deep breath, pulls on the reins. “Know somewhere nearby.”

He heads off the highway with a click of his teeth, and you follow. You shut your eyes, chin burying beneath the collar of your shirt. You’d kinda hoped that he’d offer to clear even a small part of the hospital for you to rest up, maybe more, but you trust him enough to lead you somewhere safer, somewhere quieter.

That trust begins to wear thin, though, when the sun disappears behind the trees, drowning you guys in a low dusk, and the temperature begins to fall. Joel’s using what’s left of the gray light to guide him, slowing down to take a hold of Jet’s reins and line her up with his own horse.

“I thought you said an hour,” you mumble, grip becoming slack on the leather.

“Changed my mind,” he replies. “Almost there.”

Your eyes start to roll with exhaustion, hips aching from the position you’ve been sat in for hours now. It’s not until you notice the silhouette of a tall sign in the clearing, black against the fading purple sky, that you blink yourself awake.

Joel pulls you and Jet off the road to a deserted parking lot, shadowed by a motel. He slows the horses down, listening for any signs of life, leading them to the side of the building.

“Easy,” he whispers, pulling on the reins. Both animals come to a halt.

He slides off the saddle, hitting the ground with a thud. He takes your hands, pulling you down to him, and you glance around.

“Stay here,” he tells you, and you don’t have the energy to argue back.

He makes off, pulling his gun from his holster. You stand with a hand on each horse’s muzzle, gently petting. Joel’s gone for a decent amount of time, his silhouette slowly sneaking in and out of every room, spending a couple minutes in each before he clears it.

He returns with a box of pills, some gauze, and a bottle of water, which he hands to you. You take a long swig and pass it back, and he does the same.

“What will we do with Jet ‘n…?”

“Huh?” he asks, replacing the cap on the half-empty bottle.

“What’s your horse called?”

“She ain’t got a name.”

You tsk. “Bad owner.”

“We ain’t their owners.”

“Mine’s is Jet. Pick a name.”

Joel sighs and shakes his head, but you know he’s gonna spend all night thinking up some name to go with yours. “We’ll tie ‘em up out here.”

“What if something happens to them?”

“Well,” he says, leading them toward the shelter, “if somethin’ happens to them, it only means it’s about thirty seconds away from happenin’ to us.”

He jerks his head toward the first room as he ties them up, and you know the conversation is over.

You wander into the small, dingy room, pulling your jacket from your shoulders. It smells of damp, the wallpaper’s peeling off the wall above the bed. The sheets are in disarray, a little dusty, but they look clean enough. The bathroom walls are covered in grime. Drawers empty, closet doors missing, entire place ransacked.

It’s as good as you get, these days. At least it has a solid roof.

Joel settles the horses and closes the door gently behind himself. You’re already tugging your boots off, sat at the foot of the bed.

He rests his gun on the nightstand and straightens up, stretching his back with a quiet groan.

“’s cozy,” you offer, and he nods.

“Better ‘n risking that hospital.”

The bedsprings creak when you shimmy up the mattress, resting your back against the hardwood headboard. It ain’t the most comfortable, but then it’s not meant to be, is it? It’s only meant to be safe, which Joel’s made sure of.

He stands at the bottom of the bed, watching you as you bounce up and down a couple times, laughing quietly at the sound of the springs beneath you. His expression clouds over under low brows.

“Y’okay?” you ask, tilting your head.

He nods again. Eyes flitting up and down, from your face to your neck, back up, and then lower still. Your chest. Your stomach. Your legs. You feel your heartbeat quicken when he takes a step forward.

“Just had to find somewhere better.”

“Better?” You smile. “Have you seen the world, Miller?”

He leans his knee against the foot of the bed. His brown eyes darken even more, and his jaw tenses.

“Had to find somewhere better,” he mutters, “so I could fuck you in peace.”

Your breath catches. You stare from his lips back up to his eyes. His fists are balled tight. His chest heaves with steady panting. There’s something flickering in the depths of those warm eyes; an ember, drawing you in. Tantalizing you.

You sit forward, pushing onto all fours, and crawl down the groaning bed to him, rising onto your knees when your hands meet his shirt. Your chest against his stomach, you look up into his eyes.

His rough hands knot in your hair and he pulls down, yanking your head back and your chin up to him. He studies your face, outlined in the moonlight seeping through the window. Then he lowers his jaw and lines his lips against yours.

“That what you want?” he hums against your mouth. You swallow his words – they claw at your throat as they go.

“Uhuh,” you breathe back, trying to connect your lips. He doesn’t allow you; steadily dodges your jaw like you’re a pair of negative magnets, repelling off one another. You moan.

“Needy girl,” Joel whispers. “Two weeks too long for you?”

“Mhm.”

You’re not tired anymore. You’re fucking desperate. You feel your cunt dripping, seeping through your underwear, worsened when Joel’s hand reaches down between your legs and cups you through your jeans.

You gasp and grab his arms to steady yourself.

“Tell me what you want,” he says, hand tensing around your core.

Your lip trembles as you watch the way his mouth moves, how he shapes the words. His teeth locked between soft lips, dappled with brown hair, ends singed gray. The way he almost spits the words.

Your chest meets his torso when you breathe in, a deep, shaky breath. Joel notices; the corners of his mouth twitch, holding back a smile.

“Want you to…want you…”

He doesn’t wait for you to finish your sentence. He pushes you back and falls on top of you, strong body pinning you against the mattress, hand still clamped to your crotch.

His head dips to your neck where he bites, scratches and sucks, mumbling against your hot skin, “Tell me, baby. Use your words.”

Your head begins to swim, body starts pulsing with electricity. Baby. Joel’s pet names are limited to one thing. One activity.

“Want you to f– fuck, Joel – fuck me.” Fuck me fuck me fuck me.

His hand begins wrestling with the button of your jeans. Thick fingers fumbling with your zipper, taking your waistband with both hands and hauling it down. The force of it pulls you down the mattress too, squealing as Joel rips the denim from your legs. You lower your hands to help him, but once they’re tossed to the floor, he bats you away.

He’s shaking his head, tsking, then takes both your wrists in one of his huge hands. Fingers twisted around your delicate skin, pinning them above your head. The bed sighs around you when he pushes your hands into the mattress. Your back arches, your chest rising to meet his.

Your legs part, knees settling either side of his waist. Of course they do. It’s what you know now. It’s basic fucking instinct at this point.

His free hand returns to cup your sex, feeling how wet you are through your now soaked underwear.

“Baby,” he coos, “this all for me?”

You nod a little too eagerly, not that you’re present enough to care. But it beckons a smug smile from Joel, who begins sliding your panties down your thighs.

Your hips lift to let him drag the fabric down, biting your lip, not willing to wait another fucking second for him. Lace meets denim on the torn-up floor, and you sigh, settling back against the rusty bedsprings and mottled sheets.

Joel’s free hand ghosts from your wrist down to your elbow, teetering along the sleeve of your t-shirt over to the collar, where he pulls it so far down into the valley between your breasts that a small noise passes your lips.

“Hm?” he asks, fingers pausing against your breastbone.

“’s my only shirt. Don’t…”

He kisses his teeth. His gaze never lifts from your heaving chest, skin damp with sweat right underneath his fingers. You can see him tossing it over in his head. What he wants to do, versus what he probably shouldn’t.

He blinks. Decision made.

“Give you one of mine,” he growls, and hooks his fingers, dragging the fabric of your shirt lower and lower until the collar tears open and it’s another scrap lost to the motel room floor.

And then there you are, naked and writhing underneath him. He’s still in his dusty flannel. There’s sweat lining his forehead. He holds himself over you, hovering, taking every inch of you in and storing it behind his eyes.

You jerk your hands, trying to break free just to touch him, feel him, but he pulls away again, tutting.

“No, pretty girl,” Joel coos, “gonna take my time with ya.”

You moan in protest, still wriggling under his body. His grip on your wrists doesn’t loosen, not even when his free hand dips to undo his belt. The cold metal kisses your naked thighs when he pulls it through his jeans; the leather drags up your torso and across your face as he lifts it.

He takes your hands individually, careful and yet rough, urgent, and slots them between the slats of the headboard. Your head turns up to watch what he’s doing. The silver of his belt buckle knocks against the wood as he slips it under your wrists, feeding it between your skin and the mattress, wrapping it around the slat between your hands.

Then he slips the belt through the buckle, and pulls. Tight. Your hands come together, wrists kissing, the leather burning your skin the tighter he pulls. You whine, head rolling back to meet his gaze, fixed on yours.

“Since you don’t wanna listen.”

The drip in his voice, sweet like honey, smooth as whiskey, forces your legs open wider. Joel smirks, pushing himself down the mattress and out of your view.

Staring up at the gray ceiling, you’re left just to feel him. Feel him as his palms splay out on your knees, pushing them into the bed. Feel his stubble graze the inside of your thigh as he drags his tongue up, leaving a trail of wet behind.

Feel when he breathes a whisper across your aching cunt, something you can’t hear over the ruffling of sheets around your head as you toss around. And feel when his fingers part your lips, opening you up wide for him to really fucking see.

“Fuck, baby,” he says, and you find the strength to lift your head to watch. He’s leant over you, one arm hooked around your left thigh, holding it open, the other fucking…playing with you. Like you’re some fancy gadget. Like you’re brand new to him.

“So,” he runs two fingers from your clit through your folds, “fuckin’,” lines them up at your entrance, “pretty – for me.”

He pushes up into you, and your head hits the pillow with a stifled groan. You’re panting through your teeth, back arching the deeper he goes, stretching you out and rocking waves of sparkling heat through you. Waves that hit the other end of your stomach and come rippling back, throbbing around his thick fingers.

His arm bears down on your thigh, forcing your legs wide open for him. His hand cups your clit and you buck your hips, rutting against the base of his palm. Joel laughs softly.

“Patience, darlin’. Don’t want it to be over ‘fore it’s even started.”

Your head rocks back and forth, eyes tight shut. It’s all you can fucking do, tied tight to the bed. Joel pumps his fingers in and out of you, adding a third when you’re wet enough, thumb never leaving your clit.

You can feel your orgasm brewing in your stomach. Feel the tension between your hips. You’re chasing it, eyes shut, focusing only on Joel’s hand fucking in and out, in and out. You’re coming close, body pushing into the mattress, legs widening even more to let him slip a fourth finger inside you.

“Feel good?” he asks, almost with a laugh. There’s a smirk painted across his lips, you know it, even though you can’t find the energy to open your eyes.

You whimper in response, some small, muffled sound roughly shaped like yeah.

“Yeah,” Joel agrees, and his wrist flicks harder.

You moan every time his fingertips kiss the edge of your cunt, pushing against the soft walls. You moan when he drags them out, leaving you empty. Again, when he pushes them back in, rough and fast. And then when he lowers his lips to your ear and tells you how good you’re being, how pretty you look, how hard he’s gonna…

It’s like he changes his mind in an instant.

Withdraws his hand, slick-covered and still hooked. Pulls it away as quickly as he pulls your orgasm from your body. It drains from you; reduces back to an ache you can’t reach.

Joel slips his fingers between his lips as he readjusts himself, repositioning on the squealing mattress. Sucks them clean as casually as he would at a cookout or something, then takes your hips in both hands and straightens you up.

His jeans are tugged down barely past his ass. He’s not prepared to waste any time ripping his own clothes off like he did yours. Just leans forward, pulls his solid cock from his boxershorts, and spits into his hand.

You watch through eyes glazed with lust as he strokes himself a couple times, eyes always on your swollen cunt, groaning as his spit coats his shaft. Then he lowers himself to you and does the same, only running his length through your folds.

You whine, feeling that familiar thickness separate you so close to where you need him, and yet so fucking far.

“Joel…” you whisper, but he’s not listening.

Transfixed on the sight of his cock moving against your soaked cunt. Listening to the sweet, wet sounds the pair of you make. His tip catches on your entrance a couple times and you gasp. Just fucking do it already.

“Fuck,” Joel growls under his breath, and then…

It’s been months. Might even be years. But the feeling of him pushing inside you for the first time is still the same. Every. Fucking. Time. He’s bigger, thicker than anyone you’ve ever slept with before. And he knows it, because every single time, he glides into you without hesitation. No time for you to adjust. Just fills you up straight away, lets you deal with it later.

He’s cocky like that. Too careful when you’re on the road, and too careless when you’re between the sheets. Not that you’re fuckin’ complaining.

Your mouth falls open in a choked moan. Your lungs are gasping for air. Joel’s all you can feel.

Your elbows lift into the air, arms desperate to break free just to grab onto him, ground yourself, feel him close against you. Your wrists lock against the hardwood, leather digging into your skin as punishment for trying to break free. You’re stuck; nothing but the overwhelming feeling of him between your legs, filling you up and leaving you empty over and over again.

“Good girl,” he’s panting, still watching where his cock lines up with your cunt, and then disappears inside.

He leans down and his lips find home on your shoulder, sucking sweet marks into the skin like he always does. His tip bumps against your cervix, jolts of sensitivity pushing through you each time he bottoms out causing you to whine into his flannel.

“Fuck, Joel.”

“I know, I know. I got you. I’ll get you there again, baby.”

You had a routine. Follow his movements, follow his orders, stay alive. Deviate slightly from that routine, even for a minute, and you threw the whole agreement into jeopardy. One misstep on a crowded street dotted with cars once had a sniper open firing at you both for nearly two hours until Joel found him and put a bullet between his eyes. That time your curiosity got the better of you and Joel almost lost a hand stopping you from walking down an alleyway and straight into a wire trap.

Repeat it, Joel had said that night. Crouched by his apartment window, rain battering off the glass. Hands on the frame, ready to hoist it up and let you slip out any second. Repeat. It.

Do as you say, you whispered back. And only then did he pull the sash.

This is not the fucking routine. This is not the agreement. You fucked, of course you did. But that’s all it ever was. Hungry, touch-starved, desperate sex. Bored sex. We-almost-died-today sex. Not this.

Not: clear an entire motel just so nothing within a two-mile radius gets to hear you fuck me senseless. Strip me down, tie me up, push me to the edge with your hands, but don’t let me go without you. Curl your lips around my ear while you’re buried inside me and whisper praises. Whisper baby. Whisper…anything you like. Anything you wouldn’t say when the sun’s up.

This feels like it means something. To both of you. Feels like Joel’s looking for something in you, asking something of you. And you want to give it to him, whatever it is.

And maybe that’s the point.

He’s proving that he could make you do fucking anything. Let him tie you to a bedframe, push you close enough to the edge that you can feel the pressure of release beckoning you forward like the wind circling your ankles.

And you’re proving that you’ll do it. You’ll do what he says. Follow him to the edge, refuse to jump. Pull his body into yours, make it feel like home for a night.

He’s proving that he’ll take care of you, and you’re proving that you’ll let him.

Your wrists are burning. Leather digging marks, searing skin, then rubbing over it again and again to cut it deeper. It’s starting to hurt, if you’re honest with yourself. Your face probably gives it away.

Probably, possibly. Definitely.

Joel notices you quieten and lifts his head from the crook of your neck. Studies your face for a fraction of a second and knows.

“Hey,” he says, reaching up. He loosens the belt with one hand whilst still deep inside you, hips thrusting slowly just as a place marker.

When your hands slip free, Joel’s clasp gently around your wrist, fingers delicate over the sensitive, reddened skin. His eyes almost glisten at the sight.

“Baby…” he whispers.

“’s okay,” you reassure him, loosening his grasp on you and settling your shaky hands on his jaw. “I’m okay. Liked it.”

Joel lowers his forehead against yours and picks his pace up again, and you moan into the space between your lips. Your legs lift higher, knees bumping against his shoulders. His hips snap into yours, his jeans rutting against the inside of your thighs, the bed creaking with each messy thrust.

“Close, baby,” his voice vibrates against your lips.

“Yeah,” you whine, chest pushing against his. “Fuck. Right there. Fuck.”

Your arm drapes over his shoulder blades, nails dig into the rough cotton of his shirt. Your left hand is still at his jaw, fingers caressing his cheek. Joined together at your hips and your brows, gaze never really meeting for longer than a second, but still. You’re right there. Joel – he’s right there.

It’s new, it’s intimate. It’s almost…sweet.

“Gonna cum with me?” he asks, sincerely. He’s not trying to coax it out of you. He’s checking that you want to fall over the edge. Not for him, not because of him, but with him.

You nod and he returns it, sweat sticking his dark hair to his forehead.

With his eyes on you, flitting between your parted lips and your batting eyelashes, too scared to settle on either place for too long, he lifts your hips and fucks into you fast. Deep. Fucking – hard. Skin slapping against yours, breath hot and tangling with yours between your lips.

The pressure between your hips begins to build again, rapidly, Joel adding to it with every movement. Every push of his thick cock against your walls only draws them in tighter, closing around him, holding him closer to you with each moan escaping both your lips.

“Darlin’…” he murmurs in a broken voice, and you know. He’s starting to falter. Thrusts weakening.

“’m there too,” you reply, gasping for breath.

“Let me – feel you,” he says, “pretty girl.��

Maybe it’s the fact you don’t normally talk. Maybe the fact he never touches you the way he has tonight. Maybe it’s him wanting you to cum first, before he will.

Or maybe it’s pretty girl, that finally sends you over.

You look so good to him. You’re being so good for him. ‘n he can’t help it, has to let you know. Has to let every thought that passes through his head slip out past his tongue.

Pulling his chest flat against yours, you throw your head back to the pillow with a moan so filthy, so guttural that you’d be surprised if you don’t have company in five minutes.

Joel’s at your heels, face buried between your breasts, groaning into your chest as his cock twitches deep inside you and you feel him fill you up.

Your orgasm’s still knocking you senseless, every nerve in your body electrified. You’re holding Joel tight to your body, his ear flat to your chest, and you know he can hear your heartbeat. Know he’s listening to it throwing punches from behind your ribcage.

He’s still groaning through his breaths, heavy and thick with his release. Cock still deep inside you, still, softening. You lay like that for…well, you’ve no idea how long. But after a bit, Joel pulls himself up off of you and wanders into the bathroom.

You sit up on your elbows, taking deep, steady breaths, and let the stars in your vision dissipate. Joel emerges a couple minutes later and finally tugs his jeans down. He lifts both his shirt and the tee underneath off in one motion, tossing them onto the sideboard, then slips back under the covers, wordlessly hooking a hand around your upper arm and pulling you down onto his chest.

Your legs intertwine with his. There’s cum seeping out of you onto his thigh. Both of you, mixed up as one. His fingers sift through your hair, doing little to untangle it but trying all the same. His breathing in time with yours, his lips pressed safely to the crown of your head.

Before you know it, you’re sleeping.

Dawn breaks early. Too early. You’re still tangled up in Joel, feeling his chest rise and fall. Listening to his heartbeat – slow, calm. The drapes – not that there’s much left of them – are too thin to stop any light from flooding in. It’s only a matter of time before he wakes up.

The rough sheets sting against your wrists – red marks scoring them where Joel’s belt had been. You wince, running light fingers over the grazes, hissing at your fingertips as they go.

It hurts way less than it thrills you. This little reminder of what you did last night. What Joel did. The pain subsides the longer you touch the scars, knitted brows melting into a smile.

You slowly lift your head, propping yourself up on your elbow. Just watching him. The dust in the room frames him in a sea of white glitter, the slow-emerging sun lights across his face and dips where the scar on his nose sits.

His arms are still around your waist, cradling you. Holding you to him. You know he’s stirring when they tighten, and then fall loose. Façade back up. Walls slowly rebuilding.

You dress yourselves in silence. Run out of words to say. There ain’t nothing to say – nothing that wasn’t said last night. Joel sinks into the mattress beside you to tie his laces, and your arms brush against one another a couple times. It’s like fire on ice.

He’s first to leave the room. Just pulls his jeans over his boots and stands, unlocks the door and lets the light flood in. You check once over for anything left behind, and slip out. The air is cool, twilight still slowly washing away. You sling your jacket over Jet’s back and pull yourself up.

Joel’s t-shirt is loose over your shoulders. He gave you a fresh one from his bag. It smells like him, but you don’t let him see when you bury your nose into it to breathe him in. The hem bunches up over the top of your thighs once you’re sat on the horse.

His eyes scan down you once, surveying you in hisshirt. Then he swerves off back toward the road, silhouette cutting between the rays of sun streaming between the pine trees.

“Ghost,” he tosses over his shoulder.

“Huh?” You click to Jet to follow.

“Horse’s name. Ghost.”

“How come?” you ask when you’re side by side with him.

He shrugs, upper lip turning. “When it’s dark, you can’t hardly see her. She’s like a ghost.”

Joel’s hand surfs gently across Ghost’s mane, fingers scratching her shining coat. Your bodies rock in time with the sway of the horses’ walking. The echo of their hooves on the asphalt masks the silence for a few moments.

“Alright,” you eventually accept, turning away to watch the sun lift above the prickly treetops.

And to hide the smile tugging on your lips.

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