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of-house-atreides · 1 year

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Supernatural Frontier | Chapter 2: The Cabin in the Woods

Series Summary: Former Delta Force soldiers, Santi, Frankie, Will and Benny, meet with fellow hunters, Dean and Sam Winchester, and team up for a rescue mission. Their objective: kill the demons, destroy their army, and save as many people as they can. Little did they know they'd find an angel in the pits of Hell, and that they'd have to put their lives on the line to save hers.

Chapter Summary: The girl wakes up. Santi warms up to her.

Pairings: TF!boys x OFC

A/N: Please note that I am French so there might be some mistakes here and there.

Words: 7089

Warnings: PTSD, nudity, mentions of blood, eventual poly relationship...

Minors DNI!

Masterlist

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 (coming soon...)

Tags: @moonchild-cupcake @littlenosoul

Please leave some feedback and reblog if you like it!

The feeling was too great. It overwhelmed him. He didn’t know it. He didn’t understand what was happening to him. He thought it was just exhaustion. The adrenaline leaving his body. The horrors he had witnessed haunting his mind, the evil sticking to his skin. He had plunged in the dark and had returned with its treasure. Like a pirate, killing and maiming his way to the hold of a haunted ship. What had he been fighting for all these years if not for her? She was all the answers to all his questions. Everything he’d been through seemed worth it now. She washed all his regrets away, erased them from his memory.

Will had always believed he had left the war behind, not for the hopes of a better life, but to put his skills to better use. He wasn’t killing other human beings anymore, he was killing real monsters, real demons. He was making his own choices. Every time he pulled the trigger now, he did it because he chose to, because he needed to kill a monster to save a person. Not because his generals had put someone’s name on a list. It wasn’t just his country he was protecting anymore, but the world, the people. He had always been good at his job, been good at death, but he didn’t want to do it any longer. He couldn’t. Hunting was just another kind of job, another kind of death. One that wasn’t as bad. He had seen what humans were capable of, and it had broken him. And sometimes, when he would look in the mirror, he would wonder if he was just as bad as the people he had been ordered to kill. Sometimes, he wondered if he would see them again one day, with black eyes, just like he wondered if he would one day look back at his reflection and see only darkness in his own. But still, he hunted. He hunted to help the vulnerable, to rescue the defenseless, to save the innocents. He did it all. He did it all to get to her. She was it. He knew it the moment he stepped foot in that room and laid eyes on her. She was the most vulnerable, the most defenseless, the most innocent.

She was his redemption.

Benny kept a close eye on his brother, checking in the rearview mirror if he had moved at all. They had been driving for hours, and yet Will hadn’t moved a muscle. He was holding her, her head resting on his lap, his eyes focused on her thin face, his large hand cupping her cheek. Every breath she took he took with her, like she was allowing him to breathe.

He was waiting for her to wake up and yet he hoped she wouldn’t. He wanted her to be in a safe, warm place when she opened her eyes, wanted her to be able to run from him, from them, and see they weren’t going to hold her down and tie her up. He didn’t want her to feel trapped by the size of the car, or scared by the dark of the night. He wanted to be able to give her clothes and access to a bathroom. He wanted to give her a sense of safety, her dignity, and her humanity back to her. He wanted her to trust him.

He wondered how bad it would be, once she woke up. Because he knew she would be scared. He knew it would take time for her to trust him, and his friends. It wouldn’t take days or weeks, or months. It would take time. And patience. And he would do anything to make it happen as soon as possible.

The feedback of the walkie startled the two brothers. They jerked on their seat then sighed out of annoyance. Will let out a little laugh. On the other side, Santi’s voice was tired and low, probably because Frankie was sleeping next to him.

“They rent cabins not far from here.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Benny nodded. “We hunted a Wendingo in those woods once.”

“Fuck, don’t remind me,” Santi chuckled, earning the same reaction from Will. “Let’s see if they have a cabin for us.”

Finally coming to a stop, the three men jumped out of their vehicle with unspoken relief. They stretched out their arms and legs as quietly as they could in the cold silent night. Benny had to hold back a very loud tired sound that almost escaped his throat as he extended his arms above his head. Frankie was still sleeping on the passenger seat, his forehead resting against the foggy window of the car. Santi didn’t waste any more time and went in to ask the dreadful question. Every second he was inside was agony to his weary friends.

“I don’t think I can get back in the truck,” Benny whined, almost praying for a miracle.

Will turned back to check on the girl, still sleeping on the back seats, before turning back towards his brother.

“Me neither.”

The door of the front desk opened to show Santi holding up a key like it was a medal won after a great victory.

“Thank God!” Benny laughed, releasing a shaky breath, almost falling to his knees.

“How many beds?” is the first thing Will asked.

His friend smirked, ready to defy his eternal pessimism.

“Six.”

Benny straightened up as his breath caught in his throat, while his brother raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Six?!”

“And that’s not the best part.”

“What?” Will said, doubtful he could do better than that.

“Ask me how many bathrooms there are.”

“How many bathrooms?”

“Five.”

“You’re kidding,” Will shook his head.

“Nope. It was the last cabin they had.”

“And how much is that costing us?”

Benny rolled his eyes, annoyed by his brother‘s restless negativity. Santi dug his hand into his jeans pocket and took out a credit card in the name of Hector White.

“It’s not costing us anything.”

“Come on, Will, aren’t you tired enough?” his brother scolded as he put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s just go to bed. Wait… how many double beds?”

“Four.”

“Ha-ha!” Benny jumped, like he’d just won the lottery. “Perfect, let’s go.”

The younger brother got back into his truck, gesturing for his brother to hurry up and for Santi to lead the way. It only took a few minutes to get to the cabin, but those minutes were the longest. Benny could already see himself in bed and sleeping for the next few days. The little wooden house was the furthest away from the road, deep into the forest, but that didn’t scare the hunters. When they parked the trucks on the designated spots, Frankie was awake. Their relief could be seen on their faces. It was such a comfort to know they wouldn’t be hiding in a cheap motel, sleeping in uncomfortable beds and taking cold showers for the near future. That cabin was a luxury they couldn’t usually afford, both for financial and practical reasons. And it put Will’s mind at ease as well, knowing the girl would have a safe and clean place to wake up to. The last thing he wanted was for her to think she was trapped in another tiny, smelly, dirty prison.

He carefully wrapped his coat around her before he carried her out of the vehicle. Quickly, he walked up the stairs and crossed the porch to enter their new temporary home. It was luxurious indeed. From the outside, the place just looked like an oversized log cabin one could find in the woods, dusty and dirty, stocking the usual hunting and camping gear. The kind of place people owned on the side, to escape the city for the weekend. But, perhaps, it would look better in the daylight. However, in the inside, it looked like a palace. Or at least, as close to a palace they would ever see. Will almost felt ashamed to walk on the beautiful rug with his muddy and bloody boots.

The entrance was a large square. The hardwood floor was covered by a giant beige rug, and in the middle stood a high glass square table on which had been placed a vase of obviously fake white lilies. Above it hung a chandelier with candle shaped lightbulbs. The walls were adorned with paintings not unusual for a vacation home. They weren’t unpleasant to look at, but no one really did want to look at them. He was surrounded by three archways. The one on his right led to the living room. It looked pretty comfortable, especially with that big TV, but that wasn’t what he needed at the moment. The one on the left led to the kitchen, and the one before him led to a staircase and a hallway.

“There’s a bedroom with a bathroom over there,” Santi said as he pointed towards the hallway. “There’s another bathroom next to the kitchen. Everything else is upstairs.”

“Let’s go upstairs then,” Benny yawned, knowing Santi had already claimed the bedroom on the ground floor.

It happened naturally, like it always did when they didn’t have to flip a coin for it. Benny entered the first bedroom he found. Frankie picked the second one, and Will was left with the bedroom at the end of the hallway. It wasn’t as big as the others, but at least he had the best bathroom, with the modern shower and the large bathtub.

He settled the girl on the bed, not caring for a second about staining the clean sheets. He brought the covers up to her chin, before turning on the night lamp and turning off the room light.

“And where are you gonna sleep?”

He turned around to find Santi in the doorway, his bags in his hands. Will gestured towards the couch.

“There are six beds in this place and you’re gonna sleep on the couch?”

“I can’t leave her alone.”

“Take the single beds.”

“She’ll be more comfortable here.”

Santi sighed. He sounded desperate. He put Will’s bags down on the dresser before he leant against it and crossed his arms over his chest.

“What’s your deal with her?” he asked, although it didn’t sound like a question, because he knew Will didn’t have an answer.

“Don’t know. Don’t care. I’m keeping her.”

“Keeping her? She’s not a pet, Will.”

“She’s staying.”

Will’s aggressive tone and the seriousness in his eyes concerned his friend the most.

“Nobody’s making her leave.”

Will nodded. To him, that was the end of the conversation. That was the end of the issue.

“Seriously, though,” Santi started and Will sent him a warning look. “You do realize this isn’t… I mean it’s weird, man.”

“What do you propose we do?”

“Exactly what we’re doing now, just… be careful.”

“I will be, okay? I just… I just know she’s not what they said she is. She’s not dangerous.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do. Did you see her down there? She’s not a monster.”

Santi frowned and tilted his head to the side as he stared back into his friend’s eyes, hoping he would see and understand his worry. He spoke his next words quietly.

“Maybe she was the biggest monster there.”

Will opened his mouth, but then closed it without saying a word. He looked down at the floor as he clenched his jaw in frustration. He made his way to the couch and sat down, his eyes remained focused on his boots, until they moved back onto her.

“I guess we’ll see when she wakes up,” he said, giving up, too tired to keep debating, as he knew there was nothing he could say to make him understand what he knew in his heart.

“I guess we will,” Santi repeated in a whisper. “Do me a favor, though. Get some sleep.”

Will nodded. “Yeah, I will.”

Santi chuckled as he pushed himself off the dresser and exited the room. Will had always been a terrible liar.

***

Spinning in darkness, untethered, floating like a leaf in water, drifting away in the infinity of her unconsciousness… she rose slowly from the deep sleep she had been forced under. It didn’t feel like waking up, because she hadn’t really been asleep. It was another kind of slumber. She emerged from the shadows of her mind, yet felt like she was drowning in them.

Memories echoed in the obscure chambers of her consciousness, compelling her to return to her comatose state. She didn’t want to go back. That was the only thing she was certain of. The only thing she knew. She fought against it but found herself unable to go back to the peaceful darkness. She was too weak for it. And trying made her feel worse.

She had been taken to the deepest corners of Hell, and they had used every weapon, performed every experiment, put to the test every theory, used up all their ideas… And the lack of satisfactory result never discouraged them. In fact, it became just another excuse to use new tools and new methods to torture her. They quickly learnt how to subdue her, how to make her weak, and her power mute. She had lived most of her life trapped between spells and sigils that had paralyzed her, body and soul. She had only known pain, had only felt their touch, the cutting of their knifes, the breaking of her bones… In Hell, there was no music but the sound of cries, and no song but the demons’ laugh.

That was all she knew.

They had driven her mind away, broken it like they had broken her body. Except it couldn’t heal the same. She was immortal. She was eternal. They couldn’t find a way to stop her heart, so they stopped something else. They had pushed her to meet her end. She had done it to herself.

She had put herself in a box where they couldn’t reach her, where she wouldn’t feel the pain, or their hands on her skin. She had turned herself off, had used those sigils and those traps to her advantage and had locked her mind away. The only way she could escape them. The only death she could ever have.

But something had changed. Now, she was free. The chains had disappeared. She could no longer feel the effect of the sigils on the walls, the traps on the floor and ceiling. She could no longer hear the screams, no longer feel the pain. She could no longer recognize where she was.

It was warm, and soft, and comfortable. And she wasn’t hanging from the ceiling, nor was she chained to the corner of a cold cage. She was lying down, but she wasn’t tied to the surface. It felt weird. Like she could actually move.

***

The sun rose and set on an eventless day chased away by the merciless night. Resting, relaxing… those were not words part of the soldiers’ vocabulary. They almost didn’t know how to do either of those things. They could appreciate a warm shower and recognize a comfortable mattress when they had one, but they were used to the opposite. So when they woke up from their restful sleep, they felt even more tired than they were when they went to bed. It didn’t help that it was almost midnight when they woke up. Or maybe it did help. Because even though they were used to living at night, it was just a good excuse to get back into their comfortable beds.

Will stayed up as long as he could, and he tried not to fall asleep, but he was human, with human needs, and no man, as strong as he might be, could stay awake, as exhausted as he was. But when he woke up the next night, unlike his brothers, he never went back to sleep.

He was awoken by a whimper. It startled him. Like he had just caught himself falling asleep at the wheel. He almost fell off the sofa. His eyes immediately searched for her, fear driven, as an irrational thought crossed his mind that perhaps she had vanished in silence, escaping the house and the attention of the four very skilled men who had been trained to not let such a thing happen. But she was still there. Sleeping. Her chest rose, and when he saw her breathe, so did he. He let out a sigh of relief before running a hand over his face.

He was staring, he didn’t realize it. Once again hypnotized by the sleeping beauty. He came to dread her waking up. The apprehension made him uneasy. Still panic settled in his heart as if he could feel the moment getting closer with each agonizing second that went by.

And then, he heard another whine. Suddenly, finally, she flinched, and his heart stopped.

A grimace twisted her face. A whimper broke the silence. And he froze like a deer in headlights. Like any movement from him would make her pain worse.

Her eyes shot open as she sat bolt upright with a cry that stuck in her throat. She gasped, like the air burnt her lungs. She whined as she found herself free to move and breathe without pain, the surprise almost as painful. She grabbed her wrist and looked down at herself, ignoring the dirt and blood covering her skin, instead focusing on the fluffy cover that kept her warm.

“Hey.”

Although he spoke calmly and as quietly as he could manage, she jumped, and as she saw him, the confusion on her face vanished and terror came to replace it. She seemed to shrink under his gaze, as if she was trying to make herself disappear.

“You’re okay,” he quickly added, holding up his hands before him to show her he meant no harm, “it’s okay.”

She whined as he stepped forward. He stopped.

“My name is Will. You’re safe, I promise no one here will hurt you.”

He could see she didn’t believe him, or maybe she just didn’t understand him. She was trembling, holding back tears, as if she was afraid to move or make any sound, as if that would lead to more scary, more painful things.

He hesitated, for minutes, he just stood there, holding her gaze, nodding at her, whispering promises, begging her to calm down. But she wouldn’t. She just wouldn’t. She just looked at him with her big wet blue eyes as if he was going to do unspeakable things to her. And the more she looked at him, the more scared she got.

“I p-“

She fled. She fled like a rabbit scared of hunting hounds. She pushed herself off the mattress, away from him. Tangled in the sheets, she struggled to get out, and fell on the floor, but she never stopped. She dragged herself in the corner of the room, between the wall and the old-fashioned wooden wardrobe, dragged the sheets with her, brought them up, covered her body under them, hid inside them.

Will sighed as he gave up. He really had no idea how to deal with this. He knew PTSD. He knew how to help soldiers, veterans coming back from war, but this? An angel tortured by demons? He had no idea what she had been through. No idea how to help her. But he knew he had to be patient. And kind. And gentle. And he couldn’t make her do anything she didn’t want to. Even if she needed to.

He slowly walked up to her and she pushed herself against the wall like she wanted to melt and disappear into it. He had never heard such broken cries. As if she knew no matter how much she tried to fight back, how much she begged, how much she cried, the pain would inevitably come. So he had to make her understand it wouldn’t. He had to make her understand he wasn’t one to bring pain.

He sat with her. Without saying a word, he just sat there. And he waited. He waited for her to understand.

***

Hours passed and they hadn’t moved. Slowly, though, she came out from under the sheets, eyeing him, wondering what kind of game he was playing. Usually she could tell what they would do to her that day by who was holding the knife or the room they took her in. But this was new.

He seemed to have fallen asleep, and a thought she hadn’t had in a very long time crossed her mind. She could run. She could try and run. And she might have tried it, had she been certain her legs could carry her out of there. She might have tried it, had she been certain he was really sleeping. She might have tried it, had she known for a fact the door was unlocked. It could be a trap. It was most certainly all a trap.

She moved, slightly, just to see if she could get a reaction out of him. Little by little, and it took minutes, she got herself on her hands and knees and slipped out of her corner. What she was doing terrified her, but her survival instinct pushed her to move, pushed her to seize her chance.

Slowly, quietly, she made her way to the door. She kept looking b ack at him just to make sure he was still sleeping. Then she got on her feet and almost fell down. This was a terrible idea. She wouldn’t go anywhere in that state. She could barely walk. But she tried it anyway. Because even if they caught her, at least, maybe, they would be mad enough to put her back to sleep.

The door opened, and the empty hallway smelled of freedom. A wave of relief surged through her, but she still had miles to go. She staggered her way to the stairs, falling down a couple of times, but always getting back up. She gripped the ramp tight and was careful with each step she took down the stairs. She could see the front door and she knew it was too good to be true. But she didn’t give up. Even when she fell down again, her knees hitting the soft rug. Even when her legs were too weak to get her back up. She didn’t realize she was crying, because she had spent so much of her life with wet cheeks, and she worked through the pain, because she had known worse. She dragged herself to the big door, pushed herself up enough so that she could reach the handle and pull. And pull.

But the door was closed.

A broken sob escaped her throat as she collapsed to the floor and broke down in tears. She cried until she couldn’t breathe anymore. She cried until she felt a pair of hands around her waist.

She yelped as she was lifted off the floor and the stranger helped her sit up. She was expecting to see scary black eyes and the sadistic smile of the bored jailor that had played this cruel trick on her, but instead was met with the gentle brown-eyes of a man with dark disheveled curls. He looked nothing like Will, but for the pity in his eyes. He sighed as he looked at her, and she felt shame as his eyes travelled on her dirty self. She was only wearing a large brown coat and it had opened up on her way downstairs.

She flinched and shut her eyes as he brought a hand to her face and cupped her cheek. When she opened them again, when the pain never came, when all she felt was the soft touch of his hand on her skin and the gentle rub of his thumb wiping away her tears, fear had made place for confusion, and she dived into his eyes and saw the promises they were making her. She wanted to believe them. She wanted nothing more than to believe Will’s words; that she was safe here. So when the man moved his hands onto the coat, she didn’t move, and she let him button it up in silence.

“Do you want to go outside?” he asked, a question needing no answer, as he knew she wouldn’t give him any.

He slid his fingers in his jeans pocket and retrieved the keys to the door. She gasped when he scooped her up in his arms, but found herself holding on to him. She didn’t know why but she held on to him. The air outside was fresh and wet and she sobbed as it hit her skin and saw the sunrise in the horizon before them, behind the forest. She couldn’t remember the last time she had set foot outside. Had felt the wind in her hair. She buried her head in the crook of his neck to shield her eyes from the natural light. They would have to get used to it again, after all those years in the darkness.

The stranger smelled nice. She didn’t know what it was, but it was different. It was a strong rich smell that had her rub her nose against his collar bone. He smelled clean. He smelled alive. It filled her lungs with unspoken relief. At least, it didn’t make her sick. She shivered at the contact of his skin. He was warm, almost burning the hand she had wrapped around his neck. She wasn’t used to being around the living. She only knew cold death.

There was a swing on the porch and he thought she might enjoy it, perhaps the rocking would calm her down. Soothe her.

She was still trembling in his arms, and he knew it wasn’t because of the temperature. She needed pants… well, she needed everything. He could hear her sob, feel her fingers tap on his skin, and slowly move up to his hair until eventually she slid them in his soft curls and mindlessly, gently, started to pull on them. He rested his cheek on her icy forehead as he hushed and whispered promises, telling her everything was going to be okay.

Eventually, her breathing settled and her sobs disappeared, replaced by the quiet sounds of the calm forest. Her shaking now was mostly due to the cold morning, and while her fingers were still playing with his hair, her free hand had, at some point, seized the collar of his shirt and hadn’t let go.

That was the only thing she could control, the only thing she possessed. That bit of fabric attached to a man she didn’t know, trapped inside her tiny hand like it was a source of power that could allow her to stop time and remain like this forever. It was the shield she had put up around herself, the walls she had built for protection, the leash around his neck to pull on should he or anyone try to end this moment.

She pulled on it when Will ran out of the house in panic and found them on the porch. She pulled on it even though Santi, as Will had just called him, tightened his hold on her and told her it was okay. She pulled on it when Will knelt at his friend’s feet and took her face in his hands. She saw his lips moving, but a sudden ringing in her ear stopped her from hearing him. She whined as she shut her eyes in pain and once again chose to find shelter in Santi’s arms, hiding her face in between his neck and shoulder.

“What happened?”

“She tried to leave. Freaked out when the door wouldn’t open.”

Will sighed. “She’s not scared of you.”

“I don’t know what to tell you man. She keeps smelling me.”

“It’s the cologne I got you for your birthday,” Frankie said as he joined them, cigarette in hand, leaning against the doorframe.

“You didn’t get me anything for my birthday, pendejo.”

“She awake?” Benny asked, appearing behind him with a hot cup of coffee in his hand. “She a monster or what?”

“She can barely walk, Benny,” Santi answered.

“Yeah, she doesn’t exactly look like the most dangerous creature on earth…” Frankie said.

“She looks like she needs a shower.”

“Shut up, Benny,” Will spat as he leant forward to retrieve the girl from Santi’s lap.

She gasped as she felt his hands on her and quickly wrapped her arms around Santi’s neck, desperately holding on like Lucifer himself was trying to snatch her from her safe place.

“Come on, man,” Santi complained. “She’d just stopped crying!”

Will stepped back, obviously frustrated, as Santi stood up. The sudden move made her panic.

“It’s okay, baby,” he hushed as he made his way back inside the cabin without giving another look to his friends.

He took her back to Will’s room where he laid her on the bed. It was one of the hardest things he ever had to do. She just wouldn’t let him go, and her cries made it harder for him to put her down. They came to a compromise. She got back under the covers, and he remained by her side as he held her hand. She played with his fingers for a while until they moved onto his wrist. She seized it and, little by little, started pulling him towards her. Gently, at first, then forcefully. He kept telling her that it was okay. That she was going to be okay. After a while, the words started to make sense to her. Not that she started to believe them, but her brain heard the words, and understood their meaning. Reality was still blurry. But her senses were slowly coming back to her. Eventually, he gave in, and climbed into bed with her. He slid under the covers and brought her to his chest, and she surprisingly didn’t hesitate to embrace him. She laid her head close to his neck and started tapping her fingers on the exposed skin of his chest.

Will appeared at the door with his hands in his pockets. He took in the sight before him then looked away.

“We’re gonna go into town, get some food, some clothes… you need anything?”

“I’m good.”

“Right…”

Silence settled awkwardly and he started to rock on his heels.

“Get her some girl stuff, will you?”

“Girl stuff?” he chuckled. “Sure. Try and get her to take a bath, yeah? I looked around, there’s everything she needs in there,” he said as he pointed to the bathroom.

“Sure,” he scoffed. There was no way that was going to be easy.

Benny called for Will from down the stairs and the older brother waved goodbye before he disappeared in the hallway. Santi heard the front door close behind them and the car drive away. She didn’t move. She didn’t move when Will stepped in, and didn’t move when he stepped out. She just laid there, running her fingertips on his skin. She just held on to him.

She held onto him when he sat up, when he got out of bed. She held onto him when he took her to the bathroom. But when he tried to put her in the tub, she let go. She fought against him, suddenly, startling him, and he was unable to stop her from falling on the cold hard floor tiles, hitting her head on the edge of the tub.

“Shit!”

She pushed against him when he knelt to check her forehead, she screamed in panic. She tried to get up and run but he easily caught her, causing her to fight back even harder. She cried and begged, and he hushed and comforted, but she wouldn’t calm down. He had no idea what he had done wrong.

Frankie arrived soon after, running in, worried about all those screams that echoed from the bathroom.

“Close the door,” Santi told him.

Bad idea.

Once closed, the girl’s screams got worse. She never stopped trying to escape Santi’s arms, and started kicking Frankie as he tried to approach them.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I think she’s scared of the tub, just lock the door.”

“Are you kidding? She thinks we’re gonna drown her or something and you wanna lock her in here?”

“I don’t want her to run away, just lock the door and help me calm her down!”

Frankie had been right, though. She did lose it when he locked the door. Somehow finding more strength to fight them off.

“Show her the water, show her… damn it,” he hissed in frustration as she almost managed to slip away, “just show her it won’t hurt her, will you?”

Frankie sighed. He made his way to the tub and turned on the tap, putting his hand under the water.

“See? Look. It’s just water, it won’t hurt, look. It’s just water.”

He kept shushing, repeating the same words over and over again because he didn’t know what else to say to make her understand. Her screams, her cries, her begging just wouldn’t stop. And all the while, he wondered why on earth would she be afraid of a bathtub. He stepped back into the corner of the room, still facing the tub. Steam evaporated from the water filling it while her cries worsened.

“We’re gonna get you in the tub, it’s not gonna hurt, it’s going to be nice and warm, and we’re going to get you cleaned up, wash away the blood, wash your hair, you’ll feel so much better, you’ll see. It’s not going to hurt. I promise. It’s not going to hurt.”

She screamed as he stepped forward, and every kick and punch from her broke his heart. But Frankie helped him take her coat off and finally get her in the tub. She fought all the way in, water splashing everywhere. They had to pin her down to keep her from getting back up once they had finally gotten her to sit. Her hands gripped the edges of the tub, as if she was afraid they’d push her under the water. Santi covered one with his own.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” he said as he caressed her skin. “Will said there were some products around, grab some,” he instructed Frankie, who came back with everything he could find.

Bottle after bottle, body wash, shampoo, conditioner… he opened them all and only kept the best smelling ones. He made her watch as he brought them to his nose then asked her to do the same.

“See? Smells good, right?”

The water had gotten cold by the time she was calm enough to let him bring a bottle to her face. But that wasn’t an issue, on the contrary. The water had also gotten quite dirty.

“We’re gonna change the water, okay? So you’re not too cold.”

She watched, with fear, but also a bit of fascination, as the water disappeared around her. She brought her knees to her chest and rested her chin on top of them. Santi took the showerhead and explained to her what he was doing as he turned it on and checked the temperature. She was still scared, but her panic had gone, and although she was still wary of him, she let him do it. She even let him bring the water to her face and hair.

“Close your eyes, I won’t be long.”

When most of the blood and dirt had been washed off her skin and hair, he filled the tub again and asked Frankie to find a washcloth. He could see she wasn’t completely at ease, but hopefully she would remain calm until she saw they wouldn’t hurt her.

Frankie had sat on the other side of the tub and rested his forearm on the edge. He watched as his friend put the cloth in the water and brought it to her face. She jumped and moved back, but then let him clean her face.

“Did you pick the bottle you wanted?” he asked, as he showed them to her again. “This one?”

It was a kids body wash that smelled like strawberry, that he could use to wash her hair as well. After he was done with her face, he handed the cloth to her, but she only gave him a confused look.

“I’m sure you’d rather do it yourself.”

He shouldn’t have been so sure, because she didn’t move. She only looked back down at the water. Santi sighed.

“Right.”

He started with her arms, and she started looking at the bubbles that had appeared in the water, like she had never seen any. He did her back as she tried to grab some, only to watch them explode under her touch.

“Do you wanna do your legs?” he asked again, but still, no answer. She was too captivated by the bubbles. And it smelled good too. Perhaps, that was why she seemed so calm as he touched her.

“I think she’s lived through worse things, Pope.”

“That doesn’t mean I get to touch her like this.”

“I think she’s used to it.”

“It doesn’t make it right!”

“I know that.”

He reluctantly brought the cloth to her legs and she didn’t move when he reached her knees. When he looked up, he found her eyes on him.

“Come on, baby, you can do your thighs, yeah?”

She tilted her head to the side, like she was considering it, but she was just trying to understand. Eventually, she stretched her legs, revealing her upper body to them. They looked away.

“Take the cloth. I’ll wash your hair. Deal?”

He didn’t wait for her to answer because that would have just been a waste of time. She watched it float in the water as he did his best to clean her very dirty and tangled hair. To his relief he remembered Frankie had handed a detangling spray to him earlier as well.

Frankie had spent the entire time looking away from the girl. He didn’t know why but she freaked him out. At some point though, as he dipped his hand into the water to check the temperature, he saw she was looking at the ring around his finger.

“You like it?” he asked as he removed it and handed it to her. She gave him a puzzled look. “Go on, take it. Take a better look.” But she never did. She had learnt long ago not to take anything that was handed to her under any circumstances. She jumped and moved away when he reached for her arm, but didn’t fight back. She watched as he placed the ring in the palm of her hand. It was big and heavy, golden, with details all around it, an eagle in the middle. She looked at it for a while. It could have been seconds, it could have been minutes. Time had taken another meaning inside that bathroom. But at some point, she handed it back to him.

“Thank you,” he said as he put it back on his finger.

In a surprising move, she took the cloth out of the water, and handed it to him. He sighed.

“Alright.”

He wrung the cloth out before bringing it to her neck. Then down her shoulders. Down to her cleavage. He watched carefully for any sign of discomfort, but she seemed lost in thought, her eyes looking once again at the bubbles in the water.

“Frankie,” Santi warned.

“I know.”

He ran the cloth in between her breast and onto her stomach, down to her thighs. He was meticulous. He slowly brought it back up to her breasts. She didn’t move. He made it quick. When he was finally done, she brought her knees back up to her chest, and he looked over at Santi who was still struggling with her hair.

“Do you need a hairbrush or something?”

“Maybe. Hand me that detangling spray you found earlier.”

“If we hurt her, she’ll lose her shit.”

“I know, I’m doing my best here.”

Santi started to wish he had waited for Will to come back and make him do it, because he definitely hadn’t signed up for that. When Will and Benny came back with food and clothes, he was still struggling with it. But at least it was clean.

“That shit ain’t working,” he said angrily, feeling like throwing the bottle out the window.

“Just let me do it,” Will said as he removed his shoes and stepped in the bathroom.

He knelt before her first, and asked her if she was okay. As expected, she gave no answer.

“Let’s just get her out of the water first, we can deal with her hair out there.”

He grabbed a robe that was hanging from the door and Frankie left them to join Benny down in the kitchen and help him with the groceries. Will emptied the tub and asked her to get up, promising they wouldn’t look, although they weren’t sure that information mattered to her. Seeing she didn’t move, Santi leaned over and whispered in her ear.

“Let me help you.”

He put his hands on her waist and she instantly turned around and wrapped her arms around his neck, surprising him once again.

“Oh, okay…”

He helped her back onto his feet, allowing Will to get her inside the large white warm fluffy robe. Although she wouldn’t look at him. She kept her focus on Santi. Will tied the belt around her waist and once his hands were off her, she hurried back into Santi’s arms.

Will sighed. “Come on.”

They took her back to the bed where they sat with her, Will behind her, armed with a bunch of hairbrushes and detangling products that didn’t work, Santi before her, holding her hands in his, whispering the same thing over and over again.

“You’re safe. We will never hurt you. You can trust us. I promise.”

Will managed, by some miracle, to fix her hair around noon, and they wondered if she was starving just like they were. Santi gently took her chin in between his fingers and made her look up at him.

“You hungry, baby?”

As usual, she didn’t understand the question, and moved towards him for only response.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he assured her, wrapping an arm around her. “Come on, let’s get you something to eat.”

44 notes · View notes

lokischocolatefountain · 3 months

Text

Warning || Men Like Me

Masterlist

Fandom: The Last of Us Pairing: Joel Miller x Virgin!Reader Rating: 18+ Warnings: girth age gap, virgin!reader, eventual loss of virginity (not in this chapter), gratuitous descriptions of Joel Miller's body, somewhat creepy!Joel, fetishization of youth, dom!Joel, breaking and entering, playboy magazine, objectification, fingering, sexual discoveries. Word count: 6.2k Summary: Joel's warnings about what men like him would do to girls like you only makes you want him more. A/N: Back in the depths of hell again, you guys. Now this isn't the most depraved thing I've written by any means but it's up there. Come say hi in my chat or inbox, I'd love to talk. Keep a look out for follow up parts and pleeeeease give me comments. I am very very desperate.

Joel Miller was a bad man. That much he knew.

Even as he fixed taps and renovated houses that were falling apart, he could see the blood on his hands. The very hands that packed lunches for Ellie snapped necks, pistol whipped men, stole from a starving child so he could feed his grown brother. But there were lows even he didn’t stoop down to.

Not that he didn’t have the opportunity. Men always did. And in this world, opportunities had only tripled. Even the Boston QZ, as strict as it was, had an underground brothel. He knew Tess to frequent it and never asked questions. Sometimes she needed to bury her face between a good pair of thighs and wrap her lips around a pretty pussy, and this wasn’t something he could give her. There was a lot he couldn’t give her.

Being in Jackson should’ve civilized him. It did in many ways. He’d reverted to the southern gentleman with table manners. ‘Yes, Ma’am’ spilled out of his lips effortlessly when he spoke to women. He held the door for anyone walking in after him. He even went to Church– sorry, the multifaith house of worship–to help renovate.

That was where his troubles began.

There was no point in him going where people prayed. Being back in civilization did not erase his decades of disbelief in a cruel God who would take his baby and keep him on this accursed Earth. But he did because he was back to being a contractor and Tommy asked him to go fix up the pews instead of him. He didn’t have much time, being a new dad and all.

He was on his knees checking out the rotting wood and evaluating how much wood he’d need for building new ones when he was confronted by a pair of legs and a sweet voice. Yours.

“Lemonade, Mister Miller?”

He looked up, his eyes traveling up your legs, bare until he got to your knees where the hem of your flowery skirt sat. Pure, unblemished knees, never taken a fall, didn’t fucking creak, and never knelt before anyone but God. You looked down sweetly, eyes wide and innocent like a newborn cow. Everyone had a kind of darkness about them in this world. Everyone except the kids who didn’t know a world outside the insular walls of Jackson. And you, it turned out, even though you weren’t a kid.

He wiped his sweat off with the greasy rag he carried and looked up at you once again. You had a pitcher and an empty glass in your hands. A sweet smile on your lips and hair falling down your shoulders and reaching your breasts. A yellow ribbon sat in a bow where your neckline dipped between your breasts, adding to the innocence of your look.

“Yes please, Ma’am. Thank you,” he said, giving you a nod. Your pretty plush lips curled up, a giggle escaping them as you poured him a glass of lemonade.

His hand brushed against yours as he accepted the glass, his hand too large to curl around it without making contact with you. You giggled again before retracting your hand and occupying it with adjusting your hair.

“I’m younger than you, you know? Don’t have to call me Ma’am.”

“Just being polite. Ma’am.” He took the glass to his lips, mindful to take only a small sip instead of downing it in desperation. Another adjustment to make when food was no longer a scarcity. Sweet, sour, and salty danced on his tongue before it glided down his throat. Just a sip refreshed him. And the sight of a nice girl didn’t hurt the cause either.

It’d been so long since he had a nice refreshing glass of lemonade. Summers meant worse infestations of infected, not the barbecues, lemonades, and swimming of past. When surviving each hour was under threat, small luxuries like this became out of reach of even one’s dreams.

“Well, guess I should call you Sir then,” you said, leaning against the wall. You held the pitcher up to your chest and the tails of the ribbon on your chest dipped into it, the soft shiny yellow turning dark, tainted.

His mouth watered and fucking hell, it wasn’t the lemonade you just gave him. He took a sip of the drink and licked his lips, imagining how you’d taste if he wrapped his large hand around your neck and pressed his chapped lips to your plush ones. Better yet, if he held your legs apart and devoured you other pair of lips until you were leaking down his mouth. Would you call him Sir then? His cock twitched in his jeans as he pictured you bent over one of these pews, your skirt pushed up and his hand in your hair as he slid his cock in your hole.

Jesus fucking Christ! What the fuck was wrong with him?

“Made the lemonade yourself?” He asked, groaning as he managed to get himself back up on his feet. His knees creaked like the floorboards of the houses he renovated, but ultimately supported him as he stood. He towered over you, making you appear smaller, more fragile.

“Depends. Do you like it?”

“It’s wonderful, of course. Hot summer day like this…I really needed it,” he said, raising the glass up a little before taking another sip.

“Well then yes, I did make it.”

He chuckled, feeling himself pulled in by your easy charisma. It was nice to have normal conversations like this once again. No agenda, no need for establishing himself as someone who wouldn’t hesitate to beat someone up if even mildly threatened. It was just…normal.

“It’s very sweet, Ma’am. Like you I assume,” he added, mentally dusting off the part of his brain where he stored skills for conversing with pretty girls.

You laughed, holding your free hand up to your mouth to cover your lips that widened and revealed your teeth.

“Is that the southern charm that I hear our townspeople talk about?”

“They talk about my charm? I didn’t hear.”

“Oh yes, they do… Joel Miller, charming pants off of everyone in town.”

“Pants? Well that’s disappointing. I was hoping I’d charmed some pretty skirts off.”

“Lots of experience with that, Mister Miller?” you asked, sliding your hand over the soft fabric of the skirt of your dress. Such delicate fabric. He could fist the hem and give it one tug and it’d rip right off.

“More ‘n what you got for sure,” he said, loath to hint at how infrequent his encounters had become in the recent past. Tess died, he did a cross country hike with an annoying kid, he needed to maintain a good reputation in his new town. One buried after the other. Enough to leave a man with nothing but his fist and his imagination. He would kill for a fucking Playboy magazine. Literally. He’d killed for less.

“What do you know about how experienced I am?”

“Been experiencing longer than you’ve been alive, Ma’am.”

“Oh well. Nothing I can’t learn.”

He laughed nervously and stuck his hand in his jeans pocket. Surely you couldn’t be flirting… Why would a young thing like this flirt with him? He was in his late fifties looking like mid sixties and you were… He didn’t know. Young.

“If you could teach me, Mister Miller. Give a girl some experience?”

“I’m sure you can find someone else.”

“Oh. Not your type, am I?” you asked, and he deluded himself thinking you sounded disappointed. No chance.

He didn’t have a type. Long time since he thought of frivolous shit like that. But you shouldn’t be his type.

“There’s much more eligible men in town is what I’m saying,” he said, suddenly hesitant to lie. Lying had never been an issue for him. The right thing was to lie, say you weren’t his type so he wouldn’t cross lines. It’d been a long time since he did the right thing.

“I’ll be the decider of that,” you said with a shrug of your shoulder before taking the empty glass from him. “Have a good rest of the work day, Mister Miller.”

Later that night, he wrapped his fist around his cock in the privacy of his room. His mind flooded with images of you spread out for him, sweet lips and a sweeter pussy milking him. He couldn’t even recall the last time he was with a woman. It was Tess, of course. Sometime before she got thrown in FEDRA jail for the last time. Too fucking long ago.

Surely it was only because it’d been a long time since he got his dick wet. He’d never, in his entire life, pictured a woman so much younger spreading her legs for him. Sucking his cock. Crying out his name. How old was she even? Not past mid twenties for sure.

It was wrong, he knew, as white hot spend spurted out of his cock and covered his hand. A sour tang took over his mouth as the fog of unadulterated lust cleared up to reveal the ugliness in his head. He shuddered, feeling like something had crawled under his flesh. He hadn’t felt guilt like this in so long.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

You weren’t even as old as his kid would be had she been alive.

He’d known men like that back in the day. Grays in their hair and skin like old leather, but pretty young things old enough to be their daughter hanging off their arm. It was obvious that none of them kept these girls around for love or for their personality. It was always sex and the feeling of self-importance when a sweet young thing paid attention to balding heads, beer bellies and limp dicks that needed a blue pill to get up.

Fucking disgusting.

He began avoiding you whenever you happened to be in the same space. At the house of worship, the town clinic where you interned, trading days when people exchanged what they had for what they wanted. His eyes never met yours and he always quickly looked away when they stared too long at your uh…feminine features– pretty legs, cute ass, round tits. Where the fuck did you get sundresses anyway? Who kept that shit around in this world?

He didn’t know that when he avoided you, you took note of him. When he took glances of your features, you memorized his for later in the night when you buried your head in your pillow and pushed your fingers inside your pussy to simulate what it must be like to be with a man.

He was older. That much you knew from his grey hair, sun-damaged skin, and gait that exuded bone-deep weariness. You knew Tommy had just turned fifty. Hard to miss occasions that meant a free slice of cake from the canteen. Joel had to be in his mid-fifties at the very least. At first glance, he wasn’t what you’d consider handsome. There were younger men in town. Fit and muscular. Didn’t groan and scrunch up their faces when they got up. Didn’t have lines on their foreheads. No bags under their eyes.

Yet there was something about Joel that was more entrancing.

After your first meeting when you offered him lemonade, you made sure to visit under the guise of worship. You didn’t know much about religion and were conflicted about embracing a god. The only faith you had rested in your medical instruments and the medicines the town’s chemist concocted. But it was a nice place to meet people, to check on healing patients.

The visits were worth it for a glimpse of Joel’s large hands wrapped around his carpentry tools. When the sun was the hottest, he sometimes stripped down to his tank top, giving you a show better than any film played in the community theater. His broad back looked masculine enough in his flannel shirts. But you didn’t know desire like the first time you saw him in a white tank, showing off his muscular arms as sweat dripped down his tan skin.

When you pleasured yourself in your room, it took time, imagination, your fingers, and a lot of effort to make slick pool in your pussy. That day, all it took was the sight of Joel Miller working. You sat with your thighs pressed together, rubbing them against each other in the most inconspicuous little movements.

Could it be blasphemy if the God who was supposedly orchestrating everything made this man take his shirt off in front of you?

It made no fucking sense. Joel was old. He looked like he woke up on the wrong side of the bed every goddamn day. He had been chewed up and spat out by whatever the fuck was outside Jackson these days. Hardened expressions, graying patchy beard, hands calloused from carpentry and decades of using weaponry. Features that only indicated a long life lived, not attractiveness.

You were supposed to be attracted to the soft, sweet ones like the guys in the worn out copies of romance stories that the previous inhabitant of your house stashed in the basement. Even his little brother would be a more reasonable target for your lust. Younger, taller, softer, head full of dark, silky hair with few grays. But you wanted Joel Miller with his rough graying beard that would prick your skin were you to cup his cheek like the women on the novel covers.

Something about him just screamed Man. Something that none of the other guys in town had. There was nothing wrong with any of the other Jackson men, but none of them made you want to take the plunge and lose your virginity. It wasn’t the lack of offers, per se. You’d gotten looks from many eligible Jackson bachelors. You had drinks with a few of them. Dinner with fewer and shared a kiss with more than one. Alright, two. But anything beyond that had you trembling in anxiety.

It wasn’t anything precious to you, virginity. But you’d waited so long. Focused so long only on survival and then helping to build this town and now training to become a doctor. Whatever passed for doctor these days. With all your life dedicated to everything but your love life, you simply had no experience. What if you messed up and they laughed? You knew anatomy, but that didn’t translate to practical stuff. What if you couldn’t make them feel good? You’d have to see the guy all the damn time in the small town. There would be no escaping the awkwardness.

Sure it was counterintuitive to keep pushing away sexual encounters because you had no experience. But you didn’t know what else to do. You were too old already to not have done anything. But each day that passed with you rejecting perfectly nice men meant you were getting even older for your first time.

You didn’t know where Joel fit into your need for exploring your sexuality, but it didn’t hurt to stare. God knew everyone else in Jackson did.

So you stared. Work with his carpentry tools. Riding on horseback into Jackson after patrol. Helping with the fucking sheep. Walking around with Tommy. Carrying his nephew around town. It should be inappropriate to be fantasizing about a man when he was doing something as innocent as carrying a baby. But seeing his large hand cradling the baby’s little head made you want to scream into your pillow and kick your legs.

“You alright, sweetheart?”

Your heart fluttered and you let out a nervous laugh at being caught. You smoothed out the wrinkles on your clothes just to make it look like you were alright. Unfortunately you were wearing a pair of fucking jeans. You didn’t even want to know how awkward you looked.

“‘m alright, Mister Miller.”

“Joel’s fine,” he said, rocking his nephew in his arms.

Oh fuck, his fucking arms!

“Oh I don’t know,” you said, fidgeting with a belt loop on your jeans. “Wouldn’t want to be impolite addressing you by your first name like that.”

He smiled, recalling your conversation from the house of worship when you called him Sir and had him fucking himself in the shower to the memory. “Ah. ‘cause I’m an old man,” he said, more as a reminder to himself to fucking behave.

“You’re not that old…” you trailed, looking him over in a way that set fire to every inch of skin that you laid eyes on.

Behave, Miller. You’re out with your nephew.

“That so?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

“Mhmm. You don’t look a day over seventy.”

He snorted, making Miles stir in his arms just a little. That stung a little. It shouldn’t. Your estimation of his age, whether you were serious or not, was reminder enough that he was too old to be lusting after you.

“Thanks. I’m actually eighty-two.”

You giggled your pretty little giggle, lowering your gaze to the ground and looking back up only when it had turned into a wide grin. “How old are you actually?”

“Old. Fifty six.”

“Fifty-six isn’t that old…” you trailed as you brought a hand up to his bicep. Joel gulped, praying to the non-existent God that you would stop before praying to the same God that you would keep your hand right there. God answered his second prayer. You squeezed, licked your lips and looked up at him with your doe eyes.

“Checking if the hardware is still working, Doctor?”

“I’m not a doctor yet.”

“When do you become one then? Ain’t no Harvard handing out medical degrees in this town.”

“Howard?” you asked, squinting at him. Ah, of course you didn’t know. Harvard didn’t mean the same thing to you. Now it was just like every other building in Boston. Run over by infected. These ones were just the nerdy kind with glasses on.

“That was a thing, too. But I said Harvard. They were big universities back then.”

“Ah. Did you go there?” You asked, with no malice or bite. Oh, bless your heart. No one expected a dummy like him to have gone to university at all, much less Harvard. No one in his family had gone. Sarah was meant to be the first.

“Yeah. Traded some oxy and threw molotovs at clickers in the campus.”

You rewarded him with a giggle and that was incentive enough for him to keep going. “Guys like me didn’t get into Harvard. Or Howard. Didn’t even go to community college. I finished high school and got a job in construction.”

“You didn’t go to uh…construction college?” You asked, cocking your head and raising an eyebrow as though testing out the term.

“No such thing. Well, there were civil engineering programs, but I just learned on the job.”

“Like me.”

“Guess so. I see you reading from all those fat medical books. But there’s no need to study any books in construction. ‘cept if you wanna be an engineer or architect or something, which I’m not.”

“Maybe you should write one. We could all do with some knowledge from before. It’s important to document it, pass it on to Ellie and little Miles over there.”

“I ain’t writing books, sweetheart. Don’t think I even remember how to write much. I’ll just keep to fixing things up in this town. So, if you need some help with your place…I’m happy to help.” It was the least he could do. Maybe as some kind of penance for having impure thoughts about you. Or as a fucked up trade for starring in the mental images he conjured to jack off in the shower.

“There is something, actually. But I don’t have anything to trade for, so I’ll wait until I do,” you said, clasping your hands behind your back and swaying in place in an endearing manner.

“Nonsense. You patched me up just last week. You’ve done enough for the town’s health to not have to trade for anything ever again.”

“Well, no. That’s not how it should be… It’s people’s health. Can’t put a price on that.”

“Believe it or not, health had a steep price back in the day. Cost four thousand something just to give birth. Double that if they had to cut you open.” And that was just how much it cost when Sarah was born. He was sure it had only gone up by 2003. If he hadn’t worked his ass off, there was no way he could’ve escaped debt. It helped that his Ma and his then wife’s parents helped with childcare. Would’ve been even more expensive without that.

“Damn. I don’t know how much that is, since…y’know we don’t have money now. But that sounds like a big number. It shouldn’t cost anything just to be born.”

“Tell me about it,” he said, shaking his head. “But listen. Anything you want fixed, I’ll help out. You can give me something later if you’re worried. I know Ellie’s always on the look for new books to read and you seem to have a lot of them.”

“Nothing Ellie would like. Not like the special limited edition of Savage Starlight or anything. Just medical textbooks and romance novels.”

“We could trade for the lemonade from that afternoon,” he insisted, desperate to do something for you. Take care of you as you took care of everyone who walked into the clinic be it papercuts or a fucking knife in their abdomen.

“Alright. Trade for the lemonade it is then,” you said, giving in to his pressure.

“Now tell me. What d’ya need fixed?”

⌘⌘⌘

It had been a few days since Joel promised to fix your shower for you. Each time he came by and rang your doorbell, you hid somewhere away from your windows. When he caught sight of you in public, you quickly walked away or engaged in conversation with someone else. You didn’t need shit fixed. Everything in your house was perfectly alright. Tommy and his guys had given the place a complete makeover just a couple months before Joel and Ellie arrived.

You were no paragon of honesty, but you didn’t make lying a habit. There were a few white lies here and there and this was meant to be one of them. It just didn’t fucking hit you that if you lied to a contractor that your shower was broken, he would eventually come over to fucking fix it. All your desperate sex starved brain wanted that day was for Joel Miller to come use his tools in your room and flex those muscles while at it.

So invested were you in that particular fantasy that as you unwound after a long shift at the clinic, it was with Joel’s beefy arms in mind. You stood in front of your mirror, taking in your reflection. One of the magazines you’d found in a box under your bed laid open on the dressing table. Playboy. Entertainment for Men. Each had a scantily clad woman on the cover. And many more inside.

You made comparisons to yourself and the woman in the center page of the issue.

She stood in front of a dressing table too, but much different from how you stood. Her legs were on either side of her dressing table chair and her hands on the top of it. Between her arms were breasts, big and round and with smooth skin. They didn’t have any marks on them like yours. No moles, no stretch marks. Just plain. And she just stood there, soft brown hair down, tickling the top of her breasts and her lips parted as she gazed at you. No, at the men she was meant to entertain in this men’s entertainment magazine. All she had on was panties that went high up to her flat belly that connected to high transparent socks.

You reached behind your back and unclasped your bra, wishing that you had something nicer like the woman on the cover of another one of the magazines. Bright red and showing off her breasts wonderfully, but pulled down to reveal almost everything. What was the point of a bra then if it didn’t cover or support anything? Entertainment, you decided. Men seemed to be very entertained by breasts.

Many a man had stared at yours even though you had them behind layers of fabric unlike the naked women of the magazines. Many had conversations with them instead of your face. Some brushed up against them ‘accidentally’. Joel thought he was being covert, but you felt his brown eyes rove all over them. You thought maybe that he too would brush up against it sometime, but he never did. Maybe entertainment stopped at just looking, as in the magazines.

You wondered if Joel sought out men’s entertainment magazines like this. He was from before everything went to shit, so it was very possible that he did. Did he like the women in these pages, sticking their asses out and looking through the pages at him? Would he be entertained if he saw you like this?

You didn’t know that if you turned your head to your bedroom door, you would have your answer. Joel’s cock strained against his already tight jeans as he stood awestruck by your figure. He swallowed as you held on to the top of the chair and lifted your knees, one after the other and placed them on the plush seat. You arched your back, a little too much at first before reducing the curve. Your ass stuck out enticingly and he didn’t know whether to grab, squeeze, slap, or spread your cheeks apart and fuck your ass.

He should leave.

It was stupid of him to walk into your house with a box of plumbing tools to fix your shower when you hadn’t yet given him a date or time for it. Plus you were avoiding him. Running away with your little friends and picking up stuff to hide your face from his view. He was plenty sure that when he’d rung your doorbell, you weren’t always away from home.

He should leave.

Fixing the shower could wait. He could confront you some other day.

But you were putting on such a pretty little show in nothing but your panties and he was only a man. A bad one.

His boots stayed put on your hardwood floors as you enjoyed yourself in front of the mirror. You spread your knees and let your fingers between your thighs, eyes closed, lips parted and low whines escaping your lips in just a few minutes. He palmed his growing erection over his jeans, consequences of being caught be damned. He was a foul beast already. What bad was another sin on the list? Besides, you were the one who’d left the fucking door open.

Your soft whimpers grew into moans as you brought yourself closer and he forced his feet to stay put despite their urge to walk up to you and give you something to really moan about.

“Fuu– mmm Joel, pleeease.”

He let out a gasp, all his restraint flying out the window as soon as he heard his name from your lips. You couldn’t actually be doing this… There had to be another Joel in town. Younger, better looking, smarter.

Your voice grew needy and the pitch higher as you kept at it. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Gimme it, Sir.”

No, it couldn’t be anyone else.

Joel toed his boots off and took quiet steps towards you, emboldened by the filth that spilled from your lips. If this old man was what you wanted, he wouldn’t stop himself from reaping the benefits. He wasn’t a goddamn saint. Never was.

He stopped in front of you, surprised you still hadn’t sensed his presence. As though the universe heard his thoughts, it had you open your eyes. You gasped as soon as you saw him and buckled off the chair, but Joel caught you. You shuddered, unable to cope with the sudden touch.

“J-Joel?”

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he said, touching your cheek with the back of his hand. You whined, your body molding itself against his chest. You brought a hand to his arm, feeling the rock hard muscles underneath his sleeves and your other hand worked between your legs.

Your fingers no longer felt adequate as you felt his large fingers on your cheek. “Want you, please,” you whined, desperate to return to the edge where you had been right before you saw him.

“You don’t know what you’re asking of me…” he spoke dangerously, soft brown eyes clouded with a kind of desire you had longed to see in him for weeks.

“Want you…want you to be with me,” you repeated stupidly, your desperation clouding your senses too much for you to say anything else. While in the past you only wanted to get rid of your virginity, your goals had become more specific with his arrival. You wanted him. You wanted his big hands and broad shoulders, to hold on to them as you rode him. To watch his grumpy expressions turn to ecstasy under you.

“Tell me not to touch you,” he said, his tone low and almost threatening. Any other threat from him, you would’ve heeded. But not this one.

“Touch me!”

It was as though something in him snapped at your words. While darkness only loomed over him before, it now completely took over.The hand that previously only caressed your cheek now wrapped itself around your neck. Before you could completely process the move, his other hand slapped yours away. He replaced two of your puny fingers with his middle finger, eliciting a strained moan from you.

“Touching yourself to a Playboy magazine, huh?”

You only nodded, unable to form words now that a fantasy of yours had finally come to life.

“Dirty little thing…Thought you were a nice girl and all. Helpin’ out at the clinic, head buried in books all the time. Turns out you actually got your head in dirty magazines.”

You whined, your pussy clenching and gushing around his finger at the way he was speaking to you. The same man who insisted on calling you Ma’am despite your protests was calling you a dirty girl now. The veil of respectability seemed to have floated away at the sight of you naked and pleasuring yourself. Had you known that this was all you needed to get Joel Miller to touch you, you would’ve done it much sooner.

He added another finger, the girth of him enough to stretch you more than you had done for yourself. You brought a hand up to his shoulder and fisted his shirt, needing something to anchor yourself to.

“You ever been taken by a man, sweetheart?” He asked, his tone too cool and casual for what he was doing to you. You shuddered, partly from his phrasing– taken, he said. Taken. Like you were a thing. Like the women in the magazines positioned so uncomfortably just so their breasts could look a certain way for the picture. Printed on the cover page with the words Entertainment for Men written on top. You shook your head, feeling small as you confessed it for the first time.

“Any man?”

“N-no,” you managed to breathe out, whimpering at the way the bulge beneath his jeans twitched at your simple answer. He took a step to position himself behind you, letting you lean your back against his chest. The angle at which he touched your pussy changed, opening your world up to a wonderful new kind of pleasure.

“A virgin. Pretty young things like you ain’t for men like me,” he whispered in your neck, making you shiver. His thumb roamed between your legs as far as they could reach, caressed you gently, his softness with you contradicting his warning about men like him. The hand around your neck slithered down your torso, cold air forcing you to face your new desire of having your breath kept hostage.

He took your left breast in hand, squeezing the flesh like someone starved would hold on to a piece of bread. It felt more like a punctuation to the warning he issued than a part of sex. Just then, his thumb between your legs stopped its search, stopping a little above the fingers inside you.

A moan you didn’t recognize as yours at first filled the room and you buckled forward. Blunt nails sunk into the flesh of your breast as he saved you before you could fall. He hauled you back up, making you collide against his chest.

You gasped and quickly grabbed the hand between your legs, the sensation too intense for you to know what to do with. His thumb kept on, rolling over something there that set your person on fire.

“Fuuuck! Joel– I– I– hnnng–”

“I know, sweetheart,” he crooned, keeping at whatever the hell he was doing to make you feel this way.

“Please… I don’t– what was that?”

You felt his chest rumble before you heard his laughter. Heat rose to your face and your throat felt strained though there was no hand around it anymore.

“Never touched your clit? Do you even know what that is?” He mocked, the cruelty somehow not repelling you from him. He forced you to look up at him. Your heart lurched at how close you were to his face. You could see every gray hair, every minute blemish and line.

“Don’t know your own fucking body but you want a man? You don’t know what you’re handing me on a silver platter. I ain’t like the other guys in town. I walked across the fucking country and lemme tell ya, there’s no pretty things like you out there. I’m starved.”

“Take me, then,” you begged, using his own words from earlier. “Please. Whatever you– a-aaah!”

He ramped up the pressure on that spot– your clit– and with it, took your ability to speak coherently. It was as though he’d done it on purpose. You hated it. To be so bereft of control. To be a puppet in someone’s hand. For someone to acquaint themselves with parts of you that you didn’t know of. But it was too much to fight, so you let go. Let him play with you. Take you. Like a thing.

You renounced control of your lips too, his name slipping out effortlessly like it did when he caught you. Then you renounced what was left of your dignity and began begging relentlessly. For what, you didn’t know. In his hand, you’d gone from woman to pupper, your strings pulled by a man, your voice now his. Sounds that would be indiscernible from that of a wounded animal emanated from somewhere deep within you.

Perhaps none of this was real. Why else did your own voice grow so distant from you? Why did your vision become blurry? Your thighs shook uncontrollably and your heart felt like it was beating out of your chest. Your eyes clenched shut, depriving you of your blurred vision. Your toes curled. You wanted to shrink into yourself, shrink away from all this goodness. You went higher and higher, soaring like a bird. Every nerve ending in your body felt electrified, awoken like one switch turned on every light on last winter’s Christmas tree.

You let out a loud cry, the soaring bird in you reaching its peak before beginning its fall to the ground. You could hear your breaths again, labored but doing everything to stabilize itself. Your thighs still shook. Your chest rose and fell. A hand caressed your hand. Behind you, something strong supported your back. Kept you from falling backward.

“Joel…”

“I know, I know…” he whispered into your head. You opened your eyes and looked up at him, surprised to see a softer visage. He picked you up off the chair like you’d seen him lift giant logs before. With ease. You didn’t protest as he carried you. Didn’t protest when he laid you out on your bed.

He bent down and picked something up. No questions, no instructions. He simply spread your leg away from the other. Cold air touched the gushing mess dripping out of you and you shivered, feeling a sudden need to cover yourself but unable to defy him. His hand was on your pussy again. His hardened, calloused fingers behind a soft fabric this time. He wiped upwards, collecting the mess he made out of you. When he lifted the fabric up, you realized it was your panties.

He tucked it into the pocket of his jeans and then looked back at your face, the intensity of his gaze making you want to run. Problem was your weak legs wouldn’t take you anywhere. You didn’t screw your eyes shut. You didn’t pull your blanket to conceal yourself. You looked back at him, defiant. Like you were trying to prove something. I can handle a man like you.

“Be a good girl from now.”

That and a condescending pat on your pussy and he was gone.

⌘

Part 2

#joel miller #joel tlou #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x y/n #joel miller x oc #joel miller x original character #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #joel miller age gap #joel miller fanfiction #tlou fanfiction #tlou smut #pedro pascal #pedro pascal character fanfic #all that i've inflicted on the world

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joelsgu4tar · 14 days

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JOEL MILLER FIC RECS

⇾ 18+ minors DNI, read at your own risk! ⇽

an appreciation to all my favourite writers out there you deserve all the love <3

Series

— Something To Fight For by @auteurdelabre | After a disastrous blind date you decide to stay away from the miserable Joel Miller forever...

— I Know Who You Are by @punkshort | A fall on patrol causes you to lose your long-term memory, forgetting the identities of your friends and loved ones. You have to learn all over again how to survive in a post-apocalyptic world, and you learn things about yourself along the way.

— The One You Need by @loliwrites | When you move into town hellbent on keeping everyone at arm’s length, your neighbour Joel finds his way into your life.

— By The Grit Of Sandpaper by @penvisions | An offhand comment from you inspires Joel to branch out and create helpful kitchen wares. And it seems everyone has been gifted one from him, except for you. It makes you rethink the casual friendship you had developed...

— I Wanna Be Your Lover by @shellshocklove | Miserable after losing your job, your friend drags you out to a club to dance away your sadness. on the dancefloor, you meet a handsome stranger, who then whisks you away into his fantasy world as his assistant for his porn career. what happens when the lines get blurred?

— If The Door Wasn't Shut by @heartpascal | months of travelling with Joel and Ellie come crashing down on you, the fear is suffocating.

— Stay In Bed by @psychedelic-ink | After your grandfather’s passing, you find yourself moving into his home in Texas. You meet the Millers; Tommy, his older brother Joel and his daughter Sarah. With time, you and Tommy become close friends and Sarah visits you often. But Joel…Joel keeps his distance.

— That's A Real Fucking Legacy by @wyn-n-tonic | When Tommy disappears in search of a better life with a promise to come back for you, his years of absence and the grief it leaves behind drives you and his brother closer together until the man you're sharing a bed and starting a family with is Joel Miller and not the one you always thought it would be.

One-Shots

— No Time To Die by @davosmymaster | The main difficulty of being Joel’s closest friend is not falling in love with him, but you still do. Those feelings are buried until you join him on a mission to trade supplies with Bill and Frank. With your life now hanging by a thread, Joel is determined to get you to safety, but the clock is ticking faster than he can run.

— White Lies by @poeticpascal | Joel would do anything for you. He does anything for you. And he makes sure you don't know a thing.

— Saying Thanks by @vivwritescrappythings | Joel is your grumpy patrol partner who doesn’t even talk to you in the streets of Jackson. But one night a man grabs your arm at the Tipsy Bison, and Joel’s decided he doesn’t like it.

— Soft & Sweet by @cavillscurls | You share your first kiss with the last man you ever expected: your older, grouchy, overly protective patrol partner, Joel Miller.

— Who We Are by @gracieheartspedro | Being stuck on the road with an older guy you've been crushing on for ages won't be so bad, right? wrong. because he's been pining after you, too. and one of you will have to give in eventually.

— Warm Me Up by @tightjeansjavi | While on patrol, you and Joel find yourselves caught in a treacherous snowstorm.

— Love In the Time Of Cordyceps by @sameheart-sameblood | When the world ends, you promise you'll never love again. Joel Miller makes that rule hard to stick to.

— Puppy Love by @absurdthirst | You always follow Joel Miller around, you've got his back. You're in love with him. Putting up with Tess's nickname of puppy dog, you don't realize that Joel feels for you until the end.

— Light The Flame by @yeollie-plz | Your mom moves the two of you back to Texas and attempts to reignite an old flame. What will happen when she learns his candle now burns for you?

— Best I Ever Had by @endlessthxxghts | Someone tries to hit on you on your night out with Joel, insulting your man in the process, and oh you don't like that. You blow off some steam in more ways than one.

— Make A Move On Me by @freelancearsonist | You've been teasing Joel every day since he started remodelling construction on your house. He finally works up the courage to do something about it - but not in the way you expect him to.

— Fire Walk by @motherofagony | A chance encounter at a motel has you crossing paths with a stranger in a blue t-shirt.

— Cry Baby by @psychedelic-ink | bodies have been dropping left and right in the most brutal ways in Jackson. As the relentless wave of deaths continues, your mind becomes increasingly restless. however, you find a sense of comfort and solace in the presence of Joel. who might be hiding secrets of his own.

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nexusnyx · 1 year

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miss sunshine

pre-outbreak Joel Miller x neighbor!reader [7.3k] summary: He's always been out of reach. A fantasy. Joel was too much of everything—too handsome, too friendly, too una-fucking-vailable for any of you. Too bad his kid adores you. (What a blessing.) Too bad she uses you as a scapegoat and lands him right on his door. One bottle of wine, and Joel shows you he might be closer than you thought. 📝 I wanted to try something different. Less hurt, less end-of-the-world bullshit. Let me know your thoughts. Reblogs and comments are much appreciated. ⚠️Smut. Minors, DNI. Explicit depictions of sex, oral (f and m receiving), riding, missionary, passionate neighbors sex, yay.

read on ao3 | masterlist

ㅤㅤㅤㅤTexas, Summer of 2002.

When the bell rings, you think it's best to ignore it.

Living alone equals a lot of privileges, but the ability to go out alone and answer the door on a random Wednesday evening was not one of them. You're wearing compromising clothes and a robe, the bottle of wine you craved was finally open, and the last thing you wanted was to be murdered before enjoying it.

Then, you hear it. Your name, followed by, "It's Miller. Joel."

Fuck.

Well—this is exactly how many of your dreams started. Although this wouldn't go like them, for him, you'd open the door.

His eyes do little to hide the once-over when the door slides open.

They go down, then back up, and he seems to catch on to the fact that you saw it. Then, he shakes his head just a little, and says, "Is Sarah here?"

Well, well, well. You lean against the door. "Did she say she was?"

Joel pierces you with his Dad Look. "Yes." Obviously, it goes without saying.

What other reason would he have, right? Clearing your throat, you feel the anxiety bubbling underneath the surface. "Uhm. She isn't," you look apologetic as you say it. As if it's your fault his prepubescent daughter uses you as a scapegoat.

His sigh is enough to make you feel how tired he is. Overworked. Exhausted.

You try to understand what might've happened before he loses his mind, "What time d'you usually come back from work? Maybe she's at a friend's. She probably thought you'd be back later than this."

He finishes rubbing both palms all over his face, and he threads one hand through his hair. "I'm usually back at nine—well, I'm supposed to be back at nine. I'm usually home by ten." That checks out, then. "But—that doesn't explain why she lied to me."

"Any special occasions coming up soon?"

Joel frowns. "Uhm. My birthday's in a few days, but—"

"Ahhhh." It shuts his mouth, the way you exclaim it so clearly. "She's brainstorming, Joel."

"Brainstorming...?"

"A gift." No daughter had easy access to what made their fathers happy. You take pity on him. "C'mon—let me scare the little one."

You walk inside without waiting for his reply, knowing Joel will make his way in. "What d'you mean, scare her?"

The noise of his boots hitting the floor makes you happy.

You take the phone out of the wall and look at him. "She always keeps that cellular phone with her when she goes out?"

"Always," he nods.

"Perfect." You know it by heart already. As you dial, you feel Joel's eyes on your house. It's the first he's ever been inside, and it makes you hyperaware of every movement of his. "It's ringing," you inform him with a grin forming.

He looks confused. More tired than anything else, but it'll make sense in a second.

"Hey, miss Sunshine!" the nickname she gave you always brings a smile to your face.

Time to put on a show. Feigning panic in your voice, you yell-whisper on the phone, "S, love, would you mind telling me why on Earth is your pops—" you fake cover your end of the line to yell, "one minute!" then you're back at whispering again, "why is he parked outside my house right now? Is there something I should know?"

"Oh, shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit—"

You're glad he can't hear her end of it. "No time for panic. Explain."

"I am so sorry, Sunny! I thought he'd be back in like, two hours or something. Oh, god, can you please cover for me? I wrote a note saying I was at your place. Sleeping there. I was gonna call you before he came back home but Jenny and I—"

"You're at somebody named Jenny?" you repeat the information, looking at Joel with a question in your eyes, and when he nods, your heart soothes at knowing she's safe. "And you didn't think to mention your brilliant idea earlier?" going for the full effect again, you yell out, "One minute, Joel!"

At least she's fast in her rambles. "Yeah, yeah. My best friend. She's trying to help me come up with a surprise for him. I'm not there often and it's never on his birthday. I wanna make it special."

"Okay. Cool. Next time, fill me in as you make the plans."

"I will, I promise. Pinky promise. You think you can convince him I'm sleeping there?" the plea in her voice is adorable.

You chuckle. "I've got you, S." Joel sighs in relief in front of you. "Just one thing."

"Yeah?"

"Be back here tomorrow first thing in the morning. 7:30 sharp. I'm gonna invite your dad for breakfast, as punishment for your lack of planning, and you'll be the one making us the pancakes," before she can even answer, you go, "Toodles!" and hang up.

When you put your phone back at the base, you turn around with a proud smile.

Joel's looking at you funny. "You're good at that," he says.

"At what? Acting?" you laugh when nods. "I was a trouble child. I'm great at lying."

"Aren't those the same?"

"Eh. A thin line separates them." You can sense his awkwardness creeping up, so you do your best to think on the spot. "Is she one to escape?"

"Not really, no." He's shuffling on his feet, uncertain of what to do in your home. "She's never done this before."

"From what she told me, she's never around for your birthday."

"That's true."

"She wants to make a surprise for you," you inform. It puts that smile on his face that makes your knees a little weak. "And now she has to be back here at seven in the morning. All is well."

He laughs. "Yeah, I guess so."

He's gonna see himself out. You swallow all the nervousness that being in his presence creates and just... goes for it. "Is it hard? Having a kid?"

That relaxes some of the tension in his shoulders. He leans on the counter of your kitchen and shakes his head. "Not really. It's a lot of work, but it's not hard. It's rewarding."

I wish my mother felt the same. You smile at the truth in his words. "I can see it's hard work." He laughs again. "Well—I had just opened that before you rang the bell," you point at the Pinot on top of the counter. "Want a glass? Unless you tell me you're 'only beer' kind of guy, then I can't help ya."

Joel looks between you and the bottle a couple of times, then looks down at himself. "I'm uh—I'm all greasy and gross from work. You sure that's the company you want for wine?"

Rolling your eyes, you walk towards your glasses cabinets. "If I told you that you can go home and shower, you'd never come back."

"And that'd be a bad thing?"

"Sure it would. You're the only person in this entire street that hasn't interrogated me on my life so far, I feel left out. Offended, even," you add with a dramatic twist. Your robe flows around you, and you can't help but smile when you see his eyes following you.

It's the way he swallows visibly, almost audibly, that plants a seed of maybe inside your head. "I'm not usually one to pry."

You place both glasses on the counter. "Neither am I."

"I know. It's why I like ya," Joel says it with eyes on the glasses instead of you. "That and the way you talk to the plants."

Your hand on the corkscrew stops, and you want to slam your forehead against the wood. "Oh, god."

His laughter is so nice. "Nah, don't be embarrassed. 's why I gave you your nickname."

"Don't be embarrassed? That's mortifying, Joel. I thought no one—wait." Had you heard him right? "What d'you mean you gave me my nickname?"

Joel's head tilts, and he's definitely a charmer kind of guy. If you do have a chance, you might be fucked. "Your nickname."

"Miss Sunshine?" He nods. "I thought that was Sarah."

"No, Sarah used it first in front of you," he pulls one of the glasses closer to him. "I said it first."

Well... that made it just as special but in a different way. You pour the wine into both glasses. "Good to know. I was under the impression she was the creative genius in the household—I just. Quick question that I never asked her: Why?"

"'Cause every mornin' before I left for work you're there on that big window," he points at the glass window that's occupies ceiling to floor, the very reason you picked this house, "talking to your plants as if you're the sun itself waking them up. 's cute."

Cute. You hate how he has the ability to make you blush. What is this, fucking high school?

"That makes sense."

Joel wipes his palms on the side of his t-shirt and then looks up at you. "If I go home with the promise of comin' back, will you let me shower?"

Let me. You're thankful your arms are covered because you're unsure of what this man is capable of when he knows the effect he has on somebody.

"I'll let you," you answer.

Joel nods and his smile is so genuine that you wonder why you never tried before.

"'kay," he takes one sip of the wine, hums in approval, and then takes a deep breath. "'m gonna go. I'll be back to interrogate you."

"I'll leave the door open."

"No—Jesus bloody Christ, are you and Sarah mad? Lock the door, Sunshine." You like it so much when he's the one that says it. "I'm serious."

"Alright, jeez," you laugh.

It's less tense than you imagined as he puts his shoes back on and walks out of your door. Joel crosses the street with a little wave in your direction, and all you can think is—what on Earth am I gonna do to him?

When he's back, Joel smells so good it's intoxicating.

It makes your brain melt.

Minty and fresh. That's what his stuff smells like, and you know the idea of that scent's now painted on the walls of your brain.

He does that stupid little dad pose, widening both arms and lifting them up in a display of 'what do you think' before walking in.

It makes you want to push him against the wall, but you do your best at behaving.

For now.

"Brand new man?" you ask.

He points at his glass of wine, untouched since the moment he left. "Will be in a sec."

You wait for him to take a sip before extending him what you held in your hand before he arrived.

Joel eyed the cigarette and, thank fuck, there was none of the annoying judgment sometimes people carried. He stops his movement to sit on the stool and asks, "You smoke in here, or are we goin' outside?"

"There's a table there. Weather's nice. D'you mind?"

Joel grabs his glass, shaking his head. "Not at all, ma'am. Lead the way."

"Ma'am," you echo him, sounding disgusted. He laughs behind you, "Who am I, Mrs. Adler?"

Still laughing, Joel answers, "Nah. Too talkative for that."

You turn around with your mouth hanging open, trying very little to look offended. "I beg your pardon. We never spoke for longer than, what, five minutes?"

Joel shrugs his shoulders. His smile is as intoxicating as his presence. "I hear things."

"You hear things?" you ask, pushing open the door that leads outside.

"I do," he sips his wine, looking to the small terrace where your little table is. "My daughter's a gossiper, little Sunshine. I think y'should know that."

Little Sunshine. Goddamn this man.

"Should I be scared, here? I haven't even told her anything, but I feel like I should be."

"If you didn't tell her anythin', than why would you be?"

"Because!" you laugh, feeling just a little out of your depth with his smoothness. You expected more closeness from Joel. Less teasing, easy banter. "You're talking like someone who knows a lot, that's all."

"And I do," he says, sounding every bit as serious.

You sit down on one of the chairs — your chair, precisely — and watch as Joel walks around a little, taking in the environment. He adds, "Did ya know," pausing for a dramatic effect, he sips again, "that in all of three months, you became one of my daughters' favorite people?"

He pins you under his gaze.

You cross your legs, and watch happily as his gaze drops to the motion.

"Did I?" if you sip at his pace, you'll be throwing yourself on his lap in an embarrassing amount of time.

Joel nods behind his cup, touching one of the many plants that cover your backyard area from floor, to walls, to ceiling. "You did," he smiles, dropping the fake seriousness. "Are you ready to deal with the six months absence? 'Cause from personal experience," he points both hands at his chest, "you try convincing yourself you won't miss her all that much 'cause, y'know, it's "just" a girl, but—fuck," he spits the last word, smiling widening around the fact. "She's so cool to have around. You'll see. Your phone's bill's about to create life."

It grounds you.

The way Joel speaks of Sarah makes you feel comfortable sitting here, and any doubts you had are sucked by the green life around you and returned as oxygen.

Joel talks about anything, no reservations.

In his absence, you doubted whether this could be any different than most times.

Would Joel be like that—like any of those other guys?

He wasn't.

Joel, as much as you hated to admit it, was an exception.

Maybe these things were fated. Simple chemistry. Similar mindsets. Whatever it was—you had it every once in a blue moon.

Your expectations settings were long ago molded to expect the least, and it takes only half a bottle of wine for you to notice the need to rear it in.

He's so damn easy. Joel goes from one topic to another like he's interested. He answers your questions with full interest, sometimes going on tangent stories, and he's the one who keeps the glasses filled.

Attentive, you take note the second time that happens. Before any of the glasses got empty, he served you both.

He compliments your taste in music and sounds genuine about it.

The weird silences you most dreaded never happen—if he's not answering you, Joel asks things. Interesting things, unlike any other neighbor.

"Was it you who decorated your place inside? 'Cause, there are very specific things in there. And you seem like the type to know what you like."

Joel was very attentive.

He asked, "and is this what you like to do with your free time?" pointing at the books you put away when you both arrived, "Drink wine, read, talk to your plants?"

"I still can't believe you've seen me doing that."

He laughed at that. "It's a pretty big window, Sunshine. Jesus Christ—you don't lock the door, you don't know people can see through your gigantic-ass window—I'm genuinely starin' to get worried here."

"Okay, first of all, I do lock my door."

"Do you?"

"'Course. Most days."

"Oh my—"

"—and! Now that I was reminded of my window's size, I'll consider buying drapes. Long, white ones. That'd be cool."

It was easy.

Talking to Joel—sharing a table with him, a glass of wine—so easy.

He never looked uncomfortable. Even if he moved a lot, Joel looked good—so damn good you lost focus every now and then—, but good with himself.

In his skin.

That was intoxicating.

When he does more than just talk and asks things; it's almost too damn easy. Was time supposed to go this way?

The first bottle end, but it's too soon.

You know it. He knows it—plays with it, in fact. Waves the empty bottle after pouring it for you and him in the air very lightly then places it on the floor.

Offering another one is almost a visceral reaction.

You don't have the same finesse he does, or at least, you think not, but if his smiles and closing proximity are anything to go by, he's enjoying himself as much as you are. "I dance around opening these a lot," you say pointing at the empty bottle. Pulling your legs closer to yourself despite the voice of your mother telling you that's a body language sign of insecurity—fuck insecurity. "Don't wanna be the wine lady on top of the plant one. But they're good. I like it."

"I only drink wine when my brother cooks," he offers.

The glass in your hands makes you feel safe enough to land this conversation where you want it. "Really? He cooks a lot?"

"More than me," Joel confesses with a shrug. "He likes to match the wine to the dish and that type o' stuff."

"I was taught how to be picky, but if I'm being honest—" you like the way Joel leans in closer when you pause it. You smile, "it's all just grapes tastin' really, really good." The sound of his damn laugh. This man's gotta have a flaw, you think. "As long as it's wine, I'm happy."

"I think that about a good beer after a day of work."

"We're all just trying to give ourselves little positive reinforcements for playing nice at doing our jobs, huh?"

Joel pauses at that. Lifts his eyebrows, then bursts out laughing. "Oh, wow—"

"Oh god", while it took you a lot of alcohol to get drunk, being open-mouthed about weird things came with the territory of feeling comfortable.

Joel made you comfortable, even if you were mortified at how amused he was.

When he's done laughing, he looks at you. "That's cute. You're the philosophical type."

"Isn't everybody who enjoys wine?"

"I don't know. I enjoy wine and I'm not one to go that far, I think."

"Hmm. Philosophizing can involve different topics. Lenses."

Joel wolf whistles. "Well, I think I'd need a couple more glasses to unlock that side of me."

"Not a problem," you get up, and resist the urge to wink at him. "I'll be back."

Your reflection in the kitchen mirrors is the confirmation of how fucked exactly you are.

It's more than just the color on your cheeks—it's the glassy screen over your eyes, making it shine like...

Well, very few times.

Fuck, you think.

Maybe that's why your palms are sweating.

He's more than you bargained for—Joel's looks were hard to move on from, but this?

Once in Rome...

Fuck it.

It's not as if either one of you was blinded to what a moonlight late-night conversation leads to.

The air outside could be felt.

When you're going back with the opened bottle, another pin drops in your mind.

He has the whole night free.

You don't break the bottle, but it's a close call.

Joel asks you the second you're back, "I have a depressing confession to make—I was tryin' to keep to it to myself, but honestly, it's all I taught about when you left."

You place the bottle in the middle of the table carefully and sit back down with your eyes on him.

He moved his chair closer again.

"Do share," you urge.

Joel looks around the yard—he seems to do it a lot when he's dipping his toes into personal places and says, "This is the first time in a—uh—I don't even know. A while. That I just... sat with another adult. Drank something nice. Talked about more than just—fucking politics, or whatever." Joel's eyes on you make you feel honored. You know he'd say that's a silly thought if you said it out loud. "It's really nice. And—the depressing part comes in now: I'm only here 'cause of my brother."

You tilted your hair. "You're here because... of Tommy?" you tried connecting those dots, but came up short.

Thankfully, Joel was here. With his smile, and his explanation.

"You see, before Sarah's mom and I decided she could spend some months here instead of just a few weekends, I was already... shutting in. His words, not mine," Joel picks up his glass for a sip, and you hang onto every word he says. "So when she came, he took me out one night. That little bar a few blocks from here—y'know Mr. O'Donovan's place?" when you shake your head, he waves a hand, "I'll take you someday—'s the only place around here that's worth a dime."

"I'll take your word for it." I hate bars. You'd go for him. With him.

"I think I know what beer you'd like," it comes off as a whisper, and you have to hide behind your glass again. "I only remember that talk because he made me promise. He's not one to ask for promises."

"What did he make you promise?"

"He was upset 'cause I kept turnin' him down every time he wanted to do his 'meet my friend and you'll be good friends' match-making shit, so he said, 'you promise that the next time someone invites you do somethin' you actually wanna do, you're not gonna turn 'em down? You'll actually fucking go, without makin' excuses to yourself'. And that sounded fair. So I promised."

You take note of the effort he's making.

The subtle 'this isn't just about what's about to happen'.

'I'll take you someday'.

'Next time someone invites you to do somethin' you actually wanna do'.

So more than just neighbors. You nod at that, smiling at him. "He seems like a good brother," you say. "Siblings can be a pain in the ass."

Joel stops his glass on the way to his lip to shake his head at you, "Oh, no no," he takes the sip first, and says, "one doesn't negate the other. He very much is a pain in my ass, trust me."

You laugh. "Older and younger?"

"Younger," he nods. "I had a lil' bit of peace here and there before he was born."

"Can't imagine you'd have it any other way nowadays."

He agrees with you.

When he doesn't, Joel scrunches his nose as he shakes his head.

He does silly faces. You wonder if he's aware of how unfair it is that he gets to look like that. Tender. Charming.

He proves your theory to be right with only half another bottle.

Put two or more adults plus a certain amount of alcohol in a closed environment, and sex will be on the table.

It makes you blush when you think... it could literally be on the table.

Joel pretends he doesn't see you growing hotter. He keeps his eyes on you as you take off the robe instead of looking at your arms. Listens to what you're saying without losing focus.

Only when you're done and asking him something in response that he looks.

It makes your throat dry when he does.

Joel has an unabashed, almost cocky tilt to his mannerisms.

You thought he'd be quieter than he is—more serious.

It's a welcomed contrast.

When sex is laid on the table, it comes because he brought up the joke you made at the beginning of the night about his lack of interest in your life, and decided to ask you things. Where you grew up. If you were always like this.

"Define 'like this'."

"Smart with the calculating glance, and sweet-talking."

"Is that me?"

"Sure is, Sunshine."

None of the questions that people usually ask.

It makes you bite your lip more than you wished—his manly, tall presence gets under your skin in ways that no previous partner managed to. Tucking your hair behind your ear, avoiding leading the conversation to the exact places you liked, giggling—those weren't things you did.

He pulled them from you.

When he does ask you the 'usual' questions, it lacks the malicious curiosity inflating others whenever they did.

Sex is laid on the table because Joel looks you in the eyes with that easiness in his shoulders and asks, "I'm not as private as you, though—all of my neighbors already know Tommy, and Sarah. You, on the other hand... the mysterious crime and horror novelist, who talks to her plants and moved from so, so far. I might not be the prying type, but I was curious about you long before my gremlin set her little claws on you. How come I never see anyone coming in or out of here? You tellin' me not one friend of yours followed you here to god-forsaken Texas?"

Your glass is almost empty, and you focus on the twirling of the red inside it to avert your mind from the way he's sitting. "The point of moving was getting away from them. All of them, as bad as that sounds," you cover your eyes with your free hand, and Joel's hand touches your forearm.

"Hey—it's fine. Don't feel bad. 'm happy you had the privilege of gettin' away. If you wanted to move away from all of it, I'm sure you had your reasons."

Looking between your fingers, you try appraising his face. "Really?"

"Really," he nods.

"Okay." You sit up straight. "And I do have people over, sometimes. You're just always at work."

"Yeah? You made friends already?"

"A few, yeah."

"Where?" he removes his hand from your forearm but drops it to your chair's armrest. The proximity is doing something to you. "I thought you worked from home."

"I do," you agree. "But I do other stuff. I'm not always here with my plants, Joel," you roll your eyes, smiling amusedly.

Joel laughs, "I wouldn't know. If I could work from home and stay with my tools and wood, I would."

"And I believe you," you nodded.

He bites on his smile before asking. "What other stuff d'you do?"

"I joined a book club," you reply, feeling all levels of boring.

From his look, he disagrees. "You got the patience for that?"

"Sure do," you nod again.

He nods, pouting in awe. "Nice," he says. "Are your book club friends givin' you the right impression of Texans?"

"I'm warming up to them," you smile.

Nodding, he asks, "Should I ask now the questions all my neighbors already know the answer to? 'Cause I am curious. Did you know Mr. Adler tried tellin' me what he 'discovered' about you? He tried looking blasé when he said that, but I'm sure he just wanted to gossip about the pretty girl who moved across from him."

"Ew, Joel," you laugh.

His eyes never leave you—you feel it even when you're not looking at him. He's laughing too. "What? It's true."

When you look back up at him, you wonder—when did you two get this close?

"You can ask," you say. "It's not that exciting, the answer. Actually, it's not exciting at all."

"Hmm, I'll be the judge of that," he sips his wine, and leaves the glass on the table. "You already know my backstory, so kill my curiosity now," he pierces with his eyes for a moment, "how on Earth is there no ring on this finger?" he points to your ring finger, then he leans in closer, and you can smell the wine in his breath; you want to kiss it until it's taste is gone, "and how is it that I never see anyone leaving here early in the mornings?"

Well. "No ring 'cause I didn't want one so far," you reply. To him, you give more honesty than anyone else who's asked. "And I have the luxury of living without it. I know many friends of mine who don't—and actually, that was part of..." don't go there. "Nevermind," you shake your head, pinning yourself to here.

"You just didn't want it?" he echos.

You nod, "Never did," there's no reason to lie to him. He smells so good—why would you lie to him? "Most men bore men, Joel."

"Wow," the smile that widens is a little baffled. A little dirty. "Should I be scared?"

At that, you burst out laughing. "Really?" You have no clocks outside, but the starry sky and the deep silence in the houses next to you are a good enough indicator. "It's been... a couple of hours, at least. We're one bottle and a half," you say, looking at your glasses shining on the table, "deep into conversation... and you wonder if you should be scared?"

Joel's still looking at you when you look back. His arm is around your chair, and your back touches it when you lean back against it. "I'll take that as a no."

"You are very far from boring."

"'m happy you think so," he smiles. He lets his eyes drop to your lips, without a care for the two palms of distance that separate your faces. It's meant to be blatant. Obvious. "Just another question..."

Here it comes, you thought. Why no kids? Why so alone? Do you feel lonely?

"Why me?" he asks.

It's nothing more than a breath.

You could ignore it. Give any answer, and close the gap. Instead, you give him honesty. "Honestly? I was so attracted to you, the second I saw you, that I was willing to even hear somethin' stupid coming out of your mouth if I could just—," do it, do it, do it. Seeing his eyes darken from up close is torture. You can feel the pulse of your heartbeat between your legs. "Now, if I were any smart, I'd be wishing for you to be bad at all the rest, because..."

This was amazing already.

Joel laughs, just a single, breathy laugh, and then does something you would never see it coming.

He pushes his chair back with the weight of his hips and drops to his knees.

The gasp you let out is enough to put the most insufferable smile on his face.

"Don't say that," he feigns hurt, as if he wasn't smiling with his eyes and lips. "It might've been a while, but I don't think I lost my touch just yet."

Joel's hands envelop your knees and slowly pull them apart. You feel like an open wire—aware of every breath your body takes and each minimum reaction to him.

You feel the wet pulse inside your panties when he kisses the skin of your inner thigh, right above your knee.

Joel smiles up at you, blinking his eyes.

Damn him, you think. His hands caress their way up your skin, and you wished you were naked already.

He seems like someone to enjoy the torture—when his hands reach the curve of your ass, they stop there, holding onto your waist.

"Have I?" he asks, kissing the other inner leg. You feel a hint of his tongue in the short kiss.

What could you say to that?

"You really haven't."

Feeling the hot breathing of his laughter on your inner thighs was not in your list for tonight.

"Do I get a kiss, then?"

He would never have to ask you twice.

Your legs wrap around his torso when you lean down to meet him for the kiss. Joel seems to love the position—he smiles at first, gripping you by the neck.

He takes his time to look at you before he dives in. A mental check-in. Maybe just admiring, just as you were from the second he kneeled.

His kiss comes from experience. A lot of fucking experience.

If you were weak in the knees before, you seal the notion that you're out of your depth there and then.

Joel kisses like no one's ever kissed you before—like he wants to explore, discover, conquer.

He licks his way inside of you with the first kiss.

His tongue isn't shy; he makes you adjust to his rhythm, to let go and open up, and when you, you're rewarded with it—he pulls up just an inch, just to whisper, "that's it," and then dives back in.

Joel wraps his arm around your shoulder and neck in a possessive manner. It's why he makes it so easy for you let him guide it—he's holding you, and you moan as you melt into him.

He wants to feel your body.

The more you press yourself against him, the more Joel grants you little sighs of his own pleasure.

He never pushes his hips against you. Never presses you towards him.

It makes you want to scream.

When he pulls away, Joel sighs happily. He presses his right thumb over your swollen bottom lip, and nodding, kneels on his heels again.

"Joel..."

Your face remains close to his, gravitating to where he does. He whispers, "Lift your hips up for me, Sunshine," wrapped around a smile.

You do as he says.

His hand takes off your shorts without your eyes ever leaving you, and when the item is on the floor, Joel releases the robe you foregone earlier tonight from your backrest to slide down where you sit.

To not make a mess, it says.

Your face is burning up, but not as much as the rest of you.

"Is this ok?" he asks.

He waits for your nod of approval before pulling you by your knees. "Good," he's strong enough to get you where he wants in one pull. Your hips are nearing the end of the chair and from this angle, Joel gets to look.

He eyes the underwear as if it's personally offending him.

"I like the color," he says. He traces a finger across the baby blue lace and looks up at you. "Suits ya," he says. That's when he hooks a finger on the fabric, pulling it to the side. "I dreamt about this."

That gets to you.

Joel's fingers are thorough—able. He uses his knuckles to spread the lips apart, uncaring about the whines you let out above him, still holding on to the shame of being the only one exposed.

It lasts until he places two knuckles on each side of your clit, stimulating it with back-and-forth movements.

You were right about the torture.

He enjoys it.

Joel waits for your clit to be hard between his fingers before he puts his mouth to it.

You can only cling onto his hair.

I dreamt about this, too.

"Fuck—I dreamt about this too," you confess.

His moan vibrating against the core of your pussy makes you clench.

Joel's only starting.

He takes his time in finding the rhythm you most feel pleasure on your clit. He never bites, never nibbles, and doesn't go softly, like other men.

He eats.

Joel's mouth is stuck to you—the way he laps and slurps and sucks on your hardened nub only makes your volume go from whines and pleas of his name to moans in very little time.

That's when he dips his tongue inside. When he uses it as muscle and proves to you why the idea of oral is so good for men.

Because it's good.

Joel gives no indicator that he wants to stop at any time, and it turns you into something that blossoms.

At some point between him almost making you cum just by sucking on your clit and fucking his tongue in and out of you, your legs made their way to his shoulders, and his hands have secured themselves groping your ass.

He pulls back for air, once.

His fingers enter you instead, two at once.

"So wet already," he says. You only hear it, until, "look at me," he asks.

As if his thick, long fingers dripping into places inside of you weren't enough, you get to look at him.

His face glistening on your back porch is something that burns behind your eyelids the second you see it. You feel incoherent, needy, and exposed in more than one way.

Joel looks like he could eat you like this.

"Joel—please. Please," you're begging, but for what, you're not sure.

"Cum for me first. I'll give you whatever you want later, just," he pumps his fingers inside of you, keeping a steady and strong pace, and then says, "You look so good like this, Jesus fuckin' Christ."

Profanities.

That's what he says before getting his mouth back on you—his tongue sucking and vibrating against your clit.

It's too much. Too fucking much, and, "Joel, Joel—"

He pulls back just to say it, "That's it, doin' so good, Sunshine—" and that's when you lose it. The coaxing. It's so earnest. Sounds so pleased, dipping in honey as if it's him who's feeling this good.

"'m gonna cum Joel, fuck me, just like that—"

"Like this? Hm? Show me. Cum on my mouth."

All it takes is for him to put it back on you. Joel knows how to push himself inside—knows how to explore the hot and tight confines of your cunt, because he coos a first orgasm out of you with the right pace only.

No strength. No speed. Just sucking, and curling right against your spot.

Your vision whites out.

The time you take to come back to yourself, he keeps playing with your pussy and the mess he made in it, seeming as satisfied with the result as you are. Somewhere in white land.

What a little death.

After that, it's more a mess and clashes of teeth and desires than you knew you were even capable of.

He pulls you in for a kiss, and you pull him inside the house.

The idea is to make it to your room, but you never make it past the living room.

When you press him against a wall to finish taking off his clothes, seeing him only in briefs makes gravity pull you in.

Nothing but black briefs.

You have to drop to your knees.

Joel curses under his breath and tries his best at keeping his posture, but you're with a mind entirely clouded by raw need.

To him, you want to do only your best.

You're addicted to the way he mutters, "atta girl," every time you discover something that brings him pleasure. It sounds so fucking dirty.

"That's it. Atta fuckin' girl, god."

With him, you use tricks your friends once told you that are buried in the back of your mind. You hold the part of his cock your mouth can't cover and move it in sync with your lips. You make it wet, make sloppy, make it whatever he leads it to be.

Joel hisses and moans louder when you find the special places hidden—the sensitive skin between his balls that leads up, you lick it from start to finish and are rewarded with a full-body shudder.

He shows you what strong body means.

"Where's your room?" he pulls you by the arms, and you somehow end up jumping on him. Exactly what you wanted.

"I'm not makin' that far," you tell him with a grin.

He has his thumb on your lips again—he seems to like your mouth.

"Didn't think you'd want my bare ass on your couch."

"That is exactly where I want your bare ass right now," you tell him.

He's good at following requests, just as he is at giving them.

Joel sits with you already straddling his lap, and bless his gentleman's heart, he says, "I left my pants outside—wait," he curses under his breath with your hips circling his shaft. Letting it slide between your pussy lips. "Fuckin' hell."

"Fuckin' hell indeed," you sigh. "Wait here."

You run outside for it, only because you're not on the pill. Maybe you'll start taking it. Maybe you shouldn't think that far.

Joel's waiting for you alright—he has his hand at the base of his cock, sitting on your couch like a modern-day Adonis.

A sluttier Adonis. Sexier, too.

"Stop starin' and c'mere," he demands;

And who are you to say no to that?

Joel does you the favor of putting it on as you make yourself comfortable on his lap again, taking all of your out of the way. He looks like he wants to eat you alive piece by piece, and you love it.

"Lemme know if you want me to take over," he tells you.

"Yes, sir," you whisper in a taunting manner.

Joel rests his forehead against yours when you line himself up with you, and it's a reward of your stupid, gigantic-ass window letting in the light from outside that allows you to see the pleasure on his face as you sink around him, burying him to the hilt.

His digits press so hard on your sides they'll brise.

You'll be bruised tomorrow morning.

Fingerprints on your hips, beard burns on your inner legs, palm shapes across your ass.

When you start moving, none of you say a word about how it feels.

It's criminal.

Only curses and your names are allowed in the thin space separating your wet bodies.

The thin layer of sweat makes you two glide on each other, and the drag of him inside of you is almost too good for words.

You're scared of the ones that'd make their way out, anyway.

So you let out what you can. You call for him, and he calls back. Joel slaps your ass, both sides of it, and urges you on to take him as you want it.

"Fuckin' christ, I'm never gonna—fuck—never gonna sleep again."

There it is. Being pussy-drunk makes him loose-lipped.

Your own are aching with how hard you bite on them.

Joel lets the reigns remain on your hands as you stay on top. He lets you ride him painfully slow, and faster, just because it feels good. He lets you climb all the way up only to slam back down, praising you through the fog in your brain.

"Does it feel good, Sunshine? Mm? My cock feels that good for you?"

You're sure it'll all come back to haunt you once your brain can be coherent.

He takes charge when you start begging him, and for what, you're unsure of. It's a mixture of please and his name, which Joel takes as his permission slip.

He flips you onto your back, hooks one of your legs on the middle of his back, and fucks you both into another orgasm.

It should be concerning the way he does it—like he's familiar with your body and your cues. He just follows your pace and moans until you're clawing at his back, and when his name comes out over and over again, he coaxes it again. Coos at you, holding your face in one hand. "You're gonna cum for me, aren't ya? Do it. I'll cum for you when I feel you shakin' around my cock, Sunshine. Cum for me."

It comes so hard you almost faint; blackout.

Joel takes care of you afterward.

Of course he does.

Even with the weakest legs and the minimum sense of reality around you, he manages. Joel leads you upstairs, tells you he's collected your clothes, and even lays down when you ask him.

"Just for a while," you ask.

He lays in front of you in bed, and pulls your arms around him. "I'm puttin' an alarm."

Little spoon. "You gotta be back here in the morning anyway."

"I know," he kisses your wrist. "Can't wait."

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getitoutofmymindwrites · 2 months

Text

The falling | joel miller x f!reader, 5k

Summary: It’s a weird feeling, the moment you realize you’ve lost everything. You're falling. It is never ending, the falling, even after the moment, that exact moment, is long gone. Or you catch Joel cheating on you. The world comes crushing down.

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, ANGST. That's it. Ok, bye. But seriously, angst, a whole lot of angst, alternated POVs, husband!joel, wife!reader, cheater!joel, married couple, Joel fucks another f!person, reference to sexual activity but nothing too detailed, as I said before-ANGST, excessive use of the word fuck, Joel is kind of a dick on this one, as always let me know if I missed anything!

A/N: Let me know how you feel about this lost little puppy, I know he sounds arrogant and awful, maybe I can rectify that, on a second part. If you're interested in a closure for these two, hit me in the comments! Thank you for taking the time to read anything I write! Love you all! 🥰😘

Dividers by @cafekitsune & @saradika-graphics

| next

It’s a weird feeling, the moment you realize you’ve lost everything.

Everything dear and loved and cherished and so close to your heart. Your heart itself.

You still can’t decide if it’s liberating or torturing, to have that exact moment burned in your thoughts like a Polaroid.

But the pain is real. The pain is excruciating. It spreads like vines through your whole body, starting from the pit of your stomach in the form of a bile you try to hold back, moving to your heart’s agonizing clench, licking to the ends of your numb limbs which remain obstinately immobile. It feels almost like floating, but not exactly.

You’re falling; you’re still falling as if there’s no luxurious, expensive floor underneath your feet, holding you surprisingly still up. You wait for the landing, the crush, unmoving, unblinking, not quite breathing. It is never ending, the falling, even after the moment, that exact moment, is long gone.

Your designer’s tote bag, another unnecessarily extravagant gift from your husband, drops from your hands to the floor with a loud thud.

Joel’s thrusts stop immediately and he turns his head to look behind him, while he’s on his knees, balls deep in a female body on all fours. His eyes shut tightly in something you’re not sure how to interpret, dropping his head between his shoulder blades and his palms squeeze the hips of the female body he's holding, until his fingertips go white.

And you’re just standing there, on the threshold of your bedroom, taking in the scene. It’s weird how the mind works under stressful situations. Is the absurdity of the reality that keeps you calm? Is it your brain’s reaction to protect you from collapsing? Are you shutting down right now?

You feel your eyes unable to move around and at the same time you see clearer than ever, as if you’re looking through a wide-angle lens.

You notice all of the stripped clothes, which they don’t seem hastily taken off, the way they pool on various surfaces of the room; they took their time undressing each other.

You notice the crystal tumbler of a half finished liquid, Joel’s whiskey, on his side of the nightstand; they took their time having fun.

You notice the absence of a condom on Joel’s cock as he removes himself from the female hole he was buried deep, all splayed out for him and now you; they took their time before, it seems, there is an intimacy there. This is not a stranger, this is not a first time.

Joel is calm, collected even, as he stands to his full height, grabbing his pants from the floor next to the king sized bed and putting them on. Calculated, steady movements, he looks like he’s trying to stay in control of the situation, diminish it to something else. You pray he doesn’t go down that path.

You look behind him, the female body’s gathering itself into a ball, sitting on your bed now, hands hugging it’s knees, trying to protect its nudity. Your eyes roam her form until they settle on her face. Oh, you know her. She looks -hm, there’s a mosaic of emotions behind her eyes, which are surprisingly bold to look back at you. You see shock, you see fear, you see.. satisfaction?

“Darlin’” Joel’s approaching you, crossing the ridiculously big room, with a steady pace.

His chest is heaving from the effort to regulate his breathing, he’s sweaty, his muscles all bulged from the interrupted fucking, his curls -your curls, fuck, that hurts- damp. He’s so handsome in all his disheveled form. He looks like your Joel.

Imaginary flashes of her fingertips combing through his hair are passing through your mind and you feel your esophagus contracting, a sense of a burning hot liquid moving up to your mouth. You swallow it down.

He reaches to touch your arm, don’t you dare, is all you mutter lowly, still without moving a muscle as if you do, the world will come crushing down. It already did, didn’t you get the memo? Your voice feels foreign to your ears, your tongue feels rough like sandpaper. He obeys.

When does this falling end?

“Baby-”, he tries again, while he steps forward, a condescending tone to his voice, like he’s addressing a toddler.

“Don’t-”, you roll your eyes in your head, god, he smells so good, even with the sweat someone else poured out of his skin, he smells so fucking good. He smells like your Joel. “Don’t come any closer.”

“This-” he exhales heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration, as if it’s an unnecessary effort to explain, as if you should understand; of all people, you should know, “this doesn’t mean anything-” his hand gesturing between him and the female body, “she doesn’t mean anything.” You should understand, baby, you should know.

And for the first time her eyes leave yours and land on the face of the deceiver. If this wasn’t happening to you right now, you would take pity on her pained expression. You almost feel sorry for her. Almost.

“Does she know that?” you ask him, your eyes never leaving her tangled form on your bed.

Joel snaps his head to her direction, narrowing his eyes in warning, “Yes, she does.”, his voice comes out strict and final, signaling there’s no room for doubt. He doesn’t sound like your Joel.

“I need you to leave.”, you breathe barely audible, your eyes still on her face; now she doesn’t know where to look, the rug pulled out from under her feet from the man she had inside her minutes ago.

His gaze is cold and indifferent, as if everything is her fault, looking still in her direction. She looks like a deer caught in the headlights, the empathetic part of your brain feels for her.

“Get your shit and get the fuck out, what are you waiting for?” he snaps at her.

“Not her, you.” you whisper, it’s impossible to speak louder, all of your energy powers your two standing feet.

He turns to look at you, shocked, eyes wide, mouth slightly agape.

“Wh- what are you talking about, sweetheart?” he tries to reason with you, “We need to talk, to-”

“Joel-”, you try again and thank god he’s interrupting you, you don’t have the strength to negotiate right now. Let the dice roll. It’s all fucked, anyway.

“This is my home; I’m not leaving.” he simply states, shaking his head from side to side, staring at you expectantly.

“You’re right. This is your house.” you acknowledge, coming to a painful realization. “Everything is yours; you own everything, don’t you?”, you smile sadly, crouching down to collect you bag.

You turn on your heels and leave the residence formerly known and felt as home, behind you.

Alarm system disabled.

Joe’s hairs are rising on the nape of his neck, when he checks the alarm app notification on his phone, thinking you came back home.

It’s been an awful month without you, without being able to contact you. He knew where you were of course, he could not for the life of him leave that information escape him, but he didn’t pressure you with an unexpected visit, he knew better.

It’s been a month. That’s plenty of time. You took your time and now you’re ready to talk. You have to be, this can’t be the end of this relationship, this marriage.

He presses your number and hits call. Fuck, he’s still blocked. Maybe you forgot to unblock him, it’s ok, it doesn’t mean anything.

He checks the house’s cameras. Shit. That’s not you. What is she doing there? What the fuck is going on? Alright, he’s going back to the house.

He stands on his feet, right in the middle of a meeting with the board and just leaves them. There’s a distant muttering of where does he think he goes, what happened, what’s gotten into him, this is important for the upcoming deal, but he pays no mind to them.

He needs to talk to you.

“Yeah, I think I’ve got everything you need,” Maria facetimes you, showing around your closet via her camera. “I’m loading the suitcase to the car and I’m out of here.”

“Thank you Mar-”

“MARIA?” Joel’s voice travels through the space from the ground floor, up.

“Shit, shit, shit, what am I gonna do?” Maria whispers to you turning the call to voice only.

“Just take the suitcase and leave, it’s ok, I only got personal stuff if that’s what he’s worried about. Let him check if it comes to that.”, you try to calm her down.

“Ok, ok-” Maria grabs the handle of the suitcase and moves to leave the walk-in closet.

“Hey.” Joel comes through the door to the bedroom taking in the scene. He hasn’t set foot in this room for nearly a month now.

“Hey.” Maria sounds pissed on the line.

“What are you doing here? Where's Tommy?”, Joel’s face frowns in question. “Tommy's not my keeper, his my partner. My husband, not that you would know what that means, apparently.” Maria just shrugs and moves to pass him by.

“What are you doing, what’s going on here?” he insists, blocking her way.

“I’m just collecting som-”

“How is she? Is she ok?” his voice softening when he asks about you.

“Oh, please, Joel, how is she? Really?” Maria scoffs at him. “She doesn’t want to see you, Joel or hear from you, that’s how she is.”

“Yeah, I gathered that much, thank you.” he mocks back. “Is she on the phone, can I just talk to her?” he extends his arm to reach for the phone. “Over my dead and cold body.” Maria says, pressing the phone on her chest.

His eyes are raging storms, his nostrils flaring with quiet rage. He takes a deep breath “Can you please ask her if I can talk to her, just for five minutes?”

“Why don’t you call her, Joel?” Maria taunts him, emphasizing the pronunciation of his name.

Joel just stares back at her, unfazed. Maria doesn’t move a muscle, lifting an eyebrow quizzically. Well, she did move one muscle.

Joel sighs exasperatedly “She blocked my number.”

“I wonder why that is.” Maria twists the knife, “I guess you have your answer, then.”

“Christ-” he pinches the bridge of his nose, “just- just ask her, please.”

Maria lifts the phone to her ear, rolling her eyes in frustration in the process. “Hey, Joel’s here, he’s ask-”

“Yeah, I heard everything.” you interrupt her, “No, I don’t want to talk to him.” Maria is shaking her head negatively at him as you talk, to pass the message.

Joel’s face goes cold and emotionless. “Well, tell her if she wants her belongings, she needs to come and get them herself.”

It’s been five weeks now and you can’t keep living in your best friend’s and sister in law's clothes. You’re gonna have to go and grab your stuff yourself.

Because it wasn’t enough what you’ve been through, what you’ve heard until you reached that goddamned bedroom door, what you’ve witnessed when you’ve entered, now he’s making you go back there to humiliate you. As you’re checking your calendar for your work schedule to decide on a suitable day, it hits you. You have Joel’s calendar on your phone, too. You always do, it was the only way to have some time together between his visits to work sites and board meetings and bussiness trips and fucking-behind-your-back, apparently.

And then you remember that day where you both stole some time off and decided to spend it cuddling with each other on the couch, talking nonsense and laughing at silly things and hugging and kissing and fucking all night long.

A brainstorm of thoughts run through your head instantly. How could he do that to you? He looked so happy in your arms. Maybe he was right, maybe it was nothing, maybe you should understand, you of all people, you should know. Do you need to do an STD test? How careless could he be? Where there others? Did he ever love you? Do you want to know?

Does it really matter?

You focus again on that day. He’d told you about a big deal coming up, one of the biggest in his career, if not the biggest so far and how important it was to the future of the company.

You searched frantically through his calendar until you found the date of the final meeting, the date where they’d seal the deal. Because there is no way they weren’t. If Joel wanted it so badly, he’d find a way to make it happen.

And you knew your husband, ironic as is sounds now. He was focused to a fault. He wouldn’t even check his phone that day. He’d done it every time since you were together. History indicated that he probably had other reasons, too, for not checking his phone in a timely manner, but you wouldn’t dwell on that. Not right now. Because now you had your chance.

That date was your chance.

Alarm disabled.

Joel’s phone is vibrating momentarily, not that he noticed, it was silent and tacked away in his jacket pocket, the jacket itself hanging on the back of his chair.

Don’t fuck it up, don’t fuck it up, don’t fuck it up, he’s chanting in his mind, under all this calm and confident demeanor, he’s sweating inside.

This is it, this is it, this is it, he repeats like a mantra, watching his opposite CEO, Leo Marks, playing with the pen between his fingers. He’s inspecting the contract again and he’s so close, so close to what he wanted. The room is silent, the long table full of seated lawyers and consultants from both sides, holding their breaths in charged expectation.

Joel knows that Marks is going to sign. He knows it. He worked for it. He convinced him, he made his vision clear as day and he lured him in. This is it. He got this.

Then your face appears in his mind. No, not today, he can’t do this today. You will have to wait. Like you always have. Joel shakes his head slightly, as if to remove you from his thoughts. His fingers get itchy, he wishes he could just check on you. Yes, he just want to check on you.

Are you alright? Are you thinking about him? Do you miss him like he does? Do you stay wide awake at night replaying the same scene over and over until you feel physically ill? Do you know that he thinks about you? Did he show you at all that night? Maybe he should have appeared at your friend’s door out of the blue. Maybe you think he doesn’t care. All he was trying to do was give you space. Respect your boundaries. Let you work everything out.

Fuck.

He reaches for his phone. He doesn’t know why. He knows his number is still blocked. He checks every night, when he's too exhausted from the lack of sleep and prays he could listen to your voice, or the soft sound of your breath when you slept next to him. But he fishes it out of his jacket pocket, anyway and then he sees it.

38 minutes ago.

Alarm disabled.

Alarm disabled. Alarm disabled. Alarm disabled, the only thought repeated in his head. He immediately searches the cameras for you but no movement is recorded right now. Maybe you already left. His heart rate spikes, his temples feel the pressure of his blood pumping violently in his veins. Cold sweat pours out of his body.

He’s squeezing his eyes shut, mentally counting all the places without cameras inside the house. What if you are still in there and he just can’t see you?

Fuck.

Mark’s voice extract him from his thoughts, “Mr. Miller, everything looks in order as we agreed.”

Joel snaps his eyes back to him, slightly irritated, “Of course it does, your legal team already did a thorough check all these months to get us here today.”

“Yes, yes,” Marks laughs entertained, “I just wanted to look it over one more time, I mean, we really are going to…”

What if you’re still there? What if this is his chance? He could always try to reach you after the deal, convince you to hear him out. Yeah, he can do that. He doesn’t need to chase you down. He can wait a little bit longer, can’t he? He can have it all, right? He was the man that had it all.

A mail pops up on his phone, a compliment note from the management of one of both your favorite hotels in Europe, thanking you for choosing their establishments for your stay, once again. Shit. You’re fleeing the fucking country? Are you fucking serious?

“..Mr. Miller?” Marks insists.

“Hm?” his eyes are glued to the screen of his phone.

“I said, before we sign, I need you to walk me through it one more time.” he demands like a little child asking for its favorite bedtime story. “I mean, this is the project of my dreams. I need your reassurance that this is as important for you as it is for us, that it’ll be your only focus for the foreseeable future.” he looks at Joel expectantly.

His only focus.

For the foreseeable future.

Fuck.

“HONEY!”. Your blood runs cold in your veins to the sound of his baritone voice. Your hand freezes over the shelf with the t-shirts, not making a sound. You didn’t take that long, why is he here? Why isn’t he in his meeting?

Joel enters the bedroom but you’re not there. Fuck, you hear the curse running softly from his lips. You don’t move, you don’t blink, you don’t breathe.

He moves to leave and check elsewhere but then he stops. You hear soft steps and you see the door of the walk-in closet opening. His wide form blocks the light from the outside, his broad shoulders almost taking up all the space of the frame.

He looks disheveled, his baby blue shirt wrinkled and unbuttoned at the top, his hair a mess, like he kept combing his fingers through them. You don’t dare meet his eyes though. You keep your gaze as far as his chin goes, concentrating on the bare patch there. His sole presence electrifies you like he’s already touched you. Your whole body feels on fire and frozen simultaneously. God, you missed him.

“I was calling for you.”, he breathes out and you can feel his fear pulsing through his body. He’s scared you’re gonna run. That’s why he doesn’t leave his spot, blocking the door.

“I know.”

“Were you hiding from me?” his brows are furrowed in a seemingly pained expression from what your peripheral vision could help you understand.

“No, I just chose not to answer you.”, you lower your head, looking at your feet.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” you say hastily, but he’s waiting for a real answer. You breathe deeply, “It- it felt too domestic, you calling for me, me answering back, like how we were before.” He nods, biting his bottom lip. “What are you doing here, Joel?”

“In our house?” the edges of his lips are slightly turned up, his head tilting to one side.

“No, this is your house as you said yourself.”

“Darlin’, you know I didn’t mean it like that..” he sighs in regret, his head deepening in his shoulder blades in an effort to attract your gaze upwards.

“But you’re right.”

“I built it for you.” his voice soft, like it’s a secret mend to stay that way.

“Hm.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” his brows raise in genuine surprise.

“Nothing, forget it.”

“No, tell me.”

“You first.”

He looks perplexed, he forgot your question.

“What are you doing here, right now, Joel?”

“I got the alarm notification and.. it was the only way I could talk to you, honey..”

“But- your meeting-”

He searches your eyes, although you refuse to look at him, analysing your confused expression and it hits him. He smiles in understanding, nodding his head. “So, you chose today on purpose..”

You don’t respond, you keep looking everywhere but his eyes.

He laughs through his nose, rubbing a hand over his face. “Did you really think that I wouldn’t drop everything to come and see you?”

“I really did.”

He gasps in disbelief, almost offended.

“Baby, look at me, please; look at me..” he pleads with you softly. You close your eyes as if in fear you would obey, your chin trembling from the effort to remain calm.

“Baby, look at me. I want you to look at me, now.” he presses in a more authoritative way. He thought he could order you around? Break you?

“No.” you shake your head.

Joel calls you by your name but before he has a chance to spit another soft command-

“I SAID NO!” you open your eyes, targeting them to his chest, tears spilling uncontrollably now. You can see from your periphery the look of shock on his face, because you never yelled before. Ever.

“Why, sweetheart?”, he retreats back to his soft side.

“Because that’s exactly what you want. And you can’t always get what you want, Joel, not anymore.” You can’t hold back your tongue now.

“Jesus Christ,” you grit through your teeth, “what do you want from me, hm?” your eyes keep dancing around his face but never on his eyes. He looks dumbfounded, his lips part slightly but you don’t wait for an answer. “What else do you want? Is this some kind of ego thing? You expected me to shout and break things and hit you and tell you to leave her and come back to me? Because your ego is safe, Joel, if that’s what you worry about. I didn’t leave you, you did that first when you went behind my back. So, you walked out on me and not the other way around. Happy? Ready to go on with your life?” You’re grabbing the shelf where your hand previously rested so hard, trying to steady yourself.

For the first time Joel is speechless. He doesn’t know what to say. He can’t find the words to defend himself, to convince you about his feelings, to soothe you at the very least. He begins to have a glimpse of how he appears in your eyes right now. How much damage he’s done, even before that night. How much ground he lost over time.

“Darlin', I just wa-” he begins softly, almost like walking on eggshells, but your body visibly tenses, you jaw shuts tight, your eyes rolling back in your head.

“Stop, just stop! Stop saying what you want! Stop making this about you! Don’t you see? You keep asking me for what you want! Have you stopped for a second, just a second, to think what I want? What I need? I don’t- I don’t recognize you anymore.”

“I-” he closes his eyes in distress, “I love you.” His last retreat. He’s trying anything that could help him. He doesn’t get it. He can’t. He’s not capable. But he used to be. He was the most empathetic person you knew. What the fuck happened?

Your eyes snap though the open closet door at his admision and on to the perfectly made bed.

His gaze follows yours behind his back and shakes his head once more in regret.

“It really didn’t mean-”

“Joel-” you warn him, “have some self respect and don’t say what I think you’re about to say. At least have the guts to admit exactly what you did, I’d appreciate it more.”

He exhales heavily, you’re not giving him an opening to fix this. You’re hanging onto every word he mutters. Not a single one of them is left unparsed and he's not used to that. He knows that if he does not control his anger right now, it's game over.

Heavy silence is hanging between you, each one lost on their thoughts.

“Do you know when you really lost me, Joel?”, you ask him eventually.

Half an hour ago he would swear he had all the answers, but now? Now he sees he’s in the deep, so he stays quiet, searching your eyes that still won't reach his, for answers.

“You lost me when you humiliated her in front of me.”

His face goes white, shocked, he can’t believe his ears. His mouth opens and closes but he makes no sound, how on earth does he respond to that?

“You still don’t get it, do you?”, you pinch the bridge of your nose exasperatedly. “You valued her enough to endanger our wedding, you valued her enough to bring her to our own house, to our bed, Joel; you valued her enough to fuck her raw, to let her know that you were unhappy with me, before I had a chance to realize it myself-”, Joel interrupts you almost panicked “I’m not un-” and for the first time your eyes pierce his in such an anguish that the words die in his throat. “-and then you just diminished her like she was nothing, just to prove a point to me. While she was naked, vulnerable on our bed. And trust me, this is not me defending her, she is as responsible for this as you, but you’re the one I married, not her. I expected better from you, Joel, not her.”

Now he’s the one averting his eyes from you, looking down on his overpriced shoes, his demeanor defeated, this is not the Joel you know anymore.

“And what was the point, Joel? Hm? What? That she means nothing? Then why were you with her? Why did you choose her? Why did you spend your precious time on nothing, while I had to make an appointment to see you? That’s what you did with me, too? I mean nothing, too? Just a warm hole to fuck when convenient?” he snaps his head back to you, shaking it in denial frantically, his eyes blown wide and red from all the emotional stress you push onto him.

“But I guess I got my answer about a month ago, hm?” It’s one of those moments that epiphanies hit you as you speak uncontrollably, you just can’t stop your mind from running wild, your mouth from spilling bile, your heart from pounding so hard in your chest, your ears start to ring, your grasp on the shelf tightening even more for balance.

“And that tells me a lot about who you really are. It’s not just about the fucking, Joel, Jesus-, -for the brilliant man I know you to be, you’re stumbling through your blindest moment.”, you shake your head in disappointment, tears still running freely down your face, licking your jawline and falling like a waterfall to the carpeted floor. You feel so done, you find it pointless to explain any further.

“I- I don’t know you, Joel, I don’t know who you are anymore. Maybe I never did,” you conclude, “maybe you’re right,” you slowly nod to yourself, “and everything is my fault after all.” you whisper, not sure if you want him to hear that part.

He did. “I never said that it was your fault, baby. When did I ever say that?” his face is contorted in pain, “None of this is your fault, none of it, you hear me?” he wants so desperately to cross the fucking room and hold you tight, crush all your pain and insecurities and self hatred under an asphyxiating hug. He also knows that he won't make even two steps before you flee, or step back from him and he can’t for the life of him witness that. Because that’s how much he needs you. He prefers you standing there, where he can see you, where he can have you, even if you wither and die under the enormous trauma he’s putting you through.

“So stupid.. I was- I am so stupid..” you’re repeating to yourself almost deliriously, rubbing your fingers on your forehead.

“This isn’t you, sweetheart, you don’t talk like that, don’t- don’t do that to yourself.” Joel tries to bring you back.

“But this is you, isn’t it, Joel? The real you?” you bite back. “This isn’t me, really? How do you like the new me, Joel? Do you take pride on your creation?” you laugh bitterly at him. “Yeah, how you’d always call me? Polite little thing? Sweetheart?” you’re infuriated now, a rise fighting to explode through you. “How does it feel, Joel? To know you’re responsible for changing someone to their core? To know you had that much power over them?”

Joel’s shaking his head once again in desperation, hot tears spilling from his eyes, god, had he ever cried before? this is not a battle he can win, he sees that now. The damage is too great. What on earth was he thinking?

“Please, please honey, can we just take a breather, sit down and talk about everything?” he pleads with you, a last thread of hope shinning in his red rimmed eyes.

“Take a breather..” you mutter through your teeth, “you mean the breather you took while you were fucking someone else instead of talking to me?”, Joel shuts his eyes in defeat, there’s nothing he can say anymore. “I think you got it backwards, Joel.”

You take a steadying breath and command your legs internally to hold on a little while longer and move forward; clothes, suitcase, life left behind.

“Don’t contact me again, unless is via your legal team.” is the last bullet that hits Joel’s chest, right through his broken heart.

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mountainsandmayhem · 2 months

Text

Shhh...Just A Little Bit More

DBF!Joel x Fem!Reader

18+ MDNI

Masterlist || Part Two || Part Three (Soft Version) || Part Three (Spicy Version)

Summary: Joel catches you somewhere you shouldn't be, twice. CW: all p no plot! age gap, spanking, dirty talk, parental guilt, brat and brat tamer, sub/dom dynamics, edging and degradation kinks if you squint AN: I found the bottom right photo on Pinterest and @mermaidgirl30 said it screamed DBF!Joel. I have never written for DBF before so please be kind. Dividers by @saradika-graphics - thank you for all your amazing graphics and dividers, I'd be lost without your page.

“Let go of me, you fucking psycho!” You’re practically yelling over the music of the club, wrenching your arm from Joel’s strong grasp. The security guard approaches and Joel shoots him a glare so dark that he holds his hands up and steps back. “What the fuck, Joel?”

“What are ya doin’ here, sweetheart” he demands, one eyebrow raised.

“I’m working!” You stomp your foot and then get right up in his face, pointing a finger at him. Joel Miller, your dad’s best friend, hanging out in a strip club one town over. “The real question is, what are YOU doin here?”

You’re only a bottle girl, you don’t get on the stage and have no intentions of stripping. It’s good money, great money actually. At 22 you’re already well on your way to having a down payment on a condo, it’s just too bad you’re having to lie to your parents.

“With my crew, they picked the place. I’m takin’ you home. Go get your coat.” He crosses his arms over his chest, staring at you sternly. The music is pounding in your ears, the air thick with smoke. Even in the dimly lit hallway you can see the way Joel’s eyes rake over your body, taking in the very tiny Jean shorts and bralette you’re wearing.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” you spin and flip him the bird as you walk away. You know he’s staring so you give a little extra wiggle of your ass as you walk away. Joel Miller, staring at your ass. The fourteen year old inside you does a happy dance - that version of yourself had a tiny crush on him. Too bad he’s a stuffy, grumpy asshole now. You miss the fun, young Joel. He used to do cannonballs in the pool with you and his daughter Sarah. She was a few years older than you, but he was much more fun than your father. But now? Now he’s a certified prick. Thinking he can drag you away like some sort of barbaric caveman. He’s not your dad, even if he was, you’re an adult.

When you finish your shift you head outside and pull up your Uber app, men often want to do shots with you so even though you never get drunk at work you also don’t drive there.

See, Joel. I’m responsible.

“Let’s go,” his voice is deep, still angry with you. You didn’t see him waiting by the door so you jump.

“Jesus. You fucking scared me.”

“Watch your language. Get in the truck.”

You grumble under your breath that he should kiss your ass as he holds the door open for you. He stalks around to his side of the truck while furrowing his brow and shaking his head.

“Got somethin’ to say young lady?”

“Ya,” you say, slumping in the seat and putting your white vans on his dashboard, “kiss my ass.”

He presses his lips in a thin line, you can see him eyeing your long toned legs from your peripheral vision before the engine roars to life and he speeds off down the gravel highway.

When you pull up to the house he hops out of the truck and is right on your heels as you open the door.

“I’m fine, Mister Miller.” You say with a sneer. You know he hates that, he has told everyone he’s ever been introduced to to call him Joel.

Joel steps into your parents house and calls your dad’s name. “What the fuck! Joel! Shut up!”

He calls for him again and your dad comes stumbling from his room, tying his robe around his sleeping attire. “Joel? What’s going on?” He flicks on the light, squinting against the brightness. “It’s 3 in the morning.”

“Just thought I’d let you now know that the guys at work wanted to go to The Skin tonight. Caught your daughter working there.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Joel?!” You yell, pushing at his broad chest. Your dad stands there stunned. Eyes wide and mouth agape. He thought you were working as a nurses aide overnight at the hospital on weekends. He’s even seen you leave the house in scrubs. All a part of the web of lies you have weaved.

“Don’t speak to Joel that way,” your dad snaps. “Go to your room young lady. We’ll talk about this later.”

“Kiss my ass, cowboy.” You practically spit at him as you stomp to your room. As you round the corner your mom is standing in the hallway clutching her crucifix necklace. You have a sudden urge to hiss at her with the way she’s looking at you, like you’re a disappointment. A sinner, the worst kind of person in her eyes.

The next morning was the fight of all fights with your parents. Your dad tried to ground you, your mom started shoving church pamphlets at you. They wouldn’t even fucking listen.

“IM NOT A STRIPPER,” you yelled at them over and over again.

Finally, when the yelling ceased, your dad said in a very quiet anger, “young lady. I FORBID you from going there again. Is that clear? I don’t care if you’re 22 or 42, if you live under my roof, you live by my rules. You’re going to go to continue going to your university classes during the week, and on weekends you will be home. Studying. Helping your mother with the chores. You will go to bed at respectable hour. If you need money, you ask us. Is that clear?”

You blink back tears and head to your room, slamming the door behind you. You are NOT quitting that job.

When the next weekend rolls around you say goodnight to your parents at 10pm and head to your room. You worked it out with your boss to work the midnight to 4 am shift. So you wait - ear pressed to your door until you finally hear your parents go to bed. You sneak out the same way you’ve been sneaking out for years and run down the street with your newly embroidered denim shorts in hand to meet your Uber.

You peel yourself away from the men and the booze around 2am to get some fresh air, exiting through the back to the dimly lit alley. You take a big inhale through your nose before you see it. The truck. Joel’s truck. And Joel. Leaning against the truck box, arms crossed, one foot up on the tire.

You flip him off and then turn back towards the back entrance to the club. He’s on you so fast, grabbing the back of your bicep in his large hand. “You little brat. You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“Read the shorts, MISTER Miller.” You say it as much venom as you can muster.

His eyes rake down your body and you can almost feel them burning into you. It feels so good, you never want him to stop. Your pussy throbbed when he called you a brat and you wouldn’t be surprised if your light jean shorts hadn’t been soaked through already. When his eyes reach the pocket he sees ‘Kiss My Ass, Cowboy’ stitched in baby pink lettering and his grip tightens.

He’s fucking furious with you. Furious that you’re here. Furious that other men get to see you dressed like this. Furious that he wants you so fucking badly. But mostly, furious because he knows you want him too and he’s a weak weak man when it comes to pretty little things like you. He yanks you back against his body and you let out a pained moan.

“Don’t make me punish you,” he says coldly in your ear and you fight to stop your knees from buckling.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” you say breathlessly.

Joel’s lips graze against the shell of your ear, hand gripping so tightly that you’re sure you’ll have bruises tomorrow. “So that’s what you want? You want me to punish you? Put you in your place? Huh?”

You grind your ass back against him, “you would dare, Joel.”

His other hand clamps down on your hip as he steers you to his truck, walking you around so no one can see the two of you. He opens the back door and pushes you forward until your legs are against the cold steel frame of the vehicle. “You don’t get to call me that. You call me Mr Miller from now on. Understood?”

“Go fuck yourself, Joel,” you emphasize every vowel of his name, digging deeper. Pushing him. Pushing to see how far he’ll go. You get off on being a brat, and by the way his hard cock is pressing into your ass, he does too.

He unbottons your shorts then lifts you slightly and pushes your upper body down onto the seat, the truck is high enough that your feet are dangling, ass stuck out for him. “Look at these slutty little shorts.” He tugs on the hem, your shorts now sitting just above your knees. Your pert ass is exposed to Joel and the night air. He tuts at the sight of you, “No panties. Little fuckin’ tease.”

You whimper at his words, slick starting to coat your thighs. “You’re the one standing back there doing nothing.” You taunt.

The cool night air spreads goosebumps across your skin, your clit twitches in anticipation of his touch. Other men have fucked you hard to get you to shut your mouth. And finally, FINALLY, you’re going to get fucked by Joel Miller. However, you grossly underestimated the different between the boys were with before and the man behind you now.

His hand strikes your cheek hard and you let out a loud pained yell. “What the fuck, Joel!”

“If you’re gonna be a brat,” his hand lands on your ass again, “you’re going to get a spanking.” His voice is harsh and rough as he hits you a third time. The sound of his skin on yours echoing through the cab of his truck. He hits you again, not caring about your cries of protest.

You’ve never been spanked before and you’re thrown by your bodies reaction to it. At first you were shocked, then humiliated and then the pain and heat travelled to the base of your spine and you found yourself starting to get turned on. Arousal pools in your belly with each strike of his palm and when your pussy throbs the humiliation starts to creep back in. Are you supposed to be enjoying this so much, is this what Joel wants?

You bend your knees up, trying to make space between your bodies. One of his strong hands wraps around your ankles, pinning them to the back of your thighs as he spanks you again.

“Stop! I’m sorry. I’ll - “ he strikes you again, harder than the last few times and there’s no more pain, every slap is full of pleasure. You let out a deep moan, your pussy practically gushing onto the leather seats. “Oh fuuuuck.”

Now that it’s turning you on it almost eggs Joel on. “Put your hands out in front of you,” he commands. Your arms shoot out, stretching them across the seat above your head. “Such a needy little slut. You’re drippin’ all over my fucking seat, baby girl.” He strikes you again and your arms flinch. “Keep them there.”

Your ass is starting to get pink, his splotchy handprints covering it. The world around him starts to fade, all that he can see is you and your ass - and he wants to make it hurt. Then he wants to make it good. So very good.

His strikes keep coming, he’s like a man possessed. “Stop, Joel. Please.”

He drops your ankles, then uses his hand to spread your thighs apart, the denim biting into your knees. “Shhh…just a little bit more. Look at this messy pussy. You don’t want me to stop.”

He hits you again and you start to hate how much he’s right. You don’t want him to stop, you’re on the verge of coming and he hasn’t even touched you yet. You’re sure the second he’s near your clit you’ll explode.

Both of your cheeks are glowing red and Joel finally stops. You’ve both lost track of how many times he’s hit you. His large palm rubs the marks. You know you should keep your mouth shut, but fuck do you love to rile him up.

“Are you done now? I have work to get back to.”

Joel growls behind you. You hear the sound of his belt undoing, the leather whipping out from the demin loops. “I’m sick of your goddamn mouth, baby girl.”

Your eyes widen in fear, stomach twisting up over the thought of him striking your sore ass with his thick leather belt. Your pussy, however, flutters in excitement. Slut, you think to yourself.

You hear his buckle clinking, he grabs you by the hair and jerks your head back. “Open you mouth,” he says with a snarl. You obey him and he slides the folded up leather between your teeth. “Bite down on this. You can speak to me again once you’ve learned your lesson.”

You press your teeth into the rough leather, waiting for his next move. His hand comes across the back of your thigh and it’s a whole different sensation. The pain shoots straight to your core, the walls of your pussy clenching harder than your teeth do as you whine out a high pitched squeal. On instinct your hands shoot back, knees bending to protect yourself from him. He steps back from you, without his heat you’re left in the cold air.

“Arms up and legs down,” he says in an eerily calm voice.

You whimper again, grinding your teeth against the leather of his belt before slowly peeling your arms and legs away from your body, returning to Joel’s desired position. You’re so wet that it’s staring pool along the leather seat of Joel’s truck, your hips slipping slightly.

“Dirty little thing. I’m tryin to punish you and you’re sopping wet.” He steps forward and lays a loud sharp slap with perfect precision right across your sore thigh.

You yelp again, whining as your lash line fills with tears. This is not what you thought would happen when Joel threatened to punish you. And you definitely didn’t expect to fucking love it. You’re so turned on that you feel dizzy.

Joel’s lips come to your thigh. Light kisses and his scratchy facial hair peppering along your red hot skin. “Fuck me,” you say around the leather clamped between your teeth.

Joel laughs into your skin, kissing along the handprints he’s left on your ass. You’re squirming underneath him, pushing your ass towards his face, desperate for him to make you come. His hands grip around your shorts and your whole body relaxes at the thought of him finally fucking you. “I need you to listen to me now, ok?”

You nod fervently and he lets out an amused laugh. You arch your back at him invitingly, but instead of removing your shorts he yanks them back up. You moan out in protest as he lifts you down from the truck. His strong fingers work to do up your shorts before he spins you. You look like a wreck; mascara smudged under your eyes, cheeks pink, eyes glazed and dopey looking. Cock drunk and he hasn’t even given it to you. He grabs the belt and you release it for him. It’s killing him not to fuck you right here and now.

His hand cups your chin, squeezing your cheeks and locking eyes with you. “Do you want me to fuck you?”

You try to nod but he’s gripping you so tightly. “Yea? Then you need to do what I say. Ok?”

“Mm-hmm”

“Go in there and quit. Then come back out here and I will fuck you so hard that you’ll feel it in your throat.”

Taglist:

@corazondebeskar @hiddenbabynyc @rainstorms-library @smutsmutslut @sullyrocky44 @keylimebeag @pimosworld @casa-boiardi @pedritoferg @paleidiot @lorilane33 @pansexual-potatoes @baar-ur @jessthebaker @jasminedragoon @koshkaj-blog @pedroswife69 @strawberri-blonde @none-of-this-makes-any-sense @iloveenya @javierpena-inatacvest @blazeflays @mermaidgirl30

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heartfullofleeches · 1 month

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[Gremlin Reader hijacks Miller's (Streamer Yan) streams] (gone wrong???)

Gremlin Reader: Evening, chat. While Miller is in the shower - how does it feel knowing your favorite streamer gets pegged by this guy every night? They may have kidnapped me, but I'm the one wearing the pants in this relationship. They're lucky this apartment is soundproof or we'd have people busting down our door from the noise complaints

"Proof?"

"Vids?"

"i honestly don't know who I want to be more..."

Miller, picking them up by the waist: This is news to me. How do I switch places with the Miller you're talking about? I ask if you want to join me in the shower and this is what you get up to instead. You can play with chat after we get you clean

Gremlin Reader, hugging their monitor: Chat. Chat, help me. Don't make me take a shower, chat! DON'T MAKE ME TAKE A SHOWER!

#Miller my oc #yandere #yandere imagines #yandere oc #yandere x reader #yandere scenarios #yandere insert #yandere x you #yandere headcanons #yandere blurb #yandere text #yandere shitpost

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pedropascal-wife1 · 2 months

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🥹 well done Pedro for winning

#pedropascal #Im so proud of you #pedro pascal

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal x y/n #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal imagine #pedro pascal x oc #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal moodboard #joel miller #pedro pascal characters #ppascaldaily #ppascaledit #pedropascaledit

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davosmymaster · 1 year

Text

No Time To Die

TAGS AND WARNINGS - +18, Minors DNI, no explicit smut but sexual themes, whump, a lot of angst, blood, graphic wounds and procedures (?) probably not medically accurate, could be almost gore if you squint, hurt/comfort, two dorks in love, canon-typical violence, near-death experiences. Not based on the game, I don’t know anything about the game and I don’t want spoilers please.

PAIRINGS - Joel Miller x fem!reader

WORD COUNT - 9.6k.

SUMMARY - The main difficulty of being Joel’s closest friend is not falling in love with him, but you still do. Those feelings are buried until you join him on a mission to trade supplies with Bill and Frank. With your life now hanging by a thread, Joel is determined to get you to safety, but the clock is ticking faster than he can run.

A/N - I honestly don’t know what this is. I tried to look for angsty and whumpy fics and couldn’t find any that hit the spot just right; so I wrote my own. This story is set in some time between 2010 and 2020, or so. Bill and Frank are still very much alive. The only warning apart the amount of blood in this, it’s my own knowledge of the English language.

'Breathe'

With a shiver, you try to comply with your own command. The action itself confuses you, and you don't know where exactly in your mind that thought came from; or why. All you know is that a moment ago you were nothing, absolutely nothing, not even human. You forgot your own existence in a still ocean made of black thick ink. The ink is now backtracking, though, but the remnants of it stay in your foggy mind, clouding it as your consciousness comes back in waves.

Waking up from a dream is easy, you just come back into yourself from a nice trip to your own imagination. Regaining consciousness, however, is a little more difficult. Instead of going somewhere, you go inwards into yourself. Your overworked mind, already tired and busy with keeping you alive, doesn't care much about bringing you to any other place so you can die peacefully. No. And the awakening is not as it should be either.

Coming back into yourself is your body crawling its way to the land of the living, with your flesh drenched in tears, blood and sweat; and nails digging firmly into the dirt. At least that's how it feels as you go back and forth between the two worlds, rocked violently by the waves threatening to drown you in its heavy never-ending dream.

You wake up tired, and cold. The first sense that returns is touch; and with it, a pulsing pain radiates from under the right side of your collarbone and all the way down to your chest and back. The —obvious— wound is warmer than the rest of your body. It's like you've grown a second heart right at the borders of the wound; it throbs relentlessly. The second is taste. Your mouth tastes like salt and melted butter; despite not having eaten either in at least three days. Around the dryness of your tongue you feel a sticky liquid swirling around in your mouth, plastered to your gums.

Whatever it is, you cough it out of your mouth. The old blackened blood splatters on the wooden planks below your mouth. Then, a second later, you feel a sprawled hand on your back; and the rest of your consciousness returns with it.

He calls your name. And he, whose presence you'd have recognized even blindfolded, even miles away from there, doesn't appear in your mind for a few seconds. But even half-conscious and at death's gates, his name leaves your mouth with a sigh of relief.

Joel.

"I'm here," he says, his palm now pressing a bit harder into your back, trying to comfort you somehow. If you had been fully aware, you'd have been embarrassed at the relieved groan that had escaped your lips while saying his name. "How are you feeling?"

His voice sounds less muffled now, but the pulsing pain intensifies the closer you are to the surface. A second groan escapes your mouth as the warmth under your collarbone becomes impossible to ignore.

"I know, I know" he says.

Your eyes flutter open. From your point of view there's not much to see except torn wallpaper, your blood stains, and the shadow of a window. You're on the floor, your cheek pressed against the dusty carpet, your body very still laying on them, and Joel rubbing your back.

The room is dark. His fingers enter your field of vision, they dip on the wet blood stains and turn around so Joel can see the sticky fluid staining his fingers. He takes a breath, a gasp, really.

"Goddamnit," he mutters under his breath. His hand stops rubbing your back, and as black stains crawl from the corners of your vision, trying to take you under the waves again, he talks to you:

"I need to turn you around..." he says with a gentle voice. It's like the icing on top of a sour and burnt cake; he's trying to sound caring, but that doesn't change the fact that it's going to hurt like a bitch. "You hear me?" he says, and his voice breaks for a second. Your ears ring, the next thing he says your brain doesn't process it, your vision has been clouded by darkness again...

A scream tores your throat as a shooting pain lights your body on fire. It feels like lightning going through your backbone. Suddenly, the waves are very far away and you're feeling way too conscious for your liking. Despite your pain, Joel is still as careful as he can as he lays you on the floor, now facing the ceiling instead.

The throbbing pain continues, and you blink to get rid of the tears that distort Joel's face. His hand wipes the tears from your face.

"I know," he says. He has a crease between his seemingly angry eyebrows that you had never seen before.

Both hands are roaming your ribs now, before you can even say anything. His warm hands give you shivers as he touches your naked skin. The pain is so unbearable that all you can do to mitigate it is hold your breath. If you could move, you'd be right now curled on the floor like a pretzel. You are not crying anymore, but you'd be lying if you said you weren't close.

"Can you breathe?" he asks then, when he doesn't find any cracks in your ribs by touch alone. You don't respond because you can't find your own voice, and he sounds desperate at this point. "You coughed blood, I need to know if any of your lungs are collapsing."

"It-it hurts..." you wheeze, your eyes tightly shut. For a split second, you wish you were back to being nothing. Being nothing sounds way better than having a gunshot wound in your chest. The bandages, tight over your bones and shoulder, don't mitigate the pain either. If anything, they worsen it. It feels like a tight sock over a painful pustule on your heel.

Worst part is you know all this pain is for nothing; you know you won't make it. If you go back to the QZ, you will be executed. If not, there's nobody to help you except Joel. But even if there were doctors or hospitals, you highly doubted you could find the necessary tools to extract a bullet and stitch the wound. That is, if you manage not to die of blood loss.

"Where?" Joel asks. Even beyond all this concern and well-hidden panic, he seems to cling to an ounce of hope. "Tell me where it hurts."

Your fingers gently trace your skin until they reach the area under your collarbone, and you sign to your back too. There's a bandage there, but nothing else, and that's when you notice you don't have a shirt on, just your blood-soaked bra.

"Is it bad?"

"Not that bad. The bullet went through," he said. That explains the pain on both sides of your body; you have a literal hole in your chest. "And it clotted soon enough to stop the bleeding, but you lost too much blood anyway... Anywhere else?"

Your whole body hurts and this abandoned house suddenly feels like penance, but you don't want to scare him further, so you shake your head no very slowly.

"Alright," he mumbles. Joel nods once, and it looks like he is reassuring himself. His eyes betray him, he looks like he is very far away from here, very buried under all the scenes playing on his mind; but despite his stillness, his lower lip quivers.

You can't move your right arm at all, but with the other hand, your fingers lightly touch his knuckles still resting on your stomach. He winces, and your fingers are wet with his blood too. He must have beaten to death whoever shot you, that you are certain about.

Your voice, little more than a weak breath, whispers:

"I-I want you to do it."

The crease between his eyebrows deepens. He seems confused rather than angry; the reaction you were hoping for. You take a breath to repeat your own words, but he squeezes your hand.

"Don't," he says.

"Joel..."

"Don't even think about it," he snarls. "You are perfectly fine, don't be dramatic."

You don't know what hurts more; his pain or yours, but his denial makes your eyes wet with tears again. This is already hard, but he is making it even harder. All he will achieve by trying to keep you alive is either prolonging his pain or getting himself killed. You both know this is no world for the injured and the sick, not out of the QZ, at least. And in most cases, not inside either.

All you ask of him is to not leave you for the infected to find. Is that too much to ask?

You want to insist, but you know he won't have it. Joel has lost so much already that the thought of losing what little left he has is not even going to cross his mind. Not until it's too late, at least. Also, you don't want your last moments with him to be a fight. You are tired of fighting, of swimming against the current. You just want to let go for once, give in to the external forces, close your eyes and peacefully breathe.

What's more, you should have already known that he wouldn't do you that favor. He is too selfish for that.

He pats your cheeks gently with his large hands, and your eyes, already rolling back into your skull, get focused on him again with a few blinks. You breathe slowly, trying to focus on him, on the world around you slowly twisting and turning.

"...that's it," he says, it doesn't sound like his first sentence, so you guess he's been talking to you before. When you look back at him, his breathing is shallow, and you know he is trying to take a hold of himself too, trying not to give in to panic. "Good girl, that's it. Keep your eyes on me."

Exhausted and hurting as you are, keeping your eyes open it's like asking you not to drop a weight that you cannot, in fact, handle; but you try nonetheless. It's your fault, really, for letting yourself go, for trying to give up on your fight earlier than you should. Joel is here trying to keep you alive, mending all your broken ends and stitching them together —he has always been good at that— while you're just trying to give up on him —you are really good at that too—.

Giving up on Joel has been one of the hardest things you've ever had to do; and now you're letting him go for the last time. Part of you is glad you don't have to keep watching how he chooses Theresa over and over again. You are even relieved that fate —or whatever there is out there— is forcing you out of the equation. After all, you would never have given up fully on him.

He refuses to kill you, what he doesn't know is that you've been dead for a long while now. Him being your executioner would be the kindest act he could have with you, the most intimate thing you'd ever share; your last moments. You want it to be him, you want him to free you from this torment.

He refuses, though; and it feels like a punch to the pit of your stomach. You shiver.

He gets up from his place on the floor, where you are lying just over the carpet. You follow him with your eyes and see a fire cracking up in a fucked-up chimney. He stokes the fire, throws some more wood on it and then comes back to you, covering you with his jacket, the very same jacket you had on before he turned you around. It's warm, his, and you have to stop yourself from sinking your nose into the collar.

"I had to take off your shirt to patch you up," he says, but he doesn't say sorry. Ever. So you guess it's his way of apologizing.

You simply nod, aware that you had wished for this very moment to happen many times before. You had dreamt of his rough hands over your naked flesh, caressing the sides of your body. You had dreamt of him watching you with those chocolate eyes as you took your shirt off, deep black pupils spreading over the brown as he watched the lace fall like a helpless witness.

But now the bra was covered in blood and he was watching you anywhere but the lace. He had a frightened and concerned look on his face, rather than aroused. A look that would have made you feel guilty and ashamed if it had happened in the other scenario. And instead of undressing you, he was covering your body with his jacket as if you were his child.

"What's wrong?" he is asking now, instead of whispering 'I want you' and it hurts all the same to know he's not ever going to say it, and that Tess now will have all those words for however long their lives are.

You guess they were made for each other. And it makes all the sense, really, no one like Joel would ever look at you twice. You were grateful that he even allowed you to be his friend.

"Nothing," you respond.

It's always 'nothing' when it comes to Joel. It's always that nothing whenever he notices you are under the weather. It's always nothing when you are hurt, when someone tries to rob you and they leave an angry black eye on your face. It's always nothing; and he never believes you.

"I don't make promises, you know that," he says, taking your left hand in his. "but you will be fine, I swear."

You don't know what to say, how to explain that you are not scared of death, that you are just scared of not seeing him again. But you can't, so you say nothing and just nod.

Does he want to hurt himself? Okay. You can't do much while lying on the floor anyway.

After that, both of you stay silent. Joel seems to be avoiding looking at you. His eyes are stuck in the fire creaking in the chimney, but they are too restless to be present and conscious of the yellow and orange haze.

Your palm lands on his thigh, your fingers gently brushing the denim. You want to comfort him somehow, but, at the same time, you are scared he will reject your touch and reassurance. That's all you can do for him: no words, no further touching, just a featherlight touch that indicates you are still present. There, with him.

"I thought we couldn't make a fire."

"Don't be dumb. The windows are all broken, it's winter and you are in shock. How else would you heat up?"

"Got it. You're not in a talking mood," you huff. "Alright."

Silence settles between both of you. However, one of his big, rough hands travels to where your fingertips are gently brushing his thigh. At the touch, even if you don't want to let go, your fingers begin to back off. He's not in a good mood, and you seem to be pushing his boundaries a little too much. Except that, instead of letting you go, he catches your hand in his and puts it back over his jean. This time, it's him who brushes his thumb over your knuckles.

For a minute, the only sound in the living room are both your breathing patterns, the flames licking the air and the wind rushing through the broken windows.

"I'm sorry..." you start. And immediately, his brown eyes are all over you again. Your voice sounds exhausted, more than you'd have liked. "...I fucked up the mission. I know-"

"You haven't fucked up anything," he interrupts. That's Joel, all stoic, swallowing his feelings and denying everything that it is not up to his standards. "Would you mind to just rest-"

Your eyes well with tears.

"Joel, for once... Just for once, don't lecture me, don't ignore what I'm trying to say just because you don't want to hear it," you tell him. Then, he thankfully presses his lips together in a pained grimace, but stays silent nonetheless. "I fucked up the mission getting injured. I know it isn't my fault, but it doesn't matter whose fault it is. If you wanna go on without me, I won't blame you."

His fingers are now squeezing yours, but you know he is not even conscious of that. He leans in a little, his cheeks now reddened in anger. He looks like he is about to spit on your face.

"I'm not leaving you anywhere," he says. He looks offended that you even thought he was capable of that. "You and I are gonna get to Lincoln, either if you like it or not. There, Bill and Frank will help you. We have traded all kinds of things with them, and I know they are very well supplied."

"Why would they help me?"

"They are not just people we trade with," he says. His fingertips brush a strand of hair out of your face. "I know they will."

"What if they changed their minds?"

His pupils lock into your own, his jawline swells as he grits his teeth.

"I'm persistent."

The mission was supposed to be an easy one. Walk out of the QZ undetected, walk fifteen miles to the town of Lincoln, just outside Boston, get our things and come back. Our cargo were the two last spools of aluminum that Joel had promised to trade with them and two packets of seeds. Theirs? Two pounds of rolling tobacco and a gun. Tess couldn't make it, she had appointments with other smugglers, probably the ones who snuck the drugs in; which was more than half of their business. If it wasn't that important, she wouldn't have stayed in the QZ for anything in the world. But Bill and Frank were also important, and Joel couldn't go alone.

The two of you should be home by now, and you wondered if Tess was regretting her decision of asking you to go with him. Last night you had both snuck out of the Boston QZ; and it usually didn't take more than six hours to get to Lincoln. But just outside the city you had bumped into raiders; and a stray bullet had hit you. Now you were stranded in a small cabin lost in the woods, about seven miles away from Lincoln; and unable to walk a single step.

And to top it all off, Joel was enraged and neurotic.

Still with the same expression, he takes your wrist and squeezes two fingers into it. Even if you had preferred him not to, knowing that your heartbeat got wild whenever he was around. You let him check on you, hoping that if your symptoms got better he would let you have a quick nap. Your nervousness, however, doesn't improve despite your efforts of trying to calm yourself down.

"Since when are you a doctor?"

He lets your wrist go, then gets back on his feet and gets his rifle.

"You should rest. You'lll need it," he says, now heading to the entrance. He's gonna be standing on guard all night, you are sure of that. "We're leaving tomorrow morning."

That is when you lose it. You can't believe he is that blind, that caught up in his own world.

"I know in your perfect fantasy this is just a scratch, but I truly can't move, Joel. Even laying here awake is hard. How am I supposed to follow...? Joel!"

But he's out of the house before you even finish the sentence.

[***]

Joel doesn't keep his word.

A few hours later, not even near dawn yet, you get pulled back from a dream. Your eyes take a few minutes to register your surroundings; again. And the memories gallop back to your mind in a rush; accompanied by the burning and piercing pain on the upper right side of your chest. Your eyes shut tight, and you inhale a shallow breath. Even breathing hurts.

"We need to go," Joel whispers. His voice sounds muffled, especially over the sound of your beating heart. "C'mon, wake up."

He is once again rocking you rather than shaking you awake. Just to be able to fall asleep you had rolled back into your chest, cheek once again firmly pressed against that twenty-year-old dusty carpet. When he came back from checking the perimeter, not even five minutes after your argument, he placed his backpack right under your stomach so your right side was elevated. You wouldn't have been able to fall asleep if it wasn't for that. The pain was maddening, atrociously painful. Joel had found you gritting your teeth even in your sleep.

He had said you'd leave the next day, but you felt like not even minutes had passed.

"Morning," you complained, half a grunt accompanying your words. Joel shook you gently again when he saw you relax a second time, and your voice came back. "Y-you said...mor-"

"I know what I said but we can't wait any longer," he answered. "I'm gonna sit you up."

Fear pumped enough adrenaline into your system to wake you up. The ache from before rushed back into your mind, and your 'please' and 'wait' left your mouth like a prayer.

"I can do it," you said, but it sounded more like begging than an affirmation.

"I know you can," he lied. As your eyes opened and you saw his expression —eyes focused on you, trembling hands, half of his face hidden in the shadows, the other half gently licked by the orange-like haze of the dying fire— you understood that you had to be in a really bad condition for him to look at you that way, and feel the need to lie to make you feel better. But then, a second right after that, his shoulders relaxed, his eyes fluttered between your face and the surface of his jacket over your shoulders. His stoic mask was back on. "I'm just gonna help you, okay? But you do it."

He did not, in fact, let you do it.

You had managed to lift yourself barely an inch over the carpet, using all the strength left in your healthy arm, when both his hands curled around your side and pulled you up to his chest. Clenching your jaw, you allowed him to drag you a few feet back and into a seating position against the wall; your whole weight over the left side of your body.

"Don't lean on the other side, your shoulder blade is broken."

"Oh..." you almost chuckled. "Great."

For a second, Joel looks at you as if you were completely insane. He reaches for his backpack, crouching on the place where you were lying just seconds prior. Then takes his flask and doubts when passing it on.

"I'm not that desperate for water," you respond, reaching for the flask and drinking a gulp of the liquid. You swallow despite the soreness in your throat. "Next thing you'll do is spit food into my mouth."

"Not even getting shot shuts your fucking mouth, does it?" he says, grossed out at your comment. However, a smile tugs at the corners of his lips. Relaxing him has a calming effect on you too.

You try to pass him the flask again, but he refuses.

"No," he says. "Drink it all. You'll need it."

You look at him with narrowed eyes, confused. It's hard to keep a single thought in your head other than the throbbing pain in your chest and back, but you still try. Rather than asking him how you are supposed to walk seven miles, with the aluminum and his pack, you try to approach the matter another way.

"What's the plan?"

He takes a deep breath.

"You're not gonna like it," he says, his deep voice almost slurring the words. It's barely a whisper. He looks into your eyes, then. "I'm gonna carry you."

"What?"

"You heard me."

There's not an ounce of doubt in his eyes. Joel has that look of determination, the one you only really see when he has his eyes set on something really fucking important for him; most times that includes his own brother or not talking about the times before the outbreak. And with that look on his face, you know there's nothing you could possibly say or do to make him reconsider his own words. He's stubborn like that.

You still try.

"It's seven miles, Joel..." you tell him on a thready voice, a whisper. And Joel sighs through his nose —as if he had forgotten. "And we have to carry..."

"We leave everything here," he says. "Come back for it later."

"They won't let us in empty-handed."

"You don't know them."

For Joel to be so certain about it, certain enough as to put both your life and his on the hands of strangers; you understand that their relationship goes beyond trading. Joel had told you about them, about their situation and the first time Tess and him had shared dinner with Bill and Frank. Still, you were suspicious of them, and you thought that he was too; up until now, at least.

"It's still seven miles," you tell him, and you know him, you know he's about to stop talking to you and leave the room if you don't, at least, partly give in to his reasoning. "...are you sure you wanna do it?"

His pleading brown eyes engulf you, then, with an emotion he had never showed before. His gaze diverts for a second to your wound, to the bandages that, as you look at them, you find they are once again covered in blood. They are soaked in it, the skin surrounding it has a large black bruise —internal bleeding, you guess. And when you try to take a full deep breath, you find yourself unable to, at least not at full capacity.

The understanding hits you, then. You don't have much time left.

"I don't have any other choice," Joel says, but what he means is 'I don't want to lose you'.

"Okay."

Not even a full second has passed from your reluctant acceptance, but he is already on his feet. Joel walks to the only table in the room, takes your gun and puts it in his hip, right inside the jean. The only other thing he takes apart from ammo is another set of bandages —and he silently thanks whatever it is out there that he put those there a month ago—. He doesn't have anything to clean the wound, though; and one of his biggest fears is that it might already be infected. Even bandaged it looks bad.

He approaches you, crouches down so he is facing the wound.

"I'm going to tighten the bandage, and I have to keep the pressure," he says, loosening the knot. His fingers are once again stained with you blood, and he has to fight the images of him pressing on your wound from a few hours ago, when he had found you and, with trembling hands, had tried to stop the bleeding coming out in waves. He looks at you, trying to forget the awful picture of your eyes closed, your body limp on the ground. "Bite something."

You reach for the sleeve of his jacket, the one hanging from your shoulders; and put the padded cuff of his jacket into your mouth.

Joel doesn't give you a warning; and you're not sure if that's a good or bad thing, either. He presses the heel of his hand right over the covered hole in your chest, with such strength that you wonder if he will end up breaking your clavicle in half. As he presses your body against the wall, you can almost feel the cracked bones in your back smashing against each other.

Needless to say, the pain is blinding. The view of the room, the feeling of his heat around you, the scent of him under your nose... all gone in a matter of seconds. Your vision turns white, all your senses stop functioning. Over the scream that falls from your lips, muffled by the jacket, you hear him say:

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

He lets go, and your vision immediately darkens, the shadows flowing from the corners of the room quick to reach you. With your last grip on reality you feel yourself melting against the wall, slowly slipping to the side. Joel catches you before you hit the floor.

Cold water is what brings you back. Your breathing quickens at the coldness of it, and the next thing you feel are his wet hands palming your cheeks, throwing water from his flask all over your face.

"C'mon," he mumbles. "I need you awake."

Your eyes flutter open, your whole body relaxed now that he's not applying pressure; but alert enough that your unfocused eyes make a single shape out of him.

While coming back into yourself, Joel does not have any time to lose. He takes his jacket over your shoulders and slips your left arm inside the sleeve, the other, where the wound is, he decides to leave it as it is; and buttons it over your chest so you're not exposed.

"You good?"

In any other situation you'd have said some joke, or just something to piss him off. But as of right now, nothing comes to your clouded mind; and even if something did come, you're too exhausted to even do the mental effort to say it. So you just nod.

"Okay," he nods too, talking to himself inside his head, then takes your face in his hands and looks into your eyes. "You're fine, you hear me? I'm gonna carry you and you're gonna be on my back; so I need you talking all the damn time, alright?

You nod again.

"Starting now."

"Y-yes... okay."

"Good," he says. His hand crawls to the back of your neck, and he joins both your foreheads. He takes quick breaths. He's terrified when he whispers. "You're doing so good. I'm so proud of you."

"Y-you... are?"

"Mm-hmm," he says. And as his words settle into your brain, you feel your chest warm. When you open your eyes and he separates, there's a tear on his cheek, but he's quick to wipe it off. "I'm gonna open the front door."

It's just an excuse, you both know it, but neither dares to say anything. None of you wants to talk about the elephant in the room, the fact that your chances are slim even if this works.

Joel returns quickly, with his lashes wet and reddened eyes. It makes you speechless, to know that all this effort and tears are for you. You'd have never, in a million years, thought you'd ever see Joel Miller cry; let alone for you. He had always been so quiet, so detached from everyone, even from Tess.

Without a word, his hands get hooked on the underside of your thighs. He lifts you up, seemingly effortlessly, and your inner thighs surround his hips. You take a deep breath, again —or at least try to— as you try not to blush and show those feelings you buried long ago. This is not the time, nor the place; so you allow your head to follow his range of motion; forwards. Soon, your nose is pressed against the lapels of his denim shirt. With your good arm, you grab one of his broad shoulders. The other falls limp, and even that little movement hurts like hell.

He freezes, his shoulders now stiff under your hand. His beard grazes your jaw as he tries to look at you, so still in his arms.

"You okay?"

"Yeah..."

Better than okay, you want to respond. Better than I've been in a long time. But you don't.

He leaves you on the table, on the edge, with your legs dangling. His eyes waver for a second as he leaves you there, his hands squeeze your knees in such a brief movement that you wonder if he was even conscious of that. He looks like he wants to say something, but he can't think of what, so he turns around and bends his knees a little to get you to a good height.

"I need you to push yourself up with your good arm," he instructs. "and keep the other still, okay?"

"Okay," you respond, fighting the urge to just nod instead.

Not even following his instructions to a t saves you from the pain. The effort, even with your arm limp in the air, makes your body shudder and an agonizing stab runs through your whole spine. The scream that tores from the depths of your throat is so intense that Joel hesitates to put you back on the table, his back trembles for a second as his body shivers in distress. But, in the end, he has you in the air with a good hold.

He waits, but doesn't hear anything except shallow breaths, doesn't feel anything but the weight of your head over his shoulder.

"You with me?" he asks. He is seconds away from aborting the mission.

"Y-yeah..."

Your arm surrounds his neck loosely. Your fist is closed tightly, grabbing the other shoulder, and he wishes he could touch you, give you some kind of comfort, but he can't let go from his grip under your knees.

Joel does not have the privilege of time, every second is precious, so not even giving it a try, he starts walking as if you weighted nothing. He crosses the front door and the freezing cold wind of the East Coast cuts your cheeks. If he notices —and you know that he has, wearing just his shirt in the middle of the night— he doesn't react.

"Remember what I told you?" he asks.

In less than a minute he has crossed the space from the cabin to the highway, where you were surprised by raiders. You look around, see the bodies of five men sprawled on the floor; lifeless, drowning in a pool of their own blood. One of them has his face mauled to nothing. The sight is so sickening —or maybe you are getting so ill— that a sudden dizziness takes hold of your shivering body.

"Hey..."

"I'm sorry..." you start, teeth chattering from the cold. "I'm sorry I screamed into your ear earlier."

A sound, half a relieved sigh and half a chuckle, leaves his mouth.

"I'm half deaf from that ear anyway."

A light chuckle falls from your lips too. Joel keeps walking west through the highway, and you keep yourself desperately clinging to him for dear life. The moon is your only other companion; without her, you both would be completely blind in the darkness of the night.

[***]

Joel probably hadn't thought about the possibility of taking breaks along the way. That's why, fourty-five minutes later, and under a beautiful sunrise of orange tones, he's struggling to keep going. His knees are screaming for him to stop, his biceps and hands tired of walking with a person's weight over his shoulders. And for the first time in years he remembers the times before the outbreak, when he was capable of lifting and moving huge pieces of furniture; often times on his own, other times with just Tommy.

He might have overestimated his own strength, assuming he was as strong as before. But it seems that not only his mental health has deteriorated after Sarah's death, no. All of him has become older and darker and more broken since then. He hardly recognizes himself in the mirror anymore.

"Joel?"

"Yeah..." he gasps, out of air. "Sorry, I got distracted. You were saying...?"

It is in moments like this that he hates not to be that same person he was before. He wonders if he is, finally, paying for his past sins, for all the people, infected or not, that he has killed.

It is unfair, the fact that you're paying for his piper.

"You should stop for a while," you tell him, your voice low like a whisper. The warm air from your mouth slithers across his skin, up his neck, over his ear, and almost sends a shiver down his spine.

"No."

"Joel..." you huff. Before speaking again, you take a big gulp of air. "We are not getting anywhere if you don't take breaks. You'll just wear yourself off before we reach the halfway mark."

His mind refuses to agree, but it's as if his body takes a relieved breath when he hears the words. Little by little, his body starts to listen to you before his mind does. His thighs are screaming, sore from the pain of exertion; and before he acknowledges, even, his body has stopped moving.

"Okay," he gasps, quick tired breaths quickly entering and leaving his lungs. "...but just a minute, we don't have time for this bullshit."

"Okay," you say, in the same tone he used earlier with you; when he lied and said he knew you could sit up on your own. "Just a minute."

He pulls to the side of the road, and with the last of his strength he kneels down and tries to lay you on the ground as carefully as possible. You fall on your ass on the wet ground, but at least you don't hurt yourself on the spot. He asks you for the millionth time in the last twenty-four hours if you are okay.

"I think I'm doing better than you," you respond, but your voice is so exhausted that Joel would love to just lay next to you and lull you to sleep.

He turns around, his whole weight sitting on the grass as he takes gulps of oxygen. His eyes shut tightly, he wipes off a tear of sweat from his temple and looks at you.

Wide-open eyes stare back at you, but just for a split second. He gets closer, his thumb brushing the shoulder of the brown jacket, his brown jacket. His eyes pierce yours.

"Are you sure?"

"That bad do I look?"

Joel doesn't look at you, not at your face getting paler by the second or the dark circles under your eyes, or your hair now dishevelled. He sees you on his memories and can barely recognize you; your skin and eyes always glowing under the sun, your hair always perfectly done. Your job was often to act as an HR for their clients, and very rarely took actual FEDRA jobs that stained your hands; you weren't like Joel, you didn't care about rations or money or whatever.

Expert fingers gently tug at the buttons, unbuttoning them so he could take a look to the wound. He had barely a glimpse of it when your fingers stopped his hands. Joel looks at you with those puppy eyes, as if you were about to faint in the next second.

"If you wanted to see me naked you didn't have to wait until I got shot, you know?"

You had said it in a playful manner, kidding, as a joke; but he saw beyond that. Part of you had only expected him to laugh, the other was dying —not pun intended— for him to kiss you. You'd have never said it if you weren't in this position, you'd have never gotten in between Joel and Tess.

However, he didn't laugh, didn't make any funny remark. The way he looked at you, from under his eyebrows, lit a spark of hope somewhere inside you. Deep, deeper than your conscious mind would have ever reached. Joel didn't say anything, not even chuckled. His eyes came back to the wound, and uncovered the full sight of it.

He had to fight a shocked gasp. His eyes fluttered, while holding his breath, between your own face and the wound. The bandage was still soaked in blood, that he had expected, but not the large bruise growing into your neck; or your right hand slightly paler than the other. He lifted, with trembling fingers, a corner of the bandage, and his action caused a trickle of dark blood to gush out, as if he had crushed a piece of watermelon between his fingers and it was now running down his arm. He looked below, inside his jacket, and saw a trail of blood that landed right into your navel.

This time, it was impossible for him not to react. Not only his face, but also his body. He tried to get back on his two feet again, but before he finished the action, your fist closed around his wrist.

"Joel..." he heard you call.

"We need to go, now."

Pressing your lips in a sad smile, you pulled him to the ground and he sat, mesmerised on that face he had only yet seen once; that time when he got too drunk on a Friday night and told you about Sarah at three in the morning. He felt his pulse quicken, his heart beating at the ends of his fingertips.

"It's okay," you told him. Your gentle touch brushed his palm, danced around over his tan skin. "You can rest."

Joel felt like he was in a fever dream. The setting certainly felt like it. You hadn't left the Boston QZ in a long while, and he had never pictured you out of those big silver walls either. He had not agreed to Tess' idea either, the dangers beyond the walls were almost impossible to escape. Still, Tess and him knew the city, they could get out fairly easily, had done that for a couple years to share stories over dinner with Bill and Frank. And Joel had loved the idea of seeing you sitting at that dinner table next to him, surrounded by a garden full of flowers, going through the dresses in the boutique that Tess had sworn you'd love.

He had not signed up for this.

"We need to go, please..." he tried a second time, but you just shook your head. He understood, somehow, what you meant.

"A minute won't make a difference," you told him. In reality, you wanted to tell him that you'd be dead when he got the both of you to Lincoln, anyway. "If you are tired we will never get there."

Useless and powerless as he felt, his only option was waiting. He took your hand, intertwined his fingers with yours and took a deep breath. You had never seen him so upset.

"What are you so scared of?"

At your words, his lower lip quivered slightly; it would almost have gone unnoticed if it wasn't because you had been watching him attentively for so many years. He looked at you, eyes barely half open, from under his eyelashes.

"You're very important to me," he said. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, he seemed to be even more breathless than he was before. Joel had a hard time admitting his feelings, even to himself. "I don't know if you understand to what extent you're important to me."

"I know..." you answered, nodding, your hand squeezed his for a second, trying to give him strength. "But you have Tess home, and your brother loves you... It will hurt for a while..."

"Shut. Up."

His eyes were tightly shut when he said it. It was a metaphor, almost, the way his eyes were closed not just to the physical world, but to the whole situation too that he couldn't escape from.

The tip of your tongue wetted your lips.

"What I'm trying to say is... it will pass..."

His chest heaved, his gaps the only sound that filled the space between the two of you. And you continued:

"People die all the time, Joel; and most times we can't do anything about it."

His body rushed at you, his hands locked perfectly on both your cheeks, like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle finally in place.

"Not you, you hear me? Not you," he almost growled, his face a mixture of anger, determination, and grief. "Never you. You're not allowed to leave me. I will never forgive you."

There was something hidden between the lines, something Joel wasn't saying. It was something you had denied yourself for a long time, for years, something you had insisted on not seeing because you didn't want to see it. Because, deep down, you were afraid that Joel would never love you back, that he would break your heart, that the only good man you'd ever known inside the walls of the Boston QZ would also be the one to abandon you to your luck.

Joel had been your family for so long, and you had unconsciously protected yourself from seeing him as something else. But now there it was, clearly, latent in his confession. Your punishment for years of silence was now time, or rather, the lack of it.

"I'm not giving up," he said. "and I need you not to give up either."

He's close. His hot breath smells sweet -so instinctively Joel- and it's all around your face. His flesh is warm over the freezing skin of your cheeks. His body around you is shelter, is home.

Joel is soon leaning in. He's all erratic breathing, rapid heartbeat and trembling hands; and as you close your eyes to allow his presence to swallow you like a black hole, he closes his eyes too.

He doesn't let go, not just yet. He breathes in into your quick breaths the same way you revel in his.

"I need an answer," he whispers over your mouth.

"I won't, either."

At first it's like a collision. He kisses you angrily for a split second, demanding and impatient; then, once he knows this is really happening, once he does understand that this is —finally— not a dream, he relaxes into your touch, your fingers delineating his jawline, caressing the beard there.

He's quick, quicker than you'd have expected him to be; definitely quicker then he would have liked. He separates, then; and looks down at his jacket and the drops of blood staining the insides of it. It's not enough blood to send you into shock again, but it means part of the wound is ripping. You need stitches, not just a couple of bandages.

"Enough resting then," he says.

[***]

Seven miles is usually nothing for Joel. In the first few months trading with Bill and Frank, Tess and him usually walked the fifteen miles that separated the city and the town at least twice a month. But this is all the more difficult, not just carrying you there, but knowing that he is running out of time.

And you seem hellbent on making the journey even more difficult.

"So...Tess?"

"Pass."

You huff, and the warm air sends a shiver down his spine; but he says nothing.

"Okay."

Your voice sounds so disappointed that he feels a pang of guilt. You know him better than to insist, and he knows that too. The guilt increases, though; and now he's inhaling a big gulp of air while still walking as fast as he possibly can without hurting his own knees.

"We fucked a few times, before," he says. "but that doesn't mean anything. She's my colleague. That's all."

If he was better with words, and feelings, he could say that he didn't feel anything for her. He could say that their hookups were nothing, just a fun thing they used to do before, before he realized that the one who he really wanted was you. A few months back he had realized that it never actually satisfied him, that those moments with Tess weren't as fun and innocent as they seemed to be before. They had talked about it, of course. He didn't want to play with her feelings, and that had been the end of it. She was just as fine without him, anyway.

"I thought you two were dating."

"If selling drugs for a living is what you call dating, then yes."

Without even looking at you, he knew you were smiling, he could almost feel your lips stretching over his shirt.

"I..." you said, then he heard you take another deep breath before talking again. "I'm sorry I asked you," another breath. "I... ran out of things to say."

His brow furrowed in confusion.

"You can say anything," he says. "Anything you really like, even a story."

Anything just to know you're there...

"Well..." you started. Then, a wheezing noise filled the air, followed by a gasp. "I... liked rock music-" silence. "...back in the day."

"You okay?"

Your fist tightened around his shoulder, your forehead pressing against his trapezius. He heard that wheezing sound again, followed by a pant. His hands squeezed harder the tender flesh under her knees.

Joel tried to look at her, but all he could see from his peripheral vision was the top of her head and one eye tightly closed. His throat turned into knots.

"Baby..." that was the most gentle tone you had ever heard coming from his mouth. "C'mon baby. Hold on, we're almost there."

His whole body felt paralyzed, and he had to force himself to keep walking.

What he didn't know was that your lungs were burning. They felt like a pair of balloons squeezing against your ribs, trying to expand beyond its cage. And it made all the pain in your back, from the shot, double as painful. The air you tried to swallow so bad, sounded like a whistle, like the breeze through an almost closed window. You were suffocating.

"Talk to me, c'mon."

With a painful drag of air, you complied.

"I can't..." your fist tightened around the fabric of his shirt. "I can't."

"Goddamnit..." he was panicking now. "Okay, that's okay baby. Just hold on to me, don't let go."

Unable to do anything else, you just nodded as best you could and kept on holding on to him. His eyes desperately looked for signs of the town, and far away, in the distance, the row of trees ended; and he walked faster, hoping that Bill had already seen the both of you through the cameras.

"J-Joel"

You struggled to find air, and, therefore, the words.

"Easy, easy" he said. "Just a bit more. You can do it, I know you can."

His words lingered in the air, unanswered, not even him fully believed them. Joel was starting to feel his own shirt wet with blood from your wound. The feeling made him sick, his own imagination as he pictured what Bill was watching through the cameras, made it all a hundred times worse.

He kept hearing the panting, the wheezing, becoming more desperate by the second. He realized, with horror, that you were suffocating righ there, on his back; from a collapsing lung, he guessed.

He shouted Bill's name as he saw the fence that separated them from the town. Joel wasn't sure if he could hear him, but tried anyway.

He felt your grip on his shirt hesitate, and he had to fight the instinct to squeeze your hand; if he had done it, you'd have fallen from his own grip. He heard you try and say his name.

"Save it," he responded, even if it came out not as reassuring as he would have liked. "Don't try to talk."

Before he reached the fence, it was already opening. Bill came out running, yelling something that he was too distracted to distinguish, Frank came behind him. Joel felt his knees wobble once through the gate. And now kneeling on the floor, he called your name, tried to turn his head to take a glimpse of you.

"You did it. We're here."

He noticed, then, that everything seemed all too silent. Everything that happened after that, happened very quickly. The hand that had been gripping his shirt slipped, limp over his shoulder.

His mind disconnected, completely unaware of the other two people approaching. He released you with all the care that a person could have had, and his arms immediately caught you in an embrace. The sight of your closed eyes made him panic, and not having even checked your pulse, he buried his face into your neck and sobbed.

Trails of blood ran through his forearms, and he threw up all the words that passed through his mind; a string of 'please stay' and 'I'm sorry'.

"Joel," Frank struggled with him, fingers digging into his shoulder. "Joel you have to let go. Let us help her."

He was too far gone, so much so that once your body hit the floor, Frank didn't allow him to touch you again. He sobbed, and, for a second, Bill saw himself in him. He would have never thought he would see Joel in this state, but yet there he was. He kept pressure on the wound, and saw himself in Joel, and Frank in you; and promised he would never let this happen to the two of them.

Never.

[***]

The sun comes out the next morning. As it always does, as it always has. Orange light and blue skies illuminate the room, the clouds shine a different color; and Joel blinks; absolutely exhausted, devastated.

His body is heavy, even if he's not holding any of his weight. He's sitting on the cold tiles, on the floor, his sore knees and thighs in the space under the bed, his head lying on the mattress, his whole body is bent over and it feels like jelly. His eyes are the only thing moving, they look at the window and see the night sky turn into daylight.

Joel couldn't possibly say that he slept in that position; because he didn't actually sleep. He hasn't had a second of sleep since you got shot two days ago. Lying on the bed, is you, dormant; and his thumb draws circles on the back of you hand even if he's not paying attention to it. It comforts him to a degree, at least.

Suddenly, pretty much everything has lost its meaning. Frank opens the door an hour later, almost tripping with the tray of food and water that he left the night before for Joel. He hasn't touched any of it. In fact, he forgot about it, but if it bothers him, Frank doesn't say anything. He takes it in his hands so he can take it to the kitchen downstairs.

"We played 'I will survive' in the radio" he whispers before leaving. "It's a 70s song, but Tess will get the meaning."

"Thank you," he mutters, his mouth pasty from barely speaking in the last twenty-four hours. Funnily enough, the only word he's said to them is 'thank you'.

"You're welcome, Joel," he says. After a few seconds, waiting, he makes a dissatisfied sound. Frank approaches Joel, his palm squeezing his shoulder. "You should eat something, at least. Is there anything you want?"

Joel looks at him, lifting his cheek from the mattress for the first time. His eyes are blood-shot and black circles adorn his eyes.

"Coffee."

"Not coffee, you need sleep."

He huffs, his eyes lost in the window again. Frank, knowing he won't get anything from him again, vanishes behind the door and into the kitchen. He will bring him warm food later, hoping the smell will make him eat something despite his unwillingness to listen to any signal of hunger from his own body.

A few moments later, your hand slips from his. As he loses your touch, a pang hits the pit of his stomach. But then, as he lifts from the mattress again, your fingertips lightly touch his chin, your thumb lovingly brushing his beard.

"Baby?"

Maybe he lost his sense of time, because he didn't expect you to wake up yet. In any case, when he sees your eyes open he practically pounces on the bed. He sits on the edge, and swallows the image of you looking at him.

"Morning."

He smiles at your words, feels his strength coming back into his body.

"You're here," he says.

Even beaten up as you look, he thinks you are gorgeous. Your face has regained its usual color, the bruising is coming down, changing colors little by little, the wound is stitched and bandaged, and the blood flow seems to reach your fingertips normally once again. Joel has no idea how Bill fixed the collapsing lung, he had said something about medical knowledge being necessary in the field too, but he hadn't paid attention. He doesn't care about the details, though. He just cares that you're safe and sound, and despite the close call, that has seemed to be the end result to this whole dilemma.

There's no blood in sight, not even in the bandages. Frank had washed the blood from your hair the day before, and Joel had helped with the rest. He wished he could have you like this everyday: happy, clean, safe...

In the last few hours Joel had discovered he was jealous. He wished he had a town like Lincoln all to himself, just so he could see you picking flowers in the front garden.

"I'm here," you told him. The words felt like strawberries in his mouth. "and I'm not giving up on you."

He released a breath he didn't know he was holding, leaned in for both your foreheads to meet, and kissed you.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x f!reader #tlou fanfic #tlou spoilers #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal x female reader #the last of us fanfic #pedro pascal x oc

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joelslastofus · 22 days

Text

[SUMMARY: Joel sleeps with his innocent married next door neighbor after fixing her sink.]

Smut

“He could see the guilt you felt, the confusion you felt when you suddenly smacked him across the face. He barely moved, accepting your hit with his hand still around your waist.”

The phone sitting right beside you, Joel could read the name on the called ID. It was your husband.

“Answer it” he whispered.

A tiny hint of Javier Peña in this

“Damn it, Henry” you sighed checking under your sink to see it was leaking much more than earlier. Of course your husband was coming home late once again from work leaving you to a messy kitchen. The water over flowing and it being late in the evening you knew no plumber would be available to come now. The thought of asking your neighbor Joel Miller was tempting but also a bit embarrassing this late in the day. Joel knew you and he knew your husband, the two of them weren’t exactly friends but whenever they’d see each other they’d have a quick talk about whatever game was going on. With a sigh you snapped yourself out of it and marched yourself to Joel’s front door.

It didn’t take long before Joel opened his door, intrigued to find you on the other end.

“Stella” he greeted you with half a smile.

“Hey, Joel…I’m sorry for bothering late. Henry won’t be back until God knows what time and my sink is leaking and-“

“Say no more,” he chuckled before calling out to Tommy letting him know where he would be.

Grabbing some tools from the back of his truck he followed you to your house right behind you. Not being able to stop himself from enjoying the view of the way you walked up the stairs, the move of your hips with each step his eyes were glued to your ass.

“Sorry again about this” he quickly looked up as you turned around opening the door for him.

“Don’t worry about it, darlin’” Joel always had a way with words, yet it wasn’t exactly what he said but more of how he said it.

Standing to the side you watched how he got to work under your sink. One of his legs lay flat while the other was bent, you couldn’t help but notice his navy blue shirt being pulled up slightly, revealing a light soft patch of hair that led to his-

“How long has this been like this?” Joel’s question distracting your thoughts, distracting your eyes.

“Oh uh-Henry tried to fix it but-“

“Yeah I could see that” he chuckled, his arms flexing as he worked. There you were again checking out Joel as he lay under your sink when your house phone rang.

“Not again, Henry” Joel heard you speak with disappointment, he couldn’t help but take a peak at you as stood by the counter.

“We’ve had to change it so many times, silly me for thinking you’d prioritize your wife” Joel looked down at you and watched as you sadly hung up the phone and pushed it aside. Before you knew it he was finished wiping his hands clean.

“That’s it?”

“Yes mam’” he smiled yet noticed the sadness in your eyes.

“Everything alright?”

“Yeah” you sighed not being able to hide the disappointment you felt.

“Henry and I made four years last week and we’ve yet to celebrate it because theres always a reason for him to come home late, even bought this damn bottle of wine to surprise him,” you rolled your eyes. Joel tilted his head and crossed his arms listening to what you had to say.

“I can’t remember the last time we went on a date and we don’t even have children keeping us busy…ain’t that sad?” You chuckled sarcastically.

“I even bought this new stupid dress I’m wearing now to see if he’d like it and now I’m blabbing away-“

“You look beautiful in it” Joel’s compliment completely catching you off guard.

“Thank you” he watched as your eyes lit up before you realized you hadn’t even offered him a glass of water.

“Oh god, how rude am I? Would ya like a glass of water or tea? Coffee?”

“How about wine?” A playful look in his eyes as he motioned to the bottle you had just mentioned.

“You know what….why not?” You grabbed two glasses and the wine opener, pouring each a cup. Joel watched as you took a sip from your cup and tried to hold back a smile.

“What cha smiling about?” Joel asked with a smirk.

“If my husband knew I was standing here having wine with you-“ you laughed as he stepped closer to you.

“How would he feel about that? ” He asked curiously, a squint in his eyes.

“He probably wouldn’t like it” you looked down with embarrassment.

“Oh yeah?” He took another step closer.

“Or he’s probably too distracted right now with his secretary anyways too wonder what the hell I’m doing” you rolled your eyes before chugging the remainder of your wine. You always suspected your husband wasn’t faithful. Joel watched as you wiped your lips still lost in thought before you realized he was staring at you.

“Sorry- I know you don’t care to hear about any of that”

“Hmm..I don’t know darling I just find it hard to believe a man could get distracted with another woman when he has you at home” a light shade of red appearing on your cheeks as you quickly looked away. It had been a while since another man flirted with you so directly you didn’t know how to respond. Quickly pouring yourself another glass Joel chuckled as you chugged down what you poured. Silently he walked towards you, slowly pulling the glass away from your lips and setting it aside. You could feel your heart racing, leaning back against the counter as he looked down at your lips.

Was this actually happening?

“Joel” you whispered as his eyes found yours, his hands gently falling on your hips.

“You..you now I’m married..” you whispered as he pressed his body against yours. He was hesitant for a moment, analyzing your face.

“Happily?” His question making you react with a look of defeat.

No you weren’t happy, you hadn’t been for a long time and Joel could always see it whenever he saw you and your husband together yet you never expected this from Joel.

You couldn’t respond and before you even realized, he closed the distance between your lips and kissed you sending a shock through your body. Your eyes were open as he took you by surprise, his hand slowly closing around your waist pulling you harder against him before he gently parted away.

“I’d be a liar if I said I hadn’t thought of doing this for some time now” he whispered, his lips brushing against your forehead.

“This ain’t very much gentleman like of me but for some reason….I don’t care” he smirked before kissing you again. This time you closed your eyes, your hands brushing up his chest and wrapping around his neck, your body melting into his. You were losing control forgetting what was right or wrong, he pushed aside the dishes behind you and quickly lifted you up onto the counter without parting his lips from yours. His hands sliding under your dress making you gasp and turn away from his lips.

“Joel….” You whispered. No other man beside your husband had touched you in almost a decade.

“I…I’ve never done this before…I have a husband” you spoke as if you were trying to remind yourself of the man you married. Joel could tell this was the first time any other man aside from your husband touched you. The thought giving him a rush.

Refusing to look up into his deep brown eyes barely able to make out your words you swallowed nervously.

“This is…it’s wrong” you made the mistake of looking up at him and found him staring at your lips, yearning to feel more of them.

“So tell me to stop” he whispered before looking up into your eyes.

“Tell me to stop and I promise I’ll leave, darlin’”

You knew you couldn’t.

You didn’t want him to.

Slowly you could hear the sound of him unbuttoning his jeans, his lips pressed against your cheek before slowly finding yours again. Joel knew you had never done something like this before, somehow that intrigued him more. He moved slowly, giving you the chance to stop him but he knew damn well you wouldn’t. Feeling his hands between your thighs you felt him slowly slide your underwear off your legs, throwing them to the side. Shoving your dress higher he positioned himself right at your entrance slowly sliding himself in you. Breathing each other in you moaned as his thrust pushed your body up against the wall. It felt exactly like you what you wanted.

What you needed.

Your arms slow grabbing onto his shoulders as he penetrated you deeply. A louder moan than you expected escaped your lips, Joel smirked looking down at how much you creamed all over his cock.

“Look at that..” he whispered roughly.

“Wanted it that bad, huh?” He thrusted harder when the house phone rang making you gasp. The phone sitting right beside you, Joel could read the name on the called ID.

It was your husband.

“Answer it”

“What?” You panted as he continued to move into you.

“Answer it” he demanded, his hand sliding behind your neck grabbing a chunk of your hair. A look you had never seen from him as he eagerly waited for you to do as he said.

Looking at the caller ID your heart sunk, what the hell was Joel thinking?

“Joel..I can’t” you whispered when he tugged at your hair.

“Yes you can” he held himself inside you deeply making you gasp.

“Hello?” You whispered, the phone shaking in your hand against your ear as Joel looked dead at you. Your husband of course making more excuses on how he would get home even later than he first said. Yet, for the first time in months…you didn’t care. Joel unexpectedly began to slam into you faster, a panic arising in your eyes as you felt yourself about to cum.

Your husband speaking as you attempted to control your breathing but at this level of pleasure it was impossible.

“I don’t know what damn time I’ll be home tonight so please don’t wait up for me, maybe I’ll see you in the morning. Don’t call my office either” Your husband continued as Joel watched your eyes begin to roll back. Biting his bottom lip as sweat dripped down his forehead he felt you tighten up around his cock.

“Hello? Are you even listening?!!” Your husband yelled when ecstasy exploded throughout your body.

“Yes!” You screamed uncontrollably, the phone slipping from your hands falling into pieces onto the floor. Grabbing onto Joel you moaned as he watched an orgasm take over you completely.

“Please…please-“ you begged as your body arched against him. Joel grunted pulling your hips closer to him thrusting his hips against you as you came.

“Joel…” you whispered, your body collapsing back against the wall. Out of breath you could barely say a word Joel quickly pulled out and came on your thigh making a sound of sweet relief.

A twist of emotions exploding through your chest. A pleasure you had never felt before mixed with a guilt you never knew you could feel.

“Oh my god…” you whispered as he turned away fixing himself up. Grabbing some paper towels you cleaned yourself off still in shock with what you had just done. Getting off the counter your legs felt like jello practically making you lose your balance. Joel quickly turned and held you up by your waist as you looked up at him feeling confused yet you didn’t know what to say. He could see the guilt you felt, the confusion you felt when you suddenly smacked him across the face. He barely moved, accepting your hit with his hand still around your waist. You attempted to push his hand off before he abruptly pulled you tighter against him. You gasped not expecting his reaction as he stared down at you intensely not saying a word.

“You-“ Joel grabbed your face pressing his lips to yours as you struggled to push away for just a second, his hands grabbing your wrists before you melted once again in his arms. Parting his lips from you he looked down breathlessly.

“It’s alright” he whispered as you looked up at him innocently. He knew what he had just done, but Joel didn’t regret it, hell he wished he could stay with you.

Kissing your forehead he silently left your home as you stood against the counter in shocker. Your phone still on the floor, your underwear right beside it with a drop of his cum you had noticed.

What the hell did this mean?

Joel went to his home and walked in casually passing Tommy who sat at the table eating a sandwich. Tommy didn’t even get to say a word with how quickly Joel hid himself in the bathroom starting the shower.

Staring at himself in the mirror he didn’t know what to feel. This wasn’t like Joel to sleep with a married woman yet the guilt he felt was more from you. The look in your eyes as you had realized what you had done he felt responsible for…yet he couldn’t keep himself away….

Part 2?

#pedro pascal #joel miller x you #joel miller x ofc #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x oc #joel miller fan fiction #tlou fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller smut

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outoftheseine · 1 year

Text

- JOEL MILLER FIC RECS -

(most of these fics are age-gap romance. some fics have mature content (+18) so minors please respect the authors and do not interact). also please beware of the canon trigger warnings (violence, language, guns, death, blood etc.))

part 2 | main masterlist

SERIES - MULTI-CHAPTERS

one thing i am missing • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @joelscruff (fluff, smut)

to do the right thing • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @pedgeitopascal (very angsty, tw: abortion and ppd, childbirth)

if the door wasn't shut • joel miller x platonic!reader

↳ by @heartpascal (very angsty)

joel miller x feral!fem!reader

↳ by @ohraicodoll (angst, lots of blood, sometimes gore, reader has a given nickname, smut)

if he wanted to • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @sl-ut (angsty, tw: mentions of suicide and sa, drug use)

twenty years later • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @yelena-bellova (angst)

weakness • joel miller x fem!reader part two

↳ by @pedgeitopascal (fluff, little angst, smut)

the stable girl • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @guess-my-next-obsession (mature, angst, fluff)

friendly fire • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @the-ginger-hedge-witch (angst, smut)

uneven odds • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @theetherealbloom (angst, fluff, smut, anxiety)

burning in a hopeless dream • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @tightjeansjavi (angst, implied smut)

ONE-SHOTS/BLURBS

from love and life • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @bubbles-for-all-of-us (child birth, fluff)

adjustments • joel miller x fem!teacher!reader

by @softlyspector (fluff, smut, mentions of dead loved ones, tw: mentions of suicide)

kiss it better • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @morningbluebell (mostly fluff)

why can't i breathe? • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @oliviajdjarin (fluff, flustered joel)

no time to die • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @davosmymaster (very angsty, hurt/comfort, chef's kiss, so good)

she's a gun • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @cowgurrrl (fluff)

darlin' • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @charnelhouse (angst, tw: sexual assault and mentions of suicide, smut, hurt/comfort)

alone and foresaken • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @chelseasdagger (smut, very good smut actually)

once again in your arms • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @foli-vora (angst, tw: loss of a child, fluff)

too late • joel miller x reader

↳ by @alloftheimagines (angst, injuries, hurt/comfort)

don't let me drown • joel miller x reader

↳ by @alloftheimagines (angst, hurt/comfort, tw: drowning, some nudity but nothing explicit)

nightmares • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @youlightmeupfinn (tw: panic attacks, nightmare, hurt/comfort)

saving • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @youlightmeupfinn (angst, hurt/comfort, joel being an asshole)

a house in nebraska • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @highdramas (angsty, heavy feeling of nostalgia, mentions of sexual interactions)

spring breeze • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @thedgeoftheuniverse (fluff, hurt/comfort)

for you, anything • joel miller x reader

↳ by @mellowsaturns (fluff, sick!reader, domesticty)

perfectly wrong • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @psychedelic-ink (enemies to lovers, smut)

domesticty looks good on you • joel miller x reader

↳ by @girlscull (sooo fluffy)

ghosts of his past • joel miller x reader

↳ by @lol-im-done (very angsty, made me cry)

soft touches • joel miller x reader

↳ by @theeoriginals (fluff, hurt/comfort)

close call • joel miller x reader

↳ by @rogueonestan (hurt/comfort, angst)

first kill • joel miller x reader

↳ by @alloftheimagines (angst, hurt/comfort)

illusory light • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @lavendertales (angst, injuries, fluff)

playing house • joel miller x reader

↳ by @me-and-your-husband (some angst, smut)

try to love me, honey please • joel miller x reader

↳ by @peterhollandkait (hurt/comfort, angst, sad and soft joel, mentions of blood and death)

confused warmth • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @rise-my-angel (angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, smut)

soft spot • joel miller x gn!reader

↳ by @orangevtae (very fluffy, some hurt/comfort, sunshine x grumpy)

love in the time of cordyceps • joel millet x fem! reader

↳ by @sameheart-sameblood (angst, fluff, mentions of blood)

one bed • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @frannyzooey (good old one bed trope, explicit)

sleeping bag • joel miller x reader

↳ by @quin-ns (very fluffy)

lavender haze • joel miller x pregnant!fem!reader

↳ by @forever-rogue (soo fluffy, made my heart flutter)

intent • joel miller x fem!reader

↳ by @forever-rogue (angst, joel is an asshole, fluff)

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ohraicodoll · 1 year

Note

DESPERATELY NEED FERAL READER WITH EP 8 WITH AN INJURED JOEL AND KIDNAPPED ELLIE…….. I KNOW OUR CRAZY QUEEN WOULD KILL EVERYONE ♥️♥️♥️♥️

Yall asked for it lol

Violent Delights Joel Miller x f!Reader The Last of Us 6.7k Words/ 3rd POV Feral Reader Masterlist Summary: They took her kid and she was getting her back. Warning: Graphic depictions of violence and torture

She woke up with a start, having drifted off unknowingly after trying to keep watch, a sense of disorientation as she tried to figure out where she was and what was happening. The basement. They were still in the basement, the cold leeching any warmth from the walls and floors, the haggard breathing of her companion her only company. It’d been over 48 hours since she last slept, since Joel was hurt and they’d had to drag him into the house and patch him up. He wasn’t in good shape. Joel was so close to death’s door, it terrified her. They were so close to losing him and she had never felt more helpless.

She could still hear his pained groans, the glazed and blank look in his eyes, as she put pressure on the bleeding hole in his stomach just a couple days before. “Don’t you dare die, Joel. You still have to make shit up to me and you can’t do that dead. You can’t leave us again.” He’d tried to tell them to leave him. To go back to Tommy’s and leave him behind, the stubborn asshole. But Ellie managed to find the first aid kit and they’d sewn up the hole, wrapping it best they could with the little supplies they had. She knew it wasn’t enough. There could be shards left from the baseball bat, they weren’t the cleanest, nothing was sterile. She didn’t even know if something internal had been damaged. But it was all they could do. They’d been so focused on getting to Colorado they’d been using their food storage rather than hunting over the past week. Now it was biting them in the ass, their supplies dwindled. She’d managed to briefly go out and hunt down a rabbit, but game seemed scarce and leaving meant leaving Ellie and Joel alone. Without Joel, it was hard to sleep, look after Ellie, look after him and keep him stable, look after the fucking horses, and hunt. She was overwhelmed. So sleep went out the window. She took watch when Ellie was asleep, went and tried to hunt and scavenge the nearby houses when she was awake, and kept an eye on Joel in between taking care of the two horses in the garage. But at some point she’d fallen asleep finally, fallen deep and hard enough that she hadn’t noticed Ellie slipping the rifle from her hands and leaving the two adults alone. A small scribbled note was placed on her lap on a piece of what looked like newspaper, “Be back soon -E.” She scrambled to her feet, looking around and cursed herself. Joel was still breathing steadily but his brow was covered with sweat from the infection he was staving off. Both their packs were against the wall but Ellie’s was gone and the panic that took hold was like a lightning bolt. It stole the breath from her lungs. Ellie was gone, Ellie was gone, Ellie was gone- it was a racing thought that circulated over and over again. Her main purpose, main job, and she’d fucking fallen asleep.

Her heart jumped further at hearing footsteps above her head, the slight creak and shift in the old wood, a door slamming…then it all came out in deep relief as she recognized the light shuffling.

Ellie raced down the steps, cheeks pink from cold and wind, and breath huffing out in a rush as she entered the basement.

She grabbed the girl immediately, shaking her by the shoulders with the vestiges of panic still in her blood, “Where did you go, Ellie? You weren’t supposed to leave!”

The teenager paused, eyes frantic and a little wild, but a tough set to her lips as she shook her head, “I went hunting and you needed sleep! I had to, but look! I got Joel medicine!” Ellie took the bottles out of their wrap, quickly moving away from her and kneeling down to Joel, beginning to lift up his shirt before she could even get a good look at what she had. The wound was ugly and discolored and she could hear him groan at the small touches. Her mind was still caught up in the panic of discovering the girl was gone and she quickly snatched the bottles away before the syringe was inserted. “Where did you get this?” she asked, turning it over in her hands. Penicillin. Two whole bottles of penicillin, practically liquid gold in their world, and Ellie had managed to get it while she slept. The teen looked nervous and tried to snatch it back, but she was quick even if she was exhausted and pulled her hand away, “Please, can we give it to him first and then I’ll explain?” Her eyes were so big for her face, cheeks pink. Her desperation to help Joel was evident. Ellie knew how bad he was doing and believed she held the cure to it all in her hands. She could only sigh and hand it back over, instructing her to give just a fourth of the bottle and to tap the syringe. Joel would probably have a heart attack if he knew she was letting the kid give it to him, but she knew Ellie had to do this herself. It was her win and she had to feel like she was the one saving him so she let her. But then they both stared, her knowledge only getting them that far. “Where the fuck am I suppose to put this?” Ellie cursed, looking at the wound and Joel’s arm, eyes switching between hers and his closed ones, “Fuck, how are we supposed to do this?” She cursed herself. Her medical knowledge was mediocre. Stitching, cleaning wounds, pulling out bullets, the basics they needed. Infections and medicine she had no clue about, “Just give it to him in his stomach. As long as it enters his blood stream, it should be fine.” At least, that’s what she thought. Ellie winced and inserted the needle, Joel giving out pained groans as it sunk into the sensitive area. They both watched the plunger empty the contents and then she pulled it out, trying to clean the needle the best she could. They only had one syringe and would have to reuse it. “And now we wait,” the teen commented and looked at his face as if at any second he would be magically better. He would wake up and smile and tell her good job. But he didn’t, staying silent on the small makeshift bed. “No, now you tell me where you went and how you got that,” she bit out, sitting on the other side of Joel to face her. Ellie winced and looked down at the small glass bottles in her hand, “You needed to sleep and we needed food. I know you think you can take care of all of us, but you can’t and I wanted to help by trying to hunt.” “That’s not your responsibility-” “It doesn’t matter. I wanted to help,” Ellie cut her off but then sighed, “And I did manage to actually get a deer…but I ran into these guys...” Instantly, she was on high alert, eyes searching everything that was visible and checking her for any wounds, “You ran into people and you’re barely telling me!” “I know!” the young girl argued back, hand resting on top of Joel’s, “They found my deer before me and said they were from a group with starving women and children. They offered to trade for half the deer and said they had medicine. I did everything I was supposed to! Got them to drop their guns, unloaded their rifles, and had them back away. One went to get the medicine and I kept the gun on the other.”

“So you gave them half the deer and they gave you the medicine then just let you go?” she asked and clenched and unclenched her fists. Ellie wouldn’t look so nervous if that was the whole story and she wasn’t nearly tired enough to have been dragging half a deer carcass back. Shrugging, Ellie grimaced and refused to meet her eyes, “That was the deal…but they knew who we were. The people that attacked us at the university belonged to their group and this guy started talking about how one of theirs had been killed by a crazy man with two girls. He knows that was Joel. I don’t know why he let me go, but I think they’re looking for us.” With a curse, she quickly stood, hands on her hips and pacing in a tight circle, “Fuck. Fuck. And they didn’t come after you?”

“No, I think they let me go because I was a kid.” She doubted that. People rarely were that charitable, even to children in this world. Especially a child with a gun and an attitude like Ellie’s. The unspoken words were there though. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t come for her and Joel though. Ellie may be deemed innocent but the two of them were problems and only one of them was in commission currently. But what could they do? They couldn’t move Joel in his state. They couldn’t leave him behind either. They were stuck. “Okay. Maybe if they let you go they don’t plan on coming. Maybe they think both of us are injured if you were out on your own and won’t come,” she lied comfortingly and tried to speak the words into existence, knowing the kid was probably feeling guilty and needed some hope. They needed rest, needed to breathe for a second, and panicking now wouldn’t help. It took a while to relax enough to let the adrenaline fade away.

Ellie laid down, exhausted, tucking into Joel’s side as she had the past couple nights and resting her head on his shoulder. He subconsciously leaned into her, still alive for now. Her heart ached at the sight, the way they held each other in their own ways. She didn’t have the strength to get after the girl more or uproot them out of precaution. They were all exhausted and Ellie had somehow managed to bring hope even if there was a cost.

She sat down by the stairs, flipped her knife between her fingers to keep her awake and focused, and watched the two sleep with her heart in her throat.

The men would come. Now that they knew they were in the area, they would come and they were stuck in this spot until Joel was better. There was no way they could get him on a horse and move him now without undoing all the healing he’d done. A thousand scenarios went through her head, sleep now a distant memory in the face of the panic and anxiety plaguing her. How was she supposed to fight off a group and keep them both safe?

She couldn’t. That was the reality of the situation.

The thought hit her over and over again like a blow to the chest, the knife turning between her fingers. _________________________________________ Morning came and she could see Ellie’s disappointment that the medicine hadn’t instantly woken Joel up and made him all better. To ease her mind, they gave him another dose, trying to make the bottles last before shoving the remainder in their bags. They were out of food, the rabbit she had caught two days ago long gone without a way to store it. Joel still wasn’t eating or drinking and she worried that even if they got the infection under control, his body wouldn’t be strong enough to get better. Things were bad. The possibility of Joel dying was a constant chime in her head. It felt like a mockery that he had left and came back only to be almost taken from them permanently. She was angry. He wasn’t supposed to be the one that took the hit. It had been meant for her but he’d pushed her out the way as the bat swung, breaking on the tree, and then tackled the guy. If it had been her, Joel would know what to do. He could take care of them both or at least would have the strength to leave her behind if necessary. She wasn’t sure she could. She was failing him. Failing them both. The basement was suffocating, pressing in on her, and she took the opportunity to go tend to the horses, leaving the girl and her unconscious companion to the pressing weight of disappointment. Her body was beginning to ache from the lack of sleep and food, joints protesting her movement, but she reached down and scooped snow into the small metal bucket for them to get some water. Soon the horses would starve too or be too weak to carry them. Death was creeping up on them. Looking over the neighborhood they were held up in, she sighed at the obvious foot steps leading up through the streets before beginning to methodically cover what she could. Ellie knew better than to leave a trail but she guessed in her hurry to get the medicine back to Joel and get away from the men she had forgotten. And as birds took off in a rush further down the road towards the wooded outskirts, she froze and her heart thundered in her ears.

She felt fear run through her as her thoughts from the night resurfaced and became reality, a living nightmare. They were coming. They had waited for daylight to search them out and were coming now. She knew it, could feel it, and they were out of time. Quickly covering what she could and making false tracks from the other houses, she ran back inside and flew down the stairs to the basement taking two at a time. No time, there was no time. Ellie startled at her rushed appearance and the way she flew across the room to the rifle and her own pack, “What’s happening?”

“Those men you saw are coming,” she huffed out, grabbing the rifle and checking it was loaded before looking around the room as if she could find the answer there.

Turning to Joel, Ellie began to shake his shoulders as if he were merely sleeping and not borderline in a coma, “Fuck. Joel! You have to wake up, Joel. Joel, wake up! Wake the fuck up, Joel!” But he only gasped, pained whimpers leaving his lips, eyelids fluttering.

She bent down and grabbed Ellie by the shoulders, forcing her to look into her eyes, “Ellie, I need you to listen to me. I need you to take the horse and run.”

“What? No, what about-”

“You run and I’ll follow behind and try to pick them off,” she interrupted, voice adamant, “They’re going to search every house and they will find us eventually. I can’t hold them off like this. I need to know you’re good first and if we’re away from here then it will take the focus off Joel.”

“You want me to go without you?” Ellie’s eyes were wide with fear and her heart ached at the sight, but there was no time.

“I’ll find you,” she promised and dug her fingers tightly into her shoulders as if she could sink the words into her skin, “I will. But you have to go now. We’ll block the entrance to down here, give Joel some time.”

Ellie pressed her lips together and nodded, running to grab her backpack and last minute grabbed one of the larger knives they had. Running back over to Joel, the teen knelt down and placed it on his chest, forcing his hand to grab it. She let her while grabbing the rest of her stuff and placed Joel’s pack into a small cubby under the steps to make it less noticeable.

“Okay, look at me,” Ellie whispered to him while he only groaned in reply, “There are men coming, okay? I’m gonna lead them away from you, Red is going to help get rid of them. But if anybody makes it down here, you fucking kill them. You got it?”

“Ellie, hurry,” she bit out, peeking out the small window along the top of the wall. “Joel, do not fall asleep,” the teenager pleaded desperately, squeezing his hand around the knife. She could see his eyes partially open, see his lips trying to move and his fingers twitching trying to grasp the knife. But Ellie finally got up quickly and rushed up the stairs. She went to follow after her and paused, staring back at the unconscious man on the floor. A part of her whispered that this could be the last time she saw him alive. One or both of them could be dead if this didn’t go right. Heart in her throat, she ran back to him and kneeled, kissing his forehead and grasping his hand. “Stay alive for us, please, Joel,” she whispered, squeezing the hand around the knife, but getting back up and running up the stairs. She tried not to look back. Both of them moved the tall kitchen cabinet over the door entryway to the basement, trying to shuffle things around to not make the spot obvious before heading to the garage. They got both horses out, grabbing what she needed from hers and sending silent apologies to Tommy before forcing it to gallop away in the opposite direction with a sharp smack. The other she saved for Ellie to ride, closing the garage door behind them. They’d figure out transportation later when they were out of this mess, but they needed the guys off their trail and two different horse tracks would help. With quick hands, she helped Ellie climb up onto its back.

Shakily, she bit out, “You ride hard and fast and loud. They’re going to come after you but if you go fast they won’t catch you and I’ll hit them from behind. They only know for sure about you right now. Do not look back, Ellie. I’ll find you once it’s safe, I promise.” Ellie was shaking but tried to put on a brave face, nodding and holding onto the reins. She wanted to hug the girl, tell her it was going to be okay, but she wouldn’t lie to her. Not now. The men were close, she knew that. She patted the rear of the horse and nodded a final goodbye, beckoning her to go forward. Her heart screamed to not let her go, that it was safer with her than alone, but they were backed into a corner and she had no choice. They wouldn’t win in a shootout and losing meant Ellie would die. So she watched as the girl rode away down the street away from her, turning until she was completely out of sight, and tried not to flinch at the gunshots that came soon after and the yells of men. She tried to shut off the part of her that wanted to panic, to react and worry. That wasn’t the part she needed to listen to at the moment. Running as far as she could, crossing over fences and staying against the walls of the house, she followed the sound of loud hoof beats and chased after them as they chased after Ellie. Her ears caught on one of them screaming that she was to be left alive, but that didn’t ease the worry in her. Being captured alive wasn’t always a good thing. One of the slower men chasing Ellie fell the furthest behind, wheezing in the cold and trying to clamber in the dense snow. Her own knife in hand, she ran and jumped onto his back, using both their weight to send them forward onto his front behind the cover of some of the shrubs.

He hadn’t been expecting to be attacked from behind and it took him a moment to try and struggle, to lift his face out of the snow to breathe, and she took advantage of that by stabbing deep into the back of his neck. He groaned, the sound muffled, and she pulled the blade out and sunk it in again and again with a growl. The snow was staining red around them. He stopped moving. One down. She stood and took off, the cold biting into her lungs and stealing her breath. The terrain was hard and the one kill had put her farther behind the group, forcing her to cut across more backyards to catch up, but she could only hope Ellie had done what she asked and was out of range. She could catch the rest of them once they scattered. But then a gunshot rang out close by. The sound of a horse’s cry ripped through her, tore her soul to shreds, and she knew if she lived beyond the day she would hear that sound forever in her nightmares.

She ran. She left all care of stealth behind and ran fast and hard, dodging trees and fallen branches and then ran faster when another gun shot rang out. The chest felt like it was being cleaved open by the panic, fear gripping her tightly. They wouldn’t have shot her. They wouldn’t have killed her. She was a kid, they wouldn’t-

And then she watched from the trees as the group surrounded Ellie who was on the ground, her horse unmoving not far away, and a tall skinny man picked her up and began to walk away with her. She raised the rifle, looking down the scope, and cursed as the men separated and began to head back into the neighborhood. No doubt to continue their search for Joel and her.

She could see Ellie’s face through the scope, the loll of her head, but she was gripped too closely to the man’s body. He was walking further and further away. Two sides of her screamed. Leaving to go after them meant abandoning Joel, but staying behind meant leaving Ellie. She wanted to press the trigger, shoot, but knew it was too risky with Ellie in the man’s arms. She could so easily accidentally kill the girl if she was one inch off and her hands were too shaky from exhaustion to be precise. Only some of the group was going back, the others looking like they were continuing to scout the area.

She knew what she had to do, what Joel would tell her to do, but the reality of it felt impossible. If they found Joel, he’d die for sure. But she wasn’t sure she could live with leaving Ellie.

The men with the girl were getting farther away and a choice had to be made.

So she swallowed the sob in her throat and let the rage she felt consume her completely, push her forward, and followed behind the group to where they would take her kid. __________________________ It was getting harder and harder to follow along as the wind began to kick up a notch. She needed to see where they were taking Ellie, but she was tired and the cold was sinking in, her body struggling to keep going. And as they entered the town, it was getting difficult to avoid being seen. Too many buildings, too many open areas, and she didn’t know who could be watching. She knew they had entered one of the nearby buildings, but wasn’t sure which. The clock was ticking in her mind, Ellie’s life on one hand and Joel’s on the other. What good was she if she couldn’t save her people? Blood crusted on her fingers as she entered the first of the buildings quietly, finding a back entrance. It was dark but she could hear voices nearby as she found herself in some kind of storage room, the cold still reaching her through the walls. She wasn’t used to carrying the rifle. It had always been Joel’s weapon thanks to its weight, her preferring knives or a small pistol or even a bow when she could find one. So when she crouched down to ease her way over to the swinging door leading further inside, she winced when it thudded and scraped against the floor, the sound so loud in her ears. The voices paused and she froze, eyes wide and watching the door. There was shuffling and she quickly backed away into a darkened corner, pulling her knife out. Steps came closer and she held her breath, trying to calm her racing heart. The door swung open and she could see a man enter, beard a little rough and looking a little ragged, cheeks red from the cold. He frowned, looking around, gaze shifting over what he could. He turned to look at the back door, back facing her, and only then did she realize she had tracked snow inside and it hadn’t quite melted. Lunging, she stuck the blade deep into his lower back with all her might and threw her arm around his neck, choking him hard. A cry of pain tried to leave his lips, breath cut off, and he struggled wildly. She twisted the knife, feeling blood coat her hand. “Where is the girl?” she hissed, jerking the blade deeper. He sobbed and made pathetic mewling sounds of pain, voice wispy from lack of air, “Please, I don’t know-” She twisted, hearing the squelch of flesh tearing, “The teenage girl your buddy grabbed, where is she?” The distinct smell of piss lingered in the air and he sobbed out, “I don’t know! Oh god.” Steps were coming close again and she growled, keeping her grip on the knife buried in his body and shifting her arm away from his neck to hold the back of his collar. He wheezed in air, blood starting to bubble from his lips. The door burst open and the distinct sound of a gun rising echoed in the tiny room, only to pause as she held the man in front of her like a shield, mostly hidden by his body. “Howard-” A woman’s voice. All the people who had attacked them had been men.

She wouldn’t have the information she needed. With a growl of frustration, she shoved the body at her, letting his dead weight hit her and trap the woman against the wall. She let out a startled cry and the delay gave her just enough time to unholster her pistol and shoot her in the head. The numbness that was a twin to her rage had sunk into her skin, blanketing her all over. She’d search the buildings, one by one, and kill whoever she had to to find her kid. She didn’t care. Stepping over the bodies, she moved into the area they had been in before she drew their attention and paused, icy horror filling her. A leg was in the process of being cut apart, small chunks set aside and being wrapped up as if to store for later. It was a kitchen, most likely used to prepare food for stage, large makeshift smokers and pits along the back unused. The ticking clock in her mind sped up as the reality of what she’d uncovered hit her. Cannibals. These people that had taken Ellie were cannibals. A strong hit to her back sent her stumbling forward and clattering to her knees. She grunted and scrambled forward as a stomp missed her, hitting the ground instead. There’d been someone still in the room and she’d been too distracted to notice.

Rolling onto her back, gun still in her hand, she aimed and managed to shoot the knee out of her assailant as he raised a butcher knife. He crumpled to the ground with a cry and she got to her feet slowly, gun raised and trained on him.

The guy was younger, but thin and haggard looking. His bravado hadn’t fully left him though as he stared her down, anger in his eyes, “You fucking bitch. You blew out my fucking knee.” He tried to get up but she aimed at his head, making him freeze. “I’ll shoot the other one too if you don’t shut up and tell me where the girl you kidnapped is,” she snarled, adrenaline helping to keep the firearm steady on him. His nose wrinkled and he spit at her, brow furrowed.

Stubborn. Younger guys were so stubborn.

She pulled the trigger and watched his other knee explode as the bullet met his target. The man screamed and she quickly knelt down, shoving her hand over his mouth and placing the still warm barrel against his forehead. Tears leaked out his eyes, making little dirt tracks through the grime on his skin.

“Where the fuck is she?” she screamed into his face and the sound was almost inhuman, gravel and fury warping it almost into a howl.

But he only shook his head, eyes defiant. Frustrated, she stood, looking at the meat cleaver in his hand and the human leg on the table. She didn’t have time for this. Ellie was out there and the situation was worse than she thought. Not even meeting his eyes, she raised the gun and shot him in the head. He wasn’t going to give her any information.

She raced back outside through the back door she had entered, heart in her throat and a panicked scream wanting to leave her lips.

The storm was picking up as an idea hit her. If she searched each building, there was no guarantee she’d find someone with information in time. She had to draw their attention. Maybe lure them out. They had wanted Ellie alive for the moment. If she could distract them, it may buy her time.

Chewing her lip, she kneeled behind the building and swung her pack around to dig through it. Her hand wrapped around a small glass bottle that had been carefully secured in the middle of her clothes and yanked it out along with one of her old shirts. They’d been saving it for emergencies, using it to sterilize what they could, but she needed it for something else now. Her face stung from the cold wind and her hands shook, but she managed to tear cloth and shove it into the liquor bottle, saturating the fabric, before she put her pack back on and stood.

Time to make a big fucking distraction.

Blocking the wind with her hands, she lit a match and watched as the tip of the cloth burned bright with flames.

With a snarl, she tossed the molotov through the window of the next building, ducking down and watching as the flames exploded inside. Screams and shouts followed, telling her there had been people inside, and she waited for more voices to join them. Someone would investigate or come outside.

Like clockwork, a man rushed out into the cold and she gripped her bloody knife at the familiar face. One of the men that had come back with Ellie. He cursed and ran through the snow, yelling that he was going to grab the fire extinguisher next door while the others scrambled to put the flames out. She followed, quiet, lava flowing through her and teeth bared. She couldn’t even feel the cold anymore.

The wind blocked any sound she made as she rushed after him into the alley and lunged, shoving him into the cold brick wall with a loud crack. She growled and grabbed his hair, gripping it tightly and smashing it into the bricks once then twice. He tried to push away and turn, but she kneed him hard in the spine, driving him to his knees. “Where is the girl?” she snarled into his ear, knife to his throat. Blood poured down an open wound on his forehead, one eye blinded by red, as he finally took in who had grabbed him, “fuck you,” “Wrong answer,” she yanked his hair and slammed it into the wall again. When he went to raise his hand to fight her, she stabbed the blade through his hand and into the ground. His screams were carried away by the wind and snow, the shouts of his group telling her they were still distracted by the fire. “The girl your group grabbed,” the words were all razors and broken glass, almost the sound of an animal snarl, “Where did you take her?” He sneered at her, trying to put on a strong front through the pain, “That bitch is probably soup by now.” She stepped on the knife, the blade so far in his hand the hilt was pressing against the back, “I can make this last a fucking lifetime. Your choice. Where-” “Please, don’t-” Frustrated, she ripped the knife out and placed the tip just inside his mouth, “Last chance. Where is she?” The tip clinked against his teeth and he hung his mouth open to avoid being cut, his beard a mess of blood and spit and green eyes wide with fear finally. She tried not to feel satisfaction as seeing that, understanding setting in for him. He lifted his bloody hand and tried to point across the street, stuttering out, “Steakhouse. The fucking steakhouse. David has her in there.” She looked at him, eye swollen, and blood coating the front of his face, clearly terrified.

Slowly, she took the blade away, watching his lips wobble with sobs and slight relief. Then she slit his throat, continuing to move behind the buildings even as his blood sprayed out and soaked her clothes and his pleas gurgled and quieted.

The steakhouse was a few more buildings down across the street, “Todd’s Steakhouse” still written on the sign out front. The storm was a blizzard now, sharp stinging snow hitting her skin and turning the blood on her into patches of ice. There were yells, panicked screams, and she wondered if they had found the bodies. If they had found the blood and chaos she had left in her wake.

But with a destination in sight, she had let her guard down and she cursed herself later on for it. Arms wrapped around her torso, crushing the rifle into her back, and she kicked at the air as she was dragged back against a brick wall.

“You fucking bitch!” Screamed into her ear and she was tossed to the ground, teeth clattering from the impact.

A kick landed in her stomach and she grunted, the air leaving her lungs, but she had enough sense to grab onto the leg and cling to it. The move caught the man off balance and he tripped, falling to the ground next to her. Her blade was somewhere in the snow and she struggled to dig around for it, sharp steel nicking her fingers as she found it only to be thrown onto her back.

The man climbed on top of her, straddling her waist, his weight so heavy and her pack on her back making the move crushing. She grit her teeth and bucked, thrashing to try and get him off of her. But he only grinned, pulling back and decking her in the face. Stars lit up behind her eyes, a high pitch ringing all she could hear as pain exploded through her head.

He pulled back to punch again and her fingers found the cold metal in the snow. She wrapped her hand around it, feeling the sharp steel cut into her palm as she grabbed it by the blade instead of the hilt, and stabbed it into his lower throat. She didn’t stop, only switching to pull it out by its handle this time, and stabbed again and again, blood reigning down onto her.

With a howl, she shoved him off of her and sent a final stab into his face, snow soaking into her and pain a radiating heat. Everything hurt and it was an effort to get up and roll onto her side, staring at the decimated body next to her.

She spit blood on him and stood. There was smoke coming from all around her, the fire having caught from the molotov and moving on building to building. Across the way, smoke could be seen from the steakhouse and she swallowed her pain, letting adrenaline carry her to the front doors. Her hands shook as she tried the handles, pulling again and again but they stayed locked and shut. Growling, she threw her shoulder into it. She was so close. She had found the place and was so close and a locked fucking door was all that was keeping her away. Her breathing was quick and frantic as she looked over the front and tried to reason that there had to be a back door or an employee entrance. Her hands skimmed the wall to try and keep upright, knowing soon the exhaustion and pain would take over, but she tried to push it back. Ellie had to be close. She needed to keep going a little bit further and then she’d get her kid and they’d go get Joel.

Her steps stumbled and she pushed off the wall, screaming at herself to stay steady. There, she could see the back door. Plain and wooden, easy enough to shoot the lock off and get inside. With shaky fingers, she unhooked the rifle from her shoulder, the weight of it almost unbearable, and took two shots to get the lock blown off. Her legs were shaky as she climbed the few steps and opened the door, smoke pouring out. She coughed and tried to wave it away, stepping inside and feeling the heat. She had taken only a few steps into the building and stopped, hearing a familiar voice. “Red?” Relief flooded her, eyes instantly filling with tears, as Ellie emerged from the smoke not too far in front of her. Ellie was there, hair a mess and half tumbling out of her ponytail, blood splattered and smeared all over her face and clothes. It took her a while to realize she was standing there, actually standing there, watching as the girl stumbled forward and wrapped her arms tightly around her waist.

Smoke and fire was all around them, but she couldn’t care because she had Ellie and they were both alive and safe now. With shaky hands, she managed to direct them back out of the building and into the cold, fresh air. Her promise rang in her ears and she whispered them out loud as she clung to the girl, “I found you. I found you. I’ll always find you.” And she had, but not quick enough. She knew that something awful had happened, that Ellie was now one step closer to being what her and Joel were. The tough exterior had crumbled away and all that was left was a shocked girl who’d had a piece of her soul cleaved away. Her nose was busted and she knew that look in her eyes, the horror and pain at doing something ugly but necessary. Ellie’s lips were shaking as she looked her over and she was so focused on the girl she almost didn’t see Joel coming around the corner. Joel, standing and whole and alive, coming towards them like Ellie was a gravity well pulling both of them towards her. His eyes met hers and the relief was bright, even if she was dripping in blood. But Ellie hadn’t noticed the shift in attention, hadn’t heard his steps, and when he went to grab her she bucked and thrashed in his arms in sheer desperation. So much like her, a wild animal fighting not to be caged. Her heart tore apart, shredded to pieces, at the painful screams then broken sobs as she realized who was holding on to her.

Joel only kept whispering, “It’s me, it’s me, I’m here.” “He- I-” she stuttered, eyes glazed and searching both of theirs. Joel held on with all his might, trying to ease her, gentle words soothing. And the girl crumbled, falling into his arms and clinging to him tightly as much as he was clinging to her. His eyes met hers and she let the exhaustion hit her and carry her towards them, falling to her knees and wrapping her arms around them both. All three of them, blood soaked, finally home with each other.

______________ Feral Reader Taglist: @alouise20 @faceache111

#joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x feral reader #joel miller #joel miller fanfic #joel miller x female reader #the last of us fanfic #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fanfic #tlou fanfiction #joel miller x oc #tlou ellie #ellie the last of us #tlou #the last of us #feral reader #series: feral #raicodoll writes

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lokischocolatefountain · 1 month

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Denial || Men Like Me

Part 2 of the Men Like Me series. Part 1

Masterlist

Fandom: The Last of Us Pairing: Joel Miller x Virgin!Reader Rating: 18+ Warnings: girthy age gap, virgin!reader, eventual loss of virginity (not in this chapter), masturbation (male & female), cis fem reader, descriptions of reader's body, somewhat creepy!Joel, fetishization of youth, dom!Joel, Joel ignores you until he can't, slightly insecure reader, very insecure Joel, corruption kink, mild fem!dom, reader turns the tables a little, name calling, fetishization of virginity, face fucking (not the mouth, but cheek), kneeling, stripping, moneyshot, fingering, sexual discoveries. Word count: 10.4k Summary: After your steamy encounter, Joel ignores you out of guilt, leaving you feeling unworthy. But you make a discovery that makes you turn the tables on him. A/N: The reception that chapter 1 got gave me enough serotonin to keep me going, you guys. I hope everyone likes this chapter at least half as much if not as much as the first one. Even the half would give me a lot of joy. And do say hi in my inbox or my asks. I would loooove to talk about these two. As always, pleaaaaaase give me reblog and/or a comment to recharge my writing batteries. Most importantly, a big thanks to @tobuildahomeinthewoods because the smut part was from their idea in the last chapter's comments .

“Long day, huh?”

“What?” you asked, your brain taking a second too long to process the words. “Yeah. Yeah, yeah,” you said, going back to your glass of whiskey.

“I heard about the kids. They gotta be more careful,” Tommy said, looking to his brother for some kind of confirmation. Joel nodded hesitantly, his eyes looking everywhere but you as he traced the rim of his glass with his middle finger. So cavalier like he didn’t fuck you with that very finger. Asshole.

“Yeah, yeah. Climbing trees is not wise,” you agreed, willing yourself to look away from his brother. You didn’t want to get caught staring, or worse glaring. The chatter of the dinner crowd at the Tipsy Bison drowned into the sound of you tapping your fingers on the wood counter of the bar. You got up abruptly, the bar stool going down from the force of your actions. You bent over to pick it up, a hand moving to your chest instinctively to keep from flashing everyone. With no such protection for your ass, you could feel familiar eyes on them. Eyes that you’d become accustomed to having on you no matter the distance.

“You ok–” Tommy began, but you cut him off.

“You have a good one, Tommy,” you said, grabbing your bag from the bar counter and slinging it over your shoulder. “I gotta go. I’m really tired.”

Like the fool that you were, you picked your glass up and downed the rest of the whiskey, your throat rejecting the choice with a cough that had you spit out half of the burning liquor. Great. Now you’d have to wash your scrubs before going to bed so it didn’t stain. Fucking great.

There were some protests from the younger Miller brother, some words of concern. But you ignored him as you hurried out of the Tipsy Bison and into the night. At least one of the Millers had some manners. And it wasn’t the one that broke into your house and showed you what a clitoris was. It was fucking embarrassing that he was ignoring you after that. Even more embarrassing that you had to learn it from a random guy when you were the one poring over anatomy textbooks trying to become a doctor. You should know anatomy better than anyone else. Your mentor should’ve taught you. You’d learned how to conduct a safe childbirth. Even been allowed to close up the last c-section patient. But you didn’t fucking learn how the baby got in there.

Alright well, you did. But you hadn’t been told about some of the especially sensitive parts of the body that would be involved in the process.

You tossed your bag on your couch, got yourself some cookies that you traded for last week and climbed up the stairs to your bedroom. It wasn’t a nutritious dinner, but it filled your tummy. It came in handy when you didn’t want to spend time chopping vegetables and boiling pasta or whatever the hell you had to do to cook.

Your bedroom had become your prison in the last two weeks. You felt trapped, unable to see beyond it. How could you, when it ironically was right here that you found freedom?

Even as you did something as mundane as eating cookies on bed and spilled crumbs on your sheets like a child, the chair in front of your dressing table was in sight. From where you sat, you could see very clearly the scratch on the black paint that revealed the light wood underneath. Evidence of how you had to hold on to dear life as Joel worked your pussy expertly. Like he knew it as well as he knew the tools of his trade. Like weaving his fingers between your folds was as familiar to him as it was for you to weave through skin with your suture needle and thread.

You felt yourself dripping at the mere memory of his thick fingers pumping away inside you, unraveling the fibers of your being. The sight of him at the bar– his finger tracing the rim of the glass– it took you to the memory of that very finger teasing your pussy.

The pornographic magazines, the entertainment for men, no longer saw the light of day from their box under your bed. Pictures of nude women you wanted to model yourself after in order to be attractive to men no longer sufficed. All you strived for now was to be attractive to him. To be strung like a puppet in his hands while all he seemed to want was to get away from any place where you were.

You felt a pang in your chest as you recalled the first time you went to the house of worship after your time with Joel to find that he’d been replaced with the younger Miller. Tears stung in your eyes as you felt rejected by his absence. Like he no longer wanted to be in the same room as you, hammer nails into wood as you spoke to your fellow townspeople about their wellbeing. You told yourself it was just a temporary thing. That the brothers just liked to alternate shifts and he would return soon to fix the windows that shattered during a storm in the winter.

He never came.

You’d never experienced such rejection before. You’d never wanted before. To want was to risk rejection, to feel the pit in your stomach as you felt now. You never wanted to feel less than, undesirable, unwanted. So you pulled away from all the men you dated. If you could even call that dating. Maybe it was your own fault for thinking it would be easier with Joel. What did you think? That he would fold immediately because you showed off your legs and touched his arm and pushed your breasts out to present your femininity?

Naive, stupid girl.

“Been experiencing longer than you’ve been alive, Ma’am.”

Something twisted in your belly and you lied down, pulling your covers over you as though it would contain the shame coursing through you.

You probably looked silly to him, like a little girl playing adult. Like a kitten picking a fight with a lion. Less than half his age, just a fucking preschooler on outbreak day when he would’ve been a fully grown man. Maybe already beginning to gray, the skin by his eyes crinkled from the years he spent smiling at and wooing women. Why would he want a girl? He’d want a real woman. Someone like Tommy’s wife, perhaps. Someone he wouldn’t have to teach.

“Don’t know your own fucking body but you want a man?” his taunt rang cold in your ear, sending chills down your spine like he was still behind you, fingers buried deep inside the most intimate part of you. You pressed your thighs together, heat pooling between them as it always happened when you thought of what he did to you.

Shame didn’t deter you as you brought your fingers to your pussy, brushing one against your clit with curiosity. With fear. It felt so good, like its sole purpose went beyond the animal need to survive and propagate. You bypassed it to touch your weeping slit, more comfortable with what you were already used to for carnal pleasure.

Your own fingers had always been enough. Out in the wilderness when you needed to release pent up energy. After long days at the clinic and sharing notes with the other students. When you were tired to the point where you couldn’t sleep. Your fingers always took you to where you needed. You were always satisfied.

Not anymore.

You whined as the different angles you tried failed to work. The physical pleasure was the same. But not quite like how it felt with him. His hand was larger, his fingers longer and thicker. He showed you sports inside you that you’d never been able to touch yourself. Maybe this was what people meant when they said ignorance was bliss. Knowledge of pleasure you could have but couldn’t give yourself was torture.

As much as you resented Joel now, you couldn’t help but conjure images of him as you brought yourself closer to release. His deep brown eyes, his large hand that he wrapped around your throat, the way he carried you from your chair and deposited you on your bed. Like a human being weighed nothing to him. Like you were his toy that he could bury his fingers in, play with and set aside when he was done, when he was bored. Entertainment for Men came to your mind again and you cried like you never had at your own touch.

Your thighs trembled as you imagined yourself as one of those women in the magazines, but only for him. Entertainment for Joel. Splayed out on the center page for him to look at and fuck his hand to. You wouldn’t mind being tangible entertainment. Laid out on his bed, limbs arranged in an attractive manner for him, so he could access whatever part of your body he wanted to play with. To be bent to his will and fucked, to be used, given an affectionate pat on your pussy and put away when you’d outlasted his needs only to be given attention when he wanted to get off the next time.

You shook uncontrollably, your eyes squeezed shut and the world went blank as you reached your peak. You pulled your spare pillow to your chest, needing some physical comfort after experiencing such a high. You wished it were him instead of an inanimate object. That he would make you feel good and hold you and kiss you all over. That he would stay when you woke up the next day and do it all over again.

Once the haze of your orgasm cleared up, you cringed at the feelings it had brought out of you. How stupid… Wanting a man who broke in, fucked you with his fingers, and began ignoring you like you did something horrible to him. Fuck Joel Miller and fucking his stupid fucking face. As he said, there were other men in the town. Men who wouldn’t ignore you.

⌘

“How are the windows lookin’?”

“Fixed ‘em up in time for the cold winds. No thanks to you, fuckin’ asshole.”

“Sorry. Y’know I ain’t the church going type.” It wasn’t a lie. He wasn’t the church kind before Sarah died and he certainly wasn’t anymore. That the young aspiring doctor he fingered in her bedroom was the real reason behind him swapping work would remain his secret.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tommy grumbled, playing with the now cold fries on his plate. “It ain’t a church, by the way. Maria keeps correctin’ me. It’s the house of worship.”

Joel rolled his eyes at that. He got the reasoning behind it. The town had people who believed in different Gods and had different religions. Calling the place a Church would be as unfair as calling it a– whatever, he didn’t know any other kind of place for worship. But it still pissed him off when his little brother came to him and went on about something his wife said.

Go off and do whatever your wife tells you, motherfucker.

No matter how he tried, the snide voice in his head that hated Maria never went away. He never said anything to her or Tommy. Maria was decent to him too, unlike the time he first arrived with Ellie. She trusted him with Miles. Invited him and Ellie over to family dinners. But they kept their interactions to a minimum, as though there’d been a silent agreement that it was best they kept it civil so as to not sow discord in the family.

“Whatever. No point in worshiping, be it Jesus or whatever stuff they got goin’ these days.”

A shudder went down his spine, triggered by the talk of religion. As it became colder, Ellie had begun to revert to the empty shell of a child she was after the events in Colorado. There’d been grifters in the past hiding behind religion to cheat people out of their money, to damage children irreparably while preaching the word of God. The end of the fucking world somehow didn’t stop them from going on. Didn’t stop people from believing that an all-knowing, all-powerful guy in the sky was still watching and would protect them.

If what protected people was God, guns were God. And Molotov cocktails. Sharp rocks and shoelaces.

Ellie didn’t tell him much, but from what he could piece together, it was a religious group with one guy leading them. And they were fuckin’ cannibals. Sounded like a goddamn cult.

“It’s a nice place to meet people,” said Tommy, snapping him out of his descent into the void of the recent past.

Joel simply snorted and took a sip of his glass of water. He couldn’t handle his alcohol like he used to. Age and that he had been off his usual cocktail of oxy and whiskey for a long time now. He had to resort to having a lot of water to sober himself up after the occasional evening drinks with Tommy.

“What? It is! I go there, catch up with everyone in town. Usually people go there when they’re going through some shit. It makes them feel conscious if you visit their house. So I just run into ‘em at the Chu– house of worship– and I just talk to them about their lives ‘n see if there’s anything I can do for them.”

“Guess you’re right,” he said, slotting his thumbnail in the ridges on the bar counter absentmindedly, scraping off bits of the old softening wood.

He could go again. Only so many days he could ignore you. But the reminder of the shame coursing through his veins when he saw you this evening made him shake the thoughts off. There was no way he could be anywhere you were without shriveling up and dying of embarrassment.

You were so young.

Relatively unblemished by the world. A fuckin’ virgin. Never known the touch of a man and moaning his name as you touched yourself.

Nope, nope, nope. Shouldn't have gone there, he thought as he felt himself hardening in his pants. Shouldn’t his dick be non-functional by now? He was dangerously close to sixty and spent a good two decades without adequate nutrition. Shouldn’t that be enough to turn his dick limp forever?

“Come over tomorrow, then. We’re doin’ a little memorial thing in the back of the house of worship. That young doctor’s idea, actually. She put the idea forward at the last council meeting. Thinks it’ll help people to have something physical to remember their people by.”

Young, sweet, and so fucking thoughtful.

Not meant for men like him.

Yet he went the next day.

The topic of Sarah hung in the air around him and Tommy like a fog beyond which they couldn’t see. It sat heavy in his chest, the memory of his baby and worse, everything his shit brain had forgotten. He remembered that she gave him shit, mocked him over everything. But she didn’t have a voice in his head anymore. He could describe the sweetness of her voice, but it no longer sounded out in his mind. No matter how hard he tried.

Her favorite color was purple and she loved soccer. He couldn’t recall the name of her team. She loved reading. He didn’t remember her favorite author. She liked animated movies. He couldn’t remember a single one. Just the vague memory of her falling asleep on his lap as cartoon characters chirped away on tv. Even her face was beginning to blur. When he recalled her features, it was only through images of the last seconds of her life.

“We could just do alphabetical order. Simple.”

“Not really,” you said, scribbling lines on the paper. “We get new people in the town sometimes and we don’t want the names they add to stand out, away from the alphabetically ordered list. Might make them feel bad.”

“Yeah, you’re right. What about age?” Tommy suggested.

“Still the same problem. It would force newcomers to have their own separate list at the bottom.”

“How about a first come first serve system? We tell people when we’re taking names down for the memorial and they can come over, form a queue and give us the names they want included. That way, people can keep the names of the people they love in one spot on the memorial instead of having it scattered all over because of age or alphabetical order.”

“What do you think, Joel?” Tommy asked, making him fold his arms over his chest and sigh. He didn’t give a shit. But that wasn’t the most amicale thing to say when someone was trying to do an objectively good deed. Unlike the other people in this town, he didn’t deserve to add the names of his people to a memorial. He failed in protecting them. He didn’t deserve to mourn like he wasn’t the reason they went into early graves.

“Yeah, ‘s good. I agree.” He said, finding no faults with your proposal to order the names of the deceased by the order in which people gave it to ‘em. He didn’t know why he was being asked all this. It wasn’t like he was on the council like them. He was just takin’ measurements when he got dragged into this.

“How many names do you think we’ll get?” Tommy asked him in yet another attempt to get him involved.

Taking pity on his brother, he began a rough estimate of the number of names they’d get for the memorial and how much surface area they’d need for carving them in. “Six hundred people in town. Babies don’t have names to give. Kids wouldn’t have too many and if they had any, it would be on their parents’ list too. How many kids in this town?”

It was a fucking nightmare, sitting there at the table with you and doing calculations when all he wanted was to throw you over his shoulder and take you back to his place. Make you pose like you were posing in front of your mirror that day. Like women in those porno magazines he sneaked into his teenage bedroom and jerked off to. The fuck were you even thinking? Door left open, tits out, fingers in your cunt and his fucking name on your lips.

Did you notice him at your door and decided it would be a fun trick to play on an old man? Or did you always scream his name when you fucked yourself? When was the first time? Did you always come so prettily on your own fingers like you came on his? Being in the dark drove him crazy. But part of him felt that getting the answers would drive him absolutely fucking insane.

The thought alone was enough to make him feel uncomfortable in his pants. He adjusted himself on his seat and looked away from you, afraid that somehow you’d be able to tell that he was having improper thoughts about you when you were talking about honoring the dead. If thinking about you sexually in a church was bad, he was sure it was worse to think it when you were trying to help people memorialize their dead.

You had an air of innocence about you. The brightness of your eyes and the way you moved your hands about as you planned the details of this memorial and scribbled them out on your little notebook. He’d been attracted to that innocence from the very start. A rare thing to find out in the world. When even babies were born into violence and oppression, innocence was a luxury no one even thought to acquire.

A virgin, too.

His cock twitched in his pants. He gulped and looked around to check if anyone had caught his shameless response. Nope.

He was surprised you were a virgin. For all your innocence, you were also fucking beautiful. There were plenty of guys in town. Ladies too, if you liked that. Anyone would’ve snatched you up quick and made sure to show you a world of pleasure. It didn’t take him long knowing you to give in to temptation. It was fucking impossible that no man had worshipped with his head between your thighs. That no man who saw you in your pretty little dresses bent you over and filled you up with his cock.

You were beautiful. Even more so when you came on his fingers. Made all those pretty little sounds. The way you said his name… Nobody had said it like that in such a long time. Not even Tess.

It rang in his head whenever he found himself alone at home. Being in possession of your panties didn’t help matters. White cotton. Innocent. Covered in your dried up release. When he left that day, he made sure to suck on his fingers. Moaned like a fucking creep while going down your stairs. Eyes closed, he could still taste you on his tongue. After so many days. A little tangy with a hint of salt from your sweat and all woman.

It had been embarrassingly long since he felt like a man. He’d been father, brother, smuggler, and father again. But long since he was just man. Never someone desirable. Out there, sex was just for release. Purely biological. The end of the fucking world did not afford good hygiene. You fucked someone because they were the safest option. Not because you were attracted to them.

You, however… You had others in this town. You were here before him. Younger, smarter, with a body that worked perfectly fucking well. You could have anyone but it was his name you were moaning out in the privacy of your room.

He grunted as your voice crept back into his mind. The ‘Joel, please’, and the ‘Sir’.

He grabbed on to the railing as his thighs trembled, afraid he would have an embarrassing fall. His breaths grew quicker and his mind void of everything but you.

On your knees. On your back. On your front so he could fuck you from behind. Your hand around his cock. Your lips stretched out around him as you struggled with his size. Fistful of your hair as you begged for release. Please, Sir. Please, Joel. The heat of your tight velvety cunt. Tears blurring your wide eyed innocence as he stretched out your rear hole. He wanted to take you everywhere, leave you burning with him. Mark you so deep every man you let in after you would know who fucked you first.

It didn't take long. The mental images of you were far too effective. His last time was too long ago. He was too old to last. Too old to want you. Somehow the reminder only pushed him further along. Sticky white cum coated your panties, mixing your scent with his. The mirror showed him a reflection of himself. Old, gray, crow’s feet by his eyes. He dropped your panties in the hamper, the warmth of his own release on his hand and the shame on his face sobering him up quickly.

He wanted to teach you sin. But you had taught him more of it already than you would ever know.

⌘

“Cool jacket, dude!”

“Uh…thanks. I traded for it years ago” you said, digging your thumb nail between the teeth of the zipper. It didn’t fit perfectly, but it worked well on cold nights that weren’t cold enough to warrant a sweater. “Is Joel in? I need to talk to him about a building project.”

“Yeah,” said Ellie before pressing her lips into a thin line. “I mean, he was awake half an hour ago when I left, but he could be in dreamland by now. Cause he’s old.”

“Ah. Of course,” you said, smiling awkwardly at the girl. Joel’s kind of, sort of daughter. You were closer to her than Joel in age. You rolled the memorial plan tighter and tighter, your hands needing to be occupied with something as your mind reeled at the inappropriateness of your desires.

“I’ll make sure I don’t wake him up,” you said before leaving the girl to return to her group of friends.

He was old enough to be your father. It should disgust you, scare you. Maybe it would’ve if you’d had an actual father in your life. A point of reference to know how vile a man of that age would have to be to want a girl your age. You tried to force some disgust into your veins, hoping that would help in putting out the fire in you that threatened to consume you whole. But it was hard to convince yourself that this was wrong when he’d made you feel so good.

Your fingers had become inadequate overnight. If his fingers were so powerful over you… You shuddered to think what he could do for you with his penis. It had to feel better. The organ was made for it, unlike fingers.

You stopped outside his door and knocked without giving it a single thought. If you’d thought about it, you would’ve fled. It had already taken you hours to muster up the courage to make the walk to his house with the draft sketches for the memorial. You wouldn’t let your desperation ruin it.

He looked surprised to see you, mouth opening and closing as though he’d forgotten how to process language. His dark brown curls and the silver that decorated it sat messily atop his head. Like he’d run his fingers through it. An old t-shirt stretched over his chest and struggled against his arms. A pair of dark sweatpants sat on his hips, the drawstrings hanging in the front.

“Hey? Uh…what’s wrong?” he asked, bringing a hand up to his face and scratching his beard. Why was that hot? You had to be out of your fucking mind.

You cleared your throat and looked up into his eyes. “Does something have to be wrong?”

“You’ve never come here, so I thought…”

“I’m here about the memorial plans. I have a few designs I want to run by you,” you said, holding up the rolled up sheets of paper.

“Ah. That. Sure, uh come in,” he said, opening the door and stepping aside to allow you passage. You looked around his house, careful to seem disinterested so he didn’t have more reasons to think you were a stupid little girl pining after him just because he made you come once.

Shit. He probably already thought that.

“A virgin. Pretty young things like you ain’t for men like me.”

You swallowed at the reminder as he led you to the dining table and offered you a seat. You looked around while he cleared the table. Plates, tools, some worn out novels. So he was the messy sort. You didn’t know who you would be if you’d had the chance to just be. You didn’t know if you would leave things lying around like that if you’d had a normal start to life. Like Joel. Like the others who were old enough to remember life before the cordyceps.

The place didn’t scream Joel Miller. There were no personal artifacts decorating his living room. No framed art. No books. No throw pillows or even a blanket on the couch.

You knew what it was like to have nothing in your house. When you were still new to the town and it hadn’t hit you yet that you were allowed to have your own things. Collect stuff and not worry about having too many things to carry with you when you had to run. You didn’t own anything you couldn’t fit into your backpack. And you took that backpack everywhere when you managed to step outside your new house.

But over time, you’d decorated your house. People you helped out at the clinic often gave you things as a token of their gratitude. Kids drew pictures for you. A lady once gave you the art off her wall that the previous owner had put up. Tommy and Maria gave you a new sweater that she’d knit when she was pregnant. New yarn from new wool from the town’s sheep. The first time you ever got something truly new.

“No decorations, huh?”

“What?”

“You don’t have any decorations here,” you pointed out again and licked your lips nervously.

“Uh, yeah. Not really the priority. Have’ta trade wisely. Can’t be gettin’ pictures when ya need bread.”

“Yeah,” you said, nodding. “But you don't have to trade for it, you know? You could put up something of what’s in the house already. Surely the previous owners left some stuff.”

“They did. Traded ‘em all for things we need. Fresh fruits, bullets, that kinda shit.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be framed art. You could cut up a nice picture from a magazine or something.”

Joel looked up from the plans, head tilted and an eyebrow raised. Shit! Of course he thought you were talking about your magazines with the naked women.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” you said, your voice coming out squeaky. Embarrassed, you cleared your throat and looked down at the plans.

“Let’s discuss the plans,” he said, his voice all gruff and his tone so stern.

“I-I- uh… May I use your restroom?” you asked, unable to look him in the eye after what you’d said. After how he’d reacted. You really didn’t mean it like that. But you could see why that would be hard to believe when the last time he saw you, you had a box full of those men’s entertainment magazines on your bed and one open in front of you as you touched yourself.

Touched yourself and moaned his name.

“Upstairs, second door to the left.”

You squeaked out a thanks before you bolted out of his dining room and made your way up the stairs. There were two bathrooms. One decorated with band posters and a poster of a girl with weirdly cut black hair sitting on a motorcycle. Had to be Ellie’s. The second door to the left was another bathroom. Joel’s, apparently. There was just one bar of soap, a toothbrush, and a pot of toothpaste. No shampoo bar. You pulled the toilet seat and lid down before taking a seat.

You let out a groan and planted your face in your hands. Why the hell did you have to go and make it awkward like it wasn’t already that way. After he made you come that day, he’d refused to be anywhere near you. You hoped it was just coincidence, but after over a week it became undeniable that he was avoiding you.

He probably thought you were going to catch feelings. A girl in one of the romance novels you read fell in love with a guy who took her virginity. And there was the time you overheard this guy talking about not wanting to sleep with a girl because she was a virgin. He was afraid she would catch feelings and get clingy.

Now here you were in his bathroom because you thought it was wise to make small talk and ended up insinuating he should put up dirty pictures on his wall. You could scream. But you wouldn’t. There was already enough awkwardness with him.

You could always jump out of the window and run off to your house. Never speak of this again. Pretend nothing happened if Joel tried to talk to you about it. But something told you that he wouldn’t. He would probably be happy if he never had to interact with you again. You had been acting desperate. He caught you touching yourself moaning his name, for fuck’s sake!

Your hands, permanently dry from all the times you scrubbed them clean for your patients, found some moisture from your salty tears. It was embarrassing, sitting in the bathroom of a guy who wanted nothing to do with you after you scared him off with your stupid little infatuation.

You were a grown woman. Still young, but too old to be acting like this. You should have some experience already. Not sniffling over a man more than twice your age. He was right. He had been a grown man with experience longer than you’d been alive. Of course he wanted nothing to do with you.

The window looked more and more attractive as the seconds passed. It had been a while since you did something like that. You didn’t need to jump out of buildings or trees anymore. You didn’t go on patrols like some residents. With no need to fight for your life and having all the food you could need to never go hungry even once, you’d become a little unfit. If you broke a bone jumping out of Joel’s bathroom window, there would be questions. And everyone would know. You’d have to avoid the whole town instead of just Joel.

You’d just have to face it. Even if facing it was doing as little as just bidding him goodbye and bolting out of his house without an explanation. You got off his toilet and pressed the flush just so he didn’t think you were weird. Like it fucking mattered. He already found you weird and desperate.

You washed your hands, letting the water wash away the tears on your hands before wiping your wet hands over your face in an attempt to remove traces of your crying.

You should’ve just left after that. Not looked around. Not snooped like a creep. You didn’t ever dig. You didn’t have to look too deep to catch it. But a sliver of white peeked out through the netted walls of the laundry hamper. A sliver of white cotton with a light blue stitch.

Without second thought, you dug into his dirty laundry. You came up with the white cotton fabric, going straight to the gusset where the blue thread stitched the fabric pieces together. The original stitch had given out and you sewed it back together just some time back. The blue thread was all that you had at the time.

As though the sight of your panties in Joel’s bathroom wasn’t jarring enough, next came the smell. Of you. Your cum. You felt practically hear your own heartbeats as you recalled how he’d cleaned you up with your own panties. You recalled that he stuffed the fabric in his pocket as you lied on your bed, pussy still pulsating from his handiwork, brain melted, and life changed forever.

You took another whiff of your panties, goosebumps raising the hairs on your body as you felt it. Your cum and something else. It was still damp.

Blood rushed back up to your face and you felt yourself getting tense.

This fucker. How dare he? You’d been embarrassed just a minute ago over your desires and he was doing this the whole time? Noticing you on the streets and running away for days. Running back to his home where he kept your fucking panties, apparently. Avoiding you for so long only to cum in your panties.

So he wanted you.

If not you, he at least wanted sex. Dirrty old man who liked attention from you, but you weren’t even disgusted. Just angry he was pretending to be better than that. He could’ve used any old rag, but he used your panties.

You brought your defiled panties back up and smelled them again. Strangely, it smelled something like bleach. Or you could be wrong. You’d never… You didn’t know what a man’s release was supposed to smell like. Was it different for each man or did they all smell the same?

Wetness pooled in your panties as you imagined him touching himself. Large rough hand wrapped around himself. Did he think of you when he did it? Think of you naked in your bedroom and taking his fingers? What did his penis look like? What would it feel like? Soft? Rough? You’d wondered about having one inside you, but never about a particular man’s anatomy. But this was Joel. Joel was the only one who’d gotten this far in your head.

He couldn’t deny it to you anymore. If nothing else, you could at least call him out for ignoring you when he was wiping his ejaculate off with your stolen panties.

“Joel!” you called out before your fears could talk you out of confronting him. Unsure if he would’ve heard you, you opened the bathroom door and yelled his name out again. “Joel!”

“What?”

“Come up here!”

“What happened?”

“Just come here.”

You heard him sigh, the sound followed by the typical grunts and groans he made when standing up. Fuckin’ old man, ruining your life. Ruining your self-confidence. Ruining your fucking panties. His heavy footsteps thudded against the stairs as he climbed up, the sound getting louder as he got closer to the bathroom.

“Why were you screaming my name like y–” he stopped mid scold, frozen in place by the door as he saw what you had in your hand. He opened and closed his mouth, as though attempting to explain but deciding otherwise. He licked his lips and scratched the back of his neck, his eyes looking everywhere but at you.

“Do you not have rags, Joel?” you taunted, taking a step towards him and enjoying seeing him step back. You felt powerful, moving a large man with just your voice. It was very unlike how he made you feel all the days he ignored you. Weak, insignificant, undesirable.

“You weren’t meant to– Fuck, I’m sorry!”

“Which part are you apologizing for? For breaking into my house and touching me? For ignoring me ever since? For stealing my underwear? Or for doing whatever you did with it?”

You moved him out of the bathroom, making him walk backwards in the hallway you hoped led to his bedroom. Even if it didn’t, you’d be fine. You’d exact revenge in any place you can. As long as you got to make him feel the way he made you feel. Pleasure. Shame. Want.

“I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry. I never should’ve—”

You took your last step towards him, finally trapping him against a wall. You stood close enough to place your hand on his chest. You licked your lips, the rock hard muscles beneath your touch storing itself away in your mind for later use.

“Imagine what would happen if I told someone? You sister-in-law, perhaps… She hates you, doesn’t she?” You smirked, though you were screaming on the inside. You didn’t know where you got all this courage from. You didn’t know you had it in you to threaten a man as imposing as Joel.

He turned pale, his hands up against the wall in surrender. If you’d asked him, he wouldn’t tell you the truth that it was to keep himself from touching you. “Please don’t tell anyone. I won’t do this again, I swear.”

“Maybe I want you to do this again…”

“You don’t. Trust me.”

“Shh!” You said, placing your index finger on his lips. Pink, perfectly shaped, and so damn kissable. “Don’t tell me what I want. You ignored me ever since you walked into my house without my permission and shoved your fingers inside me. I was walking around town believing I wasn’t good enough for big old Joel Miller. What did you say? That you’ve been experiencing longer than I’ve been alive?”

You raised an eyebrow at him when he didn’t answer. Then he nodded reluctantly.

“Why were you coming in my panties then if I didn't measure up? ”

“I won’t do it ag—” he groaned when you grabbed his cock through his pants. He let out a low grunt and his Adam’s Apple bobbed in his neck as he swallowed. You replaced your index finger with your thumb, tracing his trembling lips as you lazily stroked his cock with your other thumb.

He filled your whole hand and there was still more. It took everything in you to not moan at the sheer size of him. To not grind your belly against it to feel it against you. You didn’t know how big it was supposed to be, but the romance novels you read always described the big ones as more desirable.

“I don’t want to hear excuses. I asked why. Why did you steal my panties, Joel Miller?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you come on it? Don’t fucking lie to me cause I can fucking smell you on it.”

“I did. I jerked off with it.” You had to choke back a moan at that. No, you had to be strong. Show him you could take the upper hand just like he did with you. You weren’t a little girl with a crush. You were a woman and you could have this effect on a grown man. You refused to be discounted with a pat on your pussy no matter how much you wanted him to touch you like that again.

“Mmm. And that’s enough to get you going. Just a pair of my panties.”

“Mhmm.”

“Show me how you did it.”

“What?” He asked, eyebrow raised.

“Show. Me. How you did it.”

He narrowed his eyes at you, his hand coming up to stroke the base of his neck. “Wh-What?”

You felt your heart thud against your ribs and if you didn’t know from experience and your textbooks, you’d have been afraid that he could hear it. You’d never done anything so daring. You were the timid girl when it came to this stuff. That the thought even occurred to you was a testament to how much you desired Joel. Not just to sleep with any guy, but to have Joel. Without a word, you reached under the skirt of your dress and tugged your panties down.

He inhaled sharply as you bent down and came back up with your panties. Undyed white fabric, a little green ribbon in the shape of a bow stitched to the front, gusset a light gray from your wetness.

“Show me. I want to see what you were doing in your bathroom with my panties after ignoring me everyday,” you said, taking his hand and forcing the fabric into it. His hand curled around it and you found yourself feeling lighter. You didn't know how long you could keep up the brave front if he continued to have no response.

“Take your clothes off.”

It was like something changed the moment you gave him the garment. His eyes were on you, his gaze unrelenting. He took a step ahead and you stepped backward. His lips curled up in a smirk. It seemed playtime was over… Like a lion letting the cubs play at predation before taking over to show how hunting was really done.

You didn’t know if you were ready for that… Sure it was nothing he’d never seen before, but it was different. The last time, you didn’t do it with the intention to have him see you. He just happened to see you bare and you didn’t cover up when you realized.

“I don’t have a box full of dirty magazines. I need to see somethin’,” he said, his eyes going down your frame like they had every right to be there. “Or you could leave these,” he said, holding your panties up in front of your eyes, “and run back home. What d’ya say?”

You swallowed, your hands shaking as you reached behind to find the zipper of your dress. You weren’t going to run off. Not when you’d been desperate for so long to do something, anything with him. Cold air kissed your back as you pulled the zipper down and the hairs on your body stood up in full attention. You pushed the sleeves off your shoulder and shimmied out of the dress, standing in just your dress in front of him.

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. He looked you up and down. He tilted his head as he looked you up and down. He radiated superiority, putting you in some kind of a daze. “Your bra too. Show me your tits.”

The crudeness had more wetness pooling between your legs. You nodded wordlessly, afraid that pathetic whimpers would be the only sound you’d make under his gaze. You reached behind and felt around for the clasp of your bra. With his eyes piercing into you, you failed to find it quickly like you usually did. Your mouth dried up, your tongue sticking to the roof.

He made no effort to help. A mocking smile assumed its place on his lips as he watched you struggle in front of him.

When you finally managed your task and stood fully naked, he stood up straight. His tongue darted out and licked his lips. You felt like a piece of meat placed in front of a starving man. Just seconds ago, you were telling yourself you didn’t need his approval, that this would just be revenge. But as he evaluated your body, your pussy wept with the need for your body to be nothing but what he liked.

“Room’s that way.” He nodded in the direction of the room. You turned around and took small steps, your shoulders curling inward and your head bowed in submission. Every inch of your skin burned with the strength of his gaze.

“Kneel.”

You placed your knee on his bed, ready to climb up.

“On the floor.”

One knee still on his white sheets, you turned around to look at him. He was so large. Imposing. The kind of figure you would follow without question. So, you did.

“You look pretty on your knees.”

He took a few steps towards you, stopping when the distance had your neck straightening to look up at him. Large, powerful, imposing. Another step and you were face-to-face with his crotch. His bulge was right there.

“Go on, take it out. Since you wanted it so bad.”

Joel didn’t think you would do it. You looked even smaller kneeling at his feet. Meek little thing. He didn’t at all expect you to taunt him the way you did. Especially after you threatened to tell on him to Maria. He fully expected you to start crying. Guess he really underestimated you. Virgin didn’t necessarily mean innocent.

Yet you folded as soon as he took the reins. He saw the change in you right when he told you to take your clothes off. When your eyes went from determined to defeated. All that spunk evaporated to reveal the little girl underneath. He liked it like that. Made him feel like a real man. Not that there was any scarcity of masculinity in his life of taking out clickers and defending this town. But somethin’ about a beautiful woman accepting his authority did the trick faster than every other display of masculinity.

Your hands fiddled with his belt, trembling as you tried to take it off. He stopped you with a hand on your wrist. “Just undo the zip.”

No way he was going to get naked in front of a pretty little twenty something. It wasn’t anything great to look at even before he began a life of violence and traversing the wilderness. Sure he was well built from all the hard physical labor and constant fight for survival. It’d left several unappealing scars on his person. Time had done a number on him too. Especially his pudgy belly. It didn’t help that food flowed free in Jackson, fattening him up a little.

Thankfully, you listened. You looked up, as though you expected him to complete the task for him. He challenged you with a look. Wanna be a big girl so bad, act like one.

You reached inside his pants and took his cock out. Your lips parted and he heard you inhale through your mouth. His cock hung in front of him, hard from your teasing. He had to give it to you, you were daring for a meek little thing. No one in town would believe him if he told them all that you’d done. And he suspected he didn’t even know the half of it.

“Not too late to back out, you know?” he said, wrapping his hand around himself. It took everything in him to give you an out. As much as he wanted to grab your face, force your mouth open and make you gag around him, he was man enough to let you know you didn’t have to do anything. Young girl probably bit more than you could swallow. And seeing his cock and your mouth so close by showed that he was definitely nothing you could swallow.

“I’m not backing out.”

“First time seeing one?”

“Of course not. I work at the clinic. You think I haven’t seen a penis?”

“No anatomical terms. I ain’t your patient. Go on, touch my cock.”

You reached up for him, but he stepped back, delighting himself in the disappointment on your face. “Come on, you want a man so bad, work for it.”

You moved to stand up. “Did I say you could stand up?”

“No.”

“Then get back on your fucking knees.”

You dropped to your knees and he groaned in satisfaction. The euphoria of wielding power over someone rushed through his veins. And he wanted more. It was the same sick satisfaction he got when he beat men to death. When he broke bones and dressed animals he hunted in the wild. “Good girl. You’re going to listen to what I say. Got it?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Fuck! That fucking word again.

“Come on, come get it. Hands and knees. Crawl to me.”

He beckoned you forward with one hand, his other still on his cock. You bent over and god fucking damnit, you were a vision. You were an eager girl and he could see what you could become in the right hands. His hands. The things he could show you… Introduce you to your own body. Bring you pain and pleasure that were indistinguishable.

Your tits hung from your chest, swaying as you crawled towards him. Feverish, bright eyes followed him as he continued to refuse what you wanted. Too fucking late. He warned you. Told you men like him weren’t for pretty little things like you. But you didn’t fucking want to listen. Now you’d have to deal with the consequences. Maybe you’d stay away then.

“Please, Sir,” you whined so prettily he almost gave in.

“What are you begging for?”

“You. Y-your penis.”

“My cock,” he corrected. “Say it.”

“Your cock, Sir.”

“Good girl. C’mere,” he said, giving you a nod to come closer. You crawled to him and when he didn’t back away, sat up on your knees. He placed his hand on the back of your neck and gripped your hair, making you hiss. Holding you in place, he brought his cock to your face. You looked up at it, your eyes widening and your mouth slackening. You brought your hand up and touched his tip with just your thumb. The rest of your hand followed, wrapping around him. He gasped silently as you stroked his slit with your thumb, making him leak precum on you.

“Did…? Did you?”

“No. Gotta do more ‘n that to make me come. That’s precum.”

“Oh.”

He didn’t think you knew what precum was. Probably not the focus of your education here. Not the most important thing when townsfolk came in injured after patrols or suffering from a fever that was life threatening without the medicines of the past.

He pressed his cock against your cheek. The sight presented a visual of how you’d struggle if you took him in your mouth. He’d have you choking on him before you even took half. He twitched against your face at the mere thought. You were the picture of innocence, even with his cock on your face. Even with the stunt you pulled before he put you back in your place.

“Think I’ll just do this. Fuck your pretty face.”

You whimpered, spurring him on. He wanted to force himself inside you, punish your mouth for having the gall to speak to him the way you did. Make you cry from how full of him you were. Give you a sore throat so when you spoke to him again, you’d remember to speak with respect. But you wouldn’t be able to handle it. So he’d settle for defiling your sweet features, hold his cock against your cheek and rut like the animal he was.

“I ain’t gonna lay you out on my bed and take you nice and slow. I’m just gonna use you. ‘s what men like me do.”

He pulled away, giving you another opportunity to rethink this. “You can put your fucking clothes on and leave if you don’t like it.”

To his surprise, you stayed put on your knees. You shook your head before reaching up and rubbing your cheek against his cock. You let out a soft moan, eyes closed and your thighs pressed together tight. “No, no. I like it.”

“Fuckin’ slut,” he said, his hand back in your hair. He tugged at it and took his cock in his other hand. He tapped your lips with his tip, smearing the precum that leaked out of him. “You like an older man using your face like it’s a pussy?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He snorted, amused. “Never met a virgin slut before. Getting your face fucked before your pussy. Bet you’re wet from this.”

There was the sweet little whimper from you again. He wanted to hear more of it. Trap you underneath him and make you weep and cry and whimper as he split you in half.

“Let me see. Touch your pussy, show me your slick.”

You obeyed, spread your knees and touched yourself. Your hand glistened under the light of his bedroom, your wetness stretching between your fingers in strings. “Goddamn, would you look at that…” he said in a low rumble. “Rub it on my cock.”

Your hand trembled slightly and you stared at him with a blank look in your eyes. He guided your hand to his cock, withdrawing his hand when he’d brought you close enough so you could decide whether you wanted to follow his command. You touched your slickened hand to his cock, covering him in the evidence that you wanted this. Wanted him. You reached between your legs and brought more of yourself, eyes soft yet glazed with lust as you smeared yourself all over his length.

“Ask me for it.”

“Please,” you whined.

“Please, what?”

“P-please fuck my face. Sir.”

He returned his cock to your cheek, your wetness lubricating your face. Hand cradling his cock, he began to thrust. It wasnt much different from fucking his own fist. It was just skin. Not the tight velvety wetness of a pussy or a throat that would gag with his thickness. But your face was softer than his gun callused hands. Even better was your pretty face, looking up at him so adoringly… So full of desire.

He didn’t have to let his imagination do the trick now. Not when you were right in front of him, lending yourself for his use. And no imagination, no memory did justice to you. Your body. Scarred, but beautiful. Tits that filled his large hands, clean and styled hair, a belly that showed you were well fed. He wanted to lay you out on his bed and consume you. Take your tits in his mouth, grab handfuls of your ass, spread your cunt lips and lodge himself inside you. Give it to you hard so your thigh jiggled and you felt them ache as they rubbed against each other when you walked around in your pretty little dresses.

But as depraved as he was, he knew he shouldn’t be the first to take you. He’d have you just this once. Store your image in his head to get off with for as long as his dick worked. You acted all brave, but he couldn’t shake off that you were still inexperienced. The first time was meant to be good. The world was no longer normal, but you could have normality within the insular walls of Jackson.

Even this was wrong. Using you like this instead of making sweet love to you. But he hadn’t been that man in a long time. He was selfish and cruel. If there was no town, no community where everyone knew everyone and you still threw yourself at him, he would’ve taken you in all your holes with no hesitation. Ruined you, kept you until your body wasn’t of use and tossed you aside. But being in this semi-normal place had gotten its claws into him. Softened him up.

He grew closer to the edge embarrassingly quickly, the haze of carnal pleasure beginning to muffle the voices screaming in his head to let you go. He only barely noticed that you were touching yourself. Enjoying this treatment of you. That spurred him on. There was no stopping now.

You let out soft moans, your eyes never once leaving him. He struggled to get himself to focus. To check for any signs you didn’t want this. But all he saw was you on the precipice of pleasure. The world disappeared. His house, Jackson, the darkness that lay beyond. It was all him now. He felt lighter, like he would float out through the window and everything he’d ever been through would disappear. Every ounce of goodness quietened down, the last shreds of his morality discarded with your dress. He grunted and moaned your name as he kept fucking you. Your features morphed into nothingness. No longer a face, no longer a human woman. All he knew was the ache in his body, the tightness that begged to be released.

He slapped a hand against the wall as his thighs stiffened and every muscle in the vicinity of his cock tightened. He took himself back in his hand and stroked himself over your face. Once, twice, and thr– mid stroke, he growled and spilled on your face, coating your innocent features in sticky white cum. You flinched as the first stream hit, screwing your eyes shut. He wanted to make you look, see how he could defile you, show you that he wasn’t for you. Force you to confront what you’d allowed into your life so you’d run and never look back.

But all he could do was keep stroking as he came down from his high. It was unlike anything he’d had in the recent past. Not his imagination, not just his hand. A real human woman who wasn’t just a convenience. One who sought him out, stripped for him, and let him use her face like a toy.

He took a minute to collect his breath and let his senses return to him. His cock hung semi-hard outta his jeans, like it could go again if he willed it. Like it wasn’t almost six decades old. But he wasn’t too surprised. He could go again for the utterly debauched girl in front of him. Innocence eclipsed by milky white ropes of his cum. Without thinking twice, he grabbed your hair and pulled at it. You yelped, but let him pull you up from the ground and drag you to the other side of the room.

He stopped you in front of his mirror, and slapped your hand off your pussy before replacing it with his. “Look at yourself. I fucking told you,” he said, forcing two thick fingers inside your cunt. You sucked him in with little resistance, your cunt leaking enough for him to force a third finger inside you. You gasped and tried to wriggle away, but he wasn’t having it. He was a fucking monster, but he would never leave a woman unsatisfied. Especially a young thing who’d never had anyone else before.

He wrapped his free hand around your throat, his half hard cock begging him to go again when he felt the vibrations of your moans. “I warned you,” he whispered into your ear. “Fuckin’ warned you. Told you how starved I was. And you still taunted me. Look at you now!”

“Please… Please, Joel! Sir, please…”

“Fuckin’ slut. Maybe you ain’t really a virgin.”

“I am, I am, I promise. I wa–” you cut yourself off with a gasp as he pressed his thumb on your clit.

“What was that?”

You made some incoherent noises, too far gone to form words. Yet you managed to thrust onto his fingers and roll your hips like a real natural.

“Joel…”

“I know, pretty girl… I know,” he cooed, the softness in his voice contradicting how he’d used you just minutes prior. Contradicting the cum on your pretty little face.

“You gonna come for me? Give me another one after you came so sweetly on my fingers that day?”

There were no answers from you. Not even an acknowledgement that you heard him. Just whines and moans as you let him support your entire weight. Your head lolled back on his shoulder and your eyes rolled back into your skull as he fucked you stupid with just his fingers. Oh the things he could do with his cock… Reach deeper, take the virginity you’d held on to for so long. If he ever had you, he would never let go. He was too selfish a man to willingly lose a girl so precious after taking her cunt.

You gripped him like a vice, so tight he couldn't pry his fingers out. Something that vaguely sounded like his name spilled from your lips as you crumpled in his arms. Your pussy pulsated around you as he held you against him, unwilling to remove himself from you so quickly.

He withdrew your panties from his pocket– the fresh pair you took off in his fucking hallways like it was no big deal. He wiped your face with it the same way he cleaned up your cunt that day. Instead of tucking it in his pocket, he forced it into your hand.

“Put it on. Your fucking dress, too. Hope you learned you fucking lesson.”

As you put it on and scampered away naked into his hallways, he hoped it would be enough to scare you away. But he knew in his heart of hearts that he would always crave you like an addict craving a drink.

⌘

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starry-eyes-love · 24 days

Text

Pairing | Joel Miller x F!Reader (One-shot, AU, No Outbreak). One-shot but in the same universe as Marriage Dynamics. This happens way later than the storyline within that series though. Can be read as a stand-alone or within the series.

Summary | Joel feels a little self conscious that he has to admit to you, his wife, that he has erectile dysfunction, and that he’s out of his little blue pills. You, being the understanding and loving woman that you are, remind him just how sexy he is, even with his little problem and that love doesn’t come with conditions.

Word Count: 5.4K

Warnings | 18+, Minors DNI, Smut.

Age gap (58/40s), language, husband/wife dynamics, got some angst in this one (but it ends where they are ok and happy), smut, f! (fingering), m! (hand job), mentions of f! (oral), slight body descriptions (she states she’s 30 lbs heavier), mentions of erectile dysfunction and Joel having to take Viagra, Joel being out of Viagra (that poor man), sweet and tender moments, comfort, terms of endearment, you teasing Joel that he’s old and him showing you that he’s not. This is basically half story and half smut, so enjoy :)

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The longer your husband snapped his powerful hips and ground into you, the more worked up you were getting. Joel knew how to work you up, get you so riled up that you’d beg him to fuck you. You were trying to bite back your moans and whimpers, not wanting to give in right away. But when you heard Joel speak filthy things into your ear, you turned into a needy, whimpering little mess.

Joel stood in the bathroom, looking up at himself in the mirror while sighing. He didn’t know how it happened. How did he become an old man where his body required medication to function normally. Here he was, 58, with a worn out body that he no longer recognized. He had spent his entire life working construction, and now he was feeling it. He had aches and pains in places that he didn’t even know existed. He took blood pressure and cholesterol medication everyday just to keep his body somewhat on the right track. But worst of all, he had to start taking a small blue pill to help him obtain and sustain an erection. Yup, Joel Miller was diagnosed about six months ago with erectile dysfunction, something that he thought only old men got. But here he was, 58, and having to take Viagra just so he could properly fuck his wife. Joel didn’t know what was worse, having to take the little blue pill or the fact that you knew nothing about it. To make matters worse, he ran out of his special little pills, and he couldn't get any more until about six weeks. His doctor was on vacation and wanted to see Joel upon his return before re-filling his prescription. Joel didn't know how, but he had to figure out a way to keep you happy, without embarrassing himself any further. As he ran a hand down his face, he exhaled loudly, mumbling to himself ‘goddamn, when the hell did I get old?’

“What's that scowl for, old man, especially so early in the morning?” You teased, walking up to the other sink in the bathroom to wash your face. Your master bathroom now had two sinks, his and hers. It was a side project that Joel had completed last summer with the help from Tommy. He got tired of your constant nagging of finding his facial hair trimmings in the sink. So he decided to knock out a few walls and build you your very own sink with counter space. A his and hers master bathroom off from your bedroom. It only took a few weekends, but eventually his little side project was done. Now you both had enough counter space, where the two of you weren't bickering about where everything went in the bathroom anymore. Joel no longer grumbled about you taking up his side of the counter with your serums and ointments for your face. And you no longer nagged him about finding his beard trimmings in the sink.

“Quit it,” he had huffed, giving you a dirty look in the mirror as he finished trimming his beard.

“Woah, what's that look for?” You asked, taking a few steps towards him to plant a tender kiss on his cheek. “Good morning. Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?”

Joel exhaled and shook his head, mumbling to you, “mornin,’” as you went over to your sink to wash your face. You knew Joel enough to know that this scowl on his face was only reserved for when he was upset about something or someone. You had hoped that someone wasn't you.

“Did I piss you off or something?” You asked while looking at him in the mirror, trying to figure out where his sour mood was coming from. “You're awfully grumpy this morning.” When he didn't respond, you replied again with a little more bite to your words. “Well, for someone who got laid last night, you don't seem very happy about it today.”

Joel huffed at you while rolling his eyes and mumbling, “yeah, well, I'm paying for it this morning now ain't I? M’back is fucking killing me.”

Oh, so that's why he was grumpy.

A part of you instantly became frustrated at his statement, but you bit your lip and tried not to say something inappropriate back. You enjoyed last night a lot with your husband, especially when you begged him to go harder. His answer to that request was to hold your head against the mattress as he fucked you hard from behind. It had been a long time since Joel Miller became unhinged like that in the bedroom, and if you were being honest with yourself, it felt fucking fantastic. It was something that you desperately missed. However, according to Joel’s comments and current mood, apparently he didn't feel the same way today as you did. He was now hurting, wincing as he twisted to grab the scissors to trim his mustache. You didn't want Joel to regret doing what he did with you, nor did you want him to be in any pain. His obvious lack of enthusiasm this morning about your midnight activities made you feel self-conscious. Nodding your head you said “ok,” as you attempted to wash your face. But when you stood there you felt yourself get anxious and self conscious about last night.

Did he not enjoy it with me? Maybe it’s because I’m not as thin as I used to be anymore? I did put on about 30 pounds over the years, so maybe I hurt him with my weight? You knew your body had changed a lot over the years, you no longer had a flat stomach or a tight ass. You had what people called a mom body. A slightly curvy, unattractive, stretch-mark laced body that carried three kids. Your later adult years were more about raising your kids than it was about going to the gym and looking sexy like a model or a porn star.

As you stood there, allowing your mind to run wild at the reasons why Joel may have not enjoyed himself last night, your hands started to tremble slightly and your eyes started to sting from the tears that were threatening to form. You quickly splashed water over them to try to stop the emotional reaction that you were getting. You were very hormonal recently, especially since your doctor said that you needed to stop your birth control. She told you several months ago that it wasn't healthy for a woman in her forties to continue to take birth control. So you stopped last month, two months after Joel got a vasectomy. Joel and you were done having kids. With Sarah finishing college, and with three kids that you had with him still at home, you had agreed that the only other future babies that would be in your house would be future grandchildren. What you didn't realize was that when you stopped birth control you would become more sensitive with your emotions again as your body adjusted.

Usually any type of grumpy behavior or comments from Joel like this wouldn't bother you under normal circumstances, but today you were extra sensitive and emotional. It didn't help that you had been super horny for your husband for the past two weeks while he was gone on a business trip. With the lack of kids for the weekend, Joel had taken his last blue pill right before he got home. When he got home, he barely made it through the door before he was thrusting himself deep inside of you, claiming you once again as his.

Now as Joel stood there, watching you through the mirror, he knew something was up. You kept alternating between splashing water on your face and then drying it. When he saw you do it a fourth time, he had to say something to you.

“Babe,” he said, trying to get your attention. When you didn't answer, but kept up your routine of splashing water onto your face, he knew something was wrong. He also noticed that you untied and retied your robe several times, mumbling to yourself that you hated your mom-type body.

Fuck, Joel thought. He could see that you were reading too much into his mood and that you probably were coming to the wrong conclusion yet again with his attitude. Joel wasn't upset or grumpy from the sex he had last night, because damn he loved your body so much. He was so turned on by it last night. He loved pounding his wife’s tight little pussy and hearing all those filthy little noises that you made for him. The reason for his sour mood this morning was because he was out of those damn blue pills, the ones that allowed him to be buried deep inside of you as he heard you moan his name.

When you didn't answer him, he tried again. “Honey, will ya look at me for a second?” When you finally looked up at him, he saw your lip quiver and the tears begin to fall. He immediately let out an exaggerated sigh, mumbling ‘fuck’ under his breath.

As soon as you turned to leave, Joel spoke up saying, “baby, I didn't mean anything by it. Fuck, c’mere will ya.” You had only gotten about three steps out of the door before Joel grabbed you by the waist and pulled you hard against his chest.

“Baby c’mon, I didn’t mean it like that. No, shh, it’s okay, don’t cry,” Joel said, holding you close. He had one arm around your waist holding you firm to his body, while his other hand was gently wiping the tears from your eyes. You wouldn't turn to look at him, so he just held you against his chest while trying to console you. “Baby, come on now. Shhh, don't cry sugar. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I'm not cryin’,” you mumbled, trying to sound stern, but failing miserably at your attempt. Joel cupped your cheek, and gently turned your head back towards him, kissing you tenderly while continuing to softly tell you that he was sorry for his mood and that he loved you.

Joel Miller may be several things in life. He may be grumpy and not very communicative from time to time. Often he’s described by others as being an asshole, especially when people piss him off. Usually he doesn't apologize for his grumpiness or gruffness, unless it's dealing with family. And it fucking kills him to see you, his wife, someone that he desperately loves and cares for cry because of his behavior. Joel never likes seeing you cry, in fact, it’s his least favorite thing to see.

After a few moments of tender kisses, Joel slowly started to deepen them into more passionate ones. He was walking a fine line here. He was trying to make up for being an asshole to you this morning, but also trying not to progress it too far where his lack of ability in performance would be seen. But with those little whimpers that you were doing, along with how you were gently nipping his neck, Joel found his resolve quickly crumbling.

“Baby, we gotta slow down,” he said, nipping at your collarbone and then giving you a hot and messy kiss to your lips.

God, it felt so good kissing his wife like this. Joel didn't remember the last time you two made out like this; all lips, tongue and teeth. He slowly backed you up to the wall and then hoisted you up, encouraging you to wrap your legs around his waist. After another needy whimper from your mouth, Joel's resolve completely crumbled and he found himself thrusting hard up into you and grinding his hips against your clothed core.

“Is this what my baby wants, huh? Does she want her husband to show her who’s boss? To show her how a real man fucks, hmm?

“Yes. Please baby, f-fuck me. Show me how a real man does it, I need it,” you panted, reaching down to unbuckle and unbutton his pants. Your cunt was practically throbbing. So desperate to feel your husband’s stretch, to feel so full of him. Joel was a big man, he was long and thick. You always enjoyed the sting of his stretch, and the heaviness of his cock inside of you.

As soon as you touched Joel’s belt, he remembered the big problem that he had. He was only half hard with the inability to get fully hard for you. Goddamn fucking pills. Joel, feeling embarrassed at the situation, gently set you back down while placing a hand on top of yours. He was trying to stop you from reaching inside his pants.

“Baby, fuck, we can't” he said, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against yours, breathing slow, trying to find a way out of this embarrassing situation.

“What? Why? I don't understand,” you said with disbelief. You were trying to understand why your husband, who had been gone several weeks on a work trip, didn't want to have sex with you when the kids were gone. “Is it your back, honey?” You asked somewhat perplexed. “If it is, I can be on top and do all the work for you if you want. I don't mind, really.” You said, trying to reason with Joel to let you touch him more. When he didn't respond you reached forward and palmed him, feeling him only half hard.

“Please stop.” Joel said in a stern voice, grabbing your hand and gently removing it. “I- uh, I can't- fuck- we can’t, ok.” He said, voice shaking as he slowly backed away from you, running a hand down his face. He was disgusted with himself and the fact that he couldn’t give his wife the proper attention that she deserved.

You stood there bewildered, unable to make sense of what was happening. Did Joel Miller just turn down sex? In all the years you two have been having sex together, he has never once stopped sex from progressing. You were racking your brain, trying to figure out why all of a sudden he’d stop you. And the only solution that you could think of was that maybe you weren’t the only person he was seeing like this. Maybe he, just like your father, had found a new favorite toy on the sideline. You looked at your husband with mortified eyes, fighting with the firm possibility that maybe he was no different than your dad; a lying, cheating, bastard. “Wow mom, I guess you were right, all men do fucking cheat.”

Joel snapped his head up in your direction at your statement. What did you mean that all men cheat? What the hell were you even talking about?

As you started to walk past Joel he grabbed your arm and said, “what the fuck do you mean all men cheat?”

“Joel, please” you said, struggling to keep your voice even.

“No,” he said, shaking his head and grabbing both of your arms, slightly shaking you in his grasp. “You think I’m cheatin’ on you, is that it? That I’m fucking another woman. Look at me when I’m talking to you,” he growled.

“Joel, please don’t do this. I-I-”

Joel saw your eyes in that moment, saw that you thought he was fucking someone else. That wasn't the case. He didn't want to admit his problem, but goddamn it, he wasn’t going to have you think that he was no different than your father. Joel had no idea all those years that his best friend, your father, was using him as a goddamn babysitter so that piece of shit could go out and ball half of Austin as your mother recovered from her cancer treatments before she died of cancer. No. Joel wasn’t a piece of shit like that, and goddamn, it killed him to have his wife think so low of him.

“Baby, ya gotta believe me. I ain’t fucking around on you, ok? Please sugar, ya gotta believe me. I’d never do that.” He said, clenching his jaw, battling with the anger and rage that was rising up inside of his mind. He didn’t want to explode at you over this. He wasn’t mad at you, he was disgusted with himself of why he wasn’t honest with you when all of this shit started for him.

Joel’s problem of not getting or being able to sustain an erection didn’t happen right away. It was a slow process. At first he thought that maybe it was because things in the bedroom had gotten a little stale. But when Joel struggled to keep an erection even when he was alone, he knew that something was wrong. He didn’t want you to worry, so he didn’t say anything to you. After a lot of embarrassing situations at home, and with himself, he decided that he needed to bring it up to his doctor. After a few tests, his doctor had diagnosed him with erectile dysfunction, and then had given him a prescription of Viagra to try. At first Joel was nervous about taking them, wondered if he’d feel different. But once he did, holy shit, it felt amazing. Those little blue pills were like a magic drug. He could last longer and was harder than he’d been in years. When he noticed your increase in sex drive because of it, he felt like he won the lottery, especially when he could give you two orgasms with just his dick alone.

But slowly, his secret was getting harder and harder to keep from you. He quickly realized that those pills took anywhere between 15 to 60 minutes before they started working, which created a problem when you were trying to be spontaneous with him in the bedroom. At first he played it off at being tired, needing to rest for a little bit. Sometimes he’d also tell you that he needed to take a shower first, to freshen up for you. But when you’d wake him up on a Sunday morning, rested and freshly showered the night before, he struggled keeping his secret. He started using blindfolds in the bedroom when the two of you would have sex, so he could hide the fact that he had to take a pill quick. Sometimes when he waited for it to work, he’d give you oral sex and edge you. On days when he couldn’t do that, he’d just lie and tell you that he had a really bad headache and he couldn’t have sex right now.

He hated lying to you. He always wanted to tell you the truth, but every time he got the nerve to tell you something would happen or it just wasn’t the right time. If he was being honest, he didn’t tell you because he felt embarrassed and ashamed at the situation.

As you took another step to go around him, he yelled out “I got erectile dysfunction, ok. And as much as I'd love to fuck ya right now, my dick won't- fuck- it doesn’t get hard like it used to and I ran out of my prescription pills. I ain’t cheatin’, I never have, and I’ve never wanted to. You got to believe me. I know, I’m sorry I haven’t been honest. But baby, I can’t do it anymore with you like we used to.” He said, voice cracking at the end. Joel covered his eyes for a moment with his hand, wiping the tears away.

“I want to fuck you so much right now, so much. But I can’t, ya hear me. It ain’t a different reason, baby. My body, it just won’t let me do it anymore. It won’t let me be the man that I’m supposed to be for you.”

You stood there shocked at his admittance. When you went to open your mouth to console him, Joel quickly cut you off by saying, “I don't need your pity right now. I know I can't perform up to my wife's satisfaction anymore without help. And before you ask, no, I can’t take a pill right now. I have to wait until my doctor is back from vacation in six weeks. And I get it, you can’t wait that long and-”

“Joel” you said, gently cupping his cheeks in your hands. “Honey, I'm so sorry that this has happened.” He scowled at you with your reply, shaking his head and trying to step away. “Baby, please let me finish,” you said, forcing him to stay near you.

After taking a big breath you said, “I wish you would have told me about this when it happened instead of hiding it. Can you get an erection at all or?”

“Sometimes I can,” he said with a sigh, “but it ain't anything to write home about.” Joel let out a long exacerbated sigh. “Fuck, I can't fuck my wife when it's only half hard like this ok, and I’d appreciate it if you didn't think less of me for it and-”

“Joel Allen Miller,” you said in a commanding tone. “I would never think less of you for this. Baby, I love you, and everything about you. Yeah it does cause a little bit of an adjustment for us, but honey, I don’t care. You’re my husband and you should never feel like you can’t tell me something like this, ok?” You then gently cupped your husband with your hand, slowly palming him, feeling him slightly stiffen.

“Baby I-” Joel said, straining, trying to stay level with his voice and not break down with his words again. He didn't feel like a worthy man right now, and he was so embarrassed to feel or admit it.

“Please, Joel” you softly spoke, “let me try baby, please?”

“Darlin', it ain't gonna-”

“It doesn't have to get fully hard. Just please, please let your wife show her husband how fucking sexy he is, even with this little problem.”

“It ain't a little problem darlin’.” He said, slowly leaning his hips into your touch. He desperately wanted to feel his wife, to be inside her, to fuck her and hear her moan his name.

“I know it ain’t a little problem honey,” you whispered, gently nipping Joel’s neck. You slowly started to unfasten his belt and unzipped his pants, lowering them with his boxers down to the floor. You encouraged him to step out of them, trying to get him as comfortable as possible. As you stood up, you slowly licked your hand, and then gently wrapped it around his half hardened cock, slowly stroking him the way he liked. You were also nipping, kissing, and lightly sucking on his neck, on the places that you knew drove your husband wild. As you continued, you whispered loving messages to him, things that you hoped would remind Joel of how much you loved him.

“You are so sexy baby, and so big and strong. I feel so safe with you. I've missed you so much. I missed hearing you snore,” Joel let out a little grunt at that statement. “I've missed hearing you play your guitar, humming in the morning while you make your coffee. I've missed kissing you goodnight, and waking up next to you in the morning with you holding me.”

Joel leaned forward more, pushing your back against the wall as he tapped one of your legs to open wider for him. He quickly placed his hand down your sleep shorts and started playing with your clit as you talked.

“I-ah-I also missed your, your-”

“You missed my what darlin'?” He growled, thrusting his hips into your hand as he started moving two of his large fingers in and out of your wet, throbbing core.

“Shit Joel, I'm-”

“Did ya miss this baby? Did ya miss your husband's fat fingers fucking you dumb?” He said, nipping at your sensitive spot on your shoulder.

“Mmhmm” you said, tightening your grip around his half hardened cock. Joel wasn't lying, he really did have erectile dysfunction. But at this moment, you didn't care. Your husband was curling those fingers perfectly inside of you, to where you were almost seeing stars while he continued to snap his hips back and forth hard, helping you stroke him the way he liked.

Even though he wasn't buried deep inside of you. Something about the lewd noises the two of you were making, in combination with not being able to see your husband for the past two weeks, was rapidly propelling you towards the edge with your orgasm.

Joel could feel your breaths becoming more erratic, and could feel your walls tightening around his fingers. He was also getting closer to finishing himself. Your hand was the perfect tight fit around his cock. He kept rocking his hips back and forth, fucking your hand, feeling himself leak precum everywhere. He wanted to bury himself so badly inside of you, but he knew that he couldn't. Just as he started to feel self conscious again about the situation, your filthy mouth forced him to stay in the moment.

“God, baby, I fucked myself so hard with my fingers when you were gone. But nothing ever felt as good as yours do right now. Fuck, next time I want to fuck myself with my fingers, I'm just gonna use yours-oh fuck.”

“Oh, you dirty fucking girl. Shit- You were fucking those- yeah baby- those small little fingers inside of you pretending- fuck- pretending that they were mine, huh?” He said, speeding up his thrusts with his hips and with his fingers.

“Yes Joel, fuck, don’t stop baby, please don’t-”

“I won’t stop, not until you gush around me.”

The two of you continued to pleasure each other, bringing each other towards the edge, but neither one tipping over just yet. “Joel, I need more, baby. P-please, give me more,” you moaned. You were desperately snapping your hips back and forth, wishing it was your husband’s cock that was inside of you.

“Aw baby, look at you, riding my fingers like the dirty little girl that y’are.”

“Joel, baby, please-”

“Say it,” Joel growled, “say I'm the only one who makes you feel this good.”

“You are Joel, you are.”

“Say I'm the only one who gets to fuck this tight little pussy whenever I want.”

“Fuck- You do Joel, you do. It's yours, she's all yours.”

“She's all mine, huh?” Joel said, feeling your walls put his fingers in a choke hold with how tight you were squeezing him. “If she's all mine, then do it. Fucking come for me. Show me who's pussy this really belongs to. Ya heard me, I said come, now,” Joel growled. That coil that had wound itself so tight in your belly snapped hard at Joel’s command. You screamed your husband's name as you coated his fingers with your juices. Joel tightened his grip around your hand that was stroking him, while continuing to work you through your orgasm. After a few more hard thrusts himself, he came all over your hand.

You both slowly came down from your highs, and you couldn't help but giggle at the acts that the two of you just did. It brought back memories of when Joel and you dated. As Joel’s giggles eased he slowly ran his hand that was coated with your juices through your hair.

“Hey you,” he said, smiling fondly down at you. God he loved you so much, in every way possible. You were his soulmate, his better half.

“Wow, where the heck did that come from?” You said, giggling to yourself again. When you looked up you saw how Joel was looking at you, like he could see your soul.

“I love you so much, you know that right?” He said, slowly running his nose along your jaw.

“I know,” you said, sighing at his affection.

He then grabbed your hair hard in the back of your head, pulling down slightly to force you to look up at him. It didn't hurt, just surprised you a bit, which forced you to listen to the next words that came out of his mouth.

“Then never, ever, hint at the possibility of me wanting to fuck another woman again, ok. Baby, you are the only one for me. I ain't your father, and I sure as fuck ain't my ex-wife.”

Your eyes widened at the mention of Joel's ex-wife, he never told you the in-depth story of what happened, just the highlights that they drifted apart. “Joel, I-”

“No, sweetheart, I ain't talkin’ about her. What's done is done. Just, don't ever say that to me again, hinting that I'd cheat on you. Cause baby, I'd never, haven't ever, won't-”

“Ok Joel, I promise. No more fussin’.” You gently kissed your husband, giving him the slow intimate affection he was just giving you. After a few more passionate and tender kisses, Joel sighed and rested his head against your forehead, while rubbing his nose slowly against your nose.

“I reckon we both need a shower,” he said after a moment, exhaling and laughing slightly to himself. “Come on, I'll get the shower started.”

When Joel got to the bathroom doorway you said, “wait a sec,” and then walked up to him as he turned around to look at you.

“Next time, please tell me this stuff ok? No more secrets.” He nodded his head in understanding as you leaned up and placed another tender kiss to his lips. When you pulled back you added, “good, cause I hate to break it to you. You’re officially now an old man.” Then with another small peck to his cheek, you sauntered off into the bathroom, giggling at the nickname that you gave him back when he was in his thirties. After starting the shower and getting in, you yelled back “are you coming old man, or do I need to help you with your wheelchair?”

“No wiseass, ya don't,” he yelled, looking up at the ceiling and shaking his head at your smartass remark.

When he looked down he saw himself in the mirror once again. Yes, he did have gray in his beard, in his hair, and on his chest. He also could see that he wasn’t as physically fit as he once was in his 30s, but he still looked good. He needed glasses to read most of the time now, and you and Sarah constantly harassed him about it. But that was ok. He liked it, and he loved you both dearly. He also creaked worse than the old board on the stairs, along with feeling his age every time he tried to do something that he knew he shouldn't.

Sure, he had to take medication for his high blood pressure and high cholesterol. And now he got to add a little blue pill to the regimen, just so he could have sex with his wife. He was also at that age where he needed a colonoscopy done, something that was scheduled next week for him.

With all of these things going on, Joel did have to admit that he was older than when he first started dating you. But even with this admission, he knew from the moments before that he’s never made you come so hard in your life from just his fingers alone. So you could say getting old did have its advantages.

With a small smirk on his face, and a slight puff to his chest, Joel quickly entered the shower with you. When you turned around he said, “old my ass. I'll show you who's old, ya little shit.” Joel then dropped down to his knees and ate you out like a starved man. After he gave you another two orgasms, one of which he heard you screaming his name off the shower walls. He eventually found himself lying next to you, cuddling you in the bed. You were exhausted from all of your extracurricular activities the past two days, and were curled up and ready for a nap. After catching your breath, Joel slowly whispered in your ear, “who's old now darlin’?”

Before you could answer, Joel made his way down back your body and gave you one more Earth shattering orgasm. He wanted to prove a point. That he, in fact, wasn't too damn old.

End Story

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justagalwhowrites · 2 months

Text

Stranger in a Bar - Part One

A DBF!Joel Fic

You meet a stranger in a bar, one who is fun and sexy and makes you wonder if the single life is all it's cracked up to be. But there's one big problem: you probably shouldn't be fucking your dad's best friend.

Pairing: DBF!Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings: This is smut, OK? Just a lot of smut. Protected P in V sex. Oral sex (m and f receiving). Age gap of 20 years. No use of Y/N. Minors DNI, 18+ only.

Length: 6.8k

A/N: So this was supposed to be a one shot and then it started getting out of hand. It's going to just be two parts for the moment, this is going to be a very little baby fic, OK? Small. Lil baby story. Also. there's a hefty age gap and it comes up because logistics but no power imbalance. Thanks for always putting up with my shit, y'all are the best ❤️

Bar None, Present day

One of your friends had just put Single Ladies on the jukebox when you saw him across the bar. Bar None, the place you’d picked for the night, had one of those stupid app-powered ones and the three girls you had kept in touch with from high school had been abusing it all night long. But the man across the bar was so distracting that you hardly noticed. His eyes were locked on you, so tight and hot that it would send a chill up your spine if it was from the wrong set of eyes. But they were his eyes. Dark and molten and set into a sculpted face with patchy scruff and shaggy curl streaked with gray.

No, you thought, he couldn’t spark anything but desire.

“We should do the dance!” Your friend Emily slurred, tugging your arm. “C’mon! Now that you’re a single lady again, you have to own it.”

She flashed her empty ring finger as Beyonce sang, a cocky - if half drunk - look on her face as she did.

You smiled at her.

“He did put a ring on it,” you twisted the stem of your martini glass. “That’s why there was a problem when he put his dick in someone else. I think I’ll pass on the Beyonce. But thank you.”

“Come on drunky,” your friend Dana looped her arm around Emily’s waist. “Let’s go dance.”

“Woooo!” Emily threw her arms in the air and Dana gave you an exasperated but happy smile over her shoulder as she guided her to the dance floor.

“Jesus, is it that late?” Parker looked at her Apple watch. You half smiled and took a small sip of your drink as she rifled through her clutch for her phone and let out a relieved sigh. “Thank God, Kevin hasn’t been texting with a ton of stupid questions. Why did I think letting a baby get totally attached to me was a good idea? The fact that she only said mama for two weeks was great at first but now that she refuses to do bedtime without me, I’m having regrets…”

“Do you need to go?” You asked, brows raised.

She winced.

“Would you hate me if I left you with the party animals?”

You laughed.

“No,” you said. “Go home, see your husband and kid. I really do appreciate the warm welcome back, you have no idea.”

“See?” She reached across the small table and gave your arm a squeeze. “I told you, just like old times.”

“Did you go back home at 10:30 to make sure a baby was properly put to bed when we were 18?” You teased. “I forgot that part…”

She rolled her eyes.

“Almost old times,” she said. “Besides, you love Bella.”

“I do love Bella,” you said. “And I love you. Go home, I’m good.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. Text me when you get there?”

“Of course,” she slipped off the bar stool and came around to give you a hug and kiss your cheek. “I really am glad you’re back. Even if it’s because Reid was a dumbass.”

You just smiled a little and watched her leave, Parker pausing to wave to Dana on her way out the door.

“This seat open?”

The man from across the bar stood beside you, nodding to the seat Parker had just vacated. You smiled a little and nodded once.

“You have very convenient timing.”

“Well,” he shrugged. “Leaving a pretty girl all alone at the bar seems like a crime. Trying my damndest to stay on the right side of the law.”

“And how’s that going for you these days?”

He smirked a little. His cheek dimpled.

“Well enough.”

You looked at him, tracing the creases in his face with your eyes, the streaks of gray catching the low light of the bar. He was probably the oldest man there but damn, did he wear it well.

“You in town for a visit?” He asked, turning his beer bottle in his fingers and nodding to your friends on the dance floor. “Seeing friends?”

You cocked a little smile at him.

“No, actually. Just moved back.”

He raised his eyebrows, a look you couldn’t quite place passing over his warm features. His eyes drifted to your ring finger before he seemed to catch himself and look back at your face. You saved him the trouble, lifting your bare left hand and turning it so he could see. The indentation from your three carat engagement ring was still on your finger but your hand was empty.

“I think we should talk, Joel.”

Bar None, 10 years earlier

The man across the bar had no damn business being that good looking.

It was almost pissing you off how good looking he was. Tall, broad, with golden skin and thick, dark hair, he had the kind of face you wanted to explore intimately, in the way you could only do when someone was inside of you. The way men couldn’t control their expressions then was almost addicting. The way their eyes would roll back and their mouths would fall open, the way they stopped fucking around with pretense and just let themselves feel something - even if it was just your cunt - was beautiful and fascinating and almost elemental. It was like you could look into the very core of them for a moment, the way they always seemed to be able to look into you with just a glance. You wanted that with this man, whoever he was, this man who you caught glancing at you out of the corner of his eye.

“Aww,” Parker pouted happily at her phone. “Kevin misses me!”

“Misses you?” Emily snatched the phone from her grasp, gaping at the screen. “You��ve been gone like two hours!”

“Will you just…” Parker snatched the phone back and looked at the text again. “And I think it’s sweet.”

“You’re ditching us, aren’t you?” Emily sighed.

“I think so,” Parker winced. “Is that OK?”

You just smiled a little.

“Go see the guy who’s got you all crazy,” you said. “But I’ll see you again before I leave town, yeah?”

“Course!” She came and gave you a hug. “Good luck getting rid of me. Have fun at that thing tomorrow!”

“Yeah,” you laughed. “I’ll try.”

Emily rolled her eyes and judged Parker for a bit but it was less than an hour before she was leaving, too, with a man who’d asked her to dance and bought her a beer.

“You sure you’re alright?” She asked as she went to leave.

“Babes, I know how to be at a bar on my own. And my hotel is two doors down. I think I can figure it out.”

She kissed your cheek.

“Love you,” she said. “Try to have some fun!”

You watched her go, thinking about just how long you wanted to be sitting by yourself at a bar versus in a Holiday Inn Express standard room when a voice appeared beside you.

“This seat open?”

The man from across the bar nodded to the seat Emily had just abandoned. You smiled a little and nodded once.

“You have very convenient timing.”

“Well,” he shrugged. “Leaving a pretty girl all alone at the bar seems like a crime. Trying my damndest to stay on the right side of the law.”

“And how’s that going for you?”

He smirked a little. His cheek dimpled.

“Well enough.”

You smiled and introduced yourself before holding out your hand. He took it.

“Joel,” he said. “Don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”

“Because I’ve never been here before,” you smiled. “I’m in from out of town, my hotel is a few doors down. This was convenient and hey, the Yelp reviews weren’t the worst.”

“What brings you to the great city of Austin, Texas?” He asked, settling in on the seat beside you. He was older than you but you kind of liked men that way now that you were in your mid 20s and exhausted by every man you’d dated in college. You liked them a little older, more established, men who knew how to cook their own damn food and give you your own damn orgasm. “Business or pleasure?”

“Neither,” you smiled a little, taking a sip of your drink. “Family event.”

“That’s not pleasure?”

You laughed once.

“Not the way my family does it.”

“That why you’re in a hotel and not stayin’ with them?” He asked, brows raised.

“Bingo,” you replied. “I get in, I get drunk, I get out.”

He nodded slowly.

“Good system.”

“Worked well enough for me over the years.”

The two of you ended up talking about music and books and UT football until last call - far later than you’d intended to stay out.

“Mind if I walk you back to your hotel?” Joel asked. “Not tryin’ to be a creep but… I’d sleep a lot better tonight knowin’ you got back safe. Promise it’s not a ploy.”

“Damn, it’s not?” You asked, tucking your purse on your arm and heading for the door. “Because I was going to ask you to come up to my room if it was.”

“Well shit,” he said, catching up with you. “Maybe it is a ploy then.”

You found yourselves drawing out the walk back all the same, pace more of an amble than a brisk walk, but the hotel was so close that it really only added a few minutes to your walk all the same.

“Well,” you smiled at the door to the lobby. “This is me.”

“Yeah,” he nodded once, looking inside for a moment before looking back at you. “Look… you don’t owe me anything, alright? I’m not the kind of guy who wants to force something. I can just head on back to my truck, no hard feelings…”

“Well maybe none for you,” you teased a little. “But I might have some. Unless you really don’t want to fuck me.”

“Oh, I want to,” he said. “Trust me on that…”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “Been at the top of my list since you first walked in that place, baby, lemme tell you.”

“Well then,” you jerked your head toward the door. “Why don’t we cross it off the list?”

You took his hand in the elevator, his palm so broad, his fingers thick and long and callused in yours. You pressed your back against the wall and pulled him onto you so his hips were on yours and his nose brushed your own. His eyes ranged over your face, hungry and soft and open.

“You sure about this?” He asked, looking down at the rest of your body for a moment before going back to your face. “Sure you don’t have something better to do than some old man?”

“I’m sure,” you smiled at him, draping your arms over his shoulders. “Besides, I like old men. How old are you, anyway?”

“Forty-five,” he said. “How old are you?”

You snorted.

“I’m not sure I should say,” you said, holding him a little closer all the same. “Since you’re all hung up on age…”

“Not hung up on it,” he rolled his eyes. “Just… don’t need to be some youthful mistake is all. Wait, Jesus, please tell me you’re at least out of college, tell me you’re not a teenager…”

You laughed.

“No,” you shook your head. “Not a teenager. And I’ve been out of college a few years, I’m 25.”

“God,” he closed his eyes and shook his head once, like he was trying to shake the idea of you loose. “Still, that’s… you’re…”

You pressed your lips ever so slightly against his, more a quick brush than anything else, giving him every opportunity to pull back.

He didn’t take it.

Instead, he pressed his lips to yours, his hands going to your waist and tugging you tightly to his body while he pushed you back against the wall. Your arms got tighter to him and you opened your mouth, his tongue licking into you almost immediately. Joel didn’t need an engraved invitation, all he needed was a sign that you wanted him and fuck, you wanted him. More and more, each passing second, you wanted him. There was heat in you that was starting to flare so molten and hot that you pulled at his clothes, forgetting that you weren’t alone, not really.

The elevator dinged and he all but sprang back from you, both of you panting for breath.

“Fuck,” he breathed, looking you up and down, pupils blown.

“C’mon,” you took his hand. “I’m down the hall.”

You pulled him along behind you and fumbled to get your room key out of your bag. Joel’s wide, thick hands slipped around your waist as you did, tugging your ass back against his growing bulge and fuck, but he was huge. Thick and long and you knew his zipper had to be fucking killing him, cock that big and hard restrained by mere fabric and a slip of metal. His lips found the hinge of your jaw, your neck, down to your shoulder and you groaned a little as you clumsily forced the keycard in the door, the little beep the mechanism gave one of the best damn sounds you’d heard all night.

The two of you practically fell into your hotel room. You dropped your purse on the first table inside the door and started stepping out of your heels as Joel turned you around to face him, manipulating your body to put you right where he wanted you and the fire in you sparked higher, brighter as he manhandled you. Every touch he gave was loaded with need, the air thick and heavy with it as he pawed at your clothes and skin, licking into your mouth at every opportunity, taking your chin firmly in his heady grip to tug you open further for him, all but forcing you to give him everything.

You were as rough with his clothes as he was with your body, pulling so hard and fast at the buttons of his shirt that two popped free, pinging off the glass of the mass produced art that hung on the wall.

“Shit,” you panted, looking around the dark of your room for the buttons.

“Don’t give a fuck,” Joel replied, breathless, clutching you close and tight before you could pull away. “Didn’t really like this shirt, anyway.”

You shoved it down and off as he tugged your dress down your body, leaving it in a pile on the floor before turning you so the backs of your legs were against the bed. He deftly unhooked your bra with one hand then, ripping the straps down your arms but almost reverently lowering the cups, panting for breath as he exposed your breasts to his gaze. Joel tossed your bra to the side before taking the soft weight of your tits in his hands, cupping them, brushing his thumbs over your hardening nipples as he looked down at you with a look of near awe on his face. You half expected him to shove you back down onto the bed after his race to get you undressed but instead, his arm went around your waist, his hand splaying wide over the smooth skin of your back and he pulled you tight against him, making you gasp.

He moaned, deep and low, and dropped his head to your bared shoulder before trailing his nose over you to your neck, the wet heat of his breath on your skin.

“Fuck, you’re so goddamn soft,” he groaned, almost pained, and pressed his lips to your throat, making your breath catch. You clung to the broad expanse of his back, fingertips pressing into him, trying to get at every inch of his skin that you could find.

His mouth found yours and he gently, delicately, lowered you back onto the bed. He cradled your body against his own, keeping the firm line of him taut to you as he kissed you. Joel rested you on the mattress and you let your legs fall open so he could settle between your thighs, the heady weight of him pressing against your clit and making you moan.

“You got a problem if I explore this pretty body of yours?” He asked, his lips still brushing yours when he spoke. “Because fuck, baby, seems like a sin to not touch every goddamn inch of you.”

He rocked his thick, hard, still clothed cock against your core, as if to make his point, and took your responding moan as the yes it was. He trailed his lips slowly over your body, down your throat, your breast bone, your stomach, your navel. His nose brushed against you, his breath covering you in warm and needy pants. When he reached your underwear - the last thing still on your body - his fingers looped through the band before he paused, looking up at you over your stomach and between your breasts.

“You still with me, pretty girl?” He asked, mouth so close to your skin that the wetness of his lower lip had caught on your stomach. “Still good with this?”

“Yes, Joel, please,” you were practically squirming. He was so close to precisely where you needed him it seemed like you might melt with the want of him. “Fuck, please…”

“Fuck, you’re even prettier when you beg,” he said and started to pull your panties down over your hips. You lifted yourself up off the bed to help and it wasn’t long before you were naked below him. He knelt in front of you and took your knees in his hands, parting your thighs for him and groaning when he did.

“Goddamn,” he breathed, so quiet you weren’t sure you were meant to hear it or if he’d meant to say it out loud at all. “Just… fuck.”

He opened your legs enough to lay between them, settling with your thighs over his shoulders. His thumb traced a slow, tender path over your slit, brushing your clit and making you gasp when he did.

“Swear you’ve got the prettiest fucking pussy I’ve ever seen,” he said before he pressed his lips to your leaking hole. He moaned as he did and you couldn’t help but thrust against him once. He pulled back from you just a little, his nose barely touching your clit as he did. “Needy little pussy, too, huh?”

Your fingers knotted in the bedspread and Joel’s mouth found your clit, softly sucking the sensitive nub between his teeth to tease with his tongue. You fought the urge to rock your hips against his face, trying to remember that this man was practically a stranger, not a lover whose tastes you knew intimately. But that was hard to remember as he worked his way lower, his tongue slipping inside of you with a deep groan.

Joel ate you like you were a delicacy he longed to savor. He started slow, tasting and teasing you open, before delving deep like he couldn’t resist it, his thick tongue exploring and finding the soft and tender places inside you. His thumbs spread you open wide to him, his nose against your clit and you couldn’t stop yourself, you rolled your hips against him. He moaned into you and you forced your hips down on the bed, trying to clear your head enough to be still.

“Sorry,” you panted. “I didn’t mean to do that, you’re just… really fucking good at that.”

He stopped and pulled back from you enough to look up your body again, a frown on his face, your slick glistening on his beard in the light from the parking lot outside.

“You think I don’t want you fucking my face?” He asked. “Fuck, baby, I want nothing more than for you to take exactly what you need. Want you to make yourself come on my face, you understand?”

You swallowed and nodded.

“What are you going to do?” He asked, voice almost stern.

“Make myself come on your face?” You more asked than answered.

“Better sound more sure than that,” he said, fingers moving to your clit. You gasped and moaned at the contact. “Come on baby, what are you going to do? Say it. Own it.”

“Come on your face,” you panted. “Fuck, Joel… I’m going to come on your face, I’m going to make myself come on your face, please…”

“Good,” he said, going back to eating your pussy.

It was like he’d been holding back before but had nothing stopping him now. His tongue pressed deep, his nose nestled in your slit to nudge your clit, his arms looped over the thickness of your thighs to keep you open for him while also pressing the softness of you to the sides of his head. Your orgasm built quickly, the heat in you sinking to your core, everything inside you there going taut and tense. You were just on the edge of it, whimpering below his tongue and his touch when one hand left the warmth of your thigh and moved to your slit, his finger sliding inside you alongside his tongue. He pressed into the soft, tender place inside you that seemed to elude other men, finding it with an almost practiced ease and moaning when he did, sending the sparks of your climax shooting through you.

He groaned, needy, as he ate you through it, not letting up, not even for a second until your orgasm had subsided and your head was swimming.

“Fuck you feel amazing,” he pulled himself from you, sucking the finger that was inside you clean before wiping your slick from his beard while his other hand traced over the smooth softness of your inner thigh. “Should’ve asked this sooner but… please tell me you’ve got a damn condom. I wasn’t exactly lookin’ for this tonight, not until I saw you, so I’m not exactly prepared.”

“I do,” you propped yourself up on your elbows, trying to remember where the hell you left your suitcase in the dark. You spotted it on the dresser, thankfully still mostly organized since you’d arrived that afternoon. You nodded to it. “Suitcase, top zipper pouch inside the lid.”

He got one, the crinkle of foil strangely loud in the silence of the room.

“Here,” you sat up and reached for him as he came to stand between your legs at the edge of the bed. “Let me do it…”

He gave you the packet and you opened it before palming the condom, holding it tight in one hand while slipping the other into the open zipper of his jeans and into his underwear to find his thick, heavy cock.

You moaned as you wrapped your fingers around his length, hard as steel wrapped in silken skin, and you stroked him, just half way up his cock at first before going from root to tip. He was dripping there, his arousal making his head slick and wet. You brushed your thumb over his leaking tip, the smooth skin making your mouth water. You looked up at him through your eyelashes as you leaned forward to lick him before taking just the very end of his cock between your lips. You suckled at him gently, lapping up his precome, Joel’s breaths getting heavier and faster as you did, before you took him into your mouth. He moaned as you sucked him, his hand going to the back of your head and holding you against him, your nose brushing against the base of his stomach. You took his head into your throat and moaned around him as you sucked him, making him hiss in pleasure, his grip on your skull tightening.

“Fuck, woman,” he managed as you kept sucking him. “Gonna make me come if you keep doin’ that…”

You pulled back from him slowly, his hold on you easing as you did, until he slipped from your mouth, still slick with your spit.

“Should probably stop then,” you said, a little breathless. You took the condom - warm now from the heat of your hand - and put it over his head before rolling it over his thick shaft. You stroked him once, twice and leaned forward again, sucking his tip for a moment when it was in place and his head tipped back, staring at the ceiling as he groaned.

“Jesus,” he panted. “Fuck, you gonna let me inside that soft little pussy of yours or make me come in your mouth?”

You laughed once, needy and low, before pulling yourself backwards on the bed, Joel’s eyes hungry on your body as you went. He shucked his jeans and underwear off before crawling, finally naked, between your thighs. His head brushed against your sex and he took the base of his cock in his hand, trailing his tip up and down your dripping slit before spreading you open for him, your pussy swollen and tender as he did. He put his tip against your dripping entrance, pressed just the very end of him inside, barely opening you to him. His hands moved to your thighs, brushing over them to your knees before trailing back toward your center, his fingers splayed wide over you soft flesh.

“You ready, baby?” He asked, needy.

“Yes,” you breathed. You’d passed ready a long time ago. You were desperate now, aching and all but begging for him to take up every empty space inside your body.

“Good,” he pressed forward until his head was fully inside your tight channel and you both moaned with it, one of your hands finding the smooth skin of your breast and squeezing it. He groaned at the sight as he started fucking just the tip of him into you, rocking in and out of you in short, sharp bursts. “Fuck, there you go baby. Just like that.”

He started feeding you more of his cock then, driving further into you with each stroke until he fucked all the way into you, his hips flush to yours, his thick length stretching you open, the burn of him meshing with the heady pleasure of being so utterly full.

“Goddamn,” he breathed, his cock buried inside you totally. “This pussy… fuck me.”

One of his hands went from your thigh to over your hip coming to rest and the soft swell of the base of your stomach. He spread wide over your skin, his palm swallowing the space over where he was inside of you and pressing down, making you moan as the tight fullness inside you got more intense. His thumb stretched down toward your clit and he started working you there as he just held himself within you, making your cunt throb once around him. He groaned at the feeling.

“That’s right,” he said. “So full of this cock ain’t you baby? Taking me so damn well…”

He kept working your clit for a minute, not moving inside you, just pressing into your skin until you were practically writhing below his touch. He was so big, you were so full, the pleasure in your body so tight. It made your head spin.

“Joel,” your fingers scratched at the blankets. “I need you to move, please, please, please…”

“Please what, pretty girl?” His voice was dark, low.

“Please fuck me,” you begged. “Please, please fuck me, please…”

He drew back then, achingly slow at first, watching where his cock was pressing into you with a hungry look on his face, before thrusting back in, deep and firm.

This, you thought, was why you liked fucking older men. Joel knew what he was doing. He worked your body with expert skill, grinding his cock deep inside so his head pressed against the most sensitive parts of you, the thick drag of him making your back arch and toes curl. He kept rubbing your clit with his thumb, the pressure and pace keeping your pleasure building and building but never quite cascading over the edge.

He kept fucking into you that way until you were desperate, your whole being drawn tight and achy around his cock. He’d stopped watching where your bodies were joined and had moved to your face, his gaze drinking in your desperate little moans and the way your eyes would scrunch closed as you got so close to coming but didn’t quite make it, whimpering as your climax fell just out of reach yet again.

“Got you so tight and needy, hm?” He said, breathless. You just nodded, trying to rock your hips up against him but held in place by his hand on your stomach. “Why don’t you tell me what you need? Tell me exactly what it is you need.”

“To come,” you whimpered. “Fuck, I need to come, you need to let me come, please let me come…”

“Think I’ve been keepin’ you on the edge too long?” He asked. “Think I should let this little pussy come? Let her just milk me dry?”

“Fuck, please,” you begged, not caring if you sounded pathetic. It’s not like you’d see this man again after tonight, anyway.

He took his thumb off your clit but before you had a chance to whimper in protest, he adjusted your legs to drive somehow deeper and leaned over you, pressing his bare skin to yours before kissing your neck, sucking and licking at the tender skin there as he fucked into you, making you whimper, your nails scrabbling over his back. His lips moved from your neck to your ear, his large hand coming to cup the crown of your head, his pace never relenting.

“Come for me,” he whispered, low and needy. “You can come, want you to come, want to feel you come. Just let go for me, just give in to me.”

His hips rocked against your clit, his cock buried so deep and you saw stars for a moment before you cried out, your orgasm hitting you hard after being on the edge of it for so long. It broke your whole body down, muscle clenching desperately, blood rushing, fingers clinging. You felt it everywhere, starting at your core and radiating out in hot, aching waves.

“Goddamn, that’s it,” he fucked you through it as your core fluttered over him. “Just keep comin’ for me, just like that, feeling so damn good baby just…”

He pressed deep as your orgasm started to fade and moaned, the sound going straight to your raw, fucked out cunt. The pulsing of his cock, in you to the root, rolled you into another orgasm, this one less intense but still making your pussy grip him close and tight as he spilled into the condom.

He collapsed on you for a moment as both of your climaxes eased, his chest heaving. Before his weight became too much, he adjusted, rising up enough to kiss you as he slid his softening cock from your body and falling flat on his back on the bed beside you.

“Damn,” you panted after a moment, staring up at the ceiling.

He laughed lightly beside you.

“Know the feelin’.”

You lay there next to each other, listening to each other as your breaths came back into a normal, steady cadence. Goosebumps started to pebble over your skin, the air cold as you were naked without his body on yours, the air conditioner below the window humming along.

You turned your head to look at him and he did the same.

“Should probably go…” his voice trailed off but he sounded reluctant. Or maybe you just hoped he did.

“You don’t have to,” you said, probably a little too quickly for a man you’d just met. Even in the dim light of the moon and the parking lot lights out your window, you could tell he raised his eyebrows. “I’m just… you can stay, if you want. It’s a big bed. Think we can manage it.”

“Wouldn’t want to impose…”

“You’re not,” you said. “You can leave, too, if you’d rather but… don’t feel like you have to rush out.”

He smiled a little.

“Then I’ll stay. I’d like to stay.”

You smiled back, that blissed out and relaxed feeling you had after you came settling over you.

“Good.”

The two of you settled far across the bed from each other at first but drifted quickly, until your head was on his chest and you were curved around his side as his arm wrapped around your shoulders, his fingers trailing up and down your arm until you fell asleep.

He was somehow even more beautiful in the light of day.

You realized it as the two of you went about the strange intimacy of getting ready for the day side by side with someone you didn’t know. He blinked sleep from his eyes when first woke up and stretched his back before getting out of bed, his curls haphazard and messy and his body soft and warm. He got dressed and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to tame it. You offered him your travel toothbrush as you got dressed and he watched you pull on your jeans as he leaned against the bathroom doorframe.

“Been a while since I’ve done this,” he said, a little hesitant.

“Just how long?” You asked, teasing as you pulled on your shirt.

“Longer than I want to admit,” he said, small smile making his cheek dimple. “Long enough that I don’t remember exactly how this is supposed to work but… I’d like to take you to breakfast. If you want.”

You smiled.

“Sure,” you said. “I’d like that.”

Joel walked back to the bar and picked up his truck before taking you to a diner not too far from your hotel. You laughed with him about menu typos and the questionable song choices coming from the speakers over greasy eggs and toast soaked in butter.

“Know we just met,” he said as you were on your fourth cup of coffee and you were both avoiding the fact that you’d have to leave this table and go your separate ways soon. The remains of your hashbrowns had long gone cold, ketchup smeared across the plate and you weren’t ready to say goodbye to him yet. “And that you’re in town for some family thing but… if you’re not busy tonight, would you want to come with me to this party? Buddy of mine is throwin’ in, supposed to be nice. Think he gave me a plus one in hopes I’d actually use it.”

“Damn,” you winced a bit. “I really wish I could but the thing I’m in town for is tonight.”

“Damn’s right,” he smiled a little. “Think you’d be my best shot for a good time at that thing.”

“Yeah, back at you for my thing,” you laughed.

“Here,” he pulled his phone from his pocket and unlocked it before handing it over. “Put your number in. Maybe we could still get together later…”

You took it but hesitated, thumb tapping on the side of his phone case.

He frowned.

“What?”

“I live hours away,” you said. “Is this really smart?”

He shrugged.

“Don’t really care if it’s smart or not. Just want to see you again. If you’ll let me.”

You smiled a little and shook your head before putting your number in his phone.

“There,” you said, handing it back over. “Let me know when you’re done with your thing. I can think of a few more ways to get some good use out of my hotel room.”

Two more cups of coffee later, Joel dropped you off at your hotel. You kissed him goodbye in the cabin of his truck, moaning against his mouth before pulling away.

“Alright, go before I come back in with you,” he said playfully, reaching across you to open your door.

You laughed.

“Don’t tempt me,” you got out and paused before closing your door, taking one last chance to look him over. “If we don’t see each other again… It was good meeting you.”

“Good meeting you, too,” he said. “But don’t worry. I’ll see you again.”

You went inside, looking back over your shoulder once you were in the lobby, Joel’s truck still sitting near the doors as he waited to make sure you were safely inside.

There was an odd sense of loss in you as you got ready for your parents’ big anniversary party. You hadn’t expected to meet anyone when on your trip back to your hometown, let alone someone you liked so much. You’d been single for a while, doing things alone didn’t really bother you. But now, you felt this tug of desire to have him getting ready beside you where you could help him with his tie and he could zip you into your dress.

But that was stupid. You knew it was stupid. Your job had taken you to Memphis and you liked it there. You weren’t in a rush to move back to your hometown. And Joel had a business here. It wasn’t going to happen. It’d be a lot easier in the long run if you just accepted that now.

You showed up early to the party, your older sister wanting help to get things set up in the tents outside.

“Who all is coming to this shindig anyway?” You asked as you put pictures of your parents out around a guest book near the entrance of the tent.

“Oh, you know,” your sister waved you off.

“Not really,” you said. She gave you a look. “What! I haven’t been home for a family party in… well, it’s been a minute.”

“Yeah, and I’ve been the one doing all the work to help with those for a while,” she said.

“And you’re definitely not bitter about that…”

“Not one bit,” she teased. “But the usual people. The closest neighbors, the aunts and uncles, Mom’s book club, church people, Dad’s friends…”

“Dad has friends?” You gaped at her. “Since when?”

“He’s had friends for years!”

“OK, he’s never had friends,” you said. “Where is he finding friends? Shit’s unnatural…”

“Don’t let them catch you saying shit,” she said. “And there are a few from work, one from this basketball league he joined…”

“Ew,” you crinkled your nose. Your sister laughed.

“Definitely not ew,” she said. “At least not the basketball friend one, he’s weirdly hot, it’s disturbing…”

“Well, there’s no accounting for taste, is there?” You teased.

“You’ll eat those words when you meet the guy,” she said. “Just wait.”

“Whatever you say,” you rolled your eyes, skeptical. You and your sister had never had the same taste in men, you didn’t see any reason for that to have changed.

But still, you were keeping an eye out for this mysterious hot friend of your father’s as people started to arrive for the party. Or trying to, anyway. You kept getting pulled away by distant relatives you hadn’t seen since your cousin’s wedding or to do a favor for your mom as she frantically rushed around trying to take care of everyone while also trying to have fun at the party that was being thrown in her honor.

Everything was in full swing when you heard your father call your name from across the large, increasingly full tent. He waved you over, leaning around a man he was talking to, and you worked your way around the dance floor, trying not to think about how much you’d like to have a date at this damn thing - how much you’d like to have Joel as your date at this damn thing - when you froze beside your dad. The man standing next to him was devastatingly familiar, even from behind. Tallest man in the room, broad shoulders, thick curls. Your heart beat faster.

“Hey honey,” your dad said, tugging you closer. “Want you to meet my friend. Joel, this is my youngest that I’ve told you so much about.”

He turned around, a beer bottle in his hand a smile on his face that fell the moment he saw you. Your dad was saying something else but you didn’t hear it, too busy staring at the man who had been inside you less than 24 hours earlier.

The man who had you thinking about what life alongside another person would be like.

The man who was apparently your father’s friend.

“Hi,” he said after your dad had stopped talking. You hadn’t noticed.

“Hi,” you said, still staring at him.

Fuck, you were in trouble.

A/N: Here's whatever this is. He's unhinged, I don't know what's happening to the Joels who live in my head lately but they're just going crazy up there. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it! Love you!

#fanfic #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x oc #smut fic #dbf!joel x reader

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