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jomiddlemarch · 3 months

Text

until men fell at their women's feet and asked for forgiveness

Joel Miller x f!reader

summary: you already had a headache from the changing barometric pressure when the phone rang-- you almost didn't pick it up.

warnings: heavy petting, references to child abandonment, adults drinking alcohol, casual use of obscenities, Joel is the epitome of single DILF, TLOU AU where cordyceps never happens but Joel is still Joel

wc: 1.7k

an: this is my submission to summer lovin', brought to you by @pedgito, @chaotic-mystery and @amanitacowboy. The title is borrowed from Jack Kerouac's On The Road as it seemed roadtrip appropriate.

“Get in,” you said.

The sky was a leaden grey, the clouds wadded up as if they’d stanch a wound, but there was a sickly green tinge that you recognized. Joel ought to as well, unless he’d forgotten, like he’d evidently forgotten so much else.

You hadn’t forgotten anything. Not the way he shrugged, the way a tee-shirt clung to his broad shoulders, the way his hair curled when it was wet with rain or sweat. How he’d sounded, crooning a song to his guitar, humming under his breath when he scrambled eggs in the morning, a dishtowel slung over his shoulder, the roughly choked off moan when you took him in your mouth. How he’d tasted, how he felt, his hands on your hips, his lips on your forehead, the base of your throat. How he’d said he’d call, how he’d let the machine take your message, your messages plural, and his brother Tommy, who’d sounded embarrassed and annoyed, who hadn’t known your name though you’d known his.

“Didn’t mean to make you—” he began.

“Get the fuck in, Joel, and then we’ll talk. There’s a tornado watch. I didn’t buy a house with a cellar to get killed chatting on the shoulder of I-80,” you said sharply, your knuckles turning white where you grasped the steering wheel for dear life. Something dear, because otherwise, it meant you were imagining squeezing the life out of him and you were too tired and too old to buy that love and hate being two sides of the same coin bullshit.

It was probably the tornado that got him into your truck, though something in his dark eyes said maybe it had been your tone. Maybe that he remembered, though you’d used it rarely enough with him. A couple of times and then that third message on his machine, that you’d ended slamming the phone down, hoping he’d wince.

He sat quietly next to you, having thrown a beat-up canvas duffle in the back of the cab. He didn’t say anything about calling for a tow or asking if you knew the nearest mechanic. He just sat there, staring out the window, which was maybe a better choice than staring at you as you drove home, your foot heavy on the gas pedal, trying to beat the storm. Anyway, you thought he was staring out the window, his face obscured by his baseball cap and you weren’t about to go all Miss Priss and ask him to take it off inside, as if inside the truck’s cab was a place that deserved some sort of civilized etiquette.

He followed you into the house wordlessly, stood just inside the doorway while you turned on the radio to check on the storm’s progress and the likelihood that you’d both survive the night. The watch had been downgraded, so you went to the fridge and grabbed two bottles of beer and gestured for Joel to sit down at the kitchen table before you plunked one down in front of him.

“Church-key’s in the drawer next—” you said, breaking off as he fished the bottle opener out and used it to flick off his bottle’s cap before offering it to you.

“I know,” he said. He waited for you to open yours before he lifted his towards his lips.

“Sláinte,” you said, taking a long swallow. It was cold, there hadn’t been a power outage while you were on the road, so there was that. You had a pound of ground chuck in the fridge for a meatloaf or burgers, you hadn’t decided, and now it looked like you wouldn’t poison yourself when you did. You still sort of wanted to poison Joel, but not with E. coli.

He watched you and you looked right back at him, like it was a dare or a staring contest. Something you could win.

He drank, letting his eyes drift closed for a moment, then set the bottle down and took off the baseball cap. His hair was greyer, curling around his ears. He was overdue for a haircut, ought to look like a slob but instead he looked like every dream you’d had of him over the past three years, dreams that you woke from trembling, slick, fumbling around for the vibrator in your bedside table drawer to finish off and have a chance of getting back to sleep.

“Road trip hasn’t exactly gone how I’d hoped,” he said.

“Yeah, unexpected stay with the ex I ghosted wouldn’t be on my goddamn mood-board either,” you said.

He chuckled, a low, dirty sound, that reminded you of too much.

“You haven’t changed,” he said and the smile he gave you was appreciative and not polite.

“How would you know?” you snapped.

“You’re right, I wouldn’t. I don’t,” he said. He fiddled with the bottle’s label, peeling away with the condensation. Fidgeting, a rarity for him. “I don’t want you to think I was happy about how it went down.”

“You mean the ghosting me part? Or me blowing up your machine or cursing you out to your brother?”

“I was an asshole, yeah. Everything you did I had comin’ and more,” he said. “There’s context, if you want it. Or I can shut the fuck up and drink my beer and try to keep out of the way until morning and then get out of your hair.”

“There’s context?” you repeated, the disbelief in your voice almost rude. “Context?”

“Yeah. Don’t sound much like you wanna hear it though,” he said, taking another swallow of the beer. You wanted to smack him and sit on his lap, to scream you were over him and murmur how much you’d missed him, how bad it had hurt when you thought you’d never see him again. How bad it hurt when you saw him leaning against his broken-down truck in the rain.

“Joel, why’d you even call me?”

“Yours was the only number I could remember,” he said.

“Oh,” you said, pretending to yourself oh was a word, an appropriate, cogent, thoughtful response and not just the shape of your mouth around breath, half-sigh, half-sob.

“You could’ve hung up on me,” he said.

“That supposed to make me feel better?” You felt dizzy, still trying to make sense of what it meant, that he’d memorized your number, that it was the only number he could remember. You felt like you’d stumble if you stood up and you’d barely had any beer, there wouldn’t be any plausible deniability.

“It’s me sayin’ you’re treatin’ me better than I deserve. Like you always did. It’s me sayin’ I’m sorry, but doing a fucking piss-poor job of it,” he said.

“What’s the context?” you asked abruptly.

“I got a call. My kid’s mom left. Took off, didn’t leave a note, nothing,” he said.

“I thought your daughter’s mom was dead,” you said, not trying to soften it with some bullshit like passed on. If he was going to lie to you, you weren’t going to let him get away with it.

“My other kid. Turns out I had another one. One-night stand, condom broke, she never told me but she put my name down on the birth certificate. I had to fly out to Virginia to get her before they put her up for adoption or into juvie. She was raising hell at the foster home they put her in,” Joel said.

“You took her in?”

“I brought her home. She’s my kid. She’s mine, no one else’s,” he said. “I didn’t have a hell of a lot of bandwidth for anything other than dealin’ with her and Sarah, gettin’ them both settled. Honeymoon lasted all of a weekend but they’re good now. Good enough, anyway. They gang up on me, which is what sisters are supposed to do, if brothers are anything to go by.”

“Where are they now? You left them both with your brother?”

“Hell no,” Joel laughed. “I just dropped them off at Girl Scout camp for three weeks. Sarah’s Auntie Michelle fixed it up for them. I was driving around for a while before heading back to get them. Cheaper than flyin’ home and back and Tommy’s got all the subs lined up for the next couple of projects.”

“This was your vacation, your single dad vacation, living off truck stop diner food, just driving around aimlessly?” you said.

“Not aimlessly,” he said. “There was a reason I was in your neck of the woods—”

“You were hoping a fucking tornado would force me to take you in to save your life?” you said.

“I was just gonna call you. Or show up here with a huge bouquet of roses and a bottle of that white wine you liked and hope you didn’t kick my ass clear to Tampa,” he said. “I didn’t factor in a tornado.”

“Well fuck me sideways,” you said, the kitchen briefly illuminated by lightning followed so fast by a roll of thunder you knew the storm was right on top of you. Joel’s lips curved in an expression equal parts sly and tender, which you hadn’t understood was even a thing until you’d met him.

“I was working up to that, darlin’,” he said. “I wanted to start with rose petals though—”

“I don’t need them,” you said.

“No?”

“What’s her name, your other little girl?” you asked.

“Ellie. Doesn’t have a middle name,” he said. “You want more context, before you forgive me?”

“Later. Context can come later,” you said, pushing your beer bottle away, getting up and walking around to where he sat. “I want you to come now.”

“You first, darlin’,” he replied, pulling you down onto his lap, trusting you to find your balance because he took your face in his hands, drew you near enough to kiss. “Can I stay?”

You knew he didn’t mean for the night or even the morning after. Lightning must have flickered again but you didn’t see it, your eyes closed as he kissed you. You only dimly heard the sound of the thunder over your half-swallowed moan as his tongue did wicked things to you. You broke away, gasping, his arms wrapped around you tight, just far enough to whisper.

“I never wanted you to go.”

#summer lovin #joel miller #tlou AU #romance #inspired by a moodboard #joel x you #no age-gap #DILF joel #TLOU AU with no cordyceps #pedro pascal characters #ellie williams #sarah miller #tommy miller #no physical description of f! lead

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