Im So Glad You Loved It! Youre Smart! I Just Tell The Cashier No Or Throw It Away Shes So Annoying

I’m so glad you loved it! 🥰 You’re smart! I just tell the cashier no or throw it away 🤣 She’s so annoying 🤦‍♀️

Wrong Delivery

Summary: Sleepin' with the hot construction guy doing the remodel at your work, he winds up buying flowers for someone else...

Warnings/Tags: 18+ MDNI go on get! No outbreak/pre outbreak(you decide), fluff, smut, miscommunication, cussing, oral f!receiving, unprotected piv(don't do that, make smart choices), cream pie, Joel being a dork.

A/N: First time I've ever actually finished a Joel story I started working on! Many thanks to @strang3lov3 for the encouragement and taking a look at this, @jay-zzle as always for giving me ideas and making moodboards for me because I hate doing them myself! ❤️❤️❤️

🌹This is for @morallyinept’s flora & fauna challenge! 🌹

Divider provided by @saradika-graphics

Masterlist||AO3 Link

As you rush into the building, trying to avoid the construction team surrounding the place, a timid smile crosses your face when you spot Joel, the man responsible for why you’re running late this morning. Instead of getting ready for work like you were supposed to, Joel Miller decided he wanted to spend his morning coaxing another orgasm out of you, as if the three last night weren’t enough. It’s been a couple of months of this. 

It had never been your intention to start sleeping with the hot contractor who had been doing construction at your place of work, you both just happened to be at the same bar one night. One thing led to another and now it’s been this, whatever this is.

“Mornin’ guys,” you say passing the crew, each giving their own sort of greeting back, be it a grunt of acknowledgment or repeating the greeting.

“Mornin’ ma’am,” Joel says with a cheeky smile, “Runnin’ a little late?”

“Yeah, woke up late,” you shrugged, feeling your face heat up.

“There you are!” Becky shouts, making her way towards you, “Angie is up my ass right now about where you are with those reports you said you’d get done yesterday.”

“On it,” you sigh, “Nice talking to you Joel.”

“Oh!” Becky said with a smile, grabbing his bicep, “Hi Joel! You guys sure have been working hard on all of this.”

You try to keep your eyes from rolling at Becky’s consistent attempt at flirting with Joel. She has definitely tried her hardest to get his attention, made cookies “for the crew” but only handed some of them to Joel, tries to talk to him every chance she can, wearing lower cut tops so her cleavage is on full display, batting eyelashes and laughing at any dumb thing he says. It’s starting to get on your nerves, if you’re being honest. Making your way to your desk you open the drawer, shoving your purse inside before closing it and turning on your computer. You open the teams app, sending Angie a quick message to let her know you’ll put the file with the reports in the folder outside her door, grabbing the file and making your way to her office.

Becky is still talking Joel’s ear off and you have to stifle your laugh, watching his eyebrows scrunch together and his polite nod before excusing himself. She catches you as you're on your way back to your cubicle to start the work day.

“That Joel Miller is a man,” Becky sighs, walking beside you, “The things I would let him do to me.”

“Oh jeez,” you laugh awkwardly, sitting down at your desk.

“I wonder what his dick is like,” she continues, “I bet it’s big.”

You turn to your computer hoping she can’t see the look on your face because then the jig would be up.

“Uhm,” you say, clearing your throat, “You better be careful. Don’t wanna get turned into HR.”

—

“Hello,” a frazzled delivery guy announces himself at the entrance to your cubicle. “I have a delivery for you, miss.”

“For me?!” Becky asks excitedly, seeing the bouquet of flowers. The delivery guy nodded, handing her the flowers. “Who are they from?!”

“Uh… Joel Miller?” The guy says, looking at his sheet. Your jaw drops upon hearing his words. Why on earth would Joel send Becky flowers?

“Oh my god!” Becky squeals with delight, grabbing the card, “Aw! Look! It says darlin’ on the envelope!”

Becky opens the card, reading it aloud:

“Figured a pretty lady like you should have some flowers to look at. Been havin’ the time of my life gettin’ to know ya and would love to take you out. He signed it off with a heart and J. Miller! How sweet is that?!”

Beside yourself on handling this, the only thing you could think of was finding the man himself. If this entire thing between you two was just for fun so be it, but you needed answers.

“Real sweet,” you mutter standing up, “I’m…  uh… I’ll be back.”

“Okay.” Becky hums dreamily, staring at the flowers on her desk.

You make your way to the front of the building, spotting Gus, one of the construction guys.

“Can you tell Joel I need to talk to him?”

“Sorry ma’am, he had to leave earlier, something about Tommy.” Gus shrugs. 

“Uhm… okay.” You nod, deciding to make your way to the breakroom, sitting at one of the tables trying to collect your thoughts. Maybe it’s for the best that he left. That way the entire building wouldn’t see you blow up. Are you even still supposed to see each other tonight? That had been the plan when he left this morning. What the actual fuck, you think to yourself, give annoying ass Becky flowers to ask her out, and then fuck you? That two-timing son of a bitch!

“So fucking stupid,” you mutter to yourself.

—

You make it through the workday, as best as you can, trying not to think of Joel and how mad you are all while Becky continues to talk about him all day. What should she wear, wondering where he’d take her, what they would do, should she sleep with him on the first date. Hopefully, the Excedrin will kick in soon to help with the teeth grinding headache you’ve had all day. Walking to your car Becky’s shrill voice rings out wishing you a good evening.

“Yeah, you too,” you grumble, pulling your car door open and throwing your purse inside. You’re still so mad, fuming, seeing red as you drive towards your place. Once getting home, you quickly change into comfy clothes, and see you have a text from Joel.

JMiller: Can’t wait to see you beautiful ;) Leavin’ Tommy’s

You scowl looking at the text. How do you even respond to that? Petty, that’s how.

You: K.

You see the text bubbles pop up, disappear then pop up again before his face shows on your screen with an incoming call.

“Hello,” you snap.

“Hey,” Joel says hesitatingly, “Bad day at work?”

“Well, Becky got some lovely flowers delivered at work.”

“Oh?”

“Yep,” you say with a harsh pop at the end.

“And?” Joel asks, “Is that it?”

“Delivery guy and card said they were from you.”

“Fuck me,” Joel groans “Those were not for goddamn Becky!”

“Sure about that?”

“I got them for you.” Joel argues.

“Yeah, okay.” You huff into the receiver, rolling your eyes. “Look, I get it. It’s fine if you didn’t want this going anywhere but you could’ve been honest with me about it.”

“Fuck, darlin’,” Joel groans, “I do want this going somewhere! Like I said, the flowers were for you!”

“Sure,” you say, shaking your head, “Just be honest, Joel. This has just been fun, that’s it. You’re getting your dick wet, stringing me al—“

“God damn it! I am telling the truth!” Joel growls, cutting you off. “I even have proof!”

“What proof?!” You spit back, “The proof of the flowers you sent Becky? Yeah, I saw them, and the card too. Sweet touch signing it off with a heart and then your name.”

Suddenly there is a knock on your door. You cock your head to the side, hearing the knock sound through the phone as well. Of fucking course, Tommy’s is a five minute drive to your place, making your way to the door you swing it open to see Joel standing there. His nostrils flared, phone held up to his ear, dropping it and angrily stuffing it back into his pocket.

“Just give me five minutes, I swear, they were meant for you and I have fuckin’ proof,” Joel says, holding up a piece of paper.

“What the fuck, Joel?” You groan, smacking your phone onto the entry table.  “Why are you here?”

“I was on my way home from Tommy’s. Figure I’d come here first,” Joel says, holding the paper out to you, “Go on, look at it.”

You grab it, glancing it over. Farrah’s Flowers printed at the top, with your name listed as the order’s recipient, eyes bulging out of your head as you look at him.

“Told you.”

“Wait, then how the fuck did they get to Becky then?”

“Somebody fucked up, that’s all I know but that is my copy of the receipt for buyin’ them in the first place, and that is your name on it,” Joel smirks in triumph, crossing his arms across his broad chest.

Your shoulders relax as you open the door wider, motioning your head for him to come in. He gives a subtle nod, making his way into your home, you slump against the door once it’s closed.

“Joel,” you start, “What the fuck are we?”

He cages you against the door, pushing his lower half into you. You sigh, looping your arms around his neck, looking at those dark chocolate eyes.

“Well,” Joel says, kissing your cheek, “I want you,” placing a soft kiss against your lips, “More than just for sex,” he whispers, against your lips breathing in each other's air causing you to feel a dizzying arousal. Lips collide with him in a hungry kiss, tongues rolling against one another, gasping when his hands creep down to hook around your thighs lifting you, grabbing onto your ass before pulling you away from the door and carrying you to your bedroom.

Joel lays you down on your bed hovering over you, never breaking away from your lips, licking into your mouth with desperation like this might be his last chance. Arousal begins pool in your underwear. Hands gliding down his back, feeling the warmth radiating from him, lifting the bottom of his shirt until he finally lifts to fling it off.

“Don’t want anyone else,” Joel husks, lightly biting your neck, causing you to moan at the sensation of his teeth against your skin, “Just you.”

“Joel,” you whimper as his hand travels down the length of your shirt, pushing it up to expose your tits, ducking his head down. He sucks a nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the stiffened peak before switching to give the other equal attention, kissing a trail down the soft flesh of your stomach until he reaches the top of your leggings.

“Can I?” He asks, looking at you, fingers hooking into your waistband. You give a firm nod and he pulls them off along with your underwear. He sighs once they are off, using his shoulders to spread your legs further apart, “So fucking pretty,” he hums, nipping and kissing along your inner thighs, slowly making his way to your center.

You can feel his breath against your folds, trembling with anticipation for his tongue and lips to make contact, letting out a soft moan Joel begins lapping at your folds, sucking your bundle of nerves into his mouth. Tongue massaging circles against your clit.

“Fuck,” you moan, raking your fingers through his hair and lightly tugging.

Joel’s hum reverberated into your core. His mouth opened and he began to fuck you with his tongue while firmly holding your gaze. You’re back arched at the sensation, letting out a gasp. You roll your hips against his face, his nose pressing deliciously against your clit. He grunts, moving his thumbs to spread your lips, licking a stripe up to your clit and sucking it into his mouth. Your legs begin to shake at the sensation.

“Oh my god, Joel!” You whine, arching your back, feeling the band tightening within your core, begging for release. Joel sinks two of his thick fingers into you causing you to cry out, moving them to massage that sweet spot against your walls, “Yes! Oh my god, fuck!” You could feel the smug smirk on his face, knowing you’re about to come.

“Come on,” he coos, firmly licking your bundle of nerves “Let me have it baby.”

You cry his name out over and over as you feel the waves of pleasure crashing through you. He continues lapping at your folds, wanting to make sure he gets every last drop before you push his head away. He crawls up the length of your body, the denim of his jeans scratching against your skin.

“Good?” He asks, you nod giggling and he smirks, grabbing the nape of his neck you pull him closer to your face, looking into your eyes he whispers a hi. You can’t help the smile that spreads across your face, surging forward to kiss him, tasting yourself on his tongue. He groans into your mouth, grinding his bulge against your center, the rough denim providing friction against your core. His hand moves to his belt, swiftly unhooking it and unbuttoning his jeans. Hands sliding down to help him push the denim off his hips, boxers following suit. You grip his hard length, stroking it from tip to base. Palm spreading the precome over his long thick length. Joel lets out a soft moan at the touch.

“Want you inside me,” you whimper, rubbing his cock against your slick heat. “Please.”

He bats your hand away, grabbing his cock to tease your folds more, rubbing his tip up and down your slit. You let out a moan when his tip catches against your entrance. Only for him to slide back up to your clit, rubbing agonizingly slow circles against you.

“Joel,” you begged, titling your pelvis, “Please, please fuck me.”

Joel smirks, sliding his cock back down to your entrance, feeding you his bulbous head. You writhe, feeling the stretch. He sinks into you slowly, filling you up until his tip kisses your cervix. Fingers gripping his back, each of you letting out a satisfied moan.

“Fuck, darlin’,” Joel murmurs into your neck, nipping and sucking on your pulse point, letting you adjust to his size, “Best pussy ever,” placing gentle kisses along your jaw.

“Joel, move,” you plead, hitching your legs up on his waist, “Need you to move.”

He pulls out slowly before snapping his length into you again, letting out a shaky breath at the harshness of his thrust. Your grip on his back tightens, sinking your nails into his skin. He lets out a hiss as he rocks his hips into you, trying to find that spot that makes you see stars. 

“Fuck,” he grunted, “Don’t want anyone else, darlin’.”

Breathy moans shared between kisses, sweat slicked skin gliding against each other. He pushes your thighs back further into a mating press, finding that sweet spot inside your walls.

“Oh my god,” you whine, back beginning to arch, “Right there!”

His cock massages that spot with every stroke, causing your muscles to tighten. You can feel the coil in your belly tightening, walls beginning to flutter around his shaft as he drills into that spot over and over.

“Jesus Christ,” Joel growls, feeling the heat of his skin slapping against yours, “I need you to come, baby. Ain’t gonna last much longer.”

You moan wantonly as you feel his dick twitch inside of you. Joel holding out to make sure you come first. The coil in your belly finally snaps, sending you over the edge, white hot electricity flowing through every limb. He thrusts into you harshly half a dozen more times before his hips stutter.

“Only you, darlin’, only want you,” he grunts, as he empties himself inside you, painting your walls with his sticky release, “only want you.”

Joel collapses, holding himself up by his elbows on either side of your head, nuzzling his nose against yours, placing soft kisses against your lips.

“Only want you,” he sighs.

—

You spent the next hour, in each other's arms, talking, snuggling and kissing.

“I can’t believe you would think I’d want Becky,” Joel booms with laughter, eyes crinkling around the edges. You smirk playfully, slapping his arm.

“Look,” you giggle, “I didn’t know if her flirting finally wore you down!”

“Hi Joel!” He says in an exaggerated high pitch, batting his eyelashes, “My, you sure have been working hard!” he adds with a girly giggle, lifting his pecs to create some sort of cleavage.

“Oh shut up!”

“Did you see the flowers though? Like actually look at ‘em?”

“Not really,” you sigh, playing with a loose thread on your blanket.

“Purple tulips for new beginnings and love,” Joel says, planting a kiss on your cheek, “Jasmine for devotion,” he continues, kissing your other cheek, “and pink roses for appreciation,” he smiles before kissing the tip of your nose.

“Really?”

“Yep, the florist helped me pick them out,” Joel says, grabbing the back of your neck pulling you into a kiss, “Told ya they were for you.”

Aww thanks for including not one but two of my stories! 😍🥰

Sanctuary update - new works and authors added ⋆｡°✩

everytime I see your feedbacks and read your fics, I am purring in delight. Lovely authors, you are so talented it hurts. I wish you an amazing week^^

random fics of the day ⋆｡˚

Consuming internet content is your own responsibility. Most of it is 18+, also mind authors’ notes.

If you'd like to recommend a fic - welcome here, or tag me :3

by @toomanystoriessolittletime — relax — Frankie 'Catfish' Morales; Failing — Joel Miller

by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin — Waffles and Cigarettes — Javier Peña

by @novemberrain-writes — Free Falling — Javier Peña

by @skbeaumont — Make Me Wanna , Scars — Joel Miller

by @stylesispunk — I love you, it's ruining my life — Joel Miller

by @loliwrites — EDELWEISS — Joel Miller

by @atinylittlepain — Apothecary — Joel Miller

by @aurorawritestoescape — PLEASE, SIR , TAKE ME — Joel Miller

by @anabdaniels — The time for being sad is over — Jack Daniels / Whiskey

by @not-so-mundane-after-all — Unmarked — Ezra

by @punkshort — Have A Good Night — Joel Miller

by @beardedjoel — new habits , new addiction — Joel Miller

by @atticrissfinch — Always on the Tip of My Tongue , Alright with a Slow Burn — Joel Miller

by @mermaidgirl30 — Her Bodyguard, His Shining Star — Joel Miller

by @frenchiereading — Teach you patience — Frankie 'Catfish' Morales

by @clawdeewritesfanfic — Tender When I Want To Be — Joel Miller

by @ezrasbirdie — as you've always been — Joel Miller

by @thetriumphantpanda — freedom felt like summer — Joel Miller

by @bitchesuntitled — Wrong Delivery — Joel Miller; Between Us — Frankie 'Catfish' Morales

by @macfrog — backspin, rack 'em — Frankie 'Catfish' Morales

by @kedsandtubesocks — SEASONS OF YOU — miscellaneous Pedro characters

by @joelmillerisapunk — Subscribe — Joel Miller

by @schnarfer — Trouble — Dieter Bravo

by @proxima-writes — ROUGH ON THE SURFACE — Joel Miller

by @yxtkiwiyxt — Third Date , I Wanna Enjoy This Morning With You — Joel Miller

by @corazondebeskar-reads — remember what you're staring at is me — Joel Miller

by @joelsgreenflannel — feeling so high school when i look at you — Joel Miller

by @javier-pena — pull — Joel Miller

by @beskarandblasters — Delicate — Joel Miller

by @guess-my-next-obsession — guilty as sin? — Javier Peña

by @gasolinerainbowpuddles — Lonely Together — Joel Miller

by @hellishjoel — reborn — Joel Miller

by @something-tofightfor — Fool's Gold — Oberyn Martell

by @getitoutofmymindwrites — Promises. , Perfect. — Joel Miller

by @wannab-urs — Written in the Stars — Din Djarin, Ezra

*smooches*

Oh my heart 😭 This was so good but so heartbreaking at the same time!

Prophesy

Summary: The end is never the end, it would seem.

Or, you died but your ghost keeps visiting.

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!Reader

Word count: ~7.5k

Warnings: death, mentions of canon-typical violence and injuries, grief, grieving, loss, very brief smut, two people who didn't say a lot to each other when they had the chance, Joel being very bad at letting go and being honest

A/N: You should definitely not consider listening to The Prophecy by Taylor Swift when reading this, if you read this. This is very, very loosely based on a ghost story I can no longer remember the name of. Thank you as always for continuing to put up with me, I love all of you so sincerely.

It’s always raining. 

The porch is dark; the light by the door that normally shines like a welcoming beacon, is switched off. 

The rain patters steadily against the roof, against the wooden steps and the puddles gathering like tiny oceans in the yard. A gloomy sun slowly rises, spilling more light along the slowly flooding yard. 

The windchime, carved by Joel’s hands, wooden and sturdy, clunks together and apart in the breeze, like the hollow tolling of bells. The sound makes something in your chest clench and ache. The pinch doesn’t ease, but knots itself up in your lungs, choking in its intensity. 

You touch one of the rough wooden legs, the memory of it when it was new surfacing like a flash of lightning. You remember the way Joel looked when he stretched to hang it, the tail of his shirt coming untucked from the back of his jeans, the skin of his wrist showing in the early morning light when his sleeve pulled down with the motion. You remember his chuckle when you called him talented, the shake of his head. 

Always disbelieving of any compliments, you just kissed his cheek and teased him for being shy. 

The memory vanishes, along with the warmth and faded golden glow of some long distant morning. 

The porch is still crowded with gray, with the sound of the slow drizzle. 

Your clothes are damp, your skin sticky with humid rainwater. You hold your hands out in front of you, watching the water bead and pearl on your skin, trailing down your fingers. 

Your fingernails are caked with dirt, mud streaks your forearms and torso and your jean clad thighs. You can only imagine what your face looks like, what you look like standing there on the porch. 

You turn and face the front door instead of the empty front yard, the emptier street, and the tiny view you’re afforded of the graveyard. Something raw opens up inside you at the sight of everything so quiet, so dead. 

A prickle of unease settles at the base of your skull, and you lift your hand to brush over the space. 

The porch is so dark, and you can’t understand why. 

The front light is never off. It’s like a homing beacon, always welcoming you back, guiding you home.

Maybe there’s a purpose to it. Maybe you’re being cast back, asked away. 

Before you can think better of it, before you can turn away, you raise your hand and knock. The wood is solid beneath your curled fist, and another memory surfaces from the wasteland of your mind; Joel greasing the hinges of this door in a fit of irritation one evening, even though the damn things had been doing so since you came to Jackson and never seemed to bother him before that moment. 

You shouldn’t have knocked, but it’s too late to take your hand back. 

Besides, where else would you go but home? But here? 

But the light is out, so maybe you aren’t quite welcome anymore. Maybe Joel Miller has finally tired of having ghosts hanging in his doorway. 

And you’re so filthy. You try brushing some of the detritus away, but it just makes it worse. It smears over your skin and you have to wonder how you died. You can never remember that particular detail, worrisome and niggling like the hollow space of a lost tooth, tongue sliding repeatedly into the bloody cavity. 

Joel shouldn’t have to see you like this. He shouldn’t have to keep seeing you like this. 

Light spills painfully bright across the threshold when the door opens, across your toes and bare feet and swollen ankles. The burst of discomfort that lances across your eyes only lasts for a moment before Joel comes into sharp relief, steady and solid and always there to open the door when you knock. 

“Is it always raining?” You ask when he just stares at you, joking only a little, trying to soften the blow of your appearance — both the way you look and your perpetual, repeated haunting. “I don’t remember it raining so much.” 

When he doesn’t answer, just looks you up and down, gaze raking over you, mournful and hungry and aching, so open and raw, all you can do is apologize. “I’m sorry, Joel, I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I wish I could stop.” 

Joel shakes his head and holds the door open further, relief spreading across his features in lieu of the grief, a gentle loosening in the tension around his eyes. 

He looks older than you remember, just as the wind chimes look worn by time you don’t remember passing. The lines on his forehead are deeper, his hair is grayer and pushes down and back behind his ears, longer than you ever remember seeing it. 

It makes your stomach turn. 

You are never certain how much time passes between your visits, but this time it is clear that you have missed years. 

“Sweetheart,” he breathes, ignorant to your panic. “C’mon inside. S’cold out there.” 

The sound of the rain is muted when you step across the threshold and he shuts the door behind you, warm fingers spread briefly over your spine, pulling you closer to the heat of his body. 

He’s trying and failing to hold himself at bay. You tuck yourself closer instead and are rewarded with the firm press of his hand between your shoulder blades, the winding of his arm around your waist, the shaky inhale of his breath against your forehead. 

“I wonder what would happen if you told me to go away,” you muse, pressing your forehead against his temple, his bowed head tilted toward you. His hand falls away from your shoulder to cup your cheek and keep you close, the other still firmly around your waist. “You should tell me to go away,” you say against his throat where you tuck your face. 

A long moment passes like that, silence between you but for the slow creak of floorboards beneath your feet when you shift. You pull back to look at him, fingers caught in the back of his shirt, like he might be the one to disappear. 

Joel doesn’t answer immediately, just keeps breathing you in, inhaling long and slow against your skin despite the layer of filth you’re covered in. 

He smells the same way he always has, just the way you remember. It’s a comfort, a balm, against something you can’t guess at. It’s not fair to him, either, that you should take comfort in him, in the way he feels and smells, when you haven’t experienced the long, slow shift of time the way he has. 

Eventually, he releases you, hands against your jaw, before he draws away entirely and takes the addicting heat of his skin away from yours. 

You have left streaks of mud behind on the color of his shirt, his jacket, the underside of his jaw.

Joel doesn’t seem to mind, or doesn’t notice. 

There’s a towel on the table in the entryway, like he’s been waiting for you since the moment you last left.

He wraps it around your shivering shoulders, looking you over with a sharp eye as he tugs the material close against your chest. “What if you told me to leave?” You ask again, knowing you should leave it alone. “You should just tell me to leave, Joel.” 

He shakes his head and rubs his hands up and down your arms, passing his warmth into your chilled, soaked skin. “It ain’t always rainin’ and we ain’t never gonna know what would happen if I told you to go away.” 

“You’re so good to me,” you say, tilting your face toward his, cataloging all the things about him you’d like to remember, for the next time you show up and too much time has passed: the particular shape of the scar over the bridge of his nose, the part of his mouth and the line in his bottom lip, the cast of his eyes, each new wrinkle and scar that has appeared on his skin, the spots of age and life lived starting to appear in the backs of his hands. 

Maybe you think about him all the time when you’re away, but if you do, you can’t remember it when you’re with him. There’s nothing but blank emptiness in your mind about wherever you go, if you’re formless and just plain dead, or in whatever afterlife might exist. 

“If I was really good to you,” he says, releasing the towel to hold your face in the cup of his palms. “I woulda figured out how to put you to rest by now.” 

“I am resting,” you say and lean into his touch. He’s as firm as you remember, as comforting as he’s always been. “It’s you I worry about.” 

“Mm.” His skin is warm; his eyes are pained. Joel’s loyalty and love are two of the things you loved most about him in life, in death you detest it because he’s alone. There’s no one left to love, no fealty left to give. “Don’t. Maybe that’s why you keep comin’ back, worryin’ I’m not all right.”

You cover his hand, press the calloused fingertips more firmly into your skin. “I don’t like to think of you alone. Why haven’t you moved on? I can think of a few that had their eye on you all that time.” 

He just shakes his head, rolls his eyes in that familiar way of his. The fold of his arms crease around you again, pull you into his chest, the heat of him that you’ve felt a thousand times before, that always somehow feels brand new and comfortingly familiar at the same time. 

The tip of his nose fits against your cheek, and when he breathes you in slowly, you feel the weight of all the years that passed between this moment and the last. He cups the back of your head, tucks you that much closer. His thumb slides slowly against the base of your skull, the back of your neck, his touch lingering there for a long moment. 

When he exhales and then replies, his voice shakes a little. “That’s real funny.” 

“I’m serious.”

“Uh-huh.”  

“I wouldn’t mind.” 

“Well, I would mind.”

Yes, you suppose he would, even after all the years that have passed. 

Joel is not one to give up or let go, not for anything. He holds it in his heart, with desperate, clenched fingers, refusing to give it up when it was so hard to let it in in the first place. 

There would be no one, nothing, else.

“Really,” you insist softly. “They didn’t think we were good together anyway. I was too mean and maybe they were right. I can see that now.”

“You weren’t, and they ain’t.”  

He rubs your back slowly, like he’s refamiliarizing himself with your shape and feeling.

An ache springs up in your chest, a little well of grief. He’s getting older and you’re missing it. He’s living without you and you’re missing it and so is he. He’s missing out on his own life again, buried under a mountain of grief. You should be here for all of it, for all of his life, but that’s just not how things work out sometimes. 

The lines by his eyes and the gray in his hair, you shouldn’t even notice it. If you were able to look at him every single day, you wouldn’t notice it at all. But you do now because you’re gone for weeks or months or, like today, years, and so you notice it. You see the toll of time on him. 

“Did you miss me?” 

“‘Course I did.” 

“I missed you, too.”

Something you never would have admitted to in life, not with words anyway. It gives him a second of pause. 

“I thought it was nothin’ for you? Ain’t you here everyday?” He smiles, and you know how glad he is that for you no time at all has gone by. Every single day, you get to see him. 

He doesn’t know it’s torture for you too, being the cause of such extended pain, such lonely heartbrokeness. 

“I missed you, even then. I know I did.” 

He nods, looks you over once again. “Well, you don’t got to no more. Let’s get you cleaned up.” 

Joel thought that he was losing his mind the first time you appeared in the rain, that the grief in his chest was too big and had swallowed him whole. 

It wouldn’t have been the first time after all. 

But you are as real as anything he’s ever known, as real as you had been in life. You’re warm to the touch, the scent of your skin is just like he remembers it, something he never thought he would smell again in the aftermath of your death. 

It’s all the same, you are the same, like nothing at all happened. 

You had known you were dead but not how, confused and anxious and fussing over him in a way that you only ever had when he was seriously injured or you when you suspected that he was. 

You aren’t haunting him; he doesn’t like to think about it like that. 

But that’s probably exactly what it is. Only Joel can shoulder the blame of your death, afterall, and maybe your spirit knows that. Most times, though, it just feels like you’re visiting after a long trip away. 

The only time he feels haunted is when you’re gone, when you disappear into some ether he can’t reach and the only thing left to him is your grave beneath a swaying tree. 

Your visits are infrequent, and you always appear when it’s raining. The rain is important, somehow. 

He waits for rain, begs for it.

Even thinks of praying for it, sometimes. 

You eat when you visit, not like you’re ravenous, just a normal human hunger. You sleep, and you feel warm though your hands are always cold. If it’s cold, you don’t seem to feel it. If it’s warm, you don’t seem to feel that either. 

The only troublesome thing about it, besides having to say goodbye to you over and over, is that you always turn up covered in dirt. 

He doesn’t like that, like you’d torn yourself up out of cold, dark earth without help, clawed your way out of damp dirt just to arrive on his front porch. 

Just because he can’t figure out how to let you go. You are being held hostage by his grief and guilt and he knows that even if you don’t. 

You sit patiently by while he runs a bath for you, ankles crossed and hands folded in your lap as your eyes rove around the bathroom, probably noting changes Joel no longer sees. His knee aches when he crouches and you frown when he groans getting back up. It’s embarrassing, aging, especially when you aren’t doing it with him. 

He’s glad that there are things you’ll never experience—aching joints and pained tendons among them—but it also means you aren’t there, you aren’t there with him to feel those things and do those things. You should be doing it together.  

It’s been a couple years since he last saw you. The longest you’ve ever been gone. He takes your hand and helps you undress, and it’s odd because your body is the same as it was when you died, younger than him, the space between you growing with each year that passes. It’s a particular, peculiar, cruel kind of grief that your body never got a chance to age along with his, to develop creases and lines, to accumulate new scars and marks. 

In other lives, in some other reality, he would have liked to get old with you. He’s had that thought about so many things over the years, about things out of his control and those in it, things that should have been different but weren’t, aren’t. In another life, he would have liked to go grocery shopping with you. In another life, almost exactly the same as this one, neither of you take so long to pull the other in and he gets more time with you. In another life, neither of you are as hard and distant as you are in this one. 

But he likes the life he got with you all the same, the time he got with you. He got to watch you soften in your own time and way after settling in Jackson. He got to go on patrols with you, and in this world, patrols sometimes amount to their own kind of grocery shopping. 

Joel lets you balance one hand on his forearm as you never would have in life to lower yourself into the bath. You used to be adverse to any kind of help. I don’t need help, stop looking at me, I can do it myself, it doesn’t hurt. 

In life, you never really got better about showing affection. Pushed away from it, allergic to it, only fitting with and around him in the dark. 

Not ashamed, but afraid. Like if the world looked too close, it would all just be ripped away. Joel should have known it would be the other way around. That the world would inevitably take you from him first. 

Now, though, in death, you hold onto his arm, and then squeeze his hand. You lock your fingers with his and rub his wrist in gentle circles. 

Maybe you’ve realized all the same kinds of things that he had, that so much was wasted, never realized. 

You watch him carefully now, eyes drinking him in, when he kneels next to you. “I like your hair like this,” you say, lifting one hand to twitch a piece of his hair back. “And I can do this myself.”

There it is.

He doesn’t answer, just dips the washcloth into the water and drags it along your skin. 

Soft skin, damp and warm and so alive. But he knows when he inevitably lies his head against your chest later, he won’t hear a thing. Your heart is still. It will never not be still again. 

The other thought he had the first time you showed up, was that you had turned. That worse than death happened, that he’d made some kind of critical error and you’d become what you so wildly feared, that he promised he would never let you become. 

Your death had flashed violently behind his eyes, your blood soaking into the ground turning the whole world a bright, rusted crimson. He feels the weight of his revolver in his hand, sees the unending mess of your death, the splatter of the back of your skull—

But infected don’t knock at the door, don’t smile, don't talk and walk and remember everything that ever happened to them. Most of everything that ever happened to them, anyway. 

And infected ain’t human, not anymore, not as they’d once been. 

Besides, he’d seen you die, felt you die, sure as sure that you could never become one of those things.

“I wish I could stop,” you say gently, the bath water turning slowly brown, curls of steam rising from the tub, washing him in the unfiltered, raw scent of your skin undercut by the smell of his own soap because he’d long ago run out of yours, and no matter where he looked, he could not find it again. A cosmic punishment, maybe, that even your scent can be lost. “I don’t know how to stop. I wish I could leave you alone.” 

He shakes his head. “I don’t.” 

It’s quiet for a while, the rain continues to patter down, splashing against the panes of the open window, birdsong spilling in the air beyond the crush and shush of the leaves twisting in the early morning wind. The air smells sweet with rain, like the slightly earthy tang of perchitor. 

“How long has it been?” Your fingers circle his wrist when he wrings out the cloth, holding his hand to your chest tightly. “It’s been a long time hasn’t it?” 

Joel shrugs. “I thought maybe you were finally at rest.” 

You swallow, he feels the echo of it in your chest, heart still silent, though he’s feeling it’s silence before he planned to. “How long?” 

“Two years. Almost three.” 

You suck in a sharp breath and shift, the water twisting around you in the tub. Dirty water, now, that reminds him of that night, all that rain. . . all those—

“Oh, Joel.” 

“It’s all right.”

“It’s not.” You shake your head, the fierceness you’d shown in life creeping into your voice. He ignores the way the temperature falls several degrees. “This is—I’m torturing you.” 

“It ain’t like that,” he disagrees. “You’re here.” 

You make a frustrated noise. The grip of your hand around his is painful, and he can’t stop thinking about the still heart beneath it. “It’s exactly like that. Next time, don’t open the fucking door. I won’t even knock. I’ll dig myself back into the ground where I belong.” 

He cups the side of your head with his other hand, feels the impossible heat of you, the mocking life of you. “Don’t you even think of it.” 

“This hurts, Joel.” 

“I know.”

He pulls you closer, your forehead against his, palm cupping the back of your head, that place on your neck. Just smooth skin there, nothing else. “This hurts you.” 

“No.” 

“You’re alone.” You pull back, eyes blinking up into his, brows tilted in and mouth skewed to the side. Angry, anxious. More than that, protective. You could grit your teeth through anything. But not this. “I never wanted that.” 

He has to repress the urge to slide his hand along the back of your skull again. “M’not. I talk to you all the time. You just can’t hear it.” 

He visits your grave everyday. 

Most days, the graveyard is quiet. It was the best place he could have buried you, even if it was outside Jackson. 

Birdsong, the steady swish of water in the nearby creek, the sun moving through ever swaying branches of leafed trees. 

The world there teems with new life, creatures to keep you company. 

Always, a pair of deer that slink between the headstones, nosing at the sprouting grass and budding flowers. Birdsong and the chittering of little creatures. The hush of wind through trees, the fluttering sound of a cool morning breeze. 

It’s nice. 

It’s always nice, if a little lonely. 

“Three years.” You pause, anguished about it. Then, “How’s Ellie? She must be all grown up. What does she look like? Does she—” 

“‘Bout the same,” he cuts you off. You don’t need to know just how alone things have gotten.  “Taller. Skinner. Patrols a lot now.” 

“By herself?” The note of pride in your voice makes him chuckle, releases the tension caught up in his throat . 

“Well, with someone else, as a pair. You know that.” 

You nod and hum. “Yeah. I wish I could talk to her. Do you have a picture?” 

“Downstairs.” Joel touches the curve of your shoulder, the scar that runs along your collarbone. You’ve always had that scar, a permanent fixture on your body from before the time you’d known each other. 

You used to be angrier in life. It’s like death has mellowed you out a little. Why shouldn’t it? What worries could the dead have?

Besides him. 

You worry about him. 

Sometimes Joel worries that you aren’t you at all, or that one day you’ll remember more than he wants you to, and all that buried rage will come right back up. 

Where do you think you go, really? He wants to ask. And is it a place I can follow someday? Do I deserve to? 

Or will you show up here one day to an empty house, to bones and dust and nothing else and think he abandoned you? Or grieve in death for him, unable to reach each other? 

A mourning ghost.

Maybe you hate him. Maybe wherever you go, you know the truth and you hate him. Maybe you’re so angry your spirit can’t rest, and that’s the real reason you’re still around. 

Maybe this is supposed to be torture to him like you said, a punishment, but he loves you too much for that. He loves you too much for this to be anything but a gift, even if it hurts like hell every time. Even if it’s like losing you all over again each time. 

Because there’s this. 

There’s rain and quiet and you, real and in front of him, your skin soft and clean beneath his fingertips, your voice in his ear and your laughter he can swallow down. The water is a murky, thin brown by the time you get out of the bath. You dress in fresh, clean clothes, and then he wraps your swollen ankles and pushes his thumbs into the soles of your feet. 

“I think you’re getting too old for that,” you say, one hand on his shoulder. “I can do it myself. You know it won’t matter anyway and my feet don’t hurt too badly.” 

No, because you’d just show up again in the clothes he buried you in, with your ankles swollen and feet sore again, just like they had been the night you died. 

Joel will never forgive himself for not making you stop that night, to at least wrap your feet. Maybe then you would have missed the—

He pushes the thought away. 

He’s kneeling on his bathroom floor, with the warmth of your ankle in his palm. He stares at the knob of your ankle and feels the soft down of the hair on your leg when he slides his hand up your calf to cup the back of your knee. He misses you so badly in that moment, he feels it in the back of his throat, choking him. 

“I love you,” he says, because he isn't sure he ever said it when you were alive, and if there’s one thing he’s good at it’s not making the same mistake twice, even if all his mistakes prove fatal. The words are thick on his tongue, almost clumsy, and your face crumples with them. You slip to the floor and kneel with him and something about it feels so wrong. 

“Yeah,” you say. “I know. I know. I love you too.” 

You would have never said it, before, either. You never said things to each other, and maybe you should have. 

The only sign of your otherworldliness is the glow you put off. You shimmer around the edges, and he half expects you to disappear each time he blinks. You look like summer sun has permanently infused itself under your skin. 

When you eventually make it down to the kitchen together, he heats something up for you to eat. He’s still as bad at cooking as he’s always been so it’s the best he can do. 

It’s just stew that Tommy and Maria sent over a few days ago, but you eat it slowly and savor each bite. He shows you a fairly recent picture of Ellie and you look at it like you might cry. “She’s all grown up.” 

Joel nods and lets you hold onto the picture. 

He doesn’t tell you that they don’t talk anymore. 

Whenever you visit, Joel bars himself from the world. 

You’re only there for a day, less than 24 hours, usually, and he needs all that time with you. How long would it be until he saw you again? Three years? Longer? Never?

This might be the last time he says goodbye to you, and he isn’t sure if that’s better or worse. 

“I get afraid sometimes, you know,” you admit, threading your fingers through his hair, your naked skin pressed to his, humid and tacky with sweat. It’s so human. It’s so alive. 

You smell like you, like the trees and earth you died among. 

He never says anything about how cold your hands are. He’ll miss the icy press of them through his soon enough.

“Of what?” 

“Do you think we’ll find each other? When you die?” You pause. “Many, many years from now, of course.”

Joel tightens his arms around your waist, feels the contraction of your lungs. It’s so strange, hearing the in and out of your breath, the pump of your lungs, but not the beat of your heart. He slides his hand down your back, over the length of your spine to the small of your back. Your leg flexes against his hip, the warmth of you folded around him. “What if you move on? And I still don’t know how?” You only pause for a second, “Or what if I move on, and then you don’t know how?” 

He pulls back to meet your eyes, watches you squint at him through the yellow gray of the afternoon air. Already the sun is arcing down through the sky, the end of another day within reach. 

The curve of your cheekbone, the line of your jaw muted in the pale sunshine straining through the gray and purple mass of clouds that have not dissipated. Your brows are drawn together, lips pulled down into a frown. Maybe if it keeps on raining, you’ll get to stay longer, you’ll never have to leave him again.

There’s no world where he doesn’t tear it apart to find you, and he tells you so. He’ll find you, somehow. 

“Joel,” you say gently, and it feels like being caught, being found out. He knows what you’re going to say before you say it. “I think you should tell me how I died.” 

Joel shakes his head. “No.” 

His voice comes out mean, a snarl, warning. 

It’s the one thing you don’t remember, the one thing that remains out of your reach. You don’t know how you died. You don’t remember that day at all, not any of it, and it’s better that way. “It’s better you don’t know. Ain’t nothin’ you need to know.” 

“But what if that’s—I do think I need to know, Joel. What are you trying to protect me from? Why don’t I know that? What if that’s why I can’t stop haunting you?”

He presses his forehead to yours, feels the warm swell of your breath against his lips, the slick slide of your body against his. “I can’t,” he repeats, softer this time.

It hurt too much to even think of. He’s lost too many people that way, bloodied and scared, but those are his memories to hold onto, not theirs, not yours. That’s something he can keep. He can keep you safe from the memory of that terrible moment, that horrible night.   

“Why?” You stroke his hair, the shell of his ear, and he can’t help but think of how different you are in death. This sweet side of you, it must have been you before the outbreak, before everything. “Joel,” you say so softly. “Did you kill me?” 

Driving a knife through his heart might have been kinder than asking, but it might have been kinder, it might have been right, to tell you the truth a long time ago too. He feels like he can’t breathe, the memory of your warm, sticky blood on his fingers, the way you’d gone so still and the way he hadn’t been able to move for hours afterwards, your cooling body in his arms, deadened inside, numb. 

“Joel?” You don’t sound mad, even though it’s obvious you guessed right. “I’m already dead. If you killed me, I know you must have had a good reason to.”

You’re so level headed about things, in death. If you came to him in nightmares and horrors, ripped paintings off the walls, broke furniture, screamed and wailed and made the house bleed from the floorboards, at least that would be understandable.

You were rarely so reasonable in life. 

He doesn’t answer, just palms that place at the base of your skull where a bullet hole should be, where the wound he inflicted should still be, but isn’t, shattered bone and viscera. “I killed you.” 

“Why?” 

“You—” 

He spent hours with you, listening to you struggle to breathe, listening to you cry,  listening to how afraid you were of what was to come, begging for him to do it, to kill you, that you couldn’t do it yourself.

I don’t want to be one of those things, Joel, not even for a second. I don’t want to know if they’re in there. I don’t want to know if people have been in there all this time. Please.  

He had wrapped the bite on your ankle and felt eerily calm, trying to think his way out of something final. 

Maybe, some part of him had desperately thought, you were like Ellie, immune. Maybe he was lucky enough for that to be true twice. But he’d seen Ellie breathe in spores, and she never sounded like you did then. 

The rattle in your lungs was the worst of it, how you struggled to breathe and he wouldn’t let you die. 

It had been raining that evening, and you had been angry at him about something. Even now, he can’t remember what you were arguing about—just that you were being stubborn and so was he, that you weren’t talking aside to bark at each other about something, that your feet were so sore you could barely walk and wouldn’t let him touch you. He’d been rolling his eyes, stiff shouldered, annoyed. It had reminded him of the first time he had to wrap your feet, two days after Sam and Henry died, your pace so slow you might have never made it out of the state, let alone the suburbs of that city, snapping that you were fine.

After the first time he wrapped your ankles and then found you better shoes a couple days on, you let him do it again without all the snarling and snapping at each other.  

The night you died, you had been outside the wall without the horses, and he can’t remember how that happened either. 

Why you were out there. If something happened and you lost the horses or—

He supposes it doesn’t matter, really.

It had been dark, the soft shush of rain against the canopy of leaves overhead the only sound in the caress of night. Then you had come on the soft, decaying bodies of several clickers leaking red into the burble of the creek. 

They were all dead. 

Or, he had thought they were all dead. Joel hadn’t been thinking about anyone getting bitten because they were all already dead, and the real problem had been who was that close to Jackson leaving bodies behind, and that he’d have to come back in the morning with Tommy to clean up the mess and look around, reckoning already with not being able to get any sleep. 

He couldn’t look at you when he did it, that was the final injustice of it all, after hours of putting it off, dawn starting to leak over the horizon, the rain finally abating. So you laid face down and told him it was okay, and then he shot you. His hand didn’t shake until after it was done, and he couldn’t remember what your face looked like and there was no seeing it again, not after a shot like that one at point blank range. 

He tells you all of this now in so many words, whatever he can manage to get out without losing it. 

“Oh,” you say, your fingers drifting to the back of your neck, that place at the base of your skull he always touches so tenderly. “But none of that is on you. You did the right thing.” Your voice warbles. “I’m sorry I made you do that. I should have been able to do it myself.” 

“That’s not—I wouldn’t have let you,” he says. “I wouldn’t have left you alone.” 

He would not have let you die alone. 

“No,” you agree, “you wouldn’t have.” For a moment, he thinks that’s it. It’s over, you know now, and maybe you’ll disappear but you don’t seem angry. “Joel,” you murmur. “I’m so sorry. It must have felt like I was—like I was waiting to—I don’t know. You didn’t just lose me once, you’ve lost me so many times. I can’t imagine losing you over and over and over again.” 

He closes his eyes, can’t look at you. “We never learned how to grieve,” you continue. “Not for each other, and not for anyone else.” 

“We were mad at each other,” he says instead of answering.  

“Were we? About what?” 

“That’s the damn thing. I don’t remember. Probably somethin’ stupid, like usual.” 

You touch him again with your icy, cold fingertips. The press of it firm against his skin, like you might leave craters behind in his flesh, scars of you left over on his skin. “It was always something stupid.” 

“Yeah,” he agrees, because it was. “I miss it.”

“I can fight with you right now, if you want.” 

“That’s all right, honey,” he laughs. 

“Was I always so mean and angry?” 

“No,” he says. “You was always real nice to Ellie. Sam, too.” 

“Kids.” 

“Kids,” he agrees with a nod. “And me, after a while, in your own way. You got to be real easy with me. By the time we got here, to Jackson, you were nice enough to find Tommy tolerable.” 

“We liked to tease you,” you say, like it’s something you’re just remembering. “Me and Tommy.”

“Yep. Sure did.” 

"You can say I was mean."

He almost laughs. "You were a little mean. You almost killed me when we met."

You do laugh. You can; you aren't being left behind, being asked to move on. "I didn't trust you until you found me those shoes. Maybe I should have tried harder."

It's only quiet for a beat.

“Joel,” you say, and he has to look at you. “It’s not your fault. What was the alternative?” 

The sun slides from behind a cloud then, the steady patter of rain not abating. “Maybe I was too quick with it.” 

You breathe out sharply. “The way you tell it. . .we both know that’s not true. You did what I asked. I never had to find out what it’s like to be one of those things. Because of you.” 

“Don’t make it any easier. Don’t make losin’ you easier.”

Doesn’t make the jagged sharp memory of your final hours any easier, doesn’t make the weight of that gun in his hand any easier to bear, your blood on his hands.

“And I’m still sorry for that.” You touch the back of his head with cold fingers, the place that echoes the would be wound on your own. 

“I think. . .I’m here because you need me. Not because it was your fault. You don’t want to be alone.” 

He can tell you anything, more than he ever did when you were alive. What did it matter? Really? You would leave and take those parts of him with you. You might never come back, might not remember, anyway. 

Something cracks, spills from the center of his chest. 

“I can’t do this again. I can’t lose someone like this again. I don’t think I’ll survive it.” 

“You’ll be okay.” 

You don’t understand, and he can’t unburden that on you. “I know.” 

“Ellie will come around, Joel.” 

His head jerks up, but you just nod and stroke his skin, the chill of your hands making a shiver run down his spine. “She will. I promise.”

“You know.” 

“Of course I know.” You don’t look away. “I know you. I know her. Of course I know. Give it time.” 

That’s pretty much the one thing he suddenly has too much of and not enough of. 

When you kiss him, it’s gentle. You part your legs when he presses his fingers against you. 

The drizzle returns to a downpour, the clouds blacken, bruised purple and green at the edges. The pattern of it against the window is distant, far away. He sinks into you, feels the hollow, shuttering intake of your breath like it’s your own, feels the sticky, warmth of you, easy, tight. 

“I can’t do this again.”

It’s said against your throat, words he didn’t mean to say.  

You cup the back of his neck, your lips press against his ear. “You have to let go. And I’ll always be sorry,” you cradle him close, “for these last few years. You deserved—more.” You shutter against him, words are lost. 

He wakes. 

Every window in the house is open. 

Wet footprints lead from the bedroom to the landing, down the stairs and out the front door. 

It’s a new day. 

It’s not raining. 

He dresses slowly, eats a hollow breakfast by the window, watches Ellie leave for the morning from the chair by the window. 

By the time he has his boots on, the first patrols of the day are already gone.

Tommy doesn’t ask him where he’s headed. 

He stops only once.

Most days, the graveyard is quiet. 

Birdsong, the steady swish of water in the nearby creek, the sun moving through ever swaying branches of leafed trees. 

But it’s spring, now, and the world is teeming with new life. 

A pair of deer slink between the headstones, nosing at the sprouting grass and budding flowers. One makes a sound like a sneeze. They move away, hooves disappearing into the shallow creek bed before the trees and shadows swallow them whole. Birdsong and the chittering of little creatures. The hush of wind through trees, the fluttering sound of a cool morning breeze. 

It’s nice. 

It’s always nice, if a little lonely. 

Then, the sound of footsteps cutting through it all, the steady, heavy fall of boot treads that send the deer deeper into the woods, send the rodents dashing, hiding under last year’s lost foliage, freezing the songs of a hundred birds and stilling their wings. 

The world goes silent and very, very still. 

The sunlight blinds you, and then he’s there, broad shoulders blocking the light, carefully stepping between graves until he reaches the edge of the graveyard where you perch on the top of a headstone. 

You knew he’d come. He always does. 

“Hey, honey,” he kneels and lays the bouquet of flowers by your swinging toes, replacing the wilting blooms from the last time he must have visited. 

Ivy creeps along the stone, time and elements obscuring the carefully carved names and dates your fingers absently reach down to trace. Joel carved the words out with his own hands, and you hate that he had to. 

“Hi, Joel.” 

He doesn’t hear you, doesn’t feel your touch. You wish you could remember these moments when you’re with him, that you could tell him you know how he mourns, how he refuses to let go, and that it’s okay to. 

He looks up. 

You turn and look with him. 

The marble statue, blinded eyes, one palm reaching up, cradling the whole wide world in a moss covered palm.  

You scoff. “Jesus. She’s not me.” 

He shakes his head. 

“You need to let go.” 

“I’m gonna let go. Try to.”

“Good. Tell Ellie to come see me.”

He rises from the ground, leads against the headstone next to you. “I’ll see about gettin’ her out here eventually. She was so mad at me when you—Well, hell, she’s mad about a lot more now.” 

The air flutters with light. “You’ll figure it out.” 

He nods, like he can hear you. You nudge your knee into his, just to make sure he can’t. “Wait for me, please.” 

“I wouldn’t ever be that unfair to you. Of course I will.” 

“There ain’t nobody else for me, so don’t go lettin’ anyone else take care of your ankles just yet.” 

You laugh, the tree above your grave shivers, leaves turning. Joel looks up, and you track the little flecks of gold in his eyes. 

When he gets up and starts back toward the overgrown path that leads to your graveyard, a scrap of paper falls from his pocket. You read over his shoulder. 

I’m sorry for not being better to you. 

“You weren’t that mean. Sorry for keepin’ things from you.” 

“Thanks for being honest with me. You always get around to it eventually. No more wasting time. Go.”  

“Bye, sweetheart.” 

“See you around, Joel.” 

💕 Thank you for reading! I would love to hear any thoughts you might have! 💕

I love this dynamic! 😍🫠

end up here

frankie morales x f!reader

summary: you’ve had a distaste for frankie for as long as you can remember, so how did you end up here?

word count: 1.6k

warnings: 18+ mdni!!, smut, unsafe p in v, porn with literally no plot, pet names, creampie, kinda enemies to lovers vibes, no mention of age gap so read however you’d like

notes: soooo i basically only wrote this as a little exercise to get myself back into writing after not feeling it for awhile. i wasn’t really going to share it but!! here we are lol. i used the prompt “if you hate me so much, why are you letting me do this?” from this list as inspo to write this. if you decide to give this a read i hope you enjoy <3 also a big thanks to @javiscigarette for being a big part of helping to making the writing process enjoyable for me again i love you so so much my baby & @pr0ximamidnight for also encouraging me and taking a peek at this before posting i love you mother 🩷 MWAHHHHH xoxo

You’re not quite sure how you ended up with Frankie pressing you against the wall in his apartment as he desperately kisses you and grabs at your waist, but it’s the last thing you would’ve expected. Your distaste for the man, if you could even call it that, goes back further than you can remember. At this point you’re not even sure what caused it, the two of you bickering and making snide comments whenever there’s a chance, but here you are now, hands wandering up his broad chest as he presses his tongue into your mouth.

He breaks the kiss for a moment, breathing heavily as his dark eyes roam your features. “Bedroom?” His low husky voice sends heat straight to your already burning core.

You frantically nod your head and he grabs your hand, not wasting any moment. As he leads you from the living room down the hallway towards his bedroom, your heart beats rapidly in your chest, adrenaline from the way he was pressed against you just moments ago rushing through your body. Your eyes are glued to the back of him as he pulls you into the bedroom, roaming over the expanse of his broad shoulders and the way his hair curls along the back of his neck. He pulls you close to him when you enter the room, spinning you around before kicking the door shut and attaching his lips to yours once again.

You let out a small moan as his lips press into yours, soft as they move in sync. His hands trail down the sides of your body and over the curves of your waist, stopping at your hips as he grabs onto the fabric of your shirt. Slowly he starts to walk you backwards towards his bed, never breaking the kiss. The back of your legs hit the mattress, he lets out a small grunt as you squeeze his biceps to keep yourself steady and break away to look up at him.

“Lay back for me baby.” Baby , something you never thought you’d hear him say, at least not towards you.

You don’t hesitate, taking a seat on the edge of the bed and laying back with your legs slightly spread where he stands between them. His hands immediately latch back onto the hem of your shirt, you raise your arms allowing him to pull it up over your head in one swift motion before tossing it across the room.

“Christ…” he shakes his head in awe of you.

Becoming impatient, you grab at the hem of his own shirt causing him to remove his unbuttoned flannel leaving him in a gray tshirt and dark jeans. You bite your lip in anticipation, arms falling to your sides and grasping the comforter of his bed. His large, warm hands trail down your stomach before toying with the hem of your bottoms. He slips his finger below the hem and runs his knuckles back and forth on your soft skin, causing you to shudder, before pulling them off along with your underwear. Your hips lift off the bed the slightest bit as he takes a good look at your dripping cunt.

“All this for me?” You don’t say a word as he cocks his head to the side, a sly grin on his face as he looks down at you.

“Yes.” Your hands grip tighter as you hear the sound of his belt coming undone.

He unzips his jeans, pulling them down to reveal his hard cock and you let out a low whine as you watch him. He’s huge, precum already dripping from his dark red tip.

“How long have you thought of me this way querida?” Two large fingers run through your slick folds as he speaks, teasing you.

“Frankie,” you groan, grabbing his shirt and pulling him down toward you to capture another kiss. “I hate you.” You whisper, a small smile toying on your lips as you stare back at him.

He rests on his elbows, one on either side of your head as he laughs at your statement. “If you hate me so much, why are you letting me do this?” His voice is just above a whisper.

One of his arms moves between the two of you and without a warning, he lines up his cock with your throbbing entrance and slowly begins to push in. You let out a gasp, mouth falling open as you grip onto his shoulders.

“Oh my- fuck!” Your eyes fall shut as he splits you open, stopping only once he’s filled you to the brim.

He stays still for a moment, letting out a pleased hum as he tucks his face into the crook of your neck, one hand grabbing at your waist as he tries to compose himself. Your arms wrap around his large frame, splaying out across his back as you hold him close to you. Once his breathing starts to steady, he begins to move, not hesitating to quicken his pace.

When he lifts his head from being buried in your neck, his eyes dart back and forth between your own. You can’t read the expression on his face as he continues to thrust in and out of your sopping wet cunt.

“I’ve thought about this,” he lets out a huff. “so many times.” His hand moves to caress the back of your neck as he kisses you again, deeper than before, if that’s even possible.

You sigh, wrapping your legs around his waist as your nails dig into the fabric of his shirt covering his upper back. He’s thought about this so many times. You try to wrap your head around the words that just left his mouth, unable to believe that it’s true even though you’ve thought about it many times as well.

“Frankie-” he thrusts deeper, causing a whine to leave your lips and interrupting your thoughts as you clench around him.

His eyes close and he lets out a shaky breath as he pauses, relishing in the feeling of your tight cunt wrapped around him, the heat of your bodies pressed against each other as he hits that perfect spot in you. The pool of heat in your stomach is growing by the second, his unexpected words fueling the fire.

“I’m close.” You rasp, barely able to form the words.

His thumb gently swipes across your cheek, other hand moving from your hip to caress your covered breast. “Let me feel you baby.” He presses a sweet kiss to your lips, then begins trailing them down your neck and chest.

Your back arches, a low hiss leaving your mouth when his large hand removes your tit from your bra. His soft, wet lips latch onto your already hardened peak, tongue circling the sensitive skin as your hands find their way to tangle in his curls. The combination of his quick thrusts and his tongue drawing circles on your breast finally send you over the edge.

You can’t help the cry that leaves your mouth as the coil in your stomach finally snaps sending a white hot sensation throughout your body. Frankie doesn’t stop his thrusts as he stares down at your trembling body beneath him. As your orgasm starts to come to an end, you tug at his curls, instantly triggering his own orgasm.

“Fuck.” He whimpers, forehead pressing against yours as he unloads himself inside you.

His body stays still, falling limp against you as he closes his eyes and catches his breath, shirt sticking to his damp skin. You lift your head to plant a gentle kiss on his lips, he lets out a deep sigh before he jolts up, eyes flying open.

“Oh shit I- I’m so sorry.” He looks down between the two of you where his spend is seeping out around his cock, still buried inside you.

You grab his cheeks, stopping him from moving any further. “Hey, it’s okay. Promise.” You give him a reassuring smile.

His hand smooths over your cheek as a smile grows on his own face. “Let me get you cleaned up.”

You give him a small nod before he pulls out of you and you gasp at the loss, sitting up on your elbows as he goes in for another kiss. You watch him constantly as he pulls his jeans back on and runs a hand through his hair before sauntering off towards the bathroom.

You sit there for a moment while you wait for him, wondering how the hell this all happened before he returns with a washcloth to clean you up.

“What is it?” He stops in front of you, a wondering look on his face.

You snap out of your thoughts. “Hm?” You look up, eyes meeting with his.

“What are you thinking about?” He reaches down to start cleaning you up.

“You.” You say shyly.

He hums, nodding his head as he tries to control the smile on his face. Once he’s gotten you cleaned up he grabs a tshirt from his drawer, helping you put it on before changing his own and slipping out of his jeans. He pulls the comforter back so you can crawl in and nestles himself behind you as he pulls the blankets up.

“Still hate me?” He whispers as his hand drapes over your waist, pulling you closer.

“Hmmm, don’t know. Ask me again in the morning.” You press your lips together trying not to smile.

He lets out a deep laugh that shakes the bed as you turn to face him, snuggling into his chest as he rests his chin on the top of your head. He plants a small kiss there before the two of you drift off to sleep.

thank you for reading <3

This was beautifully written! 😍

Some Nights

Pairing: Jackson!Joel x f!Reader Rating: E Word Count: 980 A/N: Look at me being all fancy with a fic header. As you can tell, I've never made one before. This is really short, really soft, I was feeling needy when I wrote it.

Some nights are like this. When you are both sated, bellies full of warm food, bodies clean and smelling of soap. You’re comfortable. A level of content that didn’t seem possible before Jackson. 

You lay on a mattress on your back, let your legs stretch against soft sheets, relishing in the novelty that you now have clothes to sleep in which were different to what you’d worn in the day. Your right shoulder is pressed against Joel’s left, and it’s surreal how normal this all is. 

Joel’s right arm is draped over his stomach, reaching so his hand is on your thigh, a constant pressure that keeps you grounded. You sigh as he squeezes your flesh through the material of your pyjamas. You can feel each fingertip, eyes closed and concentrating on the sensation of being held so casually and yet so significantly. 

Your eyebrow twitches as you feel him move beside you, and he notices, hushes you gently in the dark as he adjusts. You lift your head for him when he snakes his left arm under your neck, pulling you further into his embrace. The hand on your thigh remains firm, dragging your leg over both of his to open you up. 

When his hand smooths up your thigh, it’s slow, never breaking contact with you as it glides up to your groin. You moan lightly as his thumb pushes at the apex of your thighs, long fingers curled underneath at the crease where the plumpness of your ass begins. He moves again, curls into you so he’s laid on his side, the arm behind your head shifts so that he can cradle your skull.

“Joel…” You whisper, low and breathy, and he hums in response, presses a firm kiss to your temple as his fingers tangle in your hair. 

Some nights are like this. Slow and steady as he teases you apart. 

The pressure on your leg disappears, and you whimper, eyes scrunched shut as you listen to the sound of him sucking on his fingers, and then his hand is back. Underneath your waistband this time. He spreads you with his thumb and ring finger before he presses two slicked fingers against your clit. 

You gasp at the sensation, roll your hips slightly to chase the contact. He presses another kiss to your cheek, open mouthed and lingering as he moves his hand firmly down your core and back up again. 

He moans against your skin when he presses his index finger inside you, and it’s gone before you are able to acknowledge its presence. He circles your clit, keeps the pressure firm and you grind up against his hand. 

Soon, the sound of your arousal joins your laboured breathing and his wet kisses. “Joel,” you whine again. Not sure what you want but needing to say his name. 

“I’ve got you…” he whispers against your damp skin, keeping his movements torturously slow as he builds you up. 

You lift the leg which isn’t slung over his hips, bending at the knee and clutching your shin, anything to spread yourself wider for him. He kisses further down your jaw and you arch your neck, tilting away from him to give him more skin to suck on. 

Blindly, you reach your right hand from between your bodies, fumbling for his head to pull at his hair, anchoring him to your neck. He grunts, shifts again, and you can feel him hard against your hip. You whine, the consistency of the swipes of his fingers against your clit spreading a warmth throughout your body that you never want to end. 

In this moment, you feel like you could last forever, and you want to. Joel knows your body, and he never takes for granted the time you both have now. The comfort of safety allowing himself to indulge.

You’re pliant in his hands as he pulls you apart in such a way that your orgasm creeps up slowly. No man has ever made you cum like this before, so full bodily, and you think that you’ve never trusted another man with your soul like this before. 

Breathy laughter fills the room, and it takes you a while to realise that it belongs to you. The smile on your face is blissful, and your body shakes with your stunned convulsions. 

Joel shifts again next to you, removing his hand from your pyjamas, and then you hear the sound of your slick on his hand as he wraps his fingers around his cock. You open your eyes finally, humming contently as you let go of your shin to reach across to him, but he shakes his head, face so close to yours that his nose brushes against your own. 

He moans into your open mouth, and you know he needs this fast, faster than your liquified muscles could give him right now, so you settle for resting your hand on his hip. You tighten the grip of your fingers in his hair, holding him at bay, forcing him to look at you as his jaw hangs slack and his gasped groans increase. You nod at him, whispering encouragement, and he cums with a strangled noise that he quickly stifles with clenched teeth, breathing heavily through his nose. You caress his hip as his hand slows, stroking the remainder of his spend across your exposed stomach. 

Your voice is low as you talk him down, fingers now entwining softly in his curls as you coax him back against the pillows. 

You can relax now, Joel.

He obliges, smoothing his hand over the cooling mess he left on your skin as he curls into your warmth. You kiss the top of his head softly, breathing in the smell of him as he does the same to your neck. 

Some nights are like this, and neither of you can quite believe it’s real. 

I’ve binged Paperwork and Not Qualified for This! BOTH AMAZING READS!!!!

Javier Peña Masterlist

Taglist Form!

Author Masterlist

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One Shots NOT connected to Paperwork or Not Qualified for This

Cared For (Javi P nursing home AU) NEW

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Paperwork: Javi x Reader One-Shot Series-ish Thing

These are presented in “order” but can be read as One-Shots. If you squint there’s overarching plot.

This is Not How We Say Hello in Indiana…. (One Shot) (Rating T)

I Am Not Your Mother  (One Shot) (Rating T) 

Not Saying It Doesn’t Make It Less True (One Shot) (Rating T) 

If Mild Is All That’s On Offer (One Shot) (Rating T)

Secret Santa (one shot) (rating T) (link coming soon)

That’s Not Fucking Democracy And Don’t Let Anyone Tell You Different (One Shot) (Rating R) 

Silence Doesn’t Solve Anything (One Shot) (Rating R) 

Just Because It’s Not A Lie Doesn’t Mean It’s True (Rating R) NEW!

Nice (one shot) (Rating T)

 Am I The Only One Doing The Homework? (One-shot) (Rating T)

You’re Doing It Wrong (One-Shot) (Rating R) 

I’ll Be Real Fucking Clear (One-Shot, sort of, a logical continuation to “You’re Doing it Wrong”) (Rating R)

Sweet, Like a Bastard Apple (One-Shot, sort of a pay off for the last two in line) (Rating mature/explicit)  

Translatable (Rated R) One Shot NEW!!

He Was Good At It (One Shot) (proposed “finale”) (Rating T)  ^Main Story __________________________________________________

“Not Qualified For This”: Dad!Javi x established reader

DAD!JAVI ONE SHOT COLLECTION, in the theme of “Paperwork” with the events of that series sometimes existing as subtle influences……. These are presented in “order” but can be read as One-Shots. If you squint there’s overarching plot.

Home Town (One Shot) (Rating Mature) 

Busy (One Shot) (Rating T) 

Lullabies (One Shot) (Rating T) 

Recovery (One Shot) (Rating Mature) 

The Meeting (One-Shot) (Rating T) 

Bad Example (One-Shot) (Rating Mature/Explicit) 

Sick Days (one Shot) (rating T)

Surprises (one shot) (Rating Mature) 

Thunderbird (one shot) (Rating R) 

No Give Backs (one shot) (Rating T) 

Monkey See Monkey Do (one shot) Rated R 

Reach For the Sky (one shot) rated T 

Come Out Wherever You Are (one shot) rated T, *halloween contest Winner* NEW

Vacation Mode (one shot) (rated T)

Open Doors (rated R)

Backbone (rated R) 

Lucky (rated T) 

Holding Close (rated T)  (helps to read Lucky first!)

Bonus:Headcanon on Javi and Wife finding Pot in the Kid’s Room & Javier Pena loves Dinosaurs & Javier gets a NSFW lead while at the kid’s soccer game

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Narcos Season 4: New Laredo

This is NOT connected to Paperwork or Not Qualified For This.  This is designed as a pure sequel to Narcos season 3. It will be dropped by “Episodes” and is in the style of the show with Voiceovers, etc. 

Episode 1 “With Friends Like These” 

Episode 2 “The Laredo-Laredo Gauntlet” 

Episode 3 “Murky Waters” 

Episode 4: Back in the Saddle 

Episode 5: Tangled Webs NEW

Micro Fic: Javier and the Armadillo of Truth NEW