I Loooooooove - Tumblr Posts
like real people do (joel miller x f!reader)
i will not ask you where you came from. i will not ask, and neither should you. honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips; we should just kiss, like real people do.
summary: a temporary arrangement leads to permanent feelings that joel can’t seem to shake — for you. but do you feel the same?
warnings: post-outbreak, jackson!joel, age gap (28/56), smutty thoughts & happenings, jealous!joel, angst, pining, reader has curves & wears joel’s jacket, masturbation (m), typical canon violence & weapons, graphic description of wounds, cursing, blood, food, alcohol, unprotected piv, 18+ minors dni.
notes: this is my contribution to @undercoverpena’s april showers challenge 💛 jo, you are such a light. thank you for organising this, i had the best time!
as ever, i am indebted to my flawless beta @macfrog - max, i can’t ever thank you enough for the way you transform my work. i love you. big love to @frannyzooey & @swiftispunk for the encouragement and reassurances. you both rock my world.
Joel shakes his head like a wet dog, wipes his brow so he can see past the droplets clinging to his lashes. He can just about make out the gates of Jackson in the heavy rain, the reins slipping between his hands. No matter, really. Blue knows his way; the horse’s damp ears pricking at the sight of home.
His only concern is you.
Joel twists in the saddle, ignoring the protesting muscles in his spine as the wind screams in his ears.
You’re behind him, just like he needs you to be.
You’re soaked, bleeding through his hasty bandaging, wincing in obvious pain. But you’re there. Upright, still breathing. He can heave a sigh of relief.
Today was a close call. Too fuckin’ close.
It’s not like Joel didn’t know you were going to be trouble.
He did. From the moment you showed up on his doorstep, his brother’s arm over your shoulder.
He knew.
Joel stirs to the sound of incessant knocking on his front door. Sunlight spills into his bedroom, a pool of honey over his sheets. He’s not due on patrol today; a rare twenty-four hours of freedom lay ahead of him. And he’d planned to spend a good portion of those in bed, or sat with his guitar.
Clearly, someone has other ideas.
“‘m comin’!” he shouts, cricking his neck and reaching for his jeans, discarded on the floor beside him. He figures he best pull on a shirt, too - he has no idea who’s pounding at his door, but at seven in the morning, on his day off?
Surely can’t be a sign of anything good.
Joel grumbles as he heads down the stairs, pulling at his zipper and shaking his head. This better be fuckin’ important. He reaches for the door none too gently, ready to reprimand whoever’s stood the other side.
He opens it to his brother.
Joel’s readying himself to launch into a tirade borne out of week-long exhaustion. He doesn’t expect to see Tommy’s arm round the shoulder of a terrified-looking young woman.
You.
You’re covered in grime, sneakers falling apart at the seams, shirt splattered with blood.
“Mornin’, Joel,” Tommy starts, his voice soft and pleading. Joel stares into eyes so like his own, waiting for an explanation.
“I’m needin’ a favour,” he continues. Joel’s gaze flits to you for a beat, and he swallows.
“I guess it couldn’t wait till after breakfast?”
Tommy’s laugh is strained, false grin tight across his cheeks as he squeezes your shoulder. “Don’t take no notice, darlin’. Bark’s worse’n his bite, I promise.”
“This young lady here arrived late last night,” he says as Joel folds his arms across his chest. “We found her up on the ridge, nobody else with her. As you know, the Pattersons took the last available house we got, and Harley’s nursery took up our spare room,” Tommy jerks his chin over the street, and Joel has a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Now that Ellie’s moved out ‘n all, Maria was — we — were wonderin’ if we could put her up here, with…With you,” he finishes, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. Joel desperately wants to ask him if he’s lost his goddamn mind, but you’re looking at him with the same haunted gaze he’s become so familiar with in the past two decades.
Joel isn’t a monster. Those live outside the very walls that now keep him safe. He has no desire to ask how you made it past them, though; he knows you’ve seen things you never want to talk about again.
There’s something inside him: buried and dormant. It’s not your fault. You’re not asking Joel to house you, to spend his day off getting acquainted with you. You just look like you need a shower, and a week’s worth of sleep.
It’s not your fault.
“Temporarily?” he asks, clearing his throat as you stare at the ground. “Yes, Joel,” Tommy grimaces at his bluntness. “Temporarily.”
Tommy tells you to come find him and Maria when you’re settled, that they’ll fix you up with some more new clothes, give you some time to adjust. He hands you a backpack, and you step over the threshold. Tommy heads off with a curt glance towards his big brother, leaving the two of you alone.
You still haven’t said a word.
“‘m Joel,” he says as he closes the door, more gruffly than he means to. You nod, offering your name quietly in return. You look so fucking afraid of him, and he hates that. He holds out a hand to shake, and you take it.
Soft.
Your hands are so fucking soft. Your fingernails are caked with dirt, knuckles scarred, but your palms feel like warm velvet. Joel clears his throat, drops your hand like it’s burned him.
“This way, ma’am,” Joel instructs, a distant memory of his mama telling him to mind his manners. You follow him up the stairs, and he ushers you into the room that used to belong to Ellie. It’s empty now; Ellie having relocated her collection of belongings to the outhouse in the backyard.
“My, uh, kid used to stay here. She’s moved out, now,” Joel tells you, thumb pointing behind him. You’re nodding again; he can tell you’re exhausted, the way you’re moving like you’re carrying the weight of a thousand people on your shoulders. He knows that feeling, wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy.
“I’ll leave ya to it, then. Shower’s just down the hall, so feel free to use whatever’s in there. Won’t be anythin’ fancy, mind,” he shrugs, and is surprised when you smile at him in return. It opens up your whole face, lifts your eyes, a ray of sunlight carving a path between you both.
You study him for a second; Joel feeling your eyes assess him, straightening his back instinctively. “Here I was, expecting five stars,” you comment, and Joel’s taken aback by your gentle teasing, your quiet confidence.
For one strange moment, it’s like you’ve claimed the space already. Like this room has always been waiting for you, somehow.
“Don’t know what my baby brother’s been fillin’ your head with,” Joel smirks, “but I’ll try my best.”
You look at him one final time before he leaves the room.
“Counting on it.”
Joel learns that you’re twenty-eight, the only survivor from a group who broke away from the Kansas City QZ. He recognises the shadow that falls across your face when you tell him about it, knows all too well the living hell it became.
You compare stories with him one morning over a breakfast he prepares for you both, before you silently agree not to discuss it again. Jackson is a new start: a place all about reclaiming that sliver of human decency that’s left on the Earth, the one thread of connection and community that binds the residents together.
Joel wants you to know that.
Weeks turn into months, and before he knows it, Joel’s memorised your gait, your scent, the way you always forget the creak in the stop stair. He watches you with Ellie, how you understand their relationship with a slow nod of your head, no further questions asked.
You and Joel gossip with one another, leave notes scribbled in broken pencil. You bake for him, and in return he builds you a chair to join him on the porch. Joel remembers the jolt when you’d hugged him for it, kissed his whiskered cheek. So goddamn soft.
He begins to feel a creeping shame over the way he’d treated you on that first day; broken and worn down on his steps. Joel had no idea how peacefully you’d co-exist: sharing meals and laundry loads like two normal housemates would, if the world wasn’t so fucked.
The fact that you’re so beautiful is neither here nor there.
Joel’s tried not to notice it.
Your smooth skin, the curves of your body beneath the shapeless clothes Maria’s given you. Unfortunately, he knows just what you’ve got on under them. He almost felt lightheaded one day watching you hang your panties out to dry: delicate, wispy things; items he has no idea how you got your hands on.
Before long, Tommy’s prepping you to start patrol, and Joel makes time one evening to reassure you about it. He can tell you’re nervous, the way your hands are twisting, rubbing at your forehead frantically.
“If you really don’t want to do it, you don’t have to,” Joel offers, and you sigh.
“Nah. It’s about time I started pulling my weight around here.”
Joel smiles at your tenacity, the way your mouth sets firmly. “Alright, then. Want to go over the routes one last time?”
Your eyes are wide in thanks, staring up at him from the couch, blinking through your lashes. Everything about the situation is innocent, besides every single thought running through Joel’s mind.
Tommy put this girl with you in good faith, asshole.
Woman.
Not a girl.
He reminds himself of that when he’s in the shower that night; tugging frantically at himself, thinking about the tight curve of your ass in the jeans you’d traded for.
Yeah. You were fucking trouble alright.
“I always wanted to be a teacher, back when I was a kid,” you tell him one night, as Joel clears the soup bowls away. “Miss Macy, she was my favourite, kinda inspired me in a way. I loved English; reading, writing, all these imaginary worlds I’d create. I’d still like to do it, if I can.”
Joel loves the way you laugh when you share stories of your childhood. It’s the same kind delight he sees on your face watching Jackson’s children giggling as they chase each other round the streets, playing tag and missing dinner time.
“Teach?”
You nod, and Joel’s suddenly back in Texas, Sarah tugging on his hand across the parking lot as they head towards her parent-teacher conference. Sarah’s a hard worker, and fantastically talented when she applies herself. Unfortunately, she lets herself be distracted by other students, and I’ve had to separate the group several times.
He smiles. “Scary bunch, teachers.”
He watches your eyes roll, chin resting on your hands. The light outside is fading, both of you full with a warm dinner. Your movements are languid; the way your fingers dance across your collarbone, the way your shirt rides up a little when you stretch your arms out above you.
Again, Joel tries not to notice it: the sliver of bare skin above your waistband, gentle fingertips he’s found himself thinking about more often than he really should.
“Big, bad Joel Miller? Afraid of me?”
Now it’s his turn to roll his eyes, throwing a rag in your direction so you can help him with the drying up. “Maybe in your dreams, darlin’.”
You smirk, taking your place beside him as he hands you the cutlery. With difficulty, he pushes all thoughts of your soft body and kind eyes from his mind.
Joel bears witness to you thriving in Jackson, unfurling like a butterfly born in the spring. You make friends, tell him all about them each evening as you trade stories about your day. Soon, you’re invited to gatherings that he isn’t, and you tell him stories about people he’s never met. He hears you come in late, starts to notice that you don’t rise to join him at breakfast.
Still, he doesn’t ask Tommy just when this temporary agreement might come to an end. For some reason, he just can’t find it in him.
Joel figures you won’t want to spend all your precious free time with a man pushing sixty, so he’s not mad about it. You’re not family, but he thinks you’re starting, maybe, to become a friend.
He makes the most of Ellie when he can, watches her glow when she talks about Dina. Tommy’s the same: content with his life with Maria and Harley, Joel’s nephew. He can hardly believe - even after two years in Jackson - how life just goes on. Despite it all, people found a way.
Joel finds himself thinking about Sarah a little more than usual. He can’t bring himself to process the fact his baby would be thirty-four now; maybe married, career of her own. She’ll forever be fourteen to him: curls bouncing, soccer trophy under her arm, innocence in her heart.
Joel tells you about her one day; tells you how, for the first time in twenty years, he’s been able to just stop and give time to his thoughts. To sit with them, feel the ache bloom in his heart. No need to fight for his life every day, to make sure he sees another sunrise. He’s not sure if it’s a good or bad thing.
“It can be both, Joel,” you say, wrapped in a blanket he brought out to you. You’re sat on the front porch together, chairs side by side, watching fireflies dancing in the late afternoon light.
“Yeah?”
You nod, and move to take his hand. Something stops you, letting it fall into your lap. There’s something in your gaze that tells him you’ve felt the same pain, bled the way he has. Joel clears his throat, asking if you want another drink.
“No, thanks. Especially if it’s that fucking whiskey,” you grimace, and he chuckles, rolling the tumbler in his hand. Your profanities make him smile; he’s let you spend too much time with Ellie.
“You really hate it that much?”
“Uhuh,” you mutter, getting to your feet. “Hey, Ryan is having a few of us over for a card game evening. I’ll be back late, so don’t wait up,” you inform him, with that grin he’s become so fond of.
Joel tells you to have a great night, watching your retreating figure head into the dusk. He collapses into sleep on the couch not long after, book resting on his belly when he wakes to the sound of the front door opening.
“You really didn’t need to walk me back,” you giggle, and Joel stays frozen in the dark. He shouldn’t. It’s rude to eavesdrop, to listen in to your private conversations.
Still. He doesn’t move.
“S’okay. Still sharing a place with Miller, then?” he hears Ryan ask, and he assumes you nod in lieu of a reply. “Heard he can be a pain in the ass,” he adds, and Joel listens to your tinkling laugh. “He’s alright.”
“Hopefully you’ll get a house of your own soon, though, without an some old guy hanging around. You can start hosting me instead,” Ryan continues, and Joel fails to miss the suggestive undercurrent in his tone; the way it makes his jaw tick.
He doesn’t hear your response, and the door shuts with a click. You switch the lamp on, gasping in surprise to see Joel sat there. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you,” you say softly, and Joel just shrugs, frowning.
He watches you move around the kitchen - his kitchen - with a familiar ease, seeking a glass to pour some water, searching for a hunk of cheese to nibble on. Again, Joel’s hit with that feeling he had on that first day he took you to your room: this house has always been waiting for you, the lock aching for the slide of your key.
Which is why the notion of you leaving causes him so much pain.
“Guess you won’t have to worry about wakin’ anyone when you get your own place.”
He hates how petulant he sounds, but he can’t help it. Joel hasn’t been that short with you in a long time; he can see on your face how taken aback you are.
“You heard that, huh?” you ask, watching him over the rim of your glass.
“Yeah. Y’can always speak to Tommy, see if there’s anything goin’. If you feel trapped here, that is.”
You sigh, hands flat on the dining table. Joel built it himself: not his finest work, a little rough around the edges.
A direct reflection of how he feels right now.
“You don’t want me here anymore?” you ask, face half shrouded in darkness, half lit in an orange glow.
Joel chews his lip, watching you blink at him.
“Just sayin’. This wasn’t ever meant to be permanent, anyway,” he mutters, scratching the back of his head. You fold your arms across your chest; eyes narrowing. You look.. You look hurt.
By him.
“Ryan seems like a good kid. ‘m sure he’d treat you right.”
Joel knows he’s projecting his own insecurities onto you. He’s fucking afraid: he’s come to care for you so much more than he realised, and every time Joel cares about someone, he loses them.
A bite. A bullet. A new family.
But this? For some reason, this cuts just as deep. Joel won’t let it happen again. No matter how bad he wants you.
“Where’s all this coming from?” you ask. You’re quiet, voice flat with disappointment. It makes Joel’s heart ache; he’d rather you told him to fuck off, call him out for being a dick, tell him you’ll pack your stuff and go.
You don’t.
Your shoulders just slump when he doesn’t respond, staring at him imploringly.
“Well?”
Joel should tell you he doesn’t want you to leave, not in the slightest. All he wants to do is kiss you, crush your lips to his, run his tongue over every inch of your flesh, slide inside you and make you scream his name. Tell you he’s better for you than anyone else in Jackson; that he can take care of you, keep your bed warm every night, better than any fucker half his age.
But he doesn’t.
He just lets you go, watching as you shake your head and turn on your heel, leaving him alone in the dark.
Breakfast the next morning is a solemn affair.
You’re already gone - which isn’t unusual - but there’s no note from you, no sandwiches wrapped in paper to take out for patrol. Joel feels a little disgruntled: it’s your turn to prep them today, as per the agreement you have when you’re both scheduled for a shift.
You must be really pissed at him.
He wolfs down his bacon, throws on his jacket. It needs patching up, almost worn through at both the elbows. Joel recalls you telling him you’re nifty with a needle and thread, that you’ll do it for him at the weekend.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never learned how to sew,” you smirk, sizing up his jacket, throwing it over your shoulders. Joel can’t help but admit how good it looks on you; the fact you’re wearing his clothes doing something inexplicable to his groin.
“Just like you never learned how to drink?” he teases you, and you hold up your hands in defeat. “And don’t be forgettin’ I made you a whole goddamn chair.”
“Yeah, yeah,” you sing, admiring yourself in the cracked mirror. Joel shakes his head; eyes lingering on the tilt of your hips, the way your breasts push at the fabric.
“Guess I owe you.”
He supposes he’s better off taking it to the seamstress on Main Street, now.
The sky outside is grey to match his mood, brewing ominously with the threat of rain. Nothin’ worse than patrol in the rain. Boggy trails and limited visibility never work in anyone’s favour, and he prays for an uneventful shift.
Blue’s tacked up and ready for him; Joel slips the horse an apple from his pocket, pulling at his forelock gently as he says hello.
“Gotta stay outta trouble today, boy. We’ll be home soon enough.”
He hears his sister-in-law’s voice from outside the stable, calling his name.
“Mornin’, Maria.”
She smiles, hands on her hips as Joel leans against the stable door. “Your brother has done an irresponsible thing and gotten sick,” she sighs, eyebrows raised.
“Y’sure he ain’t just had some bad eggs?” Joel chuckles, and Maria shakes her head.
“Judging by the way he’s shivering, I think it’s the real deal. In any case, we need you to take his partner today,” she tells Joel, thumb over her shoulder.
She moves aside, and he freezes.
Fuck.
Of course: it’s you.
You’re adjusting Shimmer’s stirrups, unaware Joel’s even there. Those goddamn jeans sticking to your thighs like glue, eyes rimmed red like you haven’t slept.
Maria continues, tapping her foot. “I’m assuming that won’t be a problem? She’s still settling into it, as you well know, and we haven’t had her go up —”
“S’fine. Not a problem.”
Maria raises her eyebrows at Joel’s brusqueness, turning on her heel and leaving the stables.
You look up, watching her go. Joel swallows as your gaze tracks upwards, locking with his.
“Hey.”
He nods, clearing his throat. “Look, I know this ain’t ideal, but we’ll talk when we’re back. Yeah?”
You roll your eyes, laugh sarcastically. You brush past him, knocking into his shoulder as you go.
“Counting on it.”
Joel scrawls both your names in the log book, heaves his rucksack back onto his shoulders. They’re aching, as per usual. Almost as stiff and awkward as the whole morning with you has been.
“We all good to go home?”
It’s the first sentence you’ve uttered since you both left Jackson, your tone still clipped, not leaving much room for any forgiveness.
Home.
Joel wonders if that looks different to you now; wonders how soon he can expect your possessions in boxes by the front door, to see the disappointment in his brother’s face when he hears how unreasonable he was towards you.
All because he doesn’t know how to fucking tell you.
The descent back to Jackson from the ski lodge is slow, clouds low and threatening in the sky. Thunder echoes atop the mountain ridges, lightening flashing across the jagged peaks.
Then, the rain comes.
It starts as a drizzle, just enough to dampen the leaves on the trees, for Joel to hear you sigh disdainfully behind him. “Stay close,” he calls, and you tell him you will.
Soon, the rain falls in a barrage, hammering down on you both as your charges slide in the dirt. Joel’s soaked to the bone, the storm moving directly overhead as the sky flickers and crackles above.
He doesn’t like this. Not one fuckin’ bit.
He feels exposed, vulnerable, the hairs on the back of his neck raised; an ancient warning sign —
“Joel!”
Your scream is agonised, drawn-out, hurtling past him in the swirling wind. He wheels Blue around, startled.
Three men. Two guns, from what he can see. A machete.
Shimmer rears high on her hind legs in panic, one of the fuckers dragging you from the saddle. Another has his gun aimed at your head; the third is advancing towards Joel, silver weapon brandished in his hand.
Their faces are gaunt, eyes sunken. They’ll murder you both, take anything they can find, leave your bodies to rot until you’re found by the next band of raiders, or worse.
You fall to the ground with sickening crunch, still yelling his name, body crumpling against the exposed rock.
No time to think. He needs you to survive.
One, two, three.
The shots ring out through the valley in quick succession, blood soaking through the shirts of your attackers. They fall like marionettes, slithering to their deaths amongst the grass and mud.
Joel dismounts, scrambling to get to you. You’re not unconscious, thankfully. No obvious wounds to your head, either; Joel cradles your face in his hands, asking you to tell him your name, to open your eyes.
“My back, Joel. My fucking back,” you moan, and he grits his teeth, turning you on your side as gently as he can. You cry out in pain, and he sees the laceration above your hip, your skin sliced open.
“You’re okay, baby. I’ve got you,” Joel reassures you instinctively, shrugging his rucksack off to retrieve the bandages he needs
You grip his forearm, fingernails piercing him. “Don’t leave me, Joel,” your voice breaks, tears joining the wetness on your face as Joel swipes a thumb across your cheekbone.
You’re still miles from Jackson, bleeding out onto the rock beneath you, horses loose in the valley. The rain pounds, the wind howls, and Joel makes his promise.
“Never.”
Maria puts you on bed rest for a week.
You recuperate, slowly but surely. Joel had carried you to Jackson’s version of an infirmary, watched your wound be painstakingly stitched up. Turns out, the fall had smashed two of your ribs, too.
Joel nearly chews his lip in half when he finds out.
So fucking stupid. He should’ve insisted you go in front, acted more on instinct. Joel was supposed to take care of you, keep you safe.
Hasn’t he learned?
You’re due back home today. Joel’s changed your bed linen, lit a fire in the sitting room, gathered some flowers to fill the cracked vase you covet on your nightstand. The arrangement was clumsy, but he hopes it’ll be the first step he can take on the path back into your life.
At the very least, Joel hopes they make you smile.
You arrive when he’s pouring your favourite soup into two bowls, setting them at opposite ends of the table. It hurts him to do so, considering you’d usually sit side-by-side, stealing the bread off his plate, your legs folded underneath as you caught up about your day.
Still. He has to take this slowly.
“You didn’t have to do all of this, Joel,” you say softly, and he shrugs.
“Figured we’d need to build your strength back up,” he says, pulling your chair out for you.
“And soup is the way to do that?”
“Quit arguin’,” he chides gently, setting your dinner down in front of you. Candles burn in the centre of the table, the night closing in outside. Everything is quiet for a while, spoons scraping against decades-old china as Joel sits with you — and his thoughts.
“So.”
He looks up, watches you settle back in your chair. You swallow, picking at your nails, avoiding eye contact. Joel waits, doesn’t want to interrupt whatever it is you’re finding hard to say.
“I feel like almost dying has put some things into perspective for me,” you say, and Joel can’t help but laugh at your sarcasm, and soon enough you’re giggling too, until you wince sharply.
“That bad, huh?” Joel murmurs, and you nod, hand over the bones that broke. “You mind if I go sit on the couch?” you ask, and Joel comes to help you to your feet, your hand in his.
Fuck, he’s missed it. Soft, warm and smooth.
Once you’re settled, he sits at the other end, still keen to give you space. “You know what? I think I want a whiskey,” you muse, leaning into the cushions. “Will you join me?”
Joel’s eyes narrow in confusion, but he fetches the tumblers anyway, sets them down on the coffee table. He pours you a small measure and hands it to you tentatively.
“I didn’t think you’d hit your head when you fell. Maybe I was wrong,” he comments, and you roll your eyes, swirling the amber liquid and observing it closely.
“Maybe you were.”
You toss it back, and Joel does the same.
“God, no. Definitely still tastes like shit,” you splutter, face contorted as you swallow the liquid down. Joel can’t help but grin as he watches you place the glass on the table, soft features glowing in the orange flames.
He feels the instant hit of alcohol in his bloodstream, loosening him up and relaxing his muscles. He lays back on the couch, head lolling as he turns to look at you.
“I wanted to say thank you. Y’know, for saving my life,” you tell him, staring into the fire burning in the grate. Joel can’t believe what he’s hearing; for a moment he sits stunned, unsure what to say.
“It was my fault. I was too slow, and too fuckin’ deaf to hear ‘em comin’” he admits. “I’m not who I was. Years ago, I would’ve destroyed ‘em. I’m sorry — fuck, I’m so sorry. You nearly died, because of me” Joel sighs, and you reach out to take his hand.
“Joel, I’m alive because of you. Nobody could’ve known that was going to happen - there’s been no talk of raiders for months now. Guess we both just got complacent,” you tell him, and Joel tsks under his breath.
“You’re still new to patrol. I should’ve let you go in front, brought up the rear. I can’t stop thinkin’ about it,” he whispers, and is horrified to find himself close to tears. “‘specially after the way I behaved the night before.”
You squeeze his palm gently, the firelight flickering in your eyes. “I want to leave it in the past. But if you don’t want me here, I need you to tell me.”
Joel faces you properly, holding your gaze for the first time all evening. For you to still think he doesn’t want you here breaks him: after the sleepless nights he’s had, tossing and turning, the echoes of your scream breaking him into a sweat that never dies.
“It.. It ain’t that. Hell, I love havin’ you here. I’m ashamed I ever made you feel like I don’t.”
You smile shyly, releasing his hand. “Then, why..?”
Joel breathes out, long and hard.
“You started movin’ on with your life. You didn’t need me as much, and I guess I let that hurt me. I let you down with how I reacted.”
“I appreciate you telling me,” you murmur, but your smile doesn’t reach your eyes, like it’s not what you wanted to hear. Joel’s puzzled, praying he hasn’t done anything wrong.
The atmosphere still feels tense, like you’re waiting for him to say more.
Like you know there is more.
“You look different, by the way.”
Your gaze find his as he digests your statement, and you tilt your head, lip pulled between your teeth. Joel wishes you wouldn’t fucking do that.
You’re twenty-eight, for Christ’s sake.
He’s fifty-six. He’ll go to hell for what he wants to do to you right now. You don’t want him: you want Ryan, someone your age, someone who can offer you stability and safety in the way he so clearly can’t.
“Oh, yeah?” he asks anyway, feeling his breath shorten as you lean in closer to him. Your skin is so smooth; reflected in the firelight, breasts fighting against the tank top you’re wearing.
Joel can smell vanilla, wants to taste it, too. But he can’t.
“More.. Relaxed. No frowning,” you tease, reaching out a thumb to his forehead, pretending to smooth out the crease that usually has a home there.
“Could say the same f’you, too.”
You smile, and suddenly you’re right beside him — above him, and Joel knows he’s powerless to stop you. The whiskey is warm in his veins, and he wants you. So, so badly.
You hitch a leg over his jeans, trap him beneath you.
“You know, I’ve had just about enough of you.”
Your hands are slipping from his shoulders, down the planes of his chest. Joel can’t help himself; he cants his hips up into you, relishing your gasp, the way you’re already so frantic for him.
Your lips beg for permission messily against his, thighs squeezing him tight. Joel grants it gladly; savours the taste of your tongue in his mouth, the way your breasts feel against his coarse fingertips as he ventures carefully under your flimsy shirt.
Your skin is hot beneath his touch, and he wants to tell you how good you are; letting him touch you like this, letting him pinch the pebbled flesh he finds, soothing it over with his mouth. He manages to be mindful of your sore ribs, the gauze above your hip, but it’s not without trying.
Joel’s so caught up in you: the sweet sounds you’re making as you kiss him so deeply, the way you pull at his hair, grind down onto him. He’s painfully, pathetically hard; it’s only when you come up for air that he takes a second to think.
Fuck.
“Hey — look,” he starts to withdraw, hands moving to your shoulders, holding you back. You pause, eyes narrowed, realisation dawning across your features.
You shuffle out of his lap like you’re ashamed. “I’m sorry, Joel. That was — that was too much.”
“No, don’t be,” he sighs, longing to reach out and cup your jaw in his hand, pull you back to where he so desperately wants you to be. “It’s the whiskey talkin’.”
You smile, but it doesn’t reach your eyes. You won’t look at him; gaze cast downwards, swallowing thickly.
“It’s not.”
You say it so quietly, Joel wonders if he’s imagined it.
“No?”
You shake your head, and Joel breathes out, capturing your chin with his finger. His heart is hammering in his chest; your lips are parted, sweat dewing in the column of your throat.
You’re so fucking beautiful.
“I want you, Joel. I know you think you’re not worthy, or too old, or whatever you’ve made yourself believe. I haven’t been able to do anything but lie there and think, for a whole seven days. You know what I thought about?”
Joel waits, agonised.
“You. Everything you’ve taught me, shared with me. The way you’ve let me into your life, into Ellie’s. I turned up here alone, and now I’ve never felt less lonely. I don’t want to give that up. I don’t want to give you up,” you tell him, and press your lips to his.
“If you’ll have me, Joel, I’d like to stay forever. You and I, in our chairs, eating soup.”
Joel’s grinning now, tugging you back to him gently. “You mean that, pretty girl?”
“Uhuh. And forever starts now,” you press your forehead to his, then pull him to his feet. You keep hold of his hand, traipsing through the darkness, past walls you know so well.
It’s heaven. You’re heaven.
Joel wants to take it slow, but he can’t: not with you. He takes his time, though, sliding your shirt off your head, pressing a kiss to your battered ribs.
Your jeans drop to the floor soon after, and finally, you’re bare for him. He’s salivating; you’re a vision, soft and supple as he runs his hands along your thighs, the curves of your tummy, up over your sternum.
Joel revels in the sounds you make, the way you’re so responsive to him, whimpering as his hand closes over your throat gently, tongue back inside your mouth with a renewed ferocity.
“Wanted this for too damn long,” he says gruffly, hand under the bend of your knee, your body so pliant beneath him. You arch your back wantonly as he touches you, teeth sinking into his neck, red marks from your nails down his back.
“I’m yours, Joel. Just like I said.”
Joel slides into the wet, slippery heart of you, both of you groaning at the stretch, the shared feeling of euphoria.
Home.