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millerscoffee · 10 months

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dancing is a dangerous game | part one

you're a bandit like me, eyes full of stars.

5.5k | joel miller x f!reader

masterlist

rating: 18+ MDNI

tw: brief mentions of using your body for trading purposes, you shoot at joel miller????, light dub-con but that goes away quickly

warnings: post-outbreak au. no ellie. angsty smut, semi-dom!reader and dom!joel so that's fun, power struggle, age gap (joel is 56, reader is late 20s or early 30s), enemies to lovers, voyeurism (f watching m), masturbation (m and f), pet names/degrading names (baby, honey, darlin', brat, bitch, slut, etc.), dirty talk, choking, oral (m receiving), fingering, spanking, p in v (unprotected - wrap it up folks), joel is mean but not unkind. no use of y/n.

summary: inspired by "cowboy by me" by our lord and savior taylor swift. this is a post-outbreak world and joel has his own land. think bill, but a little less... deranged. kind of. you essentially are a raider, but make it fashion. when you stalk joel's cabin for the third day, that's when you get interrogated by none other than joel miller himself.

A/N: hi, i'm bee! this is my first fic on tumblr, and my first stab at this whole stratosphere. longtime listener; first time caller 💅. i was ALSO inspired by an ask i saw on @swiftispunk's page (hi! i love your writing sm??) and kinda just... ran with it. i honestly wasn't anticipating writing stuff during the outbreak, so i apologise if it's not quite right. imagine me living during that time with a tube of lipgloss and one (1) bullet in my pocket just in case. this... may be a series. i don't know yet. see ya! enjoy!!!

The first time you meet Joel Miller is down the barrel of your gun.

You can hear your father's voice telling you 'Back out, girl. Don't get too big for your britches.' Look where that got him. His ashes against your chest in a makeshift pendant necklace, buried by your clothes.

Still, you listen.

"It don't have to be like this," you drawl with index over the trigger guard. You've heard of him. Joel Miller. He's notorious, and even though you've kept to yourself most of your life, his name still roamed throughout the abandoned towns you passed. Someone always owed him, and he always owed somebody.

Your dad would've been older than him, but not by much. You knew of the world before this, was just a little thing. Still, you heard stories undulate from your father's southern voice that mostly left you bored on long days searching for food or shelter. You'd give anything to hear them now.

Part of you died when he did.

You were young when the outbreak happened. Resourceful, your father made it work in raising you. Taught you how to fend for yourself, rely on no one. Which was no easy feat considering how unbelievably stubborn you were. Were? Are.

Maybe he loved you. Maybe it was the chip on his shoulder. The kind of anguish that comes from not being able to give your mother the same kind of life. A promise to her.

Yes, you were young when the outbreak happened, but flashbacks of her getting attacked by a clicker burn you alive at night.

"Y'er on my land." A gruff voice calls you back to reality. Few words for someone who held your life in his hands. His own gun pointing back at you. Of course it would be.

"I was just passin' through." The lie flies through your teeth. You had been circling the place from a reasonable distance for a few days now. Scoping out when this man in front of you was his busiest, when he patrolled, when he slept. This was a heist situation, no doubt about it.

"Bullshit. This s'the third fuckin' time I seen you 'round here. And it's y'er last."

Shit. Fucking shit.

Your eyes dart to the side, really trying to pattern a plan in escaping but your breathing would say otherwise as calm and collected as it was.

In any other situation, you wouldn't be so willing to comply, but considering he's got you cornered and his gun is quite literally cocked and ready to go – you're not exactly in the position to make hasty decisions.

Goddammit if there wasn't something about him that made you nervous.

"Listen. Just was lookin' for somewhere to sleep. It's fuckin' cold and your stables look warm." Your head tilts in the direction of a lone horse's home in a bed of hay, and you're not fully lying. It's not that you have set up camp by any means, but you've noticed.

"We could trade. You give me y'er ammo, and I g–"

"You give me your cock, I get it. You really could be more original." You were used to this. Bartering, some might call it. Living out here on your own was dangerous, and running into men who wanted to use your body in order to get supplies wasn't that uncommon. If they were that kind, even. You'd heard the horror stories.

Albeit, most of these men met your gun in the end. Enabling you acquire their supplies, keep all yours, and your dignity. Win/win.

"...I give you the pleasure of livin' another day. Really? Y'think it's that easy?"

There was something in the way Joel says this that makes you grateful for the jacket you're wearing. Goosebumps prickle your skin, bile creeping up your throat and you will it back down again. Y'think it's that easy? As if he thought you wanted it.

If circumstances were different, you'd be rubbing the crimson off your cheeks. Flashing him a sheepish grin in an attempt to resolve whatever misunderstanding there was... but this wasn't the environment to elicit such conversation.

And you weren't that type of person to begin with.

Instead, your index sweeps from guard to trigger when you fire off at his leg. Hasty decisions be damned. You're quicker than him, so why're you tryin' to save him? You're a 'shoot to kill' type of person, and as the bullet grazes past his calf – part of you wishes you had.

Because not only did your bullet not make contact, Joel gets worse. You two lock eyes. His rifle is thrown over his shoulder as he grunts and walks perfectly fine over to you – despite the way his eyebrows knit together, jaw ticked. Was that a grin? Do something, anything – run.

Joel grips the nape of your neck, and you yelp in surprise.

Who the fuck does this man think he is?

His large hand eclipses your wrist as he maneuvers the gun from your hand. The action makes you writhe in pain, and it sends a shiver down your spine to know he's only using an ounce of his power.

You dig your elbow into his ribs despite him stronger than you. Stomping, kicking, punching anything you can find.

"What the fu–"

"Little girl, you picked the wrong one." His breath edges at the shell of your ear, and every sign should be pointing for you to hate this, but it almost feels familiar. Like yourself. It's only then when you worry.

---

You don't realise it, but Joel is pushing you inside his cabin. Keeping your head in direction of the ground, thud of the door heard somewhere behind you.

"You want to be treated like a big girl? Get these fuckin' pants off."

"What... what? No I'm fuckin' not–"

Joel chews up the space between you when he pushes you to the nearest wall. Your back at his chest, a cheek flush against the cabin's support.

Pine, tobacco, and whiskey fill your senses and you bite back the urge to whimper. He wouldn't see you like that.

"You're not? That why you were watchin' me jerk off last night? 'Cuz you don't wanna give it up?"

That alone makes blood creep up your neck and spill over your cheeks. You have to squeeze your legs together to quell the ache.

It was lonely on your own.

Most nights were spent half asleep on a cold, hard surface. Tired and hungry more days than not. You don't remember the last time you got a hot meal, much less been touched. So when you heard Joel's low grunts coming from the window (a window from a cabin you don't know quite yet that he built with his own hands) you become intrigued.

It's in this moment you're certain it must have been the rustling of branches just outside his room. You remember it happening last night, cursing to yourself for making noise. His fist stalled around the girth of his fat cock before spilling his seed over his stomach. As if that is what caused him to come.

It makes sense now, and it equally causes you to become dizzy and filled with rage. You bite your bottom lip, unable to think of a response.

"Mouthy thing ain't got much to say now. Now c'mon. I ain't taking these off you, doin' it y'erself." More of a warning, Joel lets up on his grip on you, but you're defenseless. No weapons, no pack. He's got your world in his hands.

With the newly found space between the two of you, you turn around – back of your head against the wall as your eyes find the other set for, perhaps, the first time. And they're deep. Deeper than you were aware of. Dark, impossibly round. Wrinkles reside on the sides of them, and if you knew any better, you wouldn't admit they were doing something to you.

But not only are you stubborn, you're too forthright to beat around the bush.

"I shot at you, and you want my cunt? You must be lonelier than I a–"

"Now."

Your words don't match your actions as your hands fall by your sides. Fingers play with zipper of your old, faded jeans that have seen better days.

You can't help but snicker an awkward laugh from how he's just watching you. Insecurities rise when you realise you're not laughing at him, but more his eyes on you. How intense it feels suddenly. He wants this. Wants you.

His eyes draw impatiently, broad frame leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed.

"Ain't got all day. Still considerin' your death."

His arms. Bulging through the fabric of his shirt, his body was built in a way that you could tell he worked with his hands... maybe in his past life, too. Throat dry, you shimmy out of your pants until you're left in your cotton panties.

Ones that you are becoming more aware the condition of. A small pool of wetness forming at the core of you clings to the fabric.

"Top, too."

Is that? It is. Your eyes wander down to see the growing bulge in Joel's pants. Not even the hem of his flannel could hide it. Sure, you'd seen it in its full form the night before, but that was with distance and without the heat rising between the two of you.

You bite your lip without hesitation, pulling the layers of jacket and a handful of tops onto the ground until you're bare. The cool air passes over your nipples and wills them into stiff peaks.

"Ain't you somethin', baby."

That's the first time Joel Miller draws a shaky exhale out of you. All from a single sentence.

When Joel steps over to you, that calm and collected breath is nowhere to be found. Your chest rises and falls at a random pattern, feeling more and more naked by the second as his clothes are completely kept on his body. A purposeful tactic.

He bends down to collect your clothes along with everything else that yours, and you are truly at his will. So busy on the precipice of pleasure that you don't even think about trying to get away.

"Stay."

"Ain't a dog." You glare, standing with your legs brushing together.

"Then quit actin' like a bitch. And quit movin', I'm gettin' to you."

It shuts you up quick, jaw snapping shut. You're certain if he told that to anyone else they'd be reduced to tears, but you can take it. It coils a heat inside the pit of your stomach that you've never felt. Causes your clit to feel as if it's on fire from the need to touch it.

Joel turns on his heel to walk away and it's as if you're able to breathe fresh air from the humidity he brings. You notice he's putting your things and his rifle away on his kitchen counter before coming back to you. He must really trust his ability to keep everything out like that.

Then again, have you even moved in the last five minutes?

The last thing he is, is worried.

You're able to look around, if only for a moment. Though, is it really looking? Your adrenaline is pumping, pupils blown from the fact that not only are you in the house you'd been stalking... you're about to fuck the man in it. And you almost tried to kill him. You definitely didn't miss on purpose. Couldn't have.

All the same, the cabin was nice, and you could take in briefly the light wood – old and weathered. A record player in the corner beside a guitar. This stuff could get you a lot in return, but for whatever reason that doesn't even cross your mind. Maybe your heart beating in your ears is a handy distraction to keep you walking the line.

Your eyes track the rugged man instead.

---

"Here's how this is gonna go," he announces, coming back to you and not phased that you haven't moved a muscle. "You are gonna take your ass over there on the couch. You're gonna make me come, then you're gonna go. Understand?"

"Well... I guess it is that easy."

Your bratty mouth getting you in trouble again. As if you're in the position to say anything. Naked as you are.

---

Joel's jaw ticks forward in a way that makes you feel fear, yet there's a direct correlation between it and the slick gathering between your folds. The same wide hand that gripped the nape of your neck wraps around the front of your throat while he pushes you against the wall, and your shoulders slump – all but folding instantly.

His mouth is inches from yours, forcing you to look him in the eyes.

"Listen here. I've been real kind to you. Coulda killed ya day one, tryin' to steal my shit like that. Was gonna be real kind in where I fucked ya, too. Now we're gonna fix that mouth a'yours and fast. Knees. Now." You soon come to know this isn't a suggestion. It's not even a warning. It is what's happening.

It's in the way Joel's hands guide you down onto your knees. He goes for his belt and you hear and see that distinct clang of metal untangle before your very senses. Your mouth waters instantly, teetering into fully giving into this struggle of power.

Joel's hands are calloused. You can tell he takes care of them, but that doesn't hide the wear and tear. Specifically on his fingertips. They grip your jaw roughly, and you choke back a moan as your mouth hangs open pliantly from this. Every nerve ending buzzing to be touched.

"Where'd that bratty girl go, huh? You done bein' big and bad – wanna be a slut, don’tcha?"

Your eyelash splay along your cheeks as you nod, and you feel his grip tighten, tugging your chin up higher.

"Look at me. You want this cock? I need your words. Tell me you wanna be a slut."

You're not sure when it happens, but hot tears run down your cheeks as everything comes to a head. Your body is trembling with raw desire right at your fingertips, just within reach. You can't hold back anymore, it physically hurts to.

"I wanna be a slut for this cock... please."

"Fuck, even a please. Oughta eat you out for that, sugar. Maybe next time."

Your brain is swimming at the thought. Next time?

With his free hand, Joel sets his cock free from his jeans, giving a satisfying smack to his abdomen quickly. No need for another piece of fabric keeping him from getting what he wants as you soon take note he isn't wearing boxers.

There's no denying what you're met with as you get to view it from this close. Joel Miller has a pretty cock. There's a soft, but bulging vein on the underside to match how big and thick it is. The rosy tip greets you, and it's the first time you get to see how much you've turned him on.

Your mouth is drooling while it's pried open and meets the tip of him. A moan from you is instantaneous, yet feels so distant from yourself, it doesn't affect you until much later. The taste of his precum coats your tongue as he slips past your lips and it's all you can experience. Your moans slip in and out of the sloshing sounds of your mouth. Keeping your hands by your sides, you don't tempt to touch him in fear he would pull away, so instead you twirl your tongue around his leaking head. Bob your head up and down in a slow, but sultry rhythm that causes him curse under his breath. He's not stoic above you, he's reacting.

He's clawing for every last bit of the upper hand.

"S'a lot, innit, babygirl? That's alright, you can take it." It's then you can sense Joel's guard slipping. Could be the fact that your mouth is suctioned perfectly around the length of his cock, but his voice gets damn sweeter the longer you go like this. His hips also have no problem in thrusting shallowly every now and then to knock the drool off of your dripping chin.

Even if you could form a thought, you don't know you would.

His fingers tangle in your hair, pulling it out of your face as you maintain eye contact. Intuitive in your approach, he told you to look at him earlier, so maybe he likes it? The groans filling the room lead you to believe you are correct. It feels so removed from who you were moments before: snickering because his gaze felt intimidating. Now, his pupils are blown as they pour into yours and his neck hangs back when your mouth makes those pretty, sloppy popping noises – testing your gag reflexes as you will them to relax.

It's way more intimate than anything you've ever done with anyone you've ever been with, and this stranger is pulling it out of you. Within the mess your brain is in, you remind yourself if you want to stop you can, and not a bit of you does.

The hot tears that were once down your cheeks swell in your eyes once more, but this time from the sheer size of him. You moan vibration after vibration against him, shifting and pushing your cunt against your calf, thigh – anything to feel some sort of friction.

He lets out a growl when he notices you, "Honey, if it's that bad, touch yourself." If your cheeks weren't red before, they are now.

It's him calling you out, slight embarrassingly, but not letting up with his hips. It's the way the embarrassment builds the fire in the pit of your belly. It's your hand pushing inside your panties at the sound of his command. And it's you practically choking on his cock from the gasp you let out through your nose – stunned at how wet you are.

Your fingertips barely brush over your clit when you notice the slick collecting, bubbling right at the very top of your slit and slutty moans fall out of you. Your eyelids droop as you try to keep your gaze up to Joel, but the way your fingertips roll over the hood of your clit in satisfying circles sends you over the edge way quicker than you anticipate.

"Shit, baby. Just like that. You filthy thing, can't hold off another minute longer, can ya? Need it right fuckin' now."

The sound of Joel's deep voice looms overhead as you come completely undone.

Unable to stop yourself, the suction on his cock pops free for a moment. Your moans hitting the air as your eyes roll back. Your body rushing to find each wave of pleasure roll off your back. Joel's cock still nestled in your mouth, but his hips still. "Goddamn, look at that little slut come out. Such a needy fuckin' kitten."

When Joel makes sure you've ridden it out, he pulls his cock from your mouth. Your body feels weak despite how eager your mind is now, face-to-face with Joel's cock, you watch as his scarred hand glides your saliva over his length entirely. It puts you in a trance, quickly getting out of it when he taps his cock against your cheek. "Pretty kitten want this? C'mon."

If your moans felt foreign to you, you don't even know what to do with yourself at the twinge of a grin that spreads on your face. The sheer audacity of his taps right against your fucking cheek. Orgasm-drunk, you shuffle to your feet and Joel has no problem in tossing you – finally – to the couch.

Your back is to him while the front of your body brackets the width of his couch, arms hunched over the back of it, knees dig into the cushions. You're grateful for the lack of eye contact in this position as it gives you a moment to press your face into your bicep, an attempt to collect yourself. But all of it obsolete when you sense Joel's presence at your ass.

His body heat unmistakable to miss. You bite at your own skin, neck craning to behind you to watch him.

"Shit, darlin', look at you. Ass up like this like y'er in fuckin' heat for me." You whine at the fact his clothes are still mostly on, and you know he must be sweating underneath them, but he won't give it to you like that. Not yet, 'maybe next time'. "You know I can't go any further 'til you get a spankin'. Need to be punished for tryin' to hurt me like that. For tryin' to take my things. Ain't right. Need you to learn your lesson."

Where are you? A part of you knows this is a tactic. That Joel is lulling you into a position you can't say no to. It already shows itself in how you're splayed on his couch. Yet, you can't find the person you were before you stepped into the cabin. Not yet, not like this. You nod weakly, and Joel swipes the cotton undies down to your thighs so quickly the rush of air cools the heat of your folds. A flutter runs through you.

"Count. To ten. If you don't, we start over. Say, yes sir."

"Y-yes... sir. Yes sir."

A searing, mind-numbing spank wallops over your ass and it causes your hips to jut forward. Whimper hitting the top of your throat, you almost, almost, forget to count. Everything in your senses distracting you from completing the simplest tasks such as fucking counting.

"O-one." Another. "Twooo." And again. "Th-three!"

You start sniffling by the third smack of his wide hand, and you hear mocking sniffs behind your head. "Aww, pretty baby can't take the hurt she tries to give to others? That must be really tough. Y'heart's bleedin' all over my couch, honey."

Your cheeks burn, you really feel sorry for what you've done. Or at least, what you were planning to do.

The next spank leaves a welt of Joel's handprint across your skin. "FOUR!" Your body begins to feel weak, sliding against the couch, you know talking back is useless as you silent tears stream into your arm.

There are six more blinding slaps to your ass by the time he's done with you, and you feel him pull back when he's through. You imagine him wringing his palms, the roughness of them. You begin to wonder if that's how they got to be so weathered, and pretend not to be weirded out by the ache of jealousy.

"Y'know for somebody whinin' the whole time, your pussy is just droolin' from that," any narrative you wandered off with disappears in its replacement of Joel's fingers gathering slick between your folds. No announcement, just go. It was just within reach, feeling him inside you. You ride the shudder your body makes, licking your lips as you realise the unspoken rule is free and you can speak. "N-need it. Need your cock, please... please." "Need it, and you don't even know my name?" His index and middle finger waste no time in pressing into your aching core. Sounds of your wailing mix with his words as he lurches over, lip close to your ear. "Or maybe you do already."

"Please, please, please," your fingertips grip for the worn fabric of his couch while your hips that try to jut back are quickly halted by his other palm, a strong stopper at the base of your spine. "Not 'til you tell me my name." "I-I don't know. I don't know it, I swear." Joel's thick fingers slip completely out of you and you mewl pathetically, pussy clenching around nothing and he can see every last detail of it behind you. "Last fuckin' time, better tell me the truth." "It's Joel," you cry, hips pushing back against the resistance as much as possible. Anything to be filled again. "Joel. Joel. Joel. I was... I was– I don't know anybody. Not with anybody, I swear! Joel, I swear. Please! Just grew up hearin' your name. I swear on my life, Joel, please! I know I lied, didn't think you'd believe me."

You don't know why you're begging like your life depends on it, but your pleasure surely does, and there's a longer pause than you want lingering behind you. As if you can palpably feel Joel contemplating whether you're being truthful or not. But if there's one thing about you, aside from this moment in this compromising position: you don't answer to anybody.

Joel's cock bottoming out inside of you at the drop of a hat is confirmation enough that he believes you.

And you not only wail, but scream at the stretch and irresistible contact that punches you straight to your gut – right where you can feel the tip of him. Half-moon prints dig into your hips by his short fingernails when he grabs ahold of you and you're on your forearms, head hanging between your shoulders. Your panties keep your thighs straying too far apart if there is such a thing.

"This what you wanted when you watched me?" Joel grips your torso now, pulling you closer to him as you become more upright, his cock more accessible to the spongy spot inside of you and your nipples stand erect, eyes rolling back as it takes all of you not to rest your head back against his shoulder, and you fail. Hard. Your occiput makes contact with his shoulder. Joel brushes your hair back to the side, lips graze but never fully touches the column of your neck. "Thought about this tight cunt last night. Left the window open on purpose, but you knew that already, didn't you, pretty girl? Clever little thing and so fuckin' dirty."

Joel's hand snakes around the front of you, spreading your folds as he dives his fingers over your glossed-over clit your wetness claimed and that sends a whine off of your depraved lips. "That's it, honey. Show me what this cock does to ya. Makes you downright brainless from how well you take it." While his skilled fingers, toy with your clit, the other set of digits graze over your breasts on their way up to your mouth. You take them inside the warmth of your wet mouth easily, rolling your tongue over the digits until you can only focus on the white hot pleasure beginning to boil over. You keep his fingers between your teeth, a faint realisation that you can taste yourself on them. That's what does it.

His hips are relentless as they pound into you, the repetitious slaps of his skin against yours, of his balls tapping your cunt again and again sends you into a place that he knows you're approaching when you tighten and pulse.

"Y'know how tight and wet you feel around me, darlin'? Never had a fuckin' cunt like this. Let it out, let it out, just like you wanna. Just like you did last night around your fingers. Nothin' like this cock though, and you know it now, don't you? Oh, fuck yeah– thaaat's it. Look at you." "Joel... Joel!!!" Joel talks you through it, sending your body diving off the cliff that is your second orgasm. The undeniable gush of your fluids around his cock. His name stays stuck at the your tongue, the constant thud of it vibrates your lungs.

It starts at the attention on your clit. The raw bundle of nerves send signals outward as it spreads down your legs, up your stomach, to your nipples and down your spine. Your brain feels effervescent, toes curl, and it comes back again right to your heart. Your beating heart, wild, and every moan, whimper, scream that comes from you sounds like it is from someone else's chest. But it's yours, and you know that when you start to feel hazy, unable to hold yourself up anymore.

"Good for my cock after all. Ain't ya, baby? Shit."

Your torso leans forward while your cheek rests on the top of your hand that's gripped on Joel's couch, and your body is relaxed and fucked. Comfortably silent, just the way Joel would want you. His cock slips out of you, unable to stop the slew of grunts and groans that acts as an anchor to keep you from slipping under. You lick your lips, looking back at him with a nod, unable to stay silent for long. That struggle of power coming back for vengeance. "That's right. Come all over this ass you ruined. See those handprints? Dirty fucking man, you just met me. Show me how much you enjoyed doing that."

That's as far as you get when you feel the heavy streams of his hot, white come rope over your skin, and for someone who is no position to be smug, you sure do have a shit-eating grin on your face. Pure, and the simplest thing the two of you accomplish.

Joel shakes his head, shallow breaths become him as he staggers back and you pretend not to notice. "Gonna kill me, kid."

"Almost did."

---

You don't know why, but neither of you hold the promise of you leaving right away. You linger, both of you half naked and spent. You take your time cleaning yourself off, slipping your clothes back on. Day becoming night.

You tiptoe into the living room where Joel is unfurled on his couch. His eyes are closed, the back of his head inches away from where the two of you just had sex.

Planning your goodbye, you sit at the edge of the couch cushion, knowing he wasn't really asleep. Just restin' his eyes.

"I am sorry...," you finally say into the dimly lit room, pangs of annoyance fizz at your tongue for even apologising. For shooting him, for trying to steal from him. All of it.

It's not his fault. It's just how you are.

This is dichotomous in relation to your eyes. They're bleary when a yawn pulls deep from within you. As if rest had been climbing up to the surface this entire time.

"Maybe you should be apologisin' 'bout your shitty aim. Could teach you a thing or two." Joel's eyes remained closed, arms crossed. If you could let yourself experience this, you would notice how soft he looks in this moment. Instead, your stomach is recoils in fight or flight.

You're glad he can't see you swallow the knot in your throat.

There was no magical solution for your life, and a part of you wishes you hadn't chosen his cabin to raid. You wish you hadn't met him, because now you could feel yourself want to notice the small things in him. Already.

You felt it dangerous to let anything that close to you.

You scoff to play it off, giving his chest a light shove and very accidentally getting lost in the light landscape of hairs that resides at the top of his flannel. "I could teach you a thing or two." A pathetic response for a pathetically spent human.

"We could both teach each other," he resigns and you're grateful he doesn't point out your lack of wit for how worn out he's made you. Perhaps the smugness settles in the things he doesn't say. Really, it's in what Joel spouts off next that throws you upside down.

"S'why you should stay. One month. That's it."

"Excuse me?"

"Didn't stuttered," your eyes roll and somehow, despite Joel's own being shut, he tuts his teeth. "Don't roll your eyes at me, little girl. You need a place to sleep. Besides, I could use an extra set of hands. Way I see it, best offer you've had in a while. Got a shelf life, though. Don't like to wait."

A part of you is suspicious, and if this man didn't make sure you orgasmed twice, you would suspect yourself to be dead within a matter of minutes.

There's something true about him, though. You're unwilling to look at it directly, but you trust him.

"Fine."

"Gonna need clearer confirmation, darlin'. Really need you to want this if you're gonna stay with me." He knew exactly where to press.

"Fuck, I shoulda killed you when I had the chance. I want to stay with you. One month." You try to ignore the grit between your teeth as speak, but your shoulders eventually soften. And you really do mean it. It's just... you're hardened from years of misplaced trust.

Your hand goes to the pendant around your neck subconsciously.

Joel either doesn't notice, or gives you the space.

You're grateful either way.

"That's that, then."

If anyone could understand the concept, it's Joel.

"That's that."

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller smut #joel miller #tlou fic #by bee #dancing is a dangerous game

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millerscoffee · 9 months

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dancing is a dangerous game | part three

"the only thing i'll ever ask of you, you've gotta promise not to stop when i say when," she sang.

6.8k | joel miller x f!reader

this is part 3 of the "dancing is a dangerous game" series | other parts below:

part one | part two | part three | masterlist

rating: 18+ MDNI

warnings (for this chapter): post-outbreak au. no ellie. no clickers. mentions of consensual non-con (spoiler: it's more that reader is nervous and is scared things will fuck up, so she tells joel not to stop if that tension in her rises). survivalist!joel, age gap (joel is 56, reader is late 20s or early 30s), soft!dom joel, introduction of safe word, oral (f receiving), fingering, piv (unprotected), cum eating (whoops), biting, crying, fluff, angst, READER RIDES A HORSE! no use of y/n.

summary: within your second week at joel's, there are things you are forced to look within yourself. joel helps you through it.

A/N: i really appreciate all of the notes and comments for this series! i didn't know where it would lead when i wrote that first chapter, but it's all overwhelming and sweet! i know the last chapter was more plot, but i feel progression with these twooooo 👀

"I don't think it's trust." "Then. What. Is. It?" Joel moves over to you at the bed's edge, taking your chin in his warm hands. It's as if the breath got knocked out of you. Like he's doing what you asked without you realising it. "I can't–" you feel undeniably small. Tears fall easily when you look down at your laps side by side until your vision gets blurry. His booming stirs in you. Not fear, but not necessarily happiness. He's compelling you to look at patterns within yourself, it makes you want to break down. Panic threatening to tap at the door of your sternum. Just when Joel's index finger, large and calloused, curls under your chin. It gently coaxes you to lock eyes and your lip wavers. "You're doing so good," when he says it, voice like honey in comparison to the rough-textured grip he has on your face, your heart races.

When Joel back turns around, his eyes are dark. Like he’s thirsty, but would only drink if you let him. He’s deliberate in brushing past you on his way up to the loft, his presence lingering just at the end of the stairs. “Come to bed.” It’s simple, and what you come to learn, is Joel’s way of asking. He don’t. But he gives you room to make the choice. You don’t recall your eyes even scanning the living room. They only land on the broad frame in front of you, and you follow it like a beacon of light. Beginning your second week, you don’t sleep on the couch anymore.

You're skittish when reach the top of the loft.

What if he expected something from you? What if it was more than what you were willing to give?

What did you want to give?

"It's nice up here," an attempt to purchase to any sort of gravity. Anything to make sense of just how you ended up in the situation in the first place. The feeling of Joel's lips still very much present on your own.

But your eyes stay at the ground, more in your own head than you are able to look at the man you're in front of. Joel tilts his head to catch your gaze.

"You sayin' that to me, or y'erself?"

"Oh... uh... to you. To you." You flash a crooked, but distant smile.

"Hey," Joel hushes, walks over to you, his frame seeming somehow even larger in the petite space. "If this is too much, we can get you back down there. Y'know. Extra blankets."

"No–" you object so quickly you have to clear your throat. "I mean... no. I want to stay. Just..."

"Hadn't shared a bed with someone?"

"Not in a long time." You think of your past lover. The warmth the two of you made together under makeshift tents and old buildings with shitty furniture. Taking turns sleeping while keeping an eye out for danger. This was different, and so were the circumstances.

Joel walks over to what you presume is at least the start of his side of the bed before his inevitable migration to the centre of it at night, and gets undressed until he's left in his boxers. Unlike when the two of you had sex and he wasn't wearing anything under his jeans. It was like he didn't know you were gonna be up there with him tonight.

"We'll take it slow, if that's what you want." Climbing into bed, Joel opens the opposing side of the blankets for you. His hair slick back from your fingers combing through it downstairs. Orbs seeking to learn your quiet demeanor. He looks sweet. Patient, even.

How could you say no to that? Not when he's being so compassionate. And certainly not when he's giving you the choice.

The temptation to be vulnerable could kill you. Could be dangerous.

Then again, the situations you continuously put yourself in before you met Joel had more consequences than getting in this man's bed. A man who was shifting your perspective. He didn't seem like any other person that entered your life only to leave it.

You choose to ignore the expiration date in a few short weeks.

So you abandon your jeans. Neatly fold them in a chair tucked away in the corner of the room. Everything in slow motion to quell the reality of your emotions towards the man you currently have your back to. The man who made you feel melted and was being uncharacteristically open with you long before whiskey was involved.

Not that the whiskey mattered, you weren't really feeling its effects anymore anyway. This experience had you both to a sober, cognitive state. You had control of yourself considering how out of control you felt on the inside.

In your underwear you stand with a blue cotton t-shirt that just grazed the crease of your bottom and your exhales are shakier than you'd like to admit.

Because if you admit it, then it's true.

If you admit it, he could have a lot more control over you than you knew what to do with.

"Joel," you sound faraway when you break the silence. Back still to him, you tilt your chin at your shoulder before closing your eyes and inhaling deeply. You can't believe what you're about to say.

"If I tell you to stop, I don't want you to listen," Tears wick at your eyes, blinking them away rapidly before turning to face Joel directly. You can't bring yourself to look at him, yet.

And he's silent.

"Because if we start this... it–it's not gonna be easy for me," you your hands, shaking them off as if the energy could ease by doing it. Pleased when it kind of works. "I'm not gonna be easy, and I don't mean sexually...," you laugh pitifully, "My impulses may make me want to stop. From what I've... god I sound so pathetic, from what I've been through." Teeth grit, tears fall, "It could be too much. And, too–," sentences chop, "I want this. If we start this I don't think I could stop. Which sounds counterintuitive, but... yeah."

You want to fucking vomit from exposing yourself this way. Your mind swirling from the brain break you just gave yourself. Did any of it make sense? Did you come all the way up the ladder just to ruin any chance of being close to him? Why did you want to be close to him? You feel like an idiot, to put it crassly. A credulous girl making hasty decisions only to retrieve back into complacency.

These thoughts flood your mind and you're sure the storm is evident as it crosses your brow. So caught up in forbidding your heart to find resolution that you can't see what's in front of you.

What's been in front of you, if only you'd pluck it.

When you finally land on him, he looks concerned. Like he's taking in every word you say and committing it to memory. He doesn't move from his spot, but he does sit up straighter. Body language letting you know he is open, but not withdrawing.

"You want... this," he repeats you, but in his voice it sounds more seductive. Did you say it this seductively? "And you want me to keep going if you say no...,"

"Sounds kinda worse when you say it out loud." You mumble.

"You trust me."

That makes your face screw up. Shoulders creep towards your ears, the bridge of your nose collides on itself.

"Trust. I don't... I don't do that."

"Well, what else would y'call this request?"

Climbing on the edge of the bed, you sit on it in contemplation. What else could this be? Surveying the room, you come back to him in your line of sight and the furrow of his brow – soft, but covetous – makes you swallow hard.

You have two choices: hit the wall you put up. The one you'd been hitting every day for a week, or you could push through it.

"I don't think it's trust."

"Then. What. Is. It?" Joel moves over to you at the bed's edge, taking your chin in his warm hands. It's as if the breath got knocked out of you. Like he's doing what you asked without you realising it.

"I can't–" you feel undeniably small. Tears fall easily when you look down at your laps side by side until your vision gets blurry. His booming stirs in you. Not fear, but not necessarily happiness. He's compelling you to look at patterns within yourself, it makes you want to break down. Panic threatening to tap at the door of your sternum.

Just when Joel's index finger, large and calloused, curls under your chin. It gently coaxes you to lock eyes and your lip wavers. "You're doing so good," when he says it, voice like honey in comparison to the rough-textured grip he has on your face, your heart races.

This simple act triggers your fight or flight, but you choose to stay and confront this. It helped that any of your other thoughts were ripped from you. All there ever could be was the thumping hum of him in your hippocampus, burning your memories alive. Joel.

"Taking all this in, so well, angel. I know it's for a reason, but I need you to say it. And I need you to mean it. If you want this as bad as you do," his nose brushes against the tip of yours, "you can do it."

It's definitely not the magic of him that clouds your mind. It's more of the fact that this human in front of you, someone who could have killed you, could have just run you off after fucking you – is showing devotion in making sure you find this. That you use your voice. Like he's dangling a key right in front of you, and all you have to do is tell him the truth.

A key to your paradise.

Staring at his lips, you tempt forward, but he pulls away just a centimetre. Not so fast, not until you give me what I want.

You exhale through your nose in reflection. Close your eyes like you're about to jump, and maybe you are.

Jumping off into nothing.

Worse, jumping into something.

His hand moves to the side of your neck, and that causes your own hand to move over his. As small as you feel in his grasp, you try to hold him, too.

"I don't know how this happened," you mutter like you're cursing yourself, but your eyes open. Melting into Joel's touch. "I don't know how you did it, but I... I trust you."

It doesn't register immediately that you are holding your breath as soon as you say it. Half expecting the world to explode, or eight thousand clickers eat at your flesh. Something bad because any time you let someone in, something bad happened. Your superstitions getting the best of you.

But there is no earthquake. No slew of cordyceps-infested human shells scurrying up the stairs– well, ladder.

It's softer. It's solid. It's Joel wrapping you up in his arms, making light work in picking you up to land you gently on the bed that you soon realise is more comfortable than it looks.

Joel's face is a mix of admiration and determination. You can see by the flare of his nostrils that he's proud of you. And you don't know why, but basking under his pride brings a sense of peace you'd long forgotten. It wasn't that you needed his stare to appreciate yourself, but there was no mistaking the safety it gave you.

Your worry doesn't simply melt, though. You meant what you said in that you weren't sure you could do this. Legs spread wide to accommodate the width of his frame, and your breath hitches when he takes the pillow from behind you and guides your head down onto it. Treating you like a delicate thing makes you wonder what it would be like if you did soften. If you did allow yourself to become malleable beneath the grasp of someone so new, but had such hold on you. Not for him, but for yourself. What would it be like to trust? Fully. Under conditions that were so harsh outside the two of you in this moment. Could it be done?

The chatter in your mind stops at the drop of a hat when Joel leans down to kiss you. Even more curious than downstairs, your bodies find it easy to meld together.

You're grateful for Joel's lips to dim the thoughts reeling of what could or couldn't happen. He fills your senses, facial hair brushing against your features, and you're amazed at how that pout of his sends prickles to your skin. How skilled he is in wielding your mind to quiet, and your core to pay attention. All of the blood rushing downward in your haze.

Joel's tongue is the first to tempt in. It brushes into the tangle of your kiss. It's cliche to say it feels like heaven, but you imagine that's what it is like if you had to guess. Like a quiet white, nothing else but the feeling of him and your breaths taking up space as you give yourself permission to move your hands. Fingers snake up his hair, the backs of your knuckles brushing over the old scar at his left cheek down to his jaw. You feel him shudder above you, and wrap his large paw around your wrists to stop you. It makes your heart skip to feel how tender is he knowing you have felt his strength.

It's a secret shared between the two of you that he can be this disarming. And you keep it tight to your chest.

You focus on the heat emitting from his skin. Like he's burning the candle at both ends and his stomach creates all this centralised heat. Your bare legs brush against each other and the sensation from this and his weight brings you direct, but silent communication that this feels good to him, too. That he needs this as much as you do, and wants you. You yet to decipher if it's merely physical.

You don't realise it right away, that your hips are squirming beneath the weight that is the man kissing you like his life depends on it. This makes him pull away from the kiss, and right when you let out a whimper you can feel how damp the fabric clings to your folds.

"Can you hold still?" He's asking you, but it's out of genuine curiosity than a scold. And now that you think about it, now that you're an inch apart you can feel the heat of you radiate from your cheeks, lips, neck, chest. Splotched and muddy, you wonder what you must look like. You manage a weak nod, he nods back, going in for your neck.

"Joel," you gasp, hands moving against his wrists that tighten the tiniest amount against the pressure. His teeth graze over your heartbeat, littering open kisses over the skin and you moan at the same time as him when he sucks. Taking the skin of your neck between his lips and turning marks out of it. Urging you to slip completely under. Your body feels pliable to him, your moans turn to quiet whimpers as he pulls back again. Admiring his work, he rolls his thumbs over the insides of your wrists individually.

"Look at you," he suspires and it's in contrast from when he said it with your ass in the air for him a week ago. It makes you feel adored, whether he did or not. You are stronger than to let tears come up, and you don't. But you know you could if you thought about it long enough. "Gorgeous."

You blush, a full smile tugging your mouth and he pauses, tilting his head. Like he's learning what you like, and taking you in at the same time. "You're being a good girl. You know that, dontchu?"

Oh.

You nod, but it's hard not to bite your lip at that and you're aching now. Your need for him too strong than succumb to your need to guard. Your gesture makes Joel smirk, the tips of his fingers at the base of your shirt and he peels it up to your chest, just at the underside of your breasts and his eyes shift from a golden brown to black in the endeavours of his own hunger. You aren't alarmed that he isn't saying anything, and really it's nice to not verbalise your desires. It was already so difficult for you.

He knows.

And he finds it as no surprise, the keen noises you make when Joel's teeth sink into your flank right under your ribs, but it doesn't tickle surprisingly. Instead it feels good, like an itch you've been wanting to scratch. Like your sides have this constraint from your holding that he's chewing out. His mouth travels up, nosing past the fabric to kiss and suck over the shape of your breasts before cupping his lips around one of your nipples, keeping the other preoccupied under his thumb.

You let out a heady sigh, his whiskers prodding into your skin in the best possible way. His eyes slip shut, and you take in the way his eyelashes splay across his cheeks. It would be innocent if the work he's doing on the peaked bit of your flesh wasn't sending a direct signal to your clit. "Joel, I–"

He pops his mouth off of you instantly. Like your words break a spell, gaze soft and round when they look up at you. "This okay?" You bite down a groan when you hear just how fucked he sounds. Fucked like you sounded when he all but caught you cumming on his couch.

You nod, but he's not so lenient this time. "Words, darlin'."

"This is okay."

"Just okay?"

That seemed to be more of a challenge than a question or disappointment. As if he could do better, go deeper as he explored what you liked.

But you want his mouth back on you, to feel him and not just to quiet your mind. To genuinely feel him take you, and you let out a whine in response. "Joel, you know."

"I can't know unless you tell me, baby."

The slip of this pet name knocks your breath out. Half naked on his bed, your nipples glistening from his spit. Your hand smooths over the side of his neck and you tilt your head down to look at him better. He's being brave, and so should you.

"It feels good. It makes me want more." You're blushing now. To admit that, to tell him you want more – out loud with your words rather than the bucking of your hips leaves you feeling more naked despite being exposed.

But it's the green light Joel needs from you. To know you want him like this as opposed to the first time the two of you got stripped down. It was just you who was naked, then. It was him who was calling the shots. You blink in awareness that he's giving you the reigns in the way he knows how.

Giving you the reigns in light grasp while he takes the rest of the lead, tight in his palms.

He is background hum. He is thunder loud and present – you never see it, but you feel the humidity, and when he grows closer, the wind that moves your hair.

This is what it's like to hand over control to him. He knows what to do with it and he doesn't make you guilty for holding it. You're learning that of him, just as he's learning you.

Affection drips when his brushes his nose against the inside of your tits, lips trailing down your stomach until he grows increasingly aware of the ache between your legs. The pool of wetness slicking over the fabric of your underwear.

This makes him drone, low and hungry, and you blink up at the ceiling because fuck what if he didn't like it? Now wasn't the time for your self-consciousness to invade your thoughts, but it sat with you when you licked your lips – just before sitting on your elbows to get a better look at him.

You didn't do this last time. What if he wasn't into you?

"Fuck," he curses under his breath. Nope, definitely not. He's into you. While his lips press and teeth nip at the insides of your thighs, your breath hitches in the process. "Wet for me?" His question rhetorical, he thumbs over the blotch in your panties and that is enough to make you whine. For your hips to raise.

He pauses then with a serious look about him.

"Say red if it's too much. Understood?" You nod and he pulls his head away, producing a mewl from you. Desperate for contact. "Repeat it." Your eyes roll back all on their own and it feels like sandpaper to swallow from your dry throat.

"If it is too much I will let you know by saying red." Though the words felt formal, the delicious growl coming from Joel's throat lets you know it was exactly the correct way to form the words.

Because he's peeling your undies off completely, giving him a good view of what's in store. "I missed this," he admits and you blush deeper than you did when he was being corporeal. The exhales cool your dampened skin as he gets closer. Wraps his hands around your hips while keeping your legs secure underneath his flexed arms.

His eyes dance between yours and your cunt. Like he's watching what gets you twitching for him, and he's found that it's a mixture between his words and the way he stares at you like you're his last meal. Hard not to, to be fair.

It starts with his tongue at your entrance, like you're letting yourself pour over his tongue and he likes that. His grunts flush your clit, a buzz of him under your skin when he finally presses his tongue inside you. You both let out a sigh of relief by this. And you would run your fingers through his hair if he'd let you, but while he's wrapped his hands around your hips, your arms are on either side of those strong arms. He's subconsciously saying to you: you're not going anywhere, you're going to take it.

And that sends your head to spin. Your chest rises and falls irregularly to the feeling of him ghosting his pouty mouth over your folds until your clit is on fire just to be touched. "J-Joel," it's faint, like you can barely get it out.

"Mm?" He's busy.

"I... I need–"

"What is it, angel?" He asked a lot of rhetorical questions, his breath warm against your sex. "You want this?" His tongue ghosts over your clit and he has to use force to keep your hips in place in order for you to not buck his teeth out.

"Joel!" The sight of your hardened nipples makes him mutter under his breath again, his teeth lightly grazing over the sensitive nub.

You choke a whine, curling your fingers into themselves.

"Is that it?"

"P-please. Please!"

"Manners. Such a sweet little thing." His tongue flicks his tease against the hood of your clit and you practically howl in response. "Taste just as sweet, too."

To say your core is sticky is an understatement, your thighs pull apart slightly every now and then and it feels like effort to pull them apart from just how wet you are. Joel's mouth, Joel's fucking mouth, makes a meal of you then. Tongue rolling and flicking over the glistening skin until he finds sucking is what takes you there above all else.

His plush lips press around the nub of nerves, pulling it into his mouth with such a rush it makes you a whimpering mess far to quickly than you want to be. Thighs trembling involuntarily.

You'd only thought about this from the first day he fucked you. What his mouth would feel like right where it is, and it doesn't disappoint.

You're reduced to a slack jaw, his tongue skilled at the repetitious movements that send you to your climax.

"Cou-could I – fingers?" You quite literally can't get another word out of yourself. You're close, but he obliges – perfectly timed as his middle finger presses inside; working tandem with his tongue. He seems to like the way you feel by the noises he makes, the spongy spot inside you easy to find when you're like this. But that's just Joel, you knew that now. Nothing was hidden when he was in charge of your pleasure.

Although just one, his finger feels thick inside you. Way bigger than yours, and the steady push/pull of his while his mouth sucks on your clit is just too much not to submit to.

So it's volcanic, the eruption within you.

Seriously, it's like one moment you're not cumming and the next your pelvis and thighs are shifting like tectonic plates beneath him. Writhing and igniting with every axon that starts from the core of you and traverses your limbs. You're a mess, physically and mentally. No real words coming out, just a slew of curses and Joel's name as if it is a profanity in itself.

And with the way he's keeping his mouth tightened on you until you've reached it, you aren't too sure his name isn't a blasphemous word that should be left from your lips every second of the day.

On the comedown, your body spasms. Small noises leave your throat until it's a bounded release of giggles, your arm slung over your eyes. "What the fuck have you done?" Fucking giggles. You're giggling for the first time in... god knows how long.

Your sentence is slurred and sloppy, rubbing your eyes as if you're taking your time before you must face him. His soft eyes, mindful kisses along the insides of your thighs – each one sending a signal to your brain to jolt a little each time. Then you feel it, or well, you don't feel it anymore. His finger leaving you empty, an ache you want back.

"Is it such a bad thing?" When he speaks, you notice how hooded his eyes look like this. He's thoroughly enjoying himself, his tongue laps at your folds one last time for the night, mindful to miss the central core of you.

"I don't think so." An honest revelation.

When he comes up, his middle finger tempts your lips from where he was and you aren't shy when you wrap your lips around his finger, cleaning yourself off of him. You reach down when you pop your lips off of him, your hand eager to find his length that's straining beneath the fabric.

But Joel swats your hand away when you tempt it near him, "You’re not doin' that. Not right now." You can see the outline of it, like what's between his legs is begging a different story. Joel, however, has his arm draped around you so heavy that the weight of him won't let you do much else other than drift off to sleep.

"I'll get you back," you warn, yawning into the air. Face greeting the crease of his neck.

"We'll see, darlin'."

You drift off. Your top on, him in his boxers. In bed with a man who was making you understand trust could be on the table without transaction.

---

You wake before sunrise.

It's just the sound of your lungs sharing oxygen in the same space, you shift your body to face his. His back is to you, but you can make out the way his shoulders slope in the dark.

You like this Joel. Not because he's asleep, but because there was no holding between the two of you. Both easy to contract, but seeing him as pliable as you were last night tugs you.

Any pretense disappears until you are both left with your wanting; lying in wait.

And that drives a fire within you. You move forward, your breasts pressing against the broad scope of his back. It's warm, the scent behind his neck lulls you deeper into relaxation until you close your eyes. But Joel's a light sleeper, and the slightest movement towards him wakes him up. He's cautious not to stir right away.

Joel turns then. Fluid in its motion, he faces you. Arms wrap around you, flex and strengthen against the soft frame of your body. Rolling on top of you, your legs come apart naturally and he is warm from the bed. This version of him isn't much changed from last night, but he's more involved in his own taking than accounting for yourself – a grown woman who can make her own resolutions. You choose to stay under him, and he picks up on that.

Your mouths collide in the dark, touching and searching each other and you're slick from its gathering of your night's sleep. Right at the core, he presses his hips down and you respond in your own wave up to meet his. It's easy to slip off your shirt, leaving it abandoned somewhere in the sheets.

His boxers come down enough, then, to feel his cock thump against your folds and you inhale sharply – needing him more and more. He's hard, dripping, white hot against your skin. You clench around nothing before his hand guides himself through the slick of you, tempting over your clit before going back down. "I need you, too," thick with sleep, you groan at the sound of him and the sound of your slick being slipped against.

He's slow, only holding the tip at your entrance and you wriggle – becoming wide awake now with the width of him at your ache. "Please," you whisper, and he indulges. Doesn't make a fuss. Because he wants this, too. Wants you. Said it himself.

"You feel so damn good, swallowin' my tip like that." His face buries into your neck, lazy and sleepy when you wrap your legs around his waist. Fingernails engage his skin when he pushes, stretching you wider and deeper. It feels different from last night. More complete with this involved, too. Your lips brush against his neck while you shiver and experience. In the break of dawn with sleep lines still on both of your skins. It starts off gentle, at least.

Keeping it together is arduous, like you're both bursting at the seams to... let it all go. You have the opportunity to say it, to tell him you want this. It's everything you were explaining last night. How you want this, but it could be difficult to express. And if you were wriggling away from it, you didn't want him to stop.

One minor detail, though. You weren't wriggling away.

Physically, your legs spread further apart, your hand reaching down to touch him. Inviting the tips of your fingers to graze the bed of coarse hairs that resided just above his cock. His breath hitches then, and you both roll your hips; up and down respectively. Allowing him to go deeper, and he is deeper.

"You feel that?" His grip now on the side of your neck, keeping your eyes poured into his – even in the indigo of dawn – and your moans are turned to nothing but choking mewls when you nod. "S-so big," not that he needed his ego stroked, it's the only thing you can think about.

He's blocking any other sense having you like this. You feel every twitch, the rush of his cock growing harder inside you, if that were even possible. Your eyes flutter back in your skull for a moment in time.

"That's what you do to me, baby." His hips are merciless in the way they recoil against yours over and over. The sounds of your skin slapping mesh with the squelching of your cunt. Your hands moving to his head, fingers in his hair and you share the same breath – his exhales, your inhales and the other way around. Leaving you both dizzy and on the precipice.

Your hair sticks to the sides of your neck that he's abandoned to rest his forearms on either side of your head, fingers lost just above your head as he holds you together like this. His eye contact isn't as intimidating as it was before, and this time you crave it. The sun's coming up and it's seeping through the window that he built with the same fucking hands that are tugging your hair to look at him. His cock pulling all the way out to thrust all the way in, and he repeats the process. Tits bouncing, claws finding purchase on the sheets, on anything while he fucks you like this. A wonder fleets of how he can even keep up like this for his age, but it's washed away as soon as it comes. Your toes curling, a guttural scream of his name coming from you when your release is found. Cream coating his cock, you think you're there, but that's when you hear him.

"Easy, baby. That's it. That's fuckin' it, don't you dare fuckin' stop for me. Cum all over this cock. You can take it, that's it." His words send stars to your eyes, mouth lax just like last night but you don't remember. You don't remember anything other than the feeling of him pounding you into his mattress that is rattling and squeaking because fuck, it feels like it could break at any moment. "Joel!" You mean to say more, you really do, but it's too much to. Not while he's fucking and talking you through it, not while his own orgasm hits him when he feels the twitching of your clenched cunt around his cock. Tightening and releasing repeatedly through your bliss.

"Shit, darlin' – fuck!" Joel leaves you as late as he can, and it still feel too soon. He palms his cock a couple of strokes before spilling his hot cum over your stomach and that was sexy enough, but the sounds he's making. The animalistic grunts found through the structure of his nose has you blinking up at him like he's the most magnificent thing you've ever seen.

Maybe he is.

And you wonder then, what it would feel like to have his seed buried inside you, but you don't ask for it.

It's not the right time.

Sun cascades itself through the sky, leaving the room lilac and blue. You're both panting, his body half on you, half on the bed.

"Y'good? Y'okay?" You hear him, but it's muffled from his arm that's over your shoulder, his face plastered into the side of your bruised neck from last night.

"Mmn," you respond, but make an annoyed sound when he's soon to sit up. He looks worried over your body.

"Shit– gotta clean y'up. Sorry 'bout that."

But you smirk instead, thumbing over the pool at your stomach. You bring it up to your mouth with your eyes round and wet when they gaze into his, sucking it clean. "I got it."

Joel blinks with a look of arousal and a grin spread across his face as if to say, what am I going to do with you? "Dirty girl."

"You like it."

"Not wrong."

---

Midway through your second week, it's early when you both start off your chores for the day. You try to pacify the idea of you two being some sort of post-apocalyptic cowboys on a homestead that barely has the proper tools to sustain it half the time. It works for the both of you.

Outside the air is thick, but sky clear as you walk towards the stables. And there's Joel, exactly where you knew he would be. Bent down on his knees, working on the same project you were last week on the stables.

Security and routine close cousins to abandonment and disappointment – this plays in the background of your thoughts. You intentionally swallow it down as you approach him.

"Could I ride her?" You come into his line of vision, and you see him make a sweet face of happy to see you and did I hear you correctly?

"You can ride?" His question has amusement in it, and you scoff – grin tugging at your face. Ignoring the blatant double entendre that he probably didn't even mean to slip out, anyway. But Joel is pleased when you pick up on it because he did in fact say it on purpose.

Of course he did.

"I have a few tricks up my sleeve yet, Miller."

Joel grunts on his way up onto his feet, bowing graciously. "Go right ahead, ma'am."

She's set up to ride when you approach her and you reach out to scratch behind her ear before saddling up on top of her.

"Hey, girl," you smile, petting over the coarse hair of her back. She's gentle, but not exactly willing to go straight away. It makes you laugh, and the ease of tension makes it easier for her to trot. "Same here, sister." You snicker to yourself, and the horse takes you out of the stables. You mostly let her do the leading, but she's easy to work with as you take her around the land Joel has claimed for himself.

There's a freedom you haven't experienced in so long while you're riding her. You remember being a kid on the back of your dad's horse, the wind against your skin like this. The prospect of new. You slow her down in your approach back to the stables after a few minutes.

When you come back, you're welcomed by Joel's clapping hands a toothy smile across his face that hurts in the best way. His pride and entertainment.

Joel basking in this side of you as you open up to him.

"Damn, maybe you could give me some lessons, darlin'. You teach yourself that?"

You appreciate him not assuming someone taught you how to do this, but the truth is you were. "My dad, actually. He taught me how to ride a horse, how to shoot a gun–"

"Not well on that last one," he jabs, motioning towards his leg you purposefully missed.

"You don't know what you don't know."

For a moment, you forget. All that burned to the ground in your previous life. Your father dying in your arms. All of it.

"She and I had a talk," you start, climbing out of the stirrups.

"Oh, did you?" Joel lifts his brow, urging you to go on.

"Her name is Bandit."

"Like you?"

"Like me."

"Figures."

---

You're both asleep up in the loft. Each morning, you were beginning to notice that Joel's night terrors were becoming less and less frequent. Subsequently, so were your own.

That was until one night you were awoken by the sound of your own sobbing, and Joel's arms tight around you. He knew not to wake you up, but he was too concerned not to try to settle you down.

"W-what?" Your voice is groggy, palpitations in your chest high. Confusion suffuses you.

"Shh, s'okay. Close y'er eyes."

Joel feels bad for waking you up, he didn't mean to. He thought he was doing the right thing. Yet even though it takes takes you awhile to fall back asleep, you do fall asleep and stay asleep.

His arm stuck around you. His protection like a blanket.

Joel's eyes stay open until they cannot and slumber creeps up for him.

All in the pursuit of your safety. He doesn't mention it, doesn't ask questions or bring it up.

---

It feels pleasant with Joel. The two of you have a routine of working on your individual duties in the day, but you always come back to each other in the evening. He's rough around the edges, there's still things that he's keeping to himself. But you don't mind because you are too, and there's no rush.

The leisure of this is what takes you by surprise the most. Not Joel being kind, or slow, or even sweet to you.

It's the fact that in the middle of chaos, you have found a pocket of serenity. The stillness between breaths.

Towards the end of your second week at Joel's, you find it brave to drape your calves over his lap while you both read worn books that have been well-loved and repeatedly grazed. In the living room you've chosen poetry tonight. Audre Lorde. Because it's there and it feels appropriate to go for poetry.

You hum to yourself when you read something striking, and now Joel is curious.

"Let's hear it," he calls, not moving his eyes from his own pages and his free palm curls over your shin.

"You want me to perform for you?"

"Quit bein' weird and just read it."

You laugh, licking over your lips before theatrically clearing your throat.

"Kinda liked it better when you were shy," Joel adds, but you know he doesn't mean it.

"You'll get used to it. Okay. Let's see... 'Always / in the middle of our bloodiest battles / you lay down your arms / like flowering mines / to conqueror me home.'"

There's a long pause between the two of you.

"I don't get it."

"You're a bad liar."

"Flowerin' mines don't even exist."

"Joel–" you huff, but that's what he wanted out of you. A response, a reaction, a rise. He puts down his book to look over to you and he's at mercy to your gaze.

"I know what you mean."

It's supported, this comfortable silence. The underbelly of what was the start of a bloodied battle. Unwillingness metamorphosing into a budding bouquet of trust.

You both go back to your books.

No need to say what is right in front of you.

He knew what you meant. Understanding.

It was all you wanted.

taglist: @cool-iguana - comment to be added!

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