Rise
Joel Miller x afab!reader
Warnings/Tags: 18+. Jackson Joel, Touch starved Joel, Lonely old man Joel. Too much religious imagery. Feelings, feelings, feelings. References to sex. Unedited.
Words: 700~
Summary: You are a brightness, Joel is the undeserving dark.
He hadn’t meant to stare, he really hadn’t.
The thing is, you were just so mesmerizing. The way you laughed and the way you danced and the way you could shine so bright in a world he had rarely known to be anything but cruel.
Jackson brought that out of people, Joel recognised that. The ability to let go finally, to live for more than survival. You had been half the bright star you are now when you first arrived; wary and traumatised. He knew those feelings well. Why had he held on to them for so much longer than anyone else?
You were like the antithesis to him: easy to know, easy to love, creating something out of the nothing your life had once been. You were well liked. Joel liked you more, he thought, but people saw you as someone they could talk to.
Tommy often told Joel he was respected in Jackson, appreciated. But it was never the same. He doesn’t have that glow, that brilliance. People know him. No one knows him. Not since Ellie had started to grow away from him, started to doubt him more…
No, not now. Those thoughts aren’t for now.
Right now, this moment, is for reverence. How had this happened? He had been staring more than he should last night at The Tipsy Bison. How had that lead you to be in his bed this morning? He could barely remember; the night a blur of things he didn’t think he should have been allowed to see. He had bought you a drink, you had given him a dance. And then more, and more. You had given him so much more.
Joel is staring again, your resting form so resplendent in the early morning light. So…divine…there’s no other word for it. You were made to be worshiped, he’s sure of it. Being of blazing light brought down to shine on his dimmed world.
When was the last time he had been touched before you? God, he truly doesn’t remember. Certainly not the way you touch; softness of your fingers paving the way for a needy grip on him, he wouldn’t forget that touch. He had been craving it for too long, imagining. Thought upon thought of what a thing your touch could be but he was never prepared for the reality of it.
Joels own hands find their way to you, fingers skimming the bare skin of your lower back. Unworthy. So defiant that his unworthy hands - so rough from years of wear - should get to lay a place on your body.
The word repeats again and again. Unworthy. Unworthy. Unworthy.
And yet last night you had told him in the silken whisper of your moans and pleas. Worthy. Worthy. Worthy.
His calloused hand travels its way slowly up the path of your back. A pilgrimage across a body meant for more than him. The rise and fall of your breath breathes fresh air in to the staleness of his home.
Of his heart.
What did he do to deserve this? What mistake did you make to let him have this?
Grey and alone and aching in ways that go beyond physical. But you were the one who kissed him first. You were the first to touch, to feel where he had not been felt in longer than he knew.
Joel leans slowly across to you. Those harsh fingers of his trailing down the curve of your waist. He dares to plant a pious kiss to your shoulder. Surely soon you’ll wake and realise the mistake?
“Joel” You moan. A soft little thing that makes his heart jump. The same way you’d spoke it last night while he’d had you on his lap, when he’d told you to come and you had like he should have any say in anything you did.
Fuck. He is undeserving of all of this but his greedy heart wants more. Hungry mouth wants to take you apart on it over and over again. Eager fingers itching to feel their way around every beautiful, delicate crook of your body.
He breathes your name back. You turn to him. Surely now is the time you tell him it was wrong. Now…
Joel’s breath catches as you turn to face him, pull him to you. He practically trembles as your lips meet again.
This can’t last forever. He doesn’t deserve it.
It means too much.
He means too little.
You kiss him again. He feels the glow of you everywhere.
This can’t last forever, he reminds himself.
869 notes
·
View notes
the train to nowhere (tag: #the train to nowhere)
hebe and vijaya work at the emporium, a bookshop with a secret: in the back room, there is a portal to the afterlife. once a year, the dead come to the land of the living on holiday. but when morgan's little brother gets trapped inside the afterlife morgan, hebe and vijaya have to go and rescue him
characters
🎮 morgan trevisa 🎮 (tag: #morgan)
🧸 hebe brannan 🧸 (tag: #hebe)
📚 vijaya sharma 📚 (tag: #vijaya)
0 notes