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icallhimjoey · 9 months

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YES! yes hurt me won with 82.4% and i cant WAIT to cry over bookstore joey once more! he has my full heart and i need him to violently sob over me whilst clinging on and telling me he loves me: bitch, do you worst!

HURT ME!

fine, bitch. just know that i hurt my own feelings writing this, and none of you will be eligible for compensation :) here's the bit of when bookstore!joe and you had the saddest fight you'd ever had with him from the series A Whisper Away - enjoy Wordcount: 4.1K

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But, I Love You

Date night.

You weren’t meant to be screaming at each other on date night. You rarely ever had date nights to begin with... maybe that was why you weren’t any good at them. But this disastrous? Neither of you had seen it coming.

Joe’d decided to mark a random Friday night in July in both your calendars as date night. With the store and the apartment empty, tidied up, and void of any immediate responsibility, you took a lot longer to get ready than you’d usually take.

Put some music on and took time to slowly do your make-up and to blend properly for once. Not that you looked any different in the end. You’d just been slower. Hadn’t rushed yourself until Joe said, “I’ll wait downstairs,” and you saw him walk past the opened bathroom door in a black trench coat.

You were going to look far too casual next to him in what you had on, so you quickly rushed your lip balm, sprayed your face with setting spray and went to find something else to wear. Something more sleek, and shinier, and... more black, for easy elegance.

You still looked casual.

Knew you’d look it especially next to Joe.

Didn’t know how to match Joe in smartness, even if you tried.

It wasn’t really a fair race if you were honest – fancy actor on a steady climb to more exciting things and bookstore owner that relished in the silence and comfort written words brought.

When you made your way down the stairs, out of the clouds of scents that hairspray, bodylotion and perfume left lingering, it was nice to step into the scent of books. Of old paper, and wooden shelves and old leather armchairs.

You weren’t going to lie, you amped that shit up by placing strategic scented candles around – never to be lit without supervision. Obviously.

Stepping into the store front, you expected Joe to maybe be tidying a little, like either of you would often do if you were in there for a little longer than a minute after closing. Straighten some shelves, pile some stray books that were left near the till, or even sweep the walkways a little.

Instead, Joe was just sat in one of the armchairs and seemed lost in thought. Not on his phone. Not holding a book. Just, looking up and around, but eyes quickly found you once you stepped into view.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he smiled, pushed his cheeks up and turned his eyes into slits.

“Sorry for making you wait,” you said, going to collect your keys from one of the drawers.

“That’s ok, we’ve got some time ‘til the reservation, we could even walk if we wanted,”

Rummaging, you noticed the keys to the front door weren’t where you thought you’d left them.

“Have you seen the–”

You heard them jingle in Joe’s hand before you looked up and smiled. Joe was already standing by the door.

“Walking’s fine, although, maybe not for the way back,” you said, revealing your heeled ankle boots when you stepped around the counter. “Or you’d have to be all right with holding me upright the whole way back,”

“Hmh, sounds romantic,”

“We’ll have eaten; you’ll be sluggish, and I’ll be extra heavy,”

“Yea, maybe not,” Joe said around a laugh, doorhandle in hand.

“Where are we going, again?” you slung an arm into a jacket. Sure, it was July, but it had been abnormally cold for the time of year. Felt more like autumn. Looked more like autumn too – grey skies, wet streets, wind.

When you mentioned the restaurant he picked, you froze.

Made eye-contact.

Dropped your shoulders.

Groaned as you tilted your head.

“Are you joking?”

Joe gave an awkward chuckle, looked confused. “Why would I be joking? You know I know Maurice,”

The head chef.

“Yea, but that’s like... that place is one big room with window’s all ‘round. Can we not go? Not there, anyway? You’ll be stared at all night.”

You would both be stared at all night.

Joe just shrugged. Scrunched his nose up a little.

“So? Let them stare. I’ll only have eyes for you anyway.”

And you knew it was meant to be cute. Meant to make your stomach twist and have it flutter with butterflies, because your boyfriend just said he wouldn’t even notice people paying attention to him because he only wanted to pay attention to you. It should have made you smile, giggle, blush a little, but instead, it made you grimace.

“Joe,” you pleaded. “It’s Friday as well.”

“It’ll be fine,” Joe said, voice carrying humour as he wildly beckoned you towards the door that he was still holding open, hoping that you’d step through already so he could lock it behind you.

You didn’t move, though.

“No, please, I’m seriously not... I don’t want to go out with Joe Quinn,”

Joe sighed. Let his head drop.

“Have my family group chat fill with photos of us with our mouths half open shoveling pasta in – that’s not,” you sighed. “That’s no fun for me, I’ll be on edge all night eyeing for girls who secretly have their phones out... can we just...” you looked around the store. “Can we maybe get take out and have a meal in here? Do a cute picnic?”

Joe grew more annoyed by the second and slowly closed the door. Turned to stand in front of it, both hands in his pockets, and then was quiet for a bit as he looked at you. After a few seconds he shrugged, and you knew he meant, what the fuck am I supposed to do with this?

“We don’t have to have it in here,”

The bookstore had been a touchy subject for a while now. But you’d changed the opening times for Joe – you were now closed on Sundays, and you opened late on Monday morning. And Anne worked the most hours she’d ever worked, because financially that was easy to manage now, and that also it meant that you didn’t have to work late every day.

You hadn’t wanted to change the opening times initially. Felt like Joe was forcing you out of your job, what with him wanting to move out of the apartment above it as well and all. But two weeks in, you had a whispered conversation in bed in which you confessed that it was nice to be able to stay in bed a little longer on Sundays. Have slow breakfasts together. Have Anne do the things you’d normally do after opening hours during her shift. Joe’d only made fun for a second, made you tell him he was right and wouldn’t stop poking you in the ribs until you squealed the words out.

“We could also... go someplace else?” you were the one to shrug this time, but yours was more unsure, more hopeful because you wanted Joe to smile and say, “Sure, of course, whatever makes you feel more comfortable.”. That wasn’t what you got, though.

Before Joe said anything, he pushed both heels of his hands into his eyes.

Fuck.

You were going to have a fight. You didn’t know if Joe knew, but pushing his palms into both eyes was his tell.

“No, never mind,” you quickly backtracked.

You’d sit in a restaurant on edge all night if it meant evading a fight.

“Let’s go,” you stepped closer, wanted to reach for the door behind Joe, but he didn’t move. Instead, he grabbed the arm that reached and stilled you.

“What is it...” Joe started, eyes still closed. “What is it about– why can’t we...” he searched for the right words.

“We can,” you tried, but they were the wrong words if you were to go by the grip that strengthened on your arm.

“Clearly we can’t, I’m not... I’m not going to take you somewhere you don’t want to go,” he looked at you then, eyes all sad but definitely annoyed. “It’s just, it's the reasoning is what gets me, doesn’t it?”

Not a question for you to answer.

“It’s like you don’t want to be seen with me, so, then what? We just never go out for a meal ever again?”

That’s not what you meant.

“That’s not what I–”

“Can’t go out with Joe Quinn on the off chance that someone recognises me,”

Joe said it like that had never happened before. Like there weren’t still people visiting the bookstore on the daily in the hopes of running into Joe. Like there weren’t girls who walked past the windows and peered inside to make sure Joe wasn’t in before they’d look away again. Like every conversation you had with a stranger didn’t at some point suddenly turn into a question-and-answer session about Joe that you didn’t know how to politely get out of.

“Joe,” you tried for the door again, but Joe was the one to step further into the store now, signaling he wasn’t planning on stepping out with you just yet.

“I’ve been out, had dinner at lovely restaurants like... six or seven times this past month, and, I’ve not been bothered by anyone. No, I did, maybe once, but it was fine, it’s always kind people, nothing bad,”

“No, I know,” you didn’t know, but you wanted this to stop just as quickly as it had started.

“Never mind what I said, you’re probably right, let’s get going,” you gestured at the door, but didn’t step closer. You needed Joe to give you an inch before you’d do so.

Joe didn’t give you an inch. Sighed deeply instead and stared out the window a second.

“Sometimes... sometimes I think you don’t want this,”

Joe was right. You didn’t want to go out with your boyfriend and have people ogle all night. You didn’t want Joe to be all glossy and clean shaven and styled in a coat worth two grand, no matter how good he looked. You didn’t like Joe gone half the year, and didn’t like Joe growing in his success because that only meant more of all the negative things.

You wanted Joe soft and scruffy, with a book in his lap, sat in one of the armchairs in the window on a slow Tuesday morning when you’d get to make coffee for him and when Anne would tell you to stop staring at him because it was weird.

“That you don’t want to still do this with me,”

Oh.

No. No, you did want that.

“No, I do want that.” You were quick to state. Had to let Joe know that you did want to be with him.

“Yea, but,” Joe gestured. Meant, then what the fuck is it with you not wanting to go out for dinner with me?

You sighed a long breath, one that turned into a grunt at the end.

“It’s just that... I’m not in the mood to go for dinner with the whole world, you know?” because pictures would get taken and would circle the globe in TikTok videos where they’d zoom in and out set to music. “I just want to have a nice meal with you...”

“Which is what I planned for,”

“Yea, but...” you tilted your head. Gave Joe a face with scrunched up eyebrows. Joe knew you meant that that’s not how things worked out there. Going out in a busy area where Joe had had his picture taken in the streets before was the opposite of going for a quiet meal together.

It was quiet for a bit, and you hoped that maybe the cogs in Joe’s mind would guide him into making a decision. You’d go with either one. Would sit in a popular restaurant with him. Would have your picture taken by a sneaky phone badly hidden behind a music. Would much rather go somewhere where they could hide the two of you in the back somewhere, but, whatever Joe’d choose, you decided you were just going to go with it.

Was easier that way.

But Joe stayed silent. Stared at the floor a second.

“Remember that first year of us knowing each other?” you suddenly said, hoping to shift the mood. “Where you’d come in and would just... be around? Before we even had Anne working here?”

It was the weirdest but also the best time you think you’d ever had in the store. Of course, memories involuntarily got romanticized – your brain left out half the bad shit that happened, made you forget about the hardships and stressful days, but made you remember Joe and his fluffy hair, in his wrinkled linen shirts of which the buttons sometimes strained a bit around his chest and some skin would peep through.

You hadn’t even introduced yourself to Joe, but had learned how he liked his coffee and would give him a steaming mug of it whenever he’d been sat reading in one of the chairs for over an hour.

“No one ever recognised you in here,” you reminisced, couldn’t help but look over at the chair that was now Joe’s chair, even though he barely sat in it anymore.

“If I’d asked you to go for a meal then, you wouldn’t have gone either,”

Ouch.

Your neck almost cracked with how fast it turned to look at Joe. He seemed unimpressed.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s not like you were that different back then,”

He was right. You hadn’t changed much at all, but, that wasn’t the point.

“No, but... it was nice to be around you and have it involve no one else,” and you willed a small smile onto your face, because you hoped maybe Joe would copy it. Would agree with you. Would stop this path towards more mean words and would just tell you what was going to happen for dinner because you were getting hungry and felt the itch to get out of there in your feet.

“I’m not going to put on a show and play myself but four year ago,”

“That’s not what I’m asking!”

“Then what? What are you asking?”

“I’m asking for us to go have our date night... we can still make the reservation, see Maurice, have him cook us beautiful food, I just... let’s go, I want to go,” with a little more confidence, you touched the door handle like Joe had done before.

Joe narrowed his eyes a little at you, as if suspicious, and deep in thought.

“Do you think that was when we peaked? When we wouldn’t even talk to each other properly?”

For a second you didn’t believe you heard that right.

“What?”

“When I didn’t know you lived upstairs and you googled me every night?”

“Oh my God,” you scoffed, offended. You did not google Joe every night, and Joe fucking knew it.

“When all I knew about you is that you ran this store? And you wouldn't fucking tell me anything else about you, ever? Was the fantasy of being with me better than–”

“Stop!”

You were surprised by the sudden volume of your voice.

“Stop it! No! Of course not! Jesus Christ, Joe, is that what you think?”

Joe looked pissed off as he breathed through flared nostrils, brow all furrowed in your direction.

“Is that what you think I think?”

“If that’s not it, then what is it?”

Yea, all right. This was just going to be a fight then. Fuck dinner.

You let go of the door handle and stepped away from it, more towards the counter. Further away from Joe who was stood nearer the windows, closer to the armchairs.

“It’s what I just said! It’s...”

There was more. You stopped by the counter, placed your hands on top and hung into your shoulders, head hung down. You were already regretting saying what you hadn’t said yet but decided to go for it anyway. Now seemed as good a time as any.

“It’s that... I can’t remember the last time I didn’t actively miss you, with your work, and your–”

“I’m right here. Right now. I’m here.” Joe held two arms out wide to demonstrate.

“And still!” you exclaimed, eyes all wide, slightly bent at the hips to get the words out closer to him.

Joe’s facial expression immediately softened yours – no one needed to see the hurt they’d caused reflected back at them through someone else’s eyes.

“I miss you, I’m missing you right this very second and I don’t...” you faltered, exhaled through flared nostrils and tried to pick the right thing to say from all of your swimming thoughts.

“Remember when we used to be apart for like four weeks and be fine?”

“I’d still miss you,”

“And I’d miss you too, but, I’d get things done, I’d still see my friends all the time, I’d still have fun, and then we’d call and I’d have all these things to tell you about, and then you’d tell me about the place you were at, and the people you were meeting and, yes, I would miss you, but it was never the gut-wrenching sort of missing you I do nowadays,”

What had changed?

You knew the answer.

“Now, when you’re away, I don’t even feel like I can function properly – everything is overwhelming and,” you winced at yourself before you said, “And I get so jealous that you just get to step out of all of this for a second, and I don't want to resent you for anything, I truly don't,”

“You want out?”

Joe didn't mean the relationship. He couldn't mean the relationship. He probably meant the store, referenced the thing you said about everything being overwhelming - that had to be what he meant.

“No, I don’t want out, but it feels unfair that you’re constantly leaving me to deal with all of it by myself,”

“You don’t have to deal with it by yourself,”

“I know I don’t! Doesn’t change the way I feel, though, does it?”

Another silence fell where Joe let himself fall into his armchair.

You want out?

Joe could not fucking mean the relationship.

Couldn't.

The silence was deafening, but you didn't want to be the one to break it. Joe asked if you wanted out. Was staring out the window now, after having just asked you if you wanted out.

What if you were out?

Just... for a second?

It was not like Joe's fame was going to stop growing all of a sudden. All of this was already hard enough as it was, but it was only going to get more difficult, wasn't it?

You tapped an impatient fingernail on the counter and saw how Joe turned his head more away from you.

Out.

The careful door that word had opened in your mind was scary. It creaked on its hinges and behind it, everything was a little dark, but, it felt like an out was exactly what you needed.

Out.

Just for a second.

You inhaled a sharp breath and let it out slowly, cheeks puffed out.

Out.

“Maybe I’m not made for this,” you repeated what you’d told Joe when you’d started the relationship. When you’d voiced your fears of making this a serious thing, and he’d been so reassuring, had told you that you’d be fine. More than fine.

Yet, look at where you were now.

Joe was in a ridiculously expensive coat and to measure up you pretended that your all black outfit was good enough.

It wasn't fucking good enough.

“I don’t think I can do this with you,” you were nearly whispering, afraid to hear the words come out of your own mouth.

They were vulnerable, made the area behind your eyes prickle, and you needed Joe to handle them with care.

“Of course you can’t fucking do this with me, what, with all the trouble it’s giving you,”

You got snappy sarcasm from him instead, insinuating that all of your worries and fears were unreasonable. Stupid. Not real. The thing you’d been scared of from the start was still looming over you so threateningly, and you were done with it.

Didn’t want that anymore.

Joe had said himself that you'd get to be with Joe. Not with Joe Quinn. You'd both known what that meant. You'd both been on the same page about that.

You were no longer with Joe.

You'd not been with Joe for a while now.

Had instead gotten to be with Joe Quinn, and you didn't want that.

And now, Joe was being mean about it.

The snarky sarcasm you got from Joe shot the last little bit of courage you needed into your system. They’d also shot tears into your eyes, and a weird numb feeling into your fingertips. But the courage was important, because the courage had been just enough for you to say,

“I think we need to take a little break from each other for a little while,”

You hadn’t been able to finish the sentence without tears escaping both eyes, and now each cheek felt a burning hot path being carved right down to your jaw where you wiped at them with a clammy hand.

It was like Joe’s mind registered what you’d said in slow motion.

You saw how his face fell. How his brows went from being impossibly low on his face, to knitting together up high. How his eyes went from narrow slits to big rounded wet ones. Ones that reflected those stupid Christmas lights that you’d put up that one time and then had never taken down again.

Joe tried to find a little hint of humour. Of this being a joke.

Instead he found trembling lips that tried to hide their shaking and eyes that were somehow both scared and determined at once.

“No,” Joe got up, waited for you to take the words back. Hovered near the chair with his mouth slightly open, face reading nothing but sheer shock that turned into desperation when you didn’t say anything.

You couldn't be fucking serious, could you?

You just stood there, by the counter, leaning into your shoulders whilst tears ran down your face.

“No,” Joe said again, making his way over now.

Out.

Joe had spat the question at you, but had never even considered the thought of you actually taking it there.

“Take it back,” Joe pleaded, now next to you, an elbow leaning on the counter to round out and face you. But you’d let your head fall forwards, had closed your eyes, made tears fall onto the counter in little drops and tried to deal with the overwhelming feeling of relief at getting the words out.

“Take those words back, we’re not–”

You shook your head and let a sob escape.

“No, stop that, we’re not going on a break, you take those words back,” you heard Joe's throat close up as he spoke, voice sounding more constricted with every word.

Joe was crying too now, and as much as you wanted to turn and hug Joe, you didn’t.

You weren’t going to take the words back.

“I think I want out for a little while,” you managed to squeeze out, head lifted and looking Joe in the eye.

You wished you hadn’t.

Hadn’t looked him in the eye.

Seeing the person you loved – and you did love him, so much, almost an unbearable amount – break right down the centre right in front of you was the worst thing you’d probably ever seen.

Joe ripped in half.

Broke down.

Fell apart like a book would do if you ripped off the spine. Pages everywhere. Front and back cover useless now.

“No,” Joe cried, voice hoarse, and he sunk.

His knees hit the floor hard, and you were pulled into a hug around your hips. Around your waist. All anger was gone now, no more snarky comments or risky questions left in him. Just sad desperation that tried to hold onto what the two of you once were together.

You knew that you hadn’t been that in a while, now.

Out still sounded good when Joe started murmuring things into your hip.

Out still sounded good when Joe’s grip grew stronger, and his sobs got louder until they got violent and hurt his throat.

Out still sounded good when Joe pleaded and begged and said the same things over and over as you cried silent tears above him, the only tell being the way you had to sniffle on every inhale.

“But I love you,”

You loved him too, but couldn’t say it back. It’d send the wrong message.

“Take the words back,”

You couldn’t. Didn’t want to take them back.

“I love you, I’m sorry, I,” Joe paused for a wet sob, “I love you, I love you, take the words back, take,” a deep inhale, “take them back, we can’t, I love you.”

Date night.

“I love you.”

Out.

“I love you.”

Out still sounded good.

---

The Taglisted

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(taglist currently full, sorry)

#Joe Quinn #Joseph Quinn #Joe Quinn x You #Joseph Quinn x You #Joe Quinn x Reader #Joseph Quinn x Reader #Joe Quinn Fanfic #Joe Quinn fanfiction #Joseph Quinn Fanfic #Joseph Quinn Fanfiction #joe quinn x y/n #joseph quinn x y/n #rpf #bookstore!joe #a whisper away #but i love you #ANGST #hurt no comfort

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