#miller and jackson

[sinsofsummers]

sensational

6.9k | joel miller & f!innocent!reader part two

this comes from this request. a few liberties were taken with the details (the reader knows that sex exists, but not much else), just fyi!

summary: thanks to becoming an orphan at age 13, you've lived the rest of your life oblivious to all the world can offer. now that you're in jackson, joel miller ignites something in you that only he can give answers to. warnings: slight angst (mentions of parent loss), innocent!fem!reader, age gap (joel is 56, reader is 25), kind of pervy!joel, smut (18+, mdni!!!), fingering, grinding, reader watches old pornos with joel, slight praise kink, no use of y/n. note: i planned originally to have this be just one part, but even though it ends in a way that i like, i could maybe be convinced to write a second part teehee (part two coming soon!)

You used to love the rain. The way it cascaded down your skin in little droplets, cleansing your body from a hard day's work, and the way it made your hair look so perfectly disheveled.

You craved the rain, until it became nothing but a reminder of the night your parents died.

It had been years at this point, but you would never quite forget how young, and small, and unsuspecting you'd been when they told you to run. How cruel, that time might pass, you might change, but with one smattering of rain, you returned so swiftly to the worst night of your life.

The three of you had been living alone, making your way...somewhere, but they never told you where. Your parents' only wish was to keep you safe, that much was clear. So it shouldn't have been a surprise that upon an ambush by at least ten clickers, after both your parents had been infected, that they'd insist that you run.

"Please, darling," your mother had pleaded, a lump in her throat as she formed the words. "Don't make me beg. I need you to run. Promise?"

Your father was somewhere else, but you could hear him yelling in the distance, in a fight for his life. You were too young, even at thirteen, to understand that those were the sounds of a dying man.

"I'll be right behind you," she'd choked on the last phrase, and in hindsight, you knew she was lying. But in the moment, you'd believed her. You couldn't see the bite she was hiding on her arm, her fate already sealed. "I'll come for you, my love," she insisted, "but I need you to go. Head for the woods."

It was the last time you saw her. You'd turned tail and had run as fast as you could for the woods.

The last thing you heard was a gunshot. A single shot, echoing around you in the trees. It may have been impossible to know, but you didn't need to turn back. Your parents were dead.

If you hadn't found Jackson, who knows how long you might have lasted. Nearing your twenty-first year, you'd proven valuable to the community, and they'd welcomed you in. Jackson was the first home you'd had since you were five.

It hadn't occurred to you that you were years behind your peers in terms of...well, everything, until you met Joel.

Rugged, tan, and sporting a perpetual frown paired with an ever-present crease between his brows, Joel Miller was your patrol partner. You weren't exactly sure why, and he didn't seem particularly pleased about it, but then again—he never seemed particularly pleased about anything.

It hadn't struck you as anything to be proud of, or to boast about to the other young women in Jackson, but they certainly loved coming up to you and expressing their jealousy when they felt so inclined.

"What's he like on patrol?" they'd ask, their eyes wide and lips curled in smirks as they waited for any insight you could give them on his mysterious personality.

All you could ever say over the next four years was a quick, "He's quiet."

Maybe that was why the two of you worked well. He wasn't much of a talker, and after you'd lost your parents, you hadn't been one to waste any breath on conversation, especially when you had survived alone with your own thoughts for almost eight years.

Silence was your mutual understanding. No talking meant no questions, and no questions meant no problems.

And this worked. Until it didn't.

-- -- --

It started like anything started. Quietly, hardly a bother, until it sank into the marrow of your bones and demanded that you address it.

More literally, it started in your shoulders. You'd been on patrol with Joel, a quiet, "Let's go," his only words to you that morning. They were his only words to you every morning, and that day was no different.

Patrolling with him was easy. Like you'd said—no talking, so no problems. You rode next to each other on your respective horses, and there was nothing more than a glance or two toward each other when necessary. It was the only form of communication that the two of you shared.

His big brown eyes had always startled you, looking so inviting in the contrast of the white snow during the winter, but they never showed you more than he allowed you to see. And all you saw of Joel was his dedication to sleep, patrol, eat, and repeat.

You hadn't felt the desire to look that closely at him until some of the girls in Jackson asked you how big his hands were, or what he looked like up close.

"You know," one of them had crooned, not realizing you were unsure of their intentions, "what does he look like without that big old coat on?"

You'd shrugged. "Why should I know?"

Another one wiggled her eyebrows. "Doesn't it get...lonely out there? Nothing but you, the snow, and a big man like Joel to keep you company?"

The faces of those girls, the glint in their eyes, it was something you couldn't quite decipher, as much as you wished you could. So one day, you'd asked the man himself what it all meant.

When you said it for the first time, it was so quiet that you could hardly even hear yourself.

Joel grunted, the only indication that he'd heard you.

Your cheeks burned, but you couldn't find a reason why. This was just Joel. He seemed to know everything there was to know about life; surely he could help you understand this. "Why do the girls in town keep asking me what it's like to patrol with you?"

He didn't answer for a second, but then shrugged. "They botherin' you?"

"No." You weren't quite sure that was true, and knowing him, he could probably hear the lie in your voice. "They're just kind of...belligerent."

His eyebrow cocked. "S'a big word," he mused. "Sure you know what it means?"

Your cheeks grew hot. "Yes," you insisted sharply. "I do read, you know."

He murmured a response, but the wind carried it away from you. You rode in silence for a bit longer before he said, "Don't let those girls get in your head. I think they just wanna get a rise outta you."

"A rise?"

Joel nodded and brought his horse to a routine stop. This was where the two of you always stretched your legs. He reached up to help you down your own mount and set you on the ground gingerly. "You know," he said, as if you should know, but with no regard for the fact that you didn't. "You're still kinda new here. Seems they're still pretty dead-set on embarrassin' you."

"I'm not embarrassed," you insisted again. "I just...is there a joke I'm not getting?"

"Any reason you chose to talk so much today?" was his only answer, which made your stomach clench.

There was no reason for you to be offended, as it was your typical routine to remain quiet unless absolutely necessary, but you couldn't help the way your lips curved downward. "Sorry," you mumbled, "forget I asked."

He was quiet again as the two of you walked at least two hundred paces, stretching out your sore muscles in the snow. It used to be comforting, the silence. It wasn't maddening, it didn't ever bother you if Joel was in his thoughts. You weren't even sure at times if he had any. But all that had changed now; his brow creased more than it usually did, and you wanted nothing more than to ask him what he was thinking.

Joel was the one constant in your life now. Maybe it was a—well, probably it was a trauma response from losing your parents, but you couldn't help it. You didn't need much from anyone, just someone to stay. Joel was strong enough to take care of himself and was smart enough not to make any rash decisions. As far as you could tell, he'd stay.

So how could you be so embarrassed by asking these questions?

"I forgot how long you said you were...alone out there," his grunting voice filled the space between you once more. It was quiet, and he sounded hesitant, as if he wasn't sure how to speak.

"Since I was thirteen," you said mechanically, so familiar with others in Jackson asking the same question.

"Shit," he cursed under his breath. "And you're how old?"

"Twenty-five," you said, feeling oddly small in his presence.

He shook his head. "That's a long time to be alone," he muttered, blowing out a breath.

You huffed. "Yeah, well, I survived. And besides, I've been here for four years now, you know."

"I know."

Again, the silence. Infuriating.

Then, you couldn't help it. "What's...'spooning,' and why do those girls ask me if we've done it?"

Joel stumbled, reaching out for balance. His hand found purchase on your shoulder, and you caught him awkwardly. "You don't even know what spooning is?" He sounded incredulous, as if you'd asked a juvenile question.

The warmth from his hand was astonishing, and distracted you from your embarrassment, if only for a moment. It sank through his glove into your coat, and down toward your skin. Something about the weight of his hand on your shoulder, even for a second as he removed it quickly, was enough to send you spiraling.

Your face burned. "Never mind," you said quietly and mounted your horse again. How stupid could you get? You scolded yourself. You'd ventured too far into this conversation, and now you didn't know how to get yourself out of it. "I was just...never mind. We should get back."

He nodded, but his face still looked somewhat pinched. "Yeah. S'getting dark."

The sun was still up. No intention of sinking beneath the horizon for at least a few hours. You rode again in uncomfortable silence, this time letting it fill the space. You foolishly thought that maybe if you were quiet long enough, he'd forget that you'd made a fool of yourself, that you'd exposed yourself to the truth: that you knew hardly anything about...anything except for survival instincts.

When Joel spoke again, it surprised you. "I didn't mean to tease ya," he said. "It's just kind of a surprise that you're not...that you don't..." he looked over at you, and there was some type of pleading in his eyes, as if he were begging you not to make him say it.

"That I don't what?" you said dumbly, hoping you didn't sound as childish as you felt.

He pondered his next words carefully, and then he hummed, "If you want, I could...teach you some stuff."

"Like spooning?" You felt a warmth in your face as you watched his shoulders hunch with a soft laughter. Your own shoulder burned where he'd touched it, and something bloomed in your gut.

He chuckled. "I don't know about all that," he said, "but I'll help you get...back on track. Would hate for someone to take advantage of your...innocence." It sounded sinful, the way he said it, and the something in your gut pulsed.

"You don't have to," you shook your head, but you didn't even believe the words as they came out of your mouth. "I'll just ask someone else."

"Darlin', don't trust anyone else to give you straight answers. I'm older'n half of everyone in Jackson, anyway." He flashed you a look. "I'll help. Whatever you want to know."

You bit the insides of your cheeks, your stomach turning strangely. "Anything?"

He nodded dutifully, but his eyes had already left yours. Joel Miller, ever the professional. "Whatever you want."

-- -- --

Joel liked to consider himself someone who would never again suffer the shock of surprises. After having lived through and seen more shit than any normal person could, he thought he'd experienced it all.

That is, until her pretty lips had opened and asked him to teach her about all she'd missed. Until she asked him to teach her.

He hadn't really seen her as the picture of innocence until he'd heard how long she'd been alone, surviving with no one and nothing besides her own thoughts and the clothes on her back.

The least her parents could do was teach her how to shoot, he'd thought when he first met her. It was a curiosity that was quickly resolved, as she'd proven herself valuable to Jackson.

Tommy had wasted no time putting them on patrol together. "It'll be good for you," his brother had reasoned when he brought up concerns. "You know, to talk to someone out there. I know she's on the young side, but you don't gotta fall in love with her." He'd flashed an apologetic smile when Joel had scowled. "You're scarin' everyone, Joel. Bein' all quiet and shit...it's—"

"It's what?" he'd asked gruffly. "I don't do it on purpose. I'm a grown man."

This was all true, and he very much didn't do it on purpose. With no one around whom he deemed worthy of his conversation, Joel Miller had become the quiet, introspective version of himself that everyone decided to become scared of all of a sudden.

The way he saw things? It wasn't his fault everyone in Jackson was boring. Or childish.

But her. With her unmistakable will to survive and those eyes that could burn fierce with ire one moment, and soften with curiosity the next...it was only a matter of time before he agreed to do whatever she asked.

He should have seen it coming, especially considering her past. Every time he thought of just how...unsuspecting she was about...everything, he had to shake his head, clearing it of any thoughts that threatened to take advantage of her.

But being ignorant of spooning. He had to clear his throat every time he thought of what that might mean for himself in this particular arrangement. If she knew nothing of something so...palatable, he could hardly help himself when thinking of what else she might be unaware of.

He tried to be patient, and he tried to be respectful, but at the end of the day, he was Joel Miller. From the moment she looked at him with those wide eyes, he was lost.

-- -- --

"What I would give to give that man the ride of his life," one of the girls next to you hummed at breakfast the next morning, her eyes presumably glued to Joel, who'd just come into the cafeteria. You didn't look up at him, instead casting a confused glance toward the girl who'd spoken.

"Ride where?" You cursed your quick instinct to ask questions, as the girls erupted into a fit of giggles. Face burning, you looked down again at your plate. "Never mind," came your almost instantaneous response. You were getting used to having to apologize for your ignorance, and people rarely—especially not these girls—offered their kindness.

One of the other girls snickered. "Why don't you ask him? I'm sure there's nothing much to talk about out there anyway," she said, smiling widely. Her next words were nothing short of a drawl, the complete essence of mockery. "'Joel, what's it mean to ride?'" she pinched her face in what you assumed was an impression of you, and it only made your eyebrows furrow despite your stomach sinking in utter horror.

And then there he was. He'd called your name, and now he was standing behind your left shoulder, hand outstretched to save you.

You were sure his hand had never looked quite as appealing as it did now. The calluses on his palm were raised and visibly rough. For a moment, you stared at his fingers and wondered what they might feel like against your cheek.

Swallowing a lump in your throat, that something arose in your gut once more before you heard him murmur your name again.

"Come on," he grunted, but there was a gentleness to it that made the hair on the nape of your neck stand on end. "Time to go."

The girls at your table were silent when you took his hand gingerly and let him lead you from the cafeteria. You noted the swift wave of cold that hit your hand as soon as he dropped it, just a second later. Clasping your hands together, you hoped in a fit of desperation that you might preserve some of the weight and warmth of his touch on your skin. It failed.

"Thanks," you said later, when the two of you were outside the community's borders. Jackson felt a bit too stuffy for any real admissions of gratitude, you'd decided. It turned out to be a good conclusion when you felt the delicious churn of your stomach at the idea of being alone with him once more.

I'm sure there's nothing much to talk about out there anyway, one of the girls had said. Doesn't it get lonely out there? You were reminded of another's teasing, and this time your cheeks burned at the memory. Nothing but you, the snow, and a big man like Joel to keep you company.

He was big, you considered. When he stood next to you, his frame was almost larger than life, and his shoulders were sinfully broad when you watched him walk in front of you on previous patrols. The sheer size of him was enough to send you into a heady descent.

As usual, Joel didn't answer for what felt like ages, and you'd begun to wonder if he could see where your train of thought had led you. Then:

"You could have told me they were bein' that outrageous," he grunted, keeping his eyes forward. "I woulda helped you out sooner. S'no fun feelin' left outta everything."

It was...odd to hear such words come from a man like Joel. Although, you reminded yourself, you'd hardly spoken to him in the four years that you'd been in Jackson; who was to say he wasn't normally like this? A quiet, brooding older man, yes; but maybe he was naturally like this. One to offer his help.

"If you wanted to help, you would have made an effort four years ago." You let your words hang in the air. You didn't mean for them to come off sharp; it was simply the truth. "I don't need your help," you added, tightening your hands on the reins of your horse and swallowing roughly. "It was fine. I am fine."

He flashed you a look as if to say, is that so? You couldn't help but notice the way the corners of his eyes creased, the only sign of amusement. It was all you could do to keep your eyes on him, although you weren't sure how you were going to explain the way your mouth went dry at the sight of his big brown eyes.

"Besides," you insisted quietly, "you're not my dad."

Joel cleared his throat. Looked down, shoulders tense. Inhaled. "No," he said decidedly. "No, I'm not."

Emboldened by this clarification, you inquired, "So what did those girls mean earlier? Riding, I mean?"

If you could have guaranteed the image of Joel's eyes going wide in surprise to remain in your head for the rest of your days, you would have done it instantly. His forehead was creased as his eyebrows lifted, and despite his position facing away from you, you could see it all.

The way he seemed to wrestle with himself before answering, the way his hands seemed to clench in his gloves. "So, uh..." he started, and then paused again. Mustering up whatever courage he needed, Joel finished, "Well, ya see, when a man and woman love each other very much—"

"Joel." Oh. You couldn't help it when a breathless chuckle left your lips.

He was silent, and when he finally answered, it wasn't a question. "What."

"I'm not fucking stupid. I know how reproduction works."

Joel's chest rose and fell in a deep sigh, and you couldn't ignore the look of complete relief that washed over his rough features. "Thank fuckin' Christ. Didn't know if I had it in me for another sex talk. I'm too old to be doin' this."

"Believe it or not, my parents did leave me with the basic information." Swallowing roughly, you continued. "And I know...I know that men usually...take. It's an assertion of power, from what I've...seen."

He shook his head. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised that you've run into your fair share of dirtbags, even in the middle of the world goin' to shit." He ran a gloved hand through his hair, and you secretly enjoyed the way it stood up. "Anyone ever, you know...take...from you?"

Hearing your own words regurgitated back to you left you feeling fluttery. Shaking your head, you got down from your horse; you'd reached your typical resting spot. "No," you said firmly. "They never wanted me."

Joel nodded. "S'good," he said, and it bothered you to no end that you couldn't understand the emotion in his voice. "So..."

By now he was standing next to you, closer than you were used to, judging by the way his coat sleeve bumped yours as the two of you walked, stretching your legs. "So," you said, thinking up a way to make this conversation less awkward. "I just hate feeling like a kid again. I'm twenty-five, for fuck's sake. There's more than just survival when it comes to living. I just want to know what I'm missing out on," you confessed with a hand on your stomach.

When Joel brushed by your side again your stomach flipped. And what the fuck is that about, and why do I keep feeling it? You asked inwardly, but you were too nervous to ask. Bombarding Joel with questions, especially after you'd just started talking to him on patrol after four years, seeming to be the wrong path to take.

He shrugged, eyebrows still furrowed in thought. "There's nothing to miss if you don't know what you're missin'."

"Yes," you admitted, "but that doesn't stop any of those girls from making me feel like I'm..."

"Innocent?" he murmured, and you thought you weren't meant to hear it until he turned to look at you.

Those big brown eyes, they just won't quit, a voice nudged you in your head.

"I don't want to be innocent," you groaned, throwing your head back. "God, not in the sense that they see me in. Sounds like a damn curse."

The sound of his rumbling laughter, however quiet, sent a shock down your spine and you nearly tripped in the snow. "There's pros and cons, I s'pose," he offered. "It's like I said: I'll help you get back on track. If that's what you really want."

"It is." You stopped walking, took a look around at the landscape, otherwise empty with the scattering of trees. You swallowed, pressed one. "So...riding. It's a part of reproducing, then?"

He chuckled again, but this time it didn't come off as demeaning. It was like he was teasing you, but good-naturedly. "Let's not jump too far ahead of ourselves, yeah? Start with somethin' smaller. Then we'll work our way up."

Joel's eyes were piercing when he held yours in his gaze. If someone watched this conversation, you were sure they'd be able to see the blush blooming on your cheeks.

"Learnin' takes time, ya know," he mused, his growling voice nearly a hum that could have warmed you from the inside out.

You'd made it to the edge of the woods now. This was normally where you turned back, heading for home. But neither of you moved. The bubble of something pulsed again, and you swallowed roughly before whispering hoarsely, "So where should we start?"

-- -- --

If Joel were a better man, he might have warned her what the curse of innocence in a young woman could be. He might have shook his head, stepped back, and told her to ask someone else. He might have taken the reins and turned the two of them back toward Jackson.

If he were better, he wouldn't have stepped closer to her. If he were a better man, he wouldn't have looked into her sparkling eyes and let the question slip. Fuck it all.

"You ever been kissed, darlin'?"

-- -- --

You swallowed. Don't make a fool of yourself, you begged yourself before answering with a quiet shake of your head. "Not many contenders out there. Not any good ones, anyway."

He'd leaned closer to you with his question, and now you could practically see each line of age in his face. Joel's expression was unclear; he could have been pleased with this information or...or maybe there was pity in his eyes. "No," he said with an understanding nod. "No, I suppose there wouldn't have been."

He lifted a gloved hand to his mouth and you watched as he traced it along his lips. The gray strands in his hair glinted off the sunlight, blinking pleasantly in your eyes. That something pulsed once more in your stomach, and there was a sort of realization that came with it.

Joel, you thought. Joel is making me feel like this.

"Will you kiss me?" The words were out of your mouth before you could reel them in.

But instead of laughing, or scoffing, or giving any sign of mockery, Joel Miller inhaled quietly. "You know how much older I am than you?" he asked.

You nodded. "We're both adults, Joel. Besides," you felt a ghost of a smirk come to grace your lips, a feigned confidence coming to save you in this moment of truth. "I thought you told me to ask you these questions."

He sighed. "You're right."

"So? Will you?" you asked, with a small, "please?" coming out afterward.

He moved slowly, something you were equally thankful for as you were frustrated with, but his forehead met yours soon enough. His eyelashes brushed against your cheek, and he let out a shaky breath, letting it fan deliciously across your face. The knowledge that he was just as nervous as you were was not only a comfort; it was perhaps the most attractive thing you'd ever known.

And when you lifted your chin, just a hairsbreadth from his lips, your eyes fluttered closed, waiting for him to meet you in the middle. It only took a moment before he was closing his mouth over yours, and Joel Miller was kissing you.

He was gentle, of course, but there was something restrained about his kiss, the way he slowly slotted his lips over yours as if you might crack under any more pressure. It only made you want more, more, more...

You pressed your hands to his chest and curled them into fists, tugging his jacket to lessen the distance between your bodies even more. You didn't know how you were doing this, how you'd managed to find confidence in what could have easily been a humiliating experience. Your first kiss at twenty-five? With anyone else, it might have been a nightmare.

With Joel, it was turning out to be the most delightful dream.

"So soft, baby," he pulled back to whisper against your mouth. "These lips are so soft for me."

You hummed your response and pulled him back to you, letting him see that you wanted more. That incessant pressure was building, and it wasn't until he had his arms sliding around your waist that you forced yourself to pull back, head spinning. "Joel."

He blinked. "What? Too fast?" He shook his head. "I'm sorry, darlin', you're just so—"

"No, that's not it." You managed a weak smile, but the look in his eye, the question and the undeniable desire—is that what it looks like?—quivering in his brown irises, nearly made you collapse. He waited for you to continue, his hands never leaving you, a courtesy you were grateful for. "I feel...hot." Your cheeks warmed. "Um, there's this...pressure."

His lips closed in a tight smirk, and he squeezed your hips. "Where, baby?" he murmured, and you could have sworn you saw stars outlining his head at the sound of the pet name. "Show me," he cooed.

"Um." You paused, unsure of just how. But with his hands on your waist, his heavy, warm touch melting you on the spot, you took one of his gloved hands in yours and guided him to your stomach. "Here. Kind of."

"Yeah?" he said, and you forgot about the cold. About your horses waiting to be mounted, about your other responsibilities in Jackson. All you could see were his dark eyes that had somehow grown darker as you pushed his hand down, down, down...

"Fuck, babygirl," he cursed, and let his hand rest on the crux of your thighs, just barely pressing on the source of the tingling sensation. If anything, it made it worse, and you let a breathy whine fall from your lips. "You're gonna be the death of me, huh?" he groaned.

You couldn't form words. Just one kiss (a very good kiss, mind you) and a heavy hand on your core was all it took, apparently. You could hardly look anywhere but his face, your mouth dropping open as your hips moved of their own accord, grinding into his hand before you realized you were doing it. "Joel—" you whimpered, and he pulled his hand away.

There wasn't enough time for you to feel jilted, as he tugged you back to your horse and practically launched you onto it himself. "We're goin' back," he said firmly, "now."

Swallowing, your throat dry and rough, you pressed a hand to your cheek, feeling the heat swimming under your skin. "Did I do something wrong?"

You could hardly see him shake his head as he mounted his own horse, looking back at you to make sure you were following him. "'Course not," he called over his shoulder. When you caught up with him, the two of you shoulder-to-shoulder, he continued. "Look, darlin', f'I'm gonna be givin' you your first kiss and makin' you feel that good..." he sighed, his dark eyes finding yours. "I'm not doin' it in a fuckin' snowbank."

-- -- --

The entire ride back to Jackson was painfully long, silent but for Joel's mumbled directions, despite the fact that the two of you had taken this same route countless times in the four years that you patrolled together.

Your eyes were trained forward, and you knew his were as well, but it took everything in you not to glance at him even for a second. If you did, you were afraid that the pressure building in the crux of your thighs would never go away.

It would be unfair to say that you were completely unaware of what might happen when you got back to Jackson, but you still didn't know much, which left a nervous bubble rising in your gut. It wasn't like there were any books left in Jackson that you could read about it, or any movies that Maria would allow to remain in the community's borders.

Again, you got a wave of feeling like this should have concerned you, or at least made you a little anxious. But with Joel pulling ahead, his strong back the only thing you could look at, you felt the knot of tension release in your stomach. This was Joel. After four years—even four mostly silent years—of working together, you felt like you...knew him, somehow. That he couldn't possibly lead you astray.

Sure enough, when you were both within the borders, horses returned safely to their stables, the tension returned. Or had it ever really dissipated?

Joel hovered close to you as you left the stables. "Let's go, darlin'," he breathed, a gloved hand on your lower back as he guided you.

"Where?" you said, and you hoped it didn't sound as desperate as it did to you, the pressure getting worse. "I need—"

"I know, baby, I know," he cooed gently, his head on a swivel as if looking for anyone who might stop you. "We're goin' to mine. I've got the perfect lesson planned for ya, alright?"

It was all you could do to nod and let him push you forward through the snowy streets. If only those girls could see you now.

Once inside, you took a breath. There was no one around, and once the door closed behind you, the silence felt all the more heavy. "Ellie?" you asked, if only in courtesy.

He shook his head, and you bit your lip when you saw him smirk. "Just us, doll."

Joel shed his outer layers, and when he stood in front of you, you realized that this was the first time you'd seen him without his coat. Without his gloves, aside from that morning.

Your eyes snagged on his fingers, and you swallowed roughly when you saw the way they twitched, as if in anticipation for something. Or maybe he was holding himself back, you considered. His jaw did seem to have an impatient clench to it. Hands rough like you knew they would be, it didn't take long for your mind to wander into thinking of what it might be like to feel those hands on your skin.

With any luck, he'd give you the sweet release you craved, however it would unfold.

"See anything you like?" he teased, and your cheeks warmed.

"Sorry," you fumbled for a response, your eyes dropping. You'd meant to clear your head, but then your eyes were caught on his thighs. Specifically how hard the seams on his jeans were fighting to remain unripped. "Um, a lesson, you said?"

He nodded, reaching out a hand to take your own coat off, leaving you in the sweater and pants you'd had on all day. You were sure your hair was knotted and would be for days, but he only smoothed a hand down your face, letting you lean into his touch. His fingers were still cold, but your face was hot and it offered a dizzying sense of relief.

"I could never teach you all this," he murmured, his thumb rubbing back and forth in an absentminded swipe across your cheek. "Not without getting...distracted," he finished, pressing his other hand to your waist. Underneath the thick layer of your coat, his hand felt like a hot iron scorching your skin, despite there still being a few layers of clothes between your bodies.

"Distraction is okay," you breathed, lifting a hand to cup his on your waist. "Right?"

He shook his head, a chuckle lifting from deep in his chest. "Not tonight," he whispered. "Tonight, I want to stick to the plan."

"Which is?"

Wordlessly, he removed the hand on your waist and entwined it with your own, tugging you toward the living room where an old television had been placed on a rickety-looking shelf. "Sit," he directed, and you did so without hesitation. He paused, biting back a smile at your eager cooperation, and adjusted himself.

It occurred to you that as much as you were affected by him, he was experiencing a similar effect from you. His pants, already tighter than sin, seemed to have become even tighter, as a bulge began to grow while he stood just a few feet from your face.

"Joel—"

"No, no," he waved a dismissive hand and went to the television to grab something. He came back with something you recognized: a VHS tape. "Don't worry 'bout me, sweets. Tonight's just for you."

"We're gonna watch a movie?" you asked, trying to ignore the way your heart sank a little. You had been hoping that the two of you would kiss some more, and maybe even...you didn't even know the name for it.

"Not just any movie," he grinned, putting it in to watch. The video started. "A special one."

When the scene opened on a man and a woman in the throes of passion, you gasped. "No way," you whispered. "I thought Maria—"

He shrugged, sinking down on the couch beside you, his knee bumping yours. "She must've missed this one," was all he said.

The woman looked to be enjoying herself, as her scene partner kissed her neck, dragging his tongue from the dip in her clavicle to the curve of skin where her neck met her ear. A cartoon-ish moan left her lips, but you didn't pay it any mind. The sight of it made your thighs clench together subconsciously, the lick of pressure rising again in your center.

"Joel—"

"Shh," he said gently. "C'mere, darlin'." With no more than a heavy hand on your waist, he tugged you closer to him, situating you over his lap. "Comfortable?"

You almost said no; you knew that this wouldn't be an acceptable seating arrangement in the cafeteria (or anywhere public, for that matter), but when his hands landed on your thighs, you nodded swiftly. His fingers curled around your skin, and you could feel every pulse of his heartbeat through his fingertips, poised as if he might spread your legs from where they were squeezed together between his own thighs.

Something hard and solid nudged at your core, and you couldn't help it when you leaned back into his chest, head tilting back to rest on his shoulder. A breathy moan tumbled from your lips, and your stomach fluttered when you felt his chest rumble with a chuckle.

"That quick, baby?" he whispered, his breath fanning over your neck. "You really are a sweet young thing, aren't ya," he teased, pressing his nose to the joint between your jaw and your neck, "fallin' apart for me already?" He rocked his hips forward, his bulge pressing harder against you, and it nearly sent you into a spiral.

You swallowed, your throat dry. The sounds of the movie seemed far away as you opened your eyes and looked at his beard, peppered with gray and scratching at your chin when he leaned over you. "Joel," you whispered, bringing your hands to cover his own on your thighs, "I-I want to know everything." You'd never meant anything more fervently, more desperately, than this.

If you'd known how addicting this could feel, being so close to him, feeling his hands on you, perhaps you would have been embarrassed at the way your hips began rubbing yourself on his lap, hoping for—you didn't even know what could be after this. You just knew that the way you felt was the most intense thing you'd felt in your entire life, and you wanted to keep feeling this way, as long as you could.

Joel tutted, squeezing his hands on your thighs. "Oh, look at you," he groaned, a deep, carnal noise that made your chest constrict, "you're a natural, doll." His lips brushed your shoulder, and he darted his tongue out to lick a small strip up your neck.

Your heart swelled with the praise, and it was all you could do not to squeeze your eyes shut. "Please," you begged quietly, as if someone might hear you.

"I know, baby, I know," he crooned, dark eyes locked onto your own as his hand crept closer—to your waistband—closer—unzipping your pants—closer...there.

Your hips lifted from his lap with the heady sensation of his fingers pressed to a bundle of nerves between your legs. "Joel—!" you squeaked.

You felt him smile against your cheek. "So wet," he murmured, "so slick for my fingers, baby." He began rubbing that spot in tight circles, a slow, torturous pace. "Let me know when you're gonna come, yeah?"

"When I..." you trailed off. You'd never...how would you know? "I don't..."

Joel hummed in your ear, rocking his hips again and releasing a guttural groan. "S'okay, pretty girl," he reassured you, "I'll be gentle. Lemme know when it feels like it's too much. "I've gotcha."

You were too far gone to doubt him. This was Joel. He wouldn't let you fall, as much as you felt like you were going to slide to the floor at the feeling of his hand coming up from your leg to caress your breast, rolling a nipple between his fingertips. A strangled mix between a cry and a moan left your lips, and with one more kiss to your brow paired with a quick swipe of his finger over your ever-sensitive bud—

Something gave way and you jerked your head back, digging into his shoulder. Your legs spasmed and you squeezed your hand over Joel's, holding his hand in place underneath your panties.

"Fuck, doll, just like that," he encouraged you. "Look at you, eyes rollin' back for me. Shakin' like a good girl." His hips tensed beneath you and you felt his chest shudder as he released a punishing moan. "Got me feelin' like a damn teenager, comin' in my jeans."

His fingers stilled, but his hand didn't move. Your legs slowly stopped shaking, and the solid mass beneath you was softening. You let out a sigh, your eyelids fluttering closed. Your cheeks were flushed, you could tell; but this time, it wasn't embarrassment that brought the warmth to your face.

"You okay?" he murmured, carefully removing his hands from their places on you. "Feel alright, darlin'?"

Your head turned, nestling into the crook of his neck. Nodding quietly, you shifted in his lap. "I...I didn't know it could be like that," you shivered.

Joel paused the video, the living room falling quiet around you. Swinging a hand under your legs and tugging you to a more comfortable position over his lap, he raised his fingers to his lips, glistening with the remnants of your desire. Your jaw slackened when you watched him open his mouth, lapping at the tips of his fingers.

"Trust me, doll," he said with a glint in his eye. You whimpered in anticipation as he reached to brush a strand of hair from your face. "I've got so much more to teach you."

tysm for reading! you made it to the end! part two is in the works posted!

#joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #pervy!joel #innocent!f!reader #joel miller fanfic #joel miller #joel miller tlou #tlou smut #tlou fic #tlou joel fanfiction #joel miller x f!reader #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fic #the last of us #the last of us fanfic #the last of us smut #jackson!joel miller #joel miller x innocent!f!reader #fem!reader #joel x fem!reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x y/n

[thaliasthunder]

remember percy said boys and girls arent allowed to be alone in the same cabin? it makes me cackle that rule exclusively applies to only boys & girls when chiron literally taught achilles & patroclus in early chb and apparently it still never crossed his mind that one thing homosexuals sure have is audacity

#AUDACITY #nico di angelo #will solace #patrochilles #patroclus #achilles #solangelo #tsoa #pjo #hoo #tsats #the sun and the star #the song of achilles #madeline miller #rick riordan #riordanverse #pjo/hoo #nico di angelo x will solace #percy jackson #mark oshiro

[mermaidgirl30]

✨Run Rabbit✨

A/N: This idea literally came out of nowhere today, so I had to hurry and write it real quick! This idea is based off the song “Run, Rabbit Run!” by Flanagan and Allen. The song would not leave my head, and then I got this image of Joel chasing reader through an abandoned mansion. This one is a tad bit dark, but I hope you enjoy! If you liked this work, please think of reblogging and leaving me comments 🩷 Thank you to @ozarkthedog for being my beta 🥰

Summary: At the beginning of every month, you meet Joel to play a little game of hide and seek at the abandoned mansion near Jackson. It’s not just any game of hide and seek though. It’s dark and it’s twisted. If he catches you, he gets to do whatever he wants with you.

Pairing: Dom! Joel x fem! reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ ONLY MDNI)

Word Count: 4.1k

Tags: Possessive Joel, hide and seek, cat and mouse, Joel chases reader until he finds her, Jackson! Joel, outbreak! Joel, smut, fingering, oral, unprotected p in v, cream pie, dirty talk

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

The air is suffocating, the black walls are covered in regret and years of cigarette stench. The dim lights seem to shine down on you like a spotlight as you run as fast as you can through the lavish house. You can hear him calling you, stalking you in the dark shadows like a starving dog hunting to devour fresh meat. 

   “Can’t run from me forever, darlin’. You keep on runnin’, but I’ll eventually find you,” he chuckles as his deep voice reverberates around the echoing halls. 

   You cover your mouth, keeping your body down as you run run run past the expensive statues and monumental paintings of the abandoned mansion. Your throat is on fire the longer you run, your body aching like that of a dying man on his last breath of life. Your legs feel like they’ll give way at any second, but you have to keep going. You can’t give up. Not yet. Not when he’s right on your tail. 

   Tired. You’re so very tired, yet you keep running. Dragging your hollow body down the vine covered corridors of the wide hallways as you gasp for fresh air in your watered down lungs. 

   You fly around a narrow corridor and nearly trip yourself on a bed of dark green vines that bite at your ankles, threatening to take you down as Joel draws closer to you. 

   You can feel his overbearing presence, can taste the whiskey that bleeds inside his thick veins, can feel his large body already crowding yours as if he’s already caught you. He hasn’t caught you yet, but you know he will. He always catches you. 

   This was all a game. A dark, twisted game that started on a cold night in December. You remember the first time he chased you, the first time he tore through all your clothes the minute he captured you and devoured your entirety on that pitch black night. Now, every first Saturday of each month you’d meet him back at this abandoned mansion to play his little game. He called it hide and seek, you called it a deadly game of cat and mouse because you were the mouse, and cats always caught their prey. 

   It’s like you two are stuck in a never ending dance, two souls completely consumed in the other as you spin in circles until one of you collapses. You shouldn’t keep coming back, shouldn’t want to play his dark little games, but yet you come. Every single time, you come, unable to face the reality of a month without his touch, his taste, his growls. You’d let the man do as he wanted because how could you resist those charming, big brown eyes? You couldn’t, you just couldn’t. You were a moth drawn to a flame, and he was the brightest, most dangerous flame of all. Something you wanted to forever be branded by.

   Joel Miller was a fucking menace of society, but he was your menace. So you’d continue the game until one of you stopped breathing. 

   “Where are you, little lamb?” he calls as your breath scorches the vine covered walls. You continue running, twisting around dark corners, running down stone steps, and hiding behind crimson curtains. 

   The next wooden door you come upon is locked tight. No amount of shaking the golden handle or hurling your body into the door will make it budge. You turn your head from side to side. The only way out is from the way you came. The hallway that he is in. Fuck. 

   You gulp down a silent breath and make a run for it, even though you know he’ll be there waiting like a prowling wolf. 

   You take careful steps down the marble hallway and sneak around the cold corner until you see his dark silhouette shining against the reflective flooring. You gasp as your eyes go wide, but before you can run he reaches out a long arm and clasps tightly to your wrist. 

   “There ya are, little lamb. Thought you’d get away from me this time?” he smirks as he wraps his calloused fingers tightly around you and tries to pull you in. 

   “Haven’t caught me just yet,” you laugh as you somehow manage to slip out of his grip and make a run for it. 

   You run down some slippery stone steps and end up at the back of the mansion with vine covered long corridors and twisting mazes of green bushes. You run as fast as you can as the wind sweeps through your long hair, letting the brisk wind set your adrenaline on fire. 

   You manage one glance back and see just how fast he’s creeping up on you. He’s like a lion running after a gazelle, the hunter about to attack the prey with its bare claws. And he will destroy his prey. 

   You take a few more steps, but then you feel a hand claw at your shoulder. He takes you down on the hard floor as you come crashing down to the pit of your doom. Pain radiates through your body, but you brush it off as you crawl forward, trying to escape the man that will take you as his own. 

   “Where do ya think you’re goin’, pretty thing?” he asks darkly as he wraps a hand around your ankle and tugs you in his direction. You hear a squeak escape your mouth like a trapped mouse that just got caught by a giant cat. 

   “I’m running away from you,” you answer back as you kick and try to squirm out of his reach. 

   He obviously has other plans because he drags you back underneath him and turns you flat on your back as he pins your hands above your head, his hips and large thighs caging you in so you can’t break free. He won this round, like he always did. 

   “Didn’t think I’d catch you so soon, little lamb,” he chuckles deeply as the weight of his body hangs over yours entirely. 

   “You just caught me off guard,” you sigh as you see his dark chocolate eyes honing in on yours. They’re so captivating, so damn pretty that you can’t look away. He’s so gorgeous even when you should find him intimidating. 

   “Now you’re mine,” he smirks as his chocolate eyes become darker, more blown out as he hovers his plush lips over yours. “Just what am I gonna do to you tonight, hmm?” he asks as lust fills the void of his dark eyes, making you squirm with anticipation already. You know what you want. You want him. 

   “Maybe I should be a little rough with you, hmm? That what you want?” he asks with the tick of his sculpted jaw, his thick eyebrow raising as he looks at you like he just won the most valuable prize in town. 

   You shouldn’t want this, shouldn’t be feeding his sick mind as he plays his dark games, but you can’t help it. You want it just as bad as he does. You want him to be rough with you. 

   You look at him with wide eyes and smirk right back at him, challenging his dominant side to give in. “So be rough with me,” you whisper back. 

   You see his dark eyes grow large with need as he huffs out through his nostrils. “Open,” he demands as he grabs a hold of your jaw and squeezes, just enough for your lips to part open slightly. He bends his head down and inhales deeply as he spits into your mouth as you feel the warm spit cover your tongue. 

   “Swallow,” he growls as you fully oblige. You close your mouth and swallow as you taste his spit slide down your throat. All hot and moist as you taste him in the back of your throat. And somehow you think it’s so goddamn hot. 

   “Good girl,” he praises as he shifts his weight down and starts unbuttoning your faded denim jeans. 

   “Now, you’re gonna be a good girl for me, right?” he asks as he starts to drag the denim down your legs, feeling a wave of slick slide down your lace panties as your adrenaline kicks in. 

   “Mhm,” you nod as you watch him strip your legs bare, next going to tear off your sticky pink t-shirt while he hovers over the fine lace of your bra, his calloused fingers circling your back as he slowly undoes the clasps. 

   “Gonna let me taste every inch of you, little lamb? Gonna let me fuck you till you can’t take anymore?” he asks as he undoes the last clap and slowly starts to slide the bra free, leaving your full breasts exposed to the chilly night air. The only thing left is your slick covered panties, and then you'll be completely bare. 

   “Yes,” you breathe as he cups your breasts and slides his tongue along the crook of your neck, all teeth and tongue as he nips and bites at your flesh. 

   You can’t help the burn, can’t help the absolute need that courses through your body as his weight encompasses your chest. His hot breath bleeds into your lungs and it’s as if you can breathe fresh air for the first time. His woodsy, whiskey scent makes you dizzy as he slides his wet tongue along your bottom lip as he hovers his weight above you. He’s like a wolf that comes to feed on you in the night, and you’ll gladly let him devour you whole. 

   He snakes his hand down your abdomen and slides his hand underneath your ruined panties as he presses his thumb in between your folds, collecting slick as you groan at the feel of him spreading you wide. 

   “Open up, darlin’. Wanna give you a taste,” he whispers. He slides his thumb in your mouth, and you press your tongue around it, tasting the sweet saltiness of your own arousal as you let it slide down your throat. 

   He opens his mouth and sucks the rest of the slick off as he moans at the taste of you in his system. “You taste so fuckin’ sweet, darlin’. Wanna just eat you up,” he groans as he hovers his lips back over yours, inching closer and closer until you’re practically begging him to drop down on your lips. 

   “Please,” you whine as your hands fist at his green flannel shirt, desperate for him to get closer to you. 

   “Please what?” he smirks as his dark eyes weigh into yours, pools of lust overflowing the edges as his pupils now expand into complete darkness. A predator about to eat his prey up entirely. 

   You have to use all your strength to get any words out, desperate for his touch. “Take me, all of me,” you plead as your eyes search his black pits that burn you alive. 

   “Oh, sweetheart. I’m gonna take it all,” he smirks. 

   Before you have time to respond, he drops his lips on yours and fists your hair as he tugs hard and pries your lips apart as he slots in his wet tongue. He glides his tongue against yours and circles your mouth as you moan against him and drink his whiskey breath down. 

   He breaks apart from your mouth and nips playfully down your neck as he kneads your breasts together. His tongue comes down to circle each nipple, bringing them to life as they harden and pebble for him as you writhe underneath him in pleasure. 

   His experienced hands are everywhere, burning your skin alive as he skates his calloused fingers up and down your glistening body that’s now caked in sweat. He shoves your legs apart and slides the lace down your legs as he sits back and examines your entire naked body that’s on full display just for him. Glistening skin and slick coated folds splay out in front of him, and he looks like a mad man the way he’s looking at you. 

   His nostrils flare as his eyes grow wide, the big black pits scavenging your body as he drags a hand through his thick salt-and-pepper scruff as he groans out a heated response. “Goddamn, little lamb. You’re so fuckin’ wet and ready for me. I can hardly stand it,” he moans as he slides between your legs and pushes your thighs apart, his calloused fingers spreading your folds apart as he spits down in between them and starts running meticulously up and down your open folds as he starts circling your clit slowly. 

   You moan and writhe underneath his fingers, but he just presses a big hand to your stomach and holds you still as he works his fingers up and down your soaked pussy. And it feels so good that you want to crawl out of your own skin as the flames alight in your lower regions. 

   “Fuck,” you moan as he licks a thick strip from your dripping hole all the way to the top of your clit as his nose brushes against the coarse hair that sits above your clit. He inhales a large whiff of you as he groans and wraps his arms around your thighs as he holds you down against the cool ground. 

   “That’s right, little lamb. Gonna have you screamin’ my name by the time I get done with you,” he chuckles darkly as he dives back in. 

   His tongue devours you as he slides it up and down, drawing tight circles around your throbbing bundle of nerves as he sucks you deep into his mouth. He glides his middle and ring finger into your dripping hole and works them in and out as he curls up and hits your spongy walls again and again as his tongue feasts on your clit and his fingers go knuckle deep into your pussy. 

   Your eyes start to roll back as your head hits the hard floor, your body feeling like it’s floating on a cloud as hot heat starts to slide down the base of your spine. Close, you’re so close. Almost there. 

   He growls up at you as he demands your attention right now. “LOOK AT ME,” his voice echoes off the vine covered walls as his dominance sheds through the dim light of the hallway. 

   Your eyes snap up to find blown out dark pupils looking up at you as he sucks you in his mouth expertly. His nail beds dig into your thighs as one of his fists sit knuckle deep in your pussy. You’ve never seen him so wild, so much like a starving wolf that it makes more slick slide down his fingers as he pumps in and out of your drenched walls. 

   He pops your bundle of nerves out of his mouth as he gives you one more long lick as he growls up at you with pure dominance in his words. “Come for me, little lamb. Want ya to scream my name, tell me just who’s makin’ you feel good. Come on, darlin’. Show me how you break,” he smirks as he quickens the pace of his fingers and drops back on your clit as he circles circles circles until you’re seeing stars in your vision. 

   “Joel, I’m gonna… gonna,” you whine as you feel your orgasm start to break apart. 

   “Go on. Come for me. Be a good girl now and obey,” he growls as he pulls you back into his mouth while his fingers press up into the spongy walls as you feel yourself coming hard for him. 

   You clench up around his fingers and feel slick start to rain down his fingers onto your thighs as you throw your head back and scream his name as your moans echo through the long, dim lit corridor. Your body feels like white noise washing through it as your toes curl and your fingers slide through his tousled curls. 

   He groans as your fingers dig into his scalp while he licks up every inch of spilt slick in between your thighs. You feel your high start to come down as you take nice, deep breaths and focus on the buzzing in your ears. 

   Joel sits on his knees and views the mess that he made in between your legs as you splay across the floor with your legs still wide open for him. He must enjoy the view because he can’t keep his hungry eyes off you. 

   “Such a good girl, you know that? Now, gonna let me take ya all the way? Gonna let me fuck ya now, sweetheart?” he smirks as he starts unbuttoning his green flannel shirt, undoing the buttons quickly as he slides it off his thick arms and throws it in a heap next to the vine covered wall. His rock hard abs sit glistening in the night light while a happy trail of dark, coarse hair sits just above the waist of his jeans in a v shape. It makes you want to get on your hands and knees and crawl to him as you beg to have just a little taste of him.

   “Yes, please. Fuck me,” you moan as you push your breasts together as your center feels on fire for him. 

   “Oh, I’m gonna fuck ya deep, little lamb,” he smirks as he knits his eyebrows together in concentration. 

   He unbuttons his dark jeans and threads the leather belt through his belt loops while he shoves his jeans and boxers down his legs while he stands and hovers over you with his hard cock hitting the base of his hairy stomach as the tip sits weeping and swollen, just waiting to get inside you. 

   You lick your lips together and stare at the swollen tip as saliva starts to coat your mouth. You can practically taste the salt on your tongue, can almost feel the precum sliding down your throat as you beg him for just one more taste. He looks so delicious, and you want to just eat him right up.

   He smirks down at you as he sees you staring at his thick cock that screams your name. “Want a taste, little lamb?” he smirks as you nod your head mindlessly. 

   “Get over here then and do somethin’ ‘bout it,” he demands as he pulls you up by your hair and plants you on your knees in front of his large body. 

   “Go on then. Let me see how good you can choke on this cock, darlin’.” He flashes his pearly whites at you and wraps his fingers around your hair as you take your hand and start sliding it up and down as you spread the precum all over his thick length. 

   You lick the tip lightly and swirl around slowly as you tease him while your hand works up and down the base of him. “Fuck, there ya go,” he groans as you take him inside your mouth as you taste salty goodness drip down your throat. You take him deeper as you choke on him, feeling the drool coat his cock as you go back and forth on him slowly. 

   He grabs tighter to your hair and starts to fuck up into your mouth as you feel him bottom out at the base of your throat as it constricts around his thick length. You choke and gag around his length as he deep throats you over and over again. Your vision blurs as the tears lick at the corners of your eyes, but you don’t care. You love when he chokes you out, when his cock is deep in your throat as you hear his stifled moans get caught in his throat the more your mouth deep throats him. 

  “Fuckin’ Christ,” Joel growls as his thrusts become rougher and deeper, enough to where you’re gagging on your own drool as it coats your mouth as he slips deeper inside. 

   Before you think you can’t take anymore, he releases his cock from your mouth as a bead of drool connects from his tip to your lower lip as you choke for air with his fingers still firmly wrapped around your hair. 

   “Good fuckin’ girl,” he praises as he releases you and shoves you back to the ground as your back his the cold floor. “Now spread those legs, sweetheart. Gonna fuck ya nice and deep now,” he instructs as he spreads your legs and gets down on his knees.  He throws your legs over his shoulders and lines his cock up with your folds as he slowly slides the tip up and down your folds as your spit on his cock collects with the messy slick in between your legs. 

   “Jus’ relax now, darlin’. Let me help fill this pretty pussy up,” he smiles as he shoves his cock through your folds and fills you up. 

   You gasp at the stretch, he’s so fucking big that you never quite get used to the stretch. There’s a tinge of pain, but mostly you’re so full of him that all you can focus on is how good he’s making you feel. He fucks up into you deeper as he bottoms out inside you over and over again. 

   His body hovers over you as his lips nip against your neck as he slides in and out of you faster faster faster as you start to feel wildlife burn through your whole body. He folds your legs in half like a pancake as he fucks deeper inside you, making your walls squeeze his large length tight as you get close to your second orgasm. 

   You study his appearance, focusing on his knit eyebrows that are sewn together in concentration as he loses himself in you entirely. Sweat sticks to his forehead as his curls stick together in the glistening sweat. His broad back is flexing and tightening around you as your nails claw his tan skin, making him moan into the shell of your ear as he licks against the edge of your ear with thick pants leaving his mouth. 

   You kiss along the edge of his jaw, nipping at his scruff as you moan his name eagerly into the base of his ear as he speeds up his thrusts, bottoming out again and again until you can’t take it anymore. 

   “Joel, I’m gonna… fuck, I’m gonna come,” you pant out as he presses his forehead against yours. 

   “Come for me, pretty girl. Let me feel ya,” he commands as he thrusts up inside once twice three more times until you’re squeezing his cock with your walls and pouring yourself all over him. You moan his name and scratch your nails down his back as he moans back in satisfaction. 

   “Oh, that’s a good girl,” he praises as he continues rutting up inside you until he’s choking for air with his own tongue. 

   “Christ, I’m gonna come. Fuck, I’m gonna…” He doesn’t take long till he’s shooting thick ropes of come inside your walls as you feel warmth bubbling all inside you. He takes a minute to let it all out, releasing all his spend inside you as you breathe in his whiskey coated scent. 

   “Fucking hell, sweetheart. Can’t get enough of that sweet pussy,” he groans as he pulls his cock out of you and lets his spend slide down your milky thighs. 

   He collapses onto his back and pulls you into his side as you wrap a leg around his waist and inch your head up to the crook of his neck as your arm wraps around his broad chest. 

   “Some game, huh?” you pant as your exhausted body splays over the entirety of him. 

   “Some game,” he agrees as he rakes his fingers through your messy hair and kisses the top of your forehead as you relax all your weight into him. 

   “Think there’s ever gonna be a day where you won’t catch me?” you ask curiously as he smiles down and shakes his head at you. 

   “No, sweetheart. I’m always gonna catch you. Even if I have to run a couple miles to get to you. I’ll always catch you, my pretty girl.”

   You smile as he pulls you tight against his body, and you spend the rest of the night just lying on the floor in the abandoned mansion where this all started in the first place. A twisted game that ended in two lovers running back to each other again and again. 

   Maybe some games aren’t meant to be played, but this one was specifically made for you and Joel. The cat and the mouse who started off running away from each other, but it ended with both of you falling apart together. 

Tagging some mutuals who might want to read🩷 @milla-frenchy @vividispunk @littlevenicebitch69 @jasminedragoon @morallyinept @mountainsandmayhem @dugiioh @pedrostories @syd-djarin @laurrrra @joelmillersblog @joelmillerisapunk @amyispxnk @msjarvis @lotusbxtch @untamedheart81 @littlemisspascal

#joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfiction #joel x female reader #joel the last of us #tlou fanfiction #joel miller pedro pascal #joel tlou #dom!joel miller #pleasure dom #joel miller one shot #run rabbit run #outbreak!joel #post outbreak joel #jackson!joel #the smut hits hard with this one #joel smut #smut #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedrostories #dark!joel x reader #dark!joel miller

[macfrog]

psyche and cupid | one shot

happy valentine's, beautiful people. i love you with all of my heart. xx shoutout to @familyvideostevie for putting joel's slutty little thigh holster into my head and, well. yeah. pairing: jackson!joel miller x fem!reader summary: valentine's day with joel doesn't go to plan. warnings: part two never happened!!!!! abby who!!!, established relationship, cursing, half joel pov, unspecified age gap, hints to reader having a sliver of ptsd, jesse is alive and well because he is my prince and i said so, reader has dark pubic hair, masturbation, somnophilia (not discussed in this fic but she is a-ok with it) and therefore dubcon, sprinkle of praise kink, oral (f!receiving), someone comes in his underwear, these two goofballs are big in love word count: 5.5k

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It’s not in his nightstand.

Not hung over the newel post, either.

He said he left it on the kitchen counter yesterday, right after he got home; said he woke up this morning and it was gone. And then he muttered something of an accusation that someone had tidied it away and forgotten where, and that started a whole new argument.

You know what, Joel? You’re following his tall figure as it sways down the hallway, his strides longer and considerably smoother than your flurrying shadow in his wake. Maybe if you weren’t going out today, we wouldn’t be having this problem.

His chin tilts upward, salt and pepper scruff angled to the ceiling with a ha slung from his throat. Yeah, he tosses a glance over his shoulder, we’d just be havin’ it tomorrow, instead.

You scoff in response, stepping where his boots lift off from, following the heavy thud thud thud like a cat at his heels until he’s rounding the corner towards your bedroom.

You pass over the messy trail of your jeans and Joel’s pajama bottoms, your underwear and his leading in a trail to the unmade bed – sheets like a rippled wave painted golden by the dawn.

The two of you split off – Joel lifts the cotton and watches it float back down over the flat of your mattress. Nothing.

You take the closet – the squeal of metal on metal harsh in your sleepy ears as you shove the hanging clothes aside, swiping around at the floor. Also, unsurprisingly, nothing.

Deflated, you straighten, stars peppering your vision and a tatty sleepshirt pinched in your fingers. Led Zeppelin – some band Joel was into before everything went to shit. You’ve listened to him out on the porch before, plucking strings in time with the record wobbling on the turntable inside.

The collar torn, sleeves pecked with holes, print lost to the years and the dryer – but each time you drape it over your shoulders, he smiles and hums some song from a world you’ll never know.

It’s sweet, when you’re in the mood to be wooed.

Which, incidentally, is not right fucking now.

His eyes flit down to the peeling, grayscale image – and that same smile attempts to bloom on his lips. That’s cute, but it ain’t my holster, pretty bird.

His smirk dampens quickly when he looks back up, snuffed by your stony expression.

You whip the tee down to the foot of the bed. You are a piece of fuckin’ work sometimes, do you know that? you growl, storming by him for the en suite.

Joel’s rough hand slips around your wrist, tugging gently but letting you drag him through to the bathroom.

Just go, Joel, you groan, the chill of the room prickling goosebumps on your naked legs. Give  me some peace and quiet. ‘s not like I’m gonna be seein’ much of you today, anyways.

Is that what this is about? His voice echoes in the morning blue, round in your ears as you hang your head over the sink. Pickin’ a fight ‘cause you’re pissed I’m goin’ out?

I didn’t start the fight, you protest. You’re the one who lost his holster.

Didn’t lose it… he mumbles, lips closing around the sentence when he catches your glare in the mirror. He crosses one ankle over the other, toe of his dusty boot on the cracked tile, and sighs. What do you want me to do, baby? I gotta do my job.

On Valentine’s Day? When I worked extra to get it off, and you can’t even get your brother to swap one shift?

Joel’s expression seems to stiffen, tense with a realization that you know, and now he knows, too – he should’ve had days ago. A weighty breath falls from his nostrils, admitting some kind of defeat, and then he’s wandering carefully over to you, two hands curved over your shoulders.

He lowers his forehead onto the nape of your neck, a slow breath which flutters the loose collar of the flannel you’re wearing and sweeps down your spine. I’m sorry, pretty bird. I didn’t know it meant that much to ya.

It doesn’t, you admit, adding, usually. I just thought we could have a day to ourselves, for once.

He’s nodding, sweep of his fringe tickling the slope of your skin. It’d be a lot more romantic than spendin’ it with Jesse, that’s for sure.

Your bodies fall together with a shared laugh, a bright and charming thing in the dull bathroom light. Joel kisses the soft cushion of your shoulder and hooks his chin over, beard grazing your skin.

I’ll be back before you know it. ‘n then we can do whatever the hell you got planned for us, hm?

He’s steady behind you when you lean back, turning to place a damp kiss to the hinge of his jaw. A reply, a plea – a promise.

In the echoing dripdripdrip from the faucet, Joel pulls apart from you, two fingers pinching the hem of your shirt to pull you back into the bedroom.

You wanna walk me to the gate? he asks, pulling the zipper on his jacket.

What about your holster?

He smiles. I’m sure I’ll survive without it. C’mon. Put some pants on.

February is bitter even by Jackson’s standards – a bite of ice in the air which numbs the tip of your nose and stings the helix of your ears. The chill slips a long, sharp finger down the collar of your – Joel’s jacket, and you wrap the baggy canvas tighter around yourself.

Told you to wear som’ thicker. Joel sighs, grip light around the strap of his shotgun. His elbow nudges into yours, a wide arm wraps around your shoulder and draws you flush against his side. Head on back if you’re cold, he says, rubbing until the friction warms your upper arm.

I’m fine, you lie, eyeing the line of horses up ahead. The eager crunch of their hooves in the frozen ground, the pinkish light on their backs from the sky flooded crimson overhead – a warning from the horizon, you think.

It seems to agitate the animals as much as it does you, their heavy heads tossing nervously, ears flicking and inky eyes blinking.

Jesse meets you by the paddock, slipping Joel the reins of his horse with a curt nod, before hoisting himself atop his own.

It bleats from your lips before you can hold it back. Be careful.

Your frozen fingers claw around the zipper of his coat, tugging it upwards until it brushes against his bottom lip. The weather gets bad, you turn back. Okay?

He’s nodding, paying half his attention to your words, the other half to the little crease between your brows. Sure could use my holster against the cold, baby, he mutters, smirk lifting his cheeks and folding similar creases at the corners of his eyes.

Your eyes narrow, palms landing flat against his strong chest. Home soon?

He hums a little laugh, lips ghosting across your temple as he shifts by. Home soon, he mutters, breath steaming against your cold skin, and he leads the mare off towards the gate.

There’s a lot about Joel you admire.

Each part of him like a pebble stolen on a hike; some more jagged, a little more weathered than others, some well-rounded and smooth to the touch. Each one turned and turned and turned between your fingers until you’re fluent in every pore and vein, then dropped into your pocket alongside the others you’ve collected.

Clacking against one another until you arrive home, coat heavier with the happy burden of how much you love him. The same weight you feel behind your ribcage when you think too much about it.

He takes good care of you – has done since you first happened across one another. As if hanging his hunting jacket over your frail body was a wing over your shoulders; as if, from then on, you would never make a single move again without your grizzly bear of a man making it first.

Quiet about it, sure. Subtle. Opens the crook of his elbow for you to hook your wrist around as you wander through town together, and waits until you’re under the cover of nightfall or behind the close of your front door to do much else.

Asks with little more than a fleeting glance if you’re okay; a squeeze of your knee under the table in the dining hall. A conversation shared between closed lips and the meeting of his honey-flecked gaze, and yours. A language which lives and dies with the pair of you.

He’s guarded – and for all that he’s been through, you figure you can allow him that. Allow him his private peace. For all that he says without saying, all he does without making some big song and dance of it – there hasn’t been a second since you arrived here on the back of his horse, that you haven’t known he loves you.

It’s in him like it’s in you. A fever which broke at the first touch of his hand and yours, the first meeting of his warmth and your chill. Two opposites – cooling the painful sear in his heart, warming the barren frost in yours. Something sewn deep into your flesh, carved right through to the hollow of your bones.

And Jesus, if it doesn’t drive you fucking insane.

The front yard needs tidied up after winter, you notice, as you scuff your way up the path towards the porch. Once the last of the snow dries up, you two can get to repairing the damage done by the blizzards and the gales: fitting new shutters, planting new bulbs.

A cycle you’re still getting used to: the upkeep of a place called home. The strange feeling of having someone you call the same thing.

Your extra shifts at the stables and Joel’s long mornings out on the trails mean your home has gone neglected for a few days. Dishes and cutlery left in the sink, a pile of laundry slowly sprouting to new heights like a wild plant each time you cast a wary glance at it.

It’s not like you’ve much else to do, given Joel won’t be home for at least another couple hours. So you shuck off your jeans, letting the tail of his shirt dangle from your behind, and pick your way around each room – wiping counters and dusting corners, humming along to the crooning old records as they spin in the background.

Playing house at the end of the world. Pretending to listen for the tired exhale of a yellow school bus, mimicking the electrified babble of radio presenters between each track.

The bedroom is arguably the worst offender. Bedsheets used a few days too long, clothes strung across the floor – the relics of a late one at the Tipsy Bison. It’s no wonder you’re so fucking tired.

Echoes of stumbling footsteps and hushed, drunken giggles loop your ears, the groaning bedsprings and blunt thud of the headboard. You pluck the underwear and socks one by one, your body wincing around a satisfied ache still lingering, and shuffle over to the laundry hamper, lifting the lid to –

The dopey smile on your lips dissolves instantly. You gotta be fucking…

The buckle glints in the light, silver blinking up at you from its bed of dirty laundry. The tan strap coiled and neatly slung through its fastener; the pouch empty. Awkward and ashamed, lying there in front of you. Apologetic, almost.

Your eyes roll closed; a short, hot breath seeping past your lips. A silent promise embedding beneath your tongue to take him by the sleeve as soon as he crosses the threshold, force him to lift the lid himself. An I told you so already brewing in the pit of your stomach.

The holster’s actually pretty heavy when you lift it up in the light. Leather a little worn, stitching frayed where it should clip around his belt.

It’s the size and width of him: a thick, toned thigh slotted inside the loop of leather, fixed by fingers long void of feeling when he’s been riding to the outpost, chasing infected, plunging his knife deep into their necks.

Patrol was never your thing. Joel took you out just once – but there are cracks in your past which threaten to split you in two, it seems, the longer you spend outside the settlement walls. Phantoms which follow close behind in the form of snapping twigs, of the wind rustling in the trees overhead. Shadows living in your periphery with curled sneers and spits of filth.

You lasted twenty minutes, that first and only day, before Joel had your horses tied together and your body shelled in his own, taking you straight back home.

But the thought of this around his thigh, the thought of him adjusting it to the waistband of his jeans; his hand floating down to settle gently atop it when he’s listening for danger approaching, two fingers slipping into the trigger guard.

It…stirs something.

You pad over to the bathroom, hopping as you step into the strap. He wears it on his right leg, right? You pull it past your ankle, ball of your foot slamming clumsily back down on the tile.

Adjusting it to fit your thigh, you bunch the hem of his shirt in one fist and stare back at your reflection. Her nervous stance, hips swaying left to right as she peruses the figure opposite.

Who is she, this mirage – naked thigh decorated with her man’s leather, fingernails tracing the messy stitching and imagining the weight of his gun, keen in the pouch?

A strange aura of possession about it, like a part of him locked firm around a part of you, from however many miles away. You swear you can feel the ghost of his warmth on the inside of the strap, wrapped around your sensitive skin.

Yeah.

Stirs something, alright.

Joel’s been gone little over an hour. He’s probably at the outpost by now, logging All clear and pretending to let Jesse take the lead. Wide shoulders swaying as he wanders from room to room, a careful scope of the valley from each window, tongue tracing the bottom of his teeth.

Ridges of his knuckles white around the grip of his shotgun, squinting down the barrel. Lines drawn between his brows and at the corners of his eyes like scores on parchment, focus and concentration tight on his face.

You sink back into the cradle of your bed, that divot where his body and yours meet each night. Each part of you intertwining with a part of him: the place where you become one. His smell and your touch, your giggle and his teeth.

A sudden, powerful thing which hammers through your veins and jumps your body for a few seconds – you pull the first orgasm from between your legs within a matter of minutes. The sight of his shirt disturbed over your stomach, the feeling of blood squeezing past taut leather enough to throw you under by itself, never mind the fast snap of your fingers deep inside your body.

Another – slower, lazier, still vibrating from the first – then almost a third, but the crinkle of sheets at your ears, the pillow-soft landscape beneath your heavy body, begins to sweep you off somewhere.

And in as little time as it took to entice you into the water in the first place, you slip beneath the waves.

The house is quiet when he finally makes it home.

Jesus, Joel thinks, what a shift.

Not one infected the entire run, he can’t quite believe – but Jesse caught his palm on some warped sheet of chain link fence, then almost passed out when he looked down and saw the scarlet seeping from his shredded skin.

The pair sat for half an hour, unsheltered in the unforgiving wind, waiting for the kid’s head to stop spinning and the cold to rob the feeling from his hand.

All Joel wanted was to get home to you. You, and your hips swaying as you stand by the stove, and his hands kneading into the velvet plush of your waist, and the smell of burnt sausages and spatter of angry oil from the pan.

He’s so late. He said he’d be as quick as he could, said you’d barely know he was gone, and he’s so fucking late.

But he’s here now, at least.

He’s home.

As he kicks off his boots, snow sprinkling from the soles onto the doormat, he notices the absence of your arms around his waist. The missing weight at the back of him, no ear flat against his spine and hands interlocked above his belt. No relieved, I missed you, no nuzzle of your head under his arm.

The house is still and dim. The turntable spins in the corner, a dead crackle playing nothing for no one. Joel sniffs, eyeing the room and its new, orderly form: the books slotted neatly on their shelves, the rings of coffee wiped clean from the table.

Lifting the needle from the record, Joel calls out, Baby?

Maybe you’re in town somewhere. Maybe you’ve gone to spend the morning with the horses. But then, you would’ve been watching for his arrival. Would’ve skipped out from the stables and swung around his body, a gleeful smile and an outstretched hand. Take me home, cowboy.

And you wouldn’t have left the lights still burning, the player still turning. Your coat is still on its hook, smaller and brighter and where it belongs on the right of Joel’s. The cushions on the couch are fluffed and smooth, perched contentedly in place; the curtains draped in their tie backs.

You’re home. You’ve been home all morning.

So where the fuck are you?

Joel crosses over to the bottom of the stairs, blinking up at the painted cowboys and horses staring down from the landing. Calls your name, a faint singsong as he slowly ascends the stairs. You up there?

Down the wintery dull hallway to the bedroom door, figuring he knows the answer. And he’s right, isn’t he, when he nudges the door open and peers inside, spots the tiny lump of you in your double bed. Sunk deep into the mattress – covers you’d come in here to change, swallowing you whole.

A crooked, exhausted smile pulls across his lips; his thumb hooks around a belt loop, knee cocking.

You’re so…perfect. So heavenly, so still like this – stretched out on your front, breathing in the scent of his pillow and breathing out little puffs of air.

Joel leans over you, a heavy hand pushing into the mattress above your shoulder, and runs a featherlight knuckle over your cheek.

Pretty bird? he whispers, lighter than the long breaths from your sleep-swollen lips.

You don’t stir. No movement, save for the rise and fall of your shoulders wrapped up in his flannel.

Joel feels a pang of guilt, numbed only by the chill still through his body: he woke you this morning, before even the sun had lifted her head. Had you hunting all over the house with him, for some dumb holster that he wound up not even n–

His eyes trail down the shape of your body, draped in the sheets like white marble carved into the round shape of something beautiful, hands following the curve of your thigh. His wrist freezes when it meets the odd bulge of something, an awkward bump beneath the cotton.

He peels the sheet back, lifting it from your shoulders, your waist, your hips – until your angled thigh lies on full display for his feasting eyes.

His fucking holster…wrapped tight around your fucking thigh.

A disbelieving laugh at first – a She told me so, before he notices the indents in your skin, the stretched leather snug around your leg, riding higher than it should at the doing of your slumber.

Christ, baby, he breathes, stare glued to the folds of plaid hooked around the belt loop. Following the tatty hem down past your hip, along the underside of your ass – riding up some, right where your legs part.

And between them, all sheer and thin, twisted around itself and slipping between: your underwear. The threading of pubic hair peeking over the frilled hem of it; the sight filling Joel’s mouth with saliva.

A heavy heat forms in his jeans, an irritable weight which aches when he moves; which hardens when he pictures the image of you in his bed, his shirt, his holster wrapped around your thigh – playing with yourself while he’s been gone.

Fuck. Fuckin’…shit.

He lowers, running lips he knows are freezing cold along the burning surface of your skin, tongue slipping past his teeth to drag a wet trail along your thigh.

Your leg shifts under his touch, the startle of his chilled fingertips behind your knee, nuzzling of his nose where the holster sits smugly on your thigh. Smelling like leather and salt, the sticky sheen of sweat still glowing on your skin.

Joel takes your waist in two hands – he can’t fucking help himself, can he? – and turns you, patiently, watching as you roll onto your back so he can drag you further down the bed. Tongue flicking at the corners of his lips, thirsty for something he only wants you to feed him.

Slow, slowly. Every effort put into not waking you, to keeping you in this peachy haze between asleep and awake; your movements long and staggered, held firm against the mattress by the weight of your doze.

With a sigh, your jaw turns to one side. Joel pulls you in, kneeling at the edge of the bed with your socked feet resting on his shoulders. His shirt gathers around your waist; your hips and the thin twine of your underwear spotlighted by stripes of weakened sunlight spilling in through the blinds.

Oh, pretty bird, he groans, slipping his open palms under your ass, rough and squeezing the pillows of flesh in his hands. This all for me?

A moan wrapped in a hefty breath twists from your lips. Your knees fall limp; legs open almost eagerly, like your body inviting him in. And he accepts, takes it with eyes blown black and hungry lips parted – leans in and nestles his nose against the thrumming heartbeat pounding through your clit.

Such a good girl, he whispers, closing his lips in a kiss over your clothed mound, and your hips jolt.

You’re so fucking warm. So wet; sticky and so ready for him. He kisses your folds, suckling gently and letting his tongue dart along the inseam of your lips in flicking movements – collecting the taste of salt and feeling his cock throb against rough denim.

Off? he asks – you and the room and himself – fingers hooking around the underwear rolled on your hips.

When your back arches, body feeling the loss of his tender kiss, rolling like a wave seeking to crash against the steady rock form of his – he smirks to himself.

Joel nods. Off.

He takes his time peeling them from your body, watching as more and more of his paradise is revealed. The waves of your folds, the sheer glisten of arousal along them; the dark hair peppering either side as damp and slick as the skin beneath it.

Your panties drop from a hooked finger without a sound and he turns back, hovering over your waiting cunt with wide eyes and a slack jaw. Out front, voices call back and forth to one another – some neighborly greeting and affable conversation – but Joel doesn’t hear. Deafened to anything but the sound of your sighs and his own blood hammering through his ears.

It’s a little rushed, a tad rough, the way he presses his lips back to yours. The way his beard grazes against your most sensitive spot, and the gasp he swears he hears lift from your tongue.

But fuck, he’s missed this, the way he always does – without knowing, without actively thinking about it, without knowing it was even at home waiting for him. If his mind weren’t on an entirely different planet right now, he’d curse that goddamn chain link for holding him up, for keeping him away longer than thirty seconds from the sweet little angel resting in his bed, and the sweet little pussy between her legs.

He parts your thighs wider, tongue dipping lower and deeper as he laps at your core, almost fucking panting against it.

You squirm lazily beneath him, shoulders tensing and untensing, a half-limp wrist lifting to pet his hair and an attempt at his name between your lips. Joel, you whimper, thick with sleep and something more dangerous.

I know, baby, he’s telling you, I know, and his tongue slips inside again. His hips grind into the mattress, cock an agonizing stiff against the sturdy edge. He can feel the wet in his boxers, the precome sticking to the inside of the cotton.

Fuck, he wants to be inside you so badly, so desperately.

Another gasp sputters across your lips, cut short in your throat when his teeth bump against your clit.

Too hungry, too brash, he thinks. You’re too soft, too open for him to let it go to waste. Not like this.

He pulls back, a filthy thread of arousal and saliva between his open lips and yours, and places a sodden kiss to the inside of your thigh.

But you whine, you poor little thing – your head twisting to the other side, a second hand now blindly surfing across his shoulder, past the brush of his beard and sifting through his still-chilly hair. The loss of attention to your pussy aching between your legs; your hips lifting weakly to meet the scratch of his chin again.

And that same sound – that same Jo-oel – a sound like song, like saccharine dripping over his shoulders.

So, he lifts a hand – two middle fingers coming together to push open your cunt, instantly sliding in knuckle-deep. Sucked in by the wet mess left behind by his lips, stretching you out with slow, round movements.

You’re slowly stirring, blossoming from your sleep and turning slowly back into this world. The cold edges seeping in, the warm flush of pleasure sharpening at their meeting. He’d do anything, he thinks, to keep you here; keep you teetering on the edge, tangled up between your world and his.

J– oh, fu-uck, you whine, and he can tell you’re still blinkered by sleep. But you grind on him again – a long, languid movement which seems to spatter out at its end when the coarse hair of his beard catches against your clit.

The breath stops in your throat, punching out in a shuddered moan. Joel could come just from the sound of it.

You gonna give me one, baby girl? he pleads, forearms clamping down on the underside of your thighs. Desperate – desperate to feel you, hear you, taste you as you come undone. Just one.

You’re writhing around beneath him, as needy as he is. A winding which matches his, coiling at the bottom of your stomach; a feeling which pulls at the corners of your lips and shocks them into a smutty, half-conscious smile. Your eyes roll back, fluttering open and then snapping shut when the light floods in.

There, you say, clearest so far, movements the strongest he’s felt. Your fingers root in his hair, rough over his scalp. Keep – keep doin’ that.

Joel smiles against your mound; a cocky thing, emboldened by the sound of that little Texan twang, the curl of an accent which doesn’t belong to you. Rather, a result of your years spent with him, watching the way his mouth shapes the words, learning the low swing and swirling melody of his tongue.

As if he’s as alive within you as he is within himself; every little thing Joel knows is him, injected into your bloodstream – his dry wit, his blunt honesty, his thick fingers and his insatiable tongue.

He slips in a third, flicking them perfectly inside of you. Beckoning your release; tongue sitting in wait, a resting point for you to grind your clit against.

And he wants it as much as you do: wants to feel the clamping of your body around him, wants to taste the flood of your orgasm as it shocks through every bone in your body.

Wants to pull three soaked, pruned fingers from your pussy and slip them over your tongue, letting you clasp your fingers around his wrist; watching the half-dozing flutter of your eyelashes as you suckle on them and make those pretty little sounds for him.

Your hand knots tighter in his hair, pelvis circling steady against his suckling lips. He can smell it on you: smell the need seeping from your pores. The sleep spilling from the corners of your mouth, the happy whimpers and quiet cries for more, more, Joel, more.

And – Shit, he breathes against you, feeling a sudden rush of electricity he knows all too well between his hips. Not now, not now not before he’s been inside – Shit, baby, gotta let me go.

You whine in refusal – a petulant sound, all stubborn and greedy. ‘m so close, I –

Pretty bird, he groans, lifting his jaw. He places a messy kiss to the crease between your core and your thigh, wrist stammering with his sudden movements. You gotta – you gotta let go, you’re gonna make me come –

You’re echoing him, mumbling the words gonna, gonna come – fuck, Joel, ‘m gonna –

Shit.

Not – Fuck – not right n– Christ, baby girl, you’re gonna – you’re –

Your walls spasm, clamping and relaxing, squeezing around his huge fingers. But it’s not that – it’s not the gush of warm fluid which seeps from between your legs, coating his knuckles and dripping into his palm.

It’s not the arch of your back, the way your breasts lift to the ceiling and his shirt slips below one nipple. Not the way your head rolls back against the mattress, a broken moan tearing in shards from your throat.

No.

It’s the way your hands leave his hair in an instant, and grip around the leather on your thigh. Skin stretching thin over your knuckles, thumbs between the strap and your sticky skin; hips still riding out your high as you ground yourself, holding onto his holster.

And it makes Joel come. Hard.

Harder than he knew possible, grinding against a mattress and the inside of his fucking jeans.

He falls forward, breathing a guttural moan into the soft swell of your stomach below your navel, fingers hooking into the baggy shirt around your arms.

Shitshitshit, he pants, feeling the warm ejaculate spurt from his cock and all over the inside of his boxers. Oh, fuck, baby. Fuck me.

His hips shudder a few more times, pressing hard into the edge of the mattress before he’s coming down, slowing to a stop – still a leaden weight on your stomach. His cock almost painful, overstimulated and oversensitive.

But then – something gently tittering. A bird singing, cooing above his head. The ground beneath his temple shakes, tremors with laughter. The dust twinkles in the sunlight, now brighter, golden, streaming through the window.

You’re awake.

Joel drags his gaze upwards, bleary and glazed with sex, and catches your eye.

Feel good? you ask, sifting hair away from his damp forehead. When was the last time that happened? Fourteen?

I don’t wanna talk about it, he mumbles into your belly.

Your chest jumps, a laugh which echoes into Joel’s ear. Tastes that good, huh?

It takes a mighty effort for him to push up on his palms, slowly crawling up the length of your body until his elbows plant firm into the mattress either side of your head. He groans as he lowers his lips, parting them to let you slip your tongue inside.

The kiss is slow, tender. Your bodies melding together, teeth clacking and jaws moving in sync. A sharp taste, sweet with a singe of bitterness to it. Perfect, you think, smirking against Joel’s cool lips.

He pulls away, lips tickling the tip of your nose deliberately.

With a giggle, you push on his chest. You should shower. You smell like patrol.

Joel cocks an eyebrow. You comin’ in with me?

Nope. I got even more laundry to do now, old man.

He entertains the quip with a subtle smile, a thing which softens the creases on his face and lights a twinkle in his eyes. Quietly, genuinely, in a way which makes your heart ache a little, he whispers, Sorry I was workin’, pretty bird.

You shrug. ‘s okay. You made up for it. And – I found your holster. You lift your knee, letting the buckle shine in the sunlight.

You did that, Joel agrees, nodding and glancing down at the thing. He hooks a finger around the strap, giving it a little shake. Maybe I oughta lose it more often.

Hm, you shrug, or I can just keep it safe for ya. Looks good, don’t it?

He feigns a disappointed smile, a resigned sigh before he looks back up.

Better ‘n when I wear it, he admits, and his lips crash down to yours again.

#same universe as 'wish you were here' - if you want #joel miller #jackson!joel #joel miller fic #the last of us #tlou fic #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller smut #tw somnophilia #tw dubcon

[penvisions]

by the grit of sandpaper {masterlist}

Pairing: Jackson! Joel Miller x F! Reader

Summary: Joel Miller is a gruff as they come, the world having changed him for the worst. But settling in Jackson with his brother changed him for the better. He's known around town as someone to help, whether it be with home repairs, construction, and hand carved trinkets. An offhand comment from you inspires him to branch out and create helpful kitchen wares. And it seems everyone has been gifted one from him, except for you. It makes you rethink the casual friendship you had developed with the man that had just begun to expand beyond patrols.

Word Count: 44.5k - ongoing

Warnings: canon typical violence, canon typical language, pining, unrequited feelings, joel a little mean in this, heart of gold joel, carpenter joel, woodworking joel, artisan joel, patrol partnership, mild injuries, confessions, lots of feelings, angst, hurt and comfort, joel miller's hands need their own warning, arguing, heated interactions, smut, p in v, unprotected p in v, oral (f and m receiving), jealousy, more to be added as the story develops!

A/N: hinted at this back around the holidays, but will soon be committing time to bring this to life!

ao3 link || main masterlist || ko-fi

fic teaser || fic teaser no.2 || sneakie peek || olive's song

chapter 1 || chapter 2 || chapter 3 || chapter 4 || chapter 5 || chapter 6 || chapter 7

epilogue

#dev writes #fic: by the grit of sandpaper #tlou #tlou fanfic #tlou fanfiction #tlou fic #the last of us #the last of us fanfic #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller #jackson! joel miller #joel miller series #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fanfic #joel miller fic #carpenter joel miller #artisan joel miller #woodworker joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #angst #pining #unrequited feelings #hurt and comfort #jackson era #jackson era joel #patrol partnership #ao3 link #ao3 fic

[slut4thebroken]

Dad/stepdad finding your vibrator hcs

Tommy Shelby, Cillian Murphy, Raymond Leon, Jackson Rippner, Lenny Miller

(All accurate to the universe’s time period)

Tommy Shelby - To say he was shocked would be an understatement. At first he was concerned— were you suffering from hysteria and he didn’t even know? But then he remembered that vibrators have very recently started being used for more… personal activities. He confronted you about it anyway though. You blushed and stuttered out “I- I can explain..” and he found it amusing at first, but he kept his expression stern. It was when you broke down crying that he suddenly softened. “I’m sorry, daddy. Please don’t be mad..” You cried out, making him pull you into a hug and shush you, trying to calm you down. “I’m not mad, love.” He said gently. “Just… tell me what it’s for.. I promise I won’t be mad.” You looked up at him with wide, teary eyes to see if he was being truthful. When you found no sign of a lie, you whispered that you use it for self pleasure, which he already knew. He just wanted to hear you say it. He sighed and shook his head. “You think you’re old enough to be playing with adult toys like this?” He asked, and you muttered out an excuse of how you just turned 18. “Maybe so, but I still don’t think it’s appropriate at your age.” That triggered something inside of you and you whined about how you’re an adult and you can do what you want, acting far too bratty for his liking. “Is that so? An adult, are you?” He had a condescending smirk on his lips and he pretended to think it over, then scoffed a laugh. “Fine then. If you’re an adult I guess I should start punishing you like one.” His tone was noticeably darker now. “Get on the fucking bed.”

Cillian Murphy - He knew he should’ve ignored it, respected your privacy… But he just kept thinking about you using it. The pretty sounds you probably made, the way your cheeks probably became flushed… But then he started thinking about you using it with someone.. Did you have a secret boyfriend? Or were you exploring your sexuality all on your own… Deciding to do the responsible thing, he started planning out when and how to talk to you about all of these new things you may be feeling as a developing young woman. One day he sat down with you, gently told you what he knew and reassured you when you immediately became embarrassed. He told you that it was natural and nothing to be ashamed of… “A young girl like yourself needs someone to guide her, teach her what’s right and how to be safe.” He said softly, brushing your hair out of your face and tucking it behind your ear. “As your father, I’m afraid that role falls on me.” He tried not to seem too excited by the idea. Standing up, he walked over to where the toy was hidden and brought it back over to the bed, handing it to you. “I need to make sure you’re using it the right way. I’d hate for my little girl to get hurt.” He frowned, watching as your eyes widened. He didn’t let you protest as he helped removed your clothes and laid you down on the bed. “Now show me exactly how you’re using it, sweetheart.”

Raymond Leon - At first, he almost mistook it for something else, but when he did a double take, he realized what it actually was. A rush of emotions hit him, the main ones being anger, disappointment, and arousal. Were you turning into a whore? Did he do something wrong when raising you? When you came home one day, he was waiting on your bed, the vibrator next to him. You were immediately hit with a wave of embarrassment and humiliation- good. You started trying to defend yourself, saying it’s not what it looks like. “Don’t try to play innocent.” He scoffed. “Get over my fucking lap.” His voice was so harsh, it made you tear up as you begged him not to. So he roughly grabbed you and pulled you over his thighs, then flipped your skirt up. He spanked you until his hand was burning and there were little welts on your ass. You were sobbing loudly, the pain becoming too much, and with the way you kept squirming and rubbing against his cock, he eventually got hard. He forced the vibrator between your legs, making you apologize for your whorish behavior as you came over and over again until he was satisfied. “Get on your knees.” He demanded and you slid off his lap to the floor, still sobbing and almost hyperventilating from the overwhelming pleasure. “There are consequences for acting like a whore.” He spat, quickly opening his pants to free his cock, making your breath catch in your throat. “So, be a good girl for once and finish what you started.”

Jackson Rippner - He had been trying so hard to be a good father figure- god knows you desperately needed it. But as soon as he found a vibrator hidden away (very poorly) in one of your drawers, he just lost all control. He managed to wait a few days until it was only the two of you in the house, then confronted you. This wasn’t his proudest moment… but he didn’t regret it. “What would your mom think, huh?” He asked, subtly threatening you. “I would hate to have to tell her… but maybe we can work something out.” He said coyly, enjoying the way you blushed and squirmed and pouted. He made you beg for it, for his cock and for him to not tell your mom. Once he had you underneath him with his cock fully sheathed in your little cunt, he practically plowed into you until you cried. “This is your own fault.” He hissed. “The only reason this is happening is because you teased me by leaving it somewhere for me to find.” You sobbed harder and shook your head, unable to do anything else to protest. “You’ve been a fucking tease since day one with those tiny little shirts and the skirts that barely cover your ass… I’m fucking sick of it.” He growled, getting more worked up. “From now on, you’re gonna let me use this cunt whenever I want, or I’ll tell your mom about your little secret, and how you seduced me and begged me to fuck you.”

Lenny Miller - You should’ve known better than to think you could hide things from him. Just like you should’ve known better than to think you could lie to him. But when he confronted you, you denied it. Which he figured you might do… That’s why he set up a camera in your room, hidden in a vent but angled perfectly at your bed. The quality was not the best, but it was good enough to still obviously show what you were doing. He can’t even count the amount of times he came to that footage of you. When you tried lying, he sighed and reached for the remote, already having the tape ready in the tv. The second it turned on, you lips parted in shock and your face paled, then a very dark blush took over your cheeks. “There are a few different ways this can go. Option one: the camera stays up and you can keep the vibrator. Option two: I punish you, then confiscate it, but I’ll take down the camera.” He paused, lowering his voice into something darker and thick with arousal. “Or option three: you show me just how sorry you are for owning something like this. I’m still going to punish you, but if you do a good enough job begging, I might just let you keep it.” He said coyly. He waited impatiently for you to choose and when you couldn’t get any words out, still glancing at the tv, he chose for you. He spanked you until you cried and made you suck his cock to prove you were sorry, then forced you to ride him while you begged for his forgiveness.

#headcanons #hcs #tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby smut #tommy shelby #thomas shelby smut #thomas shelby x reader #thomas shelby #cillian murphy x reader #cillian murphy smut #cillian x reader #cillian murphy #raymond leon smut #raymond leon x reader #raymond leon #jackson rippner smut #jackson rippner x reader smut #jackson rippner x reader #jackson rippner #lenny miller smut #lenny miller x reader #lenny miller #leonard miller

[whibeet]

#digital art #art #exer campbell #fanart #jackson's diary #jackson's diary fanart #david miller #david miller fanart #exer campbell fanart #dexer #dexer fanart

[softpascalito]

Christmas Baking for Three - Joel Miller x Reader

Summary: You're tired, pregnant, angry and you mess up the cookies meant for Joel. He gets a full blast of your hormones - and still manages to surprise you.

Relationships: Joel Miller x F!Reader WC: 1800 Tags/Warnings: Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Baking, Christmas Cookies, Christmas, Pregnancy, Female Reader, No use of y/n, Fights, Mention of normal pregnancy struggles, Soft Joel (The Last of Us), Nicknames, Kissing, Crying, Joel Miller in an apron Read on AO3 full advent calendar (updated daily)

notes: another lil calendar piece that is also dedicated to steph's winter writing challenge (@toomanystoriessolittletime) with the trope baking <3 i also wanted to mention a very short but very lovely pregnancy piece by SwiggitySwagNightmareStag with peña that i found really inspiring in regards to p characters and how they handle pregnancy. you can read it here! <3

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

You swore under your breath as you opened the oven door, only to be met with a gush of heat and the smell of burnt dough. The cookies that you had so carefully prepared, cut out in the shapes of christmas trees and hearts, had taken on a dark brown color, the furthest row from you already smoking slightly.

“Fuck-” With a quick move, you maneuvered the try of burnt cookies onto the sink to let them cool off. Looking at them in broad daylight, it was clear that they were barely edible and in no way as enjoyable as they should be.

You ignored the surge of anger inside of yourself, anger at the oven for being so damn unreliable, at the timer that you’d meant to replace ages ago, at yourself. You’d been too distracted with cleaning up, then being forced to take a quick trip to the bathroom upstairs and getting sidetracked with laundry.

A groan left you at the realization. The laundry was still soaking in the bathtub, abandoned the second you’d caught a glimpse of the clock and realized how long the cookies had been baking for.

Angry tears shot into your eyes. It felt like a never-ending battle between you and your ever-growing list of things to do, to prepare, to keep track of. And this had been the one thing you’d wanted to do for him, to thank him for taking over so many of said things now that you were in your third trimester. Maybe you could start over, hide the failed cookies, to spare your another embarrassment in front of-

As if summoned by your thoughts, the door of the small mudroom bordering the kitchen opened with a creak. Merely a second later and clearly alarmed by the smell, he was hurrying into the room, eyes raking through the kitchen until they landed on you. His shoulders slumped slightly as he took in your form, checking you from top to bottom.

“Are you okay?” Joel's voice was soft, despite him being a little out of breath. You could see the basket filled with firewood behind him. Another task that used to be yours before your stomach had grown too big.

He watched your reaction, carefully making his way around the counter, glancing at the burnt cookies in passing. It was enough to make the tears finally spill from your eyes, rolling down your face and landing on the shirt that was already stained with flour. And the anger inside of you? It had finally found an outlet.

The poor man didn't even have time to brace himself before you started yelling.

“You arent supposed to be home, what the fuck are you doing here?!” He looked taken aback, but only for a moment. Then his face seemed to relax. You didn't want him to relax. You wanted him to be as angry as you were and in as much pain and misery. You knew it was a horrible, horrible thought, but you couldn't help it. You wanted him to have to run to the toilet upwards of twenty times a day, to have him woken up by a human kicking inside of him at the most ungodly hours.

“You said you'd be at work until five! You're not-” Another sob escaped you as the knot in your chest seemed to grow exponentially, “You're not supposed to be here yet and-”

You couldn't find a single trace of anger on his face. Not in the crease between his brows, not in the corners of his mouth, not even in his eyes. All you could find was concern.

“Hey-” Joel whispered, his hands cupping your cheeks. They were cold but you leaned into the touch regardless, “What's going on, darlin? Talk to me, please.”

You hiccuped slightly as you tried to speak, the words fighting hard to not get outside. As far as your body was concerned, there was no point in telling him, in making him a bigger part of your currently miserable experience than he already had to be.

“Burned- I burned the cookies-” You mumbled, “I wanted- wanted to surprise you.”

Your arms finally wrapped around him, your body fitting snug against his, even with your baby bump between you. Joel pulled you closer, one hand supporting your back while the other gently stroked your hair, “Shhh, it's okay. You're okay.”

He held you like that for a while, occasionally whispering words of gentle encouragement into your ear until the sobs had stopped. Then, he nudged you towards the living room, guiding you to sit down on one of the armchairs next to the window. He stayed by your side, kneeling down in front of you as he kept his hands on your legs, gently rubbing your thigh.

“There we are,” Joel mumbled softly, producing a handkerchief from nearby and wiping the last of your tears from your cheeks. He gave you a few more moments of silence before he spoke.

“Wanna talk about it?” You opened your mouth to decline, to push him away and deal with it yourself. It's what you would have done a few months ago. But, as he kept reminding you, you were a team now. No, not just a team. Parents. Soon-to-be-parents. He-was-once-before-but-you-were-new-to-all-this-parents.

“It's just been a lot,” you mumbled, watching as Joel nodded along, soft brown eyes radiating understanding. “And I'm already putting so much work on you on top of your normal duties so I thought- I wanted to do something nice for you.”

Joel hummed quietly, his thumb pressing into your thigh a little, “You do nice things for me all the time, darlin’.”

“I don't. Not with-” You helplessly gestured to your stomach. You could practically see Joel's expression getting a little more serious at that, “Baby, I promise you do. You're here when I come home, right? You fall asleep next to me. You kiss me when you wake up in the morning. Don't need more than that, baby.”

Almost instantly, the tears were back. A thick one rolled down your cheek and Joel reached up just in time to catch it.

“I appreciate you wanting to bake for me, godda-” He stopped himself from cursing, a habit he’d picked up in the last few weeks, with the due date coming ever closer and him insisting that you should at least try to bring up a civilized child. You had a feeling it had less to do with your child and more with the amount of curse words Ellie dropped on a daily basis, but if it made Joel happy, you wouldn't argue against it.

He sighed, “I really do appreciate it. And you know I think your cookin’ is nothing short of magic,” he mumbled quietly. Then he shook his head, his hand wandering to gently rest on your round stomach, “But it's not why I'm with you.”

“Besides, you're already doin’ a whole lot of baking in here,” he added with a small smile, gently patting your stomach and you couldn't help but let out a small laugh.

“I wouldn't exactly call it baking.”

Joel raised a brow, “No, ‘m pretty sure it is. I made a real nice dough, put it right in here, turned up the heat and now I just gotta wait for it to be done.”

“You're such an idiot, Miller,” you offered weakly as you leaned down towards him, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. He smirked against your lips, “If being an idiot gets you to stop crying, I'll do it more often.”

The kiss barely had time to get more heated before you gently pushed back against Joel's chest, “Gotta finish the laundry upstairs.” A small frown built on his face, “We agreed I'd do that. Ain't good for your back, baby.”

“I told you, I've been-” He actually cut you off this time, squeezing your thigh a little to make you fall silent, “Remember what I said? When you told me you were pregnant?”

You raised a brow, “Before or after you almost fainted?” Joel sent you a playful glare at that, causing you to sigh, “You said we were in this together. That you- that you'd be here for it all.”

“That's right,” he mused softly, his thumb still absent-mindedly caressing your thigh. 

“Now, let me go take care of the laundry and you take a nap, yeah? You look-” He paused for a moment, clearly trying to find a nice way to say it, “You look real tired, darlin’.”

You drifted off to the sound of clothes being washed in the bathtub in the next room and to Joel's soft humming of a lullaby he’d been practicing. If this works just half as good on our baby, you thought right before falling asleep, we’re not going to half a single sleepless night.

When you wake up, the rays of afternoon sun are filtering through the windows, giving the house the warm glow you like it so much for. Stumbling into the kitchen, you're met with a sight that you've never seen before.

Joel Miller, an apron tied around his front, kneading away on a piece of dough. Your small laughter alerts him to your presence and you swear you can spot the faintest blush on his cheeks as you practically skip towards him.

“If you wanted an excuse to wear that, you could've just said so,” you tease, leaning against the counter as you watch him. Joel grumbles softly but the small smile on his face isn't lost on you, “ ‘bout time you wake up. Wanna help?”

You frown slightly- and then you realize what he’s doing. Baking bread is something you do often, but this isn't that. The cookie recipe you'd been using earlier is placed next to him, the dough looks exactly the same yours had before you’d burned it.

“Figured we both like cookies. Plus it doubles as a Christmas activity and, well.”

You kiss him. Once, twice, only stopping when he forces you to. He's perfect.

You bake together this time, with you showing him how to get the cut-outs just right, him sneaking a few pieces of the dough into his mouth when he thinks you’re not looking. It’s cozy and relaxing and for the first time in weeks, you seem to forget all about the struggles of being a pregnant woman.

You both sit in front of the oven afterwards, you in Joels lap, your bodies intertwined, both watching eagerly as the cookies slowly turn golden. He kisses your head, his nose nuzzling your hair a few times.

“Next time you’re overwhelmed like that?” He mumbles quietly, “Just let me know, yeah? You know I'm here. For you and the little one”

You nod softly, resting your head against his chest, “I know.”

notes: as always, thank you for reading. i adore each and every one of you. if you enjoyed this, feel free to give me an early christmas present by leaving a comment or reblogging <3

#pedropascaladventcalender #joel miller #joel miller / reader #joel miller / you #joel miller x reader #joel x reader #joel / reader #tlou #the last of us #jackson era #mb #moodboard #pedro pascal #fanfic #fanfiction #baking #christmas baking #christmas #stephswinterwritingchallenge #pregnancy #hurt/comfort #fluff #domestic fluff #established relationship

[elliespuns]

This is Jackson Joel Change my mind

#the last of us #tlou #joel miller #joel tlou #jackson joel #pedro pascal #the last of us game #tlou game #the last of us hbo #tlou hbo #the last of us season 2 #tlou seson 2

[sinsofsummers]

sensational; part ii

6.8k | joel miller x f!innocent!reader follow-up to sensational

summary: you've tasked joel with teaching you about all of the things you missed. he's back for more...teaching moments. warnings: smut (duh), 18+, mdni. softdom!joel vibes in this one, joel gives reader an anatomy lesson, pet names (lots of dollface) fingering, praise kink to the gods, masturbation (f and brief m), reader gives joel a hand(y), grinding, bit of a corruption kink toward the end, jesus there might need to be a part 3 note: well. look at what you guys did. you went and loved on sensational so much and asked for a part 2 so often that i just had to grant your wishes. i hope you’re fckn happy✌🏼🥹 (this is all jokes i’m so excited to write more of this dynamic teehee)

You'd never counted yourself as a dreamer of any sort; when sleep clouded your brain at night, every thought faded along with it. Aside from the occasional nightmare, reminding you of your parents' absence, you hadn't had an actual dream since you were a kid.

Of course, that night in Joel's house had changed everything, in every possible way. In just an hour or so he had taken your world into his hands, shaped it, flipped it, and returned it to you, unrecognizable. His name was carved into everything you saw and touched, and this included your dreams.

He was everywhere in your head when you slept. So much so that you'd begun to forget which was reality and which was a figment of your imagination, which made your patrols with him all the more humiliating.

Your hands were cold. It was all you could focus on as you followed Joel along your normal patrol route. Just twelve hours had passed since that night in his house, when he'd touched you with rough hands and what taught you what it meant to feel desired. His words still rang clear in your head days later:

Trust me, doll. I've got so much more to teach you.

It sent your head reeling just to think about it now. The memory of his fingertips grazing the side of your face as he'd said it, those brown eyes sparkling with desire for you—a vision of contentment.

You had leaned into his touch subconsciously, reaching a hand up to trace the line of his wrist. His eyes had darted to where your fingers pressed to his skin, a soft grin replacing his satisfied smirk. "I'd better get you home, then," he'd whispered.

It had taken everything in you to ignore the small pang of disappointment that had bloomed in your gut, but it was an easier task when he'd dropped his lips to your forehead.

"No one'll miss me at home," you'd protested quietly, trying not to relish too much in the feeling of his beard scratching at the space between your eyebrows.

This sentiment was true. You still didn't know how things had worked out so well, but after arriving in Jackson, Tommy (the fact that it was Joel's younger brother made this seem all the less coincidental) and Maria had been more than accommodating. They'd offered you your own space, a house to yourself. Granted, it was much smaller than Joel's, but it was your own. It had become home in the four short years you'd lived in Jackson.

No one was waiting for you at home. It was a fact that used to make your throat close up, memories taunting you every moment they could. Now it was a welcomed thought, if it meant that you could remain in the heady presence of Joel Miller.

But he'd only shaken his head, his brown eyes flitting down to your lips before returning to your gaze. "I'm sure they'll notice when you don't come strolling out of your own place in the mornin'," he'd insisted gently. His thumb traced your bottom lip when your shoulders slumped. You hoped you didn't look as pitiful as you felt, your lip threatening to push outward in a pout.

"Might not be able to keep my hands to myself tonight if I let you stay," he'd breathed. You didn't care if he said it as an apology, or if it was actually true.

Because who were you to disagree with him? It was Joel.

So without more than a lingering hand on your wrist, he'd walked you to your door. When you'd teased him for such a chivalrous act, he'd cocked an eyebrow, glancing sideways at you. "Can't just let you walk home alone after that," he'd scoffed, his voice rough again in the outdoors. A few people were still milling about despite it being darker than pitch after nightfall. "M'not a complete scoundrel," he said with a wry grin.

Your front door always looked so inviting, a place for you to take a breath and relax after a long day. In that moment, it was taking everything in you to put one foot in front of the other and return to your own place.

"Scoundrel," you'd mused, hoping the amusement in your voice covered the way you leaned back with every step, as if you could claim one more touch of his body—arm, chest, shoulder—to send you to bed with nothing but him on your mind. "Kind of a big word, wouldn't you say?" you'd teased him, just as he'd done to you. "Sure you know what it means?"

The twitch of his jaw was enough of a reward for your attempt at humor, but your satisfied smirk had been wiped clean off your face when he'd darted a glance around before leaning in, hovering just centimeters from your face.

It occurred to you in that moment that you'd truly only kissed him once. A shame, a voice in your head sighed. His lips were devastatingly plump, even in the darkness.

Joel had stayed there, his eyes tearing down to your mouth before warning you in that deliciously low baritone, "I know what it is. Best get inside," his jaw twitched once more and you caught him clenching and unclenching his fists, "'fore I show you what it means to be a scoundrel."

You'd gone inside with a shaky breath and the return of that familiar pulse that, it seemed, only he knew how to ignite.

—

Joel chose not to look in the mirror when he'd gone home that night. He wasn't sure he'd be able to stand the way his hair was undoubtedly wild, his eyes hard with desire, and his hands still aching with the memory of her squirming body in his lap.

After four years of near silence, this girl had unraveled him. After all those days on patrol with her, nothing to do except look at her when she wouldn't notice, Joel Miller had been undone.

The next day, waking up early with the stiffness in his boxers begging to be dealt with, Joel spit on his palm and wrapped it around his cock, releasing a sigh. Fuck's sake, he thought with a groan. Can't hardly get a full night's sleep anymore.

It should have annoyed him; it was certainly an inconvenience. But if it meant that he'd get to spend more time thinking about her body and her lips and her eyes when she asked those incessant questions, then so be it. He'd never sleep another wink and be glad for it.

It didn't take long for his release to come, not when the memories of her whines were so fresh in his mind. To think that he'd had her on his lap, hips squirming in that way that only she knew...it was enough to make him—"A grown fuckin' man," he reminded himself—spill into his hands and draw ragged breaths into his lungs to recover.

With an arm thrown across his face, he latched onto the image of her in the heat of ecstasy, her eyelids fluttering shut and her lips wet from constantly biting them.

For a moment, he tried to rein himself in. Can't be doin' this, he'd thought while getting ready for patrol that morning. Don't wanna take advantage of her, or fuck her up cause of my inability to control my own desires.

In reality, he'd considered, did she really know what she was getting herself into? With little more knowledge than the mechanics of reproduction, it had been evident with the events of the previous night that she knew nothing of what pleasure could be. Did he really want to be responsible for her discovery of such things?

But when he went to the stables an hour later and saw her standing in the snow with an extra twinge in her grin and her eyes sparkling despite the echoes of fatigue in her irises, every doubt dissipated immediately. He pretended not to notice the way her eyes lingered on his back when they saddled up, heading out of Jackson for the day.

Joel Miller was never one to deny a woman in need. Why should he have stopped now?

—

"How'd you sleep?"

When you looked over at him, almost shocked that he'd broken the silence, your eyebrow quirked up. "Fine," you answered.

It wasn't that this patrol had been disappointing, it was just...ever since you'd left Jackson that morning, you'd been waiting for him to look at you like he had the night before, or to even acknowledge you in the way that you could still remember him doing.

Maybe it was because Tommy was nearby at the time, or maybe he'd changed his mind after all. Maybe you'd overstepped, asking a man so much older than you to teach you all of this. Maybe it hadn't happened at all—your dreams were rather convincing these days.

If it hadn't been for those girls, hell-bent on making you feel ostracized, perhaps you wouldn't have landed yourself in this position. You probably wouldn't have had any reason to be curious about what it all meant, and you could have gone on in comfortable silence with him on your patrols.

With a heavy mind, you blew out a breath. If it hadn't been for those girls, though—you never would have known the creases that sank into the corners of his eyes when he grinned at you.

Beside you, having held back to come up shoulder-to-shoulder, Joel huffed. "Bullshit, darlin'," he scoffed, casting a sideways glance in your direction.

You tightened your hands on the reins. "Excuse me?" you said sharply.

His chuckle was a soft rumble in his chest, and you ached to feel it against your back. "I saw those sleepy eyes at the stables," he crooned, the corners of his eyes crinkling just like you remembered. "Looks like someone didn't get a good night's sleep."

"Oh, and I'm just supposed to believe you slept like a damn baby, then?" You couldn't help the incredulity in your tone, but you blushed when you noticed him smirking, his lips twitching as he fought a smile away.

"'Course not," he shook his head almost dismissively. "Couldn't tell my brain to stop conjurin' pictures of you shakin' in my lap." He adjusted the way he was seated on his horse, and you couldn't help but wonder if he was getting hard at the reminder of the memory.

You, in a similar vein, were trying to ignore the unmistakable feel of heat puddling between your legs. Keeping your eyes forward, you asked, "Is that a good thing?"

Joel nodded. "A very good thing, dollface. You were so good for me last night."

Any air that had been in your lungs left in a rush, and you put a hand to your cheek, warm despite the winter's wind. You thought you heard yourself whine at the sound of the pet name.

Thankfully, he didn't say or do anything to show that he'd noticed. Instead, he tugged his horse to a stop. "Let's get down here," he said. "Walk and talk, yeah?"

The thought of walking beside him after all that had happened the night before was enough to make you freeze in your saddle, suddenly unsure of how to get down. "Yeah," you mumbled, if only to fill the silence.

You could hear the crunch of snow under his boots as he came up beside you, thick gloved hands reaching for your waist. "C'mon, darlin'," he'd insisted, "I won't bite."

There was a note of irony in his tone, and you let him pull you from your saddle, landing in the snow in front of him. Your jacket snagged against his, and you stood there for a moment, letting your frosty wisps of breath coil and furl with his. "What do you mean?" you asked, cursing your ever-present confidence when it came to asking him questions. It seemed that you'd never learn to hold your tongue.

"Hmm?" he hummed in response. "What's what mean?" He stepped away from you to grab the reins in his hand and began to walk forward in the snow.

You shook your head and pushed on, stumbling after him. When did the snow get so deep? "You sounded rather..." you trailed off, searching for the word.

"Oh, here it comes," he mused in that serious tone, hardly covering the teasing lilt that rang clear in his eyes. "Bet you're coming up with a big word right about now, huh?"

You couldn't help it when you rolled your eyes and swatted a hand at the back of his arm. "I was going to say you sounded smug," you finished. "About how you won't bite?"

There it was again. That look of slight surprise at your questions. You waited for a few moments, the two of you trudging along in the snow, before he answered quietly. "We're jumpin' ahead of ourselves, but I s'pose it won't hurt." He shrugged. "Some people like it. Biting."

You furrowed your eyebrows. "Like it?" You looked down at your hands, covered in thick gloves. "Doesn't it hurt?"

Joel smirked. "It can," he considered, "if the person gettin' bitten wants it like that." He brushed your arm with his. "But some people don't like it at all. Just depends."

You braved a look up at his face and swallowed roughly, feeling your core pulse at the sight of his rosy cheeks. "Does it have to hurt?" You didn't mean to sound so desperate; you were just curious. "I mean, is it like...like a real bite?"

It happened so quickly that you hardly had a moment to process. Joel stopped in his tracks, pulled you near, and dipped his head down to your ear. "Don't have to," he murmured, and you were just starting to quiver at the feel of his voice next to your ear when he was brushing your hair from your neck and grazing his teeth against your skin. "Can feel good, if the person doin' the biting knows how."

You couldn't help the hand that shot out to grab his arm, as if it were the only thing that might hold you up. "I'm assuming you know how," you said thickly, eyes wandering on his weathered face. Funny, you thought at the sight of his grin, he looks quite young like this.

Joel shifted his arm so he could squeeze your hand once with his before letting it go. "Don't boost my ego too high, sweetcheeks," he warned, but you could hear the humor in his voice. "Might never let go if you do."

You knew he was kidding, but the prospect that he was being serious made your stomach flutter and forced you to clench your thighs together, bringing the forefront of your attention back to the frustration that was pooling between your legs. "Joel," you muttered in a whine, not quite realizing you'd said it until he was looking at you with a twinge of concern.

"What's up, doll?" he asked, slowing to a stop. "Somethin' wrong?"

A curly tendril of his graying hair was blown into his face with the winter wind, and you wished you could brush it away with your fingers like he'd done just moments ago. "I..." you inhaled deeply, and shifted your weight. "I'm..."

It took him a moment to understand, and when he did, his eyes sparkled. "Oh, doll," he cooed, reaching forward to tug you closer to him. "Need something', huh?"

You leaned your head forward until your forehead rested against him, breathing in the scene of pine and old leather and that heady musk that was utterly Joel. Nodding into his strong chest, you brought your hand up to his wrist and tugged it down, down, down...there.

Joel's large hand cupped the mound between your legs and you swallowed harshly as it pulsed again, begging for the sweet release he'd given you the night before. "Fuck," he breathed, the vibrations of his voice rolling against your skin. "Shoulda told me you were this bothered, baby," he hummed.

You lifted your head. "I've been trying," you said in a pitiful whine, although this wasn't entirely true, and he knew it. "Why does it...why do I ache so bad?"

His smirk quivered, and his pupils were suddenly huge as he withdrew his hand from where it covered your heat, exposing it to the frigid winter air once more. "I think we've gone far enough, don't you?" he winked. "Think we may as well head back."

The implications of what would happen when you got back to Jackson made your head spin. Nodding feverishly, you let go of the twinge of embarrassment at your eagerness. "Yes, please," you hiccuped.

His tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip. "Good," he murmured.

—

This was the worst possible outcome.

Just when you'd worked up to exactly where you wanted to be with Joel, with his hands on you and his intentions leading you back to his house (and hopefully his couch), Tommy stopped you at the stables.

Well, not you. Not you at all, actually. He stalked up to his older brother and said, Meeting at my place, Joel."

He'd just gotten down from his saddle to help you do the same and was letting his hands linger on your waist when the interruption happened. With his hungry eyes locked on yours, he'd been leaning into your touch and hovering his hands just inches from your heat.

You could have sworn he jumped out of his skin at the sound of Tommy's voice; you just hoped it was because of his infamous hearing loss on his ride side and decidedly not because he'd been caught standing so close to you.

"We just had a meeting last week," he said gruffly, his eyes still searching yours. For what, you weren't sure—but you were quickly growing addicted to finding those rare flecks of gold buried in the espresso brown seas reflected back at you. His hands clenched involuntarily, and given the fact that they were resting around your hips, you got a delicious lick of pleasure that shot through your pelvis at the sensation.

Tommy didn't seem to be in the mood for dawdling. "And now we're having one this week," he insisted. "My place. Maria and the others are waiting."

You lifted your chin to see him close his eyes in annoyance. His mouth opened once; he closed it. When he opened it again, his eyes flashed along with the movement. "Alright, I'll be there in a minute," he said tersely, and you pretended not to notice the way his gloved thumb rubbed a slow circle on your hip. An apology, perhaps.

When he didn't move, you blushed with smug satisfaction. It had never been more clear that he didn't want to move.

"Joel, it's important." Usually, you'd never had an issue with Tommy. Now, of course, the sound of his voice clawed at your every hope for tonight.

With a soft look at your lips, Joel jerked his head to look at his brother. "I said give me a fuckin' minute," he said, his words clipped. "Fuck's sake," he muttered as he turned around. "Just answerin' a goddamn question," he finished, soft enough that you were sure his brother couldn't hear.

Tommy grumbled his fair share of disapproving words, but you couldn't help the grateful bubble that bloomed in your gut when you heard the shuffle of his boots as he left you alone in the stables with Joel.

He waited a moment or two before letting out a soft sigh. You couldn't have known how disappointed he was, but the way he lifted a hand to your cheek was clue enough. "New lesson, dollface," he said.

A pang of regret hit your stomach and you found yourself shaking your head. "Please?" you asked in a quiet voice. "I don't want a new lesson."

Joel grinned and sucked in a sharp breath. "I know, baby, I know." The familiar phrase threw you back to the night before, when he'd had his hands all over you, reassuring you with those exact words. But now, it wasn't a comfort. "But if I'm not around and you need to feel good..." His hand trailed down your cheek, brushed against your chest and returned to its previous spot between your legs. "I want you to practice touchin' yourself, yeah?"

His voice had become a near-painful whisper, just loud enough for you to feel rather than hear his words caress your skin. "This of me all you want, darlin'. God knows I'll be thinkin' of you at this damn...meeting," he practically spat the last word, but it didn't take away from the pressure that was building and causing you to blink rapidly. "Think about me," he repeated, "but I want you to explore this pretty body for me so you can tell me all about it when I get back."

The sound of his voice enveloped you, that heady sensation nearly making your knees give out. With a slow nod, you couldn't see yourself ever disobeying him. Not when he asked such sinful things of you.

"Okay," you whispered. "I'll try."

His mouth was in a hard line, his irritation at Tommy's interruption still prevalent. But it softened for a moment when he slid a gloved thumb over your bottom lip, letting it get pulled from its place before bouncing back. You darted your tongue out, wetting your lip in a desperate attempt to taste his leather on your skin; to taste him.

"Good," he said softly. Something new pulsed at the sound of his praise, but you fought it down. "I'll see you soon, doll."

—

Despite everything you tried when you got home—despite squeezing your eyes shut and picturing that dimple in Joel's cheek when he smirked, or the way his arms felt when wrapped around you—nothing helped. The pressure remained, the ache between your legs was ever-present, and yet...

You couldn't give yourself the release you craved. Not like Joel could.

There was no telling how long you tried, hand shoved down your pants in a sour attempt to replicate the feeling he'd given you. Your fingers were clumsy, untrained, and entirely new to the task, leaving you desperate and unsatisfied. A strangled whine left your throat when your mind flashed with the memory of his face near yours, his lips on your own, and his rough hands rubbing that small bud at your center. It was maddening.

He'd asked you to do this one thing, and you couldn't deliver. Of course, you'd never even realized this was a possibility; you'd only ever heard of men bringing themselves to the plummeting precipice of pleasure. You never considered that you could do the same.

But you didn't want to make yourself feel good. You wanted Joel to do it.

After what felt like hours, stuck in your house alone, Joel nowhere to be found, and with your hopes slipping into despair, you gave up. Your fingers would never be as rough or as thick as his. You didn't know how to explore your body when you couldn't tip yourself over the edge to ecstasy; it was impossible.

Weary and defeated, you went to bed with a groan. Joel still hadn't shown up. Either it was a long meeting, or...you didn't want to entertain the thought that he'd possibly forgotten about you. About your task to be completed.

You actually did drop off into a dreamless sleep, but when you woke to the sound of a knock at your door, you were almost positive the dreams had begun again. Swinging your legs out of bed, you trudged to the door with sleep oozing in every movement. The door opened with a click, and you blinked.

"Sorry I'm late, sweetcheeks," Joel breathed. A distant streetlamp, the only one in Jackson, was the sole source of light that illuminated the edges of his broad body on your porch. He looked near-angelic.

You didn't say anything for a moment, only crossed your arms to keep yourself warm in the face of the wintry outdoors. The relief and anticipation at seeing him here paired with the disappointment and fatigue that it had taken so long warred with each other, creating a dangerous mix as you managed to say, "Are you...hungry? Or something?"

He swallowed, and your head swam with the desire to lay your tongue flat on his neck where his Adam's apple bobbed. "Starving," he groaned, and in one step he was not only in your house but he was all over you, and you were wearing nothing but your thin pajamas.

He'd apparently already taken off his gloves, and when his hand came up to cup your cheek your body registered the chill of his fingers with a shock, despite leaning into his touch all the same. He took a moment to look at you before touching his forehead to yours, pressing his lips to yours gently. You could practically taste the restraint on his mouth, and you wanted nothing more than to beg him for everything.

Something about your face must have given it away when he pulled back because he tapped a finger against your cheek. "You look like you need somethin'." He darted a look down to your legs. "Did you do what I asked?"

You weren't sure what made you lie, but you nodded nonetheless. "Uh-huh."

Even in the dark, he was so close to you that you could see his eyebrow lift in question. You didn't know how he knew, but why wouldn't he? This was Joel. "You didn't come," he concluded, and you ducked your head. "Why not, dollface? I thought I told you to."

The implication that his request was, in fact, a command, didn't slip your mind. Your cheeks burned when you forced yourself to look at him. "I couldn't. I don't know how."

"Sure you do," he whispered. "You did real good last night for me, remember?" His lips ghosted your jaw.

You shook your head. "I don't know how. I've never...made myself come."

When Joel looked at you, you could have sworn his lips twitched, betraying the desire in his movements. "I'm sorry, babydoll," he cooed, bringing his other hand to your cheek. He slotted his lips over yours once more, and it was all you could do not to sink to the floor right there. "We'll have to fix that, won't we?"

You nodded. "Show me? Please?"

Without another word he bent to brush his lips across your hairline—you could have sworn you felt him inhale with his nose in your hair—and murmured, "In the morning, yeah?"

You pulled away to complain but he only gave you a soft smile. It was then that you could see the exhaustion in his face, eyes downturned despite those creases winking at you in the darkness. "But—"

"Told Tommy you need a day off," he clarified. "'Cause you're...sore..." he splayed his hand on your back and tugged you near, voice low. "Ya know, from all that horseback ridin'."

An anticipatory chuckle bubbled from your chest. "No way he bought that," you said breathlessly as he nipped your jawline with his teeth (you were almost sure it was supposed to be a kiss). "I've been patrolling on horseback for years."

Joel shrugged and looked down at you with a smirk. "Who knows? Maybe I should have told him you were waiting for me to come home and make you fall apart on my fingers," he said dismissively, but his tone did nothing to stop your stomach from flipping.

"Oh," you said dumbly, cursing yourself inwardly for how easily you were rendered speechless in his presence. "He'll...he'll really let us take the day off?" Your mind swam with the possibilities of what you could do with an entire day.

He shook his head. "Not us, darlin'. Just you." Tracing the line of your jaw, his lips twisted into a dry smirk. "I'll have to go tomorrow. But," he whispered, squeezing a hand on your hip and cocking an eyebrow at the way your legs wobbled," I'd gladly go every morning all by myself if it meant you were in your bed all day, daydreamin' about me."

It was a heavier confession that you'd expected out of him, and you let out a breathy sigh. "In the morning then," you asked. You swallowed roughly in an attempt to push down the lump of pure need that had risen in your chest, but to no avail.

Joel nodded firmly. "Trust me," he hummed, "in the morning."

So you'd led him to your bed with no more discussion. It hadn't occurred to you that he might not stay the night; he'd come to your place after the meeting like he'd said, and it was the middle of the night. Why wouldn't he have stayed the night?

Despite everything in you fighting to stay awake, the second you returned to your mattress and pulled the covers up, your eyelids drooped. Joel stood at the end of the bed and shed his jacket slowly. "Sleep, doll," he said, his voice echoing in the otherwise silent room as he bent to kick off his boots. "I'll be here when you wake up."

—

Was he getting too close? Was he pushing the boundaries too far, too soon? Probably.

Selfishly, Joel didn't much care.

—

Sure enough—when morning came, when the dull winter sunlight crept into your house and draped the floor in soft yellow, you felt the dip of your mattress beside you and betrayed Joel's presence. He'd stayed. Like he said.

Quite the dedicated teacher, you thought to yourself with a satisfied warmth. You'd felt him climb into bed last night, but despite your every wish for him to press himself to your back and hold you tightly the whole night, he'd kept at least a foot of space between your bodies. Always close enough to touch, but never giving in.

You rolled over and swiped a hand over your face, a few stray strands falling into your eyes. The breath left your chest when you saw him there, eyes open and waiting for you. "Hi," you said, your voice rough with sleep. Again with the monosyllabic responses, you scolded yourself.

Joel hummed, the deep rumble of his voice reverberating through the mattress and into your body. "Looked so sweet like that, darlin'," he mused, his rough hands tucked under his head. He reached one of them toward you and tapped your bottom lip, plump with sheep, with two of his fingertips. "Didn't wanna wake you up."

"You didn't." You weren't sure what made you do it, but you moved closer, shifting your entire body until your nose almost brushed his. Your eyes flitted up to look at the way his graying hair laid messily around the crown of his head, haircuts neglected for who knew how long. "Can we...I want to start now," you mumbled.

His jaw ticked, and he looked like he was swallowing down a grin. "Look at you," he cooed, "so eager. Aren't you hungry, doll?"

You bit your lip and you could have sworn you saw his eyes widen. "Starving," you fumbled over the word, imitating his response to you the night before on your porch.

Joel let go of a chuckle and his eyes danced with mirth. "Always turnin' my words back on me, aren't ya?" When you nodded sheepishly, he slid his hand around to cup the back of your head and he pulled you in, connecting his lips with yours. "Okay, pretty girl," he said. "We'll start. Since you asked so nicely."

His lips were chapped from the cold weather but they were still soft as he pressed them to yours, moving lazily as the two of you blinked away the last clutches of sleep. "Always so soft, these lips," he murmured, and then his hand was moving from your neck to your chest. "Everyone's different, yeah? There's these spots on everyone's body," he said, absentmindedly drawing swirls along the expanse of your chest, making you shiver. "Let's call them...pleasure points."

"Pleasure points," you repeated breathlessly, your stomach fluttering as he rolled a nipple between his thumb and forefinger. "Is that—"

He grinned with a nod. "Think I just found one of 'em, doll." He rolled you onto your back and bent his head down, his breath fanning over your chest and warming you through your thin pajama shirt. "This is how we get you all ready for me, when the time comes."

You nodded quietly and let out a shaky sigh as his hands wandered. He pressed a kiss to your forehead and you practically preened at the feeling of his lips against your skin while his hands squeezed and caressed your breasts, moving over your stomach. "Joel—"

He paused, hand hovering over the hem of your shirt. "What, babygirl?"

You couldn't help the whine that fought its way out of your throat. "Please," you whimpered, squeezing your eyes shut at the pressure that writhed in your core.

Joel's fingers lifted the hem of your shirt, his mouth widening in a grin at the way that your stomach rose and fell in spattered pants. "Come on, darlin'," he crooned, "open those pretty eyes for me. Gotta see you, doll."

It was all you could do not to take his hand in your own and shove it to your core where you needed him desperately, but you did as he asked.

"That's it, baby," he breathed, good girl."

You'd become familiar with the way your stomach clenched at his use of pet names, but this was new. You had done well for him. You wanted to stay that way. "Will you touch me please? I need—"

"So eager," he murmured, leaning in with his lips to your earlobe. "Lemme take my time with you, dollface." And then his lips were wrapping to the soft part of your ear, his teeth grazing at your skin. Paired with this sensation and the heady feeling of his hand on your waistband, fumbling to push his hand beneath it, you arched your back and released a series of high-pitched whines.

"JoelJoelJoelpleasepleaseplease," you were overcome with the pure, unbridled need that was speeding through your body like a tidal wave on a summer day.

"Alright, darlin', alright," he acquiesced, pushing his hand into your waistband and pulling it down over your hips. You didn't even have the mind to be shy about being laid bare to him this way; you just needed him to touch you.

Before you could beg him again, he had his fingertip on your core, sliding it gently through your slick heat. "Oh, baby," he groaned, rutting his hips against your side. His bulge pressed into your hip and you flexed your fingers to reach for it. "M'never gettin' used to how wet you are for me," his voice shook.

One finger became two, and then his fingertips were rubbing sweet circles to your sensitive bud, drawing near pornographic moans to tumble past your lips. "Can I touch you, please?" you begged, your hand fisting your bedsheets. "Wanna touch you, Joel, please."

He hummed against your ear as he swiped another finger against your bud and lifted your hand to his lips. "Sure thing, doll," he said, and placed it in his hair. Your fingers instinctually carded through the coarse strands, and you blushed when his eyes fluttered closed. "Hold on tight if you need to, pretty girl," he grinned, and lemme know if it's too much."

You were going to ask if what was too much, but then he dipped his finger further down your core, notching it at the small opening. You hadn't even thought this far ahead, that things would eventually lead here. Something pulsed and you whined, tugging his hair in your hand.

"Look at you, so ready for me," he murmured against your neck. His tongue swept out to lick a small stripe along the sensitive skin there and when you let out a stuttering breath he chuckled. "You are ready for me, aren't ya, pretty girl?"

You couldn't nod fast enough. "Please," you choked out, and then he was pressing his finger inside you.

It was a small intrusion, but overwhelming all the same. In all your years, you'd never had the thought that it could feel this good to have him close to you like this. He was only as far as the first knuckle, but with the way that his bulge was nudging your hips, he wanted much more. "Good girl," he breathed, "such a good girl, openin' your legs like this."

"Wanna touch you," you whimpered again, vision blurring with the desperation that coursed through your veins. "Please, Joel, let me touch you."

He kissed you, but you could hardly focus enough to move your lips against his. "Already touchin' me," he said. "You want more?"

"Yes," you nodded feverishly, releasing your hand from his hair. "I wanna..." you looked down at his bulge and licked your lips.

Joel's eyes were wide as he whispered, "For fuck's sake, darlin', when you're cryin' about it..." he swiped a thumb across your cheeks, collecting a teardrop you hadn't even known was there. "How could I say no?"

Thankyouthankyouthankyou were the only words in your mind, a jumbled mess as you reached for him. Your finger traced his length and before you knew it, you were reaching inside his boxers to release it from its constraints. "Holy fuck," you whined, bucking your hips into his hand as you saw just how big he was, long and thick and heavy in your hand. "Need it," you found yourself whispering. "Need you."

It was all you could do before he pushed his finger further, then out, and then in, just enough to throw you closer to that addicting edge of ecstasy. Once again, you found yourself enveloped in the thick pressure of pure desire in his arms.

He pressed the pad of his thumb to your bud and swirled circles in your heat, his lips connecting to your ear once more. "Alright, baby. Alright, baby," he practically chanted in a low tone, nibbling on your lobe just hard enough to pinch the skin. "C'mon now, squeeze my finger like that, that's it," he groaned, drawing out the final two syllables, "good girl."

With his hand in the crux of your legs and his mouth connected to your ear, whispering the filthiest things you'd ever heard in your sheltered life, you threw your head back into the pillow and curled your legs toward him, your hand squeezing his cock tightly as you continued your strokes.

The sounds that erupted from your throat as you burst in a state of pure pleasure were the most pitiful (and yet electrifying) noises you'd ever heard yourself make, and you couldn't help but continue rolling your hips into his hands, chasing the feeling until it became more intense and your legs began to twitch again. "Joel," you mewled, voice breaking, "I need you."

A teasing chuckle sounded, and your cheeks warmed as he removed his hand from your slick. "So much you don't know, dollface," he crooned, tracing his index down the line of your nose. He pushed another, shining with your release, into your mouth. The sweetness nearly made you fall apart again. "Don't know if you're ready for that."

Your body was on fire, nearly throbbing with the insatiable need to be wrapped in his arms, with his hands everywhere, his lips anywhere. Your hand had been moving on his shaft, but his hips stuttered with your next words. "I am," you insisted, "I need you, please. I wanna feel you everywhere."

Joel's pupils went wide and he shuddered out a breath, mumbling a string of curses with his eyes shut. He thrusted his hips into your hand and then your skin was sticky and warm with his own release, some of it landing on your stomach where you lay beside him.

"Shit," he groaned with a rueful smirk. "Maybe I'm not ready for that yet." His breath fanned deliciously over your skin as he continued. "Can't hardly last long enough with the thought of stretching you out like that, baby."

You grinned, and you didn't mind the fact that he could definitely see the flush in your cheeks. "No?"

He shook his head. "Fuck no. I don't wanna think about how quickly I'll come if I were to be inside that pretty pussy yet," he said with a short and gentle tap to your mound. When your hips arched off the mattress and you whined at the sensitivity, he cooed apologetically.

"Isn't that a good thing?" you frowned slightly. "I thought I was making you feel good."

"Makin' me feel too good," he mused, bringing his hand up to hold your face toward him once more. He winked. "Can't have me comin' before you do, sweet girl. Not very gentlemanly of me."

You couldn't help the pang of doubt that clouded your face, and it must have been obvious, because then he was cupping the back of your head and pulling you to his chest. Humming into your neck, he smirked. "Besides, I want to be able to take my sweet time with you. To see you squirmin' beneath me like you do, baby? S'enough to make the pope leave the goddamn church."

tysm for reading, i can't believe you guys convinced me to write MORE filth for these two. u made it to the end, lemme know what you thought!

#joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #pervy!joel #innocent!f!reader #joel miller fanfic #joel miller #joel miller tlou #tlou smut #tlou fic #tlou joel fanfiction #joel miller x f!reader #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fic #the last of us #the last of us fanfic #the last of us smut #jackson!joel miller #joel miller x innocent!f!reader #fem!reader #joel x fem!reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x y/n

[lucylucius]

evening gee-tar lesson 🎸

#my art #the last of us #i'm aware that ellie's pose is a little weird lol it's because i was going with the reference pic and i realized it a bit too late #tlou #ellie williams #joel miller #the last of us part 2 #while they were still happy in jackson #the last of us fanart #tlou fanart #maybe i should redraw it to the hbo's version #this is a cozy videogame btw

[daydreamingmiller]

ellie williams & joel miller [ 1/? ]

#jackson chapter: #horsies:) #joel yelling at baby ellie:( #joel miller #ellie williams #joel & ellie #tlou #the last of us #tlouedit #dailygaming #gamingedit #* #joel&ellie* #q

[motherofagony]

A HEART FOR EATING // vol. 1

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: post outbreak!joel x f!reader setting: jackson, wy (think tlou pt. 2 minus the golfing) rating: mature, 18+, minors dni word count: 5.6k series summary: a vicious raider attack robs you of human connection and lights a fire of destruction in your life in jackson. joel's fixated on you, and your lives tangle. revenge becomes a needful thing. chapter summary: life goes on after raiders infiltrate a routine patrol. you're a shut-in, and jackson residents tiptoe around your trauma. joel found you after the accident, but you don't know what to make of it. content warnings + tags: age gap (we'll say 15-20 years), protective!joel, mentions of trauma (no s/a, i promise), blood, bodily injuries, death, shitty men, dissociation/triggers, alcohol, angst, sexual tension if you close one eye, the softest enemies to lovers you've ever seen vol. 1 // vol. 2 series playlist a/n: longtime listener, first time caller. yes, there will be smut — in due time. probably a slower burn than you're used to on tumblr dot com, but there will be porn galore, i promise. heavy on the hurt + comfort trope in this one. thank you for reading, i hope you enjoy.

“Get the fuck up!”

The boot connects with your side again, the rounded toe slamming into ribs you’re sure are already broken. You’re trying to play dead, but it doesn’t exactly work when yelps are being kicked out of you. Old Yeller, of all fucking things, comes to mind.

But you’re not sick, not infected. Just wrong time, wrong place.

Blood pools sticky under your head. Voices are filtering in like an untuned radio, gathering static and making you nauseous. Like it’s all one bad hangover or a lucid dream in a realm too far.

“Where are the others?”

Someone else asks the question that you’ve been concentrating on. The knob turns, clearing the radio fuzz just so. You strain to hear, but you don’t dare open your eyes.

“Dead. Not shit on ‘em that was worth stealin’. We gotta fuckin’ go — just leave her.”

A vague twang of Boston wraps around his words. You’d forgotten what it sounded like, how the rs get caught in the back of the tongue and dropped. How the voweled aws are spit at you, the shell of your ear growing numb against the icy concrete. 

Yes, you think. Fucking leave me.

The raider that’s been torturing you for what feels like hours groans as if it’s an inconvenience, an interruption to something he was thoroughly enjoying. Whatever he would’ve done, continued doing, taunts the crevices of your mind. He digs through your bag one last time, and you don’t know what he’s looking for or if there would have been anything at all that would have satisfied him the first time. 

You remember a sliver of skin where his sleeve had bunched, revealing a shitty coupling of star tattoos on his wrist. You can feel your icepick heartbeat behind your eyes, and you wonder if it was a dare over a few beers. A matching tattoo with a lover. The thought lifts you up and out of the crushing burden of pushing air into clenched lungs, only for a moment. It’s no name to grab hold of, but it’s an identifier if you can make it out alive. 

He’d crept up behind you while you were clearing a warehouse that you swore you’d be fine doing by yourself, pushing the cold barrel of something painfully familiar into the back of your head. He was tall, unflinching, unworried, too practiced. He helped you slip the straps of your backpack off your shoulders but staggeringly violent and unkind. Feeling you up for weapons with a disgusting leisure. As if you’d be hiding something gun-sized in your small back pocket.

You’d heard panic and screams outside, and you already knew. Voices outnumbered your friends, and it was almost – almost – funny to think that Tommy said the three of you would be one too many for patrol.

So, when exactly two gunshots hit their targets, it only took you seconds to figure out the score. 

Something significant cracked in you then. Started in your chest and splintered to your heart, head, down to the tips of your toes. There was no fighting back, and you were next.

Now — fractured ribs, a dislocated shoulder, bloodied face, broken wrist, and one concussion later, here you find yourself. The tall one has a thick mustache, something sinister and villainous that seems too stereotypical even for this. At some point there had been a shift, and what started as a robbery now felt like killing for sport.

“Fine. Think she’s dead anyway.”

He kicks you one more time for the cinematic pleasure of it all. 

This time you don’t wince, don’t feel a jerk or twitch betray you. The muscle in your jaw is so tense, the teeth grinding so hard into one another that you expect to open your mouth to a cloud of dust.

An agony you’ve only ever seen in movies is wringing every cell dry. It’s seizing, unrelenting, almost an exorcism in the tensing and writhing of it all. But you keep it beneath the surface, barely clinging to the little control you have. 

You try to count the footsteps that are finally retreating, to breathe around the blood in your nose both dried and fresh. It feels like measuring the closeness of thunder and lightning, some kind of correlation with the distance of a storm. 

The group trails outside, and heavier footsteps of your stolen horses lead them away. Onto the next. Breath idles in your chest, and the clarity that you think will come when you finally unstick your eyelids doesn’t. Everything feels swollen, scorched, raw. Nerve endings clipped and lapped up by the unrelenting lick of wind. A scream climbs up your throat, but the pain isn’t worth the exhale. And you don’t want them to come back for round two.

You drag the dead weight of your limbs out to inspect what you know to be true, and it’s nothing but bloody snow angels and twisted, awkward angles of your friends. You can’t even look at them, turning your head and squeezing your swollen eyes shut when you check for pulses that aren’t there. 

Snowflakes collect on your lashes and drip pink down your face.

—

Daylight wanes, languid and impatient. It’s been hours trying to retrace your steps back to Jackson, the blood loss slowing you to a stop every five dizzying minutes. Your feet trick you into standing, only for your knees to buckle and bring you down into the snow. Teetering on the cliff of willfully alive and mercifully dead. There isn’t pain anymore, not really, and you’re grateful for the numbing cold, but you can feel your body threatening to cave in on itself. 

Tears don’t come as much as you beg for them, for any type of release that’ll ground you. Enough time has ticked by that someone has to notice an absence of three, but you can’t be sure that you’re even on the right path anymore to meet them in the middle. 

When they find you, if they ever find you, at least they’ll know you tried.

There’s a comfort in that, a warmth that reaches out and grabs you and folds you in like a blanket. It’s safe here, it says. Just lie down for a minute. And you don’t fight it.

Someone’s calling your name now, and it’s a gentle tug back into consciousness. There are frantic hands on your face, delicate and urgent when they take inventory of your wounds. When they say death greets you, maybe it’s this. 

But there’s a Texas drawl that’s murmuring you’re okay, I’ve got you and I know, I know it hurts and shouting instructions to someone else that’s lifting you up, up, up. 

Your fingertips scrape a stubbled jaw when you’re pulled away. The light dims like a blown-out candle. And you’re falling, grasping at anything, everything, nothing. 

You forget the rest.

—

Ten months pass, dripping into spring, then summer, and meeting autumn at its doorstep.

Everything has healed, down to the last scratch. That day feels hazy, and you’d assume it was a hallucination if not for the two friends that didn’t come back with you. The recovery was just as strange, trauma shielding you from the gory parts but not the guilt. Never the guilt. 

Sometimes, you test the memory, prod at it, but nothing new comes to the surface. No recollection of who they were, where they were going, if they were anything more than nameless thieves. It’s probably better this way, but there’s no way of knowing if that’s true.

Fistfuls of flowers collected on your porch, and they seemed to appear out of thin air because no one ever came with them. Anonymous condolences that didn’t want to be seen, and it was an easy guess as to why. You heard rumors, retellings of what happened without much accuracy, but there was nothing to say to correct them. Some of them were angry, and you let them be. Call it penance, undeserved or not. 

Ellie would visit occasionally, sometimes Tommy. You let her play guitar without saying a word, let him bring you books to keep you occupied. Everyone else dodged you, and you didn’t know if it was discomfort or because you were the only one left alive to blame. Probably both.

Since then, they’d kept you busy elsewhere. Projects that hadn’t been projects before suddenly popped up. More hands in the stables for getting horses ready for patrol. Planting vegetables and flowers for food and morale. Playing doctor when the patrols would come back with minor injuries from staving off infected. Being underfoot at the Tipsy Bison, picking up shifts when there was a movie night or some string-lit illuminated get-together. 

Slinking into the shadows and being the ambient background noise in everyone else’s conversations. 

You didn’t have the heart to tell them that you had the farthest thing from a green thumb, that you couldn’t bartend for shit, that the most nurse-like thing you’d ever done was slap a band-aid on a skinned knee. 

An otherness that weighed so heavy you thought it would be better to crush you. Poison that bloomed in the belly of a tight-knit community that didn’t know what shelf to put you on. Who felt like collective trauma was part of the deal, and this was just yours. 

But it softened the blow of your abrupt uselessness. You let it happen. Becoming competent was better than peeking out from drawn curtains. Better than sleeping with your eyes open, watching everyone around you move on while you couldn’t.

While nightmares claw their way up your chest at night and leave you in a cold sweat, flicking on every light that’ll burn to make sure you’re really, truly alone.

The roar of laughter snaps you out of the trance, breaks the eye contact you were making with your fireplace. You wonder absently if you’d tuned out the rest or if everyone had finally huddled together in front of the projector down the road for tonight’s showing of whatever DVD was looted during this week’s patrol. You didn’t usually mind — sometimes even joined when Ellie had enough of your sulking and all but kicked your door in — but tonight feels like an organized, cruel punishment.

You pry yourself from your couch, knocking over the stack of books on your way to the coat rack. Anaïs Nin pierces you with a glare, rotting where you left her. You slip each arm into a heavy coat, tucking one of the books into your bag with a lone cigarette as a makeshift bookmark. It’s cold as fuck tonight, but maybe you’ll linger a little longer after closing down the bar. Maybe you’ll wait until the crowd outside dies down to sneak back into your house, light another fire, and count down the hours until your shift at the stables.

Bartending tonight should be quiet, hopefully only encountering a few regulars that usually kept to themselves and tipped you for doing the same. 

You steal one more warm moment before opening the door and stepping into the flinching cold, taking note of the way words stutter and lose traction when your face registers with the nearby crowd. There always seems to be a vacancy of pleasantries. And you don’t exactly invite them.

Tommy gives you a sympathetic look, tipping his chin up in a half-nod. Ellie lifts a few fingers in a wave, knowing you don’t want the pity but hate the suffocation of nothing at all. You will the corners of your mouth to quirk in a smile that doesn’t reach your eyes and force your legs into a normal pace, almost locking your knees so you don’t break into a run. The debt of an overdue visit with them burrows in your chest. 

The Jaws theme song hums ominously, and you think it’s only fitting.

A few people litter the bar when you meet the cozy blanket of peanut-shelled air of the Tipsy Bison. A pool cue cracks against a ball and sends it clattering into a group of others, a low crackle of some country something crooning out of the jukebox. You shed your coat and your bag in the back, washing your hands under scorching water to shake some feeling back into your bones.

“Just a few tonight. Been slow – you’ll probably be out early. What’s playin’?”

You smile at the thick, syrupy Southern mama accent by your side. Cheryl is no-nonsense, usually slips you a little extra at the end of your shifts, and feigns ignorance of anything about the ugly parts of your past. All she cares about is that you’re eating. There is an undying gratitude for Cheryl. 

“Ah. Jaws, I think.”

She seems to read your mind with a laugh, patting your shoulder affectionately like only a mother can.

“Maybe I’ll go join the sharks. Joel just got here, wants a whiskey ‘fore I head out. You know him,” Cheryl tuts, almost rolling her eyes but you know she likes the caretaker role if you’re any indication.

And you do. You do know him.

Joel keeps to himself almost as much as you do, maybe a little less when it comes to Ellie and Tommy. He’s sort of your catty-cornered neighbor, but not the sugar-asking kind. More like the kind that glances in your direction, holds your stare for a beat too long, and abruptly looks away before anything discernible can appear. 

The closest you ever come to saying anything of substance to each other is when you ready his horse for patrols and intercept it when he’s back safe and sound. You try not to let him catch your gaze shifting to that shiny scar on his head, and you stifle down the question that’s none of your business. 

Maybe he does the same for you.

And maybe he was there and saved you that day, but neither one of you has ever mentioned it since. You don’t know how, and there’s a brick wall around the subject that won’t let you. Enough time has passed that you figure he’d have said something if he gave a shit.

Yet, there’s a deep yearning for his approval, his attention. It’s a mystery even to you, when you think about how savagely indifferent you are to anyone else’s. But you think it’s the magnetism of having him as a witness. The way he could vindicate you and give you an alibi, a heroic complex, but he doesn’t. 

So, the idea that he’s one of the patrons that you can count on one hand tonight… you can’t put a name to what it’s doing to you.

Cheryl makes sure that you’re okay, but she doesn’t linger. She packs up her things with haste, jogging through the cold to join her wife in front of the bonfire.

No one really pays you any mind as you start your closing duties early, and it’s doubtful that the seats will fill any more than they are as the party picks up outside.

Joel sits at the corner of the bar that faces you, and he’s down to a knuckle’s length of whiskey. If he were anyone else, you might wonder why he’s not at the bonfire — but it’s Joel. Social anythings are like a second plague to him.

The thought of having to refill his drink vibrates in the back of your mind, and lead fills your stomach. Small talk that you never quite have with him. It dissipates just as quickly, when you see the way he’s fixed on the sweat gathering on his glass instead of anything else, and when a gust of wind comes in as the door opens.

Max. Anxiety snaps in your rib cage like a rubber band. Something acrid hits the back of your throat and you think it might be blood the way your teeth connect with the soft tissue of your cheek. 

Max had been a recurring character in your bed once. Before. It was never more than convenience, and the way you fucked wasn’t love, not even close. Liberating to think that you never neared the edge of feeling anything except his hand pressing your face into a pillow, performing orgasms that never came. 

There’s no carcass of affection left, so devoid of emotion for him that it feels like a severed limb.

He’s all ego and athletic strength, sauntering up to the bar with a gait that reeks of hours of pregaming. There’s a permanent sneer when he addresses you, a coldness that has nothing to do with the weather.

“Tequila. Two doubles.”

He’s the type to twist the knife of your tragedy in even deeper, making sure to hit all vital organs. The first to question what more you could have done to save his friends, blaming you for leaving them there to die as if they weren’t dead the moment raiders showed up. As if you weren’t almost dead. Anything you’ve said in defense is inconceivable, an excuse, an admission of guilt. He mourns at your expense and often.

Jackson trudges forward, but Max forces you to stay in grief and remember.

“I think you’ve had your fill this week. Drank through your ration on Tuesday, remember?” you say coolly, but a twinge of fatigue colors your tone, giving you away. You aren’t in the mood, and Max finds it easy to light flame to your resolve as-is.

Maria spends hours of careful inventory, and there’s been more than one occasion where you’ve been instructed to cut off a greedy drunk. The vice, the urge to drink in an apocalypse doesn’t really align with the limited stock, unfortunately.

“Yeah, I don’t exactly see Maria around, do you?” A jeer at face value, but you decide in the beat of silence that follows that rule enforcement isn’t worth it tonight. “Sounds like you’ll think of something. And you fuckin’ owe me one, don’t you? Or would you prefer I collect on that another time?”

It’s not worth it. You’re dropping your glare, squaring your jaw, lining up two glasses so that the rims clink. But the way your skin prickles, there’s an unwelcome visitor in his stare, an x-ray vision that you wished Max didn’t have. 

Somewhere down the bar, glass slams against wood and something you know to be amber-colored sloshes.

You try to steady the angry tremble that overcomes your hands as you upturn the liquor bottle. One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four.

He holds the ration card to you, taunting you by pulling back when you reach for it, only to smirk and flick it toward you, uncaring of where it lands. You shove it into the mouth of the register with the violence you wish you were brave enough for.

“You can leave now.”

“That so? Mouthy now that you have an audience?” Max gestures cruelly to the grand total of four patrons, five if you counted Johnny Cash.

It stings, but dully. You’ve heard worse – even if not to your face – and it’s all kind of anti-climatic if you considered the low-budget production they always try to make out of you. The words eventually all sound the same, nothing punches quite the way they intend. Still, your cheeks burn as if on cue, and —

“She told you to get the fuck out.”

A low timbre erupts, easily mistaken as pure venom. There’s a sway in the way your senses glitch and then still, and reality swirls at the edge of your periphery. Pool balls stop their roll, murmured chatter ceases, and even the fucking jukebox settles on an instrumental to lean in and listen. 

You dare to look over at Joel, whose demeanor looks more akin to statuesque and threatening than his curved slouch when you first clocked in. He’s standing, flexing his fists so hard that you think they might shatter.

Max backs off but subtly – you can see the way his puffed chest deflates even though his glare doesn’t. He finishes off one tequila before backing up with the other dangling in his fingers, both hands turned palm-out in mock surrender. 

A deep annoyance plucks at his brow, but he knows he’s flirting with a black eye. 

Max flashes a middle finger, lets his grip relax after downing the glass in his hand, and it crashes to the floor with a wincing shatter. He’s gone before you can string together any curses, and would it have mattered anyway?

Then, there’s scattering, the bar flies wordlessly agreeing that anywhere is better than the awkwardness of being here. Cards thrown down, beers drained, and there’s an uneasiness with the way they shuffle outside towards the rest of the group. A dance around the broken glass that isn’t their problem. You pretend not to notice, though you try to hide the redness that stains your cheeks as you bring a dust pan over to the mess.  

You feel eyes on you and, all too suddenly, you realize that Joel didn’t follow them.

“Careful. Here, lemme do that.”

He’s kneeling, taking the pan from you. Knuckles brush yours a little too long and electrify, zapping you. You mutter something like thanks and it’s too ungrateful, too tired. A woodsy scent fills your nose, and you’re hard-pressed not to lean into his collar and bookmark it.

Glass slips into the trash with a tinkling, shimmering sound. You’re already back behind the bar, hands busying with something else, tidying up the already-tidy. Letting him slip outside with the crowd, heavy with satisfaction that he came to your rescue yet again. 

But he’s sat back down, watching you with an odd intensity. He’s never assessed you like this, at least not that you’ve seen. A different sort of undressing than what Max gives you. You meet his eyeline warily. Vulnerable, waiting for your predator’s jaw to unhinge and devour you whole.

“He always talk to you that way?”

A quiet, lethal question hangs in the air, so quiet that you could’ve chalked it up to your imagination. But evidenced by the white-knuckled grip Joel has on his glass, the measured way he brings it to his lips, it was real. Controlled, scary even. But real.

Your mouth opens to answer, then closes. You consider in a beat’s time how it would sound to laugh it off, then stop yourself. It would be too forced, too desperate of a sound to be convincing. You’ve never been the unfeeling, unaffected type.

It’s clear that he knows the answer, has probably seen it with his own eyes, but it’s like he wants a green light to set his sights on some other more sinister and deserving prey.

“Doesn’t matter. He’s been through a lot,” you say, half to yourself. It’s easier this way.

“Does matter. So’ve you,” Joel says, even quieter, like he’s trying to contain an angry edge that threatens to bleed out. The calm is almost worse. In a way, you wish he would loosen the leash on his rage. Or break something to satisfy the urge in you that wants to do the same – you’d give him permission to do that. This is too unreadable and ambiguous, too much room left for agonizing interpretation in how he grits his teeth and pulses that muscle in his taut jaw. You want to yell, let out what’s long pent-up. Yes! Yes, it does fucking matter!

But you don’t. You keep the rag tight on the lip of the pint glass in your hand, rotating it past the point of needing to be cleaned. The rub of the microfiber cloth makes you itch, and your teeth scrape again at the inside of your cheek.

It leaves your mouth before you can catch it and shove it back down.

“Why do you care?”

Joel looks up at you now and you think that you’ve already overstepped during your first, real fucking conversation. He finishes off the whiskey and puts it back down carefully. He stands up, each slow step over to you spiking your blood pressure, your breath shifting into neutral. 

It’s the way he’s fixated on you, a litmus test for any sarcasm. The way a chill creeps into the base of your spine and slithers up each vertebrae despite the warmth you feel below your waist. And when he comes behind the bar, reaches for the glass in your hand and puts it down gently, you wonder if that tug has always been there. 

Fuck.

“You think I don’t care?”

Tiny hairs at your nape stand at attention in a near-salute. The web of intrusive thoughts tangles between you, and you’re acutely aware that this is the closest you’ve ever been to Joel Miller – that you’ve been conscious for. That feeling rushes back and bursts in your chest, the comforting honey in his voice that’s been haunting you since he found you crumpled in the snow. 

The omnipresent, sharp tang of whiskey sticks to the slightly graying stubble that you want to reach out and touch. That you want to feel the scrape of in places that makes heat pool deep in your belly. His flannel is unbuttoned at the top, the column of his throat ridged and tense. 

Focus.

“Why are you saying this now?” you say, and you want to hold your ground but his admission is akin to mesmerizing.

He thinks for a minute, his eyes smoothing over every angle in your face. They look past you, just over your shoulder, like he’s asking himself the same thing.

“Knew you could handle it. ‘Til you couldn’t anymore.”

There it is. You let it sink in, clicking that last piece into place. Always observing you from a safe distance, the buzz of something unsaid ringing in your ears when he’s around. How he listens to your interactions, but never too closely. Watching for weak spots. And tonight was the weakest of them all, letting yourself be humiliated by the only person that knew where to bite just right.

You feel laid bare, too seen. Pissed that he can witness your struggling, thrashing, drowning with outstretched arms and kicking feet and decide when and if he’ll pity you.

And this time, a laugh does slip out – humorless and breathy.

“The same way you can handle whatever’s making you drink alone on a Friday night? Don’t act so holier than thou, Joel. I’m the wrong one.”

“Watch it.”

You don’t mean it. Not really. But you’re so angry, a wasps’ nest that’s been taunted and poked at after being left to its own devices for too long. Sometimes violence feels more intimate. Safer.

And he’s using that gravelly, terse tone with you of all people, and you want to fucking lose your mind.

When he doesn’t say anything else, just looks at you and waits, they leave their home in a wave. Burying stingers where you know they’ll hurt. Once more, with feeling.

“Are you looking for a ‘thank you’?”

Joel’s mouth quirks, but it isn’t a smile. It only stokes the fire, and you know what he’s doing. Letting you win, begrudgingly because you’re being an ass. But you haven’t had a win in the last ten months, only loss after devastating loss. He’s throwing you a raft.

“No. Just tryin’ to help, ‘s all.”

Your nostrils are flaring in sharp inhales that you can’t control, and you physically jab at him, your own tightly wound chest dragging in the hive for a final, practiced nosedive. “I don’t fucking need your help, Joel.”

He’s snatching your wrist, holding it in a vise, but there’s a flinch in his expression. Joel hardens, sliding that cool armor back into place. Sizing you up one more time, committing you to memory. A curt nod, plucking that chord of roughness in his tone that makes you ache.

There’s a glare you’ve never seen from him, like disappointment and disdain wrapped up neatly in one package. Delivered with a dagger straight to your heart.

“We’ll see. Not s’good at that, are you?”

And it’s a KO you allow, one you’ll lay with. But he’s leaning in, invading your space. You move to retreat and cower, the way you’re accustomed to, but Joel’s grabbing a fistful of your shirt and fastening you in place. His mouth’s at your ear as if he’s telling you a secret. 

“Good luck bein’ a fuckin’ martyr.”

The pressure loosens, as does his grip, dissipating like some ghostly presence. He leaves without another word, and something inside you snags and unspools. 

—

You don’t see Joel for days. 

Three days to be exact, torturous and fluid days that feel like trickling sand, but blend together in an indistinguishable slideshow when you zoom out. You time your breaks perfectly at the stables so you don’t run into him, and you ask Cheryl to cover for you on Tuesday, ignoring the strange look she gives you – the resident workaholic. 

It’s a sort of avoidance that you don’t want to acknowledge or look directly in the eye. If you did, it would mean that Joel affected you more than you want to admit. Or that he’d sized you up in an expert way that a categorical stranger shouldn’t be able to.

You should be livid, and you are… in a way. But mainly you want to shrug your skin off, your unease for being so dissected by him. Just unzip it all and let it pool at your feet, stepping out of the pile one leg at a time. The pinch, the untethering of you and the man that could read you without translation.

And when it’s 9 o’clock and you’re making tea as you trudge through a book without really reading anything, you glance outside at the house across the street and it’s so dark that you think it may have swallowed him whole.

Or he’s hiding from you, too.

—

It’s finally Thursday, and you can’t put it off any longer. You’re running out of food, you promised Tommy you’d lend a hand with feeding the horses – and there’s a dull itch to see Joel again. You don’t even know what you’d say, if he even wants to bother with you after the other night. Part of you hopes that you fall backwards into the acquaintance of saying nothing, that you have permission to rewind past whatever this nagging feeling is.

It’s quiet outside – a lazy day. The snow on the ground is melting, patchy in spots where sunlight or kid-feet caught it at just the right angle. The greenhouses are so fogged and frosted over that you’re grateful you can’t see the death-rot inside. It’s not quite growing season yet, but close, and you long for the added distraction in your day if this is the alternative.

Anything to pass the time and not think about Joel and his hands touching yours. The fabric of your shirt oozing between his knuckles when he forced you chest-to-chest. 

When you make it over to the barn, his horse is gone and there’s almost – almost – a twinge of relief. You’ll be done before he gets back from patrol. You won’t have a chance to swallow the apology that will rise in your throat like bile, but maybe it’s for the best.

You’re elbow deep in feed when there’s a yelling that cracks in the air. You freeze, waiting to hear a suffix of children’s laughter, but it doesn’t come. There’s a confused sort of shouting, and the gate at the border of Jackson slams and rattles like you’ve never heard before. 

Shaky hands wipe at your pants, and you step out, a hand shielding your eyes from the glare of the sun.

Joel is slumped atop his horse, upright but hardly. There’s a cut somewhere on his head that streams a blurry red, and the horse whines when Tommy sprints to meet it.

“It’s Joel! I need some fuckin’ help here!”

And without fully connecting the dots or measuring the severity, you just run. Colliding with the crowd that’s formed, shoving elbows and shoulders as if in a trance. Like something’s pressing you from behind, throwing all its weight into pushing you forward. 

You blink and you’re helping Joel down, Ellie’s tattooed forearm somewhere in the jumble of limbs. Tommy’s jean jacket stiff from the cold.

You don’t have to look in a mirror to know that you’re pale as a ghost. The moisture strips from your mouth, joints moving as if by marionette. Blood is already drying and caking in the creases of your hands. Knowing it isn’t yours makes you feel sick.

“‘M fine, Jesus Christ,” Joel coughs, a jagged edge in his throat that sounds anything but. There’s something underneath his coat that’s soaking through, blossoming a dark stain on the front. 

Images keep shifting every time you blink, like you’re losing time in between and someone’s slamming the fast-forward button until it jams. Joel groaning on a makeshift stretcher. Ellie’s frenzied feet following as they take him to his house.

The tall one on top of you, squeezing your windpipe. 

Your head cracking against the pavement. 

Two gunshots firing. 

Snow in your bloodied, matted hair. 

“You’re okay, I’ve got you. I know, I know it hurts.”

Ringing grows loud and shrill in your ears. Tommy’s in front of you, calling your name. Shaking your shoulders. 

“– need you to go fix him up –”

And you’re falling back into the present, vision shifting back into focus. You’re nodding, clinical now. You’ve seen worse, and strangely, that’s comforting. 

“– whatever supplies you need, I trust you –”

The weight of Tommy’s confidence steadies you, tying up the loose ends that have untwined deep inside. You run through the mental checklist of what’s in your medical bag at home – stashed in your closet on the very top shelf. Bandages, antibiotics, sutures. But if you’re dealing with a bite…

“I got it. Promise. Keep everyone out, alright? I’ll let you know.”

He pauses, catching up with the subliminal thing that waits in the air between you. Wariness paints his gaze, and you know he knows what you’re afraid to say. 

Tommy nods, but you’re already running.

#my writing #a heart for eating #ahfe #outbreak!joel #jackson!joel #joel miller #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #tlou fanfiction #motherofagony

[macfrog]

wish you were here | one shot

thank you lovely anon for this gorgeous request which felt like a huge mug of hot chocolate and a pair of socks fresh from the dryer to write. i hope you enjoy.

pairing: joel miller x fem!reader

summary: you and joel skip jackson’s annual holiday party in favor of some alone time. (not that kind you filthy animals it’s the HOLIDAYS)

warnings: fluff lmao, thirty-year age gap and u can stay mad, set around the holidays but no mention of christmas etc, nothing but love and two hints of sex. that's all. oh and no guitars were harmed in the making of this - joel canonically goes and gets the guitar after the fic ends. dw.

word count: 1.9k 

main masterlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🤎

Jackson is alive with a thrumming heartbeat. Pulsing through the air, bumping gently against the quick-lying snow and filling the otherwise silent night. A steady, rhythmic heartbeat.  

A heartbeat which sounds a lot like Blue Monday, but a heartbeat nonetheless.

The holiday party is in full swing down in the Tipsy Bison. Seven o’clock ‘til late! on flyers plastered all over the commune for the last month. Tommy had tried relentlessly to convince Joel this morning on patrol – It’ll be a good night; You oughta come along, show face at least. At the same time, Maria was on your back about it in the stables.

Y’all hardly come to anything fun, she’d argued.

We come to stuff.

When’s the last time you came to anythin’?

We were – we were at Mike’s birthday dinner.

What – five months ago?

We like alone time.

Alone time? You’re never apart from one another.

Alone time – together.

Neither attempt had been successful. Tommy and Maria had exchanged a disheartened glance as the two brothers passed their horses to you on their return. Joel clipped your cheek, took his gloves off and fixed them onto your frozen hands before making off for home, a proud grin on his face. You’d held your own as well as he had: you two had a clear evening ahead.

He had lit and nurtured a fire, had made himself a coffee and heaped half a damn bag of tiny marshmallows into a hot chocolate for you, but when he’d come through to take his place on the couch, you were already stood out front.

It’s bitter out – a soft breeze, but a thick chill on its wings. The sky a washed gray, heavy clouds overhead. He slips outside, setting the mugs down on the table, and slings a blanket over your shoulders. Kisses the curve of your neck, scruff of his beard tickling your skin.

‘s freezing, pretty bird.

Then keep me warm, you whisper, turning into his arms. He steps back, settling into his chair, flicking his fingers for you to fall down into his wide lap.

You curl up against his torso, your head hooked beneath his jaw. Wonder how drunk Tommy is by now. What is it – nine?

His wrist lifts, moonlight gleaming in the reflection of his broken watch face. Just gone ten. I bet he’s on his ass already.

You giggle into his shirt, breathing in the scent of the pine trees, the smoke from stoking the fire inside, the bite of hot coffee. The echo of voices swelling in merry song turns your attention down the street – two figures hooked onto one another, stumbling through the powdered snow. Some slurred rendition of September melting into All Night Long before the smaller of the two tugs their partner off into a darkened house.

Joel laughs to himself, the bristle of his beard catching on your hair as he shakes his head.

You ask him softly, Will you play me something?

His breath soars, a cloud hot and pale white, past your temple and up into the pastel sky. Gets swallowed somewhere overhead by the wash of warmth from the porch light. He turns his mug until the owl faces the street, the bottom gnawing against the wooden armrest of his chair.

I’m serious.

What do you wanna hear?

That one you’re always practicin’. The plucking one.

Another rumble between your shoulder blades. His chest jolts with a solid laugh. The pluckin’ one.

You know the one.

I know the one.

Will you play it, if I go get the guitar?

Baby, his lungs nudge on your back as they fill, it’s late. We’ll wake the neighbors.

Everyone’s at the dance. C’mon.

And he can’t argue with that. The entire street lies dark, vacant. Yours is the only house with soft-glowing eyes, the muted orange of the fire flickering behind closed blinds. Two figures, tangled in a chair on the dim front porch; a hunting jacket around his shoulders, and his body around yours.

You tug on the blanket, wrapping it around your elbows as you stand. Just once. Play me it once.

Joel’s looking up at you, setting his mug down on the table. Play you it as many times as you want, pretty bird. Just – quietly.

There’s a spring in your step that drags another chuckle from Joel’s lips: the kind that drips like honey down your throat and warms the pit of your stomach – a sweet, comforting thing, a sound you swear was made purposefully for you. Divine and deliberate.

Like – all of him. Like the shape of your name in his mouth, the curl of his tongue as the sound surfs over it. Like the curve of his hand and the way yours so neatly molds into it.

The way it did the day he found you, crouched in the gray backroom of some butchers deep in the city, and took you all the way back to Jackson. Let you cling to him on the back of his horse; your weak arms around his waist, anchored by the heavy jacket he’d thrown over your back. Your ear between his shoulder blades. And that was that.

Fifty-six. One brown-turned-silver hair away from thirty years your senior. He still remembers before. Talks about movies, talks about computers. Talks about Sarah, when the sun hits the wall at a certain angle and he reckons he could see her standing right there, the soft shadow of her hair dark against the golden wall. When you make a joke and he laughs a ghostly sort of laugh, like he’s hearing the echo of her voice make the same quip three decades ago. He always says she would’ve loved you; you like to think he’s right.

He found you: a lonely little broken heart, and he pulled you to your feet with a rough palm against your own. Hands calloused only from years spent carving wood and pressing the hard strings of his guitar into the fretboard, and nothing else. No violence and no bloodshed; no survival or threat. Music, and patience, and kindness.

And maybe you found him, too, in the same sort of way: roughened up, awkward and messy stitches holding him together. Maybe the two of you nursed one another back to life; each brush of your hands in the dining hall and each meaningful glance while out on patrol sewing those wounds up a little tighter, a little safer.

He sits forward when you hold the instrument out, sweeping a broad palm down the slope of the body. Pinches the pegs one by one, twisting them while his thumb taps on each string.

Come here, he says, beckoning you forward with a flick of his chin. He taps on the seam of his jeans, widens his legs for you to curl up between them at his feet – the way you always do.

Your elbows hook over his thigh, ear pressed against the inside of his knee. Staring up, blinking slowly, eyes glazed with the cold and with the light and with love.

He plucks gently, slow at first. Letting the strings snap with a twang, vibrating enough that you feel the small rattle in your jaw. Your eyes fall closed, head rocking with the light tap of his heel on the porch. When you peer at him through your lashes, he’s watching the skilled movements of his fingers intently; as if he’s as much a spectator as you are – his body doing all of the thinking and working for him.

 So, he sings, and your stomach melts to a puddle, so you think you can tell –

Your eyes close again, the low rumble of his voice crisp in your ears. Like thunder, like the promise of something great and mighty. Something moving, something rolling and changing the landscape of your body, your mind and your soul. The lines between living and dying begin to blur, the seam tearing between this plain and the next.

Did they get you to trade – your lips parting to whisper the words with him – your heroes for ghosts?

His thumbnail dragging down the strings, his strong fingers flitting between chords. Like he was made to sit here, in the dead of night, and carve a space in the world for himself and his voice and for you – lain in the safe scope of his body, protected by his breadth and brawn and lulled by his sweet song.

His breadth and brawn – the parts of him which have kept him standing here. His skeleton, his muscle. But the thing that keeps you warm at night, buried side by side under a threadbare woolen sheet together, the thing that you link your arms around as he leads you home from the nights you dare to visit the Tipsy Bison: are his heart, his flesh, the gray-singed hair which falls in a featherlight wave over his forehead. The hair you sweep from his eyes when he’s on top of you, his hips cradled in yours, that all-encompassing feeling of every part of him filling every part of you.

It all feels that way. The warmth of him, the feeling of being wrapped around him. Hooked around his body, bones intertwined. Absorbing one another, his words breathing life into yours, slowly growing louder and braver with each pluck and strum of music.

We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year.

Your makeups entangling, ribcages locking together, flesh meeting flesh and hair twisting until one day, Tommy will come looking for his brother and find the two of you here on your porch, your arms still draped over Joel’s thigh and his fingers still mid-song. Stuck, alone, together.

What have we found? Joel looks down to you as though asking the question – his eyebrows raised – and you reply, a dumb smile across your lips, The same old fears, and then, together –

Wish you were here.

He plays until his fingers must start to hurt, the way he clenches and loosens his fist. Setting the guitar against your chair, hands hooking under your arms to pull you back up to him.

That one your favorite? he asks, the cold tip of his nose circling yours.

You nod. Only when you sing it.

I like the way we sound together.

You smile, shrinking into his chest again, your fingers surfing back and forth on the worn shirt. I like the way we do a lot of things together.

His hands slip beneath the fabric of your shirt, massaging your waist. He dots a trail of light, damp kisses along your forehead, dipping to your temple, the angle of your cheek until your jaw lifts and his lips are against yours, his tongue parting to lick purposefully at yours.

I love you, pretty bird, he whispers, the words falling sweet and fair on your tongue.

You take a moment to let them seep into your skin. ‘s the first time you’ve ever said that, you tell him.

Joel smiles. He knows. But you knew it already, he counters.

You know, too. Mhm.

Alright, he groans, slipping his hands under your thighs and hoisting you up to his height, bedtime.

It’s only ten, you complain, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders as he carries you inside. It’s too early to sleep – Joel.

Didn’t say we were goin’ to sleep, he mumbles, kicking the door shut.

#happy max monday is this becoming a thing? can i claim mondays? boomtown rats move the fuck over #i just wanted to sit between joel miller's legs and look up at him all dumb and in love ok? #joel miller #joel miller fic #the last of us #tlou fic #joel miller x reader #joel miller one shot #jackson!joel #joel miller fluff

[penvisions]

by the grit of sandpaper {chapter 6}

Pairing: Jackson! Joel Miller x Patrol Partner! Reader

Chapter Summary: With the splinter of wood and a muttered insult, you're done. You're done with the town; you're done with the hot and cold from Joel. You're tired and you don't have anymore fight left.

Word Count: 8.7k

Warnings: canon typical violence, canon typical language, illusions to past death, illusions to past trauma, heavy angst, blood, mild injuries, description of stitches, reader had a mild injury, the holidays are hard, a lot on internal monologue in this (both joel pov and reader), hurtful language, town gossip, rumors, negative feelings, pining, heart of gold joel, though he is a bit daft in this, carpenter joel, woodworking joel, artisan joel, patrol partnership, lots of feelings, hurt and comfort, casual intimacy, urges to kiss joel miller get their own warning, adult content, kissing, yearning, protective joel, fluff, this is so unbelievably angsty, reader loses her cool, argumentative language, heated arguments, threatening language, fighting, wwe smackdown, reader is described as smaller than joel (bc c'mon), reader has a commonly used nickname but no assigned name, joel and reader pov

A/N: okay, this is the penultimate chapter! this series grew into something way beyond a cheeky handful of scenes that were just a random thought six months ago. it's been a joy to write for these two, i've put so much of myself in olive and for y'all to root for her and love her really warms my heart. the interaction with this has been insane and i love all of it, i love y'all

ao3 link || series masterlist || main masterlist || ko-fi

Sleep was such a pull on your psyche as the wind outside howled, battering anything that wasn’t secure and echoing loudly through the empty streets of Jackson. The habit of waking up throughout the night to peer outside your bedroom window and toward the small slip of the front street over your backyard fence periodically had been amplified in the storm. Unease settled in you, the storm bringing back memories you would father let fade into nothing. Inclement weather had been a challenge back when the world was whole, when safety measures were in place, when medical aid was abundant, when homes and buildings were constructed with them in mind. But even back then, they had been devastating.

And now?

They were as deadly as the virus.

Incessant snowfall all through the night, the light sprinkle of it last night turning into slanted sheets of downpour. It was blindingly bright on the other side of the windowpanes.

Despite the lockdown put in place by the council, you had told Maria depending on the streets that you would still make it to the mess hall. The intention of baking some breakfast casseroles hard to shake, of wanting to provide for those who may not have stock in their homes, or who relied on the mess hall as a main source of food. Layering as much as you could to combat the below freezing temperature, you pulled on your boots by the front door. Grabbing a knit cap and a scarf, you opened your front door and trudged through the snow drifts that had formed overnight.

Joel is panicking before he’s even fully conscious. His heart feels like it’s stopped but knows that it’s beating far too fast. His entire body feels weak and achy, his head pounding and overflowing with too many things. He felt nauseous, the drag of his lungs and the slushing of his stomach too much for him to handle. He groaned, pressing his face further into the pillow, the scent of his body wash wafting up and making it even worse.

He fucked up. He knows he did.

You had raised your voice at him, refused his help, his touch. Even as you laid collapsed on the ground because he had accidently knocked you down. You had been so worked up, so angry, but he had seen the way you clutched to your middle as you fled from him for a second time. He cursed low, the words a growl as he kicked the blankets from his sweating body despite the chills crawling down his spine.

“Fuckin’ hell.” He knew that woman was bound to be nothing but trouble. She was always a little too chatty for him, too willing to burst his bubble of personal space. But she had wiggled her way into his life and coerced him into a huge project that had taken so much of his free time leading up to the holidays.

He was a giving man, having been influenced by the acceptance he had been given here in the settlement, wanted to do what he could to help establish himself here. Not wanting to go back to the eat or be eaten mantra of the outside world or a collapsing quarantine zone. He had wanted to be everything he could manage for Ellie, to keep her safe here in a place that would allow for her to heal from the things they endured together. To survive in a way she hadn’t had the chance to, to have a life that wasn’t all bad. He had done his best to integrate, to be someone she could look up to and feel safe around. All of it had been for her, to have holidays, to have friends, to have a chance at finding out who she was without the undercurrent of survival being the only inspiration. And maybe ha had wanted it for himself too.

He had wanted to invite you over, try his hand at making you something for a change. If you had teased him over it, so be it, he would’ve taken it without argument. Just to see your lips quirk up and your soft laughter ring in the air of his kitchen. He would give anything for it to be his to witness.

The faux image of the domestic scene melted away, replaced by the one of you on the ground at his feet, with fear in your eyes. He hadn’t thought you were afraid of him, so open and willing to be in his space.

To tease him and lightly berate him when his answers were less than appropriate or too gruff.

Joel had never shown violence or distaste toward you, but yeah maybe he had been quieter or moodier on some patrols. But he wouldn’t get the chance to speak with you today. Patrols cancelled until the blizzard raging outside calmed down. A safety precaution that had been made lightly by the council. The risk of a group or pair getting stuck, of horses unable to handle it, of snow drifts forming and virtually undetectable, all of it had been taken into consideration. He wasn’t sure you were even cleared for patrol with your stitches. No pain killers you had said, reserved for extreme cases with how the supply was dwindled down to too little for a town of a few hundred.

Groaning as his head hammered, Joel shoved up from the bed, the blue sheets showing damp spots from his sweating and aching body. Scowling, he stripped the bed and made his way downstairs with them bundled in his arms. He felt a weird sense of déjà vu as he stuffed them into the top loading washer, reaching for the jar of powdered soap and pouring in a scoop. It was all so fucking normal. But his whole world felt like it was tilted, off kilter. Even more so than normal.

And it was because he knew he fucked up. He had hurt you, he had seen in it your eyes as you took in the way Marsha was clinging to him in her drunken state. The way she had deemed herself important enough to impinge on his time with you, so rare within the walls. Both of you so busy and both of you so afraid to ask after each other’s time. He knew he was, because he didn’t want to intrude on the way you kept to yourself, how you let your errands build up to take a whole day sometimes. And he knew some of that was because of the way people wouldn’t hold conversations with you, let alone start them. Opting to keep to yourself as a coping mechanism. Not wanting to feel like you were imposing yourself on the people who didn’t want to interact with you. He knew, because he had felt much the same way back in the quarantine zones, even if it was more born out of fear than distaste like it was for you.

He knew when you stumbled over your words to ask after him crafting something for you that you had worried yourself into a state before you even did it. Worried about taking up his time, taking up his resources, even if you had supplied him with the wood for the project. He had felt like a complete ass when you shut down and walked away, having felt comfortable enough to ask for something more when he had agreed to the first.

But Marsha. Marsha and her ill-placed infatuation with him had ruined the moment last night. You had told him you liked him, liked him. The heat he felt from you as he leaned in close and wanted to tell you he felt the same way. Shared and stolen kisses could only infer so much. And he groaned at the memory of pulling your hand over his erection the other morning. He was a damn fool to have done that, you had been pulling your hand away, but you had been touching him in his sleep. When he wasn’t able to tell you no, when something inevitably broke the moment, when something startled you or you thought too hard about it. You had just done it and the dilation of your eyes watching him, the hitch of your breaths, it had all been too tempting. He wouldn’t have told you no and he would’ve ignored the world ending all over again if it meant he could be with you in that way, even just once.

The older woman broken another tentative moment between you two. With the courage of alcohol flowing in her veins. It had made her bold in her words to him, her sentiments, her actions. Hell, the only reason he hadn’t heard your steps on the street was that he had been in shock. She had surged up and pressed her lips to his after he had denied her offer of a nightcap. He had just been trying to walk her home and make sure she was safe, even if he wasn’t overly fond of her, her friends had all been too unaware of themselves to help her.

Anger had overridden the shock; how dare she think she could do that. His heart wasn’t his to give, it was yours. And he had been about to tell you so.

The weak arguments of the woman defending herself and the gift she had gotten him even if she hadn’t gotten his name in the exchange for today had blurred his senses even more. His mind focused on the holiday, on taking you the gift he had made along with his heart. Hoping that today would be the day things were out in the open, plainly spoken and accepted. He only worried about how well you would receive him after being caught with Marsha last night.

Today.

Today was Christmas and the town was in a semi-state of lockdown with the strong winds and flurries of show raining down to collect along the streets. The bite to the air the worst of the season so far. Turning the washer on, he moved toward the coffee maker. Only to discover that he was out of grounds to brew.

With a string of muttered curses, Joel bundled up and braved the weather to cross the street.

He needed coffee and the gift he had left with Maria yesterday.

Tommy was pacing back and forth, waiting for the second pot of coffee to finish brewing. It had been an early morning, Maria rising hours ago and taking off with another neighbor to trek toward the mess hall where you had diligently showed up for your shift. Everyone had been advised late last night to remain indoors unless absolutely necessary.

A knocking barely echoed through the still howling wind. Thankfully, the snow had stopped, though it was built up deep all around the settlement.

A few moments later and both men were seated in the living room, the tea light candles flickering underneath two names etched in chalk above the mantle.

“She won’t be home much today.” Tommy supplied, reading the anxious silence Joel was stewing in beside him. “She trekked through one of the worst bouts of this weather to get to the mess hall. Wanted to make sure everyone had something to eat in case the power stutters or goes out. Her, Maria, and a couple others are gonna deliver meals door to door.”

“She’s too good for how people treat her.”

“From what I hear, you haven’t been treatin’ her too good either, brother.” Tommy took a long pull from his mug before he set it down on the coffee table. “She was over here after that overnight patrol, helpin’ with Macon. Was so tired she was rambling about how much she appreciates everything you do ‘round here, how talented you are, how nice you are to her. But then if you’re so nice, why doesn’t she have one of the cutting boards that was her idea.”

“It ain’t that simple. I can be nice to her and not have one of ‘em for her.” Joel couldn’t turn to look at his brother, knowing how easily he would read him. Read the anxiety and worry he felt over the entire situation. All the miscommunication. All the mixed signals he had been giving you without realizing it. He thought you had opted to not talk about the kiss because you were uncomfortable, because you were worried he hadn’t liked it or wanted it. Because he hadn’t exactly told you that he did, that he dreamt of kissing you, of holding you, of protecting and providing for you. Spending quiet evenings in with homemade meals, nights out at the bar, helping you with the harvest again next fall. All of it, he thought about all of it with you.

“Why don't you just make her one, I don’t get it."

"Drop it, Tommy, she's not getting one."

"I thought you liked her, I thought...I thought I saw you two kissing the other night. Sure as hell looked like she had been caught red-handed."

"We…we were. We have, a few times., but she thinks I’m with Marsha because that…insane woman has taken such a liking to me. Saw me walking her home from the bar the last night because she downed far too many shots and Millie was nowhere to be seen.”

“She knows you, trusts you not to do that to her if you’ve shown interest. Just give her a cutting board and I’m sure it’ll all blow over. That's all she wants Joel, to feel included. Like she's a part of something.” Tommy was wringing his hands in, chewing on his bottom lip as he thought over his next words. “A lot of people have them and she doesn't. It's basically an insult thrown in her face."

“Fuck, I didn't think of it like that."

The sip of coffee Joel took turned bitter in his mouth. He really hadn’t thought of it like that. He had just been trying to hone his skills with the new craft before gifting you the best one he could make. He set down the mug, stomach turning as the acid settled heavy. Rubbing his palms roughly over his face, rustling the thick hairs of his moustache.

"She's going to ask to be taken off patrol, Joel. She did ask before you showed up, stop it altogether and just focus on the mess hall. She feels like it would be easier to avoid the looks and gossip. We know about it, the council, but there’s not much we can do about it.” Tommy was obviously upset, his voice thick as he divulged something you had gone to him in a moment of weakness. He recalled the way you had been in tears, hurt beyond words by the acceptance that Joel and Ellie had been given as newcomers when you had been here for years and how upset you were at yourself for being jealous of it.

“But she kept at it as a favor for me, to help me keep you alive. To help me feel okay with not being by your side out beyond the walls when I couldn’t be. Because I worry, I worry so damn much about you brother and I just want you to be okay. She saw that, she saw that and took it onto her own shoulders because she cares about me.”

Joel sighed, his brothers words blossoming warmth in his chest.

“I am going to make her one, Tommy. From that piece of trunk I had you help me get from her yard. But it’s drying, the slabs I got from it. Already lost one and the other two need to dry.” He huffed out, chest tight as he thought of how long it would take. “She said the wood she brought me for those spoons took months to dry.”

“They’re beautiful, the whole set. I’m sure she’ll love them.” Tommy nodded to the box that contained them on in the kitchen. Of course he had looked them over, finding them when he had woken up and curious as to how they ended up in his own if your name was scribbled on the top of the box.

“But she came to me and asked for them, Tommy. It’s not gonna be the same if what you’re sayin’ is true. It’ll feel like a consolation when it’s not. It’s just the beginning of what I’m willin’ to give to her.”

“Then you should tell her that. She deserves to hear it.”

You ignored the knocking at your door, sleep keeping you weighted to the couch in your living room.

But the crack of wood and the clash of metal following a loud gust of wind had you surging up to your feet.

“Shit-“ A grunted curse was the only greeting you got before the door swung open to reveal the large shadow of Joel just outside of it.

“Joel? Why the hell would you break down my door?”

“It was an accident, I was just knocking and the wind got me-“

“Forced your way into my home? I thought I told you to leave me alone.” You hugged yourself, arms tight as you tried to shield away from the chill creeping into the living room.

“I-I-I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry. Please, I wouldn’t-“ He stumbled over his words, turning his back to you in order to try and set the door back into the frame. The wood was splintered around the lock, preventing it from shutting completely. He leaned down to get a closer look at the damage. “Fuck, sweetheart, I’m gonna have to probably make you a whole new door.”

“Just go, Joel. Please.” You clenched your eyes shut and walked away from the honeyed drawl, ignoring the pull it had on you to move closer. The kettle in the kitchen was just beginning to whistle and you removed it from the stove. But instead of gathering up a mug and the loose leaf tea from a cabinet, you flattened your palms on the table and hung your head.

You flinched when a wrapped box slid between your arms, pushed by a tan, weathered hand.

“’s for you.”  His voice was so tender, his eyes wide and beseeching when you glanced up.

“No, thank you.” You pushed it back toward him, standing on the other side of the table.

“Olive, please. You said your name always gets thrown out of the exchange. I wanted to and it’s what you asked me for.”

He lifted the top of the box, setting the lid down beside it, the ribbon atop it looking far too cheerful for you. Set inside, amid a soft looking swath of cloth, was a set of wooden utensils tied together with a thick string. He held them out to you, a slight tremble in his hands. They were beautiful, the wood crafted expertly and you shook your head to rid yourself of the image of Joel sat in his desk chair face focused as he took the time to carve them from the block of wood you had taken to him.

“I pushed a lot of stuff back to make sure they were just right. Was so careful with the wood you brought to me, it was dense but I managed to sand it down without altering the look of it too much. I didn’t stain it, to keep the natural color, the grain is really beautiful-“

When you didn’t say anything, eyes focused on his chest, he trailed off. He set the gift back down on the table and took a step back, his mouth snapping shut. His gaze heavy on you as you tried to focus and keep your temper under control. But you were at the end of your patience. This time of the year already hard on you. Paired with the hot and cold from Joel, the judgment from the town, the lack of inclusion on anything going on and you were just tired. Deep down in your bones, exhausted.

“Joel…” You sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose.

“You’re a good man. But I really don’t want to do this with you right now. I need some space because whatever I do, I can’t get you out of my head and it’s ruining me.” Your voice had started off at a normal volume, quickly growing as the words rushed from you. Anger flaring overwhelmingly, leaving you panting, chest heaving and hands clenched at your sides. The set of tied spoons resting on the table between you both, like a line not to be crossed. Like a mockery of the things he was offering you a little too late. Surging, you reached for them and hurled them in a display of anger you had thought you had managed to control. “Take your things and go, Joel Miller!”

They clattered to the floor across the kitchen, skidding along the tile to slam into the baseboards. The wood splintering and covering the floor behind him. But he hadn’t ducked, hadn’t brought his hands up to shield himself. Knowing, knowing that you wouldn’t have aimed them at him even as anger and hurt lit you from the inside out. He saw the remorse flash across your face the second they had left your hand.

Knowing that it was all an act of self-preservation. A way to save face, to save the fact that you had been hurt by his actions, his indiscretions. The memory of turning down the street, his hand wrapped innocently around Marsha, guiding her toward their shared street in her drunken state. And when he had declined the offer for a nightcap, she had pushed into his personal space to crush her lips to his.  Of running smack into you when he had tried to put distance between them, his back colliding with your front and crushing the wrapped gift in your hand. The sound of it thudding to the ground and your surprised shout warbling off into a deep breath of realization.

But the woman before him now was the same one who had taken the time to wrap the gift labeled with his name on it. Had taken the time to hand write recipes on a long-forgotten pack of index cards. Step by step instructions for things easy to combine and make nutritious means from. Had taken the time to include little, silly names for the meals that had pulled a tearful chuckle from him as he read them through in his inebriated state.

“I just want to be left alone. I just want, for one measly second that someone doesn’t watch me and wait for me to screw up, to give them a reason to feel disappointed. I-I can take it from the others, but Joel…I can’t handle it if it’s from y-you. Please just go.”

He didn’t go. He moved closer, into your personal space and he was thankful for the way you didn’t shy away from him even as tears raced down your cheeks. For the way you allowed him to cup your face in his hands and press his lips to yours, thumbs brushing away the tears. For the way your own moved against his as he tilted his head and really kissed you. There was no heat behind it like that last time, just adoration and reverence.

Pulling back, he whispered, “I’m not goin’ anywhere, sweetheart.”

He kisses the fear from you, pleading with you to understand that he's not going to turn his back on you.

He only hopes you can feel it. But your hands don’t rise to caress or cup his face, they don’t rise to rest on his chest, they don’t rise to run through his snow dampened hair. Your lips are barely moving against his and his heart sinks. It chips and shatters on the floor to settle with the pieces of broken olive wood.

But it wasn’t enough. It hurt that his attention wasn’t enough when you thought it would be. It was about his actions. How they had made you feel the last couple of months, since summer. The back and forth, the constant miscommunication, the humiliation of wanting a man who had so much more in his life, who was pulled in so many directions. The respect he had from the people within the settlement for the things he could do, for the things he provided to them. The issue of your reception, the possibility of it affecting his own if he were to be seen with you or you seeking out more of him. All of it was too much, the constant internal turmoil, it was heavy.

It was so heavy and you had to put it down.

“Joel,” Gently pushing him back, but not away, his body willingly moving with the motion. “Why didn’t you make me one, a cutting board?”

He froze.

When he sputtered on a few words before falling silent, you detangled from him. Crossing your arms as shield to your heart.

“This is why I keep to myself. It doesn't hurt when there's no one else involved.” Your voice was a low rasp, giving away the fresh wave of tears threatening to spill, the hot throb of them in your throat. “And even if you did try to be my friend, it's okay that you really don't want to be. You share things with people, you're a giver Joel, but I've had to ask for everything you've given to me.”

He could only watch as you closed yourself off, and you hoped he noticed the dark circles under your eyes. That he noticed just how much his attention had ruined you, because it had. You had been okay with how things were before he came along, content to keep to yourself, to spend patrols with Tommy and Maria. You hadn’t longed for companionship before he showed up and rode alongside you and asked simple questions about the town that developed into questions about yourself. Offering answers of his own in return. You hadn’t wanted before him.

“And that's not who i am, someone who asks for things she deserves. So…you standing there with no answer is you telling me that I don't mean anything to you. You don’t get to make me feel like I mean something and then not follow it with actions. I didn't take you for a cruel man. You say you’ve done things to stay alive, to fight for yourself and those in your care. And I wanted to believe that you changed, that you turned over a new leaf here. But you hurt me, Joel. You hurt me in a way that really…was so unfair.”

Once you let the words flow from within you it was hard to stop, they were a flood being released. Voice not stuttering or scrambling over them like you know you tended to do. Mostly from lack of interaction, of not using your voice most days as you spent it alone in the kitchen, home, or garden. The stuttering an anxious thing born of fear of interacting and it turning sour like it quickly tended to do. Words and sentiments always more ammo for those to use against you. And you could see it, in the man across from you, that he had things to say in response to the many words you were giving him. But you couldn’t, you were tired.

“I deserved better than the treatment I received by the people of this community, of this safe haven for those willing to contribute and who wanted something better for themselves. But the truth is…I’m better off alone.”

His voice cracked on the shape of your name on his lips.

But you shook your head, tears flowing freely and breathing labored.

“Just go, please.”

“Well hey there.” A figure approached you, where you were seated on the same stool at the long bar in the Tipsy Bison for the second night in a row. It was the man of the brother and sister duo you had convinced Joel to trust and bring back to the settlement. They had settled in well, Millie taking to the pregnant woman with a swiftness that had surprised you. But they were both close in age, something rare these days, to find friends you could relate to easily.

“Oh, h-hello.” You looked up from the book you had been reading, hearty sandwich on a plate beside your drink. Only a few bites taken out of it. The book holding your attention far more than the simpering hunger in your stomach. You hadn’t eaten all day, stewing in forlorn silence on the couch until your stomach rumbled. Only to find you didn’t have anything that would make a meal in your home, prompting you to brave the calmer but still whipping winds and intermittent snow fall.

“I just saw you from across the room, Tommy Miller said we could grab a bite here since the mess hall was closed for the day with the bad weather from this morning.” Nolan, you recalled his name. Nolan was nice, polite. You didn’t fault him for pointing a gun at you or Callie for managing to injure you. It was a sick, twisted world out in the wasteland of what was, especially if there was an unborn baby to worry about. They had just been doing what they needed to survive another day. “Guess no one wanted to risk working and getting stuck. I’m grabbing something to go I just wanted to thank you again, for helping us.”

“It’s no big deal. Everyone deserves a chance at something more.” You tried to smile, but you felt drained. From the early morning of cooking and delivering meals to front doors for people. Maria had enlisted the help of a handful of people, but it had been time-consuming to prep and make everything yourself. To bundle it all up into packs that would be appropriate servings.

“Would you mind if I joined you?” He moved to sit beside you, startling you at his forwardness. There was a wry glint to his eyes, the corners of his mouth twitching as if he was fighting off a smile. “While I waited, that is.”

“Oh, t-that’s probably not a good idea. I’m not the most popular here, you’d have better luck integrating with-“

“Whore.” A female voice whispered as someone walked by behind you.

“Excuse me?” You whipped around, shocked at such a blatant display of behavior. You were used to whispers, to errant rumors springing up once you had left a store or a gathering, asked an impertinent question during patrol and general meetings. But this? A direct confrontation was a new level and you were far too tired to handle it. Especially with the day being what it was.

“You heard me, praying on the newcomers to try and sway them on your side.” It was Millie. She was sans coat, having removed it to enjoy her evening in the toasty bar with her gaggle of friends you could see gathered in a booth on the other side of the room. She must’ve come up to the bar for a refill when she decided to imitate her mother and impinge on your rare interactions with people. “I’d be careful if I was you, she tends to get people killed. Don’t want to find yourself the latest victim.”

“The council said that they’re selective of who they let in. Surely they-“ Nolan was trying to be polite, to not overstep his place being so new in such a large community. But you could see the anger in the furrowing of his brow, the frown pulling his lips down, the way his hands were twitching. It was sweet of him to feel the need to try and protect you but this is exactly what you had been worried about. That the two most instigating occupants would try and ostracize him and his sister for associating with you.

“They do, but in her case they should’ve left her out in the woods and let the Infected get her. Be better for everyone if they had.”

You had moved without even thinking. The force of your hand hitting the woman’s cheek loud across the room. The hush of conversation lulling, a tense silence following.

Scrambling to correct the huge mistake you just made, to save face, your words were a breath of stuttered apologies. Your stomach had dropped, no longer a part of your body as your mind moved through the outcomes and ramifications of your thoughtless actions. You had never been one to needlessly lay hands on someone. But…the time you had spent fighting to survive had changed you, altered you beyond what you had been. Your instincts honed and deadly, and you silently thanked whatever force of the universe that was still alive that you had left your knife at home. Otherwise, it would be hilt deep in her chest right now.

It was ugly and it was cruel, but someone could only take so much.

“Millie, oh-oh my god, I’m so sorry. I-“

You didn’t even get to finish your rushed words before she returned the slap, her hand connecting hard with your own cheek.

The sting of it hot, skin throbbing.

And it was like a damn broke. Filling the tunnel and making you desperate for a chance to crawl out.

But instead of breaking out of it into the town, you were transported outside the walls. Relying on your instincts, relying on fighting with everything you had to survive.

You were on her in a flash, not even a second had passed. Both of your knees knocking into the ground around her body. Your hands making contact with any part of her you could. Sounds of her struggling underneath you fly into the air with every punch, every pull of her hair, every push of your body against her. You didn’t care about her nails digging and tearing into your arms, her knees kicking up and colliding hard with your back, her elbows jutting into your ribs. The searing pain of your stitches popping loose.

You didn’t care. You didn’t care. You didn’t care.

Strong arms wrapped around you and pulled, while another held your legs down. Restraining you as you realized you were shouting out that same set of three words over and over again.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, calm down.” Soft words, not harsh. And you shouted at them, forced the words from your aching throat, demanding that they let you go. That they leave you alone. Fighting against the people trying to hold you down. You felt your elbow connect with something hard, your knee with something soft and suddenly you were able to stagger to your feet.

Eyes not seeing details, just blurred faces and people standing all around you. Watching. Always just watching. Whispering things behind your back, not interacting with you, ignoring you. And you were done, you didn’t care.  And you shouted it for everyone to hear as you took in the sight of Millie crumpled on the ground. Having turned on her side to try and make herself smaller. Bruises were already blooming along her pretty face, her loose hair a tangled mess. Her nails were chipped and broken from digging them into your skin, the faint sting of them long lines down your arms. Her clothes were rumpled, the exposed skin of her stomach showing signs of bruising as well.

You just stared, unable to draw your gaze away from the whimpering woman. She wasn’t even trying to get up, she wasn’t even trying to fight back anymore. She was just laying there, bellowing out her hurt and looking so pathetic. And it made you feel bad, because she was nothing, would be nothing without the settlement of Jackson. She and her family had been here since the outbreak, safe in their secluded location, safe in the quick thinking of others, safe because of sheer, dumb luck that allowed her to continue being who she had always been.

But even despite the glitter of remorse beginning to shine through, you needed her to understand that you were done. That she had crossed a line she shouldn’t have. That for all the things she said and all the hurt she caused, you were the reason she was allowed to strut around town and act that way. You were the reason she was safe behind these walls and had an abundance of food. You were the god damn reason.

“Don’t you ever lay another hand on me, you understand? I will put up with your words, with your gossip, with you stealing every chance for me to have something good. But you will regret ever thinking of putting your hands on me, you hear me? I will fucking end you and make all your rumors true if you do it again.”

Her shuddering breath was the only response you got from her, but it was enough. You turned your back on her, grabbing your coat from the back of the stool you had been occupying, and walked out into the still falling snow.

“JOEL!” The bellow of his name, loud and alarming, startling him from where he had fallen asleep on the couch. He had collapsed there after returning from your place. He had frozen, all the sentiments he had planned to share with you died on his tongue the second you shared with him how much he had hurt you. It seemed it’s all you had experienced since coming here long before he and Ellie did. He hadn’t wanted to argue with you or belittle the things you had said, so he hadn’t. No words or feelings he had would have righted the wrongs done to you.

He felt unworthy of you, having played a part in it. He felt like he failed you, tricked you into an easy camaraderie when he knew after that first smile it would never be enough for him. He should’ve been honest from the beginning, told you he wanted to be someone to you. But instead, he had botched it, he had fucked up.

“Holy shit, dude, you need to come quick!” Ellie hollered as she barged through the front door, the handle slamming into the wall of the entry way and he had the errant through to put a piece of wood there to prevent it from happening again before it tore through the drywall.

“What’s wrong, baby girl?” He was hurtling up, hands reaching for the panting teenager as she came into the living room. Her eyes bright and shining, her hands trembling. She allowed him to pull her into his chest, his heart thudding, anxiety humming through him harsh and hot.

“It’s not me, it’s Olive.”

His heart stopped, his heart stopped because it was no longer in his chest. It was on the floor, bleeding and immobile between their feet.

“Is she…?” He didn’t even know how to finish his sentence. Gone? Hurt? Injured? Stood in front of Marsha or Millie just taking their words directly? The worst thought of all being shaken from his head because he couldn’t bear to give it life.

“She freakin’ lost it. She went ballistic on Millie at the bar. It took two people to pull her off and then she hurt them too. She was shouting all this stuff about how shit people treat her and then she took off.”

“Took off, Ellie, where?” He pushed her back to duck his head and caught her eyes. Worry spiking and making his mind run through all the possibilities. He needed to know where you went, even if you had sent him from your home with a hollow and broken heart.

“I-I don’t know, she just ran out the door and was gone by the time I tried to follow her.” Ellie reached up and held onto his wrists, her fingers wrapping around them and he realized for the thousandth time how small she was. How much things affected her, how her own trauma showed in ways they could both anticipate and in ways they could not. Seeing violence first hand since settling here seemed to have triggered her and he didn’t like it for either of you.

“It’s okay, baby girl. I got you, you’re okay.” He hushed, his words pressed into her forehead. She was trembling and he hated that he couldn’t do anything to help her. She clung to him, the winter already a harder time for her than the rest of the year. Awful memories associated with it that no matter how hard she tried to tamp them down, rose to the surface. He held her, offering his built up warmth to sooth her and when the sniffles stopped he lowered them both to the couch.

“Y-you should go find her, Millie tore her stitches open. They took that ungrateful dumbass to the infirmary. But Olive took off.”  

“Okay, but we’re taking you to Tommy’s okay?”

Minutes later they were across the street and knocking on the front door.

“Tommy, listen, I know it’s late. Believe me I know but Ellie needs to take your guest room and I need to know where Olive would go if she’s upset?” Joel didn’t waste any time, speaking as soon as the door began to open. Tommy just looked at him for a second, eyes taking in the thinly veiled panic on his normally calm and collected brother.

“Joel, what in the hell, what’s going on, what are you talking about?” His eyes snapped into focus, lack of sleep vanishing as he realized something happened.

“Olive, she snapped. Something about Millie starting something with some insults that turned into the two of ‘em going off on each other at the bar. Word is she took off, but she’s not at home and she didn’t come to me. Tommy, where would she go?” Joel ambled into the house, his hands soft on his brother’s shoulders as he tried to get the man to focus.

“She, uh, she’s never done anything like this before. She, um, she could have…” Joel could see that his brother was trying to focus on the situation at hand brought to him in the middle of the night, trying to think on so little sleep and energy.

“Tommy!”

“Maybe the cemetery?”

“The council needs to hold thar girl responsible. She should have to go on Olive’s patrols until she’s healed. I mean it, Tommy. I want it done.” Joel gently guided Ellie to the couch, urging her to sit down so he could wrap the throw blanket on the back of it over her. He moved into the kitchen and started a kettle for a cup of tea. Something soothing for her to find sleep easier.

“Joel, I know you’re upset. But Millie’s never been beyond the gates. Her entire family has been here since the walls went up.”

“And that’s why she feels entitled to act the way she does. Slinging insults and making fun of Olive, holding things against the woman like it’s her fault that despite the walls there are still very real threats out there. Not every one of them is avoidable. She needs to learn somethin’ and she needs to do it quick.”

“I can talk to Maria about it, but yeah, you have my word she’ll be put on patrol. Are they okay though?”

“I can’t say much for Millie, but Ellie said Olive pulled her stitches ‘n I gotta go out and find her.” The kettle began to whistle, and Tommy took over on making tea for himself and his niece.

“Then go find her, make sure she’s alright.”

Joel tried to tamp down his anger as he knocked on the front door. It was a momentary stop on his way to where Tommy suggested. The weather had calmed down, but not enough to make it an easy trek. The winds were still howling, though they weren’t nearly as devastating as earlier, snow floating down in soft waves.

“Joel? Oh, it’s so late, is everything okay?”

“I told you I wasn’t playin’ games with you.” He didn’t try and tamp down the frustration in his voice, it needed an outlet and the woman in front of him was a worthy for it. He cut off her startled question.

“Your daughter instigated a fight with Olive tonight. Called her names for the whole town to hear. Raised her hand and physically accosted her. That your best attempt at helping to ease the tension you’ve caused? That how you think people should be treated after spending hours to ensure everyone in town got breakfast in the midst of a blizzard?”

“Joel, Olive hit first. I’m sure of it.” She moved away from the door, from the bulk of him to shove her hands into a thick jacket and her feet into a pair of boots. Joel slammed his hand on the door frame, anger flaring at the woman’s nonchalance toward you.

“It doesn’t matter! Do you have any idea the torment you’ve caused her over the years? Millie is lucky Olive walked off. Talking to her and approaching her like that unprovoked. Olive was just defending herself. She was minding her own damn business like she always does!”

“Joel, do not raise your-“

“I’ll raise my voice when I damn well want to! You need to hear me and listen: both of your little stunts resulted in Millie going on the roster. She’s Olive’s replacement on my morning patrols now. To ensure she learns just how much of a responsibility it is to protect the settlement and deter her from further disrespect to those that go outside the gates every single day to protect this town.”

“No, no she can’t go outside the walls. She-“ The woman’s hands grappled his arm, desperation making her forget everything else in that moment.

“She will learn that there is more to living in a broken world than hurtful gossip and petty vendettas. Take it up with the council, but they’ve made their decision. Olive is missing. Your daughter is at the infirmary.”

He stalked off, not willing to wait around to hear what other nonsense the woman had to say. He had to find you, You hadn’t gone to his brother’s, which he would’ve thought to be the obvious answer. You hadn’t gone to his, of course maybe you would’ve before this morning. His body aching from sitting on your small stoop waiting for your return only to go there for a moment to find it dark and empty. The winds whipped around him, snow blinding and chilling when flakes got stuck on his eyelashes and in his scruff.  

He needed to tell you. He needed to tell you that he’d pick you over everyone in the whole damn settlement if you’d have him. But first he needed to make sure you were okay in order to do that.

Everything was so fuzzy, the edges of your vision fading. The bright snow all around the streets, falling from the sky, it hurt to look at. It hurt to keep your eyes open, but you did as best you could as you clutched to your bleeding middle and stumbled down empty streets. Blood was warm between your fingers, against your palm. The stitches put in place a few days ago now pulled from your skin and tearing even more damage across the wound there.

It wasn’t cold anymore, not by the time you had made it through the creaking iron gate and settled in front of a headstone. Everything was numb and you couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up as you realized.

The look of shock on Millie’s face shouldn’t be funny, it was sad. That no one had ever given her a taste of her own medicine. You didn’t hold anything against her, it wasn’t in your nature. But you wouldn’t say you liked her, that part of you had died along with Aiden. You had tried to continue to be her friend after everything, that fateful patrol. But she had pushed you away, had been quiet and reserved in her grief.

Until she hadn’t. She had shifted to harsh glares and sharp words. Basically heading the town to lay the blame on you. Her mother dutifully at her side. But you didn’t fault them. You knew loss was hard long before they had. You knew that it twisted people up inside and made it hard to feel okay. But you had never taken it out on anyone, instead closing in on yourself. But that had backfired, turned into a spectacle at the bar amid most of the town’s older occupants. Entertainment for them. More ammo for gossip and hurtful words.

In trying to ignore them, you had made it worse. Of course you had.

You lay slumped against the headstone, consciousness wavering as the wind pressed you into it. The snow began to settle over your legs and in your loose hair. Hat and scarf left behind in your rush to get out of that damn bar. You don’t know how long you laid there, pressing your face into the headstone, tears falling from your eyes and stinging as they froze on your cheeks, on your lashes, around your puffy eyes. Coughing, you felt the warmth of a thick liquid and taste of metal as blood splattered over the name etched into the stone.

You were tired, exhausted. Your body no longer hurt and it was a relief to be without the low thrum of anxiety, the smoldering heartbreak in the shape of broad man weighing down your chest, the ache in your hands from hours of chopping and stirring and mixing, the swelling in your legs from standing for hours everyday to prepare meals for people who couldn’t care less about you. It was all gone and it was a relief.

You tried to peel your eyes open, but they were so heavy. Unseeing when you managed to, it was so dark around you. There was no way it should be that dark in the late hour with the snow blanketing the town and the sky swathed in snow clouds. But it was and it didn’t bother you. You didn’t want to see anything anyway. Not when you closed your eyes against the darkness, you saw a soft smile tugging at plush lips that had felt good against your own below a pair of sparkling brown eyes. You saw Joel Miller and that was good enough.

You weren’t aware of the darkness being a shadow falling over you, a body dropping to its knees as it spotted you on the ground. You weren’t aware of the shout of your name, your actual name, nothing breaking the unconsciousness you had succumbed to. Joel was frantic, his hands hovering over you as he worried touching you would cause more damage. The blood shining on dark on your lips, the sallow complexion of your skin, the hand that had been pressing to your stained and wet middle limp in your lap. All of it was too much and his heart felt like it was humming in his chest as it beat in time with memories of loss and pain flashing before his eyes.

He couldn’t, he couldn’t lose you too. Not now, not like this.

Ignoring his worry, pushing it down, he scooped you up into his arms. The fact that you didn’t startle awake or shout out in pain at the movement didn’t sit well with him, his stomach dropped and his head pounded as he realized how cold you were to the touch, how limp you were. He gritted his teeth against the biting wind, the snow flying all around and began to move through the headstones.

“I made you one.” He croaked. “I made them all for you. All of them, every single one” His hands were warm, cradling you close, trying to tamp down the bleeding from your middle as he walked. “C’mon, sweetheart. You gotta let me save you so you’ll have one. I’ll give you anything, I’ll give you everything. Olive, please.”

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A Greek Mythology Reading List

Circe - by Madeline Miller (By far the most recommended!)

The Song of Achilles - by Madeline Miller

Persephone - by Madeline Miller

Helen of Troy - by Margaret George

Stone Blind - by Natalie Haynes

A Thousand Ships - by Natalie Haynes

Lies We Sing to the Sea - by Sarah Underwood

Pandora - by Susan Stokes

The Maidens - by Alex Michaelides

The Secret History - by Donna Tartt

Psyche and Eros - by Luna Mcnamara

Here, the World Entire - by Anwen Kya Hayward

Ariadne & Elektra - by Jennifer Saint

Neon Gods - by Katee Robert

The Penelopiad - by Margaret Atwood

#dark academia #books #literature #the secret history #greek mythology #percy jackson #circe #madeline miller #song of achilles #achilles x patroclus #margaret atwood #donna tartt