mandoatsea
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growling on the timeline about old men
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Evergreen | Chapter One: Denial
Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader
Chapter Summary: Tommy encourages Joel to join bereavement group counseling, where he meets you. You connect over a similar loss and the common thread of loneliness, leading to something unexpected for you both.
Chapter Warnings: grief, angst, mentions of OC deaths, mild references to: suicide, self harm, drug use (none by reader or Joel), language, panic/anxiety attack (Joel), Joel POV
WC: 8.8K
A/N: I've been working on this goddamn series since May. Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to it but I am committing to a posting schedule now that it is almost complete and I appreciate you all for being so patient. Hope you enjoy tons of fluff and softness and angst.
Series Masterlist
Joel's hands gripped the steering wheel as he stared blankly at the faded brick building connected to the small, run down parking lot. He watched as the clock ticked down to six in the evening, and with each passing minute a new car parked nearby or someone walked through the double doors. He wasn't sure what he expected, but he was surprised to see people of all ages streaming inside.
Then he saw a young woman with two children, one in each hand, neither of which could have been over seven years old, walk inside with watery eyes and he dropped his gaze to his lap in shame.
Mia had been gone for nearly ten years. He had no business being there. His grief wasn't fresh. Over the years, he's learned to cope with it, to live alongside it. The people who were there that night needed the support.
Joel didn't need support. He was just lonely.
He reached for his key, still dangling in the ignition, when his phone rang. With a sigh, he patted down the front of his jeans until he located his phone, then lifted his hips off the worn seat with a grunt so he could fish it out.
"Yeah?"
"You better not be thinkin' 'bout leavin'."
Joel swiveled around in alarm, searching the parking lot for his brother's truck, but all he saw were the last few stragglers hurriedly walking up to the front doors, the anguish practically weighing them down as they moved.
"You watchin' me now?"
Tommy chuckled on the other end.
"Nah, I'm at home. I just know you."
Joel rolled his eyes as the clock ticked to 6:01 on the dash.
"This is stupid, Tommy."
"It ain't stupid. It's been almost ten years and you've never looked twice at another woman. You can tell me you've moved on or that you're fine, but I'm not buying your bullshit," Tommy said sternly on the other end. "I don't think you ever gave yourself a chance to process what happened and it's important you do that. For your mental health and all that."
"Maria tell you to say that?" Joel scoffed, but still unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door.
"Maybe. Don't matter who said it, it's true."
"Fine. I'm walkin' in now, I'll call you later," Joel said, then hung up without waiting for a reply.
The building wasn't very big. From the lobby, Joel could hear a male's voice making what sounded like brief introductions as he strolled quickly down the hall. He rested his hand on the push bar and took a deep breath. Right as he was about to enter, he heard someone else's light footsteps jogging up behind him. He turned around as you approached, a little breathless and with a guilty smile.
"Oh, good, I'm not the only one who's late," you said, nodding towards the door.
"Uh, yeah," Joel said, clearing his throat softly, "we can share the heat," he joked, opening the door and stepping aside so you could walk through first. You shot him a grateful look and mouthed thank you before entering the room.
The group all turned their heads at the disruption, as expected, but the counselor waved them in with a warm smile.
"Welcome! Have a seat, we were just getting started."
Joel found the first empty chair he could, in the very last row closest to the door. You glanced around the room before sliding into the same row as him, just a few seats down.
"As I was saying, welcome to the grief and loss support group. I'm Dr. Harris, but please feel free to call me Ryan."
Ryan was young. Definitely under forty. Something about that irked Joel. He imagined this man going to school to learn how to be caring, how to listen and say all the right words at the right time so he could make a decent paycheck and call himself doctor while he went home to his wife and picket fence and his patients went home with a gaping hole in their hearts.
"There is no wrong way to grieve," Ryan was saying from the podium with a practiced look of solemnity. "All of you are here for different reasons. And while you may look around here and think nobody else could possibly understand what you are feeling, I am here to tell you that you are simply wrong." Ryan took a moment to let his words settle over the group before continuing. "We have all lost somebody in our lives. That is the common thread that weaves us all together. And I'm here to tell you to use it." Ryan clenched his fists for emphasis and Joel had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. "Lean on each other. Listen to one another. This is a safe space. Nobody will judge you here, no matter what you may think, everybody in this room is here for the same reason."
After what felt like an eternity, Ryan invited the people in the room to approach the podium to speak, no longer than ten minutes, he had said, reminding everyone that their time was limited and they always could speak again at the next meeting.
One by one, people trickled up to the front of the room. First it was an elderly woman who explained with tears in her eyes that her husband of forty years passed away a month ago.
"It sounds silly," she sniffled, "but it feels like I'm... untethered. Like I lost my connection to this world when he left and I'm scared I might just... float away."
Next was a man around Joel's age who visibly struggled to hold back his tears about his late sister.
"I just keep reminding myself I didn't cause it, I can't control it, can't undo it. I'm really mad at myself for not paying attention to the warning signs. She was struggling, y'know?" His glassy eyes addressed the group briefly before he cast his gaze back down. "The best thing I can do is try to rebuild. Don't let the anguish fester. Don't let it consume me. Because she wouldn't want that."
After that, a girl no older than twenty, arms and neck covered in tattoos walked to the front. "She was my best friend since we were eight. And I know it's my fault, I know it is," she choked out, tears slipping down her cheeks. "I gave her her first hit. I could see she was falling too deep into it and I didn't try to help her, I was too focused on my own shit and not seeing what was right in front of me. To this day, I can't look her mom in the eye-" the girl hung her head and took a moment to gather herself. Chairs squeaked as the group patiently waited for her to continue. "But I'm clean and sober almost six months now," she said with a watery smile. A small round of applause broke out amongst the group and she nodded her thanks. "I'm thinking about going to school for social work. Maybe I can honor her memory in some way."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw you cross and uncross your legs nervously but made no move to walk to the front.
Same as him.
When the clock on the wall ticked closer to seven, Ryan addressed the group one final time.
"I'll stick around in case anybody wants to have a talk after group. Just a reminder that I'm only here once a week, but my esteemed colleague, Grace, runs another group on Tuesdays, so please feel free to stop by one or both. I also left some cards in the back next to the coffee. My information is on there if you would like a one on one appointment and on the back is the crisis hotline. Please take one, you never know when you may need it."
The room collectively seemed to stand, a murmur rippling through the group as people began to softly speak again, reaching out to neighbors, either introducing themselves or catching up from the last session. Joel scratched at his chin and looked around the room as people continued to filter around. Some paired off to grab coffee, some went to talk to Ryan, but Joel just stood there. All alone.
He took a deep breath and headed for the back, then lingered at the small stack of business cards Ryan had mentioned. He picked one up and flipped it over, studying it, when he heard a soft voice behind him.
"Excuse me," you said, and he swiveled around in surprise.
"Oh, sorry," he replied, stepping to the side so you could reach the coffee. He pretended to look at the card but watched as you filled up a cup. He waited for you to add cream or sugar but you didn't. You lifted the cup to your lips and took a tentative sip before recoiling at the heat and doing it again.
"That, uh, any good?"
Your eyes locked onto his and you shrugged. "'Bout what you'd expect."
He smiled and looked around the room, fidgeting with the edge of the card before sliding it into his pocket. "This your first session, too?"
You shook your head and stepped aside, a little closer to him, so others could get to the coffee. "I've been coming here almost two months."
That surprised Joel. Based on the way the rest of the group seemed familiar with each other, he had suspected the two of you were both new.
"Two months? Wow," Joel said, "how's it workin' out for you, if you don't mind my askin'?"
You sighed and gave him a little smile.
"Some days are better than others. But I figure it doesn't hurt, so..." you trailed off and crossed your arms, your fingertips tapping against the paper cup. "My mom begged me to come, so I did. I think it makes her believe she's helping in some way by pushing it and I grew tired of feeling like an emotional burden."
Joel frowned. "I'm sure that ain't true. No parent thinks their kid is an emotional burden."
You chuckled and drained the rest of your cup. "You'd be surprised." You tossed the cup into the trash before giving him a brighter smile. Although expressing your emotions was the entire reason you were there, you still felt uncomfortable doing it. "So this was your first time? What did you think?"
"Jury's still out," Joel replied honestly. "Promised my brother I would give it a try, same as you. My daughter just went off to college last month and I think he and his wife are worried 'bout me bein' all alone for the first time in, well... forever, I suppose." His lips pursed in thought for a moment. "Feels kinda like I don't belong here. My wife passed almost ten years ago. I've learned to live with it by now. It ain't as raw as all that-" he gestured up to the podium, referencing all the individuals who poured their hearts out for the past hour. Then he realized he was rambling and chuckled. "Sorry. Can't seem to shut up." He looked at you sheepishly and you smiled back.
"That's good. That's what you're supposed to do here," you assured him, then took a deep breath. "I lost my fiancé a year ago, so I can relate... kind of."
"I'm sorry," he said, furrowing his brow and examining your face. "You're so young, you shouldn't know what that feels like at your age."
"Not that young. I'm thirty-one," you joked. He laughed and rubbed his chin.
"Well I got twenty years on you, seems pretty young to me."
"You're fifty-one?" you asked, and he nodded. "You look good, I wouldn't have guessed a day over..." you trailed off as you studied his face and he grinned.
"Go ahead, be honest."
"Forty-three," you decided, and Joel laughed. When was the last time he felt this lighthearted?
"Well that's the nicest thing I've heard all week," he replied. The room began to thin out and you shifted your weight.
"Well, I guess I should get going," you told him, almost sounding regretful. Then you pinched your eyebrows together. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."
"Joel," he said, sticking an arm out to shake your hand. You gave him a warm smile before telling him your name, your hand getting dwarfed by his thick, rough fingers.
"Will I see you next week, Joel?"
"Yeah," he replied, walking out with you and holding open the door. "I'll give it another chance."
"Good. I mean, you know, I'm glad you're giving it another chance," you found yourself inexplicably stumbling over your words and before your face began to heat up you veered off towards your car with a quick wave.
Joel's eyes trailed after you for a minute before he opened the door to his truck and climbed inside. He absentmindedly rubbed his thumb against his lower lip, lost in thought while he stared straight ahead at the emptying parking lot. Then you drove by in a higher end white SUV and he watched as you took a right turn out of the lot and disappeared down the road. He sighed and started his truck, realizing he was one of the last cars in the lot, and decided to stop at a fast food drive thru on the way home.
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"Uncle Tommy told me you went to a grief support group the other day, how did it go?" Sarah asked him over FaceTime. He pushed the lever on his recliner and leaned back into the chair with a grunt.
"S'alright," he mumbled.
"Did you share anything?"
"No."
"Well, why not?"
"'Cause, baby girl, these people just lost someone close to 'em. I can't get up there and talk 'bout your mama, it's been so long-"
"That doesn't matter," she said, interrupting him. He could hear other kids in the background laughing but she remained focused on her screen. "I don't think you've ever really processed Mom's death and it's important to me that you try. I worry about you, old man," she teased, and Joel grinned.
"No need to worry 'bout me, I'm stayin' busy."
"Yeah, doing what? And don't tell me you're eating frozen meals and watching baseball because it'll break my heart."
Joel's eyes drifted to the empty plastic tray on the coffee table.
"No," he said gruffly. "Ain't baseball season. I'm watchin' basketball."
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Dad," she whined, "what about your friends? The guys from work?"
He didn't have the heart to tell her they were busy with their families, with their wives, so he lied.
"Yeah, I'm gonna get together with Jimmy later this week. Gonna shoot some pool."
"That sounds great!" Sarah exclaimed, her face instantly brightening. Her eyes snapped up to someone behind her phone and she grinned, holding up one finger, then looked back at him. "Listen, Dad, I gotta run. I promised a few friends I would go to the football game with them."
"Oh, so you'll watch football with your friends and not me?" he teased, and she giggled. "Alright then, text me when you get back home safe."
"I will. I love you."
No matter how many times he heard it, those words always warmed his heart.
"Love you too, baby girl."
The call ended and he set his phone down with a sigh. Sarah was right. He couldn't waste away in his house all alone, waiting for her to come home to visit or for Tommy and Maria to come by for dinner. He needed to get a hobby. He glanced outside then looked at the time before turning off the television and pushing himself out of his recliner with a groan. He shuffled down the hall to his bedroom to change out of his old sweatpants and ratty tshirt, then snatched his keys off the kitchen counter and headed out to the driveway.
He drove aimlessly through town, his window down with his arm hanging out, soaking up the sun's rays. Kids were playing on the sidewalks and people were walking their dogs or pushing strollers. Everyone just seemed so... happy. Content.
Maybe he should get a dog.
Maybe he should start with a fish, first.
He jumped on the highway and cruised with one hand on the steering wheel. Hank Williams crooned from the radio and Joel took a deep, relaxing breath. He was coming up on the exit for the mall. Sarah loved dragging him to the mall. A smile played on his lips and he figured why not.
He veered off the highway and slowed when he approached the red light, the mall parking lot straight ahead. It didn't look terribly busy. With the weather as nice as it was, he imagined most people would be spending their time outside.
Joel found a good spot right out front. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets and walked inside through the Macy's. A blast of freezing cold air conditioning hit him like a ton of bricks, cooling the sweat that was collecting on the back of his neck. He managed to make his way through the maze of the department store and entered the mall itself. There were a few groups of girls around Sarah's age giggling and carrying shopping bags and the random couple here or there walking into William Sonoma or Brookstone.
When he passed by the food court, he saw a few solitary older men sipping coffee and reading the paper or people watching. Joel huffed under his breath, wondering who on earth would come to the mall just to read a paper until he realized he was no better.
Was he going to become just like them one day? Would he come to the mall to nurse a coffee just so he wouldn't feel so alone? The thought had his throat closing up.
He paused and leaned against a railing overlooking the bottom floor of the mall, pretending to be looking for someone when in reality he was struggling to breathe. His heart was fluttering too fast in his chest and his vision was narrowing.
"Shit," he whispered to himself, rubbing his eyes and trying to focus on taking deep breaths. It was like reality crashed down around him all at once: Sarah was moved out of the house. Tommy was happily married. And Joel was going to die all alone.
He gasped and blinked, trying to clear his head and mentally talk himself down, but it was no use. He leaned forward a bit to rest his forehead on the cool, stainless steel railing but his knees began to buckle. Just when he thought he would need to stop someone and beg them to call an ambulance, he heard someone say his name, temporarily snapping him out of his daze.
"Are you okay?" you asked, the smile slipping from your face when you noticed how flush he looked. He could only manage to shake his head. Without hesitating, you wrapped an arm around his shoulders and helped him stand, then glanced around. Spotting an empty bench, you led him over and helped him sit. You rubbed your palm over his upper back soothingly and sat next to him, reminding him to breathe deeply until his vision cleared and he felt his strength return.
"Christ," he mumbled. He sat up and leaned back so the back of his head rested on the bench and stretched his long legs out. "Thank you," he added, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers.
"No problem," you said, "is everything okay?"
"Yeah. Or, no. I don't know," he sighed, dropping his hand from his face. "I think it just hit me all at once."
You slid over on the bench to give him more room. "What hit you all at once?"
"That my little girl is growin' up and -" he stopped himself, the words and I'm all alone getting trapped in his throat. "And I just miss her, is all."
You slowly nodded and glanced around the mall. "What does she like?"
He smiled. "Clothes. Music. Makeup. Books."
"What kind of books?"
"The fantasy kind. Y'know, like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter."
A huge grin spread across your face. "Follow me, I have an idea," you said, standing up and looking down at him before you realized you might have overstepped. "I mean, unless you're-"
"No, let's go," he replied, standing up and stretching out an arm for you to lead the way. He fell in step next to you as you led him down towards the other end of the mall and after a few minutes, he realized where you were leading him.
"The bookstore?"
"Yep," you said cheerily, shooting him a playful grin. "Trust me."
And he did.
"There's some really incredible series out there right now. Why don't we pick one out, you can read it and share it with her so you guys have something to do together from a distance? Do you know if she's read The Word of the Heir? That's by an incredibly talented author who actually got the idea when she was only seven years old," you told him excitedly, leading him deep into the bookstore, dodging tables and displays until you made it to the fantasy section. Joel slowed down and looked around, his panic attack slipping further and further from his mind.
"Uh, I ain't sure," he replied as you held up the book. You tucked it under your arm and began to look again.
"How about Empire of Kings? I haven't read that one but the author is relatively new and I've heard he's an extremely talented storyteller."
Joel shrugged, again unsure what Sarah may or may not have read. All of the titles sounded so foreign to him until his eyes landed on the spine of a thick, hardcover book.
"Oh, this one sounds familiar," he said, plucking it from the shelf. "The Crimson Stone. I think she wanted to read this but I don't think she ever finished it. It's a series-"
"Yeah, I know that one," you told him quietly. He glanced down at the book again and read the author's name.
"Daniel Davis, ain't this the guy who died in that bad wreck downtown?" Joel mumbled as he flipped the book over in his hands to read the back. You nodded. "Maybe I'll get this one."
"Don't waste your money, I can give it to you for free," you said, gently taking it from his hands. You ran your palm distractedly over the cover before flipping it open and looking at the tiny black and white photo of the author on the inside jacket. "This was my fiancé," you added, your voice thick. Joel's eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"Shit," he mumbled. "I-I'm sorry, his name just sounded familiar, I remember it from the paper..." he trailed off, floundering for what to say to comfort you. Why couldn't he fucking think?
"It's okay," you told him, waving him off, but the guilt still laid heavy in his chest. "There's no way you would have known." You slowly closed the book, giving the picture one more glance, and handed it back to him. "But really, if you want to read them I have tons of copies just sitting around. He had a few other books outside of this series, as well, if you guys wanted them."
Joel's eyebrows knit together. "I don't wanna take your books. They gotta have sentimental value or somethin'."
"No, seriously, I have boxes of them just sitting there. He was in the middle of signing copies for readings he was supposed to do before-" you stopped yourself and cleared your throat. "Anyway. I can bring them to group next week or you can come by the house and look through them yourself if you like."
Joel nodded and nervously chewed the inside of his cheek. "Do you wanna talk 'bout it?"
You looked up at him then, all wide eyed and filled with so much sadness that it made his chest ache. No one so young and pretty should have to go through so much pain. Your eyes drifted over his face for a moment, quietly studying him before responding. "Yeah. I kind of do."
Joel looked over his shoulder and spotted the café across from the bookstore. "You wanna get a coffee and find a quiet bench or somethin'?"
"That sounds nice," you replied, so he put the books back on the shelf and walked out into the mall. He spotted a bench near an empty storefront and he told you to go have a seat with the promise of bringing you back something to drink. There wasn't a line at the counter. He couldn't imagine many people wanted coffee that late in the day, so it only took a few minutes before the barista slid the two cups of black coffee across the counter and he met you back at the bench.
"Black, right?"
You smiled and gingerly took the cup. "Yeah, how did you know?"
"From group the other day," he replied, then sat down with a grunt. You sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, each of you letting your coffees cool before you spoke.
"I usually don't talk about it. Every week I tell myself I'm gonna go up to that podium and pour my heart out and every week I chicken out."
Joel didn't say a word. He learned early on with Sarah when she was upset, she just wanted someone to listen to her. So that's exactly what he did. He sipped his coffee and just listened. And before you even realized it, you were telling him everything.
You began by telling him Daniel was from Austin but you met in Portland, where you grew up. For a while, the two of you tried doing a long-distance relationship, but once you were finished with school you took him up on the offer to move in with him in Texas. Shortly thereafter, he proposed and you had spent the last year of his life planning your dream wedding. The night of the accident, you had been touring a venue an hour outside the city. It was dark when you finished up and drove back home.
Daniel didn't do anything wrong. You insisted Joel knew that first.
A truck driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and ran a light, completely crushing the driver's side and killing Daniel instantly. Somehow, you had only come out of the accident with a small concussion and a badly bruised chest from the seatbelt.
"Jesus," Joel muttered when you exhaled a shaky breath. "I'm sorry, darlin'. That's some fucked up shit." His eyes widened and he straightened up in his seat. "Shit, sorry for cursin'... twice." He scratched the back of his head uncomfortably and a slow smile spread across your face. He nearly jumped out of his skin when you burst out laughing.
"Thank you," you said in between giggles. He grinned, confused but happy you were laughing and not crying. "I needed that. And you're right, it was some fucked up shit."
Joel chuckled and took a sip from his coffee. He heard his phone ring so he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen before silencing the call and putting his phone away.
"You can take it," you said, wiping a stray tear from your eye and jutting your chin towards his phone.
"Just my brother. I'll call him back later."
"Ah, the infamous brother that made you go to group?"
"The very same."
"Younger or older?"
"Younger, but the way he bosses me 'round you'd never know it," Joel said with a grin.
"He's probably just looking out for you."
"He knows I'm feelin' especially lonely without Sarah. Sarah's my daughter, by the way," he said, pulling his phone out and showing you his lock screen: it was a selfie of him and Sarah on the beach, Joel looked red as a lobster and Sarah's hair looked tangled from the wind but there was no denying the happiness in both their eyes.
"She's beautiful," you said warmly. He smiled and put his phone away.
"Got that from her mama."
"I don't know, I see a little bit of you in her smile," you teased, bumping up against his shoulder playfully. He rolled his eyes but didn't argue.
"What I'm tryin' to say is, I can relate a bit to what you're goin' through. Y'know, losin' a partner and feelin' like you got no one left," he said. You took a deep breath.
"Yeah, sounds like you do."
Joel nervously picked at his jeans, trying to figure out the right way to say what he wanted to say without sounding like an old creep, but before he could open his mouth, you spoke first.
"Maybe we can hang out together and keep each other company?" you offered. He turned his head and grinned.
"I was 'bout to suggest the same thing."
"Really?" you asked, looking as relieved as he felt. He nodded.
"Sounds like we both could use a friend."
Something in your expression shifted. It was too quick. He couldn't pinpoint it but whatever it was disappeared, leaving behind a genuine smile.
"I would really like that, Joel."
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"What the hell? You couldn't call me back yesterday?" Tommy scolded when he marched into the small, messy office the following morning. Joel glanced up from behind his desk; papers, a calculator and a pencil scattered about in front of him. He took his reading glasses off with a sigh, abandoning his work. He hated doing the administrative part of his job. He always preferred to be on site or meeting with clients.
"I was busy."
"Busy?" Tommy repeated before collapsing in the worn out chair across from him.
"Yeah, busy. I was... with a friend," Joel mumbled, trying to sound nonchalant but Tommy's ears perked up.
"A friend? Who?"
Joel shrugged. "Someone I met at that group you made me go to."
Tommy's eyes lit up. "Hey, that's great. See? I knew it'd be good for you. What's his name?"
Joel pursed his lips before softly saying your name and Tommy raised an eyebrow.
"A woman? That's even better, Joel."
"It ain't like that-"
"'Course not," Tommy said, "I'm just sayin' it's a step in the right direction."
"She's too young," Joel said defensively, giving Tommy pause.
"Okay..."
"We're just friends. She ain't from 'round here, ain't got anyone in Texas."
Tommy frowned as he watched Joel shift uncomfortably in his chair, wondering what made his brother get so sensitive, so he chose to tread lightly.
"So you're keepin' each other company. That's nice."
"Yeah," Joel said, standing up with a grunt and rubbing his lower back before he snatched his coat from the wall. "Ready to go?"
"Sure," Tommy said, standing to follow Joel out of the office. While he locked the door behind him, Tommy couldn't help but ask, "How young is too young?"
"Thirty-one," Joel replied, fishing the keys out of his pocket.
Tommy shrugged, falling in step next to his brother as they walked towards the parking lot. "Sounds like an adult to me," he muttered, but Joel chose to ignore it. "When are you seein' her again?"
"End of the week," Joel replied before climbing into the truck.
"Friday?"
"Yeah, after work. We were gonna order some dinner and look through some books she's tryin' to get rid of."
The corner of Tommy's mouth twitched. "So, like a date?"
"It ain't a date," Joel said firmly, his jaw set as he pulled out of the parking lot and began to drive in the direction of the first worksite. "She's mourin' the loss of her husband, it's not a date."
"Husband?" Tommy repeated, then Joel shook his head, growing flustered.
"Fiancé. Not husband."
"When did he pass?"
Joel thought back to what you told him the night you first met. "A year ago."
Tommy hummed and looked out the window, tapping his fingers against the car door in rhythm with the beat from the radio. Joel side eyed him while they sat in silence for a few minutes before he rolled his eyes and sighed. "What?" Joel asked with an edge to his voice.
"A year's a long time, is all."
"She's in grief therapy, Tommy. She's in pain and tryin' to come to terms with it. Quit makin' it sound like somethin' it ain't."
"Just 'cause she's in grief therapy don't mean she ain't ready to move on-"
"Goddamnit, this is the last time I tell you anythin'," Joel grumbled as he made a left hand turn. Tommy hid a smile behind his hand and looked out the window.
"Alright, no need to get all defensive on me now."
Joel opened his mouth to argue but quickly snapped it shut. The more he pushed back just gave Tommy more ammunition. Besides, he knew the truth. You were looking for a friend, someone who could relate to what you were going through. There was absolutely no way you were interested in a man twenty years older than you. The thought was so absurd it almost made him laugh. You were young and beautiful and charming and you had your whole life ahead of you.
No, surely Tommy was wrong.
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When Joel pulled up to your house, his eight year old truck the noisiest thing on the whole block, he let out a low whistle and threw it into park, deciding at the last second to keep his car on the street for fear of leaving an oil stain or something on your pristine concrete driveway. He sat in his truck for a moment, taking in the monumental Victorian house before him. He recognized it from his youth, but back then the siding was chipped and the windows were foggy, in desperate need of replacing. He always admired houses like yours and part of his heart broke whenever he saw one fall into such a state of disrepair that it was beyond saving, but not yours. No, at some point in the past ten years, the house was upgraded but managed to maintain the original charm.
There was fresh siding and new windows installed, the insides framed in what looked like delicate lace curtains, complimenting the style of the house. The roof looked like it had been replaced and the front door looked new, but the original architecture remained. He could easily tell whoever bought the house took great care with it, and the contractor in him breathed a sigh of relief that it didn't fall into the wrong hands, or god forbid, a flipper.
When he walked up your driveway towards the small stone path that led to your front door, he slowed to look at the garden that flourished in front of the wraparound porch. It was a beautiful mix of wildflowers and hedges, and while wildflowers had a tendency to look messy and unkept, you somehow managed to make it look neat and well put together. Fat, fuzzy bumblebees bounced drunkenly from flower to flower and as he climbed the wooden steps, a hummingbird buzzed past his ear, spooked by his presence.
He pressed the button to your doorbell, noting you chose not to install one of those camera doorbells and for some reason, that bothered him. Normally he wasn't a huge fan of technology, but you were all alone in this big house. You needed to be safe, to be careful. Your house was in a nice neighborhood, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.
The door swung open and you greeted him barefoot with a warm smile before stepping aside to let him in. You were wearing a loose tshirt that hung off one shoulder and he chastised himself when his eyes traveled down your tight fitting jeans to your ass as he followed you into your home.
He shrugged his reaction off to just typical male instinct and forced his focus onto the lovely foyer surrounding him as he slid off his boots. Polished cherry wainscoting lined the walls and his eyes widened when he noticed the small tiles in the shape of little octagons below his feet.
"Is this original?" he asked you in disbelief as he pointed to the ground. Your gaze followed his finger and you nodded.
"We tried to keep everything original, if we could," you explained.
"Wow," he breathed as he stepped forward into the hallway, his eyes unable to keep up with how fast his brain was operating. His gaze slid over the original hardwood floors of the hallway, fresh wallpaper, and wide, polished staircase with a plush carpet installed in the center of the steps. Much to his delight, you chose to furnish the house to match the style, as well. Antique fixtures hung from the ceiling and a real wood table was pushed against the wall. A small lamp sat on top with a stained glass Tiffany shade, and next to it was a pile of mail and a framed photograph he tried not to examine too closely out of respect.
"This way," you said over your shoulder, and he followed you blindly deeper into the house. You pushed open a swinging door that led into your kitchen, and for the first time since arriving, his nose was the first of his senses to respond instead of his eyes.
It smelled absolutely heavenly. He had no idea what you were cooking but his mouth instantly watered at the smell of garlic and salt and some kind of meat.
He swallowed and hoped his stomach wouldn't growl and embarrass him.
"Thought we were gonna order somethin'?" he asked as he watched you hurry over to the stove to stir something.
"Oh, I hope you don't mind, but I felt like cooking," you replied without looking. He glanced around the room, noticing you chose to update the counters and cabinets to look more modern, but kept the original flooring.
"Mind? Are you kiddin' me? Haven't had anythin' decent to eat since Sarah left for college."
Memories of fast food drive thrus and frozen dinners flashed before his eyes as he watched you turn off the burners on the stove. You opened a cupboard and stretched on your tiptoes to reach a bowl, the hem of your shirt riding up ever so slightly and revealing a small sliver of skin on your back and suddenly, his mouth was watering for an entirely different reason.
Stop it.
"Need some help?" he offered, and you fell back onto the flats of your feet, shooting him a nod and smile. He didn't mean to, but he reached up from behind you for the serving bowl, his front brushing gently against your back, and your shoulders tensed. Shit.
"Sorry, here ya go," he said, handing you the bowl and immediately giving you some space, not catching the glimmer of disappointment in your eyes.
"Thank you," you murmured shyly. He watched you spoon vegetables into the bowl for a moment, grabbing random jars of seasoning and sprinkling them on top before stirring it up, and he finally remembered his manners.
"Can I help?"
"No, no, I got it," you insisted, waving him toward a door on the other side of the kitchen. "Go sit down, I'll be right out."
He wandered over to the propped open door and entered your dining room. Pausing for a moment, he admired the chandelier above the table that looked old but the brass had been polished and the crystals cleaned. The drop ceiling was even remarkable: squares of textured patterns that repeated across the whole room, adding a whole other layer of elegance to the already impressive first floor. His eyes drifted to the dark wood table, where two spots were already set across from each other. He pulled out a chair and sat down, shifting his weight a bit and noting the chairs must have been recently reupholstered based on how firm the cushion was underneath him. You breezed in after him, hardly giving him enough time to take in the elaborate fireplace and mantle at the end of the room, and began to set down plates of food. His eyes bugged out of his head when he saw fresh, fried chicken and whipped mashed potatoes.
"You didn't have to go through all the trouble," he assured you, but you smirked at the way he stared at the chicken, the aroma from the breading overpowering his senses.
"It wasn't any trouble, I like to cook," you replied, disappearing into the kitchen to grab the vegetables and a basket of fresh rolls before finally joining him at the table.
Joel spread the cloth napkin over his lap, using every ounce of self control to stop himself from devouring everything in sight. He glanced up at you and you grinned.
"Go ahead, help yourself."
You watched with a small smile on your face as he loaded up his plate, then played with your own food until he took his first bite of chicken. He froze, his mouth full, and stared at you in awe before he dropped the chicken leg on his plate and leaned back, a deep, appreciative moan rumbling from his chest, making your thighs squeeze together under the table.
"Goddamn," he said once he swallowed. "That's the best fried chicken I've ever had in my entire life, darlin'."
You giggled and finally took a dainty bite of your own before nodding in agreement. "It's not bad."
Joel scoffed and took another bite. "Don't sell yourself short, now. I know what I'm talkin' 'bout. What'd you put in this?"
He listened, completely enraptured, as you explained how you soaked the chicken in buttermilk the day before and all of the seasonings you used in the breading.
"Oh! I almost forgot the lemonade," you said, standing back up and rushing into the kitchen, returning with two cold glasses and setting them down on the placemats. He nodded his thanks, mouth still full, and you giggled again.
You were already planning on packing up all the leftovers so he could take it home, but you still encouraged him to have as much as he wanted while it was warm and fresh.
"Did you make the rolls, too?" he asked after he took a bite.
You laughed and shook your head. "No, I'm not that good. I bought them this morning from a local bakery I like around the corner."
You had finished your meal long before he did, watching with your chin in your palm as he went back for seconds, reveling in the noises and compliments he made with practically each bite.
"Here, have some more," you told him, nudging the plate of chicken in his direction, but he leaned back in the chair and shook his head. "I can't, but everythin' was delicious. Thank you."
"You're welcome. I'm thrilled to cook for someone again," you replied with a sad smile before standing up and picking up your plate. He immediately stood and began to collect the rest, but you waved him back down.
"Sit, sit, I still have dessert," you told him, and based on the way he looked at you in that moment you would have put money down that he could be knocked over with a feather.
"Oh, darlin', you did too much," he replied, immediately flooding with guilt that he didn't even bring wine or flowers.
"Stop! I told you, I like doing it and I never get a chance to anymore, so please, sit down and I'll be right back."
Begrudgingly, he did as he was told and, while listening to you in the kitchen, peered out the back window at the meticulously kept grounds. Your house, like you, was absolutely beautiful. It felt like stumbling across an oasis in the middle of the desert.
You reappeared in the dining room with a bowl of diced, sugared strawberries and a plate of warm biscuits. He watched in stunned silence as you fixed him a plate, spooning the strawberries on top of a fresh shortcake, but told him to wait a moment before hurrying back into the kitchen and returning with a small bowl of homemade whipped cream.
Joel thought he died and went to heaven.
He could tell you didn't want to hear him complain that it was too much, so instead he lavished your baking with praise and thanks, both of which seemed to make your eyes shine bright and your lips remain curled into a smile the whole time.
"You're taking the leftovers home, too," you warned him once you finally allowed him to help bring things back into the kitchen. You were packing everything up nice and neat in matching Tupperware containers and stacking everything into a paper bag. As much as he wanted to decline, he really wanted your leftovers more, so he continued to thank you as he began to wash the dishes in your farmhouse sink. You had tried to fight him on it, but he finally wore you down and won. Stubborn little thing, he thought.
After dinner was cleaned up, you led him back down the hall and up the wide staircase, explaining that the books were all housed in a den at the top of the stairs, but when you opened the door to the room, den seemed like too small a word for it.
It was gorgeous, plain and simple. The cherry wainscoting continued in this room with a dark green wallpaper to accent the wood. All along the wall were antique sconces lighting up floor to ceiling bookcases stuffed full of literature. On the back wall was a large, heavy looking desk with a wingback velvet chair. The desk itself had books and papers scattered about, as if someone were in the middle of something and was rudely interrupted, but based on the layer of dust, he had to imagine nobody had sat there in some time.
And then it hit him: this was your fiancé's office.
A laptop sat open and turned off on the corner of the desk, along with a dusty printer behind the chair on the carpeted floor. He noticed what had to have been manuscripts of some kind based on the lack of coverings on the bound papers piling up next to the printer.
He was an author. This is where he worked.
That was when Joel realized you had been suspiciously quiet. He turned towards you, his eyes scanning your face, studying it. Your arms were wrapped around your middle as you stared blankly at the desk.
"We don't gotta do this today," he said softly, snapping you out of your reverie.
"No, it's okay," you replied, your voice so small it nearly broke his heart. You turned and walked toward the corner of the room, opposite the desk, where a small couch and coffee table sat. A few cardboard boxes were stacked nearby, two of which remained unopened, one recklessly torn into. You started with that one.
"Here," you said, pulling out a few books and handing them out. He stepped forward and took them, looking down at the covers and the beautiful artwork that adorned them. "These are the first trilogy, you should probably read them first before the next. They're different stories but they inevitably weave together so it'll make more sense if you-" you paused, your voice getting caught in your throat, and that's when he realized you had been fighting back tears.
"Hey, it's okay," he told you gently, putting the books down on the coffee table and carefully touching your shoulder, urging you to sit on the couch. After a moment's hesitation, you did, and he sat beside you. "This was too fast. I'll leave these here and maybe one day, when you're feelin' up to it, we can try again."
You looked up at him, eyes watering, and shook your head.
"No, take these now. I have more, I have tons, actually," you said, nodding towards the unopened boxes. "I just haven't come in here since he died and I didn't think it would be this hard." You wiped furiously at your cheeks, trying to hide your anguish.
Joel's heart thundered in his chest. He rubbed your back, trying to offer you a glimmer of comfort while he glanced around the room. "Maybe it was too soon," he offered again.
"No, it's been a year, Joel. I needed to do this." You took a deep breath and gave him a shaky smile. "Thank you. I know this is probably more than you expected-"
"Nah, hey, none of that, now," he cooed, mindlessly petting your hair. "If you needed someone to be here for this, I'm glad you picked me, okay?"
You sniffled and nodded, quietly thanking him again before taking another deep breath and exhaling with a nervous laugh as you looked around the room with him.
"Can I ask you something?"
"'Course," he replied.
"How long did it take for you to move on after your wife passed?"
He chewed the inside of his cheek as he thought about it, his fingers still playing with the ends of your soft hair as he slowly rubbed your back. "Well, hard to say. She was sick for a long time so I think I had time to come to terms with it before she died, y'know?" You nodded and listened to him, hanging on his every word and inadvertently leaning into his gentle touch. "Then I had Sarah to worry 'bout and, I don't know, time just... passed me by." He chuckled dryly for a moment before continuing. "My brother thinks I never got over it, Sarah thinks I never processed it, but they only think that 'cause I never dated anyone else."
Your eyes widened in surprise at his confession.
"Never?"
He shook his head and gave you a lopsided grin. "Been busy, I guess."
"But aren't you... lonely?"
He sucked in a sharp breath and cast his gaze to the floor. How did you manage to see right through him so quickly? Was it the common ground or something else?
"Wasn't too bad til Sarah left," he admitted, "but now... yeah. Yeah, it's lonely."
You scanned his face, watching the flicker of sadness in his eyes he tried to hide from you, and you inched a bit closer.
"I'm glad we found each other, Joel," you whispered. His eyes found yours again and he smiled.
"Me, too, sweetheart."
Then, without giving it another thought, you leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his lips. It was so tender and soft it felt like he was on the bus in fifth grade and Christine Murphy was giving him his fist kiss all over again while kids in nearby seats teased them with sing-song voices.
You pulled back and looked into his eyes, searching for any hesitation but all you must have seen was confusion because you leaned forward again, kissing him with a little more emotion, your small hand coming up to cup his greying, prickly jaw. You tasted like strawberries and lemonade and you smelled like vanilla and it was making every neuron in his brain fire all at the same time, to the point where his body had no idea what to do but remain frozen.
It was when your tongue first slipped past your lips and flicked nervously over the seam of his mouth that he finally came crashing down to earth. He sat back, breaking the kiss and holding you by the shoulders, staring deeply into your eyes. You were both panting slightly, probably from the excitement and adrenaline, as he tried to figure out what to say, what to do. You were in a fragile state, he decided. You made a mistake, the moment got away from you both and it didn't mean anything. It couldn't mean anything. You were too young and sweet and beautiful. You didn't really want anything to do with an old man like him. He just happened to be there when you were vulnerable and that was all.
The words never came. He couldn't form a coherent sentence. As the seconds dragged on, your face began to fall and embarrassment flooded your chest, the atmosphere in the room suddenly so thick that it was difficult to breathe. You cleared your throat and leaned back, his hands falling from your shoulders, and then you were the first to speak.
"Oh, no."
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mandoatsea · 4 days ago
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Evergreen | Chapter One: Denial
Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader
Chapter Summary: Tommy encourages Joel to join bereavement group counseling, where he meets you. You connect over a similar loss and the common thread of loneliness, leading to something unexpected for you both.
Chapter Warnings: grief, angst, mentions of OC deaths, mild references to: suicide, self harm, drug use (none by reader or Joel), language, panic/anxiety attack (Joel), Joel POV
WC: 8.8K
A/N: I've been working on this goddamn series since May. Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to it but I am committing to a posting schedule now that it is almost complete and I appreciate you all for being so patient. Hope you enjoy tons of fluff and softness and angst.
Series Masterlist
Joel's hands gripped the steering wheel as he stared blankly at the faded brick building connected to the small, run down parking lot. He watched as the clock ticked down to six in the evening, and with each passing minute a new car parked nearby or someone walked through the double doors. He wasn't sure what he expected, but he was surprised to see people of all ages streaming inside.
Then he saw a young woman with two children, one in each hand, neither of which could have been over seven years old, walk inside with watery eyes and he dropped his gaze to his lap in shame.
Mia had been gone for nearly ten years. He had no business being there. His grief wasn't fresh. Over the years, he's learned to cope with it, to live alongside it. The people who were there that night needed the support.
Joel didn't need support. He was just lonely.
He reached for his key, still dangling in the ignition, when his phone rang. With a sigh, he patted down the front of his jeans until he located his phone, then lifted his hips off the worn seat with a grunt so he could fish it out.
"Yeah?"
"You better not be thinkin' 'bout leavin'."
Joel swiveled around in alarm, searching the parking lot for his brother's truck, but all he saw were the last few stragglers hurriedly walking up to the front doors, the anguish practically weighing them down as they moved.
"You watchin' me now?"
Tommy chuckled on the other end.
"Nah, I'm at home. I just know you."
Joel rolled his eyes as the clock ticked to 6:01 on the dash.
"This is stupid, Tommy."
"It ain't stupid. It's been almost ten years and you've never looked twice at another woman. You can tell me you've moved on or that you're fine, but I'm not buying your bullshit," Tommy said sternly on the other end. "I don't think you ever gave yourself a chance to process what happened and it's important you do that. For your mental health and all that."
"Maria tell you to say that?" Joel scoffed, but still unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door.
"Maybe. Don't matter who said it, it's true."
"Fine. I'm walkin' in now, I'll call you later," Joel said, then hung up without waiting for a reply.
The building wasn't very big. From the lobby, Joel could hear a male's voice making what sounded like brief introductions as he strolled quickly down the hall. He rested his hand on the push bar and took a deep breath. Right as he was about to enter, he heard someone else's light footsteps jogging up behind him. He turned around as you approached, a little breathless and with a guilty smile.
"Oh, good, I'm not the only one who's late," you said, nodding towards the door.
"Uh, yeah," Joel said, clearing his throat softly, "we can share the heat," he joked, opening the door and stepping aside so you could walk through first. You shot him a grateful look and mouthed thank you before entering the room.
The group all turned their heads at the disruption, as expected, but the counselor waved them in with a warm smile.
"Welcome! Have a seat, we were just getting started."
Joel found the first empty chair he could, in the very last row closest to the door. You glanced around the room before sliding into the same row as him, just a few seats down.
"As I was saying, welcome to the grief and loss support group. I'm Dr. Harris, but please feel free to call me Ryan."
Ryan was young. Definitely under forty. Something about that irked Joel. He imagined this man going to school to learn how to be caring, how to listen and say all the right words at the right time so he could make a decent paycheck and call himself doctor while he went home to his wife and picket fence and his patients went home with a gaping hole in their hearts.
"There is no wrong way to grieve," Ryan was saying from the podium with a practiced look of solemnity. "All of you are here for different reasons. And while you may look around here and think nobody else could possibly understand what you are feeling, I am here to tell you that you are simply wrong." Ryan took a moment to let his words settle over the group before continuing. "We have all lost somebody in our lives. That is the common thread that weaves us all together. And I'm here to tell you to use it." Ryan clenched his fists for emphasis and Joel had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. "Lean on each other. Listen to one another. This is a safe space. Nobody will judge you here, no matter what you may think, everybody in this room is here for the same reason."
After what felt like an eternity, Ryan invited the people in the room to approach the podium to speak, no longer than ten minutes, he had said, reminding everyone that their time was limited and they always could speak again at the next meeting.
One by one, people trickled up to the front of the room. First it was an elderly woman who explained with tears in her eyes that her husband of forty years passed away a month ago.
"It sounds silly," she sniffled, "but it feels like I'm... untethered. Like I lost my connection to this world when he left and I'm scared I might just... float away."
Next was a man around Joel's age who visibly struggled to hold back his tears about his late sister.
"I just keep reminding myself I didn't cause it, I can't control it, can't undo it. I'm really mad at myself for not paying attention to the warning signs. She was struggling, y'know?" His glassy eyes addressed the group briefly before he cast his gaze back down. "The best thing I can do is try to rebuild. Don't let the anguish fester. Don't let it consume me. Because she wouldn't want that."
After that, a girl no older than twenty, arms and neck covered in tattoos walked to the front. "She was my best friend since we were eight. And I know it's my fault, I know it is," she choked out, tears slipping down her cheeks. "I gave her her first hit. I could see she was falling too deep into it and I didn't try to help her, I was too focused on my own shit and not seeing what was right in front of me. To this day, I can't look her mom in the eye-" the girl hung her head and took a moment to gather herself. Chairs squeaked as the group patiently waited for her to continue. "But I'm clean and sober almost six months now," she said with a watery smile. A small round of applause broke out amongst the group and she nodded her thanks. "I'm thinking about going to school for social work. Maybe I can honor her memory in some way."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw you cross and uncross your legs nervously but made no move to walk to the front.
Same as him.
When the clock on the wall ticked closer to seven, Ryan addressed the group one final time.
"I'll stick around in case anybody wants to have a talk after group. Just a reminder that I'm only here once a week, but my esteemed colleague, Grace, runs another group on Tuesdays, so please feel free to stop by one or both. I also left some cards in the back next to the coffee. My information is on there if you would like a one on one appointment and on the back is the crisis hotline. Please take one, you never know when you may need it."
The room collectively seemed to stand, a murmur rippling through the group as people began to softly speak again, reaching out to neighbors, either introducing themselves or catching up from the last session. Joel scratched at his chin and looked around the room as people continued to filter around. Some paired off to grab coffee, some went to talk to Ryan, but Joel just stood there. All alone.
He took a deep breath and headed for the back, then lingered at the small stack of business cards Ryan had mentioned. He picked one up and flipped it over, studying it, when he heard a soft voice behind him.
"Excuse me," you said, and he swiveled around in surprise.
"Oh, sorry," he replied, stepping to the side so you could reach the coffee. He pretended to look at the card but watched as you filled up a cup. He waited for you to add cream or sugar but you didn't. You lifted the cup to your lips and took a tentative sip before recoiling at the heat and doing it again.
"That, uh, any good?"
Your eyes locked onto his and you shrugged. "'Bout what you'd expect."
He smiled and looked around the room, fidgeting with the edge of the card before sliding it into his pocket. "This your first session, too?"
You shook your head and stepped aside, a little closer to him, so others could get to the coffee. "I've been coming here almost two months."
That surprised Joel. Based on the way the rest of the group seemed familiar with each other, he had suspected the two of you were both new.
"Two months? Wow," Joel said, "how's it workin' out for you, if you don't mind my askin'?"
You sighed and gave him a little smile.
"Some days are better than others. But I figure it doesn't hurt, so..." you trailed off and crossed your arms, your fingertips tapping against the paper cup. "My mom begged me to come, so I did. I think it makes her believe she's helping in some way by pushing it and I grew tired of feeling like an emotional burden."
Joel frowned. "I'm sure that ain't true. No parent thinks their kid is an emotional burden."
You chuckled and drained the rest of your cup. "You'd be surprised." You tossed the cup into the trash before giving him a brighter smile. Although expressing your emotions was the entire reason you were there, you still felt uncomfortable doing it. "So this was your first time? What did you think?"
"Jury's still out," Joel replied honestly. "Promised my brother I would give it a try, same as you. My daughter just went off to college last month and I think he and his wife are worried 'bout me bein' all alone for the first time in, well... forever, I suppose." His lips pursed in thought for a moment. "Feels kinda like I don't belong here. My wife passed almost ten years ago. I've learned to live with it by now. It ain't as raw as all that-" he gestured up to the podium, referencing all the individuals who poured their hearts out for the past hour. Then he realized he was rambling and chuckled. "Sorry. Can't seem to shut up." He looked at you sheepishly and you smiled back.
"That's good. That's what you're supposed to do here," you assured him, then took a deep breath. "I lost my fiancé a year ago, so I can relate... kind of."
"I'm sorry," he said, furrowing his brow and examining your face. "You're so young, you shouldn't know what that feels like at your age."
"Not that young. I'm thirty-one," you joked. He laughed and rubbed his chin.
"Well I got twenty years on you, seems pretty young to me."
"You're fifty-one?" you asked, and he nodded. "You look good, I wouldn't have guessed a day over..." you trailed off as you studied his face and he grinned.
"Go ahead, be honest."
"Forty-three," you decided, and Joel laughed. When was the last time he felt this lighthearted?
"Well that's the nicest thing I've heard all week," he replied. The room began to thin out and you shifted your weight.
"Well, I guess I should get going," you told him, almost sounding regretful. Then you pinched your eyebrows together. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."
"Joel," he said, sticking an arm out to shake your hand. You gave him a warm smile before telling him your name, your hand getting dwarfed by his thick, rough fingers.
"Will I see you next week, Joel?"
"Yeah," he replied, walking out with you and holding open the door. "I'll give it another chance."
"Good. I mean, you know, I'm glad you're giving it another chance," you found yourself inexplicably stumbling over your words and before your face began to heat up you veered off towards your car with a quick wave.
Joel's eyes trailed after you for a minute before he opened the door to his truck and climbed inside. He absentmindedly rubbed his thumb against his lower lip, lost in thought while he stared straight ahead at the emptying parking lot. Then you drove by in a higher end white SUV and he watched as you took a right turn out of the lot and disappeared down the road. He sighed and started his truck, realizing he was one of the last cars in the lot, and decided to stop at a fast food drive thru on the way home.
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"Uncle Tommy told me you went to a grief support group the other day, how did it go?" Sarah asked him over FaceTime. He pushed the lever on his recliner and leaned back into the chair with a grunt.
"S'alright," he mumbled.
"Did you share anything?"
"No."
"Well, why not?"
"'Cause, baby girl, these people just lost someone close to 'em. I can't get up there and talk 'bout your mama, it's been so long-"
"That doesn't matter," she said, interrupting him. He could hear other kids in the background laughing but she remained focused on her screen. "I don't think you've ever really processed Mom's death and it's important to me that you try. I worry about you, old man," she teased, and Joel grinned.
"No need to worry 'bout me, I'm stayin' busy."
"Yeah, doing what? And don't tell me you're eating frozen meals and watching baseball because it'll break my heart."
Joel's eyes drifted to the empty plastic tray on the coffee table.
"No," he said gruffly. "Ain't baseball season. I'm watchin' basketball."
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Dad," she whined, "what about your friends? The guys from work?"
He didn't have the heart to tell her they were busy with their families, with their wives, so he lied.
"Yeah, I'm gonna get together with Jimmy later this week. Gonna shoot some pool."
"That sounds great!" Sarah exclaimed, her face instantly brightening. Her eyes snapped up to someone behind her phone and she grinned, holding up one finger, then looked back at him. "Listen, Dad, I gotta run. I promised a few friends I would go to the football game with them."
"Oh, so you'll watch football with your friends and not me?" he teased, and she giggled. "Alright then, text me when you get back home safe."
"I will. I love you."
No matter how many times he heard it, those words always warmed his heart.
"Love you too, baby girl."
The call ended and he set his phone down with a sigh. Sarah was right. He couldn't waste away in his house all alone, waiting for her to come home to visit or for Tommy and Maria to come by for dinner. He needed to get a hobby. He glanced outside then looked at the time before turning off the television and pushing himself out of his recliner with a groan. He shuffled down the hall to his bedroom to change out of his old sweatpants and ratty tshirt, then snatched his keys off the kitchen counter and headed out to the driveway.
He drove aimlessly through town, his window down with his arm hanging out, soaking up the sun's rays. Kids were playing on the sidewalks and people were walking their dogs or pushing strollers. Everyone just seemed so... happy. Content.
Maybe he should get a dog.
Maybe he should start with a fish, first.
He jumped on the highway and cruised with one hand on the steering wheel. Hank Williams crooned from the radio and Joel took a deep, relaxing breath. He was coming up on the exit for the mall. Sarah loved dragging him to the mall. A smile played on his lips and he figured why not.
He veered off the highway and slowed when he approached the red light, the mall parking lot straight ahead. It didn't look terribly busy. With the weather as nice as it was, he imagined most people would be spending their time outside.
Joel found a good spot right out front. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets and walked inside through the Macy's. A blast of freezing cold air conditioning hit him like a ton of bricks, cooling the sweat that was collecting on the back of his neck. He managed to make his way through the maze of the department store and entered the mall itself. There were a few groups of girls around Sarah's age giggling and carrying shopping bags and the random couple here or there walking into William Sonoma or Brookstone.
When he passed by the food court, he saw a few solitary older men sipping coffee and reading the paper or people watching. Joel huffed under his breath, wondering who on earth would come to the mall just to read a paper until he realized he was no better.
Was he going to become just like them one day? Would he come to the mall to nurse a coffee just so he wouldn't feel so alone? The thought had his throat closing up.
He paused and leaned against a railing overlooking the bottom floor of the mall, pretending to be looking for someone when in reality he was struggling to breathe. His heart was fluttering too fast in his chest and his vision was narrowing.
"Shit," he whispered to himself, rubbing his eyes and trying to focus on taking deep breaths. It was like reality crashed down around him all at once: Sarah was moved out of the house. Tommy was happily married. And Joel was going to die all alone.
He gasped and blinked, trying to clear his head and mentally talk himself down, but it was no use. He leaned forward a bit to rest his forehead on the cool, stainless steel railing but his knees began to buckle. Just when he thought he would need to stop someone and beg them to call an ambulance, he heard someone say his name, temporarily snapping him out of his daze.
"Are you okay?" you asked, the smile slipping from your face when you noticed how flush he looked. He could only manage to shake his head. Without hesitating, you wrapped an arm around his shoulders and helped him stand, then glanced around. Spotting an empty bench, you led him over and helped him sit. You rubbed your palm over his upper back soothingly and sat next to him, reminding him to breathe deeply until his vision cleared and he felt his strength return.
"Christ," he mumbled. He sat up and leaned back so the back of his head rested on the bench and stretched his long legs out. "Thank you," he added, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers.
"No problem," you said, "is everything okay?"
"Yeah. Or, no. I don't know," he sighed, dropping his hand from his face. "I think it just hit me all at once."
You slid over on the bench to give him more room. "What hit you all at once?"
"That my little girl is growin' up and -" he stopped himself, the words and I'm all alone getting trapped in his throat. "And I just miss her, is all."
You slowly nodded and glanced around the mall. "What does she like?"
He smiled. "Clothes. Music. Makeup. Books."
"What kind of books?"
"The fantasy kind. Y'know, like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter."
A huge grin spread across your face. "Follow me, I have an idea," you said, standing up and looking down at him before you realized you might have overstepped. "I mean, unless you're-"
"No, let's go," he replied, standing up and stretching out an arm for you to lead the way. He fell in step next to you as you led him down towards the other end of the mall and after a few minutes, he realized where you were leading him.
"The bookstore?"
"Yep," you said cheerily, shooting him a playful grin. "Trust me."
And he did.
"There's some really incredible series out there right now. Why don't we pick one out, you can read it and share it with her so you guys have something to do together from a distance? Do you know if she's read The Word of the Heir? That's by an incredibly talented author who actually got the idea when she was only seven years old," you told him excitedly, leading him deep into the bookstore, dodging tables and displays until you made it to the fantasy section. Joel slowed down and looked around, his panic attack slipping further and further from his mind.
"Uh, I ain't sure," he replied as you held up the book. You tucked it under your arm and began to look again.
"How about Empire of Kings? I haven't read that one but the author is relatively new and I've heard he's an extremely talented storyteller."
Joel shrugged, again unsure what Sarah may or may not have read. All of the titles sounded so foreign to him until his eyes landed on the spine of a thick, hardcover book.
"Oh, this one sounds familiar," he said, plucking it from the shelf. "The Crimson Stone. I think she wanted to read this but I don't think she ever finished it. It's a series-"
"Yeah, I know that one," you told him quietly. He glanced down at the book again and read the author's name.
"Daniel Davis, ain't this the guy who died in that bad wreck downtown?" Joel mumbled as he flipped the book over in his hands to read the back. You nodded. "Maybe I'll get this one."
"Don't waste your money, I can give it to you for free," you said, gently taking it from his hands. You ran your palm distractedly over the cover before flipping it open and looking at the tiny black and white photo of the author on the inside jacket. "This was my fiancé," you added, your voice thick. Joel's eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"Shit," he mumbled. "I-I'm sorry, his name just sounded familiar, I remember it from the paper..." he trailed off, floundering for what to say to comfort you. Why couldn't he fucking think?
"It's okay," you told him, waving him off, but the guilt still laid heavy in his chest. "There's no way you would have known." You slowly closed the book, giving the picture one more glance, and handed it back to him. "But really, if you want to read them I have tons of copies just sitting around. He had a few other books outside of this series, as well, if you guys wanted them."
Joel's eyebrows knit together. "I don't wanna take your books. They gotta have sentimental value or somethin'."
"No, seriously, I have boxes of them just sitting there. He was in the middle of signing copies for readings he was supposed to do before-" you stopped yourself and cleared your throat. "Anyway. I can bring them to group next week or you can come by the house and look through them yourself if you like."
Joel nodded and nervously chewed the inside of his cheek. "Do you wanna talk 'bout it?"
You looked up at him then, all wide eyed and filled with so much sadness that it made his chest ache. No one so young and pretty should have to go through so much pain. Your eyes drifted over his face for a moment, quietly studying him before responding. "Yeah. I kind of do."
Joel looked over his shoulder and spotted the café across from the bookstore. "You wanna get a coffee and find a quiet bench or somethin'?"
"That sounds nice," you replied, so he put the books back on the shelf and walked out into the mall. He spotted a bench near an empty storefront and he told you to go have a seat with the promise of bringing you back something to drink. There wasn't a line at the counter. He couldn't imagine many people wanted coffee that late in the day, so it only took a few minutes before the barista slid the two cups of black coffee across the counter and he met you back at the bench.
"Black, right?"
You smiled and gingerly took the cup. "Yeah, how did you know?"
"From group the other day," he replied, then sat down with a grunt. You sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, each of you letting your coffees cool before you spoke.
"I usually don't talk about it. Every week I tell myself I'm gonna go up to that podium and pour my heart out and every week I chicken out."
Joel didn't say a word. He learned early on with Sarah when she was upset, she just wanted someone to listen to her. So that's exactly what he did. He sipped his coffee and just listened. And before you even realized it, you were telling him everything.
You began by telling him Daniel was from Austin but you met in Portland, where you grew up. For a while, the two of you tried doing a long-distance relationship, but once you were finished with school you took him up on the offer to move in with him in Texas. Shortly thereafter, he proposed and you had spent the last year of his life planning your dream wedding. The night of the accident, you had been touring a venue an hour outside the city. It was dark when you finished up and drove back home.
Daniel didn't do anything wrong. You insisted Joel knew that first.
A truck driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and ran a light, completely crushing the driver's side and killing Daniel instantly. Somehow, you had only come out of the accident with a small concussion and a badly bruised chest from the seatbelt.
"Jesus," Joel muttered when you exhaled a shaky breath. "I'm sorry, darlin'. That's some fucked up shit." His eyes widened and he straightened up in his seat. "Shit, sorry for cursin'... twice." He scratched the back of his head uncomfortably and a slow smile spread across your face. He nearly jumped out of his skin when you burst out laughing.
"Thank you," you said in between giggles. He grinned, confused but happy you were laughing and not crying. "I needed that. And you're right, it was some fucked up shit."
Joel chuckled and took a sip from his coffee. He heard his phone ring so he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen before silencing the call and putting his phone away.
"You can take it," you said, wiping a stray tear from your eye and jutting your chin towards his phone.
"Just my brother. I'll call him back later."
"Ah, the infamous brother that made you go to group?"
"The very same."
"Younger or older?"
"Younger, but the way he bosses me 'round you'd never know it," Joel said with a grin.
"He's probably just looking out for you."
"He knows I'm feelin' especially lonely without Sarah. Sarah's my daughter, by the way," he said, pulling his phone out and showing you his lock screen: it was a selfie of him and Sarah on the beach, Joel looked red as a lobster and Sarah's hair looked tangled from the wind but there was no denying the happiness in both their eyes.
"She's beautiful," you said warmly. He smiled and put his phone away.
"Got that from her mama."
"I don't know, I see a little bit of you in her smile," you teased, bumping up against his shoulder playfully. He rolled his eyes but didn't argue.
"What I'm tryin' to say is, I can relate a bit to what you're goin' through. Y'know, losin' a partner and feelin' like you got no one left," he said. You took a deep breath.
"Yeah, sounds like you do."
Joel nervously picked at his jeans, trying to figure out the right way to say what he wanted to say without sounding like an old creep, but before he could open his mouth, you spoke first.
"Maybe we can hang out together and keep each other company?" you offered. He turned his head and grinned.
"I was 'bout to suggest the same thing."
"Really?" you asked, looking as relieved as he felt. He nodded.
"Sounds like we both could use a friend."
Something in your expression shifted. It was too quick. He couldn't pinpoint it but whatever it was disappeared, leaving behind a genuine smile.
"I would really like that, Joel."
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"What the hell? You couldn't call me back yesterday?" Tommy scolded when he marched into the small, messy office the following morning. Joel glanced up from behind his desk; papers, a calculator and a pencil scattered about in front of him. He took his reading glasses off with a sigh, abandoning his work. He hated doing the administrative part of his job. He always preferred to be on site or meeting with clients.
"I was busy."
"Busy?" Tommy repeated before collapsing in the worn out chair across from him.
"Yeah, busy. I was... with a friend," Joel mumbled, trying to sound nonchalant but Tommy's ears perked up.
"A friend? Who?"
Joel shrugged. "Someone I met at that group you made me go to."
Tommy's eyes lit up. "Hey, that's great. See? I knew it'd be good for you. What's his name?"
Joel pursed his lips before softly saying your name and Tommy raised an eyebrow.
"A woman? That's even better, Joel."
"It ain't like that-"
"'Course not," Tommy said, "I'm just sayin' it's a step in the right direction."
"She's too young," Joel said defensively, giving Tommy pause.
"Okay..."
"We're just friends. She ain't from 'round here, ain't got anyone in Texas."
Tommy frowned as he watched Joel shift uncomfortably in his chair, wondering what made his brother get so sensitive, so he chose to tread lightly.
"So you're keepin' each other company. That's nice."
"Yeah," Joel said, standing up with a grunt and rubbing his lower back before he snatched his coat from the wall. "Ready to go?"
"Sure," Tommy said, standing to follow Joel out of the office. While he locked the door behind him, Tommy couldn't help but ask, "How young is too young?"
"Thirty-one," Joel replied, fishing the keys out of his pocket.
Tommy shrugged, falling in step next to his brother as they walked towards the parking lot. "Sounds like an adult to me," he muttered, but Joel chose to ignore it. "When are you seein' her again?"
"End of the week," Joel replied before climbing into the truck.
"Friday?"
"Yeah, after work. We were gonna order some dinner and look through some books she's tryin' to get rid of."
The corner of Tommy's mouth twitched. "So, like a date?"
"It ain't a date," Joel said firmly, his jaw set as he pulled out of the parking lot and began to drive in the direction of the first worksite. "She's mourin' the loss of her husband, it's not a date."
"Husband?" Tommy repeated, then Joel shook his head, growing flustered.
"Fiancé. Not husband."
"When did he pass?"
Joel thought back to what you told him the night you first met. "A year ago."
Tommy hummed and looked out the window, tapping his fingers against the car door in rhythm with the beat from the radio. Joel side eyed him while they sat in silence for a few minutes before he rolled his eyes and sighed. "What?" Joel asked with an edge to his voice.
"A year's a long time, is all."
"She's in grief therapy, Tommy. She's in pain and tryin' to come to terms with it. Quit makin' it sound like somethin' it ain't."
"Just 'cause she's in grief therapy don't mean she ain't ready to move on-"
"Goddamnit, this is the last time I tell you anythin'," Joel grumbled as he made a left hand turn. Tommy hid a smile behind his hand and looked out the window.
"Alright, no need to get all defensive on me now."
Joel opened his mouth to argue but quickly snapped it shut. The more he pushed back just gave Tommy more ammunition. Besides, he knew the truth. You were looking for a friend, someone who could relate to what you were going through. There was absolutely no way you were interested in a man twenty years older than you. The thought was so absurd it almost made him laugh. You were young and beautiful and charming and you had your whole life ahead of you.
No, surely Tommy was wrong.
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When Joel pulled up to your house, his eight year old truck the noisiest thing on the whole block, he let out a low whistle and threw it into park, deciding at the last second to keep his car on the street for fear of leaving an oil stain or something on your pristine concrete driveway. He sat in his truck for a moment, taking in the monumental Victorian house before him. He recognized it from his youth, but back then the siding was chipped and the windows were foggy, in desperate need of replacing. He always admired houses like yours and part of his heart broke whenever he saw one fall into such a state of disrepair that it was beyond saving, but not yours. No, at some point in the past ten years, the house was upgraded but managed to maintain the original charm.
There was fresh siding and new windows installed, the insides framed in what looked like delicate lace curtains, complimenting the style of the house. The roof looked like it had been replaced and the front door looked new, but the original architecture remained. He could easily tell whoever bought the house took great care with it, and the contractor in him breathed a sigh of relief that it didn't fall into the wrong hands, or god forbid, a flipper.
When he walked up your driveway towards the small stone path that led to your front door, he slowed to look at the garden that flourished in front of the wraparound porch. It was a beautiful mix of wildflowers and hedges, and while wildflowers had a tendency to look messy and unkept, you somehow managed to make it look neat and well put together. Fat, fuzzy bumblebees bounced drunkenly from flower to flower and as he climbed the wooden steps, a hummingbird buzzed past his ear, spooked by his presence.
He pressed the button to your doorbell, noting you chose not to install one of those camera doorbells and for some reason, that bothered him. Normally he wasn't a huge fan of technology, but you were all alone in this big house. You needed to be safe, to be careful. Your house was in a nice neighborhood, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.
The door swung open and you greeted him barefoot with a warm smile before stepping aside to let him in. You were wearing a loose tshirt that hung off one shoulder and he chastised himself when his eyes traveled down your tight fitting jeans to your ass as he followed you into your home.
He shrugged his reaction off to just typical male instinct and forced his focus onto the lovely foyer surrounding him as he slid off his boots. Polished cherry wainscoting lined the walls and his eyes widened when he noticed the small tiles in the shape of little octagons below his feet.
"Is this original?" he asked you in disbelief as he pointed to the ground. Your gaze followed his finger and you nodded.
"We tried to keep everything original, if we could," you explained.
"Wow," he breathed as he stepped forward into the hallway, his eyes unable to keep up with how fast his brain was operating. His gaze slid over the original hardwood floors of the hallway, fresh wallpaper, and wide, polished staircase with a plush carpet installed in the center of the steps. Much to his delight, you chose to furnish the house to match the style, as well. Antique fixtures hung from the ceiling and a real wood table was pushed against the wall. A small lamp sat on top with a stained glass Tiffany shade, and next to it was a pile of mail and a framed photograph he tried not to examine too closely out of respect.
"This way," you said over your shoulder, and he followed you blindly deeper into the house. You pushed open a swinging door that led into your kitchen, and for the first time since arriving, his nose was the first of his senses to respond instead of his eyes.
It smelled absolutely heavenly. He had no idea what you were cooking but his mouth instantly watered at the smell of garlic and salt and some kind of meat.
He swallowed and hoped his stomach wouldn't growl and embarrass him.
"Thought we were gonna order somethin'?" he asked as he watched you hurry over to the stove to stir something.
"Oh, I hope you don't mind, but I felt like cooking," you replied without looking. He glanced around the room, noticing you chose to update the counters and cabinets to look more modern, but kept the original flooring.
"Mind? Are you kiddin' me? Haven't had anythin' decent to eat since Sarah left for college."
Memories of fast food drive thrus and frozen dinners flashed before his eyes as he watched you turn off the burners on the stove. You opened a cupboard and stretched on your tiptoes to reach a bowl, the hem of your shirt riding up ever so slightly and revealing a small sliver of skin on your back and suddenly, his mouth was watering for an entirely different reason.
Stop it.
"Need some help?" he offered, and you fell back onto the flats of your feet, shooting him a nod and smile. He didn't mean to, but he reached up from behind you for the serving bowl, his front brushing gently against your back, and your shoulders tensed. Shit.
"Sorry, here ya go," he said, handing you the bowl and immediately giving you some space, not catching the glimmer of disappointment in your eyes.
"Thank you," you murmured shyly. He watched you spoon vegetables into the bowl for a moment, grabbing random jars of seasoning and sprinkling them on top before stirring it up, and he finally remembered his manners.
"Can I help?"
"No, no, I got it," you insisted, waving him toward a door on the other side of the kitchen. "Go sit down, I'll be right out."
He wandered over to the propped open door and entered your dining room. Pausing for a moment, he admired the chandelier above the table that looked old but the brass had been polished and the crystals cleaned. The drop ceiling was even remarkable: squares of textured patterns that repeated across the whole room, adding a whole other layer of elegance to the already impressive first floor. His eyes drifted to the dark wood table, where two spots were already set across from each other. He pulled out a chair and sat down, shifting his weight a bit and noting the chairs must have been recently reupholstered based on how firm the cushion was underneath him. You breezed in after him, hardly giving him enough time to take in the elaborate fireplace and mantle at the end of the room, and began to set down plates of food. His eyes bugged out of his head when he saw fresh, fried chicken and whipped mashed potatoes.
"You didn't have to go through all the trouble," he assured you, but you smirked at the way he stared at the chicken, the aroma from the breading overpowering his senses.
"It wasn't any trouble, I like to cook," you replied, disappearing into the kitchen to grab the vegetables and a basket of fresh rolls before finally joining him at the table.
Joel spread the cloth napkin over his lap, using every ounce of self control to stop himself from devouring everything in sight. He glanced up at you and you grinned.
"Go ahead, help yourself."
You watched with a small smile on your face as he loaded up his plate, then played with your own food until he took his first bite of chicken. He froze, his mouth full, and stared at you in awe before he dropped the chicken leg on his plate and leaned back, a deep, appreciative moan rumbling from his chest, making your thighs squeeze together under the table.
"Goddamn," he said once he swallowed. "That's the best fried chicken I've ever had in my entire life, darlin'."
You giggled and finally took a dainty bite of your own before nodding in agreement. "It's not bad."
Joel scoffed and took another bite. "Don't sell yourself short, now. I know what I'm talkin' 'bout. What'd you put in this?"
He listened, completely enraptured, as you explained how you soaked the chicken in buttermilk the day before and all of the seasonings you used in the breading.
"Oh! I almost forgot the lemonade," you said, standing back up and rushing into the kitchen, returning with two cold glasses and setting them down on the placemats. He nodded his thanks, mouth still full, and you giggled again.
You were already planning on packing up all the leftovers so he could take it home, but you still encouraged him to have as much as he wanted while it was warm and fresh.
"Did you make the rolls, too?" he asked after he took a bite.
You laughed and shook your head. "No, I'm not that good. I bought them this morning from a local bakery I like around the corner."
You had finished your meal long before he did, watching with your chin in your palm as he went back for seconds, reveling in the noises and compliments he made with practically each bite.
"Here, have some more," you told him, nudging the plate of chicken in his direction, but he leaned back in the chair and shook his head. "I can't, but everythin' was delicious. Thank you."
"You're welcome. I'm thrilled to cook for someone again," you replied with a sad smile before standing up and picking up your plate. He immediately stood and began to collect the rest, but you waved him back down.
"Sit, sit, I still have dessert," you told him, and based on the way he looked at you in that moment you would have put money down that he could be knocked over with a feather.
"Oh, darlin', you did too much," he replied, immediately flooding with guilt that he didn't even bring wine or flowers.
"Stop! I told you, I like doing it and I never get a chance to anymore, so please, sit down and I'll be right back."
Begrudgingly, he did as he was told and, while listening to you in the kitchen, peered out the back window at the meticulously kept grounds. Your house, like you, was absolutely beautiful. It felt like stumbling across an oasis in the middle of the desert.
You reappeared in the dining room with a bowl of diced, sugared strawberries and a plate of warm biscuits. He watched in stunned silence as you fixed him a plate, spooning the strawberries on top of a fresh shortcake, but told him to wait a moment before hurrying back into the kitchen and returning with a small bowl of homemade whipped cream.
Joel thought he died and went to heaven.
He could tell you didn't want to hear him complain that it was too much, so instead he lavished your baking with praise and thanks, both of which seemed to make your eyes shine bright and your lips remain curled into a smile the whole time.
"You're taking the leftovers home, too," you warned him once you finally allowed him to help bring things back into the kitchen. You were packing everything up nice and neat in matching Tupperware containers and stacking everything into a paper bag. As much as he wanted to decline, he really wanted your leftovers more, so he continued to thank you as he began to wash the dishes in your farmhouse sink. You had tried to fight him on it, but he finally wore you down and won. Stubborn little thing, he thought.
After dinner was cleaned up, you led him back down the hall and up the wide staircase, explaining that the books were all housed in a den at the top of the stairs, but when you opened the door to the room, den seemed like too small a word for it.
It was gorgeous, plain and simple. The cherry wainscoting continued in this room with a dark green wallpaper to accent the wood. All along the wall were antique sconces lighting up floor to ceiling bookcases stuffed full of literature. On the back wall was a large, heavy looking desk with a wingback velvet chair. The desk itself had books and papers scattered about, as if someone were in the middle of something and was rudely interrupted, but based on the layer of dust, he had to imagine nobody had sat there in some time.
And then it hit him: this was your fiancé's office.
A laptop sat open and turned off on the corner of the desk, along with a dusty printer behind the chair on the carpeted floor. He noticed what had to have been manuscripts of some kind based on the lack of coverings on the bound papers piling up next to the printer.
He was an author. This is where he worked.
That was when Joel realized you had been suspiciously quiet. He turned towards you, his eyes scanning your face, studying it. Your arms were wrapped around your middle as you stared blankly at the desk.
"We don't gotta do this today," he said softly, snapping you out of your reverie.
"No, it's okay," you replied, your voice so small it nearly broke his heart. You turned and walked toward the corner of the room, opposite the desk, where a small couch and coffee table sat. A few cardboard boxes were stacked nearby, two of which remained unopened, one recklessly torn into. You started with that one.
"Here," you said, pulling out a few books and handing them out. He stepped forward and took them, looking down at the covers and the beautiful artwork that adorned them. "These are the first trilogy, you should probably read them first before the next. They're different stories but they inevitably weave together so it'll make more sense if you-" you paused, your voice getting caught in your throat, and that's when he realized you had been fighting back tears.
"Hey, it's okay," he told you gently, putting the books down on the coffee table and carefully touching your shoulder, urging you to sit on the couch. After a moment's hesitation, you did, and he sat beside you. "This was too fast. I'll leave these here and maybe one day, when you're feelin' up to it, we can try again."
You looked up at him, eyes watering, and shook your head.
"No, take these now. I have more, I have tons, actually," you said, nodding towards the unopened boxes. "I just haven't come in here since he died and I didn't think it would be this hard." You wiped furiously at your cheeks, trying to hide your anguish.
Joel's heart thundered in his chest. He rubbed your back, trying to offer you a glimmer of comfort while he glanced around the room. "Maybe it was too soon," he offered again.
"No, it's been a year, Joel. I needed to do this." You took a deep breath and gave him a shaky smile. "Thank you. I know this is probably more than you expected-"
"Nah, hey, none of that, now," he cooed, mindlessly petting your hair. "If you needed someone to be here for this, I'm glad you picked me, okay?"
You sniffled and nodded, quietly thanking him again before taking another deep breath and exhaling with a nervous laugh as you looked around the room with him.
"Can I ask you something?"
"'Course," he replied.
"How long did it take for you to move on after your wife passed?"
He chewed the inside of his cheek as he thought about it, his fingers still playing with the ends of your soft hair as he slowly rubbed your back. "Well, hard to say. She was sick for a long time so I think I had time to come to terms with it before she died, y'know?" You nodded and listened to him, hanging on his every word and inadvertently leaning into his gentle touch. "Then I had Sarah to worry 'bout and, I don't know, time just... passed me by." He chuckled dryly for a moment before continuing. "My brother thinks I never got over it, Sarah thinks I never processed it, but they only think that 'cause I never dated anyone else."
Your eyes widened in surprise at his confession.
"Never?"
He shook his head and gave you a lopsided grin. "Been busy, I guess."
"But aren't you... lonely?"
He sucked in a sharp breath and cast his gaze to the floor. How did you manage to see right through him so quickly? Was it the common ground or something else?
"Wasn't too bad til Sarah left," he admitted, "but now... yeah. Yeah, it's lonely."
You scanned his face, watching the flicker of sadness in his eyes he tried to hide from you, and you inched a bit closer.
"I'm glad we found each other, Joel," you whispered. His eyes found yours again and he smiled.
"Me, too, sweetheart."
Then, without giving it another thought, you leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his lips. It was so tender and soft it felt like he was on the bus in fifth grade and Christine Murphy was giving him his fist kiss all over again while kids in nearby seats teased them with sing-song voices.
You pulled back and looked into his eyes, searching for any hesitation but all you must have seen was confusion because you leaned forward again, kissing him with a little more emotion, your small hand coming up to cup his greying, prickly jaw. You tasted like strawberries and lemonade and you smelled like vanilla and it was making every neuron in his brain fire all at the same time, to the point where his body had no idea what to do but remain frozen.
It was when your tongue first slipped past your lips and flicked nervously over the seam of his mouth that he finally came crashing down to earth. He sat back, breaking the kiss and holding you by the shoulders, staring deeply into your eyes. You were both panting slightly, probably from the excitement and adrenaline, as he tried to figure out what to say, what to do. You were in a fragile state, he decided. You made a mistake, the moment got away from you both and it didn't mean anything. It couldn't mean anything. You were too young and sweet and beautiful. You didn't really want anything to do with an old man like him. He just happened to be there when you were vulnerable and that was all.
The words never came. He couldn't form a coherent sentence. As the seconds dragged on, your face began to fall and embarrassment flooded your chest, the atmosphere in the room suddenly so thick that it was difficult to breathe. You cleared your throat and leaned back, his hands falling from your shoulders, and then you were the first to speak.
"Oh, no."
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mandoatsea · 4 days ago
Text
take me home, country road
[ao3]
You have nothing on your person apart from a hastily packed suitcase and the dress you came into town wearing, on the run from trouble back home. Too bad John's missing a bride that matches your description. Or: the 1800s (mistaken) mail order bride au (chapter 19)
masterlist
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A blood-orange sun hangs low in the sky.
You might think it ominous on any other day, but not this one. What more adversity could stand in your way? 
Instead of sharing a saddle with John, you ride the same horse that Graves rode out of town. Days spent on horseback have finally caught up to you, pain radiating up and down your legs, a soreness embedded deep in your inner thighs, the skin positively chafed from the constant friction. At least you no longer have the handcuffs digging painfully into your wrists, the metal cuffs long since unlocked using the key in Graves’ pocket and discarded, now lost some acres back for the coyotes and the hares to prod at and sniff. 
You drift in and out of conscious awareness, coming back into your right mind every mile or so, losing track of time along the way. Sometimes you blink and trees disappear out of sight, already ten miles back. Scouring the landscape for something familiar only to come up empty. 
Recent events lour over your conscience. It’s difficult not to let it get to you. So much has happened in such quick succession that part of you still thinks you’re dreaming in the abandoned shack with Graves sleeping just a few feet away. 
A distinct sound scrapes against the inner recesses of your mind and eardrum. If you were to look behind you, you’d find the source of it wrapped in a shroud and dragged behind John’s horse. Drying blood stains the fabric. The head, obscured under the fabric, jostles from side to side as it passes over rocks and undergrowth. 
It’s beyond you now though, the future shuttling forward at an unfathomable speed and taking you with it, willing or not. The world hurrying on to repeat its past mistakes. 
So you don’t look behind you. 
“Won’t be much longer,” your husband murmurs from beside you, speaking just loud enough for you to hear him over the influx of thoughts in your head, which rapidly empty out at the sound of his voice. 
“We can stop for a break after?” you ask, turning your head enough for your eyes to land on the hard, bristled line of his jaw. He nods. 
“Just gotta get this part out of the way.”
He says it so casually, like a bit of unpleasantness that has to be dealt with; no way around it. Unfortunately, a body isn’t something that can be just swept under the rug. No matter how much your muscles beg for a moment’s reprieve, you won’t get it until all the loose ends are tied up. 
“How do you know the land around here so well?” you ask as John leads the two of you deeper into the plains.
“The boys and I have been out here before. Grew up in this county anyway; been wanderin’ these parts since I was born.”
You can’t imagine John as a young boy, uncertain of his place in the world. He seems like someone who emerged from the womb ready-made, already able to skin a deer and build a bushcraft shelter by hand. But he must have been young at one point. 
Finally, he comes upon a suitable place to bury the body. 
Deep in the wilderness, he digs a shallow grave with the short shovel strapped to his horse, sweating up a storm before the hole is big enough to bury the body. You dismount your horse and wander off while John handles the burial. 
This is the part where you have to turn away and pretend it isn’t happening. You stave off the urge to plug your ears and close your eyes. Dogear any page in your life except this one. This is the only memory that you want to fade into obscurity, pretend that it never happened, that this was some bad dream that you only half-remember twenty years from now. 
You glance back only once to find John breathing heavily at the edge of the hole, having just hauled himself out. Sweat slicks his brow and drips down the side of his face near his temple, a dark flush spreading over his cheeks from exertion. Even his shirt is damp with sweat under the pits and around the collar. 
You force yourself to look away. Now is not the time for your libido to trouble you. 
Graves’ body lands with a dull thump when John rolls it into the makeshift grave. You bite your lip and let your eyelids slide shut. Then he starts the process of covering the body, shoveling the dirt back into the hole. It takes a while. An offer to help hovers on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t quite make yourself say the words. 
A half hour later, it no longer matters, the hole covered until the only thing demarcating the grave is the layer of upturned soil, slightly darker than the dirt in the surrounding area.
“That’s it,” John announces, making his way back to you with the shovel slung over his shoulder. You can smell the ripe scent of sweat wafting off him even from a foot away. “Let’s head out; we’ll wanna make camp before it gets dark.”
You don’t answer. Not verbally anyway. The guilt almost makes it hard to breathe. In all your stupidity and poor decision-making, you’ve inadvertently made John an accomplice in your crimes; forced him, in fact, to commit one as heinous as the one that had started this whole debacle. 
You travel the next mile in relative silence, scouring the landscape for a neat patch of land to set up camp. The sun plummets towards the ground at a faster and faster pace until it’s tugged below the horizon, vanishing with a green flash. Then it’s too dangerous to keep going, the way back far too dark to keep traveling down. 
John builds a small fire after tying up the horses for the night. The temperature drops exponentially as the sky darkens, the cold sinking low to the ground. You help with gathering the kindling, mostly twigs and clumps of dry grass, then take the packs off both horses to use as makeshift seats by the fire, unrolling the sleeping bags as well. 
It comes as a relief to finally sit down after the fire is struck. Rest is a double edged sword though; the longer you sit with Graves’ old pack propping you up, the more the pain has time to sink its claws in deep. 
In the hours since he shot Graves, neither of you have spoken more than a few words to each other. You certainly haven’t brought it up. The memory of Graves revealing the truth of what you’d done back east to John looms over you. It’s inevitable that you’ll talk about it eventually though. It’s heavy in the atmosphere, almost oppressive; the weight of everything said and unsaid. You can’t take back what Graves revealed to John. At some point you’ll have to face it. 
At what point will you have to beg for forgiveness? It sits on the tip of your tongue. 
The small fire crackles in front of you. Red tongues of flames lick at the darkness, the light extending out in a circle around the two of you. You’re grateful for the warmth though, particularly after spending the previous night in the cold.  
“Nothing to eat, m’afraid,” he says apologetically, brow creasing. “I didn’t exactly pack before coming after you.”
You shake your head. “That’s fine. I’m not hungry anyway.”
In a few more hours, you might work up an appetite again, but for now, you couldn’t be further from it. All you want to do is lie down on your bed back home and sleep through to the next day. 
“Yeah,” John sighs. “Me neither.”
He picks up your hand and holds it in his for a time. It’s strange how such a small gesture has become such an immense comfort for you. You wish you could thread your fingers through his and bring his hand up to your lips to kiss all over, but you’re too tired for a gesture of that magnitude. 
When he lets go of your hand, it’s only to transfer it to your face. His thumb runs over your split lip, pulling away when you wince. “Looks like it’s healing on its own.”
“That’s good,” you mumble. “…It hurt a lot more yesterday.”
John’s nostrils flare. The fire reflects off his eyes in such a way that, for a moment, it almost looks like it’s coming from within him. “I’d kill him again if I could.”
Your stomach clenches at the ferocity behind his words. 
“You—you shouldn’t have done it in the first place,” you croak. “Not when he was—” right, you don’t say. Right to haul you out of town by your hair and drag you back to the scene of the crime, back to pay for what you’d done. 
“Now I ain’t gonna hear you go spoutin’ that horseshit,” he growls, clasping you by the back of your neck and tugging you to his side. It’s so sudden that your butt skids across the ground, raking up a small mound of dirt with the weight of your body.
You look away, unable to meet his eyes even as he pulls you forward until you’re nearly nose to nose. “It’s not—”
“Yes, it is, darlin’. That shit weren’t none of your fault. You ain’t done a thing wrong by keeping yourself safe.” 
It’s almost hard to hear. It’s taken you months to scrub the dirt from your soul, which until recently was raw to the touch and pained you to even think back on. And the hopelessness. And the longing, the irreversibility of it; irreversible in the way that you couldn’t turn your pain inside out. You could never go back to the way things were because the only way out was to keep on trudging forward. 
Like rain in a drought, you’ve been missing someone’s mercy. You’ve been waiting for someone to come and forgive you for your sins; someone to absolve you of them. 
You lean forward, burying your face in his neck. Not making much of a sound except for a harsh exhale, your throat quavering with something unsaid. 
Then you grip him by the back of his shirt and pull him to the ground with you. 
Out in the open like this, John doesn’t dare remove your clothes, but he does reach beneath your dress to pull off your underclothes. He’s silent through it all, eyes fixed on yours. Never wavering or dropping your gaze. It’s intoxicating to be stared at with such a fierce intensity. Vaguely overwhelming, the sensation creeping up your chest and lodging in your throat. 
The light of the fire he built for the two of you flickers across his skin, illuminating his face in shades of orange and gold. 
He holds your gaze when he rucks the skirt of your dress up and crawls down the length of your body until his mouth is level with your center, slick already dripping from your sex. Your breathing goes haggard, anticipating his mouth before it’s suddenly there between your thighs, planting a gentle kiss on your inner thigh before dragging his lips over your sensitive skin until they brush your clit. Your mouth opens to a soundless gasp. Electrical impulses travel up your spine, your arching back following their trajectory. 
He pulls back to stare at your dripping hole. “Missed me, my love?” 
You’d answer if you could form words, but then you realize who he’s talking to and your mind goes blank. 
When he runs his tongue up the seam of your pussy, you jolt, legs slung over his shoulders kicking at the air. He eats you out with gusto, with reverence, sighing into your pussy that it’s been too long, that he’d worried himself nearly half to death over you. 
Rough hands hold you by your waist and pull you down onto his face. Long, crude licks of his tongue, rubbing the flat of it over your clit until you’re a roiling, twisting hotbed of pent up arousal. 
The urge to suppress your noises is almost overwhelming. When you twist your head from side to side, there’s nothing but miles of land; trees and shrubbery and a deep, impenetrable darkness. Not another person around for miles. It makes you shiver when you stare out into it. 
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—” you gasp, chest getting tighter and tighter until you expect it to burst but it doesn’t. It stays all pent up, all itchy and scratchy and you can feel the sweat slicking the small of your back and the blood furiously rushing to your cheeks, heating you up from the inside out. Sweat-laden and flustered. 
Your toes curl in your boots, throat tightening up the closer it gets. All it takes to push you over the edge is John cupping his hands under your butt to tilt your hips up, licking you from hole to hole. The impertinence and thrill sends a rush through your body, the coil in your belly twisting and releasing, core pulsing around nothing. Your body gives a violent jolt when he gives your clit one last wet, suckling kiss.
“Are you comfortable like this, darlin’, or should I wait until we’re home?” John asks when he positions himself over you again, beard still wet with your desire and a big hand cupping the front of his trousers. You stare down at the hair dusting his knuckles and the bulge straining against his pants. 
The shadows make it seem even larger than usual. Your throat goes dry the longer you stare down at where he fists his length through his trousers.
“Darlin’?” he repeats, drawing your attention back up to his face.
“Oh?” you ask, cheeks heating. “I’m, um…I’m quite comfortable.”
It seems absurd to have such a conversation when your husband’s hand is reaching into his trousers to pull out his cock and fuck you with it, but the nervous tickle in your belly is far from unpleasant. 
He’s so careful with you, cognizant that your muscles are already sore and aching from days of being on the road and the abuse Graves put you through. Gentle hands maneuver your legs around his hips and move your hair from your face. Again your belly flips. 
Your grunt is involuntary when he first pushes in, walls stretching around the head of his cock. It hasn’t been long enough for the blunt intrusion to be painful, but it’s overwhelming all the same. You wince and grimace through it all. 
“Easy does it. You’re alright,” John shushes when you whimper, rough hand cupping your cheek. It sends a thrill down your spine, but doesn’t lessen the intensity. 
He stays like that for a time, hovering over you and stroking a thumb over your cheekbone until you relax around his girth, gradually finding your breath again. In and out; one after the other. When he pulls his hand away, it’s to plant his forearms on the ground beside your head and grind his hips forward, taking your breath away. 
“Oh Lord,” you wheeze, then brace your hands around his neck. 
“You’re doing great, darlin’. Just hold on; I’ve got ya.”
It’s nothing like the times before; your arms link around his neck and your breath goes shallow, hitching with every measured thrust. It’s too much and not enough. You feel windswept and battered, bruises smarting now that you’ve had time to feel them, but still you need more from him. 
He works himself into the wet flex of your pussy with slow, heavy thrusts. Taking his time. Not rushing it just yet because though the threat of you being taken from him still looms over his head, he’s sated his bloodlust. His reassurance now comes in the form of your legs spread to receive him and the fat head of his cock fitting snugly in you. 
The heels of your boots press firm against the flesh above his buttocks. Taking him this way with your clothes still on feels debaucherous, filthier than usual; like you were so desperate to have your husband inside you, that you couldn’t even be bothered to remove your garments. 
He must feel the way that thought heats you up because he rasps, “Need a lil somethin’, love?” 
Before you can even answer, he’s reached a hand down and tucked it between your thighs to strum the tight bundle of nerves at the apex of your sex. 
“John—”
Your fingernails must dig into the back of his neck because he grunts. Serves him right, you think, digging your nails in all the harder when grinds a knuckle against your clit and you briefly see stars. 
You’re splintering down to the root, coming apart in his hands like clay; when he says your name, the darkness fades and for a moment, you’re in the light, a shaft of it haloing your face. Chasing it no matter how fast it runs. A hare in a snare, a shadow captured in the palm of your hand. 
It comes fluttering down from somewhere beyond sight. Gasped out in another voice, a truer voice. From the depths of you, true as stone and air. 
“I love you.”
Give it time and it’ll come naturally. Now, it comes as a gut punch. Even John stills over you when he hears the words, and you can feel the shudder that runs through him under your fingertips. There’s no time to sit and talk about it though, not with the frenzy that comes over him, blue eyes glazed over by a manic glint. 
He braces one hand on the top of your head and surges forward, so rough with you that your teeth clack together, eyes rolling back in your head. 
“Say it again,” John growls, leaning down until his mouth is right next to your ear. 
“I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you—”
Then it hits you. A wall of heat. Your belly rolling and cheeks burning, walls squeezing around John’s cock, tighter with every thrust. You yelp when he lifts himself off you to yank the skirt of your dress up higher and presses his hands to your inner thighs, spreading your legs wider for him. Bullies his cock into your channel even as you try to squeeze him out, pounding into you until the lurid torrent of words spilling out of his mouth go slurred and his release floods into you, his hips slapping against yours until he’s emptied the last of his spend into your womb. 
It’s a while before either of you can move after that. Your energy melts into the ground like rainwater, purifying the earth. Maybe life is already germinating beneath you, grass seedlings about to burst from the dirt, flower buds curled up in tight coils until they’re ready to bloom. 
Your hands shake when you lift one up to wipe the sweat from your face. 
When he finally pulls out of you, the feeling of his come leaking down your inner thighs makes you fussy. You lift your thighs just enough to let him pull your drawers back up before lying back down, no energy left in you to do more than that. You only scrunch your nose a little at the feeling of your combined juices already wetting the gusset.
Time seems to come apart and then piece back together. You roll over onto your side and nestle up against John’s chest, staring up at him wordlessly. His eyes stay shut for some time until he feels your stare on him and they peel open, the color of his irises barely discernible in the flickering light. 
“Somethin’ on your mind?” he asks in a tone so devoid of accusation or condemnation that you’re almost thrown by it. He says it like it’s just another day, like something horrible and monumental didn’t just happen. 
It takes you a while to find the words. Even when you do, they come out jumbled and disjointed. “How long have you…—when did you find out?”
“‘Bout what happened back East?” he clarifies, blunt as usual. 
The question makes you swallow impulsively, anxiety secreting from you again. “Yes.”
John looks up into the dark sky, quiet for a spell. “Not until recently. The arrest warrant drifted across my desk probably around the time Graves first stopped by. Wasn’t hard to put two and two together after that—you showing up in a tizzy around the same time as the warrant was issued. General description matched as well.”
You feel a bit foolish in retrospect, certain that you were getting away with it all this time. 
“You know my name.”
“I do.”
“My real name.”
“In a manner of speaking. Got yourself a new last name since then though, didn’t you?”
Your lips pull up at the corners involuntarily. “Yes. I guess so.”
You can almost hear it now. The penultimate note of the overture writhing against convalescence like you might stay this way for a second longer. But it isn’t right to keep feeling the same old pain. At some point, it has to heal. 
“Hey,” John says, giving your shoulder a little shake to draw your attention back to him. The look in his eyes is serious. “This is as far as the story goes, alright?”
You stare up at him silently until you nod against his chest. 
“You’re my wife. End of story. The rest ain’t anyone’s business but ours.”
Off in the distance, an owl hoots, and its call hits your ear as a distant evocation to sleep. You press one last kiss to his chest before rolling off him, letting him put the fire out before the two of you turn in for the night, and then drawing a blanket over the both of you. 
And then, you go to sleep.
1K notes · View notes
mandoatsea · 4 days ago
Text
Bigger in Texas
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Pairing: Joel Miller x Reader
Summary: Joel won’t fit.
Warnings: 18+. Unprotected p-in-v. Size kink (seriously, don’t read if you hate big dicks / disgusting descriptions) Penis and pussy pronouns. Virginity loss. Age gap. Praise kink. Daddy kink. Joel ‘hung like a fucking horse’ Miller is a soft dom and also a good teacher. Competence kink (?)
Note: Somebody made a fic challenge to use penis pronouns, and I can’t for the life of me remember who it was. If y’all find them please show them this and tell them I love their brain 🫠
Update: @sp00kymulderr you’re a legend for this. Dick pronouns are engrained in my brain, and I’m forever grateful.
Word count: 2.3k
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This wasn’t the life Joel Miller had pictured for himself.
The dead coming back to roam the world and eradicate most of its population, for one. The cold. Finding his baby brother way out here in Wyoming with a wife and a child on the way. The looks he was getting these days. It’s not like he’d asked to get mixed up with a girl your age. It just happened. And since damn near every-fucking-thing that had “happened” to him since outbreak day fifteen years back had been bottom of the barrel, full-blown nightmare territory, the second he saw a good thing fumble across his path, he’d seized it—you.
You, who were young enough to be his daughter.
You, who’d never seen a man fully before meeting him.
You, who hadn’t squeezed so much as a finger in herself.
But much like his past, Joel Miller was a sordid and sick kind of man, and he had the cock to prove it: presently weeping precum at the site of your softest, tightest hole, smearing the pearly-white slick through your folds with a sound so sweet it was nauseating. Begging for entrance.
“Oughta have a boy your age pop your cherry, kid.”
It was simple.
“Ain’t right havin’ a man my age all in your guts.”
And true.
The head of his cock made another wet, sickening noise through your folds, and as though instigated by the sound, your eyes flitted to the source. You smiled.
“Probably. But I want you,” you answered. Soft.
Joel got harder, and he hadn’t thought that was possible. His gaze joined yours, and the sight nearly finished him.
Beneath him, your legs had spread wider, showcasing that perfectly glistening seam alongside the head of his cock. He looked huge. Or you looked small. Or perhaps it was both, and he was old, and he really shouldn’t be doing this at all, but then his hips stuttered a bit and his length pushed in. Joel hissed and seized the headboard.
It wouldn’t even go in. The tip just stretched the rim.
“Baby, fuck—” Joel whimpered.
“He’s so big.”
Three little words from your lips, and it almost did him in.
Again.
You wriggled your hips and flashed another happy grin.
“He wants in, daddy. I can feel him pulsin’ like I am.”
You volleyed a look up to Joel as if to say, ‘So that means we’re ready, right? Will you let me have him?’
And, strangled by guilt as he was, Joel couldn’t resist.
He let his big, bulbous, leaking head sink in the tiniest bit, and he let out a groan. Your walls were so tight. This was him, too—his tip was oversized, just like the rest of him—and when it notched in an inch, Joel could see the pain flash quick in your eyes. His hips moved to retreat.
But then your heels were lifting and digging in his ass, and though strained, your voice made it out, weakly:
“Don’t, daddy. I want him.”
Joel couldn’t dream of refusing.
And his vision blurred more at that word, him.
“I-I know. He wants you too, baby—”
Another quarter-inch.
“—so, so bad.”
“Daddy!”
Joel had to blink to try and wake from his daze. His tip was so warm, hugged so perfect and snug and wet, that he didn’t even realize that was all that fit. He was stuck.
You whimpered again.
“‘S’too big, daddy. Just make him go in.”
Your eyes rolled with indignation and overwhelming pleasure alike, and your hips squirmed again. This time, you tried to nudge him in deeper, but your body simply wouldn’t budge; you’d reached the widest part of him.
“Honey, it’s—”
“Hurtin’! I need you inside me.” you cried, impatient.
“Just takes a little time to get there, darlin’—”
“Well, get to it, then. A tip ain’t enough.”
Joel’s face flushed. He might’ve been forced to bite back a laugh under any other circumstances, but this was your virginity. His bed. Your naked bodies, together, tonight.
He wasn’t about to rush it now and fuck everything up.
“This tip’s about to paint your pretty insides white and make you wait til next week to try again if you keep it up.”
That made you go still.
You shook your head while Joel released the headboard from his grip and took your hip in it instead. He grunted.
“Sweet pea, you gotta see—” he resumed, voice low, “—it won’t feel good for you or me if I just…push right in.”
You sighed, feeling his hold tighten.
“Tongue and fingers only do so much. You gotta learn.”
You whined, digging your feet in deeper when his tip drew back to your entrance. Looking a bit squeamish.
“Be brave…and patient for me.”
From the look in your eyes, Joel could tell you probably hated him right now. That was just fine. He adjusted his hips to a more comfortable place, and then he pinched your hip bone. He nudged you back, and he let you wait.
Then, right when you opened your mouth, he sank in.
Joel thrusted with only his tip, the size of a small lime, and he fucked your hole gently. Back and forth. Shallow.
It did enough. You squeezed both his forearms.
“Oh, daddy.” Your bottom lip trembled as you said it.
With his free hand, Joel smoothed your hair back.
“Yeah, what is it, baby?” he murmured, dulcet as ever, “Thought you said the tip ain’t enough for you, sugar.”
His words came slow. His strokes were delivered quick, though tenderly. Your brain appeared to be in a fog, or a trance, as your chin dipped down toward your chest, and you watched him breach the first inch of you repeatedly.
“Curious little thing.” Joel couldn’t fight the chuckle now.
“He’s so…” you trailed off.
You squeezed his arms, and he squeezed your hip back. He let you watch him fuck you with only his tip, and when your head began to tilt back from the strain, he reached up with his other hand and held the back of your neck. He felt you clench at that, and you both groaned.
“So…big,” you finished, eyes glazed.
“I know.”
This went on for the longest time: Joel stretching the first precious inch of your pussy with the head of himself, you watching and breathing deeply, whimpering occasionally, and him holding at the nape of your neck like a softer touch might lose you to him forever. Was this teaching? When you clenched again, he reckoned it was.
“That’s it, honey. Watch her swallow me.”
“Stretches real pretty for the tip, doesn’t she?”
“Bet she can’t even fit another inch of this cock.”
Suddenly, your head was jerking up under his hold.
Eyes flaring with a hot, juvenile kind of anger: “I can!”
Joel clicked his tongue against the backs of his teeth and pretended not to hear. He also had to feign indifference when your walls tightened and all but choked his head and a wave of new pleasure surged up through his body.
“She can, Joel, I’m serious!”
Another two seconds of this and Joel sensed he might see tears. Though his gaze had trailed up to yours, and the look in his appeared stern, deep down, he was just as quick to want to cave. He just hid it better than you did.
“You think so, sweet pea?”
“I know so. I need it.”
“Need him?”
“Y-Yes.”
How sweet you seemed. How naive you must be.
Joel might’ve been mean, but he wasn’t cruel. He also liked teaching lessons as much as he enjoyed showing you the way, so in the next second, he obliged. He took the last shallow thrust of his tip and sank into your cunt.
As he filled you, you whined. It only took an inch or two.
“Da-a-ddy. Please.”
You must’ve been begging for lenience. Joel retreated.
Then, much to the man’s surprise, you kicked your feet. Not in relief but in protest, shaking your head up at him:
“Put him back. Please. D-Deeper.”
It was as though Joel’s brain had exited through the back of his head and all rational thought escaped him, for the moment. The only voice he heard was yours. It was pleading. And in between your legs, you were soaked.
So drenched to allow him another inch. Then another. Then another. Joel fucked in gently and felt a seismic wave of pleasure seize his limbs—and likely yours, as well. It was as though in two blinks, you’d forgotten the pain altogether. You were suffused with need instead, eyes wincing and lips curling and sounds leaving your throat like an animal in heat. Want him deeper, please.
Joel sawed back and forth with just those five or so inches and made you writhe underneath him. Felt you clamp down on his thick, slippery cock and heard the remnants of your shared arousal making sounds as your body accepted him. Stretching wider. Getting wetter. Bringing him closer to the edge with every breath.
“She’s doin’…so good f’me,” Joel told you, brainless.
His thumb drifted to your clit. He rubbed it gently. No sooner had he finished the first circle around that nub when your hips were stirring again—this time incensed.
“Daddy.”
“I know, baby. I know.”
Joel kissed the top of your head, thumb insistent. When his eyes met yours, he was surprised to find them wet this time. Tears pooling and streaking down to your temples while your body bounced gently beneath his thrusts. A whimper trembled out, and Joel slowed.
He could tell from that look you didn’t want him to stop, though. It just felt so good. So, instead of dropping his pace too much, Joel cupped your chin in one hand, and with the other, he kept thumbing at your clit. Humming.
“Poor thing’s never had something this big in ‘er, huh?”
You shook your head. Cried a little more.
Joel kissed the tears on one side, lips smiling as he did.
“I can tell, baby. But she’s taking it so well.”
“Y-Yeah?”
His hips sped up a little. The thrusts were still shallower than they normally would be, given your state, but they seemed to be working well enough. You winced again.
Joel kissed the other side of your face to take more tears.
“Uh-huh,” he answered, “Openin’ up real nice for daddy.”
It was like his words worked as well as his thumb on your clit. You whimpered again, lips parting a little wider now, and the sound that came out was as desperate and feverish and fuck-drunk as Joel had ever heard it.
“S-Say it again,” you pleaded.
“Say what?”
“That he’s…stretchin’ me open. Makin’ me his.”
The soft, slick resonance between your body and his seemed to amplify even more—you were getting wetter, and Joel’s thrusts all but shook the bed with their force.
His eyes darkened when he felt you tighten again.
“Yeah? You like hearin’ all the filthy fuckin’ things your daddy’s doing? The way he’s breakin’ you in for him?”
You nodded. Your throat constricted with a moan.
And, just when a fresh set of tears seemed to be close on the horizon, Joel lowered himself to you. He held you to his chest, hips working relentlessly, and he watched your face screw up in pleasure. A trace of pain surfaced again, but it was soothed with a kiss. Joel grinned against you.
Between your thighs, his cock was throbbing with a feeling just as big. He knew he couldn’t keep this up much longer. Hurting and aching and needing as you were, he had to make sure that you would cum first.
When his cock grazed a fleshy, sensitive patch inside your walls, he knew it wouldn’t take much. He went on:
“C’mon, sugar. Daddy’s split you open on his cock so nice, least you can do is cum for him. Can you do that?”
His nose brushed yours. His thrusts sped up. You nodded, quickly, and when he shifted in the bed with his thumb still on your clit and his lips and his stubble grazing your mouth with every push of himself, he felt it.
It was a small pulse, at first.
Joel thought you might be adjusting—clenching—again, when the lips that were trembling against his own parted more. Your arms wound around his neck, and suddenly the throb of your walls around his member got tighter and tighter and tighter. One more second and your cunt might’ve squeezed the hot, sticky seed right out of his body and flooded your insides with it, but then came release. The ‘o’ of your mouth let out a shriek, at last, and your body went soft around him, beneath him, whining in turn, ‘Daddy, daddy, please’ while the muscles once taut and unflinching gave him reprieve. Fluttering repeatedly.
Joel fucked you through it. He talked you through it.
He stroked your hair, and he held you tight. Called you his sweetheart, pretty thing, perfect girl, you’re doin’ so good f’me. Keep going. That’s right, cum all over daddy. He told you to take what you needed, and without another word, he felt just that. Your cunt spasmed around him, and you consumed every inch he gave and drank every drop of spend shooting out in thick spurts.
You fell boneless on the bed when all was said and done.
You looked happy, and that made Joel even happier.
He stroked your cheek, and you leaned into it, clearly drained while your gaze held his in a weak sort of look.
It was soft. Loving, even. It could’ve been romantic.
Then Joel’s hand slipped down to the nape of your neck again. Your muscles were limp, like all the rest of you, but somehow, he was able to hold you up. Tilt your chin a bit.
Make you peer down between your shaking legs, where his cock was still sheathed inside you��partly, anyway.
Your eyes widened. Joel grinned.
“You did great, baby. Ready for the other half of him?”
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can y’all believe this image is what inspired this fic HA
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it’s only Thursday i’m sorry 😔
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mandoatsea · 6 days ago
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NEW PICS!!!
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mandoatsea · 8 days ago
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𝐎𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 - 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐈𝐧 𝐁𝐞𝐝
pairing: pre outbreak!joel miller x f!reader, one sided tommy miller x f!reader
genre: angst, smut, romance, slow burn, mutual pining, secret relationship
series summary: After your grandfather’s passing, you find yourself moving into his home in Texas. You meet the Millers; Tommy, his older brother Joel and his daughter Sarah. With time, you and Tommy become close friends and Sarah visits you often. But Joel…Joel keeps his distance. The reason for this is due to one crucial fact you don’t know but he does; Tommy has a crush on you. Which means you’re off limits no matter what. But as your own feelings for Joel grow, things start to get more and more complicated.
word count: 5.6k
chapter summary: With Sarah at a sleepover, you, Joel and Tommy get together late to paint the now empty room, but with a distressing call from Sarah, Joel leaves to pick her up. You're just surprised as him when Sarah asks for you specifically. Later on, you accidentally see something that was meant for Asha's eyes only.
warnings: sarah gets her period for the first time so first-time period talk, nude photo (joel's), female masturbation (reader), feelings of loneliness (reader)
Chapter Four || Chapter Six
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It’s been two weeks since Asha became a part of Joel’s life. They were more similar to what he initially had thought. For starters, neither of them talked about their families or upbringings. It was from Tommy that Joel learned that her parents still resided in India and that she came here alone, unsupported for the most part. 
Joel, however, didn’t really have much family to talk about even if he wanted to. He only had Tommy and Sarah. He mentioned them a total of two times; one because Sarah got sick at school and he had to go and get her, meaning he had to cancel his lunch with Asha. And the second was when he showed up late one night with a black eye due to Tommy getting under the skin of the wrong crowd. That night he had thought of going to you instead, but then decided against it. The next day he learned that you cleaned up Tommy’s wounds— it shouldn’t have made his heart twinge with jealousy, but it did.
They used each other, Joel and Asha, at least that was what he felt, and it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. They enjoyed each other's company, had fun together, slept together. She made him aware of things that he wasn’t even aware of and vice versa. Asha never had the desire to talk about the future or asked to come over. Her apartment was just fine, and they often met up there instead of anywhere else. She never asked about his personal life. 
But that all changed as Joel was driving her from work to her home. 
“Tommy talks a lot about this girl,” she muses, smiling lightly. “Your neighbor I think? He came and ask me for room decor tips, it was cute.” 
“That’s the one,” Joel answers, shifting in his seat. “I knew he wasn’t clever enough to think of all of that on his own.” 
“He did come up with the color himself, so it wasn’t all me.” 
“He’s been braggin’ a lot, it’s annoyin’” 
She presses a hand on his thigh, squeezing, she drags her fingers up the seam of his jeans. “Come on, Joel. He’s just happy. I think she’s good for him.” 
“They’re both good for each other.” he nods, ignoring her hand resting right below his pelvis. “I’m actually heading there after dropping you off, you wanna come? I’m sure she’ll appreciate more female company.” 
She laughs and pulls her hand back to her lap, “Just because we both have vaginas doesn’t mean we’ll get along,” Asha hums, pulling her bag up from between her legs. “However, I do think we would get along. Sadly, I have an assignment due and need to finish at least most of it before you come over.” 
“Ah that’s right,” he pouts, annoyed at himself. “Sorry I forgot.” 
“It’s okay, I forget half the things you do.” 
“Is that normal for couples?”
She mulls over his question for a while, lips moving from side to side, a tick that she did whenever she was cooking up something clever. Then she stills, a wide smile spreading across her face. 
“I think for us it is.” 
Joel couldn't agree more, to be honest. He taps his thumbs against the steering wheel, pulling into her drive-thru. She quickly presses her lips into his cheekbone and he returns in like. Before she leaves, Asha’s hand stills at the handle, briefly turning to him. 
“By the way did you do that thing I asked you?” 
“Fuck,” he heaves out, letting his head drop. “I did, but I forgot it at home. I’ll bring it later tonight, promise.” 
“I’ll be waiting with bated breath, Joel Miller,” she grins. “Who’s looking after Sarah?” 
“She’s staying at her friends' tonight. Girls' night. She forced me to bake brownies.” 
“Never pinned you down for a chef.” 
“I’m not. We burned the first tray.” 
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You're feeling unreasonably happy. It’s a welcomed feeling, a soft tingle that starts from your toes, blossoms across your skin, and ends at your lips, forming a sheepish smile. You’re leaning against the doorframe looking at the now-empty room. You and Tommy had spread newspaper all over the floor, both of you wearing your scrappiest of clothes. 
Tommy opens a can of paint and starts mixing it with a wooden stick. 
“What are you doing that for?” 
Tommy turns to you, a grin on his face. "Well sweetheart, we can't just slap this paint on the walls. We need to mix it thoroughly to get the perfect consistency. This ain’t like one of your paintings."
You tilt your head, your eyebrow raising, an amused smile blossoms over your lips. "First of all, we do need consistency too. And what's the perfect consistency to paint a wall? It’s a wall, shouldn’t be that hard."
Tommy dips the wooden stick into the can and lifts it out, letting the excess paint drip back into the can. "It should be smooth and creamy, not too thick and not too thin. You don't want it to be runny, or it will drip all over the place, but if it's too thick, it won't spread evenly."
He starts stirring the paint in a circular motion, his wrist moving in a steady rhythm. The sound of the stick scraping against the bottom of the can fills the room, creating a soothing hum.
"As you mix the paint," he continues, "you should periodically lift the stick out of the can and let the paint drip back in. That way, you can see if it's the right consistency. If it's too thick, you can add a bit of water to thin it out, and if it's too thin, you can add a bit more paint."
You nod, taking mental notes. "Got it. Smooth and creamy.” 
Tommy grins. "Exactly, creamy is preferable. It responds better."
Your cheeks heat up at the response. Something about the way he rolls his tongue over the words make goosebumps rise on your skin, a tender shiver coursing through your body. With a soft shudder, you wrap your arms around yourself. 
“When do you think Joel is coming over?” 
“Don’t know. I think he’s with Asha.” 
“Asha,” you repeat, no emotion behind the words but still, you feel the corner of your lips quivering. “Do they get along well?” 
Tommy shrugs and slowly gets up, “I guess. Joel isn’t really the type to kiss and tell you know? And Asha…well, I guess it’s safe to say she’s pretty much the same.” 
“Basically perfect for each other.” 
“I mean, I probably wouldn’t go that far,” Tommy answers, scratching the back of his head. “Being so similar ain’t always a good thing.” 
Silence follows and you can vaguely hear a car pulling in next door, must be Joel. Thoughts wildly swirling in your head, you want to take this opportunity to ask about Sarah’s mother, something Joel never talks about, and also something Sarah never mentiones. You lick your lips, nails digging into your forearms. 
“Does it bother you?” 
The question takes you by surprise, you blink before answering. 
“Excuse me?” 
“Does it bother you that he’s with someone?” 
You try to keep your shock to a minimum. Tommy’s gaze reminds you of the yellow gaze of a hawk, piecing, overly observant. You swallow and let out a laugh with a desperate need to lighten the heavy air circling you both. You shake your head, walking up to Tommy, you give him a gentle pat with the back of your hand. 
“Why would that bother me? I’m just making conversation.” 
Tommy’s shoulders relax, dropping substantially. You’re surprised you hadn’t noticed how tense he was before. 
“Sorry, I was just thinkin’ too much.” 
Before you can answer a loud knock startles you both. “Must be Joel. 
“You go, I’ll open the rest of the cans.” 
Joel looks out of breath when you open the door for him, his chest heaves and he staggers forward, bracing himself by holding both knees. 
“Didn’t mean to be late,” he says. “But I brought whiskey.” 
“Is that why you went to your place first?” 
He closes the door behind him, “You heard that?” 
“Saw the lights.” 
You notice a magazine in his hands but fail to see the title, it’s rolled up. In the other he has the bottle and you take it from him, heading to the kitchen, he follows. 
“I also had to pick up somethin’ I promised Asha. I’m meetin’ up with her after this.” 
Your chest tightens and you roll your shoulders to ground yourself before reaching to get three glasses. “Isn’t that going to be late?” 
“I ain’t five.” he answers with a low chuckle. “But yeah it’s late but she has work to do and I promised you lot I’d be here.” 
“You didn’t have to come. You can go.” 
You wince at your own wording. It definitely came out harsh, no question about it. Taking a deep inhale, you feel the coolnes of the kitchen counter under your fingers, holding on to it. Joel’s presence looms near, his hand touching the small of your back. He’s not holding the magazine anymore. 
“Are you alright darlin’?” he asks with a hint of worry. He drags his fingers up your spine, a sudden heat coils in your stomach. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m happy to be here, you know that.” 
“I do, sorry,” you mutter, fingers grasping two glasses before pulling away. “Tommy’s in the room, making the paint all creamy and stuff.” 
“He’s doing what now?” 
When you look at him all the happiness from before comes surging back, he has the most horrified, flabbergasted expression you’ve ever seen. The first hints of laughter come out in short bubbles, and as Joel continues to stare, you burst, loud, chest-rattling sounds of joy clawing out of your lungs. His shocked expression shifts into a happy one, a grin playing at the side of his lips. 
“I keep tellin’ him to stop sayin’ that,” he clicks his tongue. “I keep tellin’ him ‘saying smooth is enough’ he never listens.” 
“It did make me laugh a lot though, so maybe it’s not so bad that he says that.” 
“If it made you laugh it definitely ain’t a bad thing,” he answers, taking the bottle and heading toward the room. “I love hearin’ you laugh.” 
You force your legs to move despite wanting to stop and stare behind him as he disappears through the hall. First the kiss on the cheek, and now this. Blood pools under your fingernails, confusion makes your head spin—but you still continue to walk. The thoughts that began to form quickly disappear when you enter the room, you see Joel leaning over Tommy. 
“Why do you still use the word creamy?” he asks, hands in the air. “Why?” 
“It’s a fun word,” Tommy answers, eyes finding yours mid sentence and winks. 
Your mind races but you smile anyway. Tommy’s bizarre question from earlier must’ve riled me up, you think, stepping inside. There’s no logical reason why Joel dating Asha would bother you, he doesn’t belong to you, hell, you’re not even that close. You’re just acting up because him and Tommy are the first friends you made when you moved here. Just some friendly overprotectiveness, that’s all, you would act the same if Tommy was dating someone. 
You nod as a response to your thoughts, yes, you definitely would act the same. 
“Are you possessed or somethin’ what’s going on with you?” 
You flinch at the question and turn to Tommy, he has that familiar lopsided smile, eyes amused. 
“I’m good, I was just thinking of something.” 
You don’t miss the way Joel looks at you, worry crossing his face, but you act as if you didn’t see him. Taking a deep breath, you slap your hands together. 
“So, where do we start?”
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The room heavily smells of paint. Toxicity is slowly inhaled through your nostrils, burns your throat, and swirls in your lungs. You feel slightly queasy. Joel is sitting across from you with his legs outstretched and hands palms pressed into the newspaper-covered floors to keep himself upright. Tommy has his legs crossed, he leans forward to grab a piece of chocolate. And you. You have his jacket thrown above your shoulders, the night chill settling easier now that the room is empty and the walls wet with paint. 
While Tommy leans to grab the piece, his shirt rolls up his waist, you notice a tiny, crooked bullseye tattoo with two circles and a dot. Fascinated by this new discovery, you poke it, and, essentially, him. He flinches, giving you an almost offended look as he turns around. 
“The hell are you doin’?” he covers the patch of skin with his hand. 
“You have a tattoo.” 
It’s a statement. Joel gives you two a crooked grin as he takes a sip from his glass. Tommy raises an eyebrow, a small dimple forming on his right cheek as he smiles. 
“So? Just because I have a tat doesn’t mean you can poke me.” 
“Sorry, I just didn’t know you had one.” your lips crack a smile. “It’s cute.” 
You notice the soft flush coloring his cheeks, but you swiftly ignore it when Joel speaks, his voice low and scratchy from the late hour— and from inhaling the paint, probably. 
“Tommy had the bright idea to be a tattooist when we were in high school. He begged for a kit every year for his birthday, and one year I actually managed to get together a bit of cash to buy him one of them shit stick and poke sets.” 
“Awww, that’s adorable,” you grin, playfully shoving your shoulder into Tommy’s. The younger Miller shook his head, averting his eyes from his brother. “I’m assuming you got a tattoo too, right Joel?” 
“No.” 
Tommy scoffs at the sudden denial, he accusatorily points the piece of chocolate at his brother, then shoves it into his mouth, “Come on now, don’t be shy. Show off my masterpiece.” 
“Some masterpiece,” he grunts, rolling his eyes. “But fine.” 
You’re too stunned to actually notice the small patch of inked skin when he lifts his shirt, your mouth dry as sandpaper. He also has a crooked bullseye, a bit darker in shade compared to Tommy’s. The shape is right above his ribs, to the side of his torso. Some part of you wants to touch it as well, to follow the round pattern with the tips of your fingers but you fight the urge. 
“Cool,” you say unintelligently and he releases the shirt, covering his skin once more. You turn your head to Tommy. “Why did you stop?” 
He shrugs, “I don’t know. I kind of just did.” 
“Could be because you decided to dive head first into a war.” Joel says, with a fresh sounding bitterness. 
Tommy’s shoulders raise, his brown eyes a shade darker with the glare pointed directly at his brother. Family is never easy, no matter how close or loving. You know that Tommy is riddled with regret much like your own brother, though at least Tommy had the sense to get out before falling in completely. You place a hand on Tommy’s thigh and squeeze, your heart breaking instantly at the way his eyes soften when he looks at you. 
“If you decide to ever get back into it, I’d be happy to draw you up some designs.” 
“If that means you’re gonna get back into drawin’ again sure, I’ll get back into tattooing. I just need to find that old set.” 
“You’re not using me to experiment again,” Joel grins. “Just sayin’” 
Getting back into drawing. Seriously how long has it been? Has it been long enough that it was even obvious to Tommy and Joel? You had done a couple of sketches, not really anything riveting. The end product always resembled either a dark hole or a dark room of some kind. It was like a manifestation of your thoughts, complicated, scratchy, overlapping. A sea of gruesome lines. 
For you, painting has always been about expressing yourself in ways you couldn’t imagine. It could be a purple cat staring into a well. A city in ruins standing at the edge of a leaf. Sometimes it could be as simple as a girl in a hallway, threading upon a red carpet. Right now is a perfect time to express yourself. The pain, the void. But you can’t bring yourself to lift a brush or a pen. It’s too much. No image is clear enough for you to put on a canvas. Despite how complicated it looks, you feel that in the end art should be simple to make. Your hand should move in fluid motions, it shouldn’t be a struggle against waves of fear. 
“Hey,” Tommy touches your cheek, for some reason, you lean into the touch and the same fingers slide to the back of your head, giving your scalp a pleasant scratch. “Are you good?” 
“I was just thinking,” you answer, eyes momentarily finding Joel. He looks stiff as a rock. “I miss painting.” 
“Then paint,” Joel says. “What’s stopping you?” 
“Myself. I didn’t have this problem before but now I feel stuck. Everything comes to me all at once and all that combined results in an empty canvas.” 
“What if we gave you something to draw?” he asks, earning a confused look from both Tommy and yourself. He smooths his thumb over the corner of his lip. “Like, a single thing. Maybe it can ease you in.” 
“Did you have a suggestion?” 
“A butterfly.” 
Your eyes widen at the prospect of it; a creature with beautiful wings, something that could be any shape or size. A tiny thing that was an embodiment of elegance in most cultures. A god in some. You can imagine patterns above fluttering wings; orange, purple, pink. You’re reminded of fairies dancing and leaving behind fairy rings, you see a blue butterfly flying above into a blue sky that is paler in comparison. 
“A butterfly,” you repeat, your lips feeling numb. Only then do you notice that Tommy’s fingers hand slid to your neck, cupping it gently. “Yeah, I can do that.” 
“Sarah loves butterflies,” he remarks as if reminiscing a pleasant memory. “I’m sure she’ll love whatever you make of them.” 
And just like that, a sharp melody cuts through the conversation. Joel looks down at his phone, eyebrows raising with slight surprise and worry. His eyes snap to you both. 
“Speak of the devil,” he says, getting up. “Sorry, I’ll be right back.” 
He disappears, leaving you and Tommy alone. Sleep starting to make its way through the cracks of your reserve, you allow yourself to lean into him, resting your head on his shoulder. His hand gently glides down from your neck to the small of your back, a comforting touch. 
“Do you like the color?” he whispers. 
You stare up at the ceiling, a soft light lavender gives the room a dream-like state. Your eyes shift back to him, a soft smile tugs at your lips. 
“I do,” you hum. “But I think we should paint one of the walls a nice blue.” 
“Blue?” he asks. “Why blue?” 
“It reminds me of butterflies.” 
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You stare blankly at the white door in front of you. Both you and Tommy were taken aback when Joel asked you to come over after he brough Sarah back home. She refused to talk about it. And She asked for you specifically, Joel managed to learn what the issue was then. She’d gotten her period for the first time. 
Which is why you have a pack of pads, painkillers and the last pieces of chocolate. 
To be completely honest, you’re nervous as hell. It’s ridiculous really, considering Sarah is only fourteen years old. But alas, here you are, staring at the door with light filtering through the bottom gap. You’d told Joel to wait downstairs, and Tommy had offered to tidy up the room and throw out the newspapers. Right now, you’re regretting your decision of making Joel wait downstairs. 
Sucking in a deep breath, you knock on the door twice. A weak sound barely reaches your ears. 
“Come in.” 
Sarah’s laying on the bed, curled up into a ball with her back turned to the door. Your throat tightens a bit. You don’t quite remember what your first period was like, but you know it must’ve been rough. It’s not easy to go to the bathroom and suddenly see blood stains all over your underwear. Briefly, you wonder if Joel ever talked to her about it. Did it come as a shock? They teach what periods are in school right? 
Tentative, you make your way to the bed and gently sit at the foot of the bed. You notice her wincing a little. 
“Are you alright?” 
“‘T hurts.” 
“I brought you painkillers,” you inform. “also a bit of chocolate.” 
“I don’t want chocolate.” 
“Tell me what you need then.” 
“It was so humiliating,” she snaps, stretching her legs a bit but still refusing to look at you. “Everyone was there, well the girls, and I didn’t even notice it first. Sally did.” 
You don’t know what entices you to do it, but you place a hand over her ankle. She clams down for a moment, takes a deep breath. She shudders. 
“It was awful,” she chokes up. “They didn’t laugh or anything and it makes me even more upset that my first reaction was to call my dad.” 
“That’s normal,” you answer, rubbing soothing circles into her clothed skin. “These things are difficult, your hormones are all over the place—” 
“Gross.” 
You can’t help but chuckle at that, “Yeah it’s pretty gross. I’m just trying to say that it’s normal to call your dad and I’m sure your friends will understand.” 
“You’re too optimistic.” 
“Am I?” you tease. “First time I’ve heard of it.” 
Sarah sits up and pulls her knees close to her chest. She seems calmer now, more level-headed like her usual self. She holds your gaze, you could almost see a reflection of yourself in them. She’d been crying. Joel’s heart must’ve shattered into a million pieces. 
“Is it always going to hurt this bad?” 
“Kinda, yeah. I’m not going to try and bullshit you by saying it’s a beautiful thing. It’s not. But,” you offer her the last bit of chocolate, and she takes it with a small smile before plopping it on her tongue. “You’ll learn how to navigate it better. Just know that whatever you’re feeling, no matter the age, is always okay.” 
“So I can still call my dad when I’m like…Fifty?” 
“I’m sure he’ll be happy to pick you up wherever you are.” 
She snorts, “If he’s alive.” 
“That man has the stubbornness of a mule. He’ll come back as a zombie if he has to.” 
“That would actually be kinda cool.” 
You smile as she thinks about it, her eyes looking up to the ceiling. Meanwhile, you take a peek at her clock, 2 AM. Time sure does fly. 
“You should take a shower,” you say, turning back to Sarah. “And here, I brought you some pads. Do you want me to show you how to use it?” 
She shakes her head, “I’m good. Thanks by the way…I…appreciate it.”
“I’m here whenever you need me. I’m only a knock away.” 
“Isn’t that supposed to be a phone call away?” 
“I don’t think that fits the whole neighbor theme.” 
Before you leave, you notice a butterfly hanging from her window. A small smile touches your lips. 
It’s blue. 
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“Is she okay?” 
You’re not at all surprised when you see Joel with his head between his hands, elbows painfully digging into the kitchen counter. The circles under his eyes seem a shade darker, the white of his eyes stained with red. 
“She’s alright don’t worry. She going to take a shower now, and use the pads I gave her. I also brought her painkillers that she might want to take before bed,” you had unknowingly brought the box down with you. You place it in front of Joel, his gaze drops. His lips move slightly as he silently reads the brand. “There isn’t much in there you should buy another one tomorrow.” 
“Alright,” he answers, letting out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I’ll buy you a box too.” 
“No need, you’ve already done a lot for me. Helping your daughter navigate the wonders of womanhood is the least I could do.” you answer with a heaping amount of sarcasm in your tone. 
“I’d be lost without you, neighbor.” 
“I wouldn’t go that far,” you grin and rest your hands on top of the counter as well. “You could’ve asked Asha to talk to her if I wasn’t around.” 
His face falls, a sudden chill settling around you both. He shakes his head, the crease between his brows deep. “She specifically asked for you. Besides the thing with Asha—” 
His words come to a sudden halt as if he doesn’t know how to describe the situation. Tommy had said that they were similar in character, you wonder if Asha is better at expressing her thoughts, you can’t imagine two people having the same struggle being together. 
Joel suddenly takes your hands into his own, eliciting a soft gasp from the back of your throat. 
“She asked for you,” he repeats again. “And I wouldn’t trust anyone else with a matter this sensitive.” 
His hands are warm but his fingertips are cold. With an overwhelming need to touch, you smooth your thumb over the mountains of his knuckles, dipping between the valleys and climbing uphill. He seems to have the same need. You can see the turmoil in his eyes as he leans closer, lips an inch away, he holds your gaze. A moment worth painting, you think, the suspense, the aching need, to be forced apart. Unlike you, Joel doesn’t explore the depths of your skin, so you continue to do so for the both of you. 
Your breath is lodged in your throat, a lump. You turn over his hand, tracing the lifelines and vanished marks of his skin. His pulse is fast under the pads of your fingers, the vein like a river overflowing across his forearm. You stop at the wrist, only your eyes allowed to continue the journey. 
Staring at his skin, visions of what Sarah’s mother must’ve looked like flash before your eyes. You wonder if she saw the same things that you did, you wonder what possessed her to leave all this behind—the scarred skin, the soft voice, the dark brown eyes, the daughter, the home, the life. 
Then you’re abundantly made aware of another’s presence when your eyes follow the slope of his right shoulder and see a darkened mark on his neck. Asha has been with him more intimately, you wonder what she sees when she looks at him. Is it the same as you? Does she see the sadness lurking under his skin? The worry of never being able to be enough for those around him? Does she understand what he feels? 
Do you? 
“I should go,” you exclaim, pulling away your hands like they’ve been burned. “Let me know if she needs anything else.” 
You’re halfway to the door when you feel his fingers circling your wrist, not enough to physically hold you but enough to make his presence known. You hear the words spilling from his lips ‘wait’ he says, ‘let me walk you over’ but it’s too late, you’re out the door, throwing yourself into the chill of the night. 
It’s too much, it’s too sudden, it’s too bizarre. 
Your fingertips are still tingling with the sensation of his skin underneath yours, the soft hairs, the tiny bumps littered over. It reminds you of the smooth feeling of oil over canvas, all you want to do is press your palms and spread your fingers, touching him, you want to feel everything. 
Tommy’s waiting on the porch, he gives you a look. “Is Sarah alright?” 
“She’s fine,” you say, a bit breathless. “She’s…yeah she’s going to be fine.” 
“Good,” he nods. “Anyway I should head back home, I cleared up the newspapers and I’ll come back for the cans tomorrow.” 
“Okay.” 
His mind seems to be whirring because he doesn’t notice how slowly you’re speaking, he doesn’t notice the frantic beating of your heart. Tommy nods to himself, and leans in, you feel the brush of his lips against your ear. 
“See you tomorrow, sweetheart.” 
His lips are on your cheek, soft and wet. He smells of cigarettes and paint, but something sweet lingers below the surface. Your heart drops, your stomach churns. The feeling disappears as quickly as it came. Before you can say anything, he’s already at the end of the three steps you have. 
“Goodnight,” Tommy calls out. 
You watch like a deer in headlights as the car moves away, the red light slowly disappearing into the distance. You touch where he had kissed. It wasn’t the first time, but it feels different. It reminds you of when Joel kissed you, a similar feeling. The only difference is that instead of stopping time, you feel like you’re drowning in it.
Then you realize. 
Tommy has feelings for you. 
You clearly have feelings for Joel. 
And you think Joel might have feelings for you too. 
Your fingers twitch, butterflies flutter wildly both in your stomach and in your head. 
You head inside. 
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You trudge into the bedroom, the scent of wet paint clinging to your skin like a suffocating blanket. You had brough along with you the magazine Joel had left on the coffee table. Sitting on the bed, you flip through the pages, but the content is dull, littered with construction jargon that is foreign to you. 
Just as you're about to give up on the magazine, a photograph falls out from between the pages, landing on your lap. A photograph, you deduce, picking it up from your lap. It feels fresh, glossy, and slightly uncomfortable to the touch. You gaze at the image, and it takes a moment for your brain to register what you're seeing.
Every ounce of blood is drained from your face, all that heat pooling between your legs. your eyes go wide. 
It’s Joel. 
Half of his face is out of frame and he’s shirtless but you recognize him. Saliva floods your mouth. It’s not a very neatly taken picture, probably time adjusted so he could pose, which explains the slight blur of the background. His jeans hang low on his hips, unbuttoned, and his fingers disappear beneath the waistband, hinting at what lies beneath.
You trace the way his muscles are firm under his skin, the softness of his stomach, the faint trail of hair leading down to his navel. 
The faint sight of the bullseye tattoo on his ribs solidifies to you that this is indeed Joel. You’re lightheaded. When he said he stopped by home to pick up something for Asha you hadn’t realized that this would be it, a suggestive, nearly nude, photo. Now you just feel stupid for assuming he could be into you, clearly, he and Asha are both comfortable with each other enough for stuff like this. 
You continue to stare, the blood rush loud in your ears. You memorize every curve, every little detail of his body. The small scars littered across his chest, the unsure hint of a smile that’s mostly hidden, the pebbled nipples due to the cool air of the room. You want to see what lies under his pants, you want to see the rest of him and engrave that into memory. You want his body to burn yours, make you into something beautiful—make you into art. 
You sneak your hand between your legs, one hand still propping the photo up. You never actually masturbated to a picture before, mostly videos or just your own imagination. There’s something…interesting about it. Your imagination is more vivid somehow as you look at the picture, you can almost feel the warmth of his body blanketing yours, those thick fingers circling your clit and slipping inside. 
A soft moan breaks from your lips. You feel blood heating your cheeks, your skin incredibly warm and head dizzy from staring at him. You imagine having him in your mouth, your tongue teasing that sensitive spot right under the head of his cock. You think of the sounds he’d make, how guttural they would be. 
You arch your back as you imagine his thick cock pressing into you, he pulls you closer to him. His hips move in a circular motion, pushing deeper and deeper into you as you moan in pleasure. His hands grasp your hips and he pulls you closer.
Your eyes flutter open as you imagine his lips on yours, tasting the sweat that is dripping from your skin. He flicks his tongue, exploring your mouth and sending sparks throughout your body. His hands move up your back, slowly tracing your spine until he reaches your shoulders. You feel his hands slide up around your neck as he pulls you closer, deepening the kiss.
Your breath hitches as you feel the coarse hairs at the base of his cock rub against your clit, sending waves of pleasure through your body. You reach your hands around his back, pulling him even closer as his hips continue to move against yours. Your pleasure builds, and soon you let out a loud moan as you feel yourself cresting over the edge.
You imagine yourself collapsing against him, panting softly as the pleasure slowly ebbs away from your body. You feel the imaginary warmth of his embrace still surrounding you. It’s painful almost. Feeling him when he’s not here. Your heart hurts, chest heaving as you struggle to breathe. You take a sharp inhale, shaking your head. 
Tears blur your vision as you place the photo back between the pages of the magazine. 
983 notes · View notes
mandoatsea · 8 days ago
Note
Not to be the little gremlin obsessed with Chappell Roan BUT… reader thinking Logan is too cool to want a proper relationship with them, so when things get physical they insist things are just “casual” in order to protect themselves from getting hurt. But secretly you’re in love with each other, so honestly, neither of you want things to be casual at all… (mutual pining my beloved) please & thank you!! Love you!
ahh hi hi avo I LOVE this song, and this request, and you - I could so see this being a situation that Logan and reader find themselves in. I had so much fun writing this, I hope you like it! (I added a couple winks to the lyrics as well.) 💖 thank you so much for sending this to me!!!
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casual | variant!logan howlett x f!reader
1.2k | posessive!logan, fwb(???), use of alcohol, mutual pining, references to oral sex and PiV.
It doesn’t matter that your heart flips when you look at him. It’s Logan. It’s just casual.
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It certainly feels like a dream, watching your worlds collide.
The heft of Logan’s palm fitting into your friends as he shakes their hand - the five of you squeezed into your usual booth in the corner of the bar.
You’d say the past couple weeks had seemed that way, as well. A late-night dose of bravery spiraling into something so raw and intense and real, that you feel like you could choke on it.
Even now, there’s heat in your cheeks as your eyes flick his way. Something stirring in your chest at the way his other arm slings across the back of the booth almost possessively.
But like all dreams, there comes a moment where you have to wake up.
Because you know it’s not.
Because you know your feelings aren’t requited. How could they be, when it’s Logan you’re talking about?
A legend.
A lone wolf.
Someone important, someone whose name carries a weight. Who saved the world, from what Wade tells you.
And you’re - you.
So even if you know what he looks like beneath that flannel, know what his mouth feels like when it presses against yours - what he sounds like, when he comes - you know that this is nothing.
It’s casual. A distraction, for both of you.
And if that’s how it has to be, then you’ll do your best to show him you’re cool with it.
You just hadn’t expected this moment to come so soon. It had been a genuine offer, your “you wanna come with?” when the hour rolled around for your weekly trivia night.
Not thinking his head would cock to the side. The look he’d give you - that arched brow, as his fingers splayed out across your bare hip. Still crowded together on your couch, sweat-dewed.
The “sure, sweetheart” that slipped out.
And now you’re introducing him as your friend - that quick history you’ve perfected - rattling off the “you know, Wade from work’s roommate” even though Wade didn’t work at the dealership anymore.
He had made enough of an impression that none of your friends had forgotten.
And you ignore the bitter jolt in your stomach, when all Logan does is hum.
You think you must have assumed right.
He doesn’t correct you.
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Logan quickly solidifies himself as an asset to the team. He gets a lot of the history questions that you’ve always struggled with. A shy quirk of his lips when your friends cheer, and you get swept along with it.
His hand ending up on your thigh along the way. Squeezing, when you chime in. Almost as if forgetting - it’s easy to, when you’re having fun like this.
A low rasp in your ear, when the host takes a break.
“Lemme get you another.”
You can only nod, as he eases out - taking your glass with him.
It only takes a second, before MJ’s hand slaps down on yours.
“That’s Logan?” She hisses - leaning forward, “The one who-”
“Yes.” You cut her off, ignoring the sideways glance her boyfriend gives you.
You never should have told her about that.
Had a hard enough time climbing into your car without thinking about it, yourself - the way he had man-handled you in the passenger seat. Thighs thrown over broad shoulders.
Fingers twined in his hair, as he made you moan in the dark parking garage. Too eager to make it up to your apartment.
She frowns, the words petering out, “But I thought-”
Your teeth worry at your lower lip.
“Yeah. Me too.” You sigh.
MJ knows how much you like him.
Really like him - butterflies, and everything. How it’s been years since you felt this way - slipping from you during that rushed phone call at 6 am the morning after your first night together.
Her eyebrows raise, and it’s a look you know well.
“It’s, you know.” Your hand waves, “It’s casual. It’s-”
It’s easier, this way.
Maybe if you keep repeating it, it won’t hurt as much when he moves on.
The look she shoots you is one of pity, just as a drink is set down in front of you.
Your teeth clicking against each other as the words are swallowed. Forcing a smile as Logan slips back in the booth next to you.
The next round starts a moment after, and it’s a welcome reprieve.
You miss the way his eyes narrow, as yours fix firmly on scorecard in front of you.
But you don’t miss the way his hands stay folded on top of the table, for the rest of the night.
You suppose he must have remembered where he was.
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“You wanna come up?”
He lingers outside your apartment door, hands jammed into his pockets. That look from the bar is back - all dark, narrowed eyes.
A low sound in his throat, close to a scoff.
“That what you want, sweetheart?”
Your eyebrows raise, “Yeah. I do, I mean-, that’s what we usually do, right?”
He’s spent just about every night at your apartment. His things still scattered across your room. A leather jacket slung across the chair that’s tucked against your vanity.
Logan’s lips twist at the edges, eyes dropping.
“Suppose we do.” Those hands slip from his pocket, crossing over his chest, “Back when I thought we knew what we were doing. But now…”
His head shakes. A tick in his jaw.
Your stomach drops.
“What do you mean?”
Logan huffs, “The bar, baby. Is that how you really feel?”
A step closer, until he’s caging you in. Voice dropping, rough and low - near gritted out.
“Does this,” His fingers flick between your chest and his, “feel casual to you?”
Your heartbeat gallops behind your ribs.
“I thought-,” You manage, “Thought that’s what you wanted.”
He’s too close, now. The dip of his head, those eyes burning in their shades of brown and gold.
“Now, why would you think that?”
You swallow, “Because you’re you, and I’m-”
“You’re?” He prompts, but you go silent.
A sigh, when your head dips.
Unable to say it out loud.
“Driving me crazy all night, you know that?” He rasps, “Giving me those looks. Calling me your friend, when we both know your mouth was around my cock this morning.”
A low rumble in his throat, “When I still taste like you.”
Your breath hitches, as his hand thumbs at your jaw, tilting it up.
“Lemme ask you again.” His mouth is close enough now to ghost against yours, “Is that how you really feel?”
Your head shakes.
“Wanna be yours.”
It’s breathed out, just as he kisses you.
His body pressing flush, as your hands twine around his neck. A palm around the back of his neck, pulling him closer as he deepens it.
Desire thrumming to life inside you, washing out the dregs of insecurity that you’ve been carrying this whole time. Melting them away completely with the hungry sweep of his tongue, the way he swallows your soft moan.
There’s a flash of white when he finally leans back, with the curve of his lips.
“Good.”
His hand closes around the knob. A rough twist, as his another arm wraps around your waist.
Walking you backwards, into the dark.
“The let me show you exactly how I feel.”
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thank you so much, again!! 💖
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mandoatsea · 9 days ago
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Fave dork
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mandoatsea · 9 days ago
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the hand that feeds you
— “i take care of her, s’all.”
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johnny mactavish x f!reader
cw: 18+ work - minors dni; age difference; daddy issues (kinda the central plot); cooking as a love language; slow burn but in high speed; a breath of angst; power imbalance; canon divergence - regular/non-military life au // amazing divider by @gildui! // 6.5k words
extra notes: this is a very self-indulgent work. there are holes in the plot, 100%, so ignore those holes pretty pls </3 also ik this is more of a captain johnny-verse but midway through, i started projecting so i might’ve written him incorrectly and im really sorry for that!!
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being roommates with johnny is not as weird as it is; he’s amicable, at first, then full blown nice when days passed. he’s not loud, per se, but there’s always a constant chatter streaming from his space, like he physically can’t sit still through the silence which is great because you don’t fare any better with the stillness too, so reminiscent of how it was in the suburbs.
you moved to a neighbourhood just skirting past the inner city just because it’s a lot cheaper. but even then, rent was always high and your little box in a rundown complex wasn’t going to sustain you forever even if you wished it would. then, an opening in johnny’s townhouse was posted, almost half-price than whatever is up in the market, and it’s great despite your skepticism. hell, it’s more than great — it’s lifesaving.
your shitty job at the bookstore really can’t cover much of your expenses anymore, and sure student loans and the grant is great, but the growing debt makes you wince so it’s whatever at this point. you’re about to graduate soon anyway, pooling work experience from volunteering and club organizations, and it’s not like you can even go back to how it was.
(underway to law school, primed up before your father’s scrutiny but the burnout got to you before you could even write the LNAT. you realized that being a barrister wasn’t really what you wanted so you changed programs, midway, and switched to children’s education.
god, the disappointment in your pa’s eyes was so big, you knew to pack your shit before he could even kick you out.)
it’s… tough.
god, is it tough. none of your old friends and colleagues could stay in contact, which you don’t hold against them because most of them, by now, have graduated and entered law school. you’re straggling about two years back because of the switch in programs, and everything’s gone too tight. your budget. your social life.
your dating life.
johnny often distracts you from it all — he works in downtown, in one of those high-rise buildings often reserved for limiteds or holding companies, and has to travel off the city every three months. he makes good money, he said jovially, and you know it’s a nudge as to why your portion of the rent is cheap in the first place.
when you finally bit the bullet and asked why he put up one of the rooms in the market, johnny just shrugged and said he needed someone to house sit but sort off permanently. said something like last time he left, the pipes bursted and he couldn’t really fly back to help with the repairs.
it’s great being with him. he’s bright and bubbly, but also dependable in ways you never really thought about. like—
well, it’s all mundane things so listing them feels embarrassing, and it makes you feel as though you’re a touch-starved damsel and johnny just so happened to be the next older man to give you any attention and his time. but you can’t help it. god, you can’t help preen at the way he exists beside you.
he’s just so… beautiful, is what it is.
rugged and charming and loud and filling. the townhouse is too big for the two of you, but johnny makes it work. makes it feel like the two of you just fit into each other’s spaces.
early mornings are spent with him lilting between english and scottish, his exhaustion plastered onto him even after he’s downed two cups of coffee. he bumps his hip onto yours when he ambles out to prepare for his work, grumbling something like good morning and how’re you. afternoons are more lively and productive; it’s of you coming back from campus at six in the evening only to find him in the kitchen, fixing up dinner. it’s always something fancy and rich in flavour; something he always eats with wine on the side.
you, uh, you never thought he could actually cook, let alone feed himself well, but there he was, always a plate ready for you too like it’s expected that you’ll eat dinner with him. like spending time with him was just natural — the sky is blue, the ocean’s deep, and you and johnny fall into each other like there is an invisible string pulling you close to him.
it’s a beautiful change of pace, and there are more days now when you can breathe in a little easier, and you know it’s all because of johnny. it’s all him who pulled you out of your slump and out of that darkness and gave you the room, literally, to grow.
he’s beautiful, but you’ve said that already, haven’t you? he’s just… so good to be with.
then, johnny began picking up and bringing some home.
.
the first time it happened was shocking, really.
you had an early morning, something that’s so murky now in your memories so you’re unsure if it was anything uni related or work related, just that it was five in the morning and you were clambering downstairs as quietly as you could. you rounded the length of the hallway from the platform to the kitchen when you ran into someone.
“steady,” she’d said, voice hoarse and loud in her shock too.
you yelled, jumping, arms swinging because was there an intruder, and it took johnny physically subduing you for you to calm down. looking back now, you burn in embarrassment, but then you had been so worried, your body wound up so tightly in your fear.
“shh,” johnny had murmured with that wry grin. “s’just me, lass.”
your eyes danced between him and the brunette — pretty even in her rumpled shirt, with long legs and a small waist — trying to understand what was going on. you are sure johnny had told you before that he wasn’t seeing anyone so who—
“your girlfriend?” she asked johnny, turning to him with her lips pursed and her brow cocked up.
the question settled in your stomach, doing wonders to your already-fragile psyche. you’d just spent hours thinking about johnny and what he meant to you; what living with him meant. how it eased up something carved within the trenches of your being, like you’d always been waiting for someone like him.
the question was a reminder, like prickling you with icicles, leaving you to navigate the swoop. but johnny had laughed, nothing mean but so dismissive that you felt the curl of shame brandishing from the base of your spine like johnny was laughing at you.
“oh, nah,” he replied, arm still slung over your shoulders. “she’s sorta my ward, yes? i take care of her, s’all.”
that’s all. you’re nothing more to him but a ward. a tenant. not even a friend—
she hummed, then leaned over to kiss johnny, her eyes still drawn to you like she’s watching, waiting for a reaction, and when she got none, she trudged to the door. you and johnny watched as she bent down to slip in her shoes, some stilettos with red bottoms, before wordlessly disappearing into the darkened morning.
“pretty,” you chirped, trying to break the tension of whatever that was.
johnny laughed in that way that surely crinkled his eyes, only to steer the conversation away by asking why you were up early. you remembered what you had to do and you dived to the kitchen in a flurry, chatting about the deadlines and due dates — so it was a school thing — and johnny just watched, silent, humming, eyes still curved in his glee.
you left no sooner than his… paramour did and, for a while, that was that.
but your semester is coming to a close and your schedule is changing, but so is johnny’s. he’s coming home later and later, but always seemed to offer apologies in the form of easy-to-microwave meals for your dinner. they’re still homemade, probably cooked up in the morning before he left for work, and you’d messaged him to say that he didn’t need to worry about you. that, sure, you came to him amidst financial struggle, juggling work and school, and trying to decide if you would have to starve this month because of rent, but you can cook. for yourself and for him too.
johnny’s face did a terrible thing when you mentioned that in person, the first in a while after things got hectic.
“what,” you bit out, embarrassed.
“nothing,” he said, blinking like he was realizing things he shouldn’t. “s’fun doing things f’r you.”
then he clamped up, spooning soup into his mouth, some of it messily dribbling into his chin. it’s not like you were doing any better, with how your throat closed up at his words, eyes going wide.
it’s been a thing, is what it is, but neither of you two have ever acknowledged that it’s a thing. it’s been a wordless experience — of johnny taking over things when it comes to the house because of course he will, it’s his home, but he always covers things for you too. things you’re sure normal landlords don’t really worry about, but not johnny.
there’s always extra food in the kitchen, extra blankets when the weather dips. there’s even a new cooling machine for the summer even though you know johnny’s room already has an installed air conditioning. he’s even changed the seats in the dining room because he caught you once hitting your hip after an all-nighter on a project.
then, he refurbished the den to make it your office.
“you didn’t have to,” you told him, mind racing at your savings, wondering if he was going to increase your rent.
johnny just shook his head with an almost fond roll of his eyes and clapped your back, arm hovering there. “s’all yers, hen.”
everything he did always accounted for you. so why the women?
they’re all long limbed and trimmed waist, with eyes that sparkled even when all you’ve seen of them is always within the poorly-lit hallway. they have voices that curl teasingly, breathy like they’re enticing johnny for one more night. and they’ve always, always, treated you like a—
like a kid.
a burden, almost, of johnny’s.
and, hell, maybe you are. johnny’s almost twice your age; he’s also already well-established in his career, some senior position that you can’t really follow but one he talks about with fondness. he’s got land rover-money, the car in his garage big and black and almost military grade, and it looks so expensive especially beside the crappy civic you were able to snag for a cheap price because it’s got about three-hundred-thousand mileage already.
you’ve got nothing to give him, other than the lousy rent payment that he doesn’t even really need but is just asking for courtesy because it’d be so weird for him to offer a room, or two now given you have the den too, for free. you’ve got nothing on your name, and if it isn’t pity that makes johnny care for you, then you don’t know what.
maybe his string of one-night stands are right — you are just a kid.
that maybe you really are still too wet behind the ears for the real world that you go running to the next person that could protect you from it, stumbling into his life and licking up every drop of his attention, mistaking his kindness for devotion. his care for love.
.
you should have known, then, that the thoughts would ripple, leaving you to feel like the days are unnavigable. obsession quickly took root, growing fangs, and it ensnared you; a vice noose at what had been a pleasant coexistence.
hell, you can barely stand being with johnny because of the jealousy. it’s a shameful thing, but a part of you thinks you deserve johnny more than the others do.
you tell yourself that nobody knows about johnny’s nightmares and the horrors that spill from his lips when it’s twelve in the morning and the two of you have hit the bourbon. you tell yourself that nobody knows about johnny’s aversion to the windows in the living room; that the reason why the curtains are a deep green is not to match the new plants he’s allowed you to fill up his home but because they shroud the panels more than the cream ones had. you tell yourself that nobody knows that johnny can sing; that he can cook a mean tomahawk; that he likes reading; that his wrists were hurting so he’s currently scheduled for a surgery; that he’s soft to you.
the women don’t know this johnny, you tell yourself, nails clawing at the hems of your chest. they don’t know him the way i do.
it’s a pathetic whisper. it’s so laughable. so juvenile.
they’re right. they’re right.
(you’re just a—)
“i don’t see you anymore,” johnny murmured one morning, when things have gone quiet again, a cup of coffee sitting on the counter while he watches you throw orange peels into the garburator.
he just got back from a work trip in aberdeen, his exhaustion loud on his face. his hair is overgrown, the bottom ends of his mohawk curling along his nape. he was there for over three weeks, skirting almost close to a month — the longest he’s ever been away — and you had tried so hard not to message. not to drop casual check-ins because you’re sure no tenant ever does that to their landlord, but johnny had remained just as friendly; asking things like if you wanted another potted plant, a monstera or a dragon tree, or if you still had that swiss chocolate he brought home as a gift, or—
the list of his questions grew, but you’ve given him clipped replies, not knowing how to act right anymore since your quiet realization. even the “thing” that you thought you shared with him had fizzled at the drop of the women coming-and-leaving, and you are left to pick up the pieces.
it’s not like you’re broken or ruined or angry. god, no you aren’t.
but you feel unsteady, like now that you know that you liked him more than he liked you, you forgot how to breathe. how to live without that looming burden because your affection is nothing but a burden.
what will johnny do if he finds out? you can’t afford a new place to move into, not when you’re so close to graduating, the finish line just about to graze your very fingertips with how near it is. money is still tight, and johnny has already spoiled you rotten. has shown you how it is to live a comfortable life. and if he learns of your feelings, you would lose this. more than anything, you would lose him.
so you detached yourself from the noose, curling into yourself and using his work trip as a way to move on.
jesus — move on, huh? like there was a ‘you and johnny’ to even move on from. like there was anything there to read. like there was anything there to pull away from; twitching fingers drawing back into the spaces of your ribs, tucking yourself away from his warmth.
“i’ve been so busy, john,” you muttered, just as tired.
“yeah?” he said, still light. still jovial. “let me cook something nice for ye, huh? reward yer hard work and all.”
“i can’t.” you swallowed down the prickle lodged in your throat, eyes ducking away to avoid seeing his. “i’ve got a meeting with the club.”
(you missed the way johnny’s smile dipped.)
“oh,” he said.
you shrugged, internally wincing at your weak attempt at being normal, before gathering your thermos and your messily-wrapped sandwich. johnny was still standing by the counters when you turned around from the sink, his bulk so close to yours in ages. it had been so long since you could just reach over and feel his warmth; feel the soft pudge of what once were hardened muscles.
he’s looking at you with such sad eyes that it’s jarring to truly see because he’s looking at you like—
like he’s losing you.
“i’m gonna…” you trailed off, not really knowing how to end this truly awkward interaction.
“yeah, f’course,” he croaked out. “take care of yerself huh, lass?”
“thanks.” the smile on your face felt more like a grimace. “see you.”
he said nothing more after that, his eyes still searching; still furrowed like something’s changed and something’s happening, and it made your stomach drop because please. please don’t let him notice.
but johnny just watched as you went, his coffee all forgotten.
(something bloomed in the soft press of your heart, flickering like a young ember. you’ve never realized how longing could feel like your mouth is stuffed with cotton.)
.
johnny hasn't picked up since his return from aberdeen.
they’re getting a new firm so the shuffling has been brutal, leaving johnny to clamber out at five in the morning before coming back home when it’s pushing 11pm. the scruff on his face is becoming more unkempt, salt and pepper becoming more intense, but even then, he’s never looked more ruggedly beautiful as he is now.
it’s like he’s aged years and you shouldn’t be reacting so strongly to the change, but looking at johnny now makes you ache in a different way — core throbbing, throat parched and eyes stinging as you watch him. you’re so drawn to his gravitational pull, unable to detangle yourself now that it feels like he’s more back in your life than he ever was.
and you know it’ll end up hurting you. that you’ll go back to isolating yourself at the drop of a new girl in the house, the smell of her chanel or bvlgari perfume filling up the crevices that you’ve dutifully dusted every saturday morning while johnny’s out for a run. he’s made having casual lovers a cycle, one that you cannot blame him for because johnny doesn’t like you back.
but johnny’s been so attentive to you these days. he’s been a hovering presence even when he looks like he’s one blown wind away from passing out in his exhaustion, his warm hand always on the small of your back as he walks you to the door before chirping a hearty, “kick ass, bon!”
he’s back to fixing up food for you, like that blip in your schedule got him all creative because now, it’s not even just dinner. you’ve got breakfast waiting for you in the microwave, and packed lunch already in your bag, carefully tucked beside the manila folders and plastic envelopes for your capstone. it’s like he’s making up for something which is dumb and wrong because now, you’re all swooping stomach and prickling lungs.
“yummy?” johnny asked, catching you wriggling in excitement at the flavour bursting into your tongue.
your cheeks tingled, feverish, before giving him a shy nod.
he huffed, something so achingly fond, and rested his chin atop his crossed arms. you didn’t know what to focus on — the scruff on his face or the hard lines of webbing veins spilling from beneath his folded sleeves. then, he crooned, “good. that’s good.”
you ran upstairs to your room, throwing an excuse about finishing up your paper, before locking the door, and feeding your cunt two fingers to satiate the burn. the stretch was delicious, raw and sweet, and you humped your wrist, trying to douse the flames burning you up.
you thought of johnny, of the way he looked and how much nicer he’s been; of johnny and the way he was so kind to you, so caring like you’re up in his priority list again, overtaking his busy schedule and the firm restructuring, and his needs.
your orgasm felt like a ripping of reality, your mind splintering at the edges as you’re stretched thin. it felt like you’ve been pulled taut, then released with a resounding snap. it felt euphoric, like the explosion of something intoxicating. something wickedly addicting.
you knew that this could never be unmade. your affections had grown their tendrils, curling past the quiet admiration and spiralling into something unforgiving. into something greater than yourself.
“fuck,” you had rasped out, eyes prickling with tears as shame rushed into your chest. “fuck.”
you didn’t need this. you didn’t need any of this.
but it becomes a cycle — wash, rinse, repeat.
johnny continues to go unshaven; continues to pour his attention to you. and you soak it up, needy and soft, unable to turn away with your tail tucked between your legs. you fall back to the ease of how it had been, hip bumping his, morning coffee shared in the silence, dinner a filling affair once more. all that’s changed are the lingering looks, the resonating touches.
how johnny’s wide hand falls to the small of your back more often; how his fingers just slots against yours every time he passes you your cup; how his eyes rove over your face, always searching for something you dare not hope for.
the last time he flicked his eyes down to watch the way your tongue lapped at your lips, swiping away at the extra cream, johnny’s pupils had constricted before a quiet groan rumbled from his throat. your thighs had quickly clenched close as heat exploded in the pit of your belly, spreading like wildfire through your veins. the pressure on your nub made you hiccup, like a whine dragging itself from your trachea, and johnny had snapped his eyes back to yours so quickly, it made you heady.
“bon–”
“i have to go,” you murmured, clamouring to shaky legs.
you fucked yourself to a deafening point once more, ears ringing as you squirted, the gush of your slick pushing past your fingers. you had to gnash your pillow cover to muffle the moan rumbling from the base of your throat, trying desperately to be good. to not be heard. to be better.
but johnny’s burning gaze on your lips was seared into your memory, blazing on top of everything, and you imagined—
god, you imagined.
the way he’ll take you — beard rough on your chin, thicker fingers spreading you wider, reaching deeper, before finally filling you up with all of him, bullying the whole length of his cock until he bottoms out.
you pressed on your stomach, dizzy, thinking about how johnny would hit that far. you know he would. the women he’s slept with have told you, anyway, in passing, describing how he was in bed with dreamy sighs like they weren’t still reeking of sex and johnny’s aftershave.
(you still wonder why so many of them were mean, their noses tipped up every time they saw you. they were the ones that johnny chose, the ones who were fortunate enough to have been his lover, so you wonder why they still sought you out like you were competition.)
“johnnyyyy!” you moaned, loud and long, your fingers prodding at your walls, and you knew that you’d regret the wrangled cry later, but you didn’t care then, too busy swimming in the aftermath of your orgasm.
.
but johnny heard it anyway.
he told you that he had heard you. 
it happened so quickly — one moment you were bent over the espresso machine, fiddling with the levers with bleary-eyed attempts, then the next thing you knew was that johnny was crowding you, trapping you between the warm bulk of his body and the counter, his eyes furrowed so deeply which made the lines on his forehead run much deeper.
“whu’?” you asked, blinking tiredly at him.
johnny just did this shaky breath that rattled his whole body, like he was propped up by a couple of sticks instead of his whole mass. the mood shifted with that weak inhale though, and you turned to fully face him, ignoring the beeping machine because johnny was still looking at you with those eyes.
the ones that made you feel seen, read, and laid bare before him. like he could weave his eyes past the fabrics of your shirt to peek into the very jagged shards of your heart and see the cross that you’ve been carrying. like he knew things about you that he shouldn’t.
“johnny?” you prodded again, finding his silence alarming.
“yer too young for me, m’eudail,” johnny finally rumbled out, voice thick and deep.
and it’s—
what.
your mind was pressing into your skull, trying desperately to link your synapses together; for the fog to clear and for your coherence to rise above the pull of drowsiness, but johnny was faster. like now that he’s said the first words, the rest just follow, unstoppable in their force and in their meaning.
“i told myself i couldn’t,” he murmured, still breathing shakily; gaze still too fragile. “that yer lookin’ for nothin’ like me, and that yer just tryin’ to get out there with yer career.”
he lifted a hand, fingers twitching, before balling it back down to a fist.
“told myself i’ve gotta let go. found a way to cope and shit.”
johnny took another ragged breath in, and it startled you into gulping one of your own — you didn’t even realize that you’ve held your breath as he spoke to you, your chest clenching tightly as your mind began to link the passageways together, filling you in on what he wasn’t really saying.
“but carin’ f’you was so easy. christ, it was even delightful, hen.” he chuckled, something that was somewhat raw and pained.
you licked at your lips, blinking wide eyes open. johnny tracked the movement, his nose flaring like you’ve done something more than a subconscious thing, his shoulders going taut.
“i like doing all sorta things for you. liked seeing y’eat what i cooked; liked seeing y’use what i got f’you. liked watching y’come home to me. to me.”
a soft sound echoed between the two of you, and it took you an embarrassingly long time to realize that it was a breathless whimper that petered out from the base of your throat. you didn’t even realize that you’ve curled into yourself, almost like you’re trying your best to shrink before johnny, and johnny crooned.
callused palm cupped the round of your cheek, his thumb swiping just underneath your eye. “told myself yer too young; that surely yer looking for someone closer to yer age, but bon, i heard y’last night.”
you startled in his hold, a quiet gasp piercing through the heat. johnny’s lips danced with mirth.
“s’right. heard a loud thump against the wall and ran upstairs, all worried, but guess my surprise, yes? y’were moanin’ my name so loudly, it’s like y’left yer door open.”
“johnny, i–”
“tell me,” he said, moving closer, his chest pressing against yours. “tell me t’stop, bon, an’ i will. but y’ve got to tell me. y’ve got to push me away.”
you looked at him, your eyes trembling at what he was laying out thickly, and your throat going parched at the blanketing desire rippling from him. there were so many things you wanted to ask, but his breath was tickling the bridge of your nose, dancing so close to the bow of your lips, and your heart ached.
desire coursed through you in waves, dribbling from the cup, and you lurched forward, chasing after his lips.
johnny melted into you. his hesitant touch turned greedier, more possessive, mapping your body and pulling you closer into him. his mouth devoured your own, gulping down the pleased little sighs and keens spilling from your lips. he kissed like a man starved, but you weren’t any softer; all nippy and desperate, fingers digging into his hair and fisting at the thin strands.
it was feverish, almost to a boiling point, and you needed more.
god, you needed more.
“johnny,” you mewled when he pulled away just enough to slide his damp lips along the cut of your jaw. “johnny, need you.”
“christ,” johnny sounded so wrecked, his voice rumbling deeply from where his lips were suckling on the soft curve of your neck. “i’ve been dreaming of this, mo luaidh. i knew i shouldn’t but yer so sweet to me and i– i wanted.” he said that word like it was dirty; like he’d been fighting tooth-and-nail to suppress it.
it made you tremble to hear how johnny desired you just as much. he had always felt unobtainable; always danced too far from your grasp and was always bigger than what you knew you could handle — his lovers had always looked divinely; pretty, yes, but fierce in their own right like they knew how to live without johnny; and you know they could, because they didn’t need johnny the way you do. they didn’t look at johnny like you do, like he hung the stars with those thick and aged hands of his.
but as you stood there, feeling every word punctured onto your skin, you couldn’t help but begin to cry, the tears springing from your eyes to slip down your cheeks. johnny rubbed your back, soothing and gentle. 
“i wanted t’take you – make y’all mine,” he whispered. 
you hiccuped, shaky from the weight of your hunger, and nuzzled close. your hands fell from fisting his hair so you could claw at the sharp corners of his shoulder blades, feeling the muscles there rippling, all taut when he bent forward and kissed you.
“please,” you began, feeling your mind thinning because you wanted more. more. more. more. “i can be– johnny, s’always been you. nobody else but you.”
you tugged him away, cupping his jaw and forcing him to look at you. and god, johnny looked so devastatingly beautiful, his eyes all furrowed and his cheeks all flushed, and his lips spit-sheened.
“fuck me,” you whispered, tired of dancing around.
he groaned, something that sounded so pained, before he was tugging you with him, up the stairs and skirting past your room and into his. 
you’ve never been in johnny’s room before, just as he had never been in yours since you moved in, and until now you still don’t know what you had been expecting upon walking in, but the smell of johnny wafting through was almost gut-punching. he smelled so close, like he was everywhere — surrounding you from the ground-up, dousing every pore with him until even your mouth felt full.
and johnny, he smelt like home. 
there were no more words uttered as he stripped you off your pyjamas, sure fingers making their way down the buttons, unlatching them from the hemmed slits. you watched with heavy eyes, blinking slowly like everything had been wrung out of you, leaving you pliant and soft. johnny hummed, appreciative, and mapped kisses from your heaving chest, teeth nipping at the fat, before moving on, sprinkling every expanse of your skin with such reverence. 
your hands were balled to your chest when he reached the jut of your belly, his chin hovering just above your crotch. johnny flicked up his darkened eyes at you, asking silently.
you gave him a nod, not trusting your own voice too.
johnny’s eyes had turned into slits, pleased, and hefted himself up just enough to be able to fit his hands on your hips and tugged your pants down. you shivered, the warmth in his room not enough to suppress the winter chill, and it made you buck into him. johnny comforted you with a quiet shh, rubbing his palm on the pudge of your thigh in soothing circles.
you don’t know why that touch was what did it for you, but soft sobs finally spilled from your mouth, scrunching up the desire into something undeniably frail. johnny didn’t startle though, like he knew that you had been wounding up to this tipping point, and instead continued to touch you tenderly, almost like if he could, he would cradle you close. 
“i love you,” you said, sniffling, because that was the crux of your vulnerability, right?
you love him. god, you love him. 
you’ve loved him since the day he sat you down for dinner and told you that you’ve got nothing to worry about, not anymore and not with him around. you’ve loved him since the day he flipped the den so you can have your own space for work; don’t mind the fact that he didn’t know if you were going to even stay, just that he insisted that you deserved that room either way. you’ve loved him since that swiss chocolate, since that cup of coffee, since he’s begun filling your painfully lonely days with his care. 
you’ve loved him since and now—
“oh, mo graidh,” johnny breathed out. “i love you too.” he kissed your thigh, scruff ticklish. “gu siorraidh is gu brath.”
you wanted to ask what that meant but johnny was already moving, sitting back up to strip out of his own shirt. you trailed your eyes down his body, capturing your trembling lips between your teeth at how breathtaking he was — soft with fat but still heavy with muscles, fuzzy with hair with the smattering pooling just underneath his belly button before trailing down to where they were hidden underneath his pants. 
you twitched before finally braving enough to reach out and brush your knuckle over the indents of his softened abs. johnny hummed, something that curled with appreciation, before covering your hand with his and holding it there. 
“all of me s’yers, hen,” he said with such finality that you felt it settle deep within the marrows of your bones. 
you nodded, emotionally spent and johnny lilted something else in scottish, so soft that it was almost a croon. you let him manhandle you — pushing your hips up so he could slot a pillow under for your back; you were so malleable to his touch as he took over, bending once again for a kiss while his fingers danced past the laces of your panties and into the damp heat of your pussy. 
you moaned, eyelashes fluttering when he pressed one in, so careful and slow, but you were so wet that it slid in with no resistance, gobbling it up knuckle-deep. johnny had groaned like he could feel your rising euphoria, before nosing along your temple as he wiggled the finger around, stroking at your walls. you wondered if he was going to tease but then he was pulling it out, only to plunge two in the next thrust, curling and stretching, and oh—
oh, ssss’good.
you don’t even remember how long he’d been spearing you with his thicker fingers, rough and long and reaching far, far deeper than you could with your own, but you laid there, sobbing, feeling your slick slip out, pooling, making a mess of your thighs and his sheets. johnny had moved from suckling on your neck to taking a nipple in his mouth, teeth softly gnashing at the bud. you felt like you were on fire, burning from your core, aching for a release. 
“cum f’me, m’eudail,” johnny groaned, breathless himself, his cock poking underneath his boxers, the fabric all wet from where his tip was, leaking pearled pre-. “let me see you.”
“johnny, i’m gonna– i’m–!” you squealed, legs jumping, squeezing johnny’s sides as you jolted, hips twitching at the bloating ecstasy. johnny just pushed down on your thigh, not letting up with the pace of his fingers. he was fucking you so hard that his hand’s slapping against your skin, his palm grinding down on your clit just right, and the pleasure sizzled into something biting. into something that was almost painful.
it was catastrophic, pulling you into two directions. johnny’s everywhere — his scent in your lungs, his fingers deep in your pussy, his mouth hot and wet on your tits, and like this, like this, you felt yourself breaking. 
ripping—
then, your orgasm was punched out of you. 
your senses had gone awry — throat throbbing as you cried out, your eyes going blind as they rolled into your skull at the final curl of johnny’s fingers. white noise filled your ears, and it was like you were submerged underneath water, wading through the crashing tides of your climax.
you came back to johnny peppering your face with soft kisses, whispering something you couldn’t decipher past the croon of your name and something like you did good and so beautiful. he’d already pulled his fingers out, and used both arms to cradle you close. you felt so empty — god, that wasn’t even his cock, yet — but your body thrummed pleasantly, almost like the itch was finally scratched. 
“johnny?” you puffed out, voice all scratchy and weak. 
“i’m here, bon. i’m here.”
you hummed, curling into his chest, head pillowed by his arm. you wanted to ask what about his own euphoria, but johnny seemed so content just laying there with you, not really desperate or needy, so you let it go, losing the battle against your drowsiness before finally slipping into a quiet sleep. 
.
johnny’s there for your graduation, carrying a big bouquet of only eden roses. you didn’t even know that those particular ones were expensive until someone from the graduation party oohed and aahed to their friend. 
your cheeks burned when their friend chirped, “well someone’s clearly loved.”
you know that what they said would have had johnny agreeing loudly if he was allowed in the lineup because he is never one to be shy about what he feels; or not anymore, anyway. he loves so fully and openly that you still wonder why it took the two of you so long to get together, but the days since then had just been kind and filling that you have long forgotten how it was to not be with him. 
they’re going to call your name soon, and your stomach swoops, excitement and anxiety mixing in a dizzying tandem. 
you’re graduating with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a diploma in early childhood education, and this is not where you thought you would be when you first started university, but it’s the happiest you have ever been. and sure much of your poli-sci courses were scrapped when you changed majors, and that’s also a lot of money wasted, but you have three job opportunities lined up already and it’s like the seismic shift in your life had finally corrected itself. 
(your mom said she’s sorry that she and your pa couldn’t come, but you’ve stopped longing for their acceptance and told her it was fine.
there’s a date saved in your calendar, though, for a brunch with her and that was enough.)
you ducked into johnny’s arms when the graduation ceremony ended, careful of the bouquet he’s holding. 
“congratulations, bonnie,” he says, a hearty laugh rumbling from his chest. “christ, i’m so, so proud of you.”
you never pegged yourself for a crybaby, but tears begin to pool in the corners of your eyes at the weight of his words. 
“thank you,” you reply, soft and raw, and honest. 
johnny pulls you in, his lips warm as they’re pressed on your forehead. 
and this, just like this, you know things will only get better from here on out. 
1K notes · View notes
mandoatsea · 10 days ago
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in order to not succumb to sex negative conservatism you have to accept that people will get off to things that are upsetting to you. and you cannot assume anything about what they have or have not experienced, what they do or do not believe, and how they act based solely on what gets them off. even if it's extremely confusing and disturbing to you. there are people who have only ever had heterosexual vanilla sex in missionary with the lights off, who actively contribute to more real world harm than your average fetish artist. kink is not a reliable source of information on someone's moral standing. it just feels good to think that way.
27K notes · View notes
mandoatsea · 10 days ago
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Busy, Dying. Part 1;
Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader
Summary: In an in-between place called his life, Joel Miller is alone. In search of a cure. In need of a miracle. In want of God.
Can I interest you in a cure for loneliness? She'd asked him in a language without words. Taking it is the easy part. Letting her go is impossible.
-OR-
an a/b/o soulmates AU
Rating: Explicit 18+
Content Warnings: No Outbreak AU, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Soulmates AU, Infidelity, Cheating, HEA!!!!!, Mating Bites, Knotting, Heat Sex, Breeding Kink, Group Therapy, Social Experiments, Basically puppy training for unsocialized Alphas, And by God that man will be house trained by the time she’s done with him!, Complicated family dynamics, Discussions of self harm, Depression, Existential Angst, Author returns not with a whimper but with a KNOT, I wrote this in a very unserious state of mind beware 
A/N: Gray November, I've been down since July - but we're so back, baby. I’ve missed this so bad. I’ve missed you all, I won’t drone on and on. I hope you enjoy, and please talk to me in the comments. Update me on what I’ve missed, let me know how you’ve been and what’s happening in your life.
A great heartfelt thank you to all of my wonderful friends who so supportively cheered me on while I struggled to write this. Sincerely the best people I know. 
Love you all madly.
Word Count: 6.5K
Read on AO3
Part 1;
The old linoleum tiles are the most peculiar shade of puce, and Joel has realized that there is someone sitting at the back of the room who smells… strange. 
More brown than purple—an ugly color. There’s something about it that fascinates him.
The woman that is currently speaking tells of her husband; it’s the only tale she has to tell. She’s been doing it for weeks, and they all know it well by now. Older, omega, the woman, and at the latter and less comely stage of life. Most of them here can say the same. They usually give their names, those that get up to share—although it’s never a requirement when you attend, it is highly encouraged—the sharing, he means—but he never pays much mind to them—the names, that is. That’s not what he’s here for after all—to make friends. Although, he does see how that’d be the initial assumption. 
Joel Miller is here for something more specific.
Six weeks he’s been showing up to these things now, and he’s yet to take a turn. He tells himself he’s working up to it. 
What that specific thing is…he hasn’t quite figured out. He’s listening for it, though, and intently, even if he does skip over the names. It’s the details of what they’re telling that matter to him. The hows and intricate whys of what it is that brought them here today.  
Her youth had been spent on a drunk, the woman is saying—her husband—and he’d been cruel to her in those days when there was still currency to spend in the form of her vitality. Joel nods at the puce—yes, he thinks, that’s usually the way of it. But later, there’s more to the story she reminds her audience, he drank himself into a fit, and had never been right since. The cruelty had been taken away from the marriage after that, and she’d been put in charge. 
“But I wonder,” she says, “If sometimes I don’t miss it, the way he’d been,” —if the reason she was here now, with all of the rest of them that were just like her in their own unique ways, was that she’d been left lonely after her cruel husband had been exchanged for a sick one. 
Joel nods again and wonders what sort of face the woman wears as she confesses but doesn’t bother to check. No matter, he knows they’re the same. If not in designation, then in heart. 
It’s easy, that thing, he does it too, to wish for the bad. To want to hold on to it, the thing that hurts. Addictive, even, in some cases. Missing it is easy. 
It’s why he’s here. 
And it’s what they promise you. In their flyers and pamphlets, when they stand on the corners of streets talking people up wearing that look in their eye and that slouch in their step, when they smell it on you—or in the lack there of—a mate or a purpose.
Welcome to our meeting. We’re here to find the cure for loneliness. 
That’s what they promise you when you come here. 
It’d been that word: loneliness, actually, that had caught him. L-O-N-E-liness. There was something attractive about it to him. Not a label but a state. 
You see, it was like this: Joel had seen a therapist once, several years ago, against his will and at the behest of another, who’d said all the wrong things in all the wrong ways. 
“You sound depressed, Joel,” the therapist had told him. 
He’d worn horn rimmed glasses and had a shiny bald head he could see the reflection of the overhead lights in. And worse—the non-scent of a beta which told him they’d never understand each other in the ways Joel longed to be understood. He’d—not hated him, necessarily—but felt an immense apathy for the man; more so than the regular apathy he felt for most things in his life. 
“I don’t know what that means.” 
“Very, very sad,” was the official diagnosis.
Joel hadn’t liked the sound of the word. The label. He did not like that a word so succinct could be ascribed to him and all that had happened to him in his life. There was no word for it. It just was. 
But there was something different about a state of aloneness, which if attributed to himself, he could accept. He had been left alone, in ways. It was a tangible thing he could look around a room inside of himself and recognize. 
They’re meetings, is what this place is—encounter groups this coalition offers where lonely demi humans can come to congregate, discuss their aloneness, what had led them to such a state; their lack of attachments, connections, mates—alpha, omega. Held in the basement of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church on Newbury street, right between his shop and house, although they never talk about religion which he likes because he doesn’t believe in religion. 
God is still under review. 
He wonders if the Catholics wouldn’t have them. 
Sitting forward in his seat, the metal folding chair that always leaves his back aching something fierce, he presses his elbows into his knees to distract with alternative pressure. Focusing on his fingers woven together between his spread legs, he tries to pay attention to the man who’s stood up to speak now. Older than himself, late sixties, no children, no family, no nothin’; he’d run them all off. 
But Joel is distracted. 
The smell is stronger now. Stranger too. Something full bodied, but metallic like rust, astringent bleach, built in a way that forces saliva to pool heavy between his suddenly aching gums. A mask that sits atop something of a much different chemical architecture—that’s the strange part. 
Or—no. The back of his neck itches, and Joel lifts a palm to cup his nape, quell the sting, feel the tender mark. No. The strange part is not the illusion of the smell. What it is, actually, is that he’s fairly certain what he’s smelling is someone else's blockers. Something which he’s positive he’s never consciously noticed on another person in the thirty plus years since he’d presented as an alpha. 
He has, suddenly, the quite intense urge to peek over his shoulder, certain that he’ll be caught smelling things he has no business smelling. That there will be someone just there, breathing down the nape of his neck with accusation on their tongue—boo!
Silly. But he’d known today would not be a good day. 
It’d started off wrong. The milk had gone sour overnight, the check engine light had come on in his truck, all his socks were suddenly mismatched with not a single pair to be found, and his usual route to work had been waylaid by some freak accident. A tree split in half, one side into a house, the other into the road. Not a sign of lightning in the sky all night long. 
Perhaps he might be compelled to believe in God after all. 
Joel does not like it when things are out of order or out of the ordinary. His life was organized in a way that never caused him strife or excess. And it was not that he was stuck in his ways, only that he enjoyed his routine and disliked when things were not as they should be. And this—whatever it is he’s smelling, whoever—is not as it should be. 
The older gentleman, an Alpha too, is still speaking. He had a daughter, has, who no longer speaks to him. Won’t even take his money. He’d had a long career in government that’d filled him with greed and paranoia and a radical view of life that refused to align with the way young people saw the world now. Perhaps he’d tried to change at certain times, but he was old and set in his ways. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to change as badly as he should have when he still had the chance to. Happily stuck in the past. His wife had died, and his daughter had gone away from him. Too tired of his mediocrity as a father to give him another chance. 
The man sounds like he feels sorry for himself. Like he thinks himself the victim, and this one, Joel does look up at. He looks old and worn down, heavy beer pouch and thinning hair and sagging jowls. A sad and lonely man. Joel wonders if that’s how he looks to the other people in this room, as well. 
“No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good.” Joel blinks, looks at him more closely, tries very hard to find similarities between themselves. But no—not quite right, not the thing he’s looking for. Their plight is different. This man is not alone, he’s got his weakness to keep him company. 
The one thing Joel had fought like hell to keep out of his repertoire of issues. He’d run from even the possibility of it as soon as she was dead, left Texas straight for the Northeast and from thereafter, everything he’d done, he’d done with a staunchness of character. If at the end of it, that staunchness was made up of apathy or numbness or dissociative fury, well, then at least he wasn’t still that man who’d been too weak to save his daughter. 
That counted very much in Joel’s book. 
An overabundance of cold numbness, little anger, everything a static haze—an abstinent winter. That was his whole life. But then, look at him now, he was here, wasn’t he? He’d taken that brochure handed to him on that last warm Tuesday weeks ago as he’d headed back to the shop from lunch. 
Hello, sir. Could I interest you in a cure for loneliness? The young omega had said. 
It’d started like anything—an experiment or a desperate ploy. The monotony had been steady going the past few years, getting older, colder. He’d grown hard and solitary around his wound, loneliness spread like a fungus, and he’d longed for any sort of change. 
“A cure…how?” The terrible shrink had come to mind.
“Oh, nothing to fret over.” The young man had a nice smile, Joel remembers. Kind and straight toothed. Honest in the way that a stranger knocking on your door to sell you a Bible seems honest. “We call it an encounter group. People come, share, tell the tales of their designation and their lives. In the end, the result is different for different people. Some move on to a second step if they need more. Others find what they’re looking for just through the connection of sharing. But no matter the result, you’ll see, you’ll be cured. Promise.” He’d winked, smile deepening, giving him an appreciative once over at the end of his spiel. Joel had blinked back, surprised, confused, but curiosity peaked enough he’d obsessed over it for three short days before he’d found himself stepping into the molted incense smell of the belly of a church so dimly lit he was sure not even God peaked in this sad space any longer.
“It’s that easy?” Joel had asked, childlike in his throat-strangled hope.
“That easy.”
It seemed the smile had been honest enough to sell him the Bible. 
The scent insists upon itself as the older gentleman finishes up, and Joel’s nose tickles with whatever it is it’s whispering at him. He wants to get up and walk out, run away, but suddenly his gut is tight and hot, and he isn’t sure he can actually stand up without disgracing himself in front of all these people. A wash of agonized heat moves through him, confused at what’s suddenly happening to his body. 
“We have a newcomer today sharing for the first time,” Maria, the woman who leads the group, says at the front of the room. “Everyone give her a warm welcome, it’s her first day and already she’s brave enough to jump on up here.”
There’s the shuffling of bodies in their seats, a cleared throat, the man sitting behind Joel breathes so loudly he thinks he’s gotta have some sort of medical condition, the puce turns more hideous by the second, and his own heart is beating so hard in his ears the rush of blood is dizzying. He feels each thump of the thing against his breast bone in some sick imitation of a fist begging to be let out. 
The new voice begins as nothing but a murmur. 
An introduction—he misses the name. His breathing goes shallow, he’d tip over in his seat if he didn’t have both boots planted firmly against the puce. The voice gains strength and with it, Joel wishes he’d been paying attention from the start. He didn’t get to hear her name. 
It’s a girl.
She’d run away from home in the spring of her sixteenth year to join the opera, she tells them. Had come upon the city in roaring spring and thought the rest of her life would be exactly like that, pure novelty in bloom, nothing like what she’d left behind. And was deeply disappointed when the reality was nothing such. 
And Joel hears it, that disappointment in her voice at what she’d not been able to find after searching for it so religiously. This is what makes him look up at her. This, unlike all the others, he thinks he can relate to—just by the sound of her voice. The search for a thing lost which can never again be found. The fruitlessness of it all. 
At that first vulnerable, terrified glance, she’s already staring at him, eyes catching like hooks. 
He blinks once, twice—color—is sure he can hear the movement of his eyelashes passing through the air, the stick of his lids meeting—color—bright. This is it.
That wash of heat turns into a blaze, every single bead of sweat blooming on his brow is a tell evaporating into the ether. This is what he’d sensed from the start of the evening. Maybe even from the moment he’d seen that split maple. 
“My mother always said I needed to be stronger, bolder, not so sensitive.” She looks away from him now. “I grew up in an angry house where you had to fight tooth and nail not to be overrun. Because of this, I left it at a very young age, and it was the greatest fight I could muster, abandoning that house of anger. I found myself something to bring me what I thought would be joy, a job and a city, and for a time, it was enough. But starting your lonely life so young…it’s hard.” After a pause of breath, “It’s been hard.”
“And it’s made me never want to have to—exert myself,” she says, searching for the right words, smiling when she finds them, and Joel has the urgency to smile back. “Now, I never want to have to be strong. I never want to have to try. I want to only be the way that I am. If that’s weak or sensitive or whatever it might be at any given moment, I don’t care. I don’t want to have to fight. I never want to be in an angry house again. I want someone who’ll see this in me and understand and never make me work for it, that they would give it to me willingly, easily, without me having to ask. Do you understand?” She looks about the room, and he hopes her eyes will land on him again, and even though they don’t, he feels she’s speaking directly to him. He nods, the hook of her temptation cast beneath his chin. “This is a fantasy. And it makes for a lonely existence. This idea of how I need it to be for it to be right—love.” She looks down at her hands folded atop the podium where they go to stand at the front of the group and share, and he wills her gaze to find him amidst the crowd again. “It’s so difficult. And this might seem very bad to you, weak willed, but it’s not. It’s only very honest. Which can never be a bad way to be.” That’s why she’s here, she tells them.
Finally, she looks back at him, and it’s that loneliness of two people amidst a crowd, facing one another, knowing themselves mirrored against the other and yet still disparate. There’s something indecent about the way she looks at him in front of all these people, the way he, in turn, looks back. A little bit like finding your own face on a stranger's body in a crowded room. Color rises to his face, and she gives him that same elusive smile from before. 
He’s the one to look away this time. 
As the crowd disperses for coffee and pastries after the last of the speakers, he searches for her. He needs to ask her name, feels as if he’s some blighted creature without it, swears he’ll never forgo attention during a meeting again if he can fish it out of her.
He finds her at the dessert table, Maria at her side and a hand at her shoulder. Something of a thank you is being imparted between the two women. The girl is saying she’s grateful for the welcome, grateful that they’d found each other. 
Joel has things to be grateful to Maria for, too. His brother, mainly. It’d been pure chance that Joel had met her here, that she knew Tommy also. She’d met his brother on a summer trek to Wyoming where they’d become friends and had kept in touch afterwards. The woman has a thing about her that ingratiates people by sheer force of will. Perhaps it’s that she’s an alpha, too. Perhaps it’s just the charisma and wide smile. The fact that she has a countenance that takes no shit from anyone, that makes demands of a person whether they’ve got any give or not. But whatever the case, they’d realize their connection through Tommy, and she kept Joel updated on his brother whom he’d not spoken with in many years. 
Watching the two women stand together and share that easy thanks that Joel so urgently owes, and yet which he cannot voice, he feels, suddenly, so angry. So awkward. So humiliatingly inexperienced. So unable to grapple with the pain of human contact, the fascination of it, the humiliating necessity. 
That decade old anchor weighing him in place and the guilt of even thinking of it as such. 
I feel decrepitly alone and odd, he thinks. And how strange, no? He was a normal man. He has a normal job. He lives in a normal house. Unexceptional in every sense. Everything in his life had been ordinary up until that one great tragedy. And then, as if none of the before had ever existed, it was as if everything afterwards was one great landslide of wrongness. The filth of it slinging mud all over his life so that nothing had ever been right after her. 
So that now he cannot even approach this girl whose name he needs to know, and Maria, to whom he owes the last surviving connection to his brother. 
As Maria turns to go, she gives him an encouraging nod, sending him into an agony of shyness. She’d sensed him hovering. 
The girl remains at the dessert table, perusing the pastries. He can see her fingertips dancing over the golden, sugared confections, before she settles on a plain, glazed donut. He watches the bend of her elbow, bringing it to her mouth and thirty seconds later, the empty hand reaching for a napkin. He can’t help the huff of laughter it draws from him. 
Watching the unknown creature with her back turned, he peers down the length of himself. Wood stain marred t-shirt, old work jeans and scuffed boots, he’d come straight from the shop. Looking back at her, she seems perfectly packaged and pristine. The two of them, different as chalk and cheese. He tells himself he shouldn’t do it, turn around and go, leave her alone, as he steps up beside her at the table. 
Immediately, there’s the heat of her skin, the smell of her shampoo, and he realizes, and it’s silly because it should’ve been obvious from the get go, she’s an omega. The epiphany, not that she is one, but that he’d been too stupid and oblivious to notice, leaves him feeling vulnerable and angry. 
Any sort of hello that’d been coming alive on his tongue immediately dies. And he’s about to make a run for it once again when she speaks up from beside him, “Would you like a donut?” Her small fingers are dancing over the pastries, searching once again. “I haven’t had one yet,” she lies, “I can’t decide which looks best.” 
The dancing hand pauses over a golden brown puff pastry, seemingly coming to a decision, when she turns to look up at him. The scent of her isn’t just shampoo, not just the blockers he’d shockingly picked up on before, sharp, burning his nose, it’s her skin now, too. The now dry sweat from hustling under her coat to make it to her first meeting on time salted along her limbs. Hot, sweet almonds. The shocking vermillion of the morning’s split maple comes to mind. He can smell her.
“A puff pastry?” She presses, quizzical crook to her brow at his silence and glower. “I think you really need something sweet. It’ll make you feel better.”
He wants to agree, to say he also thinks he needs something sweet. All he can manage is a short grunt because she smells…indescribable. Honeyed musk, something heady, like she herself had just got done baking, straight out of the oven and full of sugar into his waiting mouth. 
That earlier anger, it kicks up a notch. Why isn’t he fucking saying anything? 
She shrugs, as she lifts the puff pastry to her mouth he finally manages sound. 
“You stink.”
He doesn’t know when he became such a liar.
A pause, mouth open, straight, white teeth ready to bite into the fluffy sweet bread. He can see her small, pink tongue, and it makes him go a little woozy.
He might be losing his mind. 
She’s got elegant eyebrows that shoot straight up her smooth forehead. The look of her skin is glorious. “Excuse me?”
Now, there seem to be too many words spilling out of his mouth. “You need better meds or somethin’. Need to sort your shit out. Can’t go gallivanting about the world smellin’ like that.” Oh god, shut up. 
“Excuse me!” She takes a huge bite of the pastry. “I do not gallivant,” she shoots back, mouth full of sugar and Joel goes hot everywhere. “What is wrong with you?” she demands, the pursing of a prim little mouth as she chews, eyeing him maliciously. 
He hasn’t the damndest clue. 
She is not wary of him in the slightest, which in turn tells him he needs to be wary of her.
Another large bite, inexplicably she extends her free hand towards him—potentially going into shock and entirely out of his depth when he takes it, the vulnerability of tendon and muscle soft beneath his strength—offering him a firm shake. She gives him her name. 
In that moment, she has a look about her that tells him she’ll bite back if he isn’t careful, even if she hurts herself in the process. 
And now he knows you. 
-
“We might as well acquaint ourselves if you’re going to insult me. Don’t you think?” Peering up at him, he’s tall, well over six feet, and broad shouldered. Older, distinguished, but in a rough way, hewn oak, gray. “Are you typically this rude? Or is this a special occasion?”
Incredibly handsome. 
“I’m being serious.”
“I do not stink. No one has ever said that to me, and my blockers are quality. It must be a you problem.” The puff pastry really is very good. And this man really is very handsome. Coming here today was a good idea. 
One of the girls from the theater had suggested it, handing you a pamphlet with Looking for the Cure for Loneliness? emblazoned across the top, and even though she’d done it kindly, any other person would’ve taken the implication as an insult. Hey girl! No offense, but we all in the company think you’re super weird and have you heard about this support group for losers? Kind of like Omegas Anonymous!
Those hadn’t been her exact words, and you hadn’t taken offense. After the initial agony of embarrassment, you’d warmed to the idea. You’d heard of groups like these before. Congregations of demi humans where one could come to find community or connection. Be it socializing or support for people struggling with their designations and all that they implied, they served their purpose. And anyways, you weren’t in a position to be nitpicky. 
It’s true, you’re alone. 
So alone, in fact, that even the people around you could tell. Strangers, coworkers, your roommate and her girlfriend. Like some noxious cloud of loneliness following you around virtue signaling the desperate need for love and companionship and understanding you’re so in need of. 
You increasingly saw yourself as a dancer on her toes, trembling delicately all over, vying desperately to survive to the end of the song. A monster with too many heads. A Cerberus of the richest caliber. 
Two or three would’ve been acceptable—heads—but you'd long surpassed that and moved on to something unrecognizable and unpleasant. Desperately in need of a solution. 
“Maybe you’re the one that stinks. Maybe it’s your upper lip.” And voila, the monster makes her debut. 
“My—” The rude alpha, obvious, that one, lets out a choked sound, a deeper wash of color immediately flooding his cheeks. You dip your head sideways, appraising him as you polish off your second pastry. He has pretty bone structure, masculine, and after he’s done choking and spluttering, he can’t help but laugh a little bit. You see it. 
Beneath a mouth that looks forbidding, perhaps even a little cruel, you can sense that he is not an unkind man. 
Yet you’re not so green that you can’t recognize the gnawing hunger of loneliness in others. There’s always a reason people find themselves in places like these. His face, edged with the weariness of age, makes this obvious. He has good reason for subjecting himself to this. 
Reaching for the lovely eclair you’d been deciding between earlier, you take a large bite of it. Almond cream and a thick layer of icing on top, humming happily as you chew while he stares at you like the three headed dog. 
You hold the dessert out towards him, offering. Palm up, he shakes his head no, slightly disgusted look on his face. 
“So. You come here often?”
He blinks. “Really?” Patronizing look on his face now. 
“Why not? I am actually interested to know if this is worth my time.”
He rolls his eyes. Oh, he’s fun. “Yes, I come here often. Every Friday, for the past two months just about.”
“And you like it?”
“Is this the sort of place one likes?”
“Oh, come on. You never know what you might find.” He watches your mouth as you finish the eclair, swallowing hard. “Anyways, I think the world is kind of over out there. Don’t you? Might as well make the best of it in here.” 
Thumb pressed against the edge of the table, he looks down, suddenly awash with shyness once again. A shy alpha, who’d of thought. 
“What did you used to do?” He asks, motioning at the crowded room full of chatting alphas and omegas. You wonder how many of them will go home together for a fuck after this. 
“When?” You ask, sure he means in lieu of this group, if you’d ever had another form of demi human community. 
“Before this.”
“Before this? Nothing.” Smiling at him, certain he isn’t picking up on your teasing. 
“Nothing?”
“Nope. I’ve always been here.”
“But— Don’t you…I thought...” He’s cute, shaking his head like you’re just too confusing to sustain. “You sing, right?” He pivots. 
“Sing? Me? Whatever made you think such a thing?” The sly look on your face goes completely over his head and slides to the rest of the sweets. If he wasn’t watching, you’d have another. 
“You said. You said you’re in the opera,” he gruffs back, looking visibly aggravated now. 
Such fun. 
“I’m a supernumerary,” you concede as you turn, making your way to an old relic of a pew along the far wall, tragically abandoning the desserts. 
He follows as you go, sitting a respectful distance beside you. 
“I don’t know what that is.”
“We’re the actors that fill the stage at the opera.”
“No singing?”
You shake your head, flirting with him. “I’m a wench, I’m a courtesan,” You bat your lashes, fingertips pressed coquettishly beneath your chin, “Part of a harem. I’m every woman you’ve never known. It depends on the opera.”
“I’ve never heard of that before.”
“I started as a stagehand when I first got to Boston. Worked my way up.”
“How’s it work? Lines or somethin’?”
“No lines. No anything. I’m a background actor—an extra, basically. If anything, I’m given some simple choreography direction, laugh, sigh, show fear, horror, shock. Whatever. I’m playing pretend without actually having to do anything.”
“No working for it.”
Your smile melts to blandness. So he’d been listening, then. 
“Did you want to sing?”
“No. I wanted to be a supernumerary.”
“Strange. I’ve never heard of that,” he repeats.
“You did say, yes.” Now, the smile turns auspicious. Everyone’s here for something. “What do you do?” Perhaps this is it for him. 
You eye the rest of the congregation, at the far exit, there’s a large alpha helping an omega into his coat. 
“Got a shop, furniture, woodworking and such.”
“You make things?” He nods. “Ah, a man of creation.” 
Sitting back to take him in, he’s got the beginning insinuations of silver speckling the dark hair at his temples, a well groomed beard, and large, intimidating hands. 
His small huff of laughter is bashful, tinged with something disappointed. “No, nothin’ that grand.” And he’s got an accent heavy at the ends of his words, not Bostonian. Southern.
“But you know, I wanted to say…”
“Yes?” You press when he loses his courage, leaning towards him, inhaling deeply. 
“Well, that I know what you meant earlier. Sometimes I can be the angry house.”
You blink once. Sit back. “I see.” 
“It’s hard work. I have to try every day at it.” 
Hard work being the house, or not? Two opposite sides of the same coin. 
“How do you stop yourself?” You cast a line, fishing for his character.
“Don’t know. Keep myself cold, I think.”
“That’s no way to be.”
“No. It’s not.” He sounds amused. You want to bite him.
Everyone’s here for a reason. 
“Ah, well. Perhaps that’s what’s brought you here then,” you say, twisting the toe of your sneaker against a scuff on the old hardwood, leaning forward on your palms wrapped around the edge of the pew. 
“Maybe,” he says, but a sort of pained, exasperated sound follows it. Your hung head turns to peer at the handsome face, and he’s already looking at you. 
There’s something animal afoot. Perhaps in terms of designation, sure, of course, like the rest of the alphas and omegas here. Your designations weigh heavily in the air. But also intrinsic to your two personalities. You feel you know him. That the two of you might have the same sorts of problems, desires. And as you stare at him, you think you may be equally measuring each other’s character, finding that similarity in one another. 
His eyes move quickly between yours, over your face, and you can tell that prolonged eye contact isn’t his norm.
He has the most surprising set of bright hazel eyes like river stones. 
Suddenly, you feel desperate to pull out a flicker of sexuality in the man, hear it in his voice. Sure, that with him, the experience would be entirely different, exhilarating. Perhaps a challenge. He seems to be more quiet and more patient than any other man you’d ever come across, but also more stern—taking in that soft mouth held so firmly. Far more remote too, by the far away look in his gaze. You want to see how he could be moved and what the sight of it would look like. 
“Maybe not,” he finally continues. “I’m looking for something, I think.” 
“Something like what?”
“Someone like me.”
“An alpha?”
“No,” he looks away, cringing. The word out loud seems a shock to him. “Did you listen to the woman at the start—missing the bad thing? I struggle…with that. Holding on, not letting go even when I know I should.”
You’re at an age now which sometimes makes it hard to realize or accept that what you’re living is your life. That it’s been time to grow up. That you have to remember to move forward when it’s your turn in line. 
Which is to say, that you understand him—the difficulties of knowing when to hold on and when to give up.
“Sometimes you hurt yourself because you don’t have anything else to do. Sometimes, because the alternative is much worse.”
“Holding on ‘cause there’s nothing else to do?”
“Sure. Or you’re used to it.” You’ll be gentle with him, you decide. He’s in need of gentle handling despite the stern face; not a puzzle so arbitrarily solved. And those eyes are still so bright, he doesn’t seem like he needs any more hardship.
“Don’t know why I’m tellin’ you this,” he says, accent heavy. 
“Well you did come here for a reason. Didn’t you?” Discreetly, you slide closer to his side, but he doesn’t notice. Apparently lost in the realization that perhaps this was what he’d come here for, to talk to someone, to have someone listen and relate. You’re almost positive he’s never gotten up to share with the group before in all his time coming to the meetings; doesn’t look like the type.
“I came here because I’m going to take better care of myself,” you tell him. “I’m going to try harder.”
“Harder at what?” He blinks as if attempting to come out of a dream.
“Everything. I don’t want to end up like my parents; drunk, angry, alone. I’m scared of it. I’ve avoided at least two of them.”
“I’m afraid of getting older,” the dream moves in his eyes. “That I’ll forget,” he says, but you don’t ask what.
All of a sudden, he seems very real. The swells of grief and loneliness moving through him so similarly, so close to the surface. 
Springing up, you turn to face him and he follows to stand too. You can hear the crack of his knees unfolding, and when he lifts his left palm to stifle a gruff cough, the band of gold around his finger is paralyzing. 
All of a sudden, he’d seemed like what you’d been looking for here too. There’s laughter coming from the church rafters. 
“You’re a widower?” He wants to forget, he’d said he wants to let go. 
Hadn’t he?
But instead, “What? No.” You stare pointedly at the ring, and he looks down at it also. “No,” he repeats. 
“So’re you looking for a fuck, or what?” You try and hold back the bite it comes with, but you can’t.
“No. No. That’s not what I’m looking for.” 
You don’t understand, impaired by your youth, you forget you’d chosen to be gentle with him. “Maybe it’s what you need,” you tell him, turning towards the exit before you can watch him cringe.
He follows at your heels, grabbing his coat from the hook by the doors before he’s stepping out after you into the fall blister. It’s cold and wet and glorious out. 
“Don’t you have a coat?” He demands.
“Nope.” You start walking towards Arlington Street and the park. 
“Did you walk here? It’s freezing out.”
“I did,” you turn back towards him, still moving, and he starts to follow. 
“From where?”
“Downtown.”
“Where?” He scowls at your uncooperation, the married man. Alpha. The truth was that he’d smelt strange to you too. Like no one ever had before. As glorious and shocking as the cold. Like if snow had a scent. Disappointment churns in your gut alongside the excitement at the sight of him stalking after you. 
“I don’t think you know it.” Your backward walk is interrupted as a hurrying stranger bumps into you, sending you staggering. Watch it, the Boston snark spits. The alpha turns to scowl, heavy boot forward like he’s half a mind to follow after the person you’ve just inadvertently assaulted. 
And it occurs to you, “You didn’t tell me your name.” How silly of you. You’d been so distracted you’d forgotten to ask, and what if you never see him again after this? What if you can’t muster the courage to come back again next week? What if he can’t?
“It’s Joel.” 
You think it sounds right. 
“I might—know it.” Where you’re headed to. You smile at the dog with a bone. The disappointment pulses. “Is it far?” He presses. You shrug, looking over your shoulder. You’re going to lose yourself in the garden for a few hours, forget about him. “Why don’t you drive?”
“I like to walk,” you tell him, turning back. 
He looks at you like he doesn’t like the things you say much less the way you say them much less the way you’re grinning at him. Perhaps he can see the disappointment and is disturbed by the sight of it, but the possibility seems too altruistic. 
“You should try it sometime, Joel. You might like it too.”
His huge body seems to be shivering in the cold. 
“I think…” The look on his face has turned suspicious now. He takes a step towards you. “You’re very strange. And you’re very young. I don’t think we should be friends.”
Your heart gives a demanding thump. “We’re not going to be friends.” When you’d first spotted him in the crowd, the strangest feeling had come over you. A tug behind your belly button, a scalding heat at the back of your neck, at your wrists. Perhaps it’s merely imagination, the look of disappointment you think you see on his face right before you turn away from him to continue on walking. “And I’m not that young anymore.”
You’d known today was going to be a good day. Extra cinnamon in your latte, a late start to your morning, warm in bed, no rain in the sky despite the cloud cover. And your director, late for rehearsals after some freak accident had befallen the roof of his house.
“That’s what all young people say.”
Part 2;
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mandoatsea · 14 days ago
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if you need me, i'll be crying blood in the corner (read the last sentence and immediately scrolled back to the top to start over!)
homesick
a cowboy like me one shot
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oh, i missed these two. here's a little check-in on my favorite morally irresponsible outlaws.
pairing: dbf!joel miller x fem!reader
summary: you spend the weekend back home in austin with joel.
warnings: age gap (early 20s/late 40s), twinge of angst, piv sex in the shower (beware of slippage). you know the drill with these two. part of the cowboy like me universe, but can probably be enjoyed as a standalone.
word count: 6.3k
series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🧡
“This is Joel Miller. I can’t come to the phone right now, so leave a message and I’ll get back to ya.”
You wait for the beep, pacing along a wall of steel cylinders. The laundromat is stifling, the machines’ drumming deafening. It’s eighty-something degrees out, and it’s only six o’clock.
“Pick up, Miller. Hello? Hello? I know you’re there. Can’t come to the –” you clear your throat, strum the twang in your vocal cords, “– Can’t come to the ph-owww-ne right n–”
The line clicks as he picks the handset up.
“Did you call just to make fun of me, kid?”
You halt, spinning on your heel. “So you were screening me?”
He scoffs. “Didn’t notice the time. I’ve been out back with Tommy.”
“Oh,” you mellow, tongue curling around your ice cream, “We don’t have to call right now, you know. I’m just doing laundry.”
“It is six there, right?”
“Yeah, but don’t let me keep you. Go hang with your brother.”
Joel sighs as he sinks back into his couch. “Keep me. He knows you were calling tonight. He’s probably outside fraternizing with the neighbor, anyway. Won’t even notice I’m gone. Laundry, huh?”
“Mhm.” You suckle on the lip of the waffle cone. “It’s a beautiful night, and I’m stuck being force-fed Mötley Crüe and watching a steel drum shred my panties.”
“Sounds like a good time to me.”
“Enough, cowboy.”
“I like Mötley Crüe,” he chuckles. “They got some hits under their belt.”
“Name five.”
“Five,” he says. “You’re asking a lot there, darlin’.”
“Of Mötley Crüe or of your memory, old man?”
Joel hums. “Should’ve seen that one coming, baby.”
You boost yourself up onto one of the dryers, swinging your legs. If there were anyone else in the laundromat, you’d care to hide your fluster – but you’re here on your own, and the man just melts you. All girlish and giggly, you feel his words swirl around your stomach like sweet honey.
“Tell me about your day,” you say, covering the flutter in your voice with another mouthful of ice cream.
“Well,” Joel says, “weather’s fine, work’s fine. Almost done with that renovation for your favorite clients.”
You gasp. “The old couple with the cats?”
He grumbles. “That’s them. They still hate me, by the way.”
“The couple, or the cats?”
“…Jury’s out.”
You snicker.
“Then, uh, I called Sarah, had some dinner, and now here I am talkin’ to you.”
“Hm. I’m your favorite part, right? I’m your favorite part of today?”
Joel pauses, breathing for a moment. Slow, quiet, but sure, he says: “You’re my favorite part of every day.”
The smile on your face cracks, crumbles into something more pained. Your heart sinks.
It’s been three months since you were last home. Technically, it’s been seven weeks since you were in Austin – but Joel was out of town for the weekend, and you spent four days cleaning your dad’s gutter and watching westerns.
It’s been three months since you were last in Joel’s arms. In his house, in his clothes, in his bed. Three months since you heard his voice not through the crackle of a thousand miles apart; since you smelled him on your skin, not on the flannels you’ve stolen from him.
Three long, tough months.
And it means nothing, anyway. All this missing each other. So you tell yourselves, and so you tell everyone else. You’re not together, you’re not committed. You’ve been seeing other people, so has Joel – even if he’s only been on two dates in the nine months since you moved away.
Spending a casual weekend together here and there is enough to get you by. It’s easier this way, right? It’s cleaner. There are no crossed wires, no strings at risk of becoming tangled.
Only – your entire relationship is woven in tangled strings. Messy, knotted, twisted around your fingers and threaded through your ribs. A summer’s worth of weaving yourselves closer and closer together, only to be pulled apart come fall.
It didn’t take long to prove that when a knot is pulled, it only binds tighter.
It only binds sorer.
“Anyway,” Joel says, “your turn. How was your day?”
You gulp, slipping down from the dryer to check on your wash. If you speak, you’ll break, and if you break, you’ll sob.
“Baby? You still there?”
“Yep,” you croak. You wipe your eyes with your sleeve and shake your head. “I – uh…Yeah, my day was fine.”
The line quietens.
“You sure? Everything okay at work?”
Your reflection blinks back at you in the window of the machine, warped and molten. She opens her mouth and replies, “All good.”
He can read you even three states apart. “Let me call you back. Hold on.”
The call disconnects before you can protest. Over your shoulder, another regular shuffles into the laundromat.
She smiles, skin supple and sun-spotted, looking but not looking you in the eye. She slides her full basket over one of the machines on the other side of the room, and tosses her clothes into the drum.
When your phone vibrates again, you pass by her and out onto the street.
Joel’s pixelated living room stretches across your screen.
“Joel,” you sniff, “Joel, it’s –”
“Can you see me?”
“No, you gotta flip your –”
“…never know why the damn thing don’t –”
“The button with the arrows. The camera button, Joel, it’s –”
His coffee table flips, and in place – straight, dark brows drawn tight in a frown. Crows feet, scar across the bridge of his nose. Peppered hair a little longer than the last time you called, beard a little thicker.
The only person in the world who can weaken your knees and splinter your chest, in one fleeting glance.
“Hi, baby girl,” he whispers, expression softening. “Look at you.”
You slump against the warm wall, sliding down. One sight of him, and your knees give. “Oh, my God, I miss you today.”
Joel laughs. His head cocks, smirk tugging at his lips. “I miss you every day.”
“Yeah, that’s – that’s what I…” you sigh, “…That’s what I meant. It’s just – some days, you feel a little further away.”
“Today one of those days?”
You nod. A car soars by, whipping hot air from the road which pours over your bare legs. “It’s just…been a day. That’s all.”
“We can talk about it, if you want. You’re hell of a lot smarter than me, darlin’, but I’ve had my share of bad days before. Never does any harm to get it off your chest.”
He smiles. It breaks your heart.
He works ten hours straight, some days. Out at the crack of dawn, home with only enough time and energy to nuke something in the microwave. Somewhere amongst that, he fits in beers with Tommy and ridiculous DIY jobs your dad elicits his help for.
And still – he sets aside an hour or two every few nights, specially for you. He collapses into his couch, decaf in his mug, and puts the world to rights with you on the other end of the phone.
The meaningless work dramas, the paper building up on your desk. The commute, for the love of God – the traffic jams you swear will one day be the death of you. The last thing Joel needs is to listen to your problems on end, and you tell him so.
“Bullshit,” he replies. He shakes his head, takes a sip of his beer. “I asked, didn’t I? Talk to me. Tell me what’s goin’ on.”
You groan. “I just…I wish I could turn my brain off. Just for a little while. No meetings, no call times. No helping my dad trim the trees in the yard when I’m home for the weekend.”
He laughs. “He rope you into that one too, huh?”
“Sure did.” You tense your fist, wince at the memory of splinters you were still plucking from your palm even weeks later.
“I got nothing to complain about,” you tell Joel, “I know that. This job is…it’s right where I want to be. Just – sometimes, I miss being back in Austin, following you around Costco and hiding from my dad. It’s like life was simpler then.”
Joel chokes. “I guarantee you,” he coughs, thumping his chest clear of beer, “life was not simpler. Not by a long shot. Goddamn.”
He swings to his feet and wanders across the room to his kitchen. Past his armchair, past the guitar mounted on the wall. Past the dining chair he always hangs his coat from. You know the anatomy of his home better than your own, it feels like.
You sure as hell miss it more than your own.
“Lemme see…” Joel squints over his phone. He leans over his kitchen counter. “What’s next weekend look like for you?”
You shrug. “My weekend off.”
“Nothing planned?”
“Nothing yet.”
He nods. “I’m meeting a supplier on Saturday afternoon, but if you can stand to be without me for a few hours, then…”
His eyebrows lift.
So do yours. “Then…?”
“I can look at flights,” Joel says, “get you booked tonight. Pick you up Friday, drop you off Sunday. Spend the whole weekend with your brain shut off, if that’s what you’re lookin’ for.”
A wave of warmth floods through your chest. Relief, maybe – or simple adoration for the man on the other end of the phone. Most likely, the way it always seems with Joel, it’s both at once.
He loves you. Enough to break every rule in the book. To go behind his best friend’s back for an entire summer. He loves you enough to let you go, watch you follow your wildest dreams, and then be the safety net at the end of each long day, each hard night.
He loves you enough to scratch everything off his calendar for a few days, just to make sure you’re okay. Just to hold you in his arms, heart beating a rhythm he knows better than his own. Just to sing you to sleep, and wake you up with burnt toast and runny eggs.
You pull the collar of your shirt over your nose and weep into the material. “I ever tell you how much I love you?”
He smiles. “Not half as much as I love you.”
“Gross.”
“I know.”
The laundromat door flings open.
Face now flushed and hair scraped back, the woman clocks you immediately and throws a pointed finger in your direction. “Are you coming to get your panties or what, little girl?”
She clicks her teeth and disappears again. The blind hanging over the door rattles with the force it slams closed.
“Guess that’s my cue,” you whisper, heaving to your feet. “Better go get my panties.”
“Why?” Joel’s making his way back outside. “Ain’t like you’re gonna need ‘em.”
You scoff. “Talk later, cowboy.”
Austin welcomes you back with a delayed flight, a screaming seatmate, and a raging headache.
The airport is busy. Loud busy. All chittering couples, hordes of kids with nauseatingly bright backpacks. You drag your suitcase through to arrivals, careful not to trip over the wheels of the stroller ahead.
When you spot his tall, dark figure weaving between bodies, the gate hushes. You move towards him by instinct, parting the crowd as you go. The magnet in your chest senses its partner drawing nearer, and nearer, and nearer.
And nearer, until he’s reaching out. He’s close enough that his hands land on your waist, and it’s the first time in three months that you’ve felt this weight – his weight, the way only he feels – all around you.
Joel pulls you in to his chest. He locks you in, resting his chin on your head.
“Hi, honey.”
You inhale his scent, breathe in the comfort of him. “Hi,” you exhale.
Tears prickle at your eyes. It feels stupid. He looks down at you, thumb swiping across your cheek, and a salty droplet spills.
“How was the flight?” he asks.
“Good.”
“You okay?”
“Perfect, now.”
“You look perfect,” Joel grins, “Look like the sun.”
And you could swat him away, could shrug him and his flirting off. The sun sure as hell doesn’t look stewed in three-hour plane, too tired to move and too clingy to unhook from her dad’s best friend’s arm.
But that’s not what he’s saying, is it?
You do look different. You feel different. You feel brand new. Golden – just like the sun.
These days, it feels like there are two versions of you. One, you’ve spent the better part of a year polishing off – electric and vibrant, eyes wide and head spinning, moving through her day like gliding on air and then collapsing in a heap come nightfall. Chaos with a clipboard and call sheet.
And the other – slower. Steadier. Surer on her feet, simpler in her ways. Dust under her heels and a Texan shine in her smile. Honeylike; moving where her body tells her to go, drinking up the world as she pleases.
There’s a moment, stood under the fluorescent lights of the terminal, where you feel the first give way to the second. Safe now, in Joel’s arms, to slip back into her old, worn boots and shutter her mind – even just for this weekend.
“Come on,” he whispers, wrapping his hand around yours. “Let’s get you home.”
And there never seemed like a better idea than that.
He keeps your things in his shower caddy.
Bottom basket, strictly yours. Shampoo and conditioner and bodywash and a loofah, all exactly where you left them last time you were here. He says it as he cranks the handle, holds his palm under the flow until it’s just right.
“The strawberry stuff…?” Joel nods to the bottle, face screwed.
You gasp. “You don’t like it?”
He shakes his head. “Like it on you. I smelled like a fruit farm for a week, baby.”
“Makes a change from wood trimmings,” you mutter, peeling the shirt from your chest.
Joel glares over his shoulder. “You wanna say that a little louder?”
“No, sir,” you whisper, and step into the cubicle.
The water pours over your head and down your spine, breathing life back into your body. You close your eyes and let it wash down your face. LA feels so distant, so lost to the steam and serenity in Joel’s ensuite.
He lingers in the doorway, watching as you turn under the shower. He smiles when you hold your hand out and flick your fingers.
“Soap, please.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, dropping it in your palm.
You slip the velvety bar over your skin. The soap lathers in thick, milky bubbles, cascading over your chest down to your hips. Your hands lift from your navel to cup your breasts, pinching your nipples between soft fingers.
Joel’s jaw ticks. He crosses his arms, shoulders tensing. “Easy, darlin’. Dancing with the devil here.”
It burns low in your stomach.
You pass him the bar back. “Maybe I want to dance,” you murmur. “Maybe he does, too.”
His eyebrows lift. “Maybe he does,” he agrees. He trades the soap for shampoo, tapping the bottle against your hip.
The heat grows under your skin. Having him watch, his close eye on you as you wash the suds from your hair and slick bodywash over your skin.
His eyes drift from your chest to your waist, looping up to your soaked eyelashes and dripping bottom lip, diving again between your legs.
Hungry. Starved, even.
Three months of secret photos and sexy phone calls to get you both by. Three months of imagining you, fist around his cock in the dead of night, coating his stomach just with the thought of you.
And right here, right now, in his shower: the real thing. The forbidden fruit. Body hot and skin soaked, just as desperate as he is. Just as needy.
You step forward, reaching for his shoulders. Arms around his neck, dampening the collar of his shirt, you pull him closer.
“Dance with me,” you whisper against his lips, stealing a kiss.
Joel’s gaze darkens. He takes your jaw and tilts your head back. Voice like thunder rolling over you, he warns, “I told someone we’d be somewhere.”
You smile, tugging on the hem of his shirt. “We’re running late. Something’s come up.”
His arms lift and you pull the cotton over his head, tossing it to the floor. He’s the same solid sculpture as always. Strong and wide, torso scattered with hair which thickens across the span of his chest.
He rids himself of his boots and jeans, kicks his underwear off, and joins you under the water. So big that he corners you, so tall that he has to adjust the showerhead.
Pressed up against your body; warm, manly scent raining over you. He’s hard, tucked right by your hip, rutting gently as he steals kiss after kiss.
He’s addicted to it. To you. Has been ever since that first night, the first taste of poison. Has been, probably, since that first glimpse of you last summer. For all the wrong reasons and in all the wrong ways, for better or worse –
You break him open. You make him weak.
Joel groans when you wrap your hand around him. That familiar weight in your grasp. He glances down to watch your slow strokes, fighting back a filthy smile.
“Missed you,” he breathes, voice lost to the patter of the shower. He slips a hand between your legs. “Ain’t gonna last long, are you?”
“Fuck,” you hiss, grinding into his palm. You toy with his bottom lip, nipping at the edges of his smirk. “We got all weekend. Just – just fuck me.”
He hikes your leg over his hip and lines up. A blooming ache when he notches at your hole, tip teasing your entrance.
Your back curls. You wrap your arms around Joel’s neck, whimpering into his chest.
“’s alright,” he kisses your neck, “Just take it nice ‘n slow. Get her used to me again, baby.”
He pushes inside, two heavy hands on your waist. Always in control, always easing you in. He holds you delicately, moving inch by inch, watching the twist of your brow and bite of your lip before sinking in further.
He reaches up and tilts the downpour to the wall. Lifts your fragile body, split in two on his cock, and pushes you against the tile.
Your cunt aches as he slides out. She clamps around his tip. It hurts – but you don’t want to let him go.
“Stay,” you cry, nails digging into his shoulders. “Stay inside me.”
He hums and presses his lips to the hinge of your jaw. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere, baby. I’m right here.”
His hips move forward. Your cunt opens for him the deeper he moves. Like welcoming him home, remembering the way it feels to be this full. The stretch of taking him, the air stolen from your lungs. The love you can never find the beginning nor the end of.
And then he’s moving quicker, sharper, one arm wrapped around your neck to cradle your head. Hips snapping against yours, slowing to a roll when you yelp.
Whispering sweet nothings in your ear – how good you’re taking him, how tight she is. How much he’s missed this, missed her, missed you. Never wants to let you go, never wants to be anywhere except right here, feeding you his cock and watching you come undone.
“Made for me, huh?” Joel grunts. He presses his forehead to yours and slips the words across your tongue. “All mine.”
“All yours,” you echo, weeping under him. The flame catches and curls around your stomach.
The missing piece to the last nine months. The dead-end dates, the hazy hookups. Awkward good mornings, and goodbyes that never seem to come quick enough. Sneaking off home to shower the scent of it away, to replace it with something sweeter.
Him.
Because none of them are him.
They don’t make you laugh and they don’t make you come. They don’t see you, don’t hang on your every word. They don’t – they can’t break your world apart and paint it something new. They don’t know your every move, don’t understand the most fleeting glances.
You could spend forever circling every bar and every diner; what do you do for work and where did you grow up. You could chase the tail of every flannel shirt, search all over for that twinkle in his eye.
They’re not him. They’ll never be him.
Joel coaxes you where he needs you. He fucks you until you’re quivering in his arms, head rolling across his shoulder. His thrusts begin to stall, breathing turns to panting, teeth sink into any part of your skin he can find.
He moans into your neck. The sound nudges you towards the edge.
“I’m close, baby,” he grits, “’m so close.”
You look up at him through tear-soaked eyes.
Three months. Since the last time he touched you, kissed you, fucked you like this. Since the last time he lost control, came deeper inside than anyone before, or anyone since.
Three months since the last time you held him in your hands, lined your lips with his, and begged him to stay in you.
Joel laughs. “Dangerous little game, darlin’.”
But he’s fading. He’s falling under, same as you are.
You want it. You need it. Need to be full of him – that ache when you walk, the warmth leaking down the inseam of your thighs. The feeling of being his, all his; ruined and wrecked in the sweetest way.
“Stay – inside,” you plead. “I want you to – want it so bad.”
“Keep begging, honey. Sound so cute when you’re desperate.”
“Please, Joel,” it’s getting harder to hold, “Just wanna feel you in me –”
“I know, I know,” he shushes.
You tense in his arms, gasping. “I’m gonna – come –”
“So,” Joel smirks, “come.”
And it snaps.
You scream into his chest. Your climax pulls you under, drowns you in a heavy wave of pleasure. Your hips lock, legs clamp around his waist as you cry out.
He plants a hand flat against the tile to steady himself. He holds you still as his own orgasm rolls through, pumping your swollen cunt with each rush of warm release.
You collapse against his body, bubbling and mumbling something incoherent.
He hears you, though.
He shuts the water off and rocks you back and forth. His cock slips from between your legs. “Shh, shh,” lips to your temple, “’s my girl. Such a good girl, baby. So good for me.”
You hum in response and pull yourself upright. You trace the shape of his beard, soaking wet and soft under your touch, following the droplets of water to his chin.
He kisses the tips of your fingers. “I love you,” he says. Chants it like a prayer, leaning closer and closer until his lips are against yours. “Love you more ‘n anything.”
You giggle. “You’re tickling me.”
Joel nuzzles his nose into your neck. He wriggles his fingers under your ribcage. “Can’t get enough of you,” his tongue swipes across your hot skin, “Swear to God, baby, you’re killing me.”
“Joel,” your head falls back with a clap of laughter, “Joel, stop – oh, my God, you have to stop, please – Joel!”
He hoists you onto his hips and turns. Hands still exploring, still pinching and squeezing everywhere they shouldn’t be, he carries you out to his bedroom and drops you onto the mattress.
“Here,” he chuckles, wrapping a towel around your body. He knots it over your chest and rubs your waist, before flopping down onto the bed with a sigh.
You roll over on top of him and fix the dripping hair from his forehead. “Missed you,” you whisper, trailing kisses along his collarbone.
He smiles. His heart flutters beneath yours. “Missed you more,” he says.
His semen drips between your legs. He’s softening against the inside of your thigh. The bed is soaked, sheets that’ll need changed before you sleep tonight. You’re tired, spent, pussy throbbing from the loss of him – and it’s all so perfect.
Being here, with him. Seeing him, feeling him on your body. In your body, for crying out loud. Holding him, kissing him, loving him up close.
It’s fucking perfect.
“What are we running late for?” you ask.
Joel’s eyes flutter open. He cocks his head, frowning.
“You said we had somewhere to be,” you clarify.
“Oh,” he winces, “Uh, your dad’s. He’s havin’ us for dinner.”
“Oh,” you echo. “When is he expecting –?”
He glances at the clock. “Half hour ago.”
“Nice.” You push yourself up, slipping from his grasp. “Well, this is about to be awkward.”
Joel folds his arms behind his head. He tracks your flurried movements: lugging your bag across the floor, tearing through it for an outfit that doesn’t scream, Your best friend just fucked me senseless in his shower.
When you straighten and lift your arms, eyes wide, his lips turn.
“You said you wanted to dance, baby. I was just following orders.”
The sun filters through the leaves, breathing back and forth with the sway of the trees.
You’re horizontal in a deckchair, feet in Joel’s lap, blanket around your shoulders. Full on burgers and baseball talk; if it weren’t for your dad’s riveting conversation about his new lawnmower, you’d probably be asleep.
“Ride-on,” he tells Joel, nodding. It makes gardening a real thrill, apparently. He flicks a hand over the span of the yard. “Whole thing done in less than twenty minutes. Hank says he’s half a mind to make an investment himself.”
Joel purses his lips. He strokes your ankles soothingly. “Sounds like a good buy,” he placates.
Your dad drums on his armrests, admiring his yard some more. He mumbles something about raking the leaves, painting the fence, then – with a vigor that makes you jump, he taps your arm.
“How’s work, kiddo? Still rockin’ ‘n rollin’?”
Your eyes flash across Joel’s. The hell does that even mean?
The corner of his lip twitches. Your guess is as good as mine.
“Yep,” you lie. “Living the dream, Dad.”
Joel says nothing. He hasn’t told your dad why you came home – hasn’t even mentioned the tears outside the laundromat. Your secret is safe with him, you know that. Some puzzles are easier to figure out, the less eyes that are on them.
He hasn’t even brought it up with you yet. Granted, you’ve been home all of four hours, and a solid quarter of that time has been spent naked with him back at his place – but he’s waiting for you to make the first move.
This weekend doesn’t have to be about work. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be about you feeling homesick. It can be as simple as you hadn’t seen your dad for a few weeks, or you heard the news about the damn lawnmower and just had to pay a visit.
It’s what you’ve always loved so much about Joel. It’s what reeled you into him in the first place.
He just lets you be. No questions, no pressure, no worries. He knows you’ll figure it out – you always do. And if he knows that, then it makes you believe in it, too.
Dad sinks back into his chair with a sigh. “What’s on the cards this weekend, then?”
“Joel’s down San Antonio way tomorrow,” you yawn, “Some supplier meeting.”
“You don’t feel like a road trip?”
Your eyes roll to Joel. He’s already staring back. You cock an eyebrow, smirking into your glass.
His shoulder rolls in a shrug. “Your call, chief,” he says, tipping his drink to you.
The minute he mentioned the meeting last week, you knew you’d be tagging along. Two hours each way and an hour in between is too big a chunk of your weekend together to miss out on.
That – and you’ve missed Joel’s front-seat singing.
It doesn’t matter what you planned on doing – rolling around his bed for three days straight, driving to San Antonio and back. Hell, trimming your dad’s trees and cleaning his guttering.
As long as you’re doing it with Joel, it’s enough.
It’s what you came home for in the first place.
The drive passes quickly enough. Joel’s truck doesn’t have Bluetooth, and he only keeps three discs in his glove compartment: Don McLean’s American Pie, a Guitar Classics compilation album, and a blank disc with SARAH MILLER, SECOND GRADE scrawled in Sharpie.
He whips it from your hands when you fish it out of the compartment.
“Listen, listen to this,” Joel says, slotting it in the tray. “Found it a couple weeks ago. I listen to it when I’m drivin’ to work.”
Her squeaky, seven-year-old voice punches through the cabin. “Welcome to my presentation –” she roars into the mic, pausing when a voice picks up in the background. “Huh?” Sarah asks.
“You’re holdin’ the mic too close,” Joel murmurs, almost fourteen years younger. “Farther. Farther,” he says, and then – “Alright. Go.”
“Welcome to my presentation on Amelia E-Earhart,” she resumes, clearing her throat. “She…Oh, Daddy, we gotta restart. I forgot to tell ‘em my name.”
Joel covers his laughter with his fist, reciting it line for line. “Tommy said he’s gonna make her a copy for her birthday,” he says.
“Oh, my God. She’s gonna hate you guys, you know that, right?”
He nods. “I’m countin’ on it.”
Sarah rounds off a few facts about twentieth century air travel before Joel swaps her for the radio. He hands you the disc and you place it safely back in the glove compartment.
You curl up in the passenger seat, swinging your legs over to his lap.
He rubs your calves and glances over, smiling. “You okay over there?”
“I’m more tired than I was when I landed,” you reply, and he laughs.
You haven’t had much of a chance to catch up on sleep. The second you made it home last night, your dress was on the floor at the foot of Joel’s bed. He woke you this morning with his lips on your thighs, your underwear around your ankles.
He was midway through cooking breakfast when you floated into the kitchen to return the favor. The toast burned, the eggs shriveled to a crisp, and your knees bruised.
Fuck it, right? You’ll miss him when you’re gone. When all that’s left are the memories, and the sound of his climax through speakerphone.
An afternoon spent on the road is good recovery time, then, for all that’s waiting for you when you make it back to Joel’s tonight.
A few off-key covers of fifty number ones from the last fifty years later, you’re pulling into a barren lot headered by a beige trailer. The supplier springs out – a beefy guy with a full head of thick, white hair. He crosses the lot as Joel parks up.
Joel rounds the truck, pausing when he spots you lingering at the tailgate. He curves a hand around your neck, thumb circling over your pulse point. “You comin’?”
You twist the hem of your tee around your finger. “Maybe I’ll stay out here and wait. It’s a nice night, and you ain’t gonna be too long, right?”
He shakes his head. “Be as fast as I can. If it gets dark out, you come inside, alright?”
You shuffle into his embrace. “Promise.”
He kisses your head and steps back. “Here,” he slips the flannel from his shoulders, “If you’re sittin’ out. Got my phone if you need me.”
He disappears inside and the door falls closed. A cluster of moths twirls around the light on the trailer’s side. You hop up on the bed of the truck, crossing Joel’s shirt around your frame, and nestle against the back window.
The sun pulls down towards the horizon, sending dregs of daytime in ripples to the stars. She’s still alight just beyond the trees, still burning a hole in the sky. She winks at you from a distance.
The world looks different from Austin. Bigger, like the view from your bedroom window. There’s always more, just beyond the horizon. There has to be more, right? More than four pink walls and a chest of drawers. More than Sal’s store, more than Rita’s cross stitch.
You chased that more halfway across the country – only to realize it was in your hands the whole time.
Him and his lazy smile, sarcasm as thick as the accent he speaks it in. Rolled up sleeves and messy collar; a half-empty cup of coffee and a cracked watch face.
He’s all the more you could ever need.
You’re still perched on the tailgate, staring skyward, when Joel finishes up.
He swaggers across the lot, tan arms speckled with dry dirt, boots kicking up dust. He tosses a fistful of papers in the front seat, then drifts around to settle between your knees.
“Hi,” he whispers, tucking his nose under your jaw.
“Hi.”
He plants his hands either side of your hips and kisses your neck. “Home time, sweet girl.”
You glance over your shoulder.
This time tomorrow, you’ll be on your flight back. Row twelve, seat C. Joel’s flannel over your shoulders, slowly forgetting the scent of him, mile by mile. You’ll sleep with it tucked under your chin until it no longer smells like oak or pine, or the mint bodywash he uses.
You’ll miss it the way you’ll miss him. Holding onto every last moment. Deep morning voice, warm, safe embrace. The rumble of a laugh in his chest, the glimmer or mischief in his eye. The touches he saves just for you; the words he whispers when the lights turn out.
You wrap your arms around his neck.
“Can we go watch the sunset somewhere?”
Joel glances off behind you. His eyes flit back to yours, sunlight catching their ochre and setting him ablaze.
“Get in,” he pulls you down, “I know just the spot.”
It’s almost dusk by the time you reach the outlook.
A twisty dirt road which opens up between some trees, halfway out of the city. Joel reverses the truck and parks in the clearing. The two of you slide onto the tailgate, sharing a bag of fruit gums he had stored alongside Sarah’s CD.
The stars turn one by one, dotted across deep indigo. The last of the day’s blush still lingers where the city meets the sky. Tucked between trees and twilight, it feels as though you’re the only two in the world.
Joel holds the bag out, and you pinch a couple pieces of candy. “How you feelin’?” he asks, looking out to the skyline.
“Okay, I guess,” you mutter. “This has been a nice reset. I wish I could take you back with me.”
Joel laughs. “I don’t.”
“No?” you suckle on the sweet fruit, “I think you’d fit right in.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” He shakes his head, pinching your chin. “Naw, LA is yours. It’s something you did, all by yourself. I am so proud of you, honey, do you know that? I mean, I miss you like hell, I really do…”
He glances back down, rustling the bag in his hands. He’s hiding, you know him well enough. Staring at his lap instead of in your eye. When he looks back up, there’s a glimmer along his waterline.
“…But the way I feel any time you call, and I know…I know you’re out there doin’ something you actually give a shit about. You ain’t stuck here, too big for your own bedroom, too comfortable for anywhere else.”
He slips a hand over your knee and squeezes.
It’s infuriating, how right he always is. You’re working your fucking ass off, and for good reason. Austin was always too small for the world inside your head. Missing each other is a price you’re both willing to pay, for the luxury of not missing out on every dream you’ve ever had.
But –
“What if it keeps getting harder?” you sniff, “What if I need you more?”
Joel clicks his teeth. “’s always gonna get harder. That’s life, darlin’. But the hard times won’t last forever. And when it feels real tough, and you feel like you can’t do it no more, you call me. You jump on the next flight. You switch your brain off, and you let me take care of you for a little while.”
You shake your head. Tears break loose, rolling down your cheeks. “I can’t ask that of you, Joel, you got your own shit to worry about –”
“Baby.” He sighs. “I’m old. I’ve done everything I think I oughta do. You know, the days I know you’re gonna be callin’ at eight o’clock – it’s all I can think about. I’m at work checking my watch every five minutes.”
You giggle, turning into the crook of his arm.
“It’s true,” Joel snickers, “I’m like a goddamn teenager. That’s what you do to me.”
He catches you and pulls you against his chest.
“What I’m saying is – there ain’t nothing that matters more to me in the world than you. My own shit to worry about? You mean – you?”
“Shut up,” you scoff, spitting tears into his shirt.
“You call,” he says, resolute, “and I’ll be there.”
“I’m calling,” you whisper. “I’m always calling.”
“Then I’m always here.”
You sit back, bracing yourself on Joel’s thighs. He wipes the wet from your cheeks and fixes his shirt over your shoulders.
“You know, one day,” you tell him, “you’re gonna get a call, and it’s not just gonna be for the weekend.”
He smiles. “I know.”
“One day, I’m gonna come home forever, Joel.”
“I know,” he repeats. “And I’ll be on the front porch waitin’.”
1K notes · View notes
mandoatsea · 14 days ago
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when the older man is the one with daddy issues so he's nurturing and careful and indulgent, but he's also so teasing when he's taking you apart. how he draws out the pleasure until you're crying, splintering at the edges, your words coming out in weak babbles. until you're pawing at him, begging for anything - your orgasm, a kiss, him to engulf you in his warm embrace.
but also thinking about how he loves to feed you; cooking up healthy and delicious meals, while you're over there in the living room busying yourself because last time you helped him, the two of you got distracted and forgot that there were potatoes in the oven.
or how he just loves buying you clothes; from shirts and sweaters to pants and skirts, to toques and scarves, down to the things you didn't even know you needed like an extra pair of gloves or stockings cuz you've torn the other one, remember?
and how he starts looking for a bigger house, somewhere with a bigger lot and a wider garage, and more rooms cuz you mentioned that you wanted your own office; that your back is starting to hurt from working in the dining room, with those old but lovingly worn out seats. and this one that he found has a bigger kitchen, with an island and tall, tall windows, and a place for a chandelier.
yeah, he's already imagining cooking for you here while you watch him from the island. this way, you're closer to him; easier for him to reach for a kiss.
and just also thinking about how he always picks you up from work; he's never late and sometimes, he'd even be too early. it's not even like he works odd hours because he should be finishing up at the same time that you do, but he rather bring his work to home - wrap up while you're already in bed, snoozing, not knowing that he crawled back out of it after he's cuddled you to sleep - than not pick you up at all. he loves the drive, anyway, and he's a senior at his position so he's got room for flexibility.
it's just, he is so greedy of every chance he can get to be with you. to be of service for you.
thinking about all of this knowing this is so john price :(
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mandoatsea · 22 days ago
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there’s a lot to say and process, but these are the two points i want to make now:
we need to start taking censorship seriously. there is no more room to discuss what kind of content should be restricted or removed. if you give a white republican man an inch, he will take a mile. we need to be fierce and unwavering advocates for freedom of expression. they will ban books, they will ban porn, they will decimate our ability to depict sex, queerness, and pleasure in media. it really is that fucking serious. no more jokes about gooners or hard drive checks. it’s not a joke anymore, it’s their whole platform. they will not stop at art that you personally find gross or distasteful— they will destroy our ability to create.
we need to protect each other. our communities both online and in person are more important than ever. we cannot eat each other alive. there has always been a bigger enemy, and now that enemy is in power. our trans and immigrant friends are the first in the firing line. we need to uplift, encourage, champion, and protect the people around us. nothing else is more important.
protect art. protect each other. that’s the work, and it starts now.
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mandoatsea · 23 days ago
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mandoatsea · 23 days ago
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PEDRO PASCAL with Paul Mescal and Joseph Quinn playing 'Guess The Line'
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mandoatsea · 23 days ago
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My dream for the election is that it’s definitive. I want a 2012-style Election Day where everyone built it up beforehand to possibly be close but then the results start rolling in and it was like “Oh, nevermind. It’s obviously Obama. Everyone go to bed.”
I just want voters to put a stake right through the heart of Trumpism so that it crumbles to ash before our eyes. That’s the dream.
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