mothman-supremacy

[mothman-supremacy]

of my own name

pairing: joel miller x former f!sex worker!reader

wc: 9k

summary: Joel doesn't cope well without you.

cherry masterlist

warnings: age gap (20s/50s), male masturbation, trouble with/painful orgasming, fantasized/dreamed sex acts (m!receiving oral), mentions of sex work, ptsd, self deprecation, big huge guilt and shame, emotional vulnerability, mentions of death and car accidents, panic and anxiety, depression, regret, losing dogs and pathetic old man core

a/n: as always would love to know what you think! thank you for reading! I'm sorry for what I've done to that man, all will be fixed in time <3

Your birthday passes in a fleeting haze of could have beens, should have beens. 

Joel thinks about you the whole day, what you’re doing, who you’re spending it with. If your arrangement hadn’t ended, would you have spent your birthday with him? 

A gift, wrapped and tucked away in the glove compartment of his truck for weeks, plans to pick up a cake and a pint of cherry and chocolate icecream with the chunks in, because that was your favorite. Something quiet, something that said he knows you and cares about you. 

It’s only right that he return the sentiment, anyway, after you’d made a fuss about his birthday, made him feel not so old and jaded and dirty. 

Joel hadn’t meant for things to go the way they had at the hotel. 

He’d meant to talk to you, to tilt your chin up and tell you he knew that you lied about your age and it was okay and that he wasn’t mad, but there were things that needed clearing up.

The empty hotel room seemed to laugh, an omen of the future he would have to endure, something lonely and without you, the horrifying realization dawning that he didn’t want to have to endure it without you. 

Teasingly bright sunshine had streamed through the window, the sky a perfect square of robin’s egg blue from his place on the bed, his thoughts an ever worsening storm, a turbulent sea of gnawing worry that his brother was right and he’d been blind, caught up in whatever it is he thinks he felt with you. 

He’d arrived too early, given himself too much time to think, for Tommy’s words and accusations to spiral into webs of truth, into questions about what the fuck he thought he was doing, who he was kidding. 

By the time you got there, the only thing he could hear were things he didn’t want to believe were true, that he’d deluded himself into believing weren’t true for long enough. 

Still, he had not meant to jump you and fuck you like you didn’t matter. Like he didn’t know you. 

But some part of him had needed to prove it to himself that it was fine, that Tommy had it wrong. Tommy couldn’t be right, this whole thing couldn’t sting like a wound dipped in alcohol and salt, if the feelings weren’t real in the first place. If it was just sex and nothing more for him, as it surely was for you. 

The excitement in your eyes when you pushed the door open had ached, like looking into the sun, burning out his corneas. So pretty in a white t-shirt and spring green skirt. So pretty and happy and thrilled to see him.

Clothes you felt comfortable enough to wear in front of him, clothes that were yours and not a persona you pulled on. The club clothes had been discarded months ago, tiny skirts and tight tops that you never seemed yourself in. 

I want to—there’s something we—

He’d hated every fucking moment of it, the way he treated you, the way you knew something was wrong and remained gentle and careful when he did not deserve it. The way he couldn’t look at you, spread so thin he felt like a live wire, an exposed nerve. 

And it hadn’t happened. 

As soon as he met your eyes, the realization that the only thing he felt, or wanted to feel, was love and affection, not lust. He was left with the simmering, roiling knowledge that this was real to him and he needed to know it was real for you too, that the things he suspected you felt weren’t a delusion. 

But it hadn’t come out that way, the words had fallen harsh and accusatory, the implication behind them not what he intended. 

Words tumbling out of his mouth like so much misplaced debris, the crumbling of a mountainside, red rock tumbling down into a turbulent sea, hasher than he intended, more final than he wanted, desperate for you to hear, to turn and say it was all real, Joel, all of it. 

You’d given in so easily, laid down and bared your throat. 

Regret, shame, thick and sticking, as he watched the light behind your eyes flicker and fade, replaced by a blankness that felt foreign and wrong. 

The rush of clarity that had slammed into the moment you lurched up from the bed and shuffled across the room, arching around him like you expected him to reach out and hit you, had felt like coming up for a breath of air from the murky bottom of a silted riverbed. And then you had been too far gone to reel back, unhearing and locked away inside your own mind. 

He’d needed you to deny what he accused you of, to scoff and say it wasn’t true, that his feelings weren’t that of a delusional old man chasing the skirt of a much younger woman that felt nothing for him. He’d needed you to say you felt something too. 

But all you’d said was okay. 

It wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. 

You weren’t denying it, you were never going to deny it, and it wasn’t your fault but it was his for allowing things to go on for this long, for letting himself believe you could continue in that bubble, that you’d ever return the feelings hardening into a thick crust on his soul.

The wet tripping of his heart, poorly spun sugar, breaking in all the wrong places. You were turning twenty-four, even worse than your proffered twenty-nine, and denying nothing, telling him nothing about how you really felt, if you felt anything at all. 

Worse, saying he was right. 

You’re right. It wasn’t fucking real. I’m a whore, Joel. 

It was only when the door closed and your quick footsteps faded down the plush carpeted hallway that it had sunk in what he’d just done, that it could probably never be fixed, that you’d once again held him at arms length with that word. 

How many times have you said it, like a talisman, like a warding, like a denial. 

I’m just a whore. 

.

.

.

Joel doesn’t think about you. 

Or, he tries not to. 

He manages it well enough.

Or, he thinks he does. 

He does.

He tells himself that he manages it. 

It’s a lie that doesn’t stick, not even in his own mind. And he’s always been a poor fucking liar. 

It’s fine, even if there’s a stitch in his chest so painful it actually stops him in his tracks, makes him worry he might actually be at risk of a fucking heart attack. He’s the right goddamn age for it. 

Ellie makes him go to the clinic and get checked out, worried he really is having heart issues, but he’s as healthy as a horse and even she can’t deny that when the bloodwork is sent over. She pours over it at his kitchen table, glaring at him like he fabricated it. She knows something’s off and can’t figure what. 

He’s glad she doesn’t know. There’s only so much disappointment and disbelief he can handle. 

You loom like a wraith in the back of his mind, fanged and clawed, striking with lightning quick reflexes when he least expects it, when he thinks he’s just managed to push you out of his consciousness. 

But he’s been through this before, had endured the same kind of grueling torture from his memory, the open wound in his chest, when Ellie wasn’t speaking to him, when Sarah and Tess died. A fissure that opened when he was forced to watch, helpless, as Tess grieved her son, a little boy he’d helped take care of for only a couple of years. 

But he can’t unsee the betrayal in your eyes, the pleading desperation that he’d ignored. He should have said it differently, given you more time to explain, to say something, instead of jumping down your throat. 

Jesus, telling you you should end things before you’d even had a chance to speak. Protecting himself, cutting you down in the process.  

The days take on a relentless kind of monotony. 

He rises early because his sleep is barbed with flashes of you—wide, accusing eyes staring out from a dark horizon; the faded, sepia afterimage of you sitting on that familiar hotel room bed imprinted on the inside of his eyelids; cracks of anxiety and shame and humiliation and, somewhere in your features, disbelief, runneling over your face, before it whipped away. 

In its wake, something much worse had emerged, risen from the depths of you to drape over your eyes like the blinded gaze of an ever tilting scale of justice. Out of his favor, out of his life. Blank and unseeing, far away inside your own body.

And him, standing there, unable to stop himself, unable to pull you back. Clawing desperation as you tugged on your shirt and skirted around him like he might reach out and-

Guilt and regret rise like twin snakes from dead wheat, fangs hitched into his heart with such venom he can't breathe, that ignoring the feeling only doubles it.

So, he gets up before the sun, difficult these days, when the sun rises earlier each day, makes coffee and sees the smiling curl of your lips around a milkshake straw, curries the horses and is faced with the caressing, soft memory of you there, kissing him against the wall of the stable, the overlay of you riding Whiskey in a tight circle around the paddock in that teasingly funny hat and belt buckle, skin shining in the warm sun at the small of your back, joyful and young and at peace.

Happy.

He'd made you happy, once.

You’re there in all the empty places in his life, cavities that had slowly been filled by something ambrosial, healing and satisfying. All ripped away by his shameful fucking fear, his animal desperation to be loved.

It's fucking pathetic, it's inexcusable, and even seeing your ghost feels invasive and perverse and damnable.

The ranch turns verdant as the days mosey past, slow but not sweet, like bitter tar instead of molasses. 

Spring encroaches on the world in leaps and bounds, trees shrugging on green thatches like patched, loved coats. A continually invasive thought occurs to him, that he’d like to bring you back out to the ranch so you can see it at its best, only to remember there is no you, not anymore, not to him.

The first week is hard enough, the haunting lure of memory like a hooked fish, a silvery, taunting dart that won’t reel to shore. The crease and fold of your face, the tearing pain in his chest when your expression went vacant and far away and unfamiliar, how his gentle coaxing tone could not bring you out of it, the last lash of your voice like a poorly healed scar. 

But the first Friday is unbearable. 

It’s agony. 

He tells himself you wouldn’t go back to the club to work, that you don’t need to. 

He’s been paying your rent for a few months, and you’re smart and frugal and constantly worried about money, so he knows you saved it. The payment is automatic, but this month the funds are never accepted or rejected, just left there in the limbo of cyberspace. 

You’d gotten comfortable with using his card for a few frivolous purchases, too, among the transactions for groceries and to-go cups of coffee, so you hadn’t been spending what you saved in rent on something else. 

The card is now silent and still as a tomb. He’d hoped to see some kind of revenge purchase, something ungodly expensive just to know you were real, that you were still there on the other side of it. He’ll gladly swallow your anger, if it means he knows something of how you are. 

But you remain firmly silent, encased in glass ice, and that’s worse. The indifference to the end, the earth shattering silence, is worse. 

None of it had meant a goddamn thing, and he’s still sorry for it. Still sorry for the look in your eyes, for the secrets you pressed so carefully against the tips of his fingers and the seam of his mouth. Because even if you didn’t feel anything for him, there are some things he knows are real. Your neighbor's horse, your shitty parents, how important school is to you, the issues with your advisor.

He can’t expel the notion that you might return to the club, that he might have severely misjudged your situation, that nothing he’d given you had ever been enough. The thought makes his stomach turn and before he can really help it, he’s pulled on his boots and climbed into his truck. The drive is shorter and longer than he remembers. 

Your ghost watches him from the passenger seat, stiff with carefully concealed tension, relaxing gradually against the door, pawing through his daughters’ cassette tapes, tilting your face into the breeze, humming along softly to the radio, lifting your shirt to flash him with genuine laughter on your lips, sliding across the seat to lean your head on his shoulder, ask where he’s taking you. 

The club is as loud and awful as he remembers, red pulsing light, the scent of cheap plastic and sweat and liquor, too loud music and the uncomfortable press and swell of bodies warm and damp around him. Flashes of naked flesh, the strings of thongs, hungry, demanding hands, teeth shining in the dark, mouths offered another drink. 

There are a couple new girls that he doesn’t recognize, sitting in the laps of men, caressing flabby cheeks and wrinkled skin, giggling too loudly, eyes dilated and far away, skinny ankles kicking together. Pushing their chests out, aching their backs, something you did often when he first met you. 

Is that what he’d looked like with you? Dirty, seeking fingers tucked beneath your skirt as your eyes went blank and irritated? Is that what your elastic, soft skin looked like pressed against his? 

He turns his gaze toward the bar, the memory of you sitting there, eyes meeting his above the sea of heads bent over too warm beer, lip caught between your teeth, lashes fluttering against your cheeks. The fractured slice of a memorialized you beckoning him closer with a flick of your eyes.

This time, you turn away, lean closer into the mirage of the man next to you, hand between your legs, inside your shirt, slapping and squeezing your ass. 

Joel blinks and the memory disappears like so much dust in the wind, red dirt against a sinking Texas sun. 

He’d wanted to break that man’s hand, send him sprawling to the ground, for touching you, for touching you like that, like you were meat. The only thing that had stopped him, had been your stilling hand on his arm, telling him that was just part of it. 

It had made a protective film layer over his growing affection for you. 

He looks for you, the real you, but you aren’t there.

You aren’t at the club, at least. It’s possible you left with someone else, and the thought of you enduring that again makes his chest go tight. 

“Well, well, look who it is! Cherry’s Joel.” 

Chastity appears next to him, pretty blonde hair knotted into a ponytail at the top of her head. “She here? Cherry?” he asks, trying not to sound desperate and probably failing. “Or around? Leave with somebody else?” 

Joel isn’t sure what he plans to do if you are working, if you’re with someone else. He isn’t sure why he’s there at all. If  you emerged from the crowd, what would he do? 

Fall to his fucking knees. Grovel if he had to, get the right goddamn words out this time around, apologize for the rest of his miserable life. Beg, plead, drag himself over hot coals, broken glass, not even to have you, but just so you could understand what had happened, what he meant when he asked if any of it was real. 

Chastity shakes her head, the end of her hair whipping over her shoulder like a little tail. “Ain’t seen her in. . .well, since the last time you was here. A year ago, maybe? Did she get out?” Her eyes widen and she grips the sleeve of his shirt in her fist. “Oh I always hoped that was what happened when she didn’t come back.” 

He doesn’t know how to answer her, clearly you’d never returned to the club, never spoken to anyone there again. It loosens the pressure in his chest, a little, ribs expanding to give his heart a little more room.  

You’ve never needed his help. You’re determined and tenacious enough that you would have made it through no matter what, but he’s glad you didn’t have to, that he could help you along even if you bristled at it, struggled with it. 

“What brings you back, baby? Didn’t think I’d see you around here again.” 

He’s reminded of the first time Chastity had approached him, fingers on his thigh, breasts pressed against his bicep, the chill that had swept down his spine, because she’s so very young. Big crystal eyes and dewy skin, a smile that put a dimple in her cheek. 

She curls her hand around his forearm, tips of her nails digging into his flesh, sharp, metallically unfamiliar. Joel shakes his head, teeth grinding together. His jaw aches, pain springing up between his eyes, narrowing the veins in his heart. 

“I’m kinda disappointed in her, y’know?” Chastity continues when Joel doesn’t answer. “I could tell she was sweet on ya and didn’t want to be. She wanted to wait for you so bad every week and pretended she didn’t care if you showed up. Oh, like she didn’t know you’d be back.” 

“I, uh, yeah. I guess I was partial to her.” 

“Y’all ever see each other again? I thought you ran off together,” she sighs dreamily. “Like that movie. Since you both never came back.” 

He doesn’t ask what movie she’s talking about, stuck on her assertion that you’d waited for him, wanted him to come back and pick you. 

Joel is pulled out of his thoughts when she cups him through his jeans and squeezes. He jerks up out of his seat so suddenly the stool scrapes on the sticky floor. 

“I’m sorry,” he mutters. “I don’t know why I’m here.” 

She smiles. “You want her. It’s all right, some men are like that. You haven’t offended me.” 

Jesus Christ. As if it couldn’t get any more pathetic. 

“Just. . .if she comes back, tell her. . .” 

Tell her what? That he was looking for her at the site of her trauma? Turning back up to this place like he was fixing to buy her? Again? Or to stick his dick in someone else? Like a goddamn coward?

He has your fucking phone number. He could call you. 

“No—”

Chastity winks, strokes the backs of her fingers against his cheek. “I’ll tell her you’re lookin’ for her, if she comes back. She’s lucky, I do just about anything for a chance.”  

The drive back is worse. 

The gaping emptiness seems to yawn wider, grow more smiling teeth. 

At least it’s deserved. 

.

.

.

He dreams about you.

Mostly of your accusing gatsby eyes turned sad and sullen and disappointed, betrayed and broken, turning away from him, walking away and not returning. He always reaches for you too late, never able to stop you before the door slams behind you again and again and again. 

You never speak. 

Just look at him like you aren’t sure who he is, cocking your head to the side like a curious bird. 

One month after, one month since, he dreams of you on your knees. 

You peer up at him with offering, distant eyes, temptuous and tumultuous and teasing and nothing at all like yourself.

Your back is pressed against a concrete wall, cracked pavement beneath your bloody knees, fingers circled around his cock. A voice twists around the stem of his mind, words that stung and ached and pulsed, plump with shame and determinism. I had to pull over on the way home and throw up and my knees got all bloody and scratched, but in a way I was grateful. 

The red neon sign flickers and zaps behind you, casting you in shades of black and red, like you’re trapped in a dark room, flashes of hungry eyes like cameras in the dark, taking what they want, holding it close. 

His arm is braced against the wall and for just a moment he can’t help but give into it, the warm, expert drag of your tongue over his cock, the soft interior of your mouth when you swallow him down, choking around him, hands stroking his thighs. 

It feels so good to be close to you again, even if its like this. 

But you gag and pull back, spit connecting your mouth to him, lips parted and waiting, the squelch of your fist around him, quick and expert. 

“Cherry,” he groans, pulling back gently, the warm imprint of your hands anchoring on his thighs for balance. “Hold on. You ain’t gotta—I need to—

“You need to come, I know. I’m just a whore, Joel,” you murmur, soft and sweet, the words pillowy and hypnotic. “You can do whatever you want. Fuck me. Hurt me. Do you want to hurt me?” 

Whatever threads of pleasure and fantasy the dream had given him, shatter. “Hold on—”

“Am I not doing a good job? Please, Joel, tell me I’m good. That’s all I ever wanted.” Big, shiny eyes, blank and unseeing, yanking at your top. Your lips are wet and swollen. “Do you want to see my tits?” 

He reaches down and takes your hands in his, drags you up from your place on the ground. “Listen—”

“But this is what I am.” Angry, now. Hissing. “This is what I do. This is what you want.” 

“Cherry.” Shaking you a little, desperate for you to hear him, to break you out of this terrible nightmare. 

You lean close, he can see the red neon reflected in your eyes, pupils so swollen they appear black. It reminds him of those girls in the laps of men three times their age, the thready nicety of their laughter, the angular pulse of mirroring want, the drugs showing in skinny faces and blown out eyes. 

“This is what you want me to be.” 

“No—” he says, voice hoarse.  

Joel has never been good with saying what he means. The words get crossed and something else comes out. This time he forces it out. “I fell in love with you.” 

“You don’t even know my name.” 

Cutting in its clarity, in its truth. 

“I know, I know,” he whispers, anguished, desperate for what he says to be the thing he means for once. He reaches for you, but your body is too far from his suddenly, the logic of dreams tacking on space where there was none. “I fucking know,” he says, dropping his hands, “but I want to. And, honey, I—” 

“Do you think you should? After you called me a liar?”

He swallows and nods, because he deserves it, reaching again only for you to step away from his grasp this time, circling him with your chin tilted down, a marionette doll trailing in jerky circles around him. “That wasn’t what I meant—”

“How would I know that, Joel? I’m a whore.” You’re behind him, fingers trailing across the back of his neck like the icy veins river. “Is anything I say true? How would you know it’s not another lie?” You stop in front of him, head tilting so far to the side you look like a doll with its strings cut, neck broken. “I love you,” you croon in a voice that’s not your own, deeply sarcastic, and then laugh, “Do you believe me now?”

He lurches awake up with a gasp. 

The dream doesn’t fade; it remains pulsingly real, achingly sore, in his chest. Like a wolf in a cage. 

Bars of soft pink light are just starting to spill across the walnut floorboards of his bedroom, a soft rose that reminds him of you, the fleshy interior of sour cherries. The sheets are damp and yellowed with sweat and his neck aches from the harsh grind of his teeth. 

He feels each one of his years as he sits up with a grunt, reminded of how much like those other men he really is, no matter what he tells himself. He’d defiled you too, bought you too, let you suck his cock and asked you to parade yourself in front of him, fuck yourself for his pleasure. Just because he’d been gentler than those other men didn’t erase that he’d done the same thing.

Pathetic and delusional and lonely and in denial about it, just as his brother had accused. And shamed, now, too, saddled with more grief that one person should be able to handle, than one body can house without breaking down into ash and withered ventricles.  

His shame feels all the more damning, because his cock is still achingly hard between his legs. 

Joel makes no move to touch himself. 

He’d avoided it, anyway, since that last time with you, because he knew he’d see you if he gave into the desire. He’d see the curve of your hips and weight of your thighs and breasts, the shape of your belly beneath skirts and jeans and t-shirts, the soft press of your flesh against his, pliant and soft. 

Instead, he sits at the edge of the bed and breathes heavily through his nose, replaying the dream, the specter of your blownout pupils, the wresting tumble of your body around his, accusations he deserved on your lips. 

He doesn’t have many regrets in his life; but he regrets the way he let you leave. Fearful and biting and not like yourself. He hadn’t been thinking clearly either. 

Then I guess we ain’t got nothin’ to say to each other.

What else were you supposed to think? It wasn’t like he gave you a chance to speak; it wasn’t like he explained himself, what he meant when he asked you if any of it was real. 

Any affection you might have felt for him has surely been washed away by contempt and loathing, but it might be an idea to tell you what he had meant to say. What he meant when he asked you if it were real. It probably hadn’t been to you, but that wasn’t your fault, and you deserved to know that at least. 

When he jerks off in the shower for the first time in weeks, he sees the dewy glow of your skin by the pool last summer, the slow peel of your bathing suit top revealing peaked nipples and soft flesh, the perfect o of your lips when you come, the taste of cherry coke on your mouth, the ever present scent of cigarette smoke and blue bell perfume. 

He fucking hates himself for it. It’s not good and half painful. The sad swirl of white down the shower drain an even more pathetic and shameful image than he thought it would be. 

Joel dresses and avoids his face in the mirrors he passes, slamming the front door too hard behind him. He doesn’t think, can’t, if he’s busy, so he gets to work even if the horses remind him of you, at least it’s not in the black swirl of the club, but the warm twist of sun, and laughter. 

.

.

.

It’s karmic, cosmic, fucking fateful, that the package is delivered later that day. 

One month in, one month away, time counted in months since.

A month since the hotel, a month since he watched the door shut behind you, fingers of grief and stark anxiety trailing across your face, wrenching away from him like he was one of those men, because in his desperation to keep you, to know you felt the same, he’d become one of them, worse than one of them. 

Don’t touch me. None of it was real. 

There’s no address, but it’s obvious it’s from you, carried inside, carefully placed on his kitchen table. 

The credit card and perfume and sparrow sit nestled innocently within when he pries it open. The sparrow is carefully wrapped in newspaper, like you hadn’t been able to bear the thought of it being damaged, coming to harm. 

He hasn’t eaten all day, worked long hours outside in the sun. The dream weighs like a rock tied around his throat, dragging him under violent seas. 

The blood drains from his face. 

He has to sit down, suddenly feeling like the floor might swallow him whole, a familiar prickling in his chest that he has been assured is nothing at all, a product of something in his head, just the residual pain of losing people over and over again, of sitting in an empty house.  

“Oh, Christ,” he mutters, feeling the weight of the last month so suddenly, like the pitch and tilt of those lost days have finally been unburdened on his shoulders. 

He unwraps the sparrow carefully, the little bird he thought you might like, that he thought of you while carving, a bird that reminds him of summer and home and now you. 

The little hope he’d been holding onto shatters, as fragile as his belief in it. 

He searches fruitlessly for a note, anything to tell him what you’d been thinking as you tucked each item into the box. But there’s nothing but silence, the scrape of desperate fingers over cardboard, the echo of an empty life. 

He’s left with nothing but dust, remains of shattered fragments, wasted dreams. The newspaper is balled in his fist. He sits with the pain and loss until his fingers loosen on the paper, until he can swipe a tired hand down his face. A flash of too dark, irregular lettering catches his eye as he tosses the paper back in the box. 

The ink blends so well with the printed words that he almost misses it. A note cleverly blended into the newsprint. He has to squint to read it, tear the words apart. 

You probably won’t look closely enough to see this, because I understand how you must feel about me. I’m not sure if I want you to see it. But there was something I wanted to tell you, anyway. You were the only person I wanted to tell. I was offered a place in the doctoral program, I thought you’d like to know. I should have told you on the phone when you were fixing the step, when things were still good between us, then maybe things would have turned out differently. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything, because I’m still not who you want me to be. I still don’t understand what happened. 

-Cherry 

Joel reads the note over a couple of times, caressing the indented paper with his thumb, knowing your hand left it imprinted there. The newspaper carries the scent of you, warm and steady. 

He pulls the words apart, rolls them over his tongue. 

Joel digs his phone out of his pocket, searches for your contact and then waits. You won’t pick up, that much he knows, but he can leave a voicemail, and maybe in time you’ll listen to it. 

What he wants to say is wiped from his memory when the line clicks. Silence trembles in the wake of that sound, feeble, like a heartbeat heard over radio waves. 

“Cherry?” he asks. His voice sounds desperate and shaky to his own ears. You don’t answer but he can hear you breathing, the slow, anxious inhale and exhale, so terribly close, like he could reach out and scoop the water of your voice into his hands, cup it against his mouth. “Are you there, darlin’? I—” 

It’s a mistake, to speak again, hoarse and despairing, before you do, but his nerves are shot and you’re so close. 

The line clicks again and you’re gone. 

Misery settles like a familiar blanket around his shoulders. 

The house has never seemed emptier. 

.

.

.

Evening light slants over the ranch, through dark green leaves and yellowing foliage, burned by the day’s relentless sun. 

It’s late, the last dregs of the day’s light a mere suggestion on the horizon, lavender and periwinkle that bleeds into red and midnight blue, a frothing of gray clouds lining the crescent of the rising moon. 

Joel plays a mindless tune on the guitar slung across his lap, a melody that is slowly forming into something deeper. A pretty, low noted song, that he won’t admit could be for you, might be for you, about you. It keeps his thoughts organized, away from the harsher reality of what usually worked through his mind, one terrible thought after another, one mistake after another, not sure how to fix any of it, not sure he should. 

It’d probably be better for him to stay well away.  

He’s only slightly startled when Ellie’s boots march up his front steps as night encroaches, enclosing him in its fist.

She doesn’t say anything, just plops down in the chair next to him, wood creaking beneath them, the soft singing and snuffling of animals in the trees, insects in the grass. For a while he keeps playing, watching Ellie from the corner of his eye. 

“Pretty,” she says eventually when he lets the tune find a natural end. “I like it.” 

Joel nods and sits up to lean the guitar against the bannister. “Thanks, kiddo. What brings you all the way out here?” 

She shrugs and stands, leaning over the porch railing instead. “You, I guess.” 

“Uh-huh. What about me?” 

She takes a big breath and shakes her head, fidgeting with her fingers, mouth twisting to the side. All the usual signs of worry in her, not unfamiliar these days. 

“You were different,” she starts, looking at her feet. “After Sarah and Tess, I mean. And even worse, Tommy said, when. . .” she trails off and Joel doesn’t ask her what she means. “Anyway, you seemed happy for a while and I thought it was because of me. Because we were talking again. And it was that, but there’s, like, something else right?” 

She looks at him over her shoulder, embarrassment stretching over her features. “Did you, uh, like. . .are you going through a fucking breakup or something? You were really fucking happy and now you aren’t all of a sudden.”

Joel breathes out hard, slaps one hand against his thigh and stands. “How’d you go and figure somethin’ like that?” 

“I’m not fucking blind, Joel,” she answers with a roll of her eyes. He leans on the railing next to her, feels her shoulder bump his. “So? C’mon.” 

He watches the grass, the yellow-green waiver of it in the fading sun. “Well,” he sighs heavily, “I guess that’s what you’d call it.” 

“What?” 

“A breakup.”

“Sorry.” 

“Well,” he breathes out, “it’s my own goddamn fault.”

Silence lingers between them for a moment before Ellie nudges him again. “Are you gonna tell me about it or not?” When he shakes his head, she groans and leans back, hands still curled around the railing, wood groaning in protest. “C’mon, Joel. You promised we’d tell each other the truth about stuff.” 

He clears his throat and opens his hands, palms supplicating, fingers aching as they unfurl. “That’s a little different, Ellie. This ain’t got nothin’ to do with you.” 

She scoffs. “If it’s got to do with you, it’s got to do with me,” she reminds him, something he’d said her whole life, when she was little and fierce and he’d lied to her. 

Anna’s accidental re-emergence into Ellie’s life had nearly ended his relationship with her. A poor decision made in a vacuum by two adults doing their best, that made the best decision at the time. A lie retold so many times about his adoption of her that it had eventually started to seem like the truth. 

“Yeah, I guess you got me there, kiddo.” Joel relents, thinking of those months without her. But he’d told his fucking brother and look how that had blown up in his face.

“So? What happened?” 

He takes a deep breath, and wonders how much to tell. All of it, most of it. He leaves out a lot of the finer, more sordid details, things Ellie wouldn’t want to hear anyway, that didn’t matter so much to how things turned out. But he tells her honestly about your age, how he met you.

Ellie shuffles her feet and then looks at him from the corner of her eye. Her face is pink and his own is warm. It feels like picking a scab off a wound, and uneasy besides, telling your kid that you’d accidentally solicited sex and then fell in love with said sex worker. 

“Kinda hypocritical of you, huh? The stuff about lying.”

He bristles and straightens, his confrontation with Tommy flashing through his mind. “I know,” he sighs heavily, out through his nose. “Weren’t really about that.” 

“I know,” she says, nodding at her toes again. “So she’s my age?” 

“A little older,” he grunts. 

Ellie mulls it over, nodding to herself for a while. “So you must really fucking like her.” 

“What?” 

“It’s so far out of fucking character, Joel,” she says. “So you have to care about her. Like, really care about her, to even think about it. And you need to talk to her. Because you’re fucking miserable.” 

The knot that’s lived in his heart for weeks now loosens with her words. He waves an impatient hand. “She don’t want to hear from me.” 

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.” She looks uncomfortable and awkward, but continues, “I think. . .I think it means you kind of have to. Even just to apologize.” 

Something eases in his chest, a weight pulling away from his bones, unburdening. “So you’re all right with it? With me and—” 

She shrugs. “Yeah. Maybe if you weren’t you, I’d have a problem. But,” she shrugs again, and leaves it at that. 

“You eat dinner yet?” 

“No.” 

He tells Ellie a little more about you, colors in the details and edges of you, over burgers. 

It feels uncomfortable. It feels okay.  

.

.

.

It’s almost one in the morning when Joel answers his phone, trilling sharply, the dark night pressing in tightly around the edge of his vision, grasping at the edges of his consciousness. “Hello?” 

“Joel? It’s me. Don’t fucking freakout okay?” 

He sits up in bed, tugging back the blankets. “What happened?” He growls, flicking on the light, already yanking on his jeans. “Ellie?” 

“Me and Dina were in a hit and run. We’re fine. It’s fine, okay? I’m okay.” 

The blood runs out of his face, chest constricting tightly, heart squeezing, the narrowing scope of barely choked down panic, flashes of Sarah, Tess, the orange of leaping flame. “Where are you?” He asks, descending the steps, not bothering with the lights, feeling his way through the dark. 

“We just don’t have a spare tire, and the back one is blown out—”

“Where are you?” He repeats, front door slamming behind him. 

“I’ll drop a pin.” Then, softer, “I’m fine, Joel. Did you hear me? The car is barely scratched. I’m okay.” 

“Don’t move, clear? I’ll be there soon.”

She sighs, “Okay.” 

.

.

.

When Joel finishes changing Ellie’s tire an hour later and wrenches the truck door open, his phone is ringing again, a bright white light against the dark interior of the cab. He reaches for it, just as it quiets. 

The night has been nerve rattling enough. He doesn’t have many more people in his life he can spare, that would call him in the dead of night.

He’d like to say there isn’t a tremble in his hands, but that’s just not true.

The night is still long and dark, the call of a coyote piercing in the distance. “Joel?” Ellie calls. “You okay?” 

“Yeah, kiddo,” he turns to find her standing in the open door of her car, one arm braced along the top of it, Dina peering at him from the passenger seat behind him “Go on home. Get some sleep.” 

“You too, old man.” She hesitates before climbing in. “Thanks for the help.” 

“Thanks, Joel!” Dina echoes. 

“Yep.” 

Ellie nods and the door slams, her car off the side of the road in a cloud of rusted gray air. 

Joel takes a breath and wonders what fire he’s going to have to put out next. It can only be Tommy or Maria. There isn’t anyone else left. He just hopes it doesn’t have to do with a car. 

His heart drops out of his chest and smashes somewhere near his feet when he sees your name. Five missed calls within seconds of each other. Twenty-five minutes have elapsed since the last call, before a sixth came in.

The last missed call is accompanied by a voicemail. 

Joel wants to feel elated that you called, but dread soaks into the lining of his soul, reminded of other missed calls, another dark night, the flash of headlights against twisted metal, far away voices telling him not to look, what hospital to go to. 

He thumbs the voicemail open and presses the phone to his ear. After weeks of not hearing your voice, after weeks of silence, he’s finally going to hear your voice again. Not that he deserves to, but it will be there, recorded on his phone. 

It is not your voice that spirals out of the speaker. 

“Hey, this is Matt. I think I’ve got the right Joel. I’m a friend of—” There’s a shuffling sound, the crisp tones of professional voices, the squeak of sneakers over vinyl flooring, beeping. Hauntingly familiar and unpleasant. 

Matt repeats an unfamiliar name several times, something about a party, something about drinking too much, or maybe drugs, Matt doesn’t know, they’re at the hospital now. They’re at the hospital, Matt and—

It takes Joel a moment to realize Matt is talking about you, that the unfamiliar name is you, that he’s hearing your real name for the first time, from a stranger’s mouth. That you’re in the hospital. 

“I don’t think she remembers saying it but she asked me to call you again, and I think she needs you. So, yeah, I don’t know, man. If you get this, you know where she’ll be.”

The voicemail starts over. 

He has to listen to it three times. The hospital Matt mentions is two hours away.

.

.

.

Your mouth is dry, tongue woolen and acid in your cheek. 

The nurse is telling you to take it easy, to continue hydrating. You nod, not really hearing her, still dizzy as you bite your lip and sign the discharge paperwork, anxiety creeping like a vine up your back, curling like a noose around your throat. You still feel woozy and far away in your own skin. 

Matt is standing next to you, hand delicately against your spine. 

You aren’t sure you want him to touch you, but you let it happen anyway, because the weight is comforting against your back, asking for nothing more than that. And you feel bad for ruining his night. It makes you feel worse that you think of offering to blow him to make up for it. 

The humiliation and shame you feel over the whole thing is so familiar it barely registers. It might as well be the default for the narrative of your life. Not only did Matt have to save you from the bathroom floor, he’d paid for the Uber to the hospital and accompanied you there, listening to you painfully, openly recounting the tragedy of Joel. You only remember half of what you’d said, the car ride there swimming in and out of focus. 

Shaking and crying and sweating so much your shirt was damp by the time you arrived at an emergency clinic that thankfully wasn't too busy, making the driver nervous and intensely relieved when he could finally drop you off, you’d told him you were sorry for thinking you were ready to have sex with someone else, even no strings attached sex in a some frat brother’s bedroom. 

Sorry for ruining his last night out in this town before moving across the country, for crying on him, for taking something you shouldn’t have, that little pill in that girl’s hand, when all he wanted to do was get his dick wet.

You told him pretty much everything you could about Joel without saying what you can’t reveal to anyone, that you’d prostituted yourself to him, became a sugarbaby, stupidly fell in fucking love, to be rejected so fully, it feels like the insides of you are peaking through your ribs, raw and bloody. 

“He’s older than me,” you’d finished lamely, tears clinging to your cheeks and lashes. “A lot older. And I thought. . .I thought things were different. But he doesn’t give a fuck about me and I’m not over him and I’m sorry.”

You feel sticky and grimy and filthily disgusted with yourself. The nurse’s droning finally comes to a stop. “Do you have any questions?” 

You shake your head and turn away from the desk, the metallic clicking of the automatic door sliding open as you do, feeling young and stupid and more vulnerable than you ever have before. 

“I’m really sorry,” you say, trying to smile as his hand slides away from your back. “You probably think I’m crazy.” 

“Crazy is hot,” he says with a smile. “And, c’mon, that girl didn’t tell you what she was giving you. Emotional state didn’t help.” He shrugs, seeming totally at ease, “Shit happens.” 

You shake your head and feel its kindness and grace you don’t deserve. You’ve made a pathetic fucking fool of yourself, and in front of someone who knows you’re supposed to be a doctoral candidate. 

“Matt—” You start but when you glance up, there’s another man stalking across the lobby toward you, hands balled in fists at his sides, shoulders tense beneath his t-shirt. 

Your feet carry you toward him without your permission, meeting him halfway in the nearly deserted waiting room. 

Joel curls one hand against your bicep, the other placed gently against your jaw. He’s so warm. The scent of him, salt and leather and oil, washes over you in a comforting wave. You swear your heart rate slows, tension along your bones releasing. 

“Cherry,” he murmurs and you want to cringe away from the sound of that name on his lips, the curl of that sin soaked thing in front of someone who doesn’t know what it means. “Cher, darlin’, are you all right?” 

It doesn’t occur to you to wonder how he’s there, he just is, and despite the turmoil of the last few weeks, you feel almost instantly comforted, safe. There must be some other reason he’s there, someone he loves must be at the clinic, a conincidence. “Joel. What happened? Why are you here? Is Ellie all right?” 

He frowns, squeezes your arm gently, tugging you closer to him. “I’m here for you, darlin’. Ain’t it obvious? Are you all right?” 

And maybe it is obvious, maybe it should be. He’s looking you over, like there’ll be physical signs of harm, but you’re just exhausted and drawn, and in need of rest. 

“I’m okay.” 

“Good.” He hasn’t let go of you; you’re falling into his arms, his heartbeat against your ear, the warmth of his body soaking into yours. “It’s okay,” he soothes, rubbing your spine in a gentle arc. “I’m gonna take you home.” 

Anger soaked in bitter vinegar crashes into you all at once. You jerk out of his grip. “I don’t need you to do that.” 

“I know, I know,” he murmurs after a moment, soothingly like you’re a spooked horse likely to buck him. “I, uh, well—”

He seems lost for words, frozen in an awkward unsure way. 

“I can get home by myself,” you say harshly, folding your arms around your torso, pieces clicking together in your mind. The outpouring of emotion, your things left with Matt while you were seen by a doctor. He’d probably called Joel. When you turn to glare at him, he’s already gone. 

“I can get a cab, an Uber,” you assert, stepping back from Joel, “I don’t need you to. . . take care of me. You made it very clear what you think of me.” To your horror, your voice cracks and your mouth trembles, the floor seems to tilt beneath you. “I don’t need to hear it all again.” 

It’s only then that you really look at him, fiercely meeting his eyes, and some small amount of clarity returns to you. How sallow and worn he looks under the fluorescent lights, stark unforgivingly white light that adds years and wrinkles to his face. His eyes are shadowed, an exhausted tilt to his body. 

He looks awful, like he hasn’t slept in years. 

You reach out and touch the purpled skin beneath one eye, cupping his jaw, the familiar scrape of his beard against your palm. He closes his eyes and leans into your hand, like a cat in a spot of sunshine, like nothing terrible ever happened between you. 

“Why are you here?” You ask again. 

“Darlin’,” he says. “Somebody tells me you’re in the hospital, and you think I ain’t gonna turn up? Driving here damn killed me, I was so worried.” 

You shake your head. “Don’t say that to me,” you whisper, voice breaking again, tears thick at the back of your throat. “You don’t get to say that to me. Don’t pretend like you give a fuck.”

“I know, I know,” he repeats. “But, honey, I got some things I need to say to you—”

“I think you’ve said enough,” you snarl, voice shaking with rage. “There’s only so many ways you can call me a pathetic whore, Joel.” 

His face evens out, brows tilting down. “Now I know them words never came out of my mouth.” His voice is flat and tense.

You think again about that afternoon, the pretty wash of light, Joel’s damp skin, the painful realization you were losing everything, that the man you loved thought nothing of you. “Maybe you didn’t say it, Joel,” you say viciously, “but that’s what you. . .that’s how you made me feel. That is what you said. I’m a dumb little girl that lied to you about everything. So I’m the worthless whore you always pretended I wasn’t.” 

The room goes silent, the distant sounds of nurses’ shoes down hallways, traffic on the road outside, a cough from the person at the admit desk watching you and trying not to let on that they are. 

The anger simmering low in your gut that you never release, too afraid, too cowardly, too beaten down to give into suddenly surges out of you, wobbling and uncertain but scathing all the same. “You are. . .you fucked me like I was nothing, and then tossed me like I was fucking trash.” 

Words crowd around the entrance of your mouth, knocking against your teeth, desperate to be the first out. “And that’s fine, I guess. It’s what I signed up for, it’s what I deserved. But it. . .God, it hurt. Because you said it wasn’t like that. At least all those other pricks were honest with me about wanting to hurt me and fuck me and beat me senesless, but you—” Your voice cracks, pitched into a high whine and you’re no longer being quiet. “You were kind to me. You made me believe in you; you made me believe that good men exist. You made me believe that you wouldn’t hurt me.” 

A splitting headache lances up your neck and into the back of your skull, before you shove past him and storm out the doors. If you keep going, you’re afraid you’ll start screaming, crying, that you might never stop. 

The parking lot is a mass of cars and weed choked pavement that you blindly traverse, breaths coming in short gasps that burn through your lungs. 

He didn’t come after you when you left the hotel, and he wouldn’t now.

The tears still don’t fall but the panic is eating you from the inside out, colonizing your lungs until you feel like you can’t breathe. Dizzy and exhausted and emotionally wrung out. You want to go home and lie down for the rest of him, until your body disintegrates into ash, until the world finally stops moving, finally gives you a break. 

You stop near the back of the lot, reaching for your phone, thinking to stop and call a car instead of stumbling around without purpose. 

The ringing in your ears fades when your brain finally has something to focus on, a task to complete, something to calm you, a sure action to take.

Someone is shouting, calling after you, running through the parking lot. 

Joel, coming after you.

Your name on his lips. 

Not Cherry, not darlin’, not honey. 

Your name.  

When you turn he’s there, panting and determined. 

He says your name again, and you hate that you love the slow caress of it, the roll of the syllables like the sound of home over his tongue, in his voice. It sounds safe in his mouth. 

“Let me take you home,” he says. “That’s it. I won’t ask for nothin’ else.”

There’s a desperation you can’t understand in his features. If you meant nothing, why is he standing there, saying your name? 

“There’re other girls, Joel.” 

“There ain’t.” He holds out his hand. “Just let me take you home, I won’t say nothin’ else. You’re still sick and swayin’ just standing there, darlin’.”

You consider it so long, he offers, “We’ll stop and get you a coke.” 

“Cherry?” You ask, stepping closer to him. You just want to sit down, and you don’t want to pay for a car. And your name sounds so gentle on his tongue, mesmerizingly, tantalizingly safe. 

He drops his hand, letting you pass without touching you, a breath released from somewhere deep in his chest. “Always.”

Previous / Next

[mothman-supremacy]

Logan packing you lunch for work just because and you wanna cry bc no one has ever done that for you before <3

also i hope u feel better <3

This IS SUCH a CUTE idea. Esp to me bc i'm TERRIBLE for packing my own lunches.

And thank you!!! All of your messages and support are making me SO happy I can't even <3

Brown Paper Bag

Worst! Wolverine X Reader

You wake up to a nice gesture

Warnings: Fluff! Mention of food, implication of previous sexual activity, logan being a sleepy cute mess

You hit snooze for the third time.

It's your morning routine. Your alarm is set for 5:30 am. You hit snooze (5 minutes), exactly 4 times, before you get up to get ready for your shift that starts at 7 am.

When you hit your third snooze button, that's usually when Logan begins to stir, if he's staying at your apartment that night; which to be honest, he's staying most nights. You'll turn around and curl yourself around him- needing those early morning snuggles for the next five minutes before you have to start your day.

You rolled to your side, reaching out for the husky, familiar warmth of your man in your queen size bed. You were confused though when you didn't find it. Impossible. Your bed can fit two people pretty good- but Logan was a big man. It wasn't hard to reach for him at your side.

Your eyes still shut with your face planted in your pillow, drool stuck to your cheek. You pat your hands against the mattress a couple more times. It was still warm- which told you Logan was there, which you knew had to be the case because you still feel sore from last nights adventures.

"Baby?" You lifted your head, a sleepy pout of your lips as you managed to crack your heavy eyes open to the darkness of the room, confirming that he was indeed gone.

You glanced around, trying to make out any sign of him. He wasn't by the window, where he usually sat to smoke out of. It's awfully early for him to be up, since his shift started much later than yours. Albeit, he would wake up- force you back into bed with his strong arms, and he'd meet you at the door tired and disheveled, still in his boxers, before you left and give you a goodbye kiss.

You pushed yourself out of bed. The air felt cold and unwelcoming, but too determined to investigate the disappearance of your personal heater pushed you to exit your room.

The kitchen light was on, and you heard a small clatter of something being tossed into the sink.

"Lo?" You peeked inside, finding him standing at the counter in his boxers, his hair the picture perfect definition of bedhead. He turned to look at you, giving you a small smirk.

"Morning." His voice barely above a grumble. You walked into the kitchen, joining his side to see what thing had the nerve to be more important to Logan than your morning snuggles.

You blinked at the spread on the counter. A few of your tupperware containers, open and filled with various goodies. Goodies with a healthy mix of proteins, fruits and veggies- all of the ones that you like, and your favorite chips. He was currently putting together your favorite sandwich. A brown paper bag sat open before him, as he dropped one of the tupperware containers inside.

"What are you doing?"

"Making your lunch." He states plainly.

"Oh...." You watched him make your sandwich. "Why?"

He shrugged, putting the finishing touches on your sandwich. "Just cause."

You weren't sure if it was because it was almost 6 in the morning and you were still half asleep- but you thought you could have burst into tears right then and there. The emotion you felt surged through you suddenly. The gesture seemed small, but it meant everything to you. The fact that he climbed out of bed early, meticously planned the food to pack into your lunch- making sure to pick out everything that you like; it made you feel so loved.

Logan stopped to look at you when he caught your silence.

"You alright?"

"Yeah." Your voice nearly cracked. "That's...Really sweet of you." You finally break into a smile, looking up at him with adoration in your eyes. A look he'll never get used to. "I never had anyone do that before."

"No?" He quirked a brow. He stuffed your sandwich into a little baggie. Before turning to you, his arm going around your shoulder and pulling you to his chest. You wrapped your arms around his waist, smiling into the warmth of him. "Guess that means I'm going to do it a lot more now."

[mothman-supremacy]

❛ i burn for you ❜

note: hope you enjoy anon! this is the longest imagine i've written to date!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Arthur Morgan was many things: outlaw, gunslinger, collector of cigarette cards (since he learned from a man he met at the train station that a full set is worth money) - but he was also a fool, especially when it came to women.

The day he read that damn letter, eyes greedily drinking in the cursive writing and the faint scent of a sweet perfume he hadn't forgotten, he went running with his tail tucked between his legs. He was being played like a damn fiddle, he knew that, especially when she asked him to help her with her brother. All these years and she only gets in contact when she needs a favour and a fool like him to do it for her.

But seeing her again ... damn, if it didn't bring up a lot of feelings he'd tried to forget. Memories of happier days, of a love he once thought would burn bright and bold for a long time.

So, like the goddamn fool he is, he helps her. Rescues her younger brother from a strange cult in the mountains worshipping turtles. Brings him back to her. Drinks up her praise, her gratitude. Watches her board the train and continues watching until it's out of sight.

When he returns back to camp that evening, he notices your foul mood. Usually you'd greet him as you always did, a smile on your lips that gave him a strange, warm feeling inside - but this time, you didn't even look at him, face stoic.

What the outlaw didn't know was that when he'd read that letter that came for him and then taken off like a bat out of hell on his horse, you'd followed him, curious to see where he was heading to so eagerly.

You stayed a good distance back while he rode to a big house just outside Valentine, used your binoculars to see more clearly as he dismounts his horse, walks up the steps of the porch and knocks on the door. When the door opens, your heart drops.

It's her.

Goddamn Mary Gillis - well, Linton now, since she'd married a good few years ago. Regardless of her surname, she was still as pretty as a picture, and clearly, she still had a hold on Arthur's heart all these years later.

It stung, more than you'd care to admit. These past few months, before Horseshoe Overlook and Colter, before even the mess in Blackwater, you'd begun to notice a shift in your relationship with Arthur. You'd always been fairly close, having grown up together and taught by Hosea and Dutch, but the past few months ... something had changed. You aren't sure how or when but it had.

And now here he was, his hat in his hands as he stared starry-eyed at another woman, his old flame.

A sickly feeling rises within and you decide you can't watch anymore. Pushing your binoculars back into your satchel, you swing up on your horse and head back to camp with a heavy heart and tears in your eyes.

"Everythin' alright?" He asks uncertainly, concern in his eyes.

You still don't look at him, head down and eyes trained on your rifle as you smear gun oil over it to clean it. "Sure."

Arthur frowns, unconvinced. "Don't seem that way."

An exasperated sigh leaves you. "I'm fine, Arthur. Just not in the mood to talk."

Well then. He decides it's best to leave you to your own devices and turns, heading to his tent, bewildered by your frostiness.

It wasn't like you to be so cool with anyone, let alone him. The two of you had known each other since you were kids, grew up being taught how to read by Hosea and how to fire a gun by Dutch. There wasn't much you didn't tell each other.

And he'd lying if he said he hadn't felt a change between you lately. There was a warmth that bloomed in his chest when he saw you, a rush of air that left his lungs as you smiled at him. He'd spent countless hours sneakily observing you as he tried his best to sketch your likeness into his journal; the slope of your nose, the fullness of your lips, the gleam in your eyes, the light dusting of freckles across your cheeks and nose.

Every day he discovered something new about you he wanted to draw and soon he'd had to get himself a new journal, the previous one filled with pages upon pages of carefully drawn pictures of you.

Arthur didn't know what to make of these new feelings, didn't know what to do with them - so he buried them deep down, tried his best to ignore them and pretend they weren't there.

Acting on them was out of the question for two reasons: one, he was utterly hopeless when it came to women, and two, you were his closest and oldest friend which meant you were strictly off limits. He couldn't bare to lose you, not after everything you'd been through together.

You'd patched up his wounds from countless shoot-outs, helped him back to camp when he'd gotten so drunk he could barely see straight, sewn his favourite jacket when he complained about rips and tears in it. And after the death of his son ... you'd been there to pick up the pieces of his broken heart, seen him at his lowest and still stayed by his side.

Risking such a precious friendship he'd come to cherish was unthinkable. A life without you made less sense than Uncle pulling his weight and helping out around the camp instead of complaining about his 'lumbago'.

Days pass. The air grows a little warmer and the sun burns a little hotter with the coming of summer. The heat isn't the only thing that grates on Arthur's nerves.

You still hadn't spoken more than two words to him. When he'd tried to approach you and speak to you, you'd make some half-assed excuse about needing to go into town for a few supplies or going to collect a debt for Strauss and quickly left. You flitted around so much, in and out of camp, you were little more than a blur these days.

Arthur had had enough. He was tired of your strange attitude and quite frankly, if you didn't want to talk about whatever the hell was going on with you, too bad. Underneath the annoyance and frustration, there was concern. He didn't understand why you were behaving so unusually, why you seemed to be avoiding him.

He'd noticed you talking to other members of the gang just fine, joking and laughing as you often did - so why was it just him you seemed to be so frosty with?

One day, after another cold dismissal, Arthur's temper reaches a boiling point.

"Wha' the hells your goddamn problem, huh?"

You turn to look at him, eyes narrowing in defensiveness at his outburst. "Excuse me?"

He knows he should back off and calm down, he's far too worked up to speak rationally, but he's sick and tired of feeling like his closest friend has become a stranger. He misses you, damn it.

"You heard me. What's going on with you? Why're you avoidin' me?"

You scoff, trying to play it cool. "I ain't avoidin' anyone. You're delusional."

He returns your scoff with a bitter chuckle. "Oh, really? That why you scurry away like a goddamn rabbit whenever I try to talk to you?"

Heat burns in your cheeks. "I do not scurry."

"Well, ya sure seem to move pretty goddamn fast when ya see me comin'." He takes a step closer, face drawn in a tight glare. "So spit it out. What's goin' on with you? And don't you even try to deny it."

"How's Mary?" You ask suddenly, voice laced with venom and eyes sharp as Javier's knives.

The question throws him for a loop, his anger momentarily disappearing as shock registers. "Mary? The hell's she got to do with anythin'?"

"Oh, please," you roll yours eyes irritatedly, crossing your arms over your chest. "I saw you running off into town that day you got her letter. Saw you talkin' to her, lookin' like a lovesick fool. Did you forget how she broke your heart? How you weren't good enough for her? Or were you just thinkin' with your dick?"

Your words cut deep and fuel his anger even more. "You followin' me now?"

Ignoring his accusation, you press on, anger burning hot and bright inside your chest. "After everything that damn woman put you through, after the way her family looked down on you, after she rejected you because you weren't good enough, why in the hell would you go and help her?"

"What the hell has this got to do with why you've been avoidin' me?" He demands furiously.

You want to slap yourself in the face - and then him, and then Mary for good measure and because you're feeling a little petty.

How could this man be so oblivious and hopelessly clueless?

It was right there; you'd practically spelled it out for him and he still pretended like he couldn't read the words your heart had written for him.

Or maybe, he didn't want to. Maybe he didn't want to see how you felt for him because he didn't feel the same. Maybe he was still desperately in love with Mary after all these years and you'd imagined the closeness between you these last few months, foolishly deluding yourself into believing there'd been a spark.

From the way he was looking at you, angry and confused and so oblivious, you could only assume he hadn't felt the same heat from the embers you'd been nurturing inside longer than you'd care to admit.

So you swallow your anger, your hurt, your love. It's bitter and difficult, like trying to chew down Pearson's gristly stew, but you do it.

"Nothin'. It's got absolutely nothin' to do with it."

If the situation was different, you might have laughed at the absolutely bewildered look on the man's face.

But it wasn't.

And you didn't.

Instead, you did what you do best lately: you turn and walk away.

Days bleed into weeks and weeks into months. After robbing the bank in Valentine, you flee once more, packing up the camp and settling into a derelict mansion south of a town called Rhodes. Shady Belle, is the name of the new campsite.

Down here so close to the swamps, the air is much more humid and heavy, weighing down on everyone and clinging to them. The heat is almost unbearable, and everyone dresses in lighter layers to try and alleviate their overheated bodies from the warmer temperatures.

You hadn't spoken to Arthur in quite a while. Well, nothing more than a few words here and there when absolutely necessary, like for a robbery or when someone in camp said to tell him they were looking for him. Other than that, nothing. There'd been a large fracture between you, one that didn't go unnoticed by knowing eyes.

Having raised the two of you from young teenagers to hardened adults, Hosea could see from a mile off that something had happened.

Late one evening, when most everyone else had retired to their tents for the night, Hosea finds Arthur by the docks, a small lantern perched on an old crate illuminating his figure and the ever permanent scowl on his face these days.

"You know," the older man begins as he comes to stand beside Arthur. "When Bessie and I would get into a fight, she'd ignore me for days unless I apologised. Longest we went without talking was a week. Worst one of my life."

Arthur's surprised to see his older mentor up so late, but he doesn't show it, too confused by the meaning behind his seemingly random reminiscing. "Okay..?"

Hosea looses a tired sigh. "My dear boy, you were always a few branches short of a tree, weren't you?"

The outlaw scoffs. "You callin' me dumb, old man?"

"I'm simply saying that there was a time when I thought it was worth being right over being happy and I soon learned I was very wrong."

"I still don't know where you're goin' with this."

"Whatever you did or said, just apologise to her."

Arthur's face hardens as he realises now what Hosea's been getting at, the sly bastard. "I ain't got nothin' to apologise for."

"That hardly matters. You're upset, she's upset. The simple solution is to swallow your pride and say you're sorry."

"I didn't do nothin' to say sorry for!"

"You'll forgive me if I find that a little hard to believe, what with the way you two have been acting as of late."

"She jus' started freezin' me out and then one day she chews me out for goin' to help Mary out-"

"Ah." Hosea eyes gleam with a knowing glint as he begins to smile. "I see."

"See what?"

"She's hurt."

"Hurt? Why in the hell would she be-"

Oh.

Oh.

Hosea says nothing as the realisation slams into Arthur, leaving him winded and reeling.

How did he not see it sooner? You were hurt. Upset. Because he'd gone to see Mary, his past love. Which meant that you ...

Arthur turns on his heel and marches toward your tent, faintly registering a call of 'good luck!' from Hosea.

He hopes that you're still awake and he isn't sure if he's more relieved or nervous when he sees light illuminating from within the canvas. He pauses outside, hesitant and second guessing himself. What if he got it wrong? What if you didn't actually have feelings for him? What if he's being delusional and wanting to believe you do have feelings for him because he has them for you too?

It had taken him so long to get to this point, to admit to himself he cared about you more than just a friend. To admit that he loved you. And now there was a possibility you might just feel the same.

A combination of the heat and nerves made his throat dry, his hands growing clammy. He was frozen in place, staring at the canvas, thinking that if anyone walked by and saw him they'd scold him for being a pervert, but he -

The canvas parted and your face appeared, sending his heart racing even faster. You appeared just as surprised as he felt, eyes widening at the sight of him stood outside your tent. "Arthur? What the hell are you-"

Before you can even finish your question, he surges forward, leaning down to cup your face as his lips capture yours in a searing kiss that steals your breath and sends a jolt of heat straight to your core. His mouth is hungry, insatiable as he devours you, tongue sliding into your mouth and caressing yours. It's like he's a man dying of thirst and he's just gotten his first drink of water in years.

When you both break away, panting and breathing heavily, lips swollen and faces flushed, there's no denying the palpable heat between you now, the roaring inferno too loud to silence or ignore.

"I'm sorry," Arthur rasps lowly, voice husky. "I should've - I didn' - she's not-" He takes a moment to catch his breath and gather his thoughts before trying again. "I did love Mary but that was a long time ago. I helped her because it was the right thing to do, not because I still had feelings for her. You... you've had my heart for a long time now, darlin'. Youre in my goddamn veins, you're - you're everythin'."

Your heart stutters at his heartfelt confession, tears springing to your eyes. You'd been waiting a long time to hear those words, so long that you'd become convinced you never would but now -

His hands are still cupping your face, calloused thumbs gently stroking across your skin as his eyes search yours, desperate and wanting. "I should'a said it a long time ago, I was a fool, a goddamn fool, but I love ya, darlin'. I think maybe I always have."

There it is.

You swallow the lump in your throat, your heart overflowing as you struggle to choke out the words you want to say. "I love you too, Arthur. I love you so much it hurts -"

Nothing else needs to be said, no further words necessary as he kisses you once more, further igniting the smoldering heat between you that had been burning for years, slowly growing from flickering embers to this.

And nothing, or no one, would ever extinguish it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[mothman-supremacy]

Just like the promise of spring, the eventual falling off of the Van der Linde gang brought new beginnings, leaving Arthur with no loyalties other than his love for you. 

arthur morgan x fem!reader, 1.3k wc, no illness AU because i choose happiness, afab!reader, fluff, brief mention of sex, mention of future children ˚₊·—̳͟͞͞♡. ao3

A rusty ring and domesticity. Loving whispers and hearty laughter to fill the place he now calls home. Crows from roosters to start the day, barks from two dogs and wags of tails, sturdy hooves from his most trusted horses. And most importantly, a special woman to cherish until his very last breath. You.

Happiness in life was never promised, but Arthur had it at the palm of his hand now. 

Falling for an outlaw that once carried a $5,000 wanted dead or alive bounty on his head had come at a price for you back then, but the possibility of being swept up in the risk and trouble with the law hadn’t kept you away. Loving a dangerous man was thrilling. 

Settling down had always been a goal for you two once things got serious – soft whispers of shared dreams of a future house followed the rowdy nights of drunken singing at camp.

Somewhere along the way, everything materialized. Just last spring, the gang had descended from Colter into New Hanover. It felt like forever ago, though, like a distant memory.

The house you two resided in had been abandoned at first, but you both put in a lot of love into nursing it back to health and made it your own.

Routines and schedules had been difficult for him at the beginning, after all, his life was unpredictable. But it gradually grew easier to become accustomed to this kind of life when he had your gentle arms to coax him into bed at the end of the day and to wake up in. 

He was slowly crossing off a list of his favorite places that he wanted to take you to, ones that struck a chord in him in the years he had explored. So-called dates.

Tucked snugly against his side, the two of you sat beneath a large tree just a minute walk from Little Creek River. Fields of lavender lay in front of you. His new journal was set on his lap, the location crossed off - Hanging Dog Ranch.

Soft snickering of your two horses accompanied the singing of birds and bleats from deer that traveled the grass to reach the river, completely unbothered by the presence of the two sweethearts lounging about. 

“Don’t go fallin’ asleep on me, now.” His murmur was quiet, spoken with sheer adoration as his thumb rubbed up and down against the bridge of your nose, the tips of his other fingers caressing your jawline.

“You make it hard not to,” he truly did. You felt nothing but safe against him, even back then, he had always done his absolute best to keep you from harm. Now that everything was more peaceful, that feeling only grew, turning you to mush when he held you.

“Think the dogs are okay?” The question blurted from your lips as the two fluffy companions suddenly popped into your mind. 

“Yer worried ‘bout the dogs right now?” He looked at you incredulously, you felt his body rumble as he chuckled.

“Well…you know how they get, they’re probably lonely without us and the horses.”

“They’ve got each other, just like we do.”

“You’re so romantic,” spoken through a pearly smile, it sounded like a tease – but you meant it wholeheartedly. 

He grinned like an idiot, tilting his face closer towards yours so he could capture your lips into a soft kiss. The moment alone seemed to stop the world, all the outside noises pausing as you focused on the love he was channeling to you. 

Pulling away, he rested his head on top of yours with a content sigh.

“Y’see that ranch over there? O'driscoll's used to be holed up in there. Must’ve been…at least fifteen of ‘em. Someone had to be the one to end their shenanigans ‘round here so I could peacefully pick flowers for a particular lovely lady.”

“Wonder who the lucky woman was,” you snorted, knowing damn well you were the one the clumsily tied bouquet had been gifted to one fateful day. Sweet memories of that blossoming romance triumphed over the difficult ones that came with riding with the Van der Linde gang. 

“Still remember feelin’ like a nervous fool, trippin’ over my words ‘n all. But when I saw the way you smiled so brightly, everythin’ got easier.”

His transparency was a breath of fresh air. Back then, he always spoke in a way that hid his vulnerability. And Lord, it had taken him a long time to make a move on you, having been too worried about the consequences of being caught up in a relationship. Loving a woman didn’t mix well with the business of rowdy outlaws whose enemies could target that love. Anabelle was just one example.

Pursuing you was quite possibly the bravest thing Arthur had done. He would’ve fallen apart if he had lost you at the cost of his feelings. 

And even though he was now far away from the environment that had always pushed him to work, he continued doing so with ease. Arthur didn’t have idle hands, he always put them to use: fixing the wooden fences, tending to the animals, chopping wood for the fireplace, hunting, and massaging your shoulders at the end of the day. 

You never quite asked him to do any of it, and that in itself felt special to him.

When he took care of the horses, you sat down on the soft grass, the dogs curled up on your sides, back against the fence as you talked to him and kept him company, he’d reply with a soft ‘mm’ or ‘is that right?’ while smiling. 

Not a day went by that he didn’t get a nice hot meal accompanied by a kiss on the forehead, though. He’d try to help out with making the food sometimes, but you would nag at him to just relax for a while because he was always doing something. 

Little traces of traditions from camp followed the two of you like a shadow. Anyone passing by your house after dinner time would likely catch a glimpse of two silhouettes holding one another and hear the tune of a phonograph.

Being tangled up beneath the sheets with passion heating up the bedroom was another world entirely — no longer having to be mindful about nearby ears or the lack of comfort. With nothing but security, having a baby on the way would be nothing but a blessing. A bundle of love who would be coddled and hear kid-friendly recountings of your time as outlaws for bedtime stories.

Preparations were already being made – Arthur built a sturdy crib while you worked on sewing small rompers and bodysuits during your free time. Talks of a child slowly integrated into your daily conversations, too. 

“Maybe they’d get your artistic skills,” you mused, fingers slowly flipping through the pages of Arthur’s old journal – you’d read it over and over after he let you. Each sentence was raw, allowing you to see into his beautiful soul. 

“Mm, and the little rascal will get to see how pretty their momma always has been.”

Sketches of you filled multiple pages, all from when he first started falling head over heels for you. It was endearing, really, how a man caught up in crime had scribbled hearts all over at the mere thought of you. Over the years, he had memorized each and every one of your features, like all artists did with their favorite muses. He could draw you with his eyes closed, with a stick on sand, or even with the mere trace of his fingers against your back — just as he did now as he held you.

“I was thinking we should head into town and go to the photography studio,” You suggested, closing the book and turning to lay on your stomach to face him. Arthur had never drawn himself, and well, you wanted some photos with him to hang up and frame. “Or maybe we can write a letter to what’s his name…that clumsy man you told me about!”

“Albert Mason?” 

“Yeah, him!”

“Sounds like a mighty fine idea, darlin’.” The words were whispered as he brought his hand up to pat your head, watching as you nuzzled into his touch.

You were all he needed to feel complete and worthy.

[mothman-supremacy]

“are you going to say anything or are you just going to sit there and wallow?”

arthur started st the sound of hosea’s voice from behind him. he flushed, embarrassed, and shrugged. “couldn’t imagine what you’re talking about.” he replied shortly before bringing the lip of the bottle to his lips. beer flooded his mouth and quenched the growing dryness.

hosea chuckled and took a seat beside him on the fallen log. the crackling fire before them snapped over the sounds of singing and javier’s guitar. arthur, as much as he cursed himself for doing it, allowed his gaze to slip back to you.

you were dancing with uncle with a grin that could’ve torn the skin off of arthur’s back and he would’ve thanked you with how much he adored it.

though to most uncle was a lazy meandering drunk, you held a soft spot for him. his crude humor and indirect kindness endeared him to you so that you thought of him as his namesake. arthur knew this, and although he didn’t understand it he couldn’t help find your appreciation of the man endearing.

“you’re no fool arthur.” hosea said. “you know how you feel. being bitter isn’t going to make her yours.”

arthur scowled at the grey-haired man and the truth in his words. he was bitter, disgustingly so. your recent talk of a new man had made arthur feel so turned around and venomous that it made him sick to his stomach and he had spent the last couple of days avoiding you.

you, in turn, had taken to ignoring him and much to his irritation, had continued to visit your new companion in rhodes.

the song began to pick up its pace and uncle began to give you a twirl. your hair and gown twirled and swayed wildly and you belted a laugh that made those around you follow suite.

“she’s got a chance.” arthur growled. “she’s got a chance at a real life, with whoever this man is. some banker. no sense in me stopping it.”

hosea stared at him, eyebrow raised. “do you really believe that?”

arthur scratched at the short length of his beard.l and sighed. “i don’t know if I believe in anything.”

hosea fell silent for a moment. the two of them watched as the song came to a close and applause broke out. sean’s irish brogue asked for another song and almost too quickly the others agreed. the guitar struck again, and karen’s singing voice casted out towards the stars, and you settled into a seat and brought a jug of whiskey to your perfect mouth.

“you better figure it out quick.” hosea replied. “years of watching you deny yourself things has sickened me. i’d like to see you happy on my deathbed.”

then, without another word, he stood and walked towards his tent, leaving arthur to nurse his jealous wounds on his own.

how it ached to see you like this, whiskey-stung with a feral grin. how it ached to watch the way you leaned sleepily into tilly’s shoulder as the liquor slowly began to bribe you to bed, just as it always did.

what a fool he was to love you.

what a fool he was to yearn painfully over a woman who’d better leave him behind.

a familiar shuddering in his chest pressed in on him and he moved to drown it out with burning drink. then he stood, swayed on his feet for a moment, then moved to the join the revelry. at the sight of him, you perked up.

“do you still have it in you to dance?” arthur asked quietly. heat shot to the tips of his ears.

the sound of his voice sent your stomach into a spiral. when you gave him a nod that you prayed didn’t seem to eager, a smile that was almost boyishly shy quirked the shape of his sinful mouth. you took his hand, the callouses rough and warm, and let him lead you away.

when the song changed again, to something much slower and sweet, his hands took their place — one in yours and the other on your waist. warmth seeped into you.

arthur smelled like campfire smoke and whiskey layered with something soft and sweet that was unmistakably him. you’d catch the scent of it when he brushed past you in camp and it would make you dizzy with longing. now, half-drunk, you felt your blood purr.

arthur looked down at you through half-mast eyes. you looked heart-breaking, your skin glowing with liquor and your eyes shining. as the two of you swayed he began to hum a familiar tune.

“why are you looking at me like that?” you asked him quietly. the softness of his gaze was making your heart pound and your mouth dry.

“no reason.” arthur replied quietly. the threat of his love was dangerously close to the tip of his tongue.

“how mysterious you are, mr. morgan.” you teased.

arthur chuckled. “that and foolishness is all i’ve got.”

you rolled your eyes in that playful way of yours. the idea of him being foolish was like the grass growing crimson. “what could possibly make you a fool, arthur?”

there it was. the way you said his name made arthur weak in the knees and his heart pound in his chest. affection overwhelmed him as he looked down into your stubborn gaze and a sudden bravery surged him forward to place a chaste kiss to the top of your head.

“many things. but mostly you.”

[mothman-supremacy]

npc, wanting to fight: come on, pretty boy 🤜

arthur: pretty boy? 😮 you're kidding me! 😤pretty boy?! 😡

also arthur:

( my pics, pls give credit if you use!!! ♡ )

[mothman-supremacy]

Me, every time I come across a fanfic of my fav old man with fluff, angst and happy endings:

[mothman-supremacy]

Based.

I'm glad somebody in government is saying it explicitly without mincing words.

Abolish the Republican Party.

[mothman-supremacy]

— will you show me?

no-outbreak!joel x f!reader, joel x reader x tess

Rated E - 4.2k

Tags: switch!joel and switch!reader, poly relationship, use of alcohol, light sub/dom elements, sex toys, references to threesomes, sexual photos, oral sex, anal play, pegging, joel teaches you what to do

a/n: when the wonderfully talented @wannab-urs announced her #PMAMC event, I knew I had to sign up! Thank you so much, this was so fun 💖

When Tess lets slip an unknown dynamic of your shared relationship, it’s impossible not to think about it. To wonder… to wish. Luckily, Joel is more than happy to show you how.

It starts over drinks.

Time ticking down more quickly than you’d like. Each sip of your cocktail brings you closer to her leaving, as you sit in the booth between Tess and Joel.

Her thigh pressed snug against yours. Fingers drifting along the back of the booth, the tips stroking the side of your neck. Goose bumps rising in the wake of her touch, making you shiver. 

A warm hand wraps around your knee on the other side - a silent, possessive weight. Legs that are still jelly from the hours before - during a soft, drawn-out goodbye.

One that signals the end of a long, perfect weekend. Every detail carefully planning to celebrate Joel’s birthday, filled with family and friends. Squeezing in just enough alone time to ensure it’s one he won’t forget. 

It would be a couple weeks before she would be back in town again. Leaving you in very capable hands, ones you’ve gotten to know well over these last few months. 

The neon lights above the bar flicker with the stuttering of your heart, as she leans. The room dark enough that the illumination of her phone feels too bright, as she flashes the screen at Joel. 

Something from earlier. 

Something you remember because you were there - just positioned on the other side of the lens. Memories ooze and wash over you with the quick glance you manage to catch.

Framing you from neck to hips. Broad hands palming your breasts, molding you to their touch. Thighs splayed wide, where there’s the blur of something in a pretty shade of purple moving between them. 

You clench at the reminder. The snap of her hips. The leather and silicone. Joel’s hands cupping and squeezing, just before your head had tilted back to take him.

“Send me a copy of that,” Joel murmurs, a small curve of his lips as his eyes drag across the image. 

It makes your cheeks burn, to be stuck between them. Their tones so casual, as if it’s just an interesting article online, instead of an illicit memento. 

Tess grins, thumbs already tapping to pull up his contact. 

“Thought you’d like that, birthday boy.” She muses, tongue trapped between her teeth as she sends it off. “Seeing as you both like the same one.”

There’s an almost imperceptible stiffening beside you. His hand clamping down a little more tightly - a flatness in the press of his lips. 

You already hang onto his every word, so it’s not hard to miss - your eyes darting up to his as they narrow in her direction.

Leaving Tess oblivious, on the other side.

It stays with you, as your time runs out. As you say your final goodbyes in the parking lot outside the airport. A quick pressing of mouths, embracing arms and murmured words, as you wave her off.

Watching her grow smaller. Leaving you both alone.

It stays with you on the drive home. Joel’s silence is not unusual, the radio filling the cozy space with Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen. 

The usual comforts, but you can’t help the slow drift of your eyes in his direction. Once and then twice, until he’s catching you - an eyebrow raising. 

“Been lookin’ at me an awful lot,” He comments - eyes drifting back to the road. “Somethin’ on your mind?”

That slight sort of tension coming back in the way his hands twist around the wheel, how his eyes slide away before you can answer.

“Maybe I just like looking at you.” You smile - at him, the small shake of his head at your words. He takes to compliments like oil in water, but it doesn’t keep them from slipping from you.

But that silence still hangs, and you frown. More curious than anything. A sliver of worry - knowing if you press too hard, you’ll meet a wall.

“Joel.” There’s a short inhale of breath, “Can I ask you something?”

It lingers for just a second too long, before he’s answering.

“Think you just did.”

The dry humor makes you smile, a small laugh as your eyes drift over the traffic, the hanging red stoplight above.

You should ask him before it changes.

“At dinner,” You start, “You got funny at something Tess said.”

“''S not a question,” His answer is evasive, and that grabs your attention, as you shift his way.

“Fine.” You narrow your thoughts down, “Was it what she said about the toy? Or was it the photo?”

“Weren’t the photo, sweetheart,” The soft name has sharp edges, a hint that you’re onto something. A few weeks ago you would have dropped it.

But they had both pressed that communication was important. Something you had really tried to upheld, for them. 

“The toy, then?” You press - letting your fingers drift between the space that separates you. It only takes a moment before his hand drops to curl around it, resting on his thigh.

“I don’t-” Joel inhales a short breath, and then frees it, “I just didn’t want you finding out like that. Wanted to talk to you properly.”

That has you frowning, your head tilting, “Why would you need to tell me you use a toy on Tess? You think I’d feel weird about her using it on me?”

You wouldn’t. 

You’ve had her on your fingers, on your tongue. 

You’d tasted her on Joel’s cock, before you swallowed him down. 

“Don’t use it on her.”

Another beat of silence, “She uses it on me.”

This time, it’s you that’s gone quiet. Your thoughts swirling messily as you try to process what he said.

What it means.

You’ve read about it. There’s so much Tess and Joel had introduced you to. Your own curiosity sending you into your own forms of research.

But, this hadn’t been brought up. Not that you can remember. In your time spent together Joel always had a commanding tone and a firm touch, though softened when directed at you. 

Perhaps it fits, though. He bends, for Tess. 

It’s hard not to let the images swirl in your mind. Knees nudged wide. Red-tipped nails sinking into dark curls, the slap of skin on skin. Hips and a hard cock grinding into the mattress - that pretty, rough groan he makes when he’s close. 

“Oh.” You breathe, eyes a little unfocused, where they stare ahead. A moment, as you collect your thoughts, “Why… why would that make you angry?”

He sighs then, some of that tension ebbing from him, “’m not angry. It’s just not something we’ve done together.”

A hint of that edge comes back, “And I don’t like discussing our private affairs out in the open.”

That makes you smile, “It was an empty bar, Joel. We go there all the time-”

But then you’re pausing, thinking. Your words coming slowly, “Were you worried what I’d think?”

The truck pulls up in front of his home. A light left on in the living room, in Sarah’s rush to meet a friend. The engine idles until he’s switching it off, though neither one of you move. 

Silence hangs, for a moment. You feel as if you can almost hear the click of his watch, the seconds slowly ticking by. 

He doesn’t answer, so you do it for him.

“I don’t mind. Not at all.” You slowly lean, reaching - fingers pinching at his chin, until he’s facing you, “I just didn’t know you liked it, that’s all.”

The corner of his lips curl, “Been busy. Had our hands full with you, honey.”

It’s the Joel you know, now. His back easing against the seat, the stiffness leaving his shoulders. 

Your hand still lingers on his thigh, gently tracing.

“Is that…” The prospect feels thrilling, the question on the tip of your tongue, “Is that something I could do for you? Will you show me?”

His eyes dart to yours. But there’s only an awe in your tone. A desire. 

It wouldn’t be the first time a switch had been flipped in your brain. A latent urge to return all the pleasure that’s been given to you. The thought of rolling them beneath you - riding and touching them until they’re trembling. 

“Is that right?” He asks, slowly. The glow from the street lamp outside cuts across his face, a dark eye hilighted in gold, “Is that what you want?”

You nod. No hesitation in the gesture, your mind already running wild with the thoughts of his pleasure in your hands. Of being able to do this for him.

Of something new. 

“Alright,” He answers. 

“I’ll show you.”

The harness feels heavy. Black leather that fits around your hips, circling your thighs. Something pretty on underneath, your favorite shade in layers of satin and lace.

Picked up a few days ago, in one of the shops the next town over.

Your eyes had been wide, perusing the shelves with Joel. A new perspective this time - looking at the different options, for an item not intended for yourself. 

Strapless. Double-ended. Vibrating. 

The cock had been easy. A copy of the one Tess had brought with her, the same shade of purple. 

A heat rising in your cheeks at the thought of using it with Joel. Spreading to your neck and ears when more was added to the basket.

The harness. Another bottle of lube. 

Something else - a heavy silver plug, the gem a glittering shade of emerald green. 

“For later.” Joel hints, before you can ask, “Maybe next time you can take us both.”

The thought had made your breath catch in your chest. 

“We’re shopping for you.” You had hissed, his hand warm at the base of your spine. Burning.

“Savin’ us a trip.” He murmured back. 

It had led up to tonight. An evening alone, the planning giving you time for your nerves to make a home in your chest and belly. 

Your fingers wrap around the plastic cock now, the angle so different than what you’re used to. Joel’s fingers still linger at your hips, adjusting the straps until it fits snugly against you.

It feels pleasing, in your hand. The curving thickness, how you can see the shadow of your fingers beneath from the jelly-like texture. The dim lights from above shining off it, and then you’re picturing how it would look glossy. 

Your hand pumps, from thick base to tip. Embers sparking in your belly, as you think about him being the one to do it. How pretty it would look, disappearing between his lips. 

“Are you going to get this wet for me, Miller?” There’s a commanding edge to your voice, just barely concealing the waver. 

His eyes and then a brow lifts, from where he sits on the bed. Where you stand between his spread knees, the dildo bobbing between you.

“You get bossy with a cock, sweetheart?”

There’s a little tilt to his head. A rasp in his voice, and your cheeks are burning again for more than one reason. 

“I, I just thought-” Your words trail off, until his hand is wrapping around yours and squeezing, “I thought that is what you wanted. How Tess would do it.”

Tess, with her pretty voice and blunt words. So much like Joel - how they always had you scrambling to obey.

Stay still. Be good. Just like that, honey. Make me come.

“You don’t gotta be her,” His look softens, “I just want you to be yourself.”

They way he says it, so bluntly, so certain, loosens the tight knot in your chest - easing some of your embarrassment. 

“What do you want, honey?”

It’s easy for you to answer, “I want to make you feel good.”

He smiles at that. It’s familiar, his eyes crinkling at the edges, “I think we could work with that.”

There’s a soft squeeze of his hand against yours. Fingers that slip free and then drop, wrapping around the silicone. Squeezing there too, with a slow pump of his fist. 

“Now, if you wanna see me suck your cock, I will.” Joel’s voice lowers then, “But you gotta as me nice, baby.”

For a moment, you forget how to breathe. Dumbstruck, with how pretty his drawl sounds, curling around those words like the careful grip of his fingers.

The breath you inhale is shaky, small. Eyes widened where they’re focused on his face, his lips.

“I want you to,” You breathe.

“You can do better, sugar.” There’s that heat then, in his eyes. That teasing tone, back in place. “Come on, now.”

“Please, Joel.” 

You’re not sure when things got turned around. How you ended up being the one begging, but it’s there - the soft whine in your voice. The want.

And you think you don’t mind at all. 

“I want to see you suck my cock.”

There’s the flash of white teeth then, with his smile. The slow stroke of hands as they move against your hips. Easing you back one, two steps so he can slip from the bed. Sinking to the floor on his knees. 

Your feet widen on their own. Watching his fingertips against the silicone. The slow duck of his head, the peek of his pink tongue.

Carefully taking one inch, and then another. A wet suck and bob of his head, as he slicks you up. Fingers pressing into the dark denim of his jeans, clenching, as his eyes flutter shut. 

Taking his time. Touching and stroking and licking, with sure and steady hands. Hands that make you clench, as he groans around you. As you sigh, feeling flood of arousal at the sight on him, on his knees for you. 

He leaves the base untouched, lips wrapping around as he works his way down the shaft, and then back up. 

It’s here, that you gain your footing again. Fingers wrapping in his curls, gently tugging. 

“You can take it,” You urge, gently, “You’re much bigger and I can take you.”

There’s a rough sound, at your words. Eyes that burn, as they flip up to yours. As he listens - inching further down, until the tip of his nose ghosts against your belly.

It thrills you. 

Holding himself there for a long moment, as your hand frees itself to stroke his cheek, all rough stubble and warmed skin - before gently easing him off.

“You did so good,” The praise feels different, coming from your mouth. An urge to hear transforming into an ache to give, as you look into dark, blown-wide eyes, “Let’s get you on the bed, okay? I want to touch you.”

That smile coming back, as he rises on stiffened joints - where knees pressed into the hardwood floor. 

A tenting in his pants that was not there before, becoming more prominent when he settles back against the pillows. Pulled half-way down the bed, calves dangling off the side edge. The hem of his black t-shirt riding up, your eyes snagging on skin as you climb on beside him. 

Where he put you together, the careful fastening and tightening of straps - you take him apart.

The heavy buckle cool against your palm, the leather stiff as you work his belt open. Plucking at the button, his own hands grasping at the dark denim. A lift of his hips as they are tugged down, slowly baring him.

Inches of skin, the trail of hair that only darkens the more you ease down his jeans. Thickening at the base of his cock, already hard at curving against his hip. 

He makes a sound, a hushed inhale of breath through his teeth as you palm him. Fingers wrapping around as his jeans and boxers fall to pool together on the floor. 

Socked feet spreading as you inch between his thighs - as he opens himself up to you. 

You look is reverent. Waiting for him to show you, like he promised. Teach you how to make him feel good. 

Watching, as he does. 

The lithe pull of muscle as he leans - a hand reaching up to hook around the handle of the bedside table. Drawing out the bottle - fingertips glossy with lube, as they dip.

You can feel him jump against your palm, when the tip of one presses against his rim. Sinking down to the knuckle - forearm flexing with the careful pump.

Working himself open, slowly. That warmth in your belly pooling lower - the toy shifting with you, a reminder. The base bumping against where you throb, only fueling your eagerness.

“Come on.” His voice is strained, as he holds the bottle out, “You wanna learn, right?”

It’s slippery against your fingers. Cold. You try to rub them against your thumb to warm them - before he slips free. 

“Just-,” There’s the hitch of his breath, as your touch drags from cock, to his heavy sack, then lower. “Go slow, okay?”

“Okay.”

Your eyes are on his - a promise in them. The careful press against his opening, until you’re sinking in. Warm now, his groan so pretty as his head tilts back against the pillow.

It’s slow, the rhythmic pump of your fingers. Almost familiar, moving with the memory of other nights. Knuckle-deep before withdrawing, never leaving him completely. A second slips in with his encouragement  - coaxing words and the swell of his cock.

Twitching against his stomach, an errant drip smearing against skin and coarse hair. It’s easy to dip your head, fingers curling as you lick the weeping tip.

He jerks beneath you, clenching. Tight around your fingers as he groans, the sound coming from deep in his chest. Hands leaving where they grip in the pillows to brush your cheeks.

“You can’t-” Joel’s lips are parted with a heavy breath, a rough sound, “Gonna cut this too short if you do that, darlin’”

And god, it’s tempting to try. You think you could - keep those fingers buried in him while you suck him off. Keep him warm in your mouth, while you figure out just what he likes.

Your own question is low, as your face tips up to his, “Would you let me do that?”

His laugh is strangled and hushed, “You can do anything you want, honey. But if you want to do this, you’d better that it easy on me.”

The this that he is ready for. Nerves skitter across your skin, as your fingers slip from him. Eyes watching and expectant as the lube is passed to you again. 

The silicone slick and glossy from the pass of your palm, wrapping around the thick base. Stepping back off the bed, feet planting on the floor between thighs that spread wider, hips tilting up. 

“Take it slow, you got this.”

It almost feels funny, his encouragement. More used to coaxing you in other ways.

You can take it. Another inch, honey. Just like that. 

Well, you can do that for him. Your own words mirroring his, as you line yourself up. A shiver as the blunt tip slides against his rim. 

A shallow shift of your hips as you move forward. Slowly sinking into him. 

He stiffens beneath you - back bowing and chest rising with a held breath. Fingers that slip down until they’re gripping white-knuckled against thighs that inch wider. 

You take it slower than he does for you. He knows you can take it - but you’re in control here, soaking in every sigh. The pretty groan as you rock back and then forward, deeper.

A hand coming to rest on his, fitting your fingers against his knuckles. 

“Feel good?” You ask, softly. Trying to keep your shallow rhythm steady. Eyes dragging from the harness to the hard curve of his cock, up,

To where he nods, breath inhaled through clenched teeth. 

“Doin’ real good, honey,” His hand twitched beneath yours. A flexing of the muscles in his forearm, matching the clench of his belly, “Move your hips more. That’s my girl.”

You’re moving with his words, the praise like a glittering warmth against your skin. Another groan knocked loose as you do as he says. 

Thrusting until you’re truly buried in him,  pressed skin-to-skin. Pulling back to do it again, his cock bobbing against his stomach with the force of your hips against his.

He’s pretty, like this. Want blooms beneath your skin, prickling. Eyes greedy with the way they watch sticky patch glistens against his abdomen. As thick thighs press about your hips, hitching higher to drive you deeper. 

The harness biting into your skin, the way the base grinds against your clit each time you hilt yourself. His pleasure held in the tilt and grind of your hips, your hands. You think you get it. What she sees, what she wants-

And the sounds. The wet slap and suck of skin. His words, running from his mouth. The growl in his throat when your fingers hook under his knees, the angle changing.

“Fuck.” It’s a loose, ragged sound, “Fuck, honey. Just like that-”

It has you alert. Heart thudding in your chest and between your thighs, with his desperate plea. Your pace slowing until you get it right, grinding against that spot inside him.

Watching how the flush rises from his chest. Dark curls mussed above eyes that are now heavy-lidded and blown wide. His strong hands anchored in the sheets again, using the leverage to help him meet your thrusts. 

Your head ducks, saliva pooling on your tongue. A hand leaving his thigh so you can spit on your palm - too focused to search for the bottle that’s now lost amongst the bedding. 

Wrapping around his cock - where he’s flushed there, too. Another rough curse, the edge razor sharp as you stroke him from base to tip.

The thrust of your hips stuttering, unused to the coordination. A new appreciation for Joel, the way he ruins you so thoroughly and so often. 

His hand covers yours. The press of his warm palm and thick fingers enveloping yours. Wrapping your hand tighter, guiding you to stroke him faster, harder. 

“Don’t stop.” It’s a ragged plea, “You’re gonna make me come, sweetheart-”

In this moment, you think there’s nothing that could make you. Your own breath short and panting - eyes fixed on the pull of his brow, the part of his lips.

The way he thrusts into the tight clutch of your fist, fingers pinching harder. Your name a ragged groan that draws out long and low as he stiffens, the messy spill of his release over your knuckles with the next twist of your wrist.

His hand falls limply away as he comes - painting the curve of his belly, arcing up to his chest, sticky and glossy against his skin. You can feel the pulse under your thumb, see the tightening jerk of his cock, when your eyes tear from his face to drift down. Watching him, until he’s fully spent. 

Only then do your hips carefully slow, your hands loosening to drift across his stomach and hips, tracing his skin. 

He’s beautiful.

A tanned arm thrown across his face. Sweat dewing skin, the soft and unsteady inhale-exhale of his chest and belly.

Stained with himself, smeared across his abdomen from your hands and his. Glinting in the low light of the lamp, a low hiss as you carefully ease yourself from him.

Resisting the urge to drag your fingers across, collect him - slip them into your mouth. 

Instead, you do what he does for you.

There’s the damp sway of your cock against your thigh as you move to the en-suite. Wiping him clean with a dampened cloth, as his fingers pluck at your harness. 

Leaving it to pool against the mattress. An ache left behind - a sticky wetness in the crux of your panties that he’ll find in a minute.

For now, he fits you against him. Joel’s arm looped bonelessly around you, as your cheek presses into his shoulder.

A small flicker of pride in your belly. A heat - pleased that you had been able to do this for him. That he had trusted you, like you so often do for him. 

Your fingers scratch into skin, the dampened curls at the base of his neck. He moans, heavy-hidden eyes cracking open to look your way.

There’s a depth to them. A loosening, making them soft and warm and you can’t help but press your mouth to his. 

A hand coming to cradle your jaw, a little flick of your tongue telling him how needy this has made you.

He swallows your groan, with a sound of his own. 

It’s bliss, sharing this moment with him. 

There’s the dull hum of the traffic outside, the light breeze of the fan that sits on the dresser. Hours left until dawn - the promise of coffee and breakfast and a morning spent together, before you’re supposed to pick up Sarah and meet Tommy for the afternoon game. 

“You still mad at Tess?” It’s more tease than question - teeth sinking into your bottom lip to bite back the smile.

A smile that is returned, with a little huff of a laugh. Voice rough and low, as he rolls you beneath him to nose at your jaw. 

“Can’t say that I am.”

Thank you for reading!! 💖

[mothman-supremacy]

— in the soft light of morning

joel miller x f!reader

rated e - 1.7k

tags: soft and needy jackson!joel pov, possessive!joel, just the tip, piv, established relationship, light somno elements, thigh fucking, masturbation, come marking

a/n: one shot but can be read as a part of these fics

In the morning hours like this, the promise of spring slipping through the cracks of the curtains, it’s enough to almost make him forget.

Tucking away everything he’s done, forcing it back down his throat and locking it away.

Here, he’s just a man.

Joel wakes warm.

His eyes half-lidded, already alert. Ears pricked to the creak of the house, the old clock that ticks each early-morning second by.

Still not used to this.

Even as the years pass, he still wakes throughout the night. Muscles bunching and teeth bared against the tap-tapping of a bare branch against the roof. The high whistle of the wind, rattling glass.

The knot in his chest gradually easing - as it has been, lately. When he feels the way you’re tucked against his chest. Body curled against his, legs entwined.

It’s only then, does he breathe. Let every inch of his body sink back against the threadbare sheets. Tipping his nose until it can tuck against your hair, quietly inhaling. Soaking in the scent of you. Of home.

Holding, exhaling, as he tugs you back against him.

Needs to get up soon.

That internal alarm clock kicking in, from those days so long ago. Never had to get used to a routine until recently, but it’s like his mind never forgot.

Skipping over those years of taking what nature gave him. Rain and the sting of wind and too-warm summer days. Sweating through the single shirt he had on work detail, stuck between four walls at the QZ.

A much different kind of wall surrounds him now. Solid wood, built strong. In the morning hours like this, the promise of spring slipping through the cracks of the curtains, it’s enough to almost make him forget.

Tucking away everything he’s done, forcing it back down his throat and locking it away.

Here, he’s just a man.

Molding himself to your form. Slipping back before the grown-long hair flecked with silver. A moment’s ease from the aching joints and that pain he carries beneath his ribs. It’s never forgotten, never will be.

But with his eyes closed, he just - exists. Instinct and muscle memory moving his hips, a low groan as the morning-hard jut of his cock grinds against the soft curve of your ass.

The shiver that runs up your spine when his lips press against the base of your neck. A hand curling around, splaying flat across your stomach.

It still feels strange, not to rush.

Feels wrong, like he’s spent too much time waking with his hand wrapped around a knife. Like he doesn’t deserve this respite, the safety of the thick gate around Jackson and something that almost feels like a family.

There’s a throb in his chest. He erases it with the press of his mouth against your throat. Another rut of his hips, smearing your skin with his need and the remains of a dream that he’s sure was about you.

Your soft hum shoots straight down to his cock. Thighs parting until he can tuck the stiff length between them, his breath hot against your ear as he grinds himself against your slit.

A hand covers his, dragging it up. Cupping the curve of your breast with his calloused palm, encouraging him to squeeze.

The shift of your hips is slow and lazy. He’s being selfish - Joel was the one who agreed to meet Tommy early. Fix that leak in the mess hall before the storm blew in, not you.

But he can’t help it. Never could.

Once he got that taste of you, he was helpless - fingers itching to take what was his. To dent soft flesh as he pins you under him.

On top. Bent over - anything and everything he could get.

Gone already, when he feels the way he fits against your folds. Parting you, the head catching against your slick pussy. His fingers pinch at your nipples, as his teeth scrape against the curve where your neck meets shoulder.

“Baby.” You husk, voice thick with sleep. A little jolt of your hips as you try to match his pace, movements molasses-slow.

He grunts as he smears the dampness against your skin. Fingers drifting down to touch the tip of his cock that juts between your thighs, then up to rub at your clit.

Your moan pitches longer, lower. He fucks your thighs slowly, an arm shoved beneath your waist, holding you against him.

The other pressing and circling.

“I know,” He rasps, “Can’t help it, darlin’. Just needed to feel you.”

Content with this, until he’s not. Until it’s torture - this slow, slick slide. Warm and wet but not nearly enough, not when he knows how it feels to stuff you full of him.

It’s enough that he’s nudging you beneath him.

Leaving you blinking up at him, as your legs spread to make room. A hand wrapped around a heavy cock, the other curving at your hip to pin you against the bed.

“Just a little more, alright?” It rips from him.

Angling the tip to nudge at your opening. The slightest press before he eases back, blown-dark eyes dragging up to meet yours.

Watching for your moan. The little nod of your head, as your eyes snag on his mouth. Drifting down - across his chest, the whorls of hair and the curve of his stomach.

Snapping back up, as he sinks into you. His own caught on the little pinch of your brow. The gasp that loosens, as you stretch around him.

Shallow in the way he eases just the head inside. The slightest flex of his hips.

Doesn’t have a lot of time, but this is enough, too.

A taste of what he’ll give you, later. Unable to work you open the way he wants to - with three thick fingers and the flick of his tongue - enough for you to take every inch.

Knows you could. Knows you have - frantic fumbling on patrol, quick fucks in a house that stinks of rotten wood and mold. Dirt worked into the knees of your denim jeans, tell-tale scrapes against the floorboards.

But he’s slowed, in the years that have passed. Softened oh so slightly, at the edges. Given up some of his other vices, leaving him to crave others.

Crave this.

It’s enough that a rumble slips in his chest when he feels you clenching around the tip, as if reading his mind.

“Yes,” You breathe, a hand at your chest. The other drifting down - slipping over slick skin. Touching yourself as he did, as he matches the pace you set.

His hand sliding over his shaft. Two fingers and a thumb working - watching as your hips swivel, easing him just that little bit deeper.

Not too much. Still holding himself back. Just needs to feel your warmth around him. The heartbeat of your pulse and the way your knuckles brush against his.

Watching you work yourself higher and higher. Hushed and panting breath as he gives you something to clench around, as the wire inside winds tighter and tighter.

Groaning as your thighs spread wider, head tipping back. Eyes fixed on the way you take him, that slick slide that leaves his shaft glossy only for his fingers to pass over it a minute later.

Your soft exclamation becomes a babble, the hushed “oh my god” stringing together - fingers pressing harder.

Time has loosened his tongue as well, filth pouring from it like it used to - a lifetime ago.

“Come on, sweetheart.” His hips rock to meet yours, “Wanna feel you come on this cock.”

The whine that rips from you is near feral, sleep long forgotten. Your body pulling tight as he thumbs you open, holding himself still inside you.

“Need this, don’t you?”

As if he doesn’t. His heart thundering as he watches as you fall apart - the pulsing flutter of your cunt as your knees close around his hips. A hand scraping down to wrap around the one at your waist, nails digging into his skin.

The sharp sting only has him moving - drawing out the waves of pleasure. A rough noise at the way you drip now, each plunge loud and slick, in the quiet room.

He should be careful. Shouldn’t chase this feeling, the urge to sink his teeth into your shoulder and bury himself deep inside you.

Something loosened, seeing Tommy hold that little bundle. Cracking open, when it was passed to him, held in arms that still cradled instinctually.

An exhaled breath. A silent stirring.

A fantasy.

One he rips himself out of now, as his eyes find yours. Dragging across your face - the way they darken for him as you come down from your high. Soaking in his bare skin. The curls across his forehead - loosened from your fingers the night before. The need written so plainly across his face.

Looking at him like he’s yours, and maybe, if nothing else, that was enough.

More than he deserved. Everything he wanted.

There’s the pinch of teeth against your lower lip as you bite back the very thing he’s trying to resist. Eyes that roll shut, even though there’s so much of him left cradled in the wide palm of his hand.

A little nod, his name gasped out in a rush of breath. Pleading.

Permission to give in, to let himself get swept away in the building, rushing current.

He inches deeper, feeling you clench around him. A sound caught in his chest as his hips flex faster, the shallow thrusts turning sloppy.

Winding, building, breaking.

“Fuck-”

Joel yanks himself from your warmth, just as the pressure peaks. Throbbing as his fist works faster, smearing your slick across the tip. Pitching forward to spill against your stomach.

It arcs up towards your tits with his need, following the path his hand had taken. Painting your curves.

Too early in the morning for words, but he manages a heady moan - a semblance of something sweet as the sound stretches out, pleasure ricocheting through his system.

Relief flooding through, as he empties himself thoroughly against your skin.

Head dipping between his shoulders, as the tension eases. Cupping the heft of his sack, squeezing. Already missing your warmth.

Already greedy - his eyes flicking towards the space that’s empty without his cock. Thumb dragging through his mess, smearing his release against the swollen bud of your clit.

Your lips part with a huffed laugh - hand shooting out to wrap around his wrist.

“Joel.” You sigh. Almost an admonishment, if not for the way you push yourself up.

Sensitive. He knows.

Eyes closing as your lips pressing against his palm. The meat of his thumb, just before your tongue flicks across the pad. Leaning into the way your hand layers to cup his - fingers curling around ones stained with so much red.

And as the day begins, in the soft light of morning-

Joel finds himself smiling, too.

the trailer and new photos really kicked my ass into gear 💖 I’ve missed writing for him!!

[mothman-supremacy]

Hugh Jackman as Logan Howlett for Wolf @ser-rctslcyer

X-MEN (2000)

[mothman-supremacy]

😔

[mothman-supremacy]

sweet for you — ft. jackson!joel miller

tags: 18+, established relationship, age gap, blowjob (joel receiving), daddy kink, petnames galore, praise kink, hints of guilt, joel is worn out + grumpy and a tiny bit mean (if u squint), mouth on bulge propaganda, basically my old man just needs a break </3

a/n: hi guys its been a minute (i know) … this turned out longer than i anticipated but i needed to let it out bc i have not stopped thinking about this idea for a while,, this is the same joel from show me and apart of my jackson!joel oneshot series that im working on, very excited :) !!!

shades of orange and a bright pink beautifully illuminate the sky over jackson, the late afternoon air fresh and cool. you admire the view from indoors, looking out the window as you take a sip of your tea. still no sign of joel.

its been like this for the past 2 weeks. joel's been taking the late patrol shifts due to a scheduling conflict, so you've been doing your daily duties around town and spending your evenings alone at home. sure, you eat breakfast together in the morning before parting ways for the hectic day ahead, but as the end of the day approaches, it feels rather lonely.

you know joel hasn't been liking it either, hence the irritated look on his face the day he got home when tommy told him he'd have a later start for the next month.

half an hour later, you wash the dirty dishes from your cooking, placing them on the dish rack. heading to the stove, you cover the pots and pans with lids in order to keep the food hot and fresh for joel, knowing he'd appreciate a hot comforting meal after his long day.

as you wipe down the stains from the stovetop, you finally hear the door unlocking, creaking as it opens, making your heart beat faster in excitement. echos from his heavy footsteps on the wooden floor fill the air, making your head turn.

"hi baby" you smile, your voice warm and welcoming. he exhales, “hey sweetheart" joel greets, his voice low. he kicks off his boots, shifting them beside the door. putting the dirty rag down, you walk over to him, wrapping your arms around his waist, welcoming him with a kiss. a small smile crosses his face from your affection, placing a tender hand on your arm.

you glance over his features, the bags under his eyes getting darker and the wrinkles on his tan skin more pronounced. you frown, he looks beat. your poor joel.

it pains you to see him worn out and tired. yet, you can’t deny, oddly makes your heart flutter. his exhaustion, his scars, the grey of his hair— it's all proof of the dedicated, strong and protective man he is, the one you know and love with your whole entire heart. the man who would go to the ends of the earth to keep you and his town safe.

"rough day?" you comment softly, stroking his cheek. he looks down, scratching the back of his head, "yeah" he nods. he's trying to not show how drained he is, how badly he's trying to cover it all up just so he won't worry you—but it does, and he knows this.

he feels ashamed at times, knowing he's just too old and worn out for patrol anymore. his years of strenuous work are long overdue.

you pull back sympathetically, walking back to the kitchen as you let him settle down and put his things away. "sit down, i'll make you some coffee" you say, opening the kitchen cabinet.

he places his jacket on the hook beside the door and sluggishly carries his backpack to the table, placing it on the chair. he heads straight to the couch, letting out a soft groan as he leans back comfortably, spreading his legs.

after a few minutes, you walk towards him with a cup of black coffee, in attempts to boost his spirits. you place it on the coffee table next to him, giving him a smile as you sit beside him on the soft cushions, giving him your attention.

"you wanna talk about it?" you ask lovingly, curious to what's got him all worked up. he lets out a sigh, indicating it was anything but a walk in the park. "well, there was a ton of infected down on the north side, had to clear em' all out. that guy mark i was doin' it with wasn't a big help either, basically had to do it all myself" he explains, rubbing his face agitatedly.

"now maria's tellin' me i gotta take jesse's shift on sunday too". you scrunch your brows disapprovingly. "can't someone else do it? what about tommy?"

"can't, he's already got some stuff to do in town" he mutters, glancing away from you. you gaze at him pitifully, holding his larger hand in yours, stroking his thumb. "i'm sorry about that" you say softly. he shakes his head, furrowing his brows slightly. "s'alright" he exhales, "just rougher than yesterday s' all"

you slightly frown, watching the way he rubs his forehead.

"do you want me to get you anything? i made that beef stir fry you've been craving" you smile at him encouragingly, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "thanks darlin', but i-'"

you interrupt him, giving him a stubborn look. "joel, you need to eat. i can bring you some-" you suggest before he cuts you off. "no, m’ fine alright?" he mutters harshly, annoyance evident in his tone.

you sit there silently, giving him a small nod as you slowly pulling back your hand from his shoulder. you look away, feeling embarrassed yet hurt from joel's tone. you didn't have to push him, he just needs some space for god sake.

he uneasily strokes his facial hair, regretting his words immediately after they slipped out of his mouth, coming out stronger than intended. he awkwardly glances at you, seeing sadness written all over your sweet face.

placing his hand on your knee, he speaks. "i'm sorry baby, didn't mean to..." he sighs, pausing. "it's jus' been a real long day, didn't mean to shut ya out" he reassures, guilt evident on his face.

he strokes your skin, watching you closely, seeing how quiet you are, tears building in your eyes. he feels like a total fucking asshole. "look at me baby" he pleads softly, stroking your cheek. you turn towards him, looking up at him sheepishly.

“c’mere angel" he murmurs, extending his arm towards you. you scooch closer towards him and he immediately pulls you into his arms, practically sitting on his lap, with your legs crossing on top of his thighs.

"just wanted to make you feel better" you mumble softly against his shoulder. god, you really are the sweetest thing. "i know baby, i'm sorry" he whispers, petting your head. “i’ll have some later, yeah? promise"

he holds you like water in his hands, enveloping your body with his large frame.

"got the sweetest girl in the world, always checkin' up on me, makin' sure i'm alright" he murmurs delicately against your hair. "ain't that right?" he looks down at you. "don't like seeing you stressed" you mutter, concern clear in your voice. "yeah, i know ya don't" joel sighs, running his hand down to your calf. "i'm sorry baby” he says sincerely, caressing your shoulder.

“okay?” he gazes down at you softly, seeking forgiveness. you look up at him with a small smile, giving him a small nod. he kisses the top of your head in relief.

your body feels at ease once again, relaxed. you look up at him, and plant a kiss on his neck. you continue kissing his skin; not lustfully, but rather tenderly. showing him how much you love him, how much you want to take his aches away. you nip at his skin, up to his cheek, his eyes fluttering from the feeling.

the overwhelming need to make him feel good takes over your body, arousal rushing through your veins. you kiss him, the roughness of his facial hair tickling your skin. he lets out a soft groan, deepening the kiss as he holds your thigh tighter.

"let me help you" you whisper in his ear. he shudders, the words caught in his throat as he watches you effortlessly get off of him, kneeling on the hard floor in front of him, looking up at him with those eyes of yours that he loves so much. goosebumps go up his body seeing you like this, gulping as the tent in his pants becomes more obvious. "please daddy"

the way you're begging, down on your knees like he's your salvation, makes his head spin. what did he ever do to deserve you? for a moment, the shame of what happened earlier creeps up on him, but quickly dissolves as his thoughts get clouded from you.

you lift his shirt slightly and begin planting kisses on his soft belly, down to his happy trail, hot and desperate against his skin as you go lower and lower. you reach his belt, caressing his thighs as you hovering your mouth on his denim-covered bulge. you look up at him with desire, your mouth open as your breath seeps through the fabric.

you close your eyes, pressing your lips against the textile, slowly kissing it as you exhale in need. you let yourself get lost in it, soaking up the rough material in a matter of seconds. his clothed cock aches in need, he swears he’s never been this fucking hard in his entire life.

the way you're so quick to get on your knees for him, to take care of him and worship his cock like there's no tomorrow, despite him nearly making you cry 5 minutes earlier— you really are his angel on earth.

“need it daddy” you mumble against the wet fabric. "use your words baby" he says roughily, contradicting how sensitive he is right now. you look up at him silently, your eyes pleading him to just let you take his cock down your throat, but the lack of response makes him raise his brow disapprovingly. "tell your daddy honey" his voice softens, yet still firm. "need your cock, so bad" you murmur, seductiveness in your voice as you bat your lashes at him. his mouth dries from the needy, devious look in your eye. "s' all yours sweetheart"

his breath is heavy in anticipation, watching your dainty hands as they begin to unbuckle his belt. with a clank, you then unbutton his jeans and lift them down slightly, just enough to reveal his boxers. you tug down them down, revealing his aching cock, practically begging for your mouth, your hand, anything.

god, he’s gorgeous. dark hairs speckled with grey, perfectly peppered down to the base of his cock, hanging heavy and deliciously thick with a prominent vein on the underside of it. his tip a dark pink, pulsing shamelessly with need.

you look up at him, wide eyed and ready, as you begin to stroke his cock. you smear the pre cum from his slit to lubricate his shaft, the sticky sound filling the air. he's so thick, your fingers barely wrapping around his girth.

"c'mon baby, wrap those pretty lips 'round me" he encourages roughily, cupping your cheek. "eager, old man?" you grin, teasing him by licking the tip. before he can muster up a response to your playful comment, you take into your mouth, a low groan escaping his lips. "you—jesus—fuck baby" he mutters under his breath, his palm resting on the top of your head as you suck his cock.

tears trickle down your cheeks as you take him deeper and deeper into your mouth, wetting your eyelashes. you sustain yourself with your hand securely placed on his knee, stroking the base of his shaft at the same time. his tip hits the sweet spot down your throat, making you gag. "easy sweetheart, doin' so good f' me" he praises, moving your hair out of your face.

he throws his head back as his chest rises, feeling your warm mouth wrapped around him. you're addicted to how he feels down your throat— every vein, every twitch, you simply can't stop.

your pussy flutters around nothing as his cock nudges the back of your throat repeatedly, the aching between your legs becoming intolerable. you palm yourself through your clothes, desperately searching for some kind of relief as you please him.

he notices immediately, his cock twitching in your mouth from the sight. "poor baby, needy lil' pussy ain't she?" he croons softly, stroking your cheek. you whimper in response, looking up at him with glassy eyes. "s'alright honey, later m' gonna kiss her all better yeah?" he coos, his dirty talk making your pussy throb harder.

you pick up the pace, his praises and grunts egging you on, motivating you to push him off the edge. "fuck, thaaat's it--keep goin'—good girl" he groans, slightly putting pressure on your head with his hand.

he feels his climax approaching, and you can feel it too just by the way he throbs harder in your mouth and the low grunts escaping his lips. you massage his balls, intensifying the pleasure, while stroking him with your other hand as you take him.

he can feel you all around him, the overwhelming sensations washing over him profusely as he crumbles apart in your hands. his balls tighten as he lets out a deep guttural groan, spurts of his warm milky cum fill your mouth at last.

you pull back from his cock, a web of saliva forming as his seed dribbles from the side of your mouth. you swallow, the salty yet pleasant taste sinking down your throat.

he breathes out, catching his breath, then running his calloused hand to stroke your chin with a proud smirk. "jesus christ angel" he huffs amusingly. you chuckle softly, your eyes twinkling as you look up at him, planting a kiss on the tip.

his cock softens against his jeans, as he shifts himself up on the couch, tucking it back into his pants. "c'mere" he pats nexts to him, primal desire on his face.

you get off of your knees and sit next to him, an excited grin on your face as you wait on what he'll do next. "lay back" he instructs with a mischievous smirk, placing a cushion beneath your head.

once you do, he kneels on the couch, his knees in between your legs, one hand on each of your thighs. he leans down and kisses you, tasting himself on you. a grin forms on his face as he kneels back up, his knees crackling slightly as he shifts his body backwards, his head now hovering just above your clothed cunt.

"my turn. know my girl needs some extra lovin' today, don't she?"

[mothman-supremacy]

daydreams

Pairing: Joel x F!Reader, Post-Outbreak Jackson Era

Summary: It's been years since Joel's kissed anybody, and your lips are all he can think about.

Tags/Warnings: Soft, Touch-Starved, Pining Joel. Grumpy x Sunshine. Resolved Tension. Mentions of alcohol and food consumption. Brief mentions of sexual desire. Entirely in Joel's POV. No mention of Reader's age or appearance other than wearing lipstick in one scene.

Wordcount: 6.4k

A/N: Really enjoyed exploring an entire Joel x Reader fic all in his head, focusing on how he falls in love with Reader. Big thank you to @joelsgreys who was excited about this idea with me, and @cupofjoel who always inspires me with her own amazing work (and that Clicker joke she made that ended up in this fic hehe)!

Here's my Kofi if you're interested in supporting my work further💜

Beautiful dividers by @saradika

Masterlist

People fucking love you.

It was the first of many things that Joel was burdened to discover about you, small facts and inconsequential incidents about who you were as a person that floated around in his subconscious until they burrowed under his skin, much like you did.

He could remember checking his patrol schedule on the board one chilly autumn day. A scarf that was decades old but new to him, too soft for his rough skin, was wrapped around his neck and keeping him warm while he peered over the heads of two men crowding in front of the arranged names.

Despite Joel’s size, he had always been good at not being seen if he didn’t want to be, at least when it counted. It was a harder habit to keep up with in Jackson, a place where everybody wanted to know anybody at all. The feeling of at least one set of eyes on him at all times when he walked the streets was an odd juxtaposition to the foreign comfort that radiated inside the town’s tall walls.

Not a watch kept on him, but curiosity that peered at him around every corner. He had thought it would die down eventually, but it lingered with a stubbornness even years later.

Now though, both men didn’t have a care in the world for his presence behind him, crowding around the board and a pair of names he couldn’t quite glimpse until one of them turned, jumping at the sight of the unintentionally imposing figure at their back.

“Oh!” the man let out a noise of surprise before recomposing. He was a newer patrolman, his name starting with a C, Chuck or something. “Joel, hey man. Didn’t see you there.”

The familiarity in the way his name is spoken makes Joel bristle for a moment, but he calms his raised hackles before it can be noticed.

Back in Boston, his name had been a familiar one spoken too. But hints of apprehension, even fear crept around the syllables of those who knew it, those who had heard it whispered in the alleys of where he’d left somebody’s blood splattered against the dilapidated brick walls.

“Hey,” the other patrolman offers in greeting when he notices the pair aren’t alone anymore, and Joel nods, glancing towards the two names their heads had been bent down around when they moved out of the way.

There’s a name he doesn’t have a face to place to it, another person new to patrol. He’d only seen the name in passing on the board each time he checked assignments recently, though this time it's right above his own, listed as his partner on his next route.

“Lucky man,” the other patrolman says with a clap to Joel’s shoulder, and he hates it, jaw setting tight enough that the first patrolman gently nudges his friend away with a wary look.

“I’m always stuck with Willy,” the first one says, and Joel glances back towards the board, searching for that name and seeing it paired with Chad. Names for faces, a common courtesy in the settlement, one he still had a hard time keeping up with sometimes, even years into being here. “Been dying for a chance to head out with her.”

There’s a gesture back towards the name paired with Joel’s, and he stares at the letters written into the thin wooden plaques that are used to arrange assignments on the board. Stares so much even as his fellow patrolmen leave, chattering amongst themselves about Joel’s new partner as he frowns in confusion over why it wasn’t his brother’s name.

“You could use some friends,” Tommy explains with a jovial smile when Joel shows up on his doorstep to question him about the change, though there’s an undertone of ribbing to his tone that makes Joel glare at the younger man. “I figure she’s the perfect one to bring you out of that stubborn shell.”

Joel scoffs at that, brows still knitted together in frustration as he gets ready for bed the night before he’ll have to wake up early to head out with this unknown person on patrol. He’s annoyed over the idea of something as irrelevant as socialization trumping protection on his route, frustrated that he’d have to watch his own back for the dangers only a human could pose, as much as the trail ahead of him for Infected.

But then he meets you, and he understands.

At least, Joel understands why those men had been jealous of his patrol partner when he shows up at the assignment board the next morning, hoping to grab a hot drink in one of the thermoses provided before heading out. He prays for at least the last dregs of some coffee when he sees a small gathering of other patrolmen, including the two from before. All smiles and laughter, until one turns their head towards him.

Joel meets your eyes for the first time, a smile gracing your face as he does so, and he understands.

“Joel Miller,” is the first thing you ever say to him by way of greeting, uttering the syllables in near disbelief, like he’s some fabled myth you’ve finally caught a glimpse of. There’s an infectious, positive energy in the way you say his name to him, in the way you say everything, he’ll come to find. Like there’s things in the world still worthy of being spoken with such excitement. “Good to finally meet you.”

He just nods, eyes flickering to the disappointment on the faces of those gathered around you as your attention focuses solely on him. You move closer, holding up two thermoses in hand, Joel’s gaze narrowing down to them as you gesture with each and ask, “Coffee or tea?”

With a blink, he stares at each before looking back up into your face, noticing the hint of amusement across your features as his lips part, and the first thing he utters in your presence is an awkward hedge of, “Uh.”

Your lips quirk up into a wider smile, and Joel notices then that for all its brightness, it's almost half a smirk. There’s humor in your gaze, and he feels those sharp hackles of his start to rise again until you clarify kindly, “Which do you prefer?”

His brows knit together, looking back down into your hands, and he realizes you’re offering him the choice of which one he wants for the morning.

“Coffee,” he says instantly before his mind can catch up, and the point of your teeth peek past your lips now in a grin when you pass the thermos to him.

“Smart man,” you comment in passing, oblivious to how the two simple words will stick into his mind and replay themselves in the exact tone of your voice for weeks to come. “I prefer tea, anyway.”

You raise your own thermos to his, eyes twinkling with that same good humor, that warm mirth that suddenly makes Joel’s stomach flip when you add, “Looks like the start of a beautiful partnership.”

It is.

Joel hates to admit it, but you work startlingly well together.

He’s paranoid at first, glancing back over his shoulder at you every now and then, but your eyes are always trained on the area around you, keeping diligent watch. Except for when he’s staring at you for too long, for reasons he doesn’t know yet, or is too stubborn to believe.

You somehow always catch him in those stolen moments, smiling at him when he whips his head back around to refocus on the trail in front of him. Sometimes there’s a soft chuckle under your breath when he does so, and those are the times he stubbornly faces ahead for the rest of patrol, so you won’t see the heat creeping into his face that he curses every time you bring it out of him.

He’s too goddamn old to be blushing like a schoolboy, but around you, his body betrays his age and does it anyway.

Sometimes you talk to him. Joel can’t figure out for the life of him why. You certainly aren’t the type to ever be searching for conversation, a whole host of willing participants to speak with you gathering around you every morning before you set out for patrol with him.

But you talk to him anyway. Offer things about yourself and ask him questions in return, ones he hardly answers with more than a few words, if he even replies at all.

That doesn’t bother you. You continue the conversation, and though he barely says a thing, you manage to make him still feel involved. Like you’re not just talking at him, but with him.

It’s just something about you, Joel eventually realizes. There’s a charm about you that goes beyond just a natural charisma. It’s a force of gravity, as inexplicable as it is irresistible, pulling in those around you, and they don’t even care. They want it.

Because you’re not simply bubbly and friendly, but you’re warm. Warm and bright, pure sunshine that brighten up the shortening days, and at some point through that fall of patrolling with you, Joel finds himself riding beside you instead of in front of you.

He nods more to what you say, following along better to whatever stories you’re sharing that morning, tales you never seem to run out of. He starts to answer your questions with sentences instead of words. Sometimes, he sneaks glances at you, and he’s always shocked in the moments when you’re already looking at him.

At first, Joel thinks he’s caught you in those moments. But you just smile at him when his eyes meet yours, unbothered by him noticing your attention on him, and he’s the one turning away yet again, facing the trees away from you so you won’t notice what that soft laughter of yours does to him.

You’re also more than capable in a fight, proving yourself time and time again in sticky situations, and soon enough, Joel doesn’t really mind waking up those early mornings when he knows you’ll be waiting for him with a thermos in each hand. He looks forward to an unnecessary apology on your lips if there’s no coffee that day, and the way you make him take a hot drink anyway—sometimes a pastry too, gently chiding him on taking better care of himself.

“I need you all big and strong for patrol,” you teased him once, but you still glance up and down his body with an appreciation he doesn’t think should be for him, even as he greedily drinks it in anyway. 

Then you wink, and he finds himself unable to make eye contact with you for the rest of the day.

Even then, he knows you’ll have his back, as he has yours.

Yeah, you work well together.

So well, in fact, that he finds his mood takes a sharp decline when he checks the assignment board months into being on patrol with you, and sees Tommy’s name paired with his again.

It makes sense. Winter arrives in Jackson, and with it, increased numbers of Infected on patrol. Joel needs to work with Tommy to clear out the routes hit the worst by hordes, for the good of the settlement.

Joel had never hated practicality before, but he does in that moment he first sees your name paired with Chad.

Chad, the young man with a stupid grin on his face while his buddy expresses jealousy over the “luck” of his assignment, and Joel hates the feeling of the same jealousy curling in his gut.

He hates it when you’re not waiting for him in the mornings. Hates it when your smile isn’t for him, when he’s not listening to your voice express every emotion imaginable in whatever story you’re telling him.

He doesn’t even realize what he’s feeling, doesn’t know that he’s lonely until he’s waiting for Tommy one morning when his brother kisses Maria goodbye before going on patrol.

It only hits him then, with the warm, open affection Tommy gazes at his wife with before leaving, and how she watches him with fondness as he goes. Only then does he feel the hollow ache in his chest, a gaping hole that’s only caved in deeper when your presence came and went.

He’s still thinking about it that night when sleep won’t come to him. Rubbing together his lips, chapped from the cold winter air from being outside all day, he wonders when the last time he’d had another mouth pressed to it.

Jesus, when’s the last time he kissed someone?

It’s a stupid thing to think, an embarrassing thought that has him turning onto his stomach and burying his face into his pillow. His arms outstretched beneath it, he groans into the fabric, trying to shove away the emptiness even as it continues to ache.

It fucking aches, and it shouldn’t. He was too old, had gone through too damn much to even care about kissing anybody.

So he tells himself he doesn’t. Convinces himself he couldn’t give less of a fuck about not being able to remember the last time he’d kissed somebody. Pretends he doesn't care about holding another person in his arms, lips pressed together just for the sake of it.

Joel likes to think he does a pretty good job of not caring about it, up until the next time he sees you.

You’re standing at the table of food and drink before patrol, eyes scanning over the pastries available with an intense look of deliberation for what you were craving that morning. When you find what you want, your lips part, tongue darting out to lick them in anticipation of your treat, and Joel’s blood runs hot in a way he thought himself no longer capable of.

He watches with rapt attention as you bring the scone to your mouth for a bite, how crumbs of it flake off onto your lips while you nod in satisfaction at the taste.

It’s a taste Joel wants to capture for himself. He wants to find the sweetness of the pastry on your lips, to press his mouth to yours and have you fill that emptiness, to have you soothe that ache in him with the exploration and discovery of you.

“Joel Miller!”

He blinks, hazy vision refocusing on the tantalizing soft look of your lips to see them curved up into a smile, and his eyes flicker up to see you looking right at him as you call to him, speaking his name like he’s still some legend you can’t believe exists until you see him again.

Yet again, he’s caught right in the center of your web—so many times now, that he almost starts to wonder if he willingly walks into it. Merciless to whatever you intend to do with him now that you have him right there, right where you want him.

But you just smile, head tilted with your gazes locked together, and suddenly he doesn’t care if you trap him or if he’s giving himself to you. You have him, and that’s enough.

Then, your lips part, tongue catching those crumbs still stuck to the corner of your upper lip, and Joel’s own lips part, breath hitching through them.

You notice.

You have to notice, because the edge of your smile curls up even more, eyes striking with the joy of a newfound discovery about the stoic man you’d found steadfast by your side for months of patrol, a silent presence now outright ogling you the same way everybody else did.

Everywhere you went, you were sure to find people lazing about in the warm rays of sunlight you cast from your very soul.

Joel wondered if you ever got tired with how much you gave. 

How much everyone took.

And now here he was, taking just the same. Your stunning vision reduced to an idle daydream, one you’d caught him in the very first moment he’d had it. 

Joel thought about what he must look like to you then. Just a lonely old man, longing for a touch. Like a mangy stray turning up at your doorstep, desperate just for the offhand chance of an ounce of kindness you had made the grave mistake of showing him before.

Because now he would always be back, aching for more.

Pathetic.

He turns from you at the sharp voice of self-hatred in his mind, walking away at the same moment you take a step forward. Joel brushes past those other souls just as eager, just as desperate for your attention as he tries to get far away from what you make him feel.

But it stays knotted up in his chest, ever more evident in your absence, the memory of your smile like a pain throbbing in his bones, ringing in his mind when he brushes off Tommy’s concern with a gruff “doesn’t matter” before heading out.

Because it doesn’t.

It doesn’t matter.

But it does.

Jackson had not only brought safety and comfort, but the luxury of wanting.

And, dear Lord, he wanted.

He hasn’t stopped wanting, not since that first morning when he really noticed the curve of your lips, the shape of them taunting and tempting him. 

Now he notices them every time he sees you. The slight quiver of them in a brush of cold winter wind, and how you pull a tube of homemade chapstick out of the pocket of your jacket to run over them. How you rub your lips together to spread it along each gorgeous line and indentation before popping them out with a smack, and Joel nearly fucking moans at the sight the first time.

God, he wants so badly.

He needs, he thinks sometimes, on the coldest, darkest nights. Thoughts of your mouth and what it would be capable of plaguing his mind as he breathes hotly into his pillow and tries to stay still, tries not to rut into the mattress just from the thoughts of what a simple kiss from you would feel like, giving and taking until it was impossible to tell where he ended and you began.

Because it was you.

It was always you.

Some days, it’s all Joel can think about. Your eyes, your hands, your laughter, but most of all, every bend and curve of your lips. 

It’s embarrassing how much just the mere thought of you consumes him. 

And it’s frightening, the power you would have over him if daydreams ever became reality.

What makes it even worse, is that he thinks you know. Joel’s almost sure of it, the way your eyes linger on him whenever you pout or purse your lips together at something especially grumpy that he says.

It’s like you’re doing it on purpose now, and he falls for it anyway, gazing at the fullness of your mouth, the most beautiful color he’s ever seen, with an aching want that he pretends never happened when it turns up into a smile.

Time and time again, you catch him wanting.

And you let him.

You never make a move to stop him, to call him out on it. Instead, you feed the fire, with a kindness in your smile and a mischief in your eyes that Joel is fucking addicted to.

If all you’re doing is stringing him along, he’s more than willing to let you do it, if it only means that the joy that lights up your face whenever you see him never dies out.

He sees it again one afternoon when he runs into you on the street, a bundle of produce from the greenhouses tucked underneath one arm that he almost offers to carry for you by some forgotten reflex, manners he used to have, when you distract him with a question of, “Are you going to that dinner for the patrolmen Maria is putting on?”

“Uh.” Joel winces at how he always finds himself hedging around you. He doesn’t think the things he’s said in your presence is enough to fill a page, even though you’ve plagued his thoughts enough that he could write a whole fucking book on you. 

There’s already a little smirk on your face as he hesitates, and he clears his throat, shifting on his feet with startling uncertainty you always drag from him as he finally responds gruffly, “Yeah, I s’pose so.”

“Great!” you chirp, your free hand patting him on the chest as you move to brush past him, fingers idling on the buttons of his flannel, gliding down along them in a way that sets all his nerve endings alight. “Save me a seat, would you?”

His body turns with the motion of you stepping past him to watch you go, breath caught in his throat as he wonders if you’re joking or not.

Regardless, he saves you a seat when that night comes.

It’s not like anybody wants to sit with him anyway. Most of the others seem to avoid him like the plague. Even years into being in the town, and Joel still feels like he sticks out like a sore thumb.

He doesn’t blame them. Even with his rough exterior growing softer than it had been in decades, he was a shit conversation partner. Joel just didn’t know how to do the things that they did anymore, not amongst strangers. He was happy enough with his own people, and he wishes that he was back home, playing guitar or watching movies with Ellie instead of sitting here alone, reminded constantly of everything he was lacking in.

When he’s asked if the seat next to him is taken so somebody can sit with their friend, Joel hesitates, resisting the urge to just get up and leave altogether when a familiar voice rings out, “It is!”

His head turns, and there you are, face aglow with a warm smile when you round the table towards him, and Joel is already halfway up out of his seat before he even realizes what he’s doing.

Your smile turns to him, eyes brightening with a spark at his quick movement that makes his heart pound in his chest, before you’re taking the back of the chair from the other patrolman’s grasp with a sweet, “Thanks, Astrid.”

When you start to pull the chair back further to sit, Joel takes it from you to do it for you, and it’s the first time he sees genuine surprise flash through your eyes. Still, you smile, and there’s a quiver of excitement to your lips that turns his aching into a yearning the longer he looks at them.

It’s also then when he notices that they’re painted, a shade of lipstick that fills them out further, complimenting your beauty with the way you had dressed so finely for the occasion tonight.

To sit next to him?

The question of futile hope echoes in his mind as you sink into the chair with a grin you’re trying to hide, and his hands are shaking as he pushes the chair in and takes his seat next to you again, something he also tries to hide as he folds them together and tucks them under the table.

When a bottle of wine is offered around, Joel can’t hold in a quiet chuckle at the way you jump in excitement for a glass. It's tilted in your fingers, the liquid swirling gently around the glass before you take a sip, and he’s enraptured by the sight of your lips wrapping around the rim, unable to glance away from the mark you leave on it once you set it back onto the table.

He’s fixated on that lipstick stain, can’t fucking look away from the shape of your lips painted onto the glass, and Joel starts to vividly imagine you leaving that mark on him instead. He wants evidence of your kiss all along his skin, down the collar of his shirt, smeared across his own lips as he takes your mouth in his, again and again.

He wants those marks trailing down, down, wants those painted lips teasing him until it smears all across that pretty face, wants them wrapped around his—

“Joel.”

His head snaps up, catching the gaze of his brother across from him. Tommy’s brow arches in question as he asks, “You good?”

“Yeah.” Joel clears his throat when his voice comes out thick, shifting in his seat while his folded hands move into his lap, shifting the napkin to help his new…issue. “Yeah, ‘m fine.”

“Really?” Tommy asks, his gaze one of suspicion, and maybe a bit of amusement as he drawls, “‘Cause I asked you if you wanted a glass of wine about three times, and you didn’t respond.”

Joel pales at being caught, jaw ticking with annoyance at the glee in his brother’s eyes when they snap to you sitting beside him, and he reasserts roughly, “I’m fine.”

Tommy backs off then, turning his attention somewhere else, and Joel almost relaxes until you hold your glass out to him and offer with a smile, “Want to try some of mine?”

The look in your eyes when the blood rushes back into Joel’s cheeks is nothing but goddamn trouble, and he fucking loves it.

You watch him as he stares at the mark of your lips on the glass. He imagines what it would be like to wrap his own lips around it, wondering if he’d taste you with the wine, and he quickly clears the lump that tightens in his throat before mumbling, “No, thank you, ma’am.”

A grin plays on your lips at that, and he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything more in his life than to kiss you at that moment. He wants to grab your face and pull you into him so fucking bad, wants your mouth to claim him, bruise him, make him hurt until he heals.

Instead, he keeps his hands to himself, still folded in his lap in a vice grip over his napkin now when you tease, “Ma’am, huh? I think I like that one.”

You wink, and all the blood flooding into his face suddenly rushes south.

Without a doubt, you had him completely fucked.

You talk to Joel the entire night.

Your head is turned to him throughout dinner, and you ask him more questions than ever before. Unlike your patrols, where you were content to tell stories, and he content to listen, you gently prod him to tell you his own. 

Joel’s voice is quiet when he assents, the low, gentle timbre hardly audible over the din of conversation around the long table. He’s sure he must be boring, a drab collection of colors long washed out in comparison to your blinding vibrancy, but you may as well have been the only two in the room with the way you listen to him.

You’re leaning in with your chin resting on a closed fist, nodding along to what he says with eyes dancing over his face so intently, as if to memorize him the same way he did you.

He’s surprised that he wants you to.

At the end of the dinner, when everybody’s bellies are full and they’re filtering out the door, Joel isn’t even shocked that he’s unwilling to leave your side. Though he is startled when the question slips quietly past his lips, “Mind if I walk you home, darlin’?”

You look back from where you were grabbing your jacket with wide eyes, stunned at the unexpected question and the pet name that had escaped him without a second thought. For a moment, he’s worried he finally scared you away, but then you smile.

“I’d like that.”

Joel nods, trying to calm the racing of his heart as he gently tugs the jacket from your grip and helps you put it on. He doesn’t miss the shiver that runs through you when his fingers brush against your skin, and suddenly there’s a feeling of anticipation simmering low in his belly, a warmth that spreads through his chest when the two of you stroll under the streetlights and eventually reach your doorstep.

You don’t let him turn away.

Somehow, he ends up on your couch. His boots and coat are left by your front door as he sits next to you, a glass of wine finally in his hand to ease the strain of his nerves. Your legs are tucked comfortably underneath yourself, the side of your face resting on the back of the couch, gazing up at him as you talk about nothing in particular.

You never seem to run out of questions for him. He answers the ones he can, and you’re not offended when he avoids the others. 

Tonight, Joel asks you questions too. Things he once thought didn’t matter anymore, but right now, he wants to know them all—where you grew up, your favorite movie, the concerts you’d been to before the world went to hell.

It becomes a back and forth—you ask him a question, he answers. Then it’s his turn to ask a question, and you answer.

Hours go by, wine is refilled, and when it’s your turn again, you ask him with such startling gentleness, “How long has it been since you kissed someone?”

Joel freezes.

His breath catches in his throat, and he can’t bring himself to look at you. He knows that when he does, he’ll see for sure that you’ve been aware of his pining, his fantasies, all along, and he doesn’t think he can face that.

Instead, he takes another long sip of wine, swallowing down the liquid courage before he answers lowly, “It’s, uh...been a while.”

Silence falls between you then, with more weight to it than any before in that night, and he has to fill it. So he does with the first thing that springs to his mind, “What about you?”

You hum thoughtfully, even as his heart lurches in his chest when the question spills from his lips. He can’t believe he actually fucking asked that, and then you actually answer it, “A couple months ago.”

Joel’s head snaps up, eyes glancing over your face as you trace the rim of your glass with a thoughtful expression.

“Was it…” he hesitates, before deciding he may as well say whatever he wants now that he’s already gone ahead and fucked it all up by asking about it in the first place, “good?”

“Nah,” you sigh, shrugging casually as you smirk in amusement at the recollection, “it’s like he was eating my face.”

Joel snorts at that, brow arching as he retorts dryly, “You go on a date with a Clicker or somethin’?”

You laugh then, head tilting back with the joyful sound, and he realizes it’s something he wants to hear for the rest of his life, even as you playfully nudge his shoulder and mutter, “Shut up.”

He chuckles along with you, looking back down into his glass as a sigh falls from his lips, and he mumbles more to himself than you, “Not sure I’d be much better, at this point.”

Suddenly, you shift beside him, pulling his attention back to you as you sit up straight. There’s a spark of interest kindling in your eyes, one that makes his throat go dry as your eyes slowly scan over his face, down to his lips.

They part under your attention, and your pupils dilate in the darkness of the room, pulling a soft exhale from Joel’s mouth at the sight of you wanting.

You.

Wanting.

“I don’t know about that,” you murmur as you set your glass down on your coffee table, then do the same with his, tugging it easily from his grasp before leaning in towards him. “But we could find out.”

Joel licks his lips, and you’re on your hands and knees now, crawling towards him on the couch as his eyelids flutter and he rasps out, “I—darlin’, I don’t think I—”

“You don’t want to?” you whisper, stopping instantly at the idea of going too far, and horror rushes through him at the thought of you believing he didn’t want you.

“No, that’s not—” he sighs, rubbing a hand down his face. He exhales heavily into his palm, trying to find the words before he removes it to admit, “I just…don’t think it’d be that enjoyable for ya.”

You scoff, leaning forward to settle on your knees right beside him, fingertips finding the edge of his jawline. They run across it, and Joel’s eyes fall shut, sighing from the sensation of being touched after so long, of it being your hands on his face when you cup his cheeks, thumbs brushing along his cheekbones so softly. 

You stroke his skin like you were holding something delicate, and not a living, breathing instrument of death with the scars to prove it right under your palms.

What did you see in him?

“Joel,” you breathe, and a whimper gets caught in his throat, his eyes blinking back open, struggling to refocus on you under the heavy heat of the moment. “Do you want to?”

He doesn’t have to think twice, doesn’t even want to as his voice comes out in a hoarse whisper, a desperate beg of, “Yes.”

Your lips are on his then, and his hand finds the small of your back, tugging you into him as he groans into the mouth he’s been dreaming of, day and night, for months on end.

Joel tries to be gentle with it, but it feels so fucking good, and God, now his hands are shaking. He has to grip onto your waist tightly to anchor himself to the moment, to remind himself that you’re there. This isn’t one of his vivid daydreams, or images that taunt him in his sleep that he’ll wake up painfully hard from.

No, you’re here, lips pliable and just as wanting as his when his tongue tentatively traces the shape of them, knowing the curve of your mouth from long stolen glimpses even with his eyes closed, even through just the touch of his lips to them alone. 

Your mouth opens eagerly, and he licks into it, moans deeply into the sweet taste of you. His hand slides up your back to cup your neck, fingers tangling into the back of your hair as he tugs you forward by the waist until you’re settled in his lap, so he can wrap you up and pull you into him completely.

When your lips leave his, he tries to chase them with a whine stuck in the back of his throat, and he can feel that pretty smile pressed to his skin when you kiss along his bearded jaw and down the strength of his neck as it strains under your attention. 

Joel’s head falls back, sinking into the couch with the feeling of your lips descending, until there’s a sweet bite of pain that pulls his lips apart. It tugs a throaty grunt straight from the pit of heat building in his lower stomach, his hips bucking up hard into your own.

His hands are clutching your waist, the sweet syllables of your name pouring from his mouth like a prayer. The sound of his desperation, his need for you vibrates against your lips as you suck a mark on his neck, your tongue flattening against it and pulling another weak bucking up of his hips.

Your head lifts, gazing down at him with lidded eyes and a giddy smile at this mountain of a man you’d pulled apart and wrapped around your finger so easily, before you tap that very finger against the same spot on your own neck.

Joel’s jaw drops.

“I—sweetheart, I—”

He can’t find the words, can’t explain how he’s afraid he’s far too rough to do such a thing. It’s been too long, he’s out of practice, and the last thing he wants is to hurt you.

You just smile down at what he leaves unspoken, some look in your eyes that makes him tremble as you brush your hands through his hair and whisper, “You’re capable of much more softness than you realize, Joel Miller.”

A warmth eases his concern at your words, and he lets you guide his face to your neck, his lips finding your skin for a tentative kiss there. You’re putting yourself in his hands now, trusting him not to break you, just as he trusts you to lead him through this forgotten territory until it was familiar to him again.

Joel breathes you in, large hands grasping at your back as he pulls your body firmly against his, tongue darting out to taste your skin before he bites down softly.

There’s a moan that floats from your lips then, the most sweet, seductive music to his ears that’ll replay in his mind for nights to come, and Joel sucks at the skin, eager to leave his mark on you as you did him. He’s grasping desperately at your body now as you grind down into his lap, unwilling to ever let you go now that he has you.

Heavy breaths fill the air as you bring his face back up to yours, and you just kiss. Lips swelling from the attention, and Joel never wants to stop, even though he knows he’ll have to eventually.

When he does, the two of you finally needing to actually catch your breath, your forehead rests against his with a quiet sigh. It sounds dangerously like contentment, and it takes a moment before Joel realizes that such a thing isn’t so dangerous anymore.

Your nose bumps against his, and he whispers hoarsely, “How was that?”

You laugh, sounding just as breathless and raspy as him, and he can’t stop the goofy smile that stretches across his face when you hum, “Mm, I’ll need more evidence before I draw any conclusions.”

Joel’s lips meet yours again, a softer kiss shared this time, leaving the promise of more that he’d never thought he’d be able to make before he pulls back, and your smile returning his own tells him all he’s ever needed to know.

“That can be arranged.”

[mothman-supremacy]

safe with you

Joel miller x reader

⟢ summary: when Joel finally stops being cocky and lets you tend to his wounds , you take the opportunity

⟢ tags: post!outbreak, implied non specified age!gap, smut, fingering, unprotected p in v, breeding, one time use of ‘kiddo’, hurt!Joel, tiny bit angsty in the beginning if you squint (i tried), mean!joel in the beginning, ‘established’ feelings as in they both like each other but too dumb to make a move type beat, fluffy end

⟢ wc: 3378 (less than expected :()

⟢ a/n: i’m not sure i like this but i wanted to post it anyway <3 hope at least one person enjoys!

Joel stands a few feet away, hands braced against the wall, his broad back rising and falling with every breath. Blood stains his shirt.

Some of it isn’t his, some of it is.

You watch him for a second, waiting for him to acknowledge it, but he doesn’t.

“sit down,” you say, voice tight.

Joel doesn’t move, acting like he didn’t hear you.

“Joel”

He finally looks at you over his shoulder, his face is slick with sweat, his hair is a mess, and his knuckles are bruised from where he cracked a guy’s jaw just minutes ago.

But his eyes—they hold that same tired indifference, that goddamn stubbornness that always makes your stomach churn.

“M’fine,” he mutters.

Your fingers clench at your sides. “You’re bleeding, Joel”

“and I said I’m fine.”

You take a step closer, he doesn’t flinch, but his shoulders tense.

His shirt is ripped at the side, revealing the deep gash along his ribs.

It’s still oozing, worry takes over your mind in an instant.

You exhale sharply, “That needs to be cleaned”

Joel just shakes his head, pushing off the wall, “not worth wastin’ supplies over. We’ll find a medkit tomorrow”

You bite your tongue, anger curling in your gut, “Or we can handle it now so you don’t drop dead from an infection overnight”

He turns fully to face you now, jaw tight.

His expression is unreadable, but you can feel the heat rolling off him, the sharp annoyance in the set of his shoulders.

“You always gotta argue?” he mutters.

“You always gotta be a stubborn ass?”

Something flickers in his eyes, amusement, maybe but it’s buried under exhaustion.

Joel exhales roughly and drags a hand down his face, “go to sleep, kid”

Your jaw clenches. Kid.

That comment ruined your mood enough to not want to help him anymore.

Deep down of course, you’d love nothing more than to bandage him up and make sure he’s okay, but if he didn’t want your help then so be it.

You’ve dealt with Joel long enough to know that pushing him doesn’t do any good.

You shove the medkit at his chest, hard enough that he actually grunts from the impact. You do feel bad for a second, he doesn’t need to know that though.

“fine, do it yourself then”

He doesn’t answer, just watches as you drop your bag and settle onto your sleeping bag across the room, fuming.

You roll onto your side, facing away from him, and try to breathe through the anger. It’s useless because Joel Miller gets under your skin like no one else.

The old hotel room is cold. The kind of cold that settles deep in your bones, making the ache of exhaustion that much worse.

Wind howls softly through the cracked windows, rattling loose glass, but you barely register it as you burrow deeper into your sleeping bag.

Sleep comes reluctantly.

You’d been running on adrenaline for so long—through the fight, through the escape, through the frantic search for shelter—that now, finally still and safe for the moment, your body doesn’t know how to settle.

Joel is just a dark shape across the room, sitting against the wall.

He didn’t bother unrolling his sleeping bag and for a moment you wish he would lay with you.

You let your eyes slip shut, just for a little while.

Maybe five minutes passed maybe more, to be honest you couldn’t tell.

Then—

A quiet, sharp hiss.

Your brow furrows slightly, still half-asleep, the noise slipping into the edges of a dream.

Then another, this time more pained.

Your eyes blink open groggily, adjusting to the dim glow of moonlight spilling through the window.

Joel is kneeling with his back against the wall, but now he’s hunched over, shirt rucked up, fingers clumsy as he fumbles with a bottle of alcohol.

His jaw is tight, breath hissing through gritted teeth as he tips the liquid over the deep wound on his ribs. His entire body tenses, the muscles in his arms flexing, knuckles going white as he grips the edge of the rag he’s using.

Stupid, stubborn asshole.

You sigh, pushing up onto your elbows “You wanna keep it down, or should I start playing nurse with my eyes closed?”

Joel’s head jerks up slightly, but his hand never stops working.

His fingers tighten around the bottle, his brow furrowing as he shoots you a half-glance.

“Thought you were sleepin’,” he mutters.

“Thought you were fine.”

His mouth twitches, the ghost of a smirk. “M’still breathin’”

You roll your eyes and push off your sleeping bag, stretching out your sore limbs before padding over to where he sits, “Barely,” you reply.

He doesn’t stop you as you crouch in front of him, knees pressing against the cool floor. But when you reach for the bandages, his hand shoots out, closing over your wrist.

“I got it”

Your eyes flick up to his, the contact is brief but his grip is firm, warm, calloused fingers rough against your skin.

He holds it for a second too long before letting go, his touch lingering even after his hand drops away.

You exhale, patience fraying at the edges. “You really don’t.”

Joel exhales through his nose, jaw flexing as his gaze drops to your hands, “I’ve been patchin’ myself up longer than you’ve been alive, sweetheart”

You roll your eyes, “And yet here you are, wincing like a little bitch.”

His lips part slightly, caught between amusement and annoyance, your remark was funny.

His fingers curl over his knee, watching you through narrowed eyes, and for a moment, you think he’s going to argue.

Then he sighs and drops his head back against the wall, knees giving out, he sits down fully, legs stretched out in front of you.

“Fine,” he grumbles. “Knock yourself out.”

You don’t give him a chance to change his mind before you take the rag from his lap, soaking it in the leftover alcohol before pressing it against his wound.

Joel jerks, inhaling sharply, his stomach flexes under your palm.

“Jesus,” he whispers in pain, “you tryna kill me?”

You smile sweetly at him, “I thought you were tough?”

His lips curve, just slightly. “Thought you were gentle”

“Guess we were both wrong”

Joel huffs a quiet laugh, but his breath stutters slightly as you press down harder, cleaning the wound with slow, careful strokes.

His skin is warm under your hands, the muscles in his abdomen taut as he forces himself to stay still.

He’s watching you and you can feel it.

Breathing out slowly, you act like being so close to him doesn’t affect you. Or the way he watches you.

Your fingers are careful, deliberate as they smooth over his skin, wrapping the bandage around his ribs with steady hands.

His gaze is heavy, tracking your every movement, dark eyes flicking to your mouth, the curve of your neck, the way your breath hitches just slightly when his stomach flexes beneath your touch.

“Didn’t know you had such soft hands,” Joel murmurs carefully, not sure himself why he just said that. Was the pain getting to him?

He’s been attracted to you since he met you of course, but he would never be so open about it.

Was he dying?

Your fingers falter for half a second.

You glance up, meeting his gaze, and your stomach clenches. His voice is lower now, rougher, but there’s something else there.

The air feels thick now, different.

You force yourself to focus, tying the bandage off with a firm tug.

Joel exhales, slow and measured, “didn’t know you liked touchin’ me so much, either.”

His voice is all gravel and amusement, cocky and teasing. What was going on?

Your hands are still on his stomach, you hadn’t even realized.

“Joel, you know you aren’t supposed to drink the rubbing alcohol, right?”

You snort at your own joke, he doesn’t react to it besides with a roll of his eyes.

Joel watches you, unmoving, gaze unreadable.

His breathing is just a little uneven, the faintest twitch of his jaw betraying his composure.

And then slowly, deliberately—his fingers brush against the inside of your wrist.

Your breath catches, you should pull away.

Caring for Joel always came easy, so when you noticed you actually liked him, you weren’t surprised.

However, Joel had never shown any type of special interest in you, so this was very new.

Joel’s thumb ghosts over the pulse point at your wrist, barely there, but it sends something molten curling in your stomach. His fingers are rough but very warm against your skin.

“You done?” he murmurs, voice just above a whisper.

Your throat feels tight.

No. Not even close. Well, almost.

But instead of answering, you tilt your chin slightly, gaze flicking to his mouth for half a second—just long enough for his lips to part slightly, his breath hitching the tiniest bit.

You’re too tired to think your next move through, you lean in and to your surprise, Joel meets you halfway.

The moment your lips touch, it’s like a fuse catching fire. Slow at first, smoldering, then burning all at once.

He doesn’t hesitate. His hand curls around the back of your neck, dragging you closer, swallowing the soft noise you make as he kisses you deeper.

His other hand grips your waist, pulling you into his lap like he’s been waiting for this—like he’s starved for it.

Your fingers slide up his chest, feeling the slow, steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath your palm.

His lips part slightly, the heat of his breath mingling with yours, and when you press your hips down experimentally, his grip tightens, a low groan rumbling in his throat.

“Christ,” he breathes, “knew you’d be trouble.”

You grin against his mouth, “you love it.”

Joel chuckles, low and rough, his lips are on yours again, soft and hungry, his hands a steady pressure on your body as if he can’t decide whether he wants to devour you or take it slow.

You certainly wouldn’t mind either.

You feel the tension in every inch of him, the way his touch deepens, the grip on your waist tightening.

“Fuck,” he mutters as he pulls away, breath hot against your lips. “You’re makin’ this real difficult, you know that?”

You pull back slightly, just enough to see the flicker of annoyance mixed with something else in his eyes—a challenge. He’s fighting it, trying to keep that control, that cocky distance he always hides behind but it’s slipping.

“I don’t think you’re that difficult,” you tease, sliding your fingers down his chest, past the bandages, your touch deliberate, slow. You watch his jaw tighten, his gaze flicking to your lips as if he’s fighting the urge to kiss you again.

“Careful,” he warns, but it’s breathless, not sharp. It’s an invitation. His fingers trail up your back, the heat of his touch searing through the thin fabric of your shirt.

“Make me,” you whisper, pressing a soft kiss to his throat. His body tenses, and for a second, you think he might just take control, rip your shirt off, and push you down—but he doesn’t.

Instead, he watches you, every move you make, the flick of your fingers against his skin.

“You’re gettin’ bold, sweetheart,” Joel murmurs, voice low and rough. “I like it.”

His hands move lower, sliding beneath the hem of your shirt.

The moment his fingertips touch the skin of your stomach, you shudder.

And just like that, the teasing stops.

His fingers ghost down, toying with the waistband of your pants.

He looks at you, lips curled in that smug, cocky way of his. “You want this, don’t ya?”

You swallow hard, but you don’t back down. “I’ve always wanted you.”

His eyes flash with something dark, something predatory and before you can even process it, he’s moving you off his lap and yanking your pants off, his hands moving like they know exactly what they’re doing.

You gasp as his mouth finds yours again, harder this time, more desperate, the weight of his body pressing you back onto the floor. His knee slides between your legs, nudging them apart as his hands travel, exploring every inch of your skin.

“think you can tease me, huh?” Joel whispers against your neck, lips dragging down to your collarbone. His breath is hot, his hands rough.

“don’t think I don’t know what you want, baby.”

You open your mouth to respond, but the words get caught in your throat as his fingers slide beneath the waistband of your underwear.

The slow, painful way he moves drives you crazy.

“Joel,” you breathe, but it’s more a plea than anything.

His lips curve into that smirk, the one that always makes your heart race.

“Yeah, baby?” His fingers brush against your clit, just barely, enough to send a shock through you.

“You want me to make you feel good?”

You can’t answer him—not with words, not when your body betrays you like this. Instead, you arch into him, desperate for more, and Joel chuckles knowingly.

“Thought so.”

With that, his fingers slip lower, pushing inside you slowly, teasing you just enough that you can’t focus on anything but the ache inside of you.

His thumb finds your clit again, slow circles that make you tense and moan softly. “That’s it,” he says “let me hear you.”

You moan louder, your hands gripping his shoulders, needing something, anything to ground you as he moves inside you with a measured pace.

“Such a good girl,” he groans, his thumb rubbing faster, his fingers curling to hit that spot inside you that makes everything go hazy. “Keep movin’ for me, baby. I want to feel you.”

The intensity builds in waves, your breath coming in short gasps as his fingers move faster and harder, pushing you toward the edge.

“I’m close,” you gasp, not wanting to admit how fast he got you to that point.

“Good girl” his voice is teasing, “You wanna come for me, huh?”

You nod, desperate for release.

“Then do it. Come on my fingers, baby,” he growls, and that’s all it takes.

You explode, your body tensing as your orgasm crashes over you.

Joel’s fingers never stop, working you through it, driving you even higher.

When you finally come down from the high, he pulls his fingers out slowly, and before you can even recover, he brings them to his lips, sucking them clean with a satisfied hum. Your stomach tightens at the sight, heat pooling between your legs all over again.

“Jesus, Joel,” you breathe, half in disbelief, half in need.

His lips twitch into that cocky smirk, his hands already sliding to his belt, unbuckling it with slow, practiced ease. “Somethin’ wrong, sweetheart?” he teases, pulling the leather strap free, then flicking open the button of his jeans. “You look a little desperate.”

“Shut up,” you mumble, but your gaze stays locked on his hands as he shoves his jeans and boxers down just enough to free his cock.

And fuck—he’s big. Thick, flushed, already hard, the head glistening in the dim light.

Your breath catches, thighs pressing together instinctively, but Joel’s already moving between them, spreading you open again with ease.

He strokes himself slowly, watching you with that infuriatingly smug look, like he knows exactly what you’re thinking. And of course he does.

“You gonna keep starin’, or you gonna let me fuck you, sweetheart?”

You swallow hard, heart pounding, but you lift your hips in silent answer.

Joel lets out a small chuckle, but there’s something darker in his eyes now, excitement makes your stomach flip.

“That’s what I thought,” he mutters, dragging the thick head of his cock through your slick folds, teasing you, making you squirm.

“Joel—”

He pushes in, just an inch, just enough to stretch you open, and your breath stutters.

“Shit,” he groans, grip tightening on your hips. “So fuckin’ tight, baby. You tryin’ to kill me?”, you laugh at his comment as it was the same one he made only a while ago.

You let out a choked moan as he sinks deeper, the burn delicious, overwhelming. Your fingers dig into his arms, desperate for something to hold onto.

Joel curses under his breath, jaw clenched like he’s barely holding onto control. He pauses halfway in, breathing heavily, giving you a second to adjust.

“You good?” he asks, voice rough, strained.

You nod, barely able to speak. “Yeah. just—Joel, move.”

That’s all he needs.

He buries himself to the hilt with a low, guttural groan, filling you completely, stretching you in a way that has your eyes rolling back.

“Fuck,” you whimper, nails scraping against his skin.

Joel stills for a second, breathing hard, then pulls out just enough before driving back in, setting a slow, punishing pace.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, watching your face, drinking in every reaction. “Takin’ me so good, baby. So damn sweet.”

You can barely think, barely breathe, every drag of his cock hitting deep, making your whole body tremble.

Joel leans down, pressing his forehead against yours, his breath hot and ragged. “You feel this?” he mutters, thrusting deep, making you gasp. “This is mine now.”

You can only whimper in response, wrapping your legs around his waist, pulling him even deeper.

Joel groans, kissing you hard, swallowing every sound you make as he picks up the pace, fucking into you with slow thrusts that have you falling apart all over again.

His hands roam your body, rough and greedy, like he needs to touch every inch of you. His lips find your throat, your jaw, nipping and sucking, leaving marks that you know will still be there tomorrow.

You’re close again, the pressure building, every thrust sending you higher and higher—

“Come for me,” Joel growls against your ear, voice rough, demanding. “Come on sweetheart. Let me feel you.”

Sweetheart and his voice was all it took.

Your whole body tenses, pleasure crashing over you like a tidal wave. You cry out his name, clenching around him as your orgasm washes through you.

Joel groans, thrusts turning erratic, sloppy. “Fuck, baby—gonna fill you up so good,”

With one last deep thrust, he spills inside you, burying himself to the hilt, his whole body trembling with the force of it.

For a moment, neither of you move, just tangled together, breathing hard, skin damp with sweat.

Joel presses a lazy kiss to your forehead, his cock still buried deep inside you. “Hell,” he mutters, voice hoarse. “You really know how to make a man forget he’s injured.”

You let out a breathless laugh, still trying to catch your own breath. “You’re the one who started it.”

Joel smirks, shifting slightly, making you whimper at the sensitivity. “Yeah. And I’ll be the one finishin’ it too. Later.”

You roll your eyes, but there’s no heat behind it, not when he’s still holding you like this, still so close.

After a moment, Joel pulls out carefully, reaching for a cloth to clean you both up before pulling you against his chest, tucking you beneath his arm.

You sigh, melting into him, head resting on his shoulder.

For a few minutes, neither of you speak. The storm outside still howls, the fire flickers dimly, but here, in his arms, everything feels warm. Safe.

“You ain’t sleepin’ in your own damn sleeping bag tonight,” Joel mutters, pressing a kiss to your temple.

You smile, eyes already heavy, “didn’t plan to.”

Joel chuckles, shifting slightly, making sure you’re comfortable against him. His hand rests on your hip, fingers idly tracing over your skin.

“Good,” he murmurs. “Told ya, baby. You’re mine now.”

You hum in response, too tired to argue, too content to care. Not like you would want to argue that anyway.

Joel smirks, pressing one last kiss to your hair before closing his eyes.

Yeah. You’re his now. And he sure as hell ain’t lettin’ you forget it.

[mothman-supremacy]

Arthur Morgan x F!reader: General NSFW hcs

minors dni pls

scattered mess of arthur thoughts so I could sleep. feedback is much appreciated! not proofread because idc and my computer is gonna die!

I love him, and he makes me want to do terrible things. enjoy! -Jelly

...

This man is a bumbling idiot, and I mean that will all the love in the world.

He keeps everyone at an arm's length and can be really awkward. His history with romance is not a happy one.

Arthur is sensitive and thoughtful, so he isn't super into casual sex anymore. He doesn't necessarily need to be in a relationship with the person, per say, but he's not going to lay with someone he doesn't see a future with. He knows it's not worth the risk.

He needs to trust you enough to be able to let his guard down around you. He doesn't feel comfortable or confident enough to have moments of "weakness" around just anyone.

When you do get him in your bed (cot? tent?), he's a lot softer than you'd expect. He's so gruff and grumpy all the time, but he becomes quiet when you're together like this.

He's honestly a little nervous about what you'll think about him. He's a horrible, ugly, rough man. Why would you want to have him? (give him a big kiss pls)

The first few times, he acted as if he was expecting to be looked down upon. Poor man.

Enough of the sad stuff. My character analysis sucks ass.

I honestly feel like he's pretty vanilla. He might have been a little bit more experimental when he was younger, but he just wants to love and be loved on now.

He prefers to move at a slower pace. He's not opposed to rough, but isn't really a fan of fast. Is very willing to let you guide the pace, but always prefers to give rather than receive.

He might get a little insecure if you start cracking jokes, even if they aren't at his expense. He'll get used to it, but tends to be a bit more sensitive when he's letting you take the lead.

Gets turned on when he sees you focused on something. Chopping vegetables? Reading? Sharpening knives? He wants you to focus on him like that :(

Massage his chest. Do it. Instant turn on. Alternatively, scratch gently at his chest hair. He melts!

Will grumble if you bite him. It's kind of hilarious.

Arthur has big, big hands. Wide palms, calloused fingers, blunt fingernails. He likes the way they look, contrasted with your skin.

He loves to hold you, hands on either side of your waist, thumbs stroking the skin of your ribcage just below your breasts. He'll place feather-light kisses to your stomach as he does so.

Runs his fingers through/over your hair often. Traces the lines of your body with his palms. He's very tactile.

One of his favorite things to do is to spread you out in his lap. You'll be sitting between his legs, your back to his chest. He drapes your legs over his, hooking his knees under your thighs to hold your legs open. And he'll finger you like this for ages until you're begging him for a break.

Loves to hold his fingers against your tongue afterwards ;)

Loves to take his time with you. Typically focuses on you, and will actively try to avoid you focusing on him.

(Hold him down. You wouldn't win, but he won't fight you.)

Blushes deep red if you compliment his dick <3

He does have a bit of a size kink. I mean... c'mon. He's huge.

Big barrel chest, tall and imposing. Your hands can't make it around his wrists.

Likes positions where he can rest his weight on you. Missionary, prone bone, mating press. If you ride him, he wants to be sitting up so he can hug you and/or kiss your breasts. He gets shy when he's laying flat back and you're looking down at him.

Once he's comfortable, he talks to you quite a bit. Hushed, grunting tones. Never says anything too explicit, but does utter quite a bit of praise.

"God damn, girl... You feel me? You feel me deep?"

(Really likes it deep. He's big, so he's always wanted someone who's able to handle all of him. Good luck.)

Moans, but only quietly. He might die if someone heard him.

I can't see him being into giving any sort of degradation or pain. You can ask him to do those things, but he'll honestly get a little offended. He's not that much of a brute. You're his baby :(

Loves to tease, but struggles with being teased back. Tease him to work him up to being a little rougher. It takes a bit to get to that point, though. We all know how restrained he can be.

Edge him.

Afterwards, he sticks around. Likes to sleep next to you.

Arthur is very much a gentleman, and wants to make sure you're okay. He might honestly get a little annoying and overbearing.

(Though tbh if you do some of the more intense positions, you might need it.)

He's a big comfy teddy bear. Curl up into his side or lay across his chest. He couldn't be happier.

[mothman-supremacy]

he can play dead