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pedges · 2 years ago

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the one where things are messy

pairing: joel miller x reader (no apocalypse and accidentally on purpose gender neutral)

summary: you leave joel a drunk voicemail.

content: drunk reader. like, drunk. miscommunications, angst, but mostly just a silly little time. reader is joel's neighbor of several years. gratuitous use of the word "fuck." let me know if i've missed anything!

a/n: this is 100% based off friends the tv show. the one where ross finds out. i have not written in a very long time, so i apologize in advance! this is just a nonsensical drabble that ended up being 5k words, so please enjoy <3

The thing is, Joel doesn’t like cats.

Joel doesn’t hate cats, but he has never expressed any sign of liking cats, at least not enough to warrant the sudden desire to adopt one. With his girlfriend. Who he plans on asking to move in with him. When he tells you, it’s like he just ordered an airstrike to your chest, and you’re thinking maybe you should have slashed his tires before he went to Dallas on business for two weeks and came back with a sweet little thing shacked up in his heart.

It’s just that when Tommy and you got drunk together a few days after he left, sitting on the couch in Joel’s living room while Tommy played world’s worst babysitter, he had dropped the first of what now seems to be a series of inconvenient bombshells.

“Don’t get rom-coms, they’re real fuckin’ dumb,” he had been saying, adamantly complaining about your choice of movie. When Harry Met Sally was too cute and too good to receive his vitriol, but the alcohol in your system tore down your usual defense mechanisms. All you could really do was roll your eyes. “Just fuckin’ talk to each other, maybe, maybe this shit wouldn’t take so long.”

“The hell do you know about communicating, Tommy?” you said, and though you were mostly teasing, you had to bite back a remark about his past relationships never making it past the six month mark. Still, you kept the levity in your voice, the drunken grin on your lips. “Swear, you and Joel think you know everything. Must be an annoying Miller thing.”

“Know more than you,” he said with a scoff, then a hiccup. Taking the last swig of his beer, he set the empty bottle down on the coffee table and looked at you. “Way fuckin’ more than Joel. M’like—the fuck is the word—ret-i-cant. Always watchin’. You wouldn’t get it.”

“Reticent, and I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull,” Tommy insisted. “Cause—‘cause I know if Harry and Sally just admitted shit from the getgo—they’da saved so much fuckin’ time.”

You wanted to argue. You want to tell him that was the point of the story, of the insistence for two people who very clearly wanted each other being brought back together each time they tried to stay away from one another. You wanted to tell Tommy that sometimes difficult things were beautiful, and romantic, and heartfelt, and great. But before you could, he was grumbling something as he sank into the couch, something that sounded like, “S’like I kept tellin’ Joel, tired of him tiptoein’ ‘round you.”

“What?” you said in lieu of everything else running through your quickly sobering mind.

“Ah, shit.”

It only took a couple threats of bodily harm for Tommy to tell you that Joel had feelings for you. Keyword: had. He stopped asking about it a while ago, stopped caring when it was obvious Joel “wasn’t goin’ to do a damn thing,” so don’t ask him if he knew more than what he did a few months ago. All of it was quickly followed by pleads to not say shit and that he was sorry he said anything at all.

You wondered what he would have said if you told him you'd wanted Joel Miller since the moment you laid eyes on him.

But, you didn’t. And a week and a half later, when Joel came back talking up a storm about an old flame he met up with in Dallas, how fate would have it that she was moving back to Austin—well, needless to say—Tommy’s inability to keep a secret meant nothing now.

Now, six months later, you’re left to wonder if it hurt Joel this bad when you went on dates, and had partners, and did everything you could to drown out the feelings you had for him. You’d think finding out he had feelings for you—but was now in a relationship with a woman who didn’t playfully (annoyingly) bicker with him, or snort, or make fun—would kill the ones you had for him. But the universe is cruel, and your heart has never really been one to quit.

Part of you feels bad for thinking it wouldn’t last. Well, not thinking—hoping. But it did, and you realize woefully that you’ve missed your chance with Joel Miller—the man you have spent too many years pining after, too many nights thinking that his brand of affection meant more than he was letting on, and buried too many sorrows in glasses of wine or bottles of beer over. But worst of all, you realize that Tommy was right.

So, he tells you he wants her to move in with him and Sarah one Saturday evening on his porch. Then he tells you she wants a cat. And you say you’re happy for him.

“You, uh, don’t think it’s too…soon?” he asks then, like he’s looking to you for a reason to back out. Every fiber of your being is aching to give him one, especially with the way he looks at you with those big browns of his, but the words scratch at your throat hard enough that they don’t make their way out. Instead, you shake your head slowly, forcing a shrug as you sip on the coffee Joel so tenderly prepared for you—the way you like it; he didn’t even have to ask.

“I think,” you start, though these words aren’t any less sharp than the ones you truly want to say, “if you’re happy, you should do what you want.”

“You ever picture me with a cat?” Joel snickers. He wears the gentlest smile, enough of one to form those crinkles by his eyes that you love so much.

“I think you’d look adorable with a cat,” you tell him, and it might be the first true thing you’ve said all night. You picture it, a purring cat curled on his chest, and someone he loves at his side. In your mind, you can’t help but put yourself in that spot. “But,” you continue, “can’t say I’ve ever thought of you actually getting one. You’re more of a…hm. German shepherd guy, maybe even a lizard.”

Joel laughs—that hearty, full, intoxicating laugh of his. It floods your veins and gives you goosebumps. If the world were to fall to ruins tomorrow, you’d survive on the memory of it alone, you think.

“Can’t say I disagree with you,” he says then, a leftover grin still curled on his lips, and you want to do anything in your power to keep it there. But then he gets lost in thought, and you watch it soften. It doesn’t disappear completely, but the fact that it’s gone so quickly makes you ache. He speaks again, voice soft as he says, “Guess I just want to make her happy. Lot of things stopped bein’ about me a long time ago, I think.”

Your heart cinches. Of course he’d say something like that. Of course he’d go and utter words that remind you why you fell in love with him in the first place. And god, that realization hits hard. You are quite, disgustingly in love with Joel. Though it stings, and you’re going to go home and lick your wounds for the hundredth time soon, you get what he means. You stayed silent when he got back from Dallas for the same reason—the smile on his face when he talked about someone he might truly, genuinely like.

That, and because the someone wasn’t you.

You pull up your britches.

You have no other choice, you decide, because you’re young, and you’re an adult, and you can get over someone without feeling like you’re going to die. You use your little black book (read: an old Lisa Frank notepad) to call up the fling you had last winter. He’d wanted you, badly, but because there was a night where you thought Joel might’ve kissed you, you never called back. It seems stupid now, looking back.

But, you thank your lucky stars, or one man’s utter desperation, that he’s still single and he still wants you. He takes you out to a nice restaurant, in a nice suit, and nice shoes. The conversation isn’t even bad, and he’s putting your drinks on his tab. The second one in, you think maybe this could work.

It’s when you lose count that things go bad.

“I don’t even think Joel likes cats,” you’re slurring to this poor man, who is desperately scanning the restaurant for a waiter, a check, and a way out of your ramblings about Joel’s love life. You can’t tell if you’re crying or not, though it really feels like you want to. Because one moment you were having a nice time, and the next someone was ordering Joel’s drink—whiskey on the rocks, with a twist—at the table over and you weren’t able to keep him out of your mind from that point on.

It’s ridiculous, because it’s not Joel’s Drink, it’s A Drink—one that Joel only ever orders, but you could see someone in a worn down green and gray flannel and wonder when Joel Miller became such a trendsetter. Still, nothing can stop you from ordering one yourself, and then another, and then another. It’s like you’re trying to flood your senses with Joel Joel Joel because you know it’ll never be him sitting across from you with the intention of taking you home and maybe kissing you outside your door.

Though, if you weren’t gone by your fourth whiskey, you’d see that your date has lost any and all intentions of that manner. It’s probably not even because you’re drunk, it’s because you’re still wearing Joel’s name on your lips like it’s going out of style.

“Like—like, I can’t just tell Joel, no, y’know? Or, I don’t think you should get a cat with a woman you had a thing with before you met the mother of your child, and especially shouldn’t have her move in with you after six months. But I want to. Because he’s smarter than this, and I don’t think it’s the right move, especially because of Sarah, and Tommy, ugh, Tommy. Idiot. They’re both idiots. Joel especially, methinks.”

You don’t know when your date finally flagged down the waiter, or when he dropped you off at home, or when you got inside and picked up your landline. You especially don’t know when you dialed Joel’s number and left him a voicemail when he inevitably didn’t answer.

All you know is that you mixed your alcohols that night, and you’re probably going to wake up in some version of hell in the morning, but it seems like falling asleep has never been so easy before.

—

Hell is an understatement. You don’t get sick, but you wish you could throw up your brain, or at least the part of it that still gets headaches like this. It’s with the most gut wrenching revelation that you don’t have any ibuprofen, or any recollection of the night before.

For the time being, it’s truly the least of your worries. The most of them are getting rid of your life threatening headache. So, after making yourself as presentable as you can, you trudge across the street to Joel’s house—it’s because his house is closer than the drugstore three blocks down. Not because seeing his face would make you feel better anyways.

“Aren’t you a beauty this afternoon,” Joel laughs when he opens the door, because really, you look like death, and you hadn’t even realized it was past one o’clock. You’re grateful it’s Saturday, and Sarah has soccer practice right now, because she looks up to you, and the last thing you need is for her to see you like this.

“Shut up,” you grumble, shoving your way past him despite his teasing. He doesn’t mind, and you know he doesn’t. If the smile still on his face is anything to go by. It’s then you realize that yeah, okay, seeing him does make you feel better. Even if it’s just by a fraction.

“Thought you left your partyin’ days in college,” he continues with his teasing. “Let me guess: you came over here to raid my medicine cabinet.”

By the time he closes his front door and turns around, you’re already sinking into his plush couch, giving him a look with raised brows that could only mean, You mean you’re going to raid your medicine cabinet, for me.

“Ah,” he says. Any other moment, your heart would stutter at the ease in which he reads you. Now, your heart is threatening to fail for an entirely different reason. “Got it. Be right back.”

Joel sticks by his word. He comes back, not just with painkillers, but with water, warmed up coffee, and one of the store-bought muffins you love so much. If you weren’t dying, you’d hug the man. If you weren’t so smart, you’d probably even kiss him.

“Don’t die on me, alright? Need you around for shenanigans and such,” Joel tells you, leaving you to your devices on his couch. The pain meds go down, and the coffee does wonders from just one sip. You allow yourself to lie on the couch, pillow over your face to block out the harsh light. It seems that as the seconds pass, and by some miracle, you start to feel more and more at ease. Fragments of last night come back slowly, but not enough to piece together the entire puzzle.

You drank a lot, that much is clear.

It’s not until you hear a series of beeps from the kitchen, where Joel keeps his landline and answering machine, do the cogs in your brain start cranking a little harder. One voicemail plays over the speaker, something about work that makes Joel sigh and skip it before he can play it all the way through.

Beeeeep.

“Heeeeello, Joel. Hi, hello, howdy. It’s me.”

Joel calls out, “Did you call me last night?”

You sit up in record time.

It comes rushing back.

“I just don’t see why he can’t get something that doesn’t live so long. Like a hamster. Or goldfish. Or a fruit fly. It’s just so—“

“Listen! Listen. I don’t know who Joel or Tommy or Sarah are. You sound—hung up. But if you really want my advice? Get some closure. You clearly have feelings for this guy and you won’t get over him until you do.”

“Closure! Oh, you’re a genius!”

“Joel,” you call over the sound of your own drunken voice, dread now filling your body to the fucking brim. But it seems like your body can’t move fast enough. “Joel, hang up, hang it up, hang it up.”

“I just—just wanted to call and tell you I am so happy for you. And your future cat. And I think you should name it Frank. And because I am giving you names, that means I am getting closure—“

You can hear your heartbeat sounding against your eardrums, but feel it falling to the ground as you finally muster up the memory of how to work your legs. But by the time you’re stumbling into the kitchen, you can hear the worst of the voicemail that has Joel’s face drained of any possible readable emotion. You start praying for the ground to swallow you whole and munch your bones. It would be a more peaceful way to go than this.

“Because you’re over me, I am over you, my sweet Joel. That’s right. I am over you. How’s that for closure?”

The machine beeps, and then the heaviest silence enters the kitchen.

Seconds, minutes, maybe even years pass as you stand in the doorway, looking at Joel looking at the answering machine. Then at you.

“You’re…over me?” he finally says. You swallow the softball that had lodged itself in your throat and almost choke on it. “When, uh, when were you under me?”

Suddenly, you think the whole life flashing before your eyes thing is true. Because you feel like you’re dying, and all you can think about is every happy moment you’ve had surrounded by Joel. The first time you met, the way Sarah took a liking to you, the unlikely friendship you formed with his brother. You think of all the nights spent on Joel’s porch, sometimes talking, but most times in such a genuinely comfortable silence, where you could do nothing but enjoy each other’s presence. You think of all the fleeting touches, lingering glances, pet names reserved just for you—and how you doubted all the thoughts that they could mean something more.

You don’t know what hurts more—the fact that, according to Tommy, they did, or that now they didn’t.

But most of all, you think of how when you were searching for a home several years ago, you didn’t expect to find it in the family of a man named Joel Miller.

And you didn’t expect to lose it in the worst way possible.

When you remember where you are, what is happening, and realize that you haven’t actually died, you let out a pathetic little noise. Halfway between a whimper and the words you can’t yet form.

“What, uh—what did you mean, over me?” Joel finally asks. He’s never been one to beat around the bush, but god, you wish just this time he would. In fact, you wish he’d pretend that this never happened. But you know better. You know there’s no ignoring this.

“I—“ you barely manage to choke out. Because truly, what do you say? Against your better judgment, you opt for the truth. “I…may or may not have feelings,” you say, and then, “For you. Tommy told me you—you used to feel the same.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“…And you’re over me?”

You wince. Maybe drunk-you convinced yourself so briefly that saying it would make it true. But by the weight of your heart, and the way it feels like there’s been barbed wire wrapped around it, gripping it tight, you know any answer besides No would be a lie. But because you can’t really bring yourself to say it, not with the way tears threaten to burn your eyes any second now, you instead say, “I don’t know.”

It seems though, Joel wanted so desperately for you to say yes. By the way he jumps into action, grabbing his keys from the kitchen counter and making a break for it, he wanted you to say Yes, I’m completely over you. But you didn’t, and now he’s leaving you alone in his own house.

You don’t speak for a week.

You’re not exactly sure who’s avoiding who. You just know you’re wallowing in something that feels akin to lava that refuses to swallow you whole. Inside you there’s this ache, like there’s an empty space where someone should be inside your heart. It feels like three empty spaces, actually, and you had never weighed the consequences of losing Joel before. Part of you wishes you could have just gotten rid of your feelings for him a long time ago. Collecting the evidence now, though, told you there was no easy way to do that. Maybe quitting him cold turkey would have done the trick, or moving to Antarctica. But apparently, when you fell in love with Joel, you fell in love with his entire family, and three people was a hell of a lot harder to give up than one.

In fact, on day seven, you’re stealthing your way back inside your home after a trip to the grocery store, like you have been all week, when you hear a familiar voice call your name. You turn to see Sarah across the street, standing at the backdoor of Tommy’s truck in her soccer uniform, waving at you with this sad little smile on her face. One that says she doesn’t know what’s going on, just that she hasn’t seen you in a while, and you realize that this is the longest you’ve gone without speaking to her since you first met her.

You look around like you’re going to get caught committing a crime when you send the most timid wave back. It ends up feeling like a crime anyways when the face you’ve been aching to see comes out of the house, followed by his brother, and he follows Sarah’s line of sight. Meeting his eye is a serrated knife slicing through you, jagged, and harsh, and no clean cuts.

But what hurts the most is when he opens Sarah’s door and all but forcefully guides her inside the truck, like he’s ushering her away from a bad thing. You think maybe he is.

You rush inside afterwards and think of ways to never leave your house again.

Hours later, you’re sitting on your couch watching another ridiculous rom-com, the only comfort you’ve found, with perpetual tears brimming your eyes. Tommy really was fucking right, wasn’t he? Had there been some inkling of communication, you wouldn’t be here. But there wasn’t, and you are, and it sucks—somehow, it seems like this will never not hurt.

At ten o’clock, there’s a knock at your door. It makes you jump, mostly because this sense of knowing dread fills your body—like you know who it is before you can even open it, because you do. When Joel is standing on the other side, those big brown eyes of his full of something you can’t make out, he asks if he can come in. You aren’t even sure he’d listen if you said no, so you say yes.

He steps inside, you close the door, and there’s a beat of silence before, “Sarah was askin’ about you all day.”

You stand at your door, hands together as you toy with your own fingers nervously. Your heart is racing and your mind is reeling, but most of all, there’s this resounding ache echoing throughout your entire body.

“Sorry,” is all you can really say in return.

“I didn’t get a cat,” Joel says then. Your heart jolts at the mention.

“Oh.” You look down at your hands. “Interesting.”

“No, not interestin’.” When Joel speaks this time, he almost sounds angry. Frustrated, maybe, but he doesn’t sound happy, especially not with you. When you force yourself to look up, he has the face to match—brows furrowed, pout on his lips, gaze firm. “I should have a cat right now. I should have a movin’ truck outside my house, I should be living with my girlfriend—instead I’ve got a daughter askin’ too many questions, a shit talkin’ brother, and I’m standin’ inside your living room angry as all hell right now.”

“Angry?” you say. He absolutely just said too many words with too many implications, but that’s the one you happen to get caught up on. Mostly because it lights a fire in you. Part of you thinks he has every right to be angry, but the other part feels justified in your own anger. “I’m sorry, why the hell are you angry with me?”

“Because,” Joel responds quickly, voice harder, louder. He looks as if he didn’t expect you to fight back, but what a dumb presumption to have made. “Because you had no fuckin’ right to tell me you felt something about me.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Joel,” you spit back, voice dripping with sarcasm, but really? You are.

“No, it’s not fuckin’ fair, and you don’t fuckin’ get it.” Joel steps forward, and for the first time, he does look genuinely angry. But after looking at him for a second longer, you realize it’s not that. He’s hurt. “I was doin’ fine before you came along with that mess. I was doin’ fuckin’ fantastic before I found out about you!”

“I was doing great before I found out about you!” you shout back even though you weren’t doing great before. Not even close. Still, you want to stay angry, but your voice betrays you. “You think it was easy to find out you used to feel the same way about me? You think it was easy watching you be all happy with someone else, huh?”

“Oh, like I haven’t done it a thousand times, darlin’.” Joel’s words are sharp.

“You never said anything!” Yours are too.

“There was never a good fuckin’ time,” he says coldly. Your own blood begins to turn icy in your veins as he huffs angrily.

“And now is?” you respond coolly, before your walls begin to crumble. They had a while ago, actually, but now you’re resorting to kicking the rubble around. “Why did you come over here, Joel? To rub it in my face, tell me that you’re just—just going to get rid of whatever you felt?”

There’s a flash of pain on Joel’s face before he resolves to a glower at you. “I was happy.” He says your name, broken and small. “And I’ve been doin’ it for a helluva long time, sweetheart. I can keep doing it now.”

Even though it truly does sound like he’s trying to convince himself of his own words, the suffocating pain in your chest is becoming too much to bear. So you point towards your door. “Then go.”

“Fine,” he spits, stomping towards the exit at your command.

“Fine!”

Before you know it, he walks out, your door slams, and he’s gone.

You finally reach a crossroads. As tears brim your eyes, you realize that this is it, isn’t it? You were an asteroid that missed Joel by a mile, and now you were sentenced to a life drifting aimlessly in space. You missed out on a place to land—this is it.

Moments pass. You do whatever you can to soak in everything that unraveled before you, and there’s no hope in picking up the pieces. No hope in weaving them back together. Before you can let out a pathetic little sob and stalk off towards your room, you suddenly hear footsteps leading back to your front door. Then there’s a knock at it, soft—quiet.

As your heart begins to race, you step to open the door, only to find Joel on the other side. As if you could be surprised. It’s safe to say you’ve never seen the man look so dejected, like a dog bringing a bird to your front door. He’s illuminated by your flickering porch light and the glow from the moon, and if you weren’t suffering so, you’d tell him you’d never seen a man look so ethereal.

Searching his eyes for any semblance of an answer to all the questions you now have doesn’t last long. Because before either of you can say a word, Joel’s hands are cupping your face and he’s kissing you like he’s been underwater for far too long, and you’re fresh fucking air.

And you let him.

You let him, because the universe hasn’t offered you any other choice—if it has, you’re not fucking taking it. You let him kiss you, and push you inside, and kick the door closed behind him, because you’ve wanted this for years. You’ve ached for this, yearned for the feeling of Joel’s lips on yours, the warmth of his mouth and tongue—the feeling of his hands on your waist.

Joel kisses you for as long as either of you can stand it, which is a pretty long time considering the way your hearts are racing and lungs are clawing for air. It’s when the back of your knees are pressed against the arm of your couch, and you’re falling backwards onto it, pulling him down with you, do you both pull back long enough to breathe. Though, it’s mostly huffs, recovering from the sudden fall and shock of the best fucking kiss either of you have ever had in your life. Still, the urge to smile hits you for the first time in over a week.

You start to speak, whispering, “What about—“

“It’s over,” he says quietly into the space between your lips. “It was over the moment I heard that voicemail, I think. But only officially as of this afternoon.”

Your throat tightens. You look up at him, your eyes still glistening with unshed tears, but that ache in your heart has begun to dull. “So why did you—“

“Scared, mostly,” Joel interrupts you again, because it really isn’t that hard for him to know what you’re asking and why. He brushes stray hair from your face. “Confused. Because I really thought I was over you, sweetness. Took me a week to deal with the fact that I wasn’t. Didn’t even truly figure it out until my feet dragged me over here.”

Your brow furrows, but a sweet smile draws over your lips as you bring your own hand to his face. You caress his cheek, running your hand over his beard. Deep down, you get it. You really do. But you no longer have it in you to ask any questions. Joel is here, and he is kissing you, and even though nothing has been set in stone, you suddenly don’t feel the need to carry the hurt you had anymore.

“Think I owe Tommy a drink or two,” you joke then, and you both laugh. Joel even snorts.

“Like hell you do,” he scoffs, “Tommy ain’t do shit besides spill my secrets and cause us grief.”

“Okay, then we need to send Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal some gift baskets, at least.”

“What?” Joel laughs, but you pull him down for another kiss that melts your goddamn heart. You’ve had a taste, and you’re never going to get enough. But instead of getting into it completely, you just soak in the moment. Maybe Tommy was right about the whole talkin’ it out thing, but so were you, you realize.

Sometimes difficult things could end up being beautiful.

So when you pull back and meet Joel’s eyes once more, you give him the softest little smile.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” you say. “Promise.”

#joel miller x reader #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel miller #tlou fanfiction #tlou fanfic #the last of us fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character #wah wah wah #my fics

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