#and I already see enough of it in the tag with tommy

[nilefreemans]

Eddie hate is exhausting tbh, would love not to see it

[miss-oranje-disco-dancer]

then send me a son

pairing: joel miller x reader

cws/tags: so much angst (w/ happy ending! i swear), discussion of suicide attempt (the canon one), suicidal ideations, losing a child, losing a parent, survivors guilt, discussions of abortion, unplanned pregnancy, p in v, oral sex, virginity loss (but it's not that big of deal/not a kink), both dealing w grief, ellie is dead, this is set in jackson post tlou pt I

summary: joel is put on suicide watch after he returns to jackson w/o ellie and reader becomes his 'caregiver' of sorts. lowkey enemies to lovers but also not bc it's kinda one-sided 'hatred'

a/n: author is pro-choice! and also understands the complexities of mental health that reader and joel do not at times (just wanted to make it clear that i understand... from personal experience... what depression is like as well as suicidal ideation).

title is from the song 'the suburbs' by arcade fire, but listen to the entirety of the suburbs (album) and funeral (album) if you want to understand my mindframe while writing this

the last sentence is a quote and i've reblogged it before but i'll find the image and post it/reblog it again

wc: 9.4k

masterlist | ko-fi | taglist

Joel is just surprised Tommy has the gall to ask, “Where’s Ellie?” when he arrives in Jackson alone. 

In this world, when two people leave and only one comes back, you don’t ask because you already know what happened. You wait for that person to tell you about a miracle, and when they don’t, you know for sure. 

“Heaven, if you believe in that sort of thing,” is Joel’s response. 

But Joel doesn’t believe in Heaven or Hell, or anything other than ashes and dirt. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Tommy says because he’d already said ‘I’m sorry’ when Sarah died, and that didn’t bring her back. 

It takes a hefty amount of booze to get Joel to tell the story.

“I just hope she died for something. Then, at least, I’ll know I’m being selfish.”

I didn’t get that with Sarah, he thinks. She didn’t die for a ‘noble cause’. He doubts Ellie did either. 

“You’re being put on watch,” Maria tells him the next morning – when he’s sober and asking what his duties are now that he’s back. 

Life goes on, which means work goes on, so what’s my job? As long as it’s not burning bodies, I’ll be okay. 

“Watch? Like I’m watching, or I’m being watched.”

“Being watched.”

He asks why, though he doesn’t need to. Tommy knows why he’s got that scar on his forehead. 

“Fucking authoritarian bullshit,” he mutters, half into his pillow. “Thought you were a communist.”

“I am. And this has nothing to do with that.”

“I bet Tommy put you up to it anyway.”

“He didn’t ‘put me up to anything’.”

“But he told you, didn’t he?”

“He told me a long time ago.”

“Figures. You always knew I was a coward.”

“You say stuff like that, and then act like you don’t need help.”

“I didn’t say I don’t need help. I said I don’t want it.”

She’s silent, letting him continue. “Now let me grieve in peace, will you?”

She hums something akin to agreement, but asks for something that sounds like protest to him. “Where’s your gun?”

“Which one?”

“All of ‘em.”

He tells her because he doesn’t want Tommy or anyone else searching through all his bullshit because that’s what happens if he doesn’t give ‘em up.

“Want my kitchen knives too?” he says, almost wryly. 

She takes most of them, but leaves the more blunt ones out of sympathy. He can have butter on his toast. Unless she takes the toaster so he can’t take it with him in the bathtub. 

She leaves the toaster, and then, leaves him alone. 

Quite frankly, he’s too old to kill himself. Sure, people do it at his age, but he’s so goddamn tired. Moreover, he knows he could get someone else to do it pretty easily. Maybe he could be a martyr. He could save someone from a clicker or a soldier. He could save someone’s life for once. But would that be enough to save his soul? To make it to Heaven and see Ellie and Sarah again?

Maybe, he would, if God really does love people the way some say he does. But if Joel was God, he’d deny himself entry.

He stays in bed for the rest of the day. Aside from the two times he eats. And once in the middle of the night to take a piss because he may be depressed, but the last of his dignity is motivation enough not to wet the bed. 

He doesn’t shower or change his clothes. Not like he’s wearing a shirt anyway, just boxers ‘cause it’s too hot outside and he doesn’t want to get up and turn on the fan. Sleep doesn’t come easy, but it comes. It comes because it has to, reluctant as it is.

He wakes up to the voice of an unfamiliar woman. Quieter than Ellie or Sarah, less stern than Maria or Tess. Not like he was expecting to hear from three out of four of those women, not outside of his dreams. 

You’ve always cared about people, saving lives and all that. But you’re no good with a gun, so Tommy finds a better job than patrol for you.  

“You’re going to be watching my brother, Joel.”

“Like, spying on him?”

“No, like making sure he doesn’t kill himself.”

A suicidal man is nothing new, especially in this world, but Tommy’s bluntness about it is. He acts as if it’s a normal job. Like the ones in office buildings that sound wonderful even though the people who tell you about them assure you it was barely better than life is now. This new watchmen position is the same as patrol, in a way. Terrifying in the gravity it holds. You have to keep someone alive.

You can shoot deer, you can run quickly, you can hide well. You can survive on your own. But, at age 10, your mom bled out as you sat by her side. You were too weak to carry her, to dig a grave and bury her. Your survival feels unearned, but you’re no good with guns. You’d miss if you tried to do it. That’s a rare thought anyway, and surely not one you plan to ever speak aloud. They’d put you on watch too, which sounds suffocating, in all honesty.

You don’t know Joel. You’ve heard his name in passing, but you arrived in Jackson during the period of time he was gone. He was going to take some girl to some hospital for something or other. 

“What about that girl?” you ask. “Is she not taking care of him?”

“She’s not around anymore.”

“Oh,” you say. 

He just nods. The ‘why’ of the whole arrangement makes sense, but you’re still unclear on the ‘how’. Am I just supposed to stay in his house 24/7? Is he allowed to shower on his own? Do I have to cook or do laundry?

“Just check in on him. He’s not the most… personable, but don’t take anything he says to heart.”

Just check in on him. It sounds simpler than it will be, you know that much. Even keeping a plant alive takes more than ‘checking in on it’. 

You arrive at his house around 10 AM. You assume he’ll be awake, but when you look around his living room and kitchen, you can’t find him. Oh God, you think. What if he’s… 

He’s asleep in bed. You’re pretty sure. He’s lying there and there’s no evidence that anything’s wrong, but when you say his name from the doorway, he doesn’t move. So, you walk closer to him, just to make sure he’s breathing. 

“Joel,” you say softly – because your other option is reaching out to touch him, and you feel that’s a little too personal, especially when he’s not wearing a shirt. 

“Who the Hell are you and how did you get into my house?” he says. 

“Tommy sent me.”

“Oh, so they’re making you watch me?”

“Yeah.”

You’re glad he knows about the arrangement. Maybe he’ll give you some direction on what to do with him. 

“Must hate you if they stuck you with me.” 

You can’t tell if he’s being ironic, but you hope so. Still, you don’t know how to respond. You decide on a simple, “I’ll let you get some sleep. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.”

Though you’re alone in the room, you sit with perfect posture on Joel’s couch, looking around at the decor – or lack thereof – looking for clues about who this man is. 

You think about making him breakfast, but you’d have to raid his cabinets to do so, and you’re terrified to make any missteps when it comes to Joel. You don’t think he’ll kill himself over burnt toast, but there is a persistent need lodged inside your brain to make him like you. It’s a little selfish when you should be focused on just keeping him alive, but maybe if he likes you, he’ll feel better, maybe you’ll feel better too. That’s still nothing but the ever-lingering hope in your heart. But it’s something.

He comes downstairs eventually, in a t-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms. 

“Good morning,” you say. 

“No, it ain’t,” he says, heading in the direction of the kitchen. 

“Do you want me to help you with anything? Breakfast or coffee?”

“I can make my own damn coffee, kid.”

And he does. The first shred of kindness you get from him is an offer to pour you a cup. 

“I’m alright, but thank you.”

He sits down in a chair across from you and sips his coffee as you watch him awkwardly. 

“Are you really gonna do that all day?”

“Do what?”

“Sit there and stare at me.”

“I don’t know what else to do.”

“You could leave, for starters.”

“I’ll get in trouble.”

“What? You afraid Tommy’ll get upset with you?”

“A little.”

“He’s a softie. I wouldn’t worry too much.”

You are worried. Sure, you want Tommy to be happy with you, but moreover, you don’t want to leave Joel alone lest something happen to him. You might not know the guy very well, but you’d hate to see someone take their own life. 

“Can I just stay here? I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

He shrugs, and you take it as a yes.

He does not need a caregiver or a watchman. He does not need you, but you look like a kicked puppy and there’s no way he’ll force you to leave. Another young girl he’ll reluctantly let stick by his side. It’s almost cruel of Tommy to send someone like you. Someone young and full of life. Someone he has a hard time pushing away. 

He should’ve sent Joel a crotchety old bitch or a drill sergeant. Maybe Tommy thinks he’s doing Joel a favor by giving him a nice girl, polite and eager to please. It’s a good thing your chipper attitude irritates him. It’s the first item on the very small list of qualities that Joel dislikes.

At first, he insists on making his own food. You’re still a guest, even if he’s reluctant to have you as one. It doesn’t matter where he lives, he’ll always have been raised in Texas. He’ll always hear his mother calling him out on his lack of manners. His hospitality is force of habit.

Plus, if he lets you do anything for him, he’ll owe you something – at least in his mind. And he doesn’t want to owe anyone anything. He doesn’t want to give or get or build any kind of rapport with you whatsoever, especially since you seem to take all attention as progress, despite the fact that Joel is harsh with you most of the time. 

The whole ordeal makes him feel like more of a failure than he did before. He couldn’t save Ellie, or Sarah for that matter, and now he’s being forced into his own retirement or held hostage depending on how you look at it, so he can’t even get the satisfaction that productivity brings.

He also finds himself pretty fucking bored without work. He became so used to being in constant battle, even in his sleep. One wrong move and he was dead. The worst injury he’s gotten in the past few weeks was a paper cut.

Reading was never his biggest hobby, but it’s not bad when you find the right book. Often, you’ll sit across the room from him and read a book of your own, and the silence as he relaxes into the couch is quite peaceful for a change. 

No amount of peace and quiet can cure his boredom, though. It makes him antsy, and you notice. You notice a lot when your job is just staring at him, it seems.

“I found a book of crossword puzzles,” you announce. 

“Congratulations,” Joel says. 

“I thought since you were bored, I’d give them to you, and maybe you could do them…”

By the look on your face, he can guess that you’re regretting your words. Lest he make you cry, he accepts the book. 

“Plus, it looks kind of old so I don’t know if I’d know how to do it myself,” you add.

He knows you don’t mean it as an insult, but it sounds like one, and it makes him laugh. The list of qualities Joel likes about you is already long — and buried deep in his subconscious — but he’ll have to add the fact that you can make him laugh.

“Are you calling me old?”

“Not in a bad way. You’re just older than I am.”

He flips through the book and finds that about 80% of them are done. 

“Somebody did most of these already.”

“I’m sorry… maybe I could erase that person’s answers and then you could do them?”

“I think I’d still be able to tell.”

You hang your head in defeat. 

“Gimme a pencil and I’ll try the ones that aren’t done yet.”

You look through his junk drawer, find a pencil, and hand it to him. He doesn’t expect you to sit on the couch next to him. 

“I know you’re supposed to watch me, but you don’t have to watch that closely.”

You move away slightly, no longer looking over his shoulder. 

“I was just curious about the answers.”

“I was kidding around,” he says (though, it’s only a half-truth). “Come back here.”

It takes him about a week to finish the book. 

“Had to go back and fix some of the others,” he says. “The person who originally filled ‘em out was an idiot.”

“That’s not very nice. Maybe it was a kid.”

“Kid had great handwriting, then.”

You pause, hesitating for a reason he can’t pinpoint. 

“What? You want me to say sorry for calling that guy an idiot. ‘Cause I will if it matters that much to you.”

“No, no, fuck that guy, he was an idiot,” you say, clearly taking after him. 

“Language, Missy,” he says, jokingly scolding you. 

“Sorry. I should stop swearing.”

“It’s okay. You probably picked it up from me anyway.”

“Maybe,” you agree. You’re fidgeting, holding something behind your back, he notices. 

“Whatcha got there?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” you say, holding it out to him. “I just figured since you finished the crossword book, I should get you more.”

He only did the crosswords for you. He never really cared for them anyway. He just wanted to make you happy — he’d rather have you content than pissy or whiny. The only thing worse than your constant insistence on getting his approval would be if you just sat there and cried all day.

He’d tried to give the book back to you, but you couldn’t do ‘em on your own since you were lacking in 90s pop culture knowledge. So, he did them, with you watching over his shoulder the whole time. 

He’s about to admit this to you and hand the new one back over to you when he looks at the pages – white paper, stapled together, all drawn up in pen. 

“Did you make these?” he asks, in awe of both your ability to draw perfectly straight lines, and moreover, how much you must care if you’re willing to go to these lengths. Kiss-ass behavior, he tells himself.

You nod, and he gets the sudden urge to hug you, but opts for a thank you with a smile he can’t repress.

“You didn’t have to do all this, but it’s very sweet of you.”

He considers taking back the ‘very sweet’ comment when he finds that 3 down is four letters with the prompt “grumpy old man”. JOEL fits perfectly in the blank spaces. 

You go on walks, read endless books, and Joel finally lets you start taking on some of the housework. It should be nice, but you get the feeling he’s not all that happy about this situation. Not that he tells you it outright. He doesn’t tell you much at all. And you’ve tried. It’s not like you’re asking hard-hitting questions. 

“How old are you?” 

“56.”

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue.”

He doesn’t even bother to ask the same question back to you. Sometimes, he doesn’t even look up at you when you speak to him. You know it’s the depression of losing someone close to you, you know what that feels like – the problem is, you don’t know how to fix it. You only know how to hide it.

It’s quite simple, in theory. All you have to do is give him the desire to get out of bed every day. But you don’t even know what he likes. All you know is that your presence is not high on his list of favorite things. You try and try until you swear his shitty attitude is rubbing off on you. 

Tommy checks in with you periodically, asking you how things are going with Joel, and this would be the perfect opportunity for you to get out of this position, which Joel would probably love, but to spite him, you tell Tommy it’s going well.

And it is, in a way – Joel is not actively mean to you. He doesn’t insult you or argue with you, he just mostly ignores you. So, you figure if you ignore him, maybe he’ll miss your attention. Stupid teenage bullshit mindset, acting like you have a crush on him, playing some sort of push and pull game that he’s not even privy to. 

But that’s not like you. That brooding behavior is all Joel, so it lasts no more than a day or so until you go back to trying, and accept the fact that he’s just an asshole. Doesn’t mean you have to be one. 

You never expected to win him over with the crossword puzzles but you see the look in his eyes when you give him the homemade ones, and you know there’s something in there besides all that pain. You know that look, can’t put a name to it, all you know is that it’s a good sign, one you had yet to see from Joel.

Joel wouldn’t have thought he’d get tired of hearing someone ask, “can I do anything for you?”, constantly begging to dote on him, to care for him. The last time someone did this for him was on Father’s Day, which is an ancient holiday now, almost mythical.

But it’s been weeks of the same old shit. It has nothing to do with you. In fact, you’re probably the best ‘caregiver’ he could’ve gotten stuck with. Thing is, though, he doesn’t want a caregiver, and he’s tired of said caregiver bombarding him. It’s enough to just have her watching him like a hawk, but yapping in his ear is another thing. Because he enjoys the quiet (and because the way you ask him questions reminds him of Ellie.)

It’s a joke, a stupid joke. It’s his patience wearing thin.

“Can I get you anything?” you ask. 

“Sure. A beer, maybe. And a fuckin’ blowjob,” he mutters. Yeah, that’d be the dream but it’s a joke, bordering on a jab at you. 

“I don’t think we have any beer,” you say. You both know damn well there’s no alcohol in the house. 

“I know.”

“And, as for the other thing- is that something that you’d want… me to do?”

“Hey,” his tone softens. “Sweetheart, it was a joke. I was messing with you.”

“Okay, so you don’t want that, correct?”

“It was a joke. I’m sorry I even said it.”

“Don’t be sorry,” you say, sheepishly. “It’s your house, your rules, right?”

The concept of free speech in his house was one he’d brought up regarding ‘swear words’— It’s his house so he’s allowed to say ‘fuck’, ‘shit’, ‘bitch’, and every other word he could come up with, and he came up with some deep cuts just to make you laugh. Admittedly, it’s a nice sound.

“Yeah.” He thinks for a moment. “I just think that these sorts of topics aren’t appropriate for someone…”

“You know I’m an adult, right, Joel?”

“Yes, I know, but you’re still young and you seem a little innocent. I don’t want to put those types of thoughts in your head.”

“I know what a blowjob is, and I know what sex is. I just haven’t found the right person yet. That doesn’t mean I’ve never thought about it or whatever.”

You rarely snap at him, so he knows that word — innocent — must’ve been more offensive than he’d meant it. Maybe you’re not innocent. Maybe you’re just kind and a hell of a lot younger than him. Maybe it just seems like you should be.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just saying that I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“But do you want it?” You punctuate every word with a newfound annoyance.

“It’s not about that.”

“Yes it is.” You’re quite incredulous for someone who has been presented with the idea only a moment ago.

“Fine. Yes, in theory, if we were just two people who know each other, then, sure, if you offered, I’d say yes.”

“I offered.”

The way he calls you ‘sweetheart’ feels more like an insult than a term of endearment. You’d rather be ‘kid’ or nothing at all, anything less patronizing. It’s worse when he calls you innocent. You’re not innocent, you’re just nice — something that Joel is not. You’re painfully nice. You’ve heard it makes people like you. You’re still waiting on the results, though.

But, if he’d ordered you to suck him off, you’d have kneed him in the balls, and he would’ve thought twice about calling you ‘sweetheart’. The thing is, he doesn’t. Instead, he backs away from the opportunity, tells you it was a joke. 

But you see two things behind his eyes: one, he wants this. He might not want to want this, but he does. More importantly, you see his genuine concern for your well-being override this desire and you realize you feel safer around him than you do around most men. That’s one of the reasons that you do give him ‘a fuckin’ blowjob’. The other being that, sometimes, before you go to bed, you can’t sleep, and a certain man comes to mind as your fingers slip beneath the waistband of your panties. 

When you reiterate that you offered, you exchange a long stare wherein you try to reach into each other’s souls and sort this shit out but when you both realize you can’t, Joel says, “Okay.”

And you say, “Okay.”

A new kind of tension bubbles to the surface as Joel sits down on the couch and you kneel before him. 

You fiddle with his belt, eventually managing to get it undone, but Joel does the rest of the work it takes to get his pants down to his ankles, boxers too. 

You’d imagined he’d be big, but that’s how fantasies work. Every man’s dick is big in your lewd daydreams, but it’s like you manifested it with Joel. You begin to feel like you’re in over your head, and though you aren’t innocent, you aren’t experienced enough to take him. But who are you to back down from a challenge?

Joel can see hesitation wash over your face for the first time. You pause, study the scene like you’re trying to decide your approach, and then you take his cock in your hand, looking up at him like you’re asking for the green light.

He gives you the go-ahead with the only piece of advice he thinks you’ll need. “Just don’t bite, and you’ll do fine.”

He probably should’ve mentioned another thing: don’t take too much at once or you’ll choke. His head lolls back and his eyes fall closed the moment your lips meet the tip of it. He doesn’t touch you, doesn’t want you to feel intimidated by his presence while you’re exploring, so to speak. He lets out a low groan of approval to let you know he’s still with you.

But he’s fading into a beautiful oblivion until he hears you gag, feels you sputter and it shocks him out of that blissful feeling. His eyes snap open and he cradles the back of your head. 

“Easy, easy,” he says. “Don’t hurt yourself.” 

You pull away briefly and catch your breath. 

“That’s good,” he says. “Breathe, baby.”

He can see you looking for instructions, so he takes your hand and helps you get a firm grip on his cock, sliding your hand up and down, and finally letting you do it on your own. 

“Doin’ good, baby,” he says. “You gotta give your mouth a break sometimes.”

You’ve never gotten anything close to praise from Joel before. It’d warm your heart like nothing else if it weren’t so goddamn sexy in this context. 

You nod, wipe the spit from your chin, and give your mouth a brief break, but you can’t hold yourself back forever. Soon, your lips are back on his cock, kissing from the base to the tip, flicking your tongue over the head, seeing what reactions you can get from him. 

When you get into the rhythm of hand and mouth in tandem, you barely register him telling you that he’s gonna come. 

You imagine it’s an acquired taste but it’s not awful. You can swallow it. So, you do, and you look up at him with a smile. 

He looks like he’s woken up from a dream and he’s still getting his bearings straight, but he’s quick to stand up and take your hand. 

“Where are we going?”

“To my bed.”

You’d follow him anywhere but bed does sound good to you right now. It sounds like an adventure. You don’t go into his bedroom unless absolutely necessary. You’d think he was hiding something horrible in there if you didn’t have a mutual feeling regarding your own bedroom.

“Are we going to have sex?” you ask. 

“No,” he says. 

“Then, what are we going to do?”

“You,” he begins. “Are going to lie back and relax.”

He coaxes you to lie down, and he doesn’t have to try hard. 

“I,” he continues. “Am going to make you feel good.”

You’re fairly certain about what he means, so there’s nothing left for you to do but let him do the work. It’s just another part of the job you’ll have to learn from experience.

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he says. 

You nod. 

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Let’s get you out of these clothes,” he says, playing with the hem of your t-shirt. 

“Wait-” you say, sitting up, and he withdraws. “Can we kiss… first?”

He looks surprised for a moment, and you worry you’ve fucked up. 

“I just feel like we should do that,” you say, much quieter.

“Yeah,” he says. “I guess that makes sense.”

His hand cups your cheek and he looks you in the eyes like he’s trying to find answers somewhere in there. 

“Has anyone ever kissed you before?”

“Not really, not the way I want you to kiss me.”

“Feels a bit rude of me to have put my dick in your mouth before you’d even been kissed.”

Still, he leans in and kisses you, but it’s soft, gentle. It’s not a peck on the lips, though, it’s more. It gradually gains momentum and passion. Eventually, he slips his tongue in your mouth and you take it in stride. 

“You’re very good at this,” he says. “If I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t think this was your first time.”

“Is that a compliment?” you ask, doubting Joel is capable of such things.

He ignores your question, and sighs. You know it’s not directed at you because you’re fairly sure he’s not listening.

“I know I said I was gonna do some things with you, but I don’t wanna take things too fast, okay?”

“Are you saying you’re just going to kiss me?”

“I think that’d be the right thing to do.”

“That’s not fair,” you whine.

You wish you could sound sexy, or whatever, but you probably come off like a bratty child.  

“Excuse me?”

“That’s not fair. You said you’d make me feel good. I thought you were gonna return the favor.”

“I was.”

“Then, why are you backing out?”

You’re shocked that he’s the pussy — pun-intended — in this scenario.

“I thought it might be too much for you.”

You grab his hand and slip it under the flimsy fabric of your shorts. 

His eyes go wide. 

Fucking hell, you’re wet, is the only thought on Joel’s mind. It makes sense. He’d be offended, maybe even worried if you were dry as a desert down there, but he’s barely touched you. Either you really enjoyed kissing him or you actually liked sucking him off too.

He gently presses the pads of his fingers against the wet spot on your panties.

“You’re right, baby. It’s only fair if I help you out.”

He’s able to get your shorts and your panties down in one swift pull. You look impressed by the action. Just you wait, he thinks. He’s not an expert by any means, but it’s not too hard to learn if you pay attention — and sex is one of the only times Joel does listen — it’s also not a skill you lose over time. It’s muscle memory, or maybe it’s innate.

His thumb rubs your clit lazily as he watches your face scrunch up in pleasure, your eyes fill with need. When the first finger slips inside you, he hears a breathy sigh come from above — it sounds like relief though he knows you haven’t come yet.

He’s never had a woman have such a strong reaction to his lips on her clit. It almost startles him at first. You’re frantic from the moment his lips meet your skin, crying out for him like you’re scared he’ll stop.

“Hey,” he says, “I’m right here. Don’t have to get so worked up. I’m gonna take care of you.”

He can’t say another word because his lips are occupied, so he relies on his hands, his soothing touch, to tell you that everything is alright. He gets the urge to tell you how good you are for him, how good you taste, how pretty you are like this, but he knows it’d be cruel to let up now. He’s callous often, sometimes harsh, but rarely cruel.

His instinct tells him to drag this out, to make your thighs shake, to have tears running down your cheeks, to tease you. To be the asshole that he tends to be when you’re around (and when you’re not). This is a version of Joel you might come to like.

He’s lived long enough to be well-practiced in this field of life. Doesn’t matter if he’s particularly romantic or even sociable, it’s just happened enough times over the course of fifty plus years for him to know the ins and outs. He can get you there quickly and lead you through it slowly.

He’s so used to you saying his name in a tone he considers pestering that he’s begun to hate the word itself. But when it’s drawn out and desperate like this, it sounds wonderful.

You’re at his mercy, he thinks. Which means he’s in control. And, as much as he’d hate to admit it, control does not mean he can kill you, control means he can care for you.

When you come down from your high, Joel is looking up at you from between your thighs with messy hair and kiss-dark lips. His smile looks like one of pride. Your cheeks heat up, only half-remembering what just happened. You could describe the event simply in a cause and effect relationship — he went down on you, so you came. You know what an orgasm feels like, but that was something beyond anything you’d ever experienced before. You fear an addiction may be coming on.

Your voice comes out shaky, which only makes your first words after a long silence sound stupider. “Thank you.”

He looks confused, and it takes him a moment to respond. “My pleasure,” he says, and you swear it might be when you see a semi through his sweatpants.

You’d offer more ‘help’ but you truly don’t think you can manage it. You can feel your body pulling you towards sleep. Your eyes have barely opened and they want to close again.

Joel notices because how could he not, you’re completely naked in every sense of the word.

“Get some rest,” he says before standing up.

He’s leaving.

“Where are you going?” you ask, instinctively.

“Downstairs.”

You do not want to say it. The fear of rejection is too strong, but so is the sudden urge to cry. Holding back tears is a strength of yours, though, so Joel never sees them. Somehow, after doing one of the most adult things, you feel like a baby in the wake of it. You are supposed to be taking care of him, and you are failing.

“What?” is his response to your refusal to meet his eyes.

“I just assumed you were going to stay. That’s all.”

“I can. If that’s what you need me to do.”

You don’t say anything. He climbs into bed anyway after picking up your underwear and handing it to you.

He doesn’t hold you but he doesn’t leave either. What he does do is kiss you on the forehead when he thinks you’re already asleep. It’s a compromise between your fear and your desire.

It isn’t as weird as one might think it would be — acting as if you’ve never done anything remotely sexual with one another. It’s easier because you don’t have to go back to being friends. You never really were. It was always awkward. What’s new? Only your knowledge that at least some of your feelings are mutual. Only the fact that you think about having sex with him every time he’s in front of you. It’s really just out of curiosity sometimes. What would he be like in bed? Does he want it too? How would you even broach the subject?

Sometimes, it’s not just curiosity. Those days are harder to navigate. You have to pretend like every little touch — most of them accidental — fuels the fire. It’s not the sensation itself. It’s just the acute awareness of his body, how close it is to yours, how easily you could reach out and touch him, that enters your mind.

“You’re staring.” Joel says from the other side of the couch.

“Sorry. I zoned out.”

“Got something’ on your mind?”

“Not really.”

“C’mon, what is it?”

“Why do you suddenly care about my thoughts?” About me.

“You think I didn’t care about you before? You’ve been in my house everyday for months now.”

“So?”

“And, I haven’t tried to kick you out yet.”

“You’re not allowed to kick me out. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Okay. How ‘bout this: I’m down here sitting with you because I know you don’t like to be alone.”

“So you pity me?”

“No, if I pitied you, I’d have told Tommy to give you a new job.”

“Okay, so, you expect me to believe you care but you refuse to talk to me half the time.”

“I’m not much of a talker. But, now that I’m trying to talk to you, you’re shutting me out.”

“I’m not— It’s just not a big deal. I don’t even remember what I was thinking about anyway.”

“Bullshit.”

“What?”

“I said, that’s bullshit.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll talk.”

You take a deep breath before speaking, one long enough that he gestures for you to go on.

“I was just thinking about what it would be like if we had sex.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, since we, you know, we did that stuff… it’s not like it’s a totally crazy thought.”

“‘That stuff’? Be more specific, honey.”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“I do, but you can’t be thinking about having sex with me when you can’t even use big girl words when you’re talking about it.”

“It doesn’t even matter.” Your face is burning. It so, totally, does matter. “I was just curious.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Mm-hmm. Go on thinking, I’ll get back to reading.”

“Wait, what? You just made me tell you that to make me embarrassed? You’re not even gonna—”

“What? Gonna fuck you?”

The word slips out of his mouth so easily.

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Truth is: he’s been thinking about you every day since. He only caught you staring because he was doing the same. He tries to restrain himself because it feels like the right thing to do.

But he still, he acquiesces and takes you upstairs to his bedroom.

He lays you down on the bed and undresses you slowly like you’re a gift and he doesn’t want to tear the paper. He places your clothes atop the dresser, but leaves his strewn across the floor.

Wonder fills your eyes as he reveals his naked body. Hesitation and awe wrapped up in one.

“Wow,” you say, breaking the silence, “it’s, um, you know— do you think it’ll fit?”

It’s not the first time he’s heard that. It no longer brings him that bashful pride that it did when he was younger. It’s just a fact. A nuisance sometimes.

“Not if we don’t get you ready first.”

“Do you need to get ready first too?”

He looks down at his cock, rock-hard and eager.

“No, baby, just looking at you is enough to get me ready.”

A thought crosses his mind — one he thought he’d left in his teenage years — what if he comes too quickly?

He lies back on the bed next to you and reaches for you, waits for you to let him maneuver you.

“Come here,” he says.

You sit up and face him, slowly inch towards his arms that beckon you.

You’re fairly sure you know what he wants you to do. Sit on his face. But god, something about it seems awkward in the amount of control you simultaneously give up and are given in turn.

“You trust me, right?” he asks.

“Of course.”

An answer you wouldn’t have ever thought you’d give back when you first met.

“Then, come sit on my face.”

You swing your leg over him and steady yourself above his face.

He grips your thighs to guide you. You grip the headboard to save yourself from passing out the moment Joel’s mouth meets your skin.

Joel wouldn’t be the man you’d have thought would have such a talented tongue based on how little he uses it. You can’t blame him for not talking right now. Your moans echo off his bedroom walls and permeate the balmy summer air. The windows are closed and the curtains shield your naked bodies from the neighbors but even if you’d left them open, you wouldn’t have the sense to care.

You’re an incoherent mess of moans and half-words, trembling thighs and sweat. Your orgasm comes on strong, and if your eyes weren’t screwed shut, maybe you’d see the gates of heaven.

It’s been a while since he’s done this. Tess never liked it like this and the last woman before her was one from another lifetime, pre-outbreak, an inconceivable world despite having once called it home.

He’s not really thinking about that, though, in this moment, all Joel can think of is you. Your skin, your sweat, your heat, and the pretty noises you make. At one point, he swears he hears his name though your thighs are covering his ears. And he doesn’t mind it one bit.

“I’m gonna pass out,” he hears from above him.

“No, you’re not. I’ve got you,” he tries to say, though surely his words are muffled.

“Don’t let me go.”

He doesn’t. He carefully helps you lie back on the bed. When he meets your gaze, he swears he’s never seen adoration like that in anyone’s eyes before. At least, not in a long time.

It terrifies him, but in spite of his hesitation, he holds you close.

A blanket of peaceful silence settles over your bare bodies.

You speak quietly, trying not to awaken Joel’s senses. The ones that pull him away from you. The moment feels like glass in your hands.

“Are we going to have sex?”

“Hm?”

“We were going to, right? You were getting me ready for it.”

“I thought I wore you out.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I want to stop.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’d tell you if you were.”

He hesitates.

“I’ll be good. I promise.”

Those are the words that awaken his arousal. In an instant, you find his body looming above yours. He kisses you until your lips are red and puffy. He doesn’t break your gaze as he positions his cock at your entrance. Your green light is your needy hips begging him to fuck you.

He starts slow, even the head is a stretch. You scrunch up your face and hold back the urge to squirm.

“It’s gonna be a little uncomfortable at first, baby, and that’s why we’re gonna take it slow.”

Slow is an understatement. It takes ages for him to give you another inch — or maybe you’re just antsy. This one makes you whimper, makes you clamp down around him.

“It’s okay, baby. You’re gonna be fine.”

Joel’s voice is tender and sweet, and it gives you enough hope to ask for something you think he’d usually deny you.

“Can you hold my hand?”

He interlocks his fingers with yours. It feels oddly natural. He doubts he’s heard someone ask to hold his hand since— not now, he’ll go soft if he thinks about her. He’ll close in on himself and you need him — in more ways than one.

He continues slowly as he promised he would until he hears your moans of pleasure and your pleas for more, more, more. More is a little bit faster, a little bit harder, as deep as you can take it, and most importantly, his thumb tracing circles on your clit.

You squeeze his hand with yours as your inner walls clamp down around him.

“Just let it happen. It’s okay. I’m right here.”

When you come, he does too — the most blissful mistake he’s ever made.

Curses fly out of his mouth through his orgasm, stopping briefly as he catches his breath, and resuming when he pulls out and watches as his come drips out of you.

“Fuck. Shit. Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you insist. “I liked it.”

“I’m glad you liked it.” Because I fucking loved it. “But, it’s dangerous. We’ve gotta be more careful.”

In the future — it’s implied. Another time is nothing when the lines have all been crossed and when the other side brings him a warmth the hot summer never could.

You have more power over him than the sun.

It becomes a routine — briefly — and you are more careful. You discreetly buy condoms, but when your next period doesn’t come, you fear it might be too late.

You don’t tell Joel, not at first. Sometimes, they’re irregular, and you don’t want to give the man a heart attack. But then a week passes, another week passes, and eventually you have to — especially when you’re beginning to feel a bit nauseous and have no other explanation for it. It’s better to say something before he asks.

“Joel,” you say, “I haven’t gotten my period yet.”

A look of horror crosses his face before he asks, “How late is it?”

You take a breath before admitting, “A few weeks.”

“How many?”

“Almost three.”

“Fuck.” He sighs in preemptive defeat. “Have you taken a test?”

“No, I thought it would come so I didn’t want to overreact.”

“We’re going to go get one.”

He stands up immediately and turns towards the door.

“Wait,” you say, stopping him in his tracks.

“I should probably get it. It’ll look less suspicious.”

No, it won’t. Those who suspect something is up with you, will have their suspicions, and those who don’t, won’t think to pay attention.

They recommend taking multiple because false negatives are common.

The first one is a clear positive, so clear you think it might be a false positive, so you wait to freak out until you see two lines come up on the second test.

Joel is silent, even when you hand him the test.

But, so are you, because what more is there to say? The tests say it all.

“I’ll do whatever you need me to,” he says, and you’re surprised until he clarifies.

“I doubt they’ll make you pay for the pill or the procedure — however they do it, but I’ll take care of you while you’re recovering. I’ll be there through it all. Promise.”

The pill or the procedure. The abortion that he expects you to have. Truth be told, you hadn’t really thought about what you’d do until now. It’s probably the right decision. Do you really want to bring a baby into this world? Can you even take care of one?

“Okay,” you say. “I’ll make an appointment.”

You save your tears for Maria. She approaches you in the clinic. You’d be delighted to see her at any other moment.

“Making an appointment?” she asks.

“Yeah, just a checkup,” you lie.

The woman at the counter clarifies with you. “Just a checkup? Is that what you’d prefer?”

You turn back and forth between her and Maria.

“Um, no,” you say, “keep it as is.”

Maria raises an eyebrow and there is nowhere left to hide. You might be able to outrun her, but she knows where you live and isn’t afraid to confront you at your doorstep.

She saves you some of your dignity when she whispers, “How about a chat at my place? I have some tea that helps with nausea.”

The tea is persuasive but you’d have to go anyway. You don’t speak on the walk to Maria’s. She brews the tea and you sit across from each other in the kitchen before she finally speaks.

“What’s the appointment for?” she asks. “And I’m not here to judge you, I just want the truth.”

You’re not my mom, you could say, but she’s the closest thing you’ve had to one since your own passed.

“An abortion,” you say quietly, looking down at the table, at your hands around the mug.

“Okay,” she says, gently. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

You try to reply but all the comes out is a sob.

Eventually, she pries the truth out of you. You explain what happened when you told Joel the news.

“So, he made the decision, and then told you he’d be there for you if he did what you wanted?”

“I guess. But, I think it might be the right choice. I mean, it'd be hard to raise a child in this world…” You cut yourself off when you look at her bump. She’s gonna be a mom, a good mom. And, stupidly, you’re jealous.

Even though it’s not there yet, you swear you can see a high chair in your periphery. You could be holding a warm bottle instead of a hot mug of tea. Maria could be feeding her child his first bite of baby food next to you.

“Let me ask you something, and I want you to really think about it, and be honest with me.”

You nod and wait for her question.

“If Joel had said he’d support you no matter what, even if you wanted to keep the child, if he said he’d step up as a father, would you have made the appointment?”

“I don’t know.” Oh, but you do. Maria waits for you to come to a conclusion, for you to spit it out.

“I like the idea of having a kid. I love kids, and I sometimes think about what it would be like being a mom, but I know that I can’t be one. Not right now.”

If there is one thing Joel can’t be, it’s a father. Not again. He’s too old, too grouchy, too cynical. He’s not the man he used to be. He was never good at it anyway. He couldn’t save his own kid. He’s already a failed father — once, if not, twice.

You’d be a great mother, and that’s the greatest tragedy. He’s failed you already. He’s not good at the kinder things of life. He shouldn’t have indulged in you, in the love you gave him when he cannot give it back. There are a lot of things Joel can’t quite get right — being a lover, a father, a good man.

Every night since the outbreak began, he’s watched Sarah bleed out in his arms. Sometimes he sees Tess, Sam and Henry, Bill, even Tommy which feels like an augury. Ellie is there almost every night, losing consciousness. Only sometimes is she in that hospital bed, often, she’s lying in the show, with blue lips and almost no pulse. Now, you’ve begun to enter his subconscious. You’re always too far out of reach, screaming his name until he’s shot dead, and the last thing he hears is you shriek as you watch him die in front of you.

Another person is another tragedy once they have the misfortune of coming into his life. There cannot be another person, especially not a child.

You should be back by now, he thinks as he splashes water on his face for the umpteenth time, hoping it’ll wash away all the mistakes he’s made.

He can tell it’s Maria by the way her knuckles rap on his front door. He can tell she’s pissed too.

When he opens the door, he sees you in standing behind her, like you’re afraid of him.

“Unless you want to have this discussion on your doorstep, I suggest you let me — us — inside.”

He does, reluctantly.

“Joel Miller, when do you plan on becoming a man?”

“What?”

“You just told her to make an appointment, didn’t even give her a chance to think about it? You managed to run away from your problems while you’re on house arrest. Impressive.”

“I thought that was what we both wanted,” he says, looking past her, to you.

“I guess, maybe,” you shrug.

The one thing he’s grateful for is Maria’s suggestion that you talk privately.

You sit further from him than usual, you refuse to meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask what you wanted. I thought I was making the right choice.”

“It’s okay. I don’t even know what I want.”

But the tears suggest otherwise.

“Do you want to keep the baby?”

“Maybe, but I can’t. It’s not a good idea.”

“That’s what I think, but Maria’s right, it’s your choice.”

“But I don’t know how to make that choice.”

“You’ve got a good heart. Follow it.”

You spend a lot of time thinking, remembering, and trying to convince yourself that there is no part of you that wants to be a mother. But, in your bedside drawer, there is a handful of photos — all from before the outbreak. You see your mom as a child on a swing set, and as a teen blowing out candles on her birthday. Her mom is in that one too, sitting next to her, smiling. You wish more than anything to have pictures of you and your mom.

You think about the little girl who pretended a ratty old stuffed bear was her baby. You can hear your mom telling you that you’re doing a good job, how you’ll be good at this one day. Your bedtime stories were never about fairy princesses, but about your family, the ones you didn’t get to meet.

“I wish I could have that,” you’d say.

“One day, you might be able to — the world is scary right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s gonna be like this forever,” she’d insist.

In retrospect, you wonder if she really believed that, if she really believed that teddy bear would one day be a baby that you’d be the one carrying, and she’d be the proud grandmother.

“I told her I wanted to be a mom like her,” you explain to Joel, and he understands.

You know about Ellie, but not about Sarah. Joel never brings either of them up to you. Until now. It’s a fair trade, he tells himself. Photos for photos, info for info. But it’s more than that.

“Hold on for one minute, I’m gonna go get something, and I’ll be right back.”

It’ll only take him a second to grab the pictures, but he’ll need a moment to compose himself.

“This is Sarah,” he says, pointing to the little girl in the photo. “My daughter.”

You’re silent for a moment, gazing at the photo, at a younger Joel you’ve never met.

You’re the first person not to tell him that you’re sorry for his loss, and he is relieved not to hear the empty sympathies once more.

“What was she like?” you ask.

It’s hard to explain, and for that reason, he talks for at least a half hour about Sarah. All her likes and dislikes, all his favorite moments from the day she was born until the day she died. He tells the story of that too.

When you try to tell him that he sounds like he was a good dad, he has to explain why he wasn’t.

“I couldn’t save her,” he says.

“I couldn’t save her either,” you say, pointing to your mother in one of the photos.

“You were just a child,” he says. “It’s not your fault.”

“And, you were just a man,” you say. “It’s not your fault.”

“A grown man.”

“Doing the best that you could.”

And you’re right. He did try his best. He stops arguing not because he’ll ever concede but because the weight of the present falls upon him all at once as he meets your eyes and remembers why you’re here.

He can’t have Sarah back, he can’t have Ellie back, but you’re right in front of him — and he loves you. It’s too late to turn back and kick you out on your first day, it’s too late to never speak to you, it’s too late to not love you.

It’s not too late to fail you like he’s failed everyone else. It’s not too late to do the opposite either.

You tell him your decision, and wait for his disagreement, for him to dissuade you. But, he doesn’t.

“Okay,” he says.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to try my best.”

You cancel the appointment and make the final decision, but it doesn’t feel real until Joel finishes building the crib in the spare bedroom. The most unexpected part is how excited you feel even when you’re nauseous, even when your feet are bloated, even when your back is killing you.

You’re also terrified, particularly when you hear Maria’s account of her labor and delivery. For someone describing how painful it was, she seems oddly unfazed, happy even. She’s too focused on her baby boy, and you get it — he is pretty cute.

When the day comes, you find that you’ve underestimated the pain entirely. The wounds you’ve gotten in combat are nothing compared to this. Every hour that goes by feels like a full day for you. Every time the doctor checks your dilation it’s still not yet time.

Until it is. And everything becomes a million times more chaotic. You swear the only thing keeping you sane is Joel’s hand in yours. (You have to apologize later for squeezing it so tightly.)

Finally, the telltale cry comes, and it feels like you’ve run a marathon by how exhausted you are and by how proud you are of yourself for doing it. This will go down as the greatest feat of your life and you are more than satisfied with that fact.

The doctor announces that it’s a boy and though he said he’d be fine with either gender, Joel’s smile is wider than you’ve ever seen it. You’re smiling almost as big. It hurts your cheek muscles but you can’t stop, especially when they hand you your baby boy. Though he doesn’t know how to speak, his hand wrapped around your finger tells you that it’s going to be okay.

There is so much pain in this world, but not in this room.

[pedgito]

𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄 | Joel Miller x reader x Tommy Miller

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summary | twisted into the miller brothers web, you find yourself deeply entangled in a complicated situation between the two and hell bent on self-preservation, you discover that running isn't always the best choice.

author's note | i was going to get this out before the end of the year if it was the last thing i did. i have never been so fully engulfed in a fic like this. it's just a little mini series, but i could talk about this shit for hours. thank you to everyone who's listened to my incoherent rambling and especially @gracieheartspedro who nailed down this ending when i was struggling so hard to decide. if you enjoy this silly story as much as me, ily.

content warning | 18+ smut, this is heavily joel miller x reader leaning, cannibalism, gore, mentions of violence, blood, death, joel's territorial <3, lots of unprotected sex going on 'round here, oral (f receiving), pain kink go hard, blood kink and consumption, biting kink, literal love as consumption, restraints, description of wounds from said bites, scarring, omitting a few tags for spoilers but please remember you are responsible for the work you consume, if you are ever feeling uncomfortable, do not continue reading. this is dark fic. that's the only warning i'm giving.

word count —13k, BITTER (part one)

“Killin’ is a viable option.”

Tommy groans, hand rubbing over his face as he leans against the kitchen counter, “They aren’t backwoods folk, Joel. You know that, we gotta be smart.”

“All they gotta do is get the law involved,” Joel points out, “fancy lawyers—“

“We’re selling to half that department,” Tommy argues, a long moment of silence before he adds, “and if you’d stop interrupting I’d tell you I already spoke to ‘em. Said I’d run it by you first before we set anything in stone.”

The big brother seal of approval.

You watch along curiously, stuck in the chair that Joel had a hand gripped around, sandwiched between them both as they volleyed arguments back and forth like they were fighting gladiators shoved in the colosseum—may the best man win.

“I still think we should just kill ‘em,” Joel chirps with finality, glancing briefly over your dumbstruck look, frozen somewhere between fear and shock, their voices fading in and out like muffled conversation, “make sure no one’ll come askin’ questions. Easy. You ain’t never had an issue with it before.”

The letter was still clutched in Tommy’s hand, a list of vague threats and accusations—the weird occurrences around the Miller property, the strange behavior of Tommy’s older brother, the smell. There wasn’t hard evidence, but they weren’t wrong either. A few minutes grazing the property and a look in the barn would confirm anyone’s suspicions—which, speaking of…

“Are you going to kill me now?”

 It was a brave thing to interject with, given Joel’s current hostility around the situation with their nosey neighbors and you, like a pest making a mess of his home. But, instead it was him. His mind—a foreign feeling that he didn’t like or intent to allow to wreak havoc much longer.

He’d kill you if he had to, if that was what it took.

Unsurprisingly, they both ignore you.

“Let me talk to ‘em tomorrow, Joel,” Tommy barters, “see if I can smooth things over.”

“Ya ain’t smoothin’ shit over, we know how this goes—you lose your temper and then we have a mess. Just take care of the fucking problem like I suggested.”

You knew the house, it was the only one within walking distance. Far off, covered by a line of trees and eclectic decor—you never thought much of it, under the impression that everyone in this town was as demented as the Miller brothers, most of the suspicions confirmed as the brothers continued to argue. 

It was an open secret—deranged and fucked-up, but there was full, completely loyalty.

If you had gone digging enough, you would have found out yourself. But, Joel wanted you to know. It takes a killer to know a killer—the wood of the chair cracks behind you as his grip tightens.

“We aren’t gonna hurt you,” Tommy comforts suddenly, a quick glance over of your injuries, “not intentionally, at least—”

“She fell,” Joel explains, a half-truth, “made a damn mess and wasted the scraps for the pigs—”

“Joel,” Tommy warns, returning his gaze to you, “You’ve been good to us, better than most. We can trust each other, alright? Ain’t no reason to think otherwise.”

He was sickeningly sweet, laying it on so thick you see right through the facade. He was upset, rightfully so, but you weren’t sure how much of it was directed at Joel and how much of it was directed at you.

“When did I surpass being a meal?” You turn your attention toward Tommy, flicking your eyes up briefly at Joel, “Was it before or after you fucked me?”

You expect it to be newfound information to Joel, but he doesn’t react in the slightest. He almost smirks, actually. A sudden, miniscule response that you wouldn’t have caught if you weren’t so on edge.

“Now, darlin’—”

“Cut the shit, Tommy,” You retort, “When did it happen?”

“Still a chance, if you’re feelin’ persistent,” Joel taunts.

Tommy shoots Joel a dangerous glare before his face softens.

“The thought never occurred to me,” Tommy replies though you find it hard to believe him, “M’not sayin’ we’ve been this kind to everyone, but with you—s’different. Right, Joel?”

“Well, she does like the taste,” He grins viciously, a showing of teeth that sends your body into a full chill, “ate it right up, loved it.”

Your eyes shoot daggers in his direction and he shrugs, his tongue shoved into his cheek as he moves to stand, turning in a circle on his heels as he leans against the nearest surface.

“I mean it, you’re safe with us,” Tommy assures, “out there—we can’t protect you. And if you think we’re the monsters, you’re in for a rude awakenin’, baby.”

“Don’t,” You chuffle, a short laugh through your nose, “I’ll—I’ll stay, but this,” You wave your finger between him and you, before it circles the group, a discoordinated trio, “I don’t trust either of you and don’t call me that. Don’t call me anything, actually.”

Your anger was justified and Tommy didn’t try to argue, only sinking back in his chair with an ‘I told you so’ look on Joel’s face. Luckily, they leave you to gather yourself, ignoring the subtle sting from the wounds on your legs and your spiraling thoughts—you could wait until nightfall.

That was it—wait long enough until it was dark and they were both asleep and make a run for the only sane people in the nearest vicinity. They could help you and help take the two brothers down in the process, it was a fair victory for the opposing party and your only saving grace.

–

They retire to their rooms eventually, the insistent chirp of crickets keeping you awake, standing on sore legs as you move around the dark room and pulling on a warm pair of clothes to trek against the nighttime winds. 

You were careful, prying open doors with a quiet effort and allowing the softest steps against the old floorboard as you reached the door, immediately met with the deadbolt lock and an even heftier lock to keep you trapped–or to Tommy, safe. The house was silent aside from the sounds of nature, the occasional howling wind blowing through but you looked around, searching for another path—you had already made it this far, you weren’t going to go scrambling back.

If anything, the backdoor would have the same locks and your eyes scan the windows, closed shut but not inescapable. If either of them decided to wake, they would surely know. 

There was no time to deliberate or weigh the consequences, hurrying toward the living room window that led toward the yard, pulling it up with forceful but cautious precision, ripping at the screen.

It isn’t an easy feat, not nearly the path you would have chose, but you fell to the ground with a deft slump, careful of your fresh bandages and gravel under your hands as you land, wincing as you stand but peering inside of the house cautiously, determining if you needed to make a run for it.

Silence meets you. Dead silence.

The eerie feeling in the distance creeps in, eyeing the house over your shoulder that is still lowly lit but quite the walk, you turn on your heels and make the long walk there, wondering if darting off down the road would be simpler, continuing until you came upon another sign of civilization or normality, anything to save you.

As you grow closer, the muffled melodic tunes coming from the house start to drown out your stream of thoughts, the bass booming from the driveway as you grow closer. You careful approach the steps to their door, pressing a finger into the doorbell as it chimes throughout the house—the music lowers in an instant, quiet enough that you could hear a pin drop, the door ripping open with a forceful gust of air, meet with the fierce scowl of an older gentleman.

It was hard to describe him, but there was so much going on—a peek at the inner house decor that screamed for a touch of neutralness, a mix of beaded necklaces hanging around his neck over a stretched out tank, barefoot as he approached you on the mat at his door.

It only dawns on you now that you hadn’t prepared anything—you were drawing a complete blank.

“You better start talking,” He speaks, a grittiness to his voice that stills you at your core, “botherin’ us in the middle of the night—”

“You’re right,” You blurt out, shaking your head slightly as you realize how abrasive it was, taking a breath before you speak slower, “about Joel and Tommy, you’re right. They’re bad people.”

His expression turns steely, jaw tightening as he straightens his back in an intimidating manner. You couldn’t mistake the whiff of alcohol on his breath, his drifting eyes down the length of your body, slowly realizing that this might have been a mistake.

Self-preservation had always come first, even if you didn’t think the Miller’s were the worst possible people you could have come across, they were unfortunate targets in the moment. 

“They—they are killing,” You point vaguely in the direction of the house, “it’s—the smell, it’s the bodies. They’re murders, you have to help me,” It comes out in a panic and you stutter as the confession rolls off your tongue, his expression only growing dark as time passes.

Fuck, he didn’t believe you. Of course—who would? 

Hey, you’ve got a couple cannibals for neighbors—let’s deal with them.

It was never that easy.

“You don’t think I know?” He responds, stepping into your space to send you stumbling backwards, but his arms lock around your biceps and keep you upright, but not for the reason he should, feeling the sting of pain as he squeezes down hard.

You gasp at the suddenness of it, “N—no, no! You have to believe me!”

“I’ve seen you helpin’ them,” He nods vaguely, “Think I’m gonna believe this shit? Where are they, huh?” The spit from his vicious reaction and volume sprays against your face as he shoves you to the ground, your arms skidding against the cement as you scramble backwards, trying to flee his quickly approaching figure, “They use you as bait?”

He’s over you before you have a chance to roll out of the way, your forearm presses up against his neck as he leers, glancing around for any sign of the brothers—silently praying that he was right in the moment, but you knew there was no one to help. Just you. Just him.

He forces you onto your stomach as your face was smashed into the rock path along the driveway, “Well, good—they can watch,” It makes your blood run cold, sensing the exact implication of his words as you calmly and slyly wrap your fingers around a palm sized rock, curling it in your fist as he leans back on his legs, twisting in his grip and bashing the rock blindly at his face, a grunt releasing from him as you make contact with his skull, falling to the ground with a dead weight as you scramble away breathless.

You stare at the sight, a man near death on his lawn before the whistle fades in—low and melodic as it approaches with the sound of heavy boots and speaking before you can react.

“Well, look at that,” Joel looks on in admiration, a small suspicion of amusement in his tone as he steps onto the lawn and peers over you, hand extended out blindly for help as he cautiously steps around the pooling blood of the now dead man, “little messier than I like, but you got the job done.”

If looks could kill—you’re seething, staring up at Joel with narrowed eyes as you take his hand and stand.

“I’ll give you some credit,” Joel continues, “You’re resourceful but predictable—suppose you can’t trust anyone in this town anymore, can you?”

He’s cocky about it, which pisses you off more. Undoubtedly, he was probably watching you the entire time, waiting in the shadows, undetectable. He’s mastered his craft, he killed people for a living. It wasn’t a mystery how he knew or expected your retaliation. But, his reaction is jarring.

“C’mon, up,” He yanks at your hand and helps you upright, instinctually brushing the clumps of grass and dirt out of your hair with a pinched expression as your eyes slowly drag toward the motion, unmoving out of…not fear. It was something indescribable, flinching at the heat of his hands as his eyes gradually rose toward the upstairs window.

“You know what happens next, right?” Joel asks, kicking at the dead body to roll him on his back, staring down at the lifeless corpse.

You didn’t need the whole speech—murder me now, please. Spare me the misery.

“Alright, alright,” Joel sighs, almost like he’s carrying on a conversation with himself—and with your silence, he was. But, he senses your fear, “well—you can’t just murder one and not the other, you little killer. You’re gonna take care of the other one, too.”

“Joel—I—” The adrenaline rush was waning, the bile in your stomach swimming and swirling.

His face hardens in an instant, forcing his hand over your mouth with a stern shake of his head as your eyes grow wide, “Ain’t time for excuses.  You made this mess—you’re gonna finish it.”

You blink slowly, searching for any sign of a bluff. It never comes, in fact, his grip only grows tighter until you answer, shakily nodding your head.

“Go on,” He urges, “I’m right behind you.”

He’d have a front row seat this time instead of waiting in the wings. 

Joel wanted a full taste.

–

The wife is tucked into bed when you finally find her, barricaded in her sheets and sleeping soundly despite the loud, blaring music when you first approach the house—you figured it was a regular occurrence, but you don’t linger on the thought long. 

You hold onto the thought of the husband and his unwillingness to hear you out, how they seemed to already have you figured out, wrapped up in the Miller’s web and just another willing accomplice, repeating the same careful steps from earlier that had clearly failed you as Joel breathed over your shoulder.

It needed to be quick—not entirely painless, but clean.

The vase to the left of her head seemed like an emergency option, the woman splayed out on her back as you searched around, knowing that you didn’t have long with Joel’s looming presence. You chew at your bottom lip as you reach carefully for the pillow beside her head and slowly press it over her face, a few seconds of calm before you find yourself in a predicament.

Climbing over her lap, you mount and press the weight of your palms into the pillow, face scrunched in concentration as the woman flails and shakes against the movement, grunting meekly as your hand slips against the scratch of her nails, glaring at Joel for a silent plea of help, realizing that she was putting up far more of a fight then either of you expected.

He waits until the last possible second, an unreadable expression on his face before he’s flipping the switchblade out of his pocket and piercing it through her clavicle, the blood squirting on your chest and face, rearing back instinctually as you gasp, her body falling lifeless in an instant.

“I can appreciate the effort,” Joel comments, wiping the blade off on the sleeve of your shirt before he pockets it again, “how’d that feel?”

You don’t realize your heart is racing until he asks the question—it was a similar feeling to a drug-induced high, slightly floaty and off-balance, your mind hazy as you blink, the stench of iron filling your senses and that strange look on Joel’s face returns.

You understand it then—lust, another subtle hint as he licks at his bottom lip out of reflex.

Joel would lick you clean if you let him.

You clear your throat and speak quietly, “What—what do we do?”

“Well, we gotta transfer ‘em to the house,” Joel explains, “So, you’ll stay here and wait—not run, that clear?”

You nod mindlessly, towering over your second dead body of the night.

You were far too deep now.

You don’t move—not really. You sink to the sheets beside the woman’s body but you listen dutifully, ears perking up at the roar of an approaching truck and door slamming followed by footsteps before Joel reappears again, seemingly breathing out a sigh of subtle relief as he spots you.

He’d never admit it, but you can see it.

It take a while, but eventually you carry both bodies into the bed of the truck and cover them with tarp, questioning Joel on what happens with the house, the evidence, everything that could essentially criminalize both of you—

“That’s above my paygrade, honey,” You’re not amiss to the change in his voice, his expression more relaxed as he shifts the truck into gear, “the sheriff handles all that for us.”

“And…the sheriff…he—”

Joel chuckles, “It’s everyone. Not just a group of us. We aren’t just sellin’ to townsfolk, either. It’s overseas, across the country. Shit is high risk, high reward. Why do you think I followed you tonight?”

So, he did follow you—he’d known the entire time.

“I saw the idea pop into your head earlier while Tommy and I were arguin’. Like I said, predictable. I’m not sayin’ you didn’t have a fair reaction, I get it. But, we can keep you safe.”

You cross your arms over your chest silently, skin and face caked with blood.

“But will you?” You retort, “Can I really trust you both?”

As the truck pulls in near the barn, the ignition falls silent.

“I want to,” Joel admits, “natural ability like that shouldn’t be wasted.”

A natural-born killer, he means.

“You feelin’ guilty right now?” Joel asks, eyebrows raised.

You shake your head quietly, avoiding his gaze.

“Good, keep it that way.”

Joel works silently to unload the bodies and load them in the barn as you sit quietly in the passenger seat, staring at the barn door as he drags tarp covered corpses inside with a brute strength unlike his brother, somehow spotless throughout the entire ordeal.

“I’ll move the truck in the morning,” Joel tells you as he pulls your door open, a hand waiting in assistance as you climb out on unsteady feet, the ache of your wounds coming back in waves as reality sets in.

“It is morning,” You retort, earning a huff of annoyance from Joel.

“You know what the fuck I meant,” He responds, his thumb flicking at a flake of dried blood on your collarbone as you stand in front of him, “Tommy’ll get pissy if you wash the blood off in the main bathroom—I’ll let you use mine.”

Your face contorts in a mix of confusion and amusement.

“Or I can hose you down out here, your choice.”

–

The house is as quiet as you left it, guided silently with the touch of Joel’s hand between your shoulder blades as you traversed the dark house—and you aren’t sure what you were expecting as you enter Joel’s bedroom, but it wasn’t this.

It was lived-in, personal; full of books and random trinkets, pictures lining the top of his dresser and walls—his family, you can only assume. A few pictures of kids that you surmise are Joel and Tommy, you avoid Joel’s gaze as you look around aimlessly, clearing your throat as you approach the bathroom, hearing the light flick on beside your head.

It was clean, at least. A dark colored shower curtain hiding the tub away from view and his bathroom amenities only slightly astray, probably from previous use that night. 

You turn to him with a quizzical expression, his expression matching.

“What? Somethin’ wrong?” He asks.

“It’s just—it’s…clean. It doesn’t—it doesn’t fit you, I guess.”

“I’m just a dirty old man to you, ain’t I?”

It’s a joke, but his delivery falls flat.

“I’m confused, I guess.” You tell him honestly, “Look at me—” A vague gesture at your own disheveled state, dirt and blood smeared on your face as he tilts his head against the doorframe.

“I am,” The deep timber to his voice strikes you at your core, a casual but unsuspecting answer, “I cleaned up for the night, wasn’t plannin’ on getting dirty again.”

“But, you’re always dirty.”

His job required that—but Joel was meticulous about his routine after he was done for the day. Dinner, a thorough shower, sometimes another if he was feeling particularly bothered, and the quiet of the calm house to lull him to sleep.

Unfortunately, that routine has been disrupted since you arrived. 

Like an infestation, you’d taken over.

Joel ignores you with a half-assed shrug and flicks a dried speck of blood from your nose.

“Go on,” He demands, “I’ll grab you some clothes and fresh bandages.”

You clear your throat awkwardly and nod as you gently swat his hand away, avoiding his gaze as you press the door closed enough that it doesn’t lock, but allows you the privacy to undress.

It feels good to clean the blood and grime away, scrubbing at your body until it burns, bathing in the distinct smell of Joel’s body wash, a faint hint of it always wafting off of him despite his usually dirtied state.

You can hear him moving quietly beyond the curtain, his shadow passing a few times as you’re expecting him to fold against the urge to peek his head beyond the curtain—something, anything.

You hated the forced gentlemanly facade. 

Once you’re out of the shower and dressed in clothes Joel had picked out, a matching set and a fresh pair of underwear that had you glancing sideways at him as his fingers peeked around the bathroom door with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and fresh bandages in his hands.

He kneels quietly with a concentrated expression, mirroring his actions from before. Wincing through the sting of pain as he cleans and dresses your wounds, catching his glances as the noises slip beyond your lips—an inconspicuous check-in, wordless.

You can’t help but fuck with him now, defenses down.

His eyes follow the way your hand smooths over the waistband of your shorts, your thumb slipping beyond the thick band as you lean against the mirror, watching as he taped down the gauze, “Kinda defeats the purpose, don’t it?”

“What’re ya gettin’ at?”

“The whole—bet you can’t guess what color underwear I’m wearing joke,” You play quietly with the waistband, fingers twirling in the drawstrings below your navel as your thighs spread against his guidance, his hand sliding down to your ankle to raise your leg higher in an effort to secure the bandage, “I see you wanted them to match,” You jest at him lightly, noticing the way his eyes immediately lock onto the apex of your thighs.

He brushes it off, a roll of his eyes as he finishes up his job, carefully piling up the trash on the floor as you slowly slide off the bathroom counter, leaving his head level with your waist. 

Had you asked yourself if you wanted to be this close to him twelve hours ago, the answer would have been different, but the downright pathetic look on his face as his eyes drag up your body and eventually land on your face are a powerful spell.

Slowly, your hands drift into his hair—surprisingly soft as the curls sway with your movement, gripping the hair tight and pushing his head back in the process, a low rumble in his throat at the action.

“Do you like that?” You inquire, his eyes darkening at the question as he sets his sight on something he wants—a primal gaze, almost like a warning.

“You tryin’ to make my brother jealous?” He asks, “Think I should tell him about your plan to rat us out—how it didn’t work and now you’re tryin’ this—”

“I can’t leave now,” You admit, still not fully settled with the idea but deep down you knew, “I—I do feel safe, you know. With you—”

You exhale shakily as his lips press against the sliver of skin beneath your shirt, just below your navel as his eyes fall shut, his tongue following the path as he presses surprisingly gentle kisses into the skin before his fingers are curling over the band of your shorts.

“Don’t trust me, though—do you?” Joel asks snarkily, eyes peeking open slightly as your lips part in a soft gasp as he pulls the clothing down your hips, peeling the underwear down with it.

One hand drags up your calf, calloused hands against soft skin as he pulls one knee over his shoulder and shoves your shirt upwards, giving him an obscured view of your cunt, lips spreading open with the movement and glistening with slick despite how much you tried to loathe him—there was a racing in your heart that differed from Tommy, like you know you shouldn’t be doing this but your body was demanding otherwise.

You shake your head lazily as it drops back, slumping against the medicine cabinet as he drags a finger through your folds, toying with your clit in small movements, silent as he drinks in every small sound you make, your opposite hand digging into the counter of the sink as his fingers dig into your thigh, opening your eyes as he presses his lips to your cunt, right against the mound and into the short, coarse patch of hair before he’s spreading his tongue out flat against you and licking a slow, tortuous line up the seam.

“Trust–trust is earned,” You reply breathily, “It, fuck—it takes time.”

Joel hums a response of approval as his nose nudges against your clit, tongue dipping inside of your hole as he stared up at you, even at this angle you could see the smug smirk on his face as he drank you in—Joel was still a frightful man, enough unknown that you found yourself wondering if the choices you were making were correct, if somehow this would cost you your life in the end.

But, then he’s pulling away, dragging his finger up the seam of your pussy as he stands, unbuckling his belt quietly as you strip your shirt away, not needing to be told or guided, his tanned skin flushed a subtle red as he unbuttons and parts his flannel, adjusting his jeans and underwear down just far enough under his balls that they sit snug against the fabric, his cock intimidatingly large against his even larger hands.

So much with Joel is unspoken, his intensity held in his gaze. Even from your first meeting, there was a look—and even now, he’s got that look. Like he’s trying to decipher you.

He flattens one hand against the bathroom counter as you spread your legs to accommodate him, his other hand grabbing at your ass to pull you near the edge before he’s running his hand down his shaft, the foreskin swallowing up the red, angered tip of his cock before he’s pulling back and rubbing his cock through your folds, gathering the wetness there and pressing inside with a pinched expression on your face, your breath catching as your hand twists into his shirt.

“That hurt?” He asks, his voice taking on a softer tone.

You nod fervently, “Yeah—yeah, it’s—you’re…pretty big,”

You weren’t trying to actively compare the brothers, but the thought passes in your mind and Joel notices the thoughtful look on your face, huffing out a laugh under his breath.

“Good,” That it hurts—he wanted you to feel it tomorrow, that it would be a constant reminder.

He’s a natural masochist, but he wasn’t about not enjoying sex. So, while he savors the soft hiss of pain at first, the dig of your nails into his chest, eventually you relax and turn to curling yourself around him, legs tight around his hips and your arms slung over his shoulders as he presses his forehead into your own and fucks you with a slow, powerful force of thrusts that make the walls shake—surely it would wake his brother, maybe that was what he wanted.

His mouth parted slightly, panting out hot against your skin as he glares at you—into you, through you, your eyes fluttering open and shut as he follows your trailing gaze, the precipice of your pleasure clawing over the edge of their metaphorical walls.

“Yeah, s’right there—isn’t it?” He taunts, a half smirk on his face as he watches you.

Always watching you.

You nod again, feeling the hand that was squeezing at your thigh digging into your skin as he used it for leverage, thrusting into you while he guided your hips toward him, using your body like he had full control over it. His other hand finds your breasts, squeezing the flesh in his hand before he’s rubbing his thumb over the quickly hardening bud, a shiver running down your spine.

There was nowhere to hide with Joel, all imperfections on display as your head lulls back against the mirror, eyes opening to find him matching your expression—somewhat sated but nearing the edge of his own release, he nudges his chin up and speaks, “S’this what gets you off?”

Your brow furrows as you tilt your head, his hand trading your breast for the hand twisted into his shirt, guiding it toward your clit as he gives you a silent order, your fingers circling the sensitive nub.

“Fuckin’ both of us—s’gonna be a hell of an issue when he finds out, you know.”

“Is this what you like—huh, talking about while you fuck?” You counter, “Your brother?”

His jaw shakes slightly as he gaze dips, admiring the way your cunt swallowed him up, his fingers wrapped around the wrist that was working at your clit, toes curling as your knees squeezed into his hips, that heat building in your core.

“I can talk about how he eats pussy better than you,” It’s teasing, an effort to get a rise out of him, “or do you—you wanna hear how he whimpers when he fucks me because he’s so pathetic? Is th—is that what you want?” His hips stuttered with your words, “He’s so much sweeter, you know? S’all soft and kind—”

Nothing like Joel.

His hand seems to loosen at the mention, but you shake your head.

“Oh, don’t ease up now, honey—I never said I liked it.”

Joel opens his mouth to speak, but you didn’t want to hear it, shoving your opposite hand over his mouth as you both spill over the edge, the ache of loss finding you as he pulls out, thick ropes of come panting your stomach as you clench around the emptiness, his teeth digging into the palm of your hand as he groans with his release.

“I’ll handle Tommy,” Joel promises as you both dress, cleaning yourself up as he buttons his shirt, “It’ll be easier coming from me.”

“You don’t have to lie, he should know—”

“I’m not,” He responds quickly, looking up at you through his downturned gaze, “like you said—trust is earned. You’ll earn it.”

How was a mystery—but what other choice did you have?

-

You learn very quickly that Joel was intentional in you earning his trust—not so much Tommy. He wasn’t surprised by your attempt to escape, but the marring of their neighbors—yours too, now—he was slightly disappointed. Hoping that he could spare you the gruesome side of things, that keeping you within the house and under his watch would help save your innocence about the entire ordeal.

But, he quickly finds out that isn’t the case.

And you find out how steady their diet of human meat was, a fridge stocked full of various cuts and textures, unsuspecting to the eye but you knew—and truthfully, the sickness dissipates after a month of eating that way. Tommy will occasionally skip a day or two, sometimes even a week.

Whereas Joel, he’s fully accepted his ways.

“How does it work?” You ask curiously, night has crept in and left both you and Joel, who you’ve gradually drifted toward lately, aware of Tommy’s lingering touches and fighting that feeling of betrayal on both ends—Tommy never seemed to mind you favoring Joel, even indirectly. However, Joel was territorial, overwhelmingly so. You wished you disliked it, but that was the furthest thing from the truth.

“How’s what work?” He asks, legs spread wide on the couch as take a seat beside him, legs curled under your body and the fire crackling beside you, his hair wet from a recent shower and his shirt sticking to his skin, “Tommy’s job?”

You nod quietly, chewing on a piece of dried meat, akin to jerky. 

You’ve willingly succumbed to the lifestyle over the past few weeks, partly to blame on Joel, but mostly out of your own morbid curiosity, finding that it wasn’t all that bad as the nauseous and general sickness fell dormant. 

“I don’t fuckin’ know,” Joel answers bluntly, but honest, “He’s got some kinda system going, I do my job—cuttin’ things up, mindin’ my business. I just know it makes us damn good money.”

You wouldn’t be able to tell outside of their house, but they kept things well within the interior—they owned nice things, you assumed they were out of debt and had money saved back, but they lived beneath their means as much as possible. 

Joel liked a quiet life, you could tell. 

“I could help out more, you know.”

Outside of your general duties and decent pay—it felt lacking, like you could be doing more.

Neither of the brothers kept you chained or trapped, that much was obvious. And you didn’t feel the lingering threat of something to come, the need to run—the feeling of security was something you had searched out for a while and oddly, they provided that. 

In some sick, fucked up way, you felt protected. 

“Stock is runnin’ low,” Joel debates, his thumb circling the beer bottle between his legs, while his other trails along his bottom lip in thought, “I got an idea, dunno if Tommy’s gonna like it.”

“Who cares what he thinks?” You reply, “He cowers like a puppy when it comes to you.”

It was essentially a lure and catch situation—Joel never strayed too far, always on the outskirts while you found the next willing victim, it was always you approaching them, never the opposite. You were in full control and under very specific orders. 

Never people in town, always the stragglers. The more meek and unsuspecting the better, but it varied—after a couple months, Joel doesn’t even bother to stick around, sitting in his truck while you finish up the job.

And you’ve learned over time just how different Tommy and Joel are—Tommy prefers seclusion in the extremist of ways, more subdued with his affection when Joel was around and didn’t argue with him in your presence, almost like he was attempting to shield you.

Joel is out late in the barn when Tommy crowds you in the kitchen, a curious and longing stare out the window at the closed barn door, his tell-tale throat clearing as his hands wrap around your waist, his chest pressing against your back as you sip gingerly at the glass of water in your hands.

“M’glad you feel safe here,” Tommy murmurs into your skin, a soft peppering of kisses along your spine as he moves the material of your shirt out of the way, his fingers slipping beyond the thick waistband of your pants, shoving them down wordlessly, “ready for bed?”

“Not yet,” You admit, letting the silence linger before you speak again, “Can I ask you something—and I’m just curious, I swear.”

Tommy makes a noise of approval. 

“What happened to my car?” A laugh bubbles up at the thought and Tommy laughs too.

“I mighta sold it for scraps when you agreed to stayin’ with us long term. I was meaning to tell you, but you never asked…so I figured…”

Who cares, right? Truly, it was a piece of shit anyways.

You laugh softly at his advances as they grow more needy, your arm curling behind you to flex your fingers in his outgrown hair, “I want you to fuck me here,” You admit, his eyes peeking open as he leans over your shoulder to look at you, a salacious smile on your face as you lean back, rubbing your ass against his cock, growing hard underneath the confines of his sweats, before you turn to face him, “like this—right here.”

Fortunately, it takes very little convincing. He’s impatient in his movements, only getting both of your pants down before he’s pushing the head of his cock inside of you, a welcomed but comfortable stretch before his cock is fully seated inside of you, walls squeezing down tight as he buries his face into your clothed chest, your hands cradling his head as he rocks into you at a gentle pace.

“God, I’m never gonna get tired’f this,” Tommy groans weakly, a hand gripping tight at your hip as he quickens his thrusts, one hand falling back on the counter to support the forceful angle of his movements, laughing breathlessly at his comment, his head rises to look at you with complete and full admiration, “I’m serious, baby.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” You assure him, pressing a soft kiss to his lips that quickly divulges into an open-mouthed exploration as you trade sounds, feeling Tommy teeter closer to the edge of his own orgasm as his fingers drift against your clit, always assuring that you were taken care of first—it doesn’t take long, hands gripping the curtain above the sink as your whine loudly against his ministrations. 

Tommy is too distracted to hear the quiet creak of the door, but you’re not. The lights are off, only granting you a silhouette of Joel, but you know—he’s smirking to himself, closing the door behind him quietly as he freezes for a moment, seemingly locking eyes with your sated expression, your orgasm hitting you just as he passes down the hall, his face coming into view for a brief moment.

It was pathetic, how quickly your mind drifted to him even while his brother was buried inside of you, your grip on the curtain tightens, pulling the rod from the wall and sending it clanging down against the sink as it startles you back to reality, feeling Tommy’s hips stutter before he’s pulling out and you sink to the ground instinctively, lips wrapping around his cock as he releases the warmth of his cum against your tongue, a heady but tolerable taste that slides down your throat with ease. 

Joel is already gone by the time you rise to your feet, redressing quietly as Tommy examines the broken curtain with a subdued chuckle, tossing the few pieces of sheetrock in the trash.

“Sorry,” You wince, looking at him apologetically.

Tommy grins, his thumb rubbing down the center of your chin in a comforting way as he shrugs, waving it off, “Easy fix.”

The difference between the two is simple to spot after a while—Joel’s leniency with things comes to a head as Tommy’s rigidness battles for dominance. He doesn’t make it a habit to put his foot down often, but he was already increasingly hesitant as you started luring people back to the farm—while thankful, it was dangerous. You were good at it, without fail, but something was bound to implode.

–

“She’s earned it, you know,” Joel fights for you, the usual recluse encourages a night-out—a real one, no work, just pure enjoyment, “Ain’t much trouble to get into there.”

The bar, he means. With how often you frequented it now, it was like a second home.

You were coming up on your sixth month mark of living with the Millers, finding the stragglers came in like a cycle, every few weeks, and the town was due for more.

Tommy squints cautiously, turning in the desk chair as the heel of his boot scuffs against the flooring, “An hour—only an hour, don’t need you stickin’ out like a sore thumb.”

Joel, he means. He rolls his eyes in response, dressed more casual than you’ve ever seen him. It was a simple pair of jeans and a dark-colored shirt, but it made him seem normal.

It was unsettling.

“Don’t worry,” Joel smirks, “No one’ll touch her.”

Except him, you think.

Tommy wasn’t oblivious to your odd affection toward Joel, but he wasn’t privy to every detail. He didn’t know how often you snuck into Joel’s bed at night, sometimes after being on his own before that, the devouring looks and purposeful touches that always happened behind his back.

Joel knows you find comfort in Tommy, but there was something missing.

Something lacking.

Tommy eventually relents and you arrive at the bar a half hour later, Joel in tow.

And it is mostly uneventful, drinking amongst the other patrons with the loud rumble of music drowning out far away voices—Joel was stoic, like a bodyguard over your shoulder as he seemed to people watch, like he often did.

“You’re doing it again,” You tell him, peering up at him from your seat as he glances down, his glass pressing to his lips, ignoring the wide-eyed stares from the occasional townsperson, seemingly shocked to see him. 

“No I’m not,” He argues, tapping his finger against your lips before he’s guiding the glass to your lips, a wordless order to silence yourself, “Drink, enjoy it—or all that beggin’ was for nothin’.”

Eventually, Joel lets you wander.

Even if it was to dance lazily a few feet away, practically begging him to join you with your hand outstretched, a constant scowl on his face as he refused. But, eventually someone takes that offer for him, obstructing his view with a grin—an older gentleman with wiry hair and rotted teeth.

There’s a few moments of uncomfortable movement before you’re making an excuse to flee toward Joel who snickers at your discomfort, a hand wrapping at your waist to pull you between his legs as the man, persistent as you suspected, approaches beside you.

“Tommy finally let his dog out of the house?” He asks over you, staring Joel down.

Joel chuckles at that, subdued as his hand tightens against your waist, hiding your own giggle behind a sip of beer.

“C’mon, sweetheart—I’ll show you a better time than this guy. Wouldn’t know how to care for a nice piece of ass like that—him or his damn brother.”

Joel stands then, without warning as he towers over the man and you as he forces you into the seat, “Get the fuck out of here,” It was the only warning he was offering, but it strikes fear through the man without fail, sending him scurrying off for the moment.

“Tommy’s gonna kill you when he finds out about that,” You comment as Joel approaches at your back, maneuvering you out of the seat to settle between his legs again, his large palm settling against your stomach as he pulls you against him, spotting the man again from across the room, staring you both down with hardened eyes.

“What he doesn't know won’t hurt him,” Joel argues, the surprising press of his lips against your neck as you jump at the touch, calmed by his reassuring words, “Gonna scare him off, alright?”

“How—” You’re cut off on a gasp as his hand travels up your shirt, squeezing at your breast as his teeth dig into your skin, mouth hung open as you stumble back against him, eyes fluttering closed at the stinging pinch of Joel’s teeth, hard enough that you fear it breaking through the skin

Surely, it does. 

As Joel raises his head and catches sight of the man’s widened eyes, he scurries off. He’s not amiss to your reaction to the bite, fingers clawing into his skin, moaning at the action. Really, he should’ve expected it.

“Turn around,” He orders, spinning you on your feet before you can react on your own, catching sight of your dilated pupils as you stare at him wondrously, a smile growing on your face as his impatience grows.

He ignores your wandering hands that crawl up his arms, gripping onto his large biceps before he’s hauling you out of the bar without a word, arm twisted behind your back as you tumble on your feet toward his truck parked in the far back of the parking lot, far away from the roar of music.

“Did I do something—oh,” You squeak, jumping back at the creak of the drivers’ side door as he sandwiches you between the seat and him, “wrong—Joel, did I—”

You’re stuttering but he isn’t answering and you begin to crawl to your side of the seat before he’s stopping you in your tracks, feet pressing against the step bar of the truck while the upper half of your body curls against the seat—and Joel, with his large and threatening presence, towers.

He works at the belt in your jeans, turning your head over your shoulder as he rips the leather from the loops of your pants, “Put your hands on the steering wheel,” He orders and you follow suit, watching as he quietly tightened the belt around your hands and through the steering wheel, rendering you immobile from the waist up.

“Wait—right here? But, there’s people—”

Never stopped you before,” He comments and your face heats at the mention, having never brought up the instance with you and Tommy until now, “I’m not a fan of waiting and I’m not against takin’ you in front of my brother—rather not, but…”

“You like having me to yourself,” You finish for him, a hum of acknowledgement following. 

Joel yanks at your jeans until they fall to your ankles, pulling them off alongside your shoes and underwear as he tosses them over your head and into the passenger seat, sinking to his knees without a word as he parts your legs, licking into your with warning as you gasp, your hands yanking against the leather belt.

He squeezes your ass in his hands, spreading you open as he dips his tongue inside of you, forcing you up on your toes as you curse into the seat of his truck, forehead pressing into the fabric as your hands are stretched over your head. 

He’s got an idea…a lingering suspicion as he trails his lips along the inside of your legs, never quite kissing or lingering, just a slow drag before he’s digging his teeth into your skin, a sharp pain that makes your pussy clench, his eyes locked on the action as he bites down. 

Instinctively, you yank against the binds, the urgency growing as he bites down more, picking various places along your legs until he decides to bite into the fleshy cheek of your ass, purposefully breaking the skin—the tiniest drop of blood pooling at the surface before he licks it away. 

He repeats the process, trading between bites and licking at your cunt until your orgasm catches you by surprise, panting against the seat as you catch your breath with his satisfied presence looming behind. 

Quietly, he rustles with his belt and slides into you without a word until he’s got his hand tucked up under your chin, wrapped around your throat as he presses you against the seat with his chest, turning your head to the side to catch your already fucked-out expression, more turned on from the biting than the fact that his dick was finally inside of you.

“I fuckin’ knew it,” Joel remarks, watching the smile spread across your face, “You like it when I bite you? The pain?”

You shake your head with a soft hum, “S’nice, but I like you marking your territory.” You watch his face morph into something indecipherable as you laugh, “Got you really riled up in there, didn’t it?”

“Gotta let them know to lead you back to me if you go runnin’ off again,” Joel taunts, grunting against the shell of your ear as your walls squeeze down when the head of his cock nudges at a particular spot inside of you that steals your breath away, “Yeah—that? That right there?”

You nod weakly, wishing you could touch him—claw at his skin, grab on and take hold, but you were left helpless. Though, somehow it was more comforting this way. Joel was increasingly careful of the authority you tried to hold over him, never allowing you to have the upper hand—and you didn’t mind it.

Again, it was the stark difference between he and Tommy, who’d be willing to bend to your will if you asked, eager to please you, but with Joel, it was kismet. He always knew what you were thinking before you even spoke about it.

And as the ache in your wrist grows into full discomfort he releases them without a word of acknowledgement, lips parted with bated breath as you turn until your back is pressing into the seat, legs wrapping around his waist as he hoists you up with his brute strength, releasing a loud moan of expressive pleasure as you surge forward, pressing your lips against his before he can object, licking into his mouth with profound eagerness as his nails dig into the skin at your hips, his balls tightening with an impending release as he returns the wet, sloppy exchange of lips.

It stalls him for a moment, the sensual pace of your lips pulling his focus up, your tongue twirling around his own before they trail to his lips, your lips dragging down his chin, along his jaw, before you’re biting against where his jugular would be hiding under his skin, not nearly hard enough to cause any damage but enough to have his eyes rolling back and his hips stuttering.

“Don’t—don’t pull out,” You tell him through a murmur, running your tongue along the mark in a soothing gesture, catching his gaze as he looks at you, “What? Are you scared, Joel?”

Not scared—Joel wasn’t sure he could emulate that emotion anymore, but it was far too personal for his liking, even with the few partners he’s had in his life he’s never crested beyond that, purposeful in his abhorrence distaste of kids or the possibility of, but you have him completely under your spell and he shakes his head.

“S’just you—wouldn’t want it to be anyone but you.” You assure him, his expression softening as your thumb trails along his bottom lip, eyes locked on his own as his thrusts stuttering through his own orgasm, face pinching at his brow, your breathy moans guiding him through as he pumps your pussy full, feel the warmth seep down as he eventually pulls out, his cum sliding down the inside of your thighs.

“Get in the car,” Joel instructs as he tries to catch his breath.

His silence on the ride home is deafening.

–

Joel is more stoic and pensive over the following weeks—spring is always harder on the business, or so he says, and selling overseas picks up quicker, it wasn’t something they could explain but it was a constant trend; high demand, high reward. It was quite stressful, really.

So stressful that eventually things are beginning to run thin and you become the source of stress relief for both of them—in different ways, but nonetheless.

Tommy would rather cuddle up with you on the couch while you lull him to sleep with your magic fingers, dragging through his hair—it was gentle caresses and quiet conversation that he found comfort in, but Joel was always unpredictable.

Sometimes it was just sharing a meal—his weird obsession with feeding you; providing, in a way? You couldn’t make sense of it, but it never made you feel uncomfortable.

“Have you ever gotten a bad batch?”

“We’re careful,” Joel reminds you, “It’s why we test all of ‘em before we go through the process.”

“Is that why you sent me?”

“Do you want an honest answer?”

You stare at him blankly, waiting.

“Yeah—we had to make sure you’re clean.”

“But now?” You push, your tongue pressing against the underside of the fork as he brings it to your lips.

“I trust you,” Joel admits, “You’ve kept up your end of the deal.”

It was conversations like this that led to Joel’s affinity toward you, a drunken night several weeks later leading you both outside after Tommy had already fallen asleep, walking backwards as your fists curled into Joel’s shirt as his hand cupped your head, licking into your mouth as he unintentionally led you toward the barn door, both of you separating as your back hit the creaking wood.

You pull apart, peering curiously over your shoulder and attempting to look through the cracks, awaiting Joel’s reprimand that never comes. 

“You wanna see inside?” He asks curiously.

“You’re fucking with me—”

“It’s a yes or no, darlin’.”

“Yes—yesyes, I do.” You spit out quickly, curiosity getting the best of you as he fishes his keys out of his pocket and snakes it into the lock, unlocking and prying the door open, met with full and complete darkness as he leads you inside, his chest close at your back.

He reaches blindly for the lights out of memory and you’re engulfed in the blaring lights of a spotless room—almost like a medical office with the array of equipment lining the walls and the long embedded tables, something reminiscent of what you would see at a mortuary for draining bodies and embalming, probably to help with the mess.

You sniff slightly, curious about the lack of smell as the door closes.

“That’s partly the animals, but we dispose of some of the shit the pigs can’t eat out behind the barn.”

“Like what?” You stare at him incredulously, eyes wide.

“Clothes, shoes—s’why we have the barrels burning every couple weeks when the stench gets too bad.” He spots your itch to explore, that glistening curiosity in your eyes as you relax at his answer, “Go on, look ‘round.”

You’re not ignorant to the absence of bodies—it was confusing to see a place so clean come from a man who always left work looking like he had brought half of it home with him.

There’s an array of knives and confusing cutting devices that you trail your fingers along, a bonesaw lying against the table lining the shelves, a stack of papers with faces and names, various info that you took a glancing look at, attempting to avoid the idea of putting names to faces and treating the people as anything other than product—it was how Joel lived, as disconnected and separate from the ideas possible.

“Usually it’s messier in here,” Joel admits, your lips parting in a surprised gasp as he presses his lips to your neck, “—we can fix that, though.”

“Joel Miller,” You respond in a scandalized tone, “what exactly are you implying?”

“I’ve got a room upstairs,” Your eyes flick up, spotting the loft overhead—that would explain the long nights when you wouldn’t see him at all, his comfort with being more openly affectionate outside of sex has grown slowly, turning your head to face his over your shoulder as his gaze trails up in another silent question, “unless you’ve got another idea—m’just dyin’ to get inside of you, honey.”

Your teeth dig into your bottom lip in faux thought, already knowing your answer as you were brimming with excitement, resisting the urge to drag him after you.

“Yeah?” You tease, his lips pressing against your soft, kissing you soundly.

“Yeah,” He responds against your mouth, a rare moment of calm, a sweet exchange before he’s chasing after you with a swift slap to your ass.

–

It was essentially an extension of his bedroom, cozy and homey, you find yourself stretching out on the rug rather than the couch, watching as he carefully kneeled to the floor, cursing his achy knees as you giggle, spreading your legs open to invite him in.

“The things you do for me,” You joke, slowly unbutton his flannel as he yanks you towards him, knees falling against his hips as his palms grip either side of your, his thumbs rubbing against the soft skin underneath your shirt, “careful—I might think you love me.”

“If that’s what you want,” Joel replies easily, stripping your shirt over your head as your breasts bounce free, removing your jeans with the same impatience before he’s immediately latching his lips onto your breasts and lazily trading off, biting teasingly into the skin as he looks up to gauge your reaction.

If Tommy notices Joel’s evidence that he leaves, he never says anything. Perhaps it was unspoken, maybe they’ve talked it out—it was information you weren’t privy to, but you didn’t question it. He could smell his brother all over you and he was dying to rid you of it, baring his teeth as he bit into the flesh of your breast, a satisfied hum coming from you in response.

“Do you want that?” Joel asks again, “To be loved—ain’t somethin’ you’ve felt much, is it?”

Quietly, you shake your head.

“Well, you’ve got my brother by the balls,” He chuckles knowingly, “I’m sure he’d marry you if you asked—I ain’t good with words, but I can show you—”

Curious, you watch as he stands, grabbing a sharpened knife off the end table before he’s returning to you, “Somethin’ my parents passed down to me—never used, just like lookin’ at it.”

“We’re not about to Romeo and Juliet ourselves, are we?” You joke lightly, half-serious.

Joel grins wide at that, a full belly laugh following as he slices his palm with a squint of pain before he’s allowing the blood to pool in his hand as beckons you forward with a finger. You rise on your palms and stare curiously before he’s directing his hand to your mouth, lips parting wordlessly as the deep crimson hits your tongue, eyes falling shut as you sucked at the wound.

You were so accustomed to the rich, irony taste that it isn’t even a surprise, moaning as the blood slides down your throat and his fingers curl, squeezing more blood out for you to consume before he’s sliding his hand over your mouth and down your chin, stopping against your chest as he smears it with blood, one-handed as he shrugs his flannel off and rips his shirt over his head, tearing the fabric apart in strips like butter, not a sign of struggle.

He ties the fabric around his wound before he’s wordlessly handing you the knife.

“My hand?” You ask curiously.

“S’up to you,” He admits—the wordless blood trade vowing his affection toward you.

It was something far deeper than love, you think. Devotion. Loyalty. 

“Wherever?” Your eyebrow raises as Joel seems to clock the moment the idea comes into your head, trailing the blade along the inside of your thigh, up your stomach, along your breasts.

Eventually the tip of the blade finds a spot against your inner thigh, Joel’s hand careful adjusting your placing as he speaks, “Careful, there’s an artery there,” Further down, you brave the initial sting and slice through the skin, watching as the blood rose to the surface and Joel quickly descends, knife clattering to the floor as he sucks the flesh between his lips, his tongue lapping against your skin.

It’s euphoric, the feeling. So intense you could descend into madness as Joel eagerly lapped up the blood, even as he pulled away going back for a second time, a third, rising with blood stained lips and the crimson liquid pooling on his tongue as he pulls you toward him, mixing the taste of his blood with your own as he kisses you, a messy exchange of fluids as you claw at his skin, rising to your knees to match him.

Silently, you work at his jeans, unbuttoning and pulling them down his lips alongside his underwear—Joel works them the rest of the way before you’re pulling the hand supporting him over you out from under him, straddling him into the rug as your cunt sat directly over his cock, feeling him grow harder underneath you, a sight to behold with blood dripping down the corner of his mouth.

“I want more,” You tell him honestly, his cock twitching at the words, reaching for the knife laying beside his head, “Can I have more?”

Joel nods wordlessly, slightly breathless.

It was a trading battle of surface wounds, just enough to spill blood but nothing deep enough to cause any damage—surely looking insane as you straddled him with a smile, blood-stained lips yearning for more. Joel has a drunken haze to his expression, committing the sight to memory as he squeezes at your hips, rutting his cock between your soaked folds.

“Enough,” He says softly, barely above a mumble as he tosses the knife aside, rolling you underneath him before he’s sliding home inside of you, a hand cradling the back of your head while the other gripped at your knee, pulling it high over his hip, near his chest as he thrusts into you, a controlled but needy pace that was followed by low, pitiful groans of pleasure.

You’d broken this man.

His head was buried in your neck, your hand trailing down his back as you squeeze into the flesh of his ass, the fingers off your opposite hand carding through his hair, pulling gently at his curls.

“Got so much of me inside you now,” He breathes into your skin, “fuck—I’d eat your right up, baby.”

Despite his obvious lifestyle, your laugh is careless and light.

“Greedy,” You note, “I’ve already given you a taste and you’re asking for more?”

He doesn’t respond, not really. His hips are sharp, forceful as his cock spears itself inside of you, rubbing against the sensitive spot inside of you, eyes fluttering shut as it overwhelms you.

“Take a bite,” You encourage him, “f’that’s what you want.”

A real one.

Enough to scar, to leave a permanent mark and reminder of him.

One, two—you didn’t care.

His teeth drag over your breasts, tongue trailing around your hardened nipple before he’s biting into the skin at the top of you breasts, a gasp ripping from your throat as your walls flutter around him, tightening at the pain that slowly transfers to pleasure, glancing down at the small gash and trail of teeth marks in your skin. 

He’s admiring, finger running over the wound before he’s rising on his knees, continuing the thrusts of his hips but slowing as he reaches for your hand, pulling you upright again.

“You–do you want me to?” You ask cautiously, feeling the blood from your wound trail down your chest, “Are you sure?”

“Ain’t never been sure ‘bout nothin’,” Joel admits, “but—this…yeah, I want it.”

It shouldn’t make you hesitate, but it doesn’t. He isn’t emotional or forceful—it was like a plea, disguised behind his facade of stoicness. He needed this devotion just as bad as you. He needed someone to put his own trust into.

When your teeth dig into his side, he hisses, his right hand cradling your head as the other curls tightly into a fist, your face pinching up as you bite beyond the first layer of flesh and taste the liquid against your tongue.

He pulls you away eventually, looking down at you with a newfound expression.

This was love—not the lust you were used to seeing.

The rest of the evening is quiet, his pace gentler before he brings you to a slow orgasm, coming inside of you nearly seconds after with a soft moan, persistent that the wounds needed to be cleaned immediately after a few moments of rest.

He tapes it away with a gentle care after cleaning and applying an ointment to fight away any possible infection, snorting at how fatherly it all seemed, even helping you situation your top back on.

“At least we spared the rug,” You break the silence, “guess you aren’t as messy as I thought.”

“Oh, I can be,” He assures you, noticing the scabbed up bit of your lip that had become victim when he’d bit into your, biting down to silence yourself. Just a small movement and the wound reopens, completely unintentional but he sucks the blood away from your bottom lip in a soothing gesture before he kisses you soundly.

You only hoped the bliss would last.

–

Eventually, the implosion comes. But, instead of gradual—it was all at once.

Tommy’s birthday was supposed to be a quiet affair, something at home, between the three of you, not having time to celebrate during the week on his actual birthday like you had planned—but eventually Tommy finds himself antsy and Joel senses your annoyance as he keeps finding excuses to slip away or cancel. He encourages Tommy to go off on his own, leaving you both sprawled out on his bed after a rousing round of sex that leaves you both sweaty and breathless, resting your arm against his chest as you stare at him, “What’s up with him lately?”

“He’s good at acting, isn’t he?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“There’s a reason he keeps to the books, you know—why I do my job alone.”

Your eyebrow raises in a silent effort to urge him to continue.

“When I’m angry, you’ll know—” That much was obvious, having been on the receiving end plenty, but Tommy—it was unnatural to see anything but his kind, bright smile.

“He’s my brother—but there’s plenty of shit you haven’t seen yet. And I think it’s unfair that he’s actin’ like things are normal, like he can keep that act up, but something’s gotta give—”

“So what, is he like…a psychopath or something?”

Joel’s silence is telling, jumping up from your spot as you settle on your knees.

“He’s a fucking psychopath?”

“No—no,” Joel excuses, your face contorting into a mix of confusion and amusement.

“You took a long time to answer that.”

“He has episodes—periods of time where he ain’t himself. I can’t explain it and my parents refused to take him to the doctor—you know, backwoods folk and all. If we had a problem we toughed it out.”

“So, he’s got anger issues?”

Joel shakes his head, lips pursed into a tight line.

“He’s killed a couple people—by accident.  Least, that’s what he calls it. Tried killing me a few times, too. I’ve always been good at talking him off that ledge, thankfully. M’not trying to turn you against him but I’ve grown up around him, I know how to handle it.”

It was a lot of information to consume at once, still naked in Joel’s sheets as you adjust to sit more comfortably, a small peek at the scar near his ribcage as the sheets shift down.

“He’s lucky we do what we do—he’d probably be in jail otherwise, I’m just telling you because—“

“If it came down to me and him, you’d choose him.”

Joel pauses, his face softened as his lips downturn.

“It’s okay,” You shrug, “Let’s just hope it never comes to that.”

Truthfully, Joel wasn’t sure anymore.

After years with Tommy, he’d grown tired. It was exhausting, fighting between the battling personalities that lived within his brother.

“C’mere,” He beckons, your nose scrunching up as you grin, fitting your face between his waiting hands as he pulls you back over him, kissing you slowly.

A gentle calm before the storm.

–

The arguing is what wakes you first, not the roar of the truck, voices trailing toward the barn.

The bed is empty too, not a single remnant of Joel in sight.

But, you hear him. Loud, angry.

By the time you’re outside the barn is already closed, illuminated by the light inside as you pry the heavy door open, several underdressed with only a shirt to cover the underwear clinging tight to your skin, bare feet digging into the dirt as your feet scuff against the cement and the door falls shut behind you.

“She doesn’t need to know, Joel!” Tommy’s voice cracks, a slight slur to his speech.

He’s drunk, clearly.

“You’re a fucking idiot, Tommy—one night and you pull this shit? It’s exactly why dad had a tight leash on your ass for so many years—”

“Need to know what?” You ask suddenly, breaking through the tension as your head peeks around the corner, both of their heads whipping toward you, Joel moving subtly to block the body that you spot on the table, eyes widening. 

It had always been something you and Joel had managed together—Tommy had never shown an interest, didn’t seem to care, but this…

“I’m just tryin’ to carry my weight ‘round here—is that why you like him more?” Tommy asks suddenly, his eyes glazed over and dark as you step forward.

“I invite you into our home—give you a place to stay. I—I stuck up for you when he wanted to throw you out and you chose him? My own fuckin’ brother?”

“He’s drunk,” Joel states blankly, almost dismissive of his rant.

“No—no, let’s show it off, Joel.”

Tommy comes at you with a knife, slicing it down the middle of your shirt as you struggle against him, ripping the fabric away and showing off the healing scar on your chest.

“What happened to no attachments, Joel? No baggage?”

As Joel moves toward Tommy to remove the knife, he lunges at Joel and pushes him out of the way, leaving you with a clear view of the woman laying on the table, an eerie resemblance to yourself as your eyes widen, stepping toward the table as you glance over the body—unmoving, still. She was already too far gone, with no signs of what Tommy had actually done to her.

Your head snaps up at the brawling brothers, screaming for the attention to break through their rage, Joel burying his knee into Tommy’s back to subdue him.

“Why her?” You ask him—Tommy, looking directly at him as you point to the lifeless body.

“Get the fuck off me—” He argues through gritted teeth, attempting to shake his brother off him.

“Why—her?” You stress again, walking forward to crouch in front of him, uncaring of how your body was bared to him in your vulnerability.

“Thought I could give Joel his own version of you to play with—but she wasn’t cooperating. That what you wanna hear? I had you first—motherfucker won’t let me have a single thing to myself.”

“Let him up,” You instruct Joel, backing away slightly.

As Tommy stands, you approach him, his face tight and unrecognizable. 

He reeked of alcohol and sweat, a stench of something else that made the bile in your stomach rise, “I never chose, you both had me. You would continue to have me, but this—Tommy—”

“Don’t fuckin’ lecture me, not you,” He bites.

You stare at him with a growing sadness, “You’re drunk—really, really drunk. You’re gonna sleep this off and you’ll regret everything you’re saying right now, I know it. I know you.”

Something seems to snap in Tommy—attempting to rip away from Joel as you scramble toward the floor.

Tommy gets a solid right hook in, something that, if any normal person would have delivered would have left Joel unphased, but Tommy had his advantages, similar in size and stature to Joel, it was barely a fight as Joel dropped to the ground, hitting hard enough that both of you freeze, a slow ring of blood pooling from his head as your chest clinches in a mix of anger and resentment, but your body flinging into flight mode, fleeing while Tommy has distracted by the possibility that he killed his own brother.

Unfamiliar with the place you scramble to hide, unsure if running off would help after your last try, squeezing into a closet buried in the back corner behind a pile of yard tools and mowers, watching as Tommy dropped to the ground.

You could hear him mumbling to himself—a mix of self-assuring words and back and forth conversation, as if someone was responding to every word he offered.

“He’s dead—yeah I killed him,” He mumbles, “if I—if I chop him up, chop her up. Fuck,” His head whips over his shoulder, realizing you were gone, “gotta find her—but Joel, deal with him first.”

Your eyes widen at the firsthand witnessing of exactly what Joel had admitted to you—like some kind of bad omen of what was to come, you sunk down into the darkness and hide yourself away, watching as Tommy roamed around for tools, not a moment of hesitation as he intended to follow through on his plans with Joel’s lifeless body awaiting it’s demise.

It feels wrong, tossing a bone saw aside carelessly as he ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation, flailing tools around wildly, a knife clattering so far away that it lands near your feet, small enough to wrap your fist around as you grab it quietly, awaiting Tommy’s approach to Joel.

Sometimes takes over, not entirely yourself as you crawl from the spot you were hidden in and lunge at Tommy, planting the knife between his shoulder blades as pressed the blade against his own brother’s neck, his blood curdling scream ripping through the barn as he dropped to his knees.

“You bitch,” He groans, shouting out in pain as you remove the knife and sink into his spine, a few seconds of struggle before he slumps to the ground, his eyes dragging toward your shaking frame, bloodied hands rubbing your hair away from your face as you stare down at Tommy’s face, his lips parting as he gasped for air but instead find blood dripping from his mouth.

You drop to your knees, the air stolen from your own lungs but for different reasons.

Both of them dead, within a matter of minutes and it was all your fault.

“Fuck, fuck–” You cry, slamming your fist into cement, but quickly startled by the rousing beside Tommy, almost blaming it on a break in your psyche before Joel is mumbling your name, pressing his fingers into his temple as blood coats his fingers, a sizeable gash on the side of his head as he sits, slowly picking apart the sight before him.

“Oh, honey—what did you do?” Joel asks, glancing down at Tommy’s lifeless body and up at you—surprisingly, there wasn’t an ounce of anger.

“He thought—he thought you were dead, he had a knife at your throat,” You rambled in a panic, “He kept saying he was going to chop you up—chop me up. I don’t know, I fucking panicked.”

Joel remains wordless, staring into the deep abyss of blood pooling on the floor.

“I’m so—I’m sorry. I’m,” The emotion is like a tidal wave, “Joel—I panicked. I swear—”

Joel grimaces against the sharp sting of pain as he reaches for your face, his blood covered hand pressing against your face, fingertips wrapping around the back of your head as he forces you to lock eyes with him.

“Look at me,” He demands, waiting until your eyes lock on him, “This is the part where you promise—and I mean promise, that you won’t fuckin’ run off.”

“No—never. Never, not,” You shake your head, squeezing your eyes shut to blink away the thick tears, “Never again, Joel. I promise.”

“We handle this together,” He explains, “I’ll protect you but you have to say it.”

“Anything,” You nod, leaning forward on your hands to move closer to him.

“Say you’re loyal to me—that you’ll listen and do whatever I ask, without question.”

“I am—I am. Joel, I’m loyal to you. I love—I love you. I need you to know that.”

Joel sighs, head bowing.

“I would have chosen you over him. I couldn’t admit that to myself earlier, but I’m telling you now. Tommy’s always been a manipulator, I tried warnin’ you. Months ago.”

You ain’t the first, you won’t be the last.

“I won’t run. I promise, Joel.” You assure him, because with Joel you felt that protection.

A silence falls before you speak again.

“What happens now?”

“You follow my lead, that’s all I need.”

[apartmentsmoke]

Evan tells Tommy that he's babysitting Jee, but he still really wants to spend time with Tommy, if Tommy doesn't mind - and Tommy accepts. Jee's part of Evan's family, and Howie's family, and how bad can hanging out with a three-year-old - almost four, he is told by her in the car - be anyway? What he's expecting is a night on the couch watching Frozen. (Kids still like that, right?) Maybe tea parties. What he does not expect is that Evan already has an outing planned to Chuck-E-Cheese. Surprise - Chuck-E-Cheese still exists. He would've sworn they went bankrupt back in 2020.

He's not sure what Jee is going to think of him, but she remembers him from the hospital as "Uncle Buck's dirty friend" and accepts his presence easily enough. She keeps her hand in Evan's as they walk into Chuck-E-Cheese. It's one of the cutest things Tommy's ever seen. There's a thousand kids around, laughing and crying and shouting. He only has to focus on one, he tells himself, and lets Jee lead him and Evan through the maze of games. She stops at a claw machine and demands that her Uncle Buck win her a rabbit toy. After ten minutes, fifteen dollars, and Tommy tagging in, they finally succeed. The next two hours are filled with more exploitative games, the greasiest fucking pizza Tommy's ever had, and Jee spending five minutes deliberating between two similarly-colored bouncy balls to exchange for her tickets. Throughout it all, Evan's patience never wavers, even when they lose Jee for five minutes in the crowd and have to search for her. She's hiding under the air hockey table.

Tommy's doing his best to keep up. He's led all over the place, recruited to help with games, and tries to make sense of Jee's non-sequiturs. While they're standing in line for the bouncy ball, Evan nudges him. There's a big smile on his face. "I know this isn't an ideal date. Thanks for being here." "Of course," Tommy says, and he nudges Evan back. "I like getting to know your family, Evan." It's not what he expected, but seeing first-hand how full of love Evan's family is, how much love he has for them - he wouldn't trade it. Not even for the bluest bouncy ball. Evan's smile grows even wider. They're almost out the door when Jee spots a photo booth and hones in. "I wanna photo," she says, tugging at Evan's hand, and Tommy dutifully follows along. He'll - wait out here, he guesses, while Evan and Jee take their photo. They wouldn't all fit, anyway. It's a little awkward, hanging around the photo booth, but it's fine. They disappear behind the curtain for a moment and Tommy can hear Jee's high, insistent voice and Evan chuckling and responding, though he can't make out the words. Jee and Evan poke their heads out a second later. "You too!" Jee says, and Evan echoes her with a grin. "Yeah, you too. Get in here." They quickly learn there is no way the photo booth is going to fit them all. Tommy fits maybe a third of his body in. Evan frowns, then lights up again. "Hey, Jee, why don't we get out for a second? Then Tommy can sit down and I can sit on his lap and you can sit on my lap. Okay?" "Okay," she says, so Tommy squeezes in, and a second later Evan plops all two hundred pounds of himself and thirty pounds of Jee onto his lap.

"Evan," he hisses, and Evan grins at him, unrepentant. "Smile for the camera, Tommy," he says, and Tommy finds that his smile comes easily, especially when Evan turns to kiss his cheek on the last photo. After they scrabble out of the photo booth, Evan looks down at the strip of photos and their wide, grinning faces. "Oh, yeah. That's going on the fridge for sure." "For sure," Jee repeats for emphasis, and looks up at Tommy expectantly. "For sure," he says, and he's met with twin smiles.

[this fic has matching art by @aringofsalt! it's adorable and you should definitely go take a look]

[harmless-variety-of-garden-snake]

I almost posted an alternate for today, because I don't know if I love this one. But I'm home sick, so I don't want to think too hard. ANYWAY. Here's my day thirteen fill for BuckTommy Fluffebruary: Love Declarations, and here's how I got these crazy kids back together in the vague universe these fills are set in. Tagging @bucktommyfluffebruary

There’s a helicopter over the building, and Buck has already heard Tommy’s voice over the radio. He knows who’s flying, who he’s going to see as soon as he’s lifted out, but he’s got a scared kid on his hip and can’t really be too tied up in what happened between them.

“Coming down,” Lucy says over the radio, and Buck acknowledges her.

“You ready?” he asks the kid, Susie, and she looks at him with wide, terrified eyes. She’d been the only one in her apartment when the fire broke out, and Buck had been cut off from the ladder and Eddie when he got her. She’d been smart, though, and stayed low and kept her face covered like she’d been taught in school. After scooping her up, Buck radioed for help, and Tommy’s voice had come in loud and clear telling him to go up to the south corner of the roof to avoid potential structure collapse on the north side. “I know the pilot in that chopper, he’s the best pilot in the whole world. I promise, he’ll get us out of here and we’ll get you back to your mom, okay?”

“Okay,” she says, barely audible over the rotors. “You promise?”

Buck lifts his gloved hand, pinky stuck out, and he holds her gaze as she locks her small finger around his. A five-year-old understands how sacred the pinky promise is, and she gives him a tiny nod.

“Wanna know something cool?” he asks as Lucy descends on the ladder. “He flew into a hurricane the night we met, and we’re still here. No one is better at this.”

Susie looks up at the helicopter with something like awe, and Buck hugs her close until Lucy can reach for her, clipping her onto a harness and yelling instructions that he can’t hear. He waits until they’re climbing up before he hooks his arms and feet into the rungs. The helicopter is steady as he climbs, and he even feels it tip a little when he’s climbing in to make it an easier angle to climb in.

“Show-off,” he mutters to absolutely no one. Lucy has Susie in her lap, Tommy is in the pilot’s seat, the seat next to him is empty. Buck unhooks his gear and secures it as best he can before he sits next to Tommy and puts a headset on. “Thanks for the lift.”

“You okay?” Tommy asks, his voice like a balm after two months apart.

“Could be worse,” Buck says, watching as the north corner of the building collapses. “That was my original exit.”

“I have a parking lot nearby cleared for landing,” Tommy says, nodding to something in the distance. Buck is too busy looking at him, drinking in the sight of his side profile.

Tommy looks alert, but there’s circles under his eyes. His hair is a little longer than he usually keeps it, so is his stubble. He looks like he had when he’d gotten food poisoning after Sal’s Labor Day barbecue. But he still flies with total confidence, checking and double-checking that no one is in their immediate airspace and that they have enough clearance for landing.

“Alright, we’re going to land now,” he says, and Buck twists around to see Lucy relaying this to Susie. The girl nods and asks something.

“Any word on her mom?” Lucy asks through the headset.

“She was in the laundry room downstairs,” Buck says. “She’s got a couple minor burns from trying to get the stairwell door open, but she’s on-site. Cap said she’ll be waiting.”

When they land, Lucy has to hold Susie tight until they’re ready to exit, and then Buck jumps up to help the girl out. He’s got her on his hip again and hears a woman scream her name as she runs toward them. Susie squirms in his grip, and Buck carefully sets her on her feet, watching as she runs toward her mom and gets swept up in a tearful hug.

He turns back to the chopper and climbs in to retrieve his gear. The rotors are winding down, because there’s people running around them and Lucy is outside talking to Bobby, and it’s quiet.

“You look like shit,” he says, and Tommy snorts from his seat. “Kind of.”

“You look good,” Tommy says, looking over his shoulder at him.

“I feel like shit,” Buck says, tucking his helmet under his arm. “Thanks for the ride.”

A hand reaches back before he can jump out, and Buck stops, looking down at the thick fingers curled around his elbow. It’s like a sad version of that day after the cruise ship rescue, when Buck had felt the need to reach out and touch Tommy and Tommy had reached back and smiled and made something flutter in his stomach. Now he feels like there’s a big stone there instead.

“Hey,” Tommy says softly, and Buck looks at him. “When are you off?”

“Now,” Buck says. “You?”

“Forty minutes ago.” His fingers rub the material of Buck’s jacket. “I gotta fly back, but can we talk after?”

Buck swallows around the lump in his throat. “Why?”

“Because I think I made the biggest mistake of my life,” Tommy says, looking at him with pleading eyes. “And I want to know if it’s too late to fix it.”

His heart seizes in his chest, feeling hope for the first time in two months.

“It’s not,” Buck says, his voice coming out in a rush, dropping his helmet so he can reach for Tommy’s cheek, ripping off his glove so he can feel the skin against his. “It’s not.”

Tommy leans into his touch and closes his eyes, the crease between his brows smoothing and the tension around his eyes easing. “I’m not brave.”

“I’m not either,” Buck says before he takes off his other glove with his teeth and reaches for Tommy’s other cheek. “I’m not a lot of things.”

“You’re perfect,” Tommy says, opening his eyes and smiling just the smallest amount. “God, Evan, you’re perfect.”

“I’m not,” Buck insists, moving to kneel next to Tommy’s seat. “I said everything all wrong. I didn’t mean for any of it to seem like I was just wanting to live with you because I admired you. I had a plan, and I-I panicked? I don’t know.”

“I think I would’ve run off anyway,” Tommy admits, his gaze dropping from Buck’s. “There’s this thing I do where I think I can see into the future, and it’s never good. And so I leave before it can get bad.”

Buck smiles, his heart breaking for Tommy all over again, and strokes his thumb over his stubble. “But what if it’s good? What if it’s good this time? Didn’t it feel like it was? Like it’d maybe always be like that?”

“Yeah,” Tommy says, his hand coming up to hook over Buck’s wrist, his thumb rubbing against his bare skin. “You didn’t say anything wrong, just none of it was…correct. I’m not—I’m not what you think I am.”

“I think you’re everything I’ve ever been looking for.” Buck’s smile widens when Tommy’s gaze shifts back to his and softens. “And I think you’re the only person I’ll ever find who makes me feel the way you do, who puts up with everything that isn’t perfect about me. So I also think we should give this another shot.”

“Really?” Tommy says, his voice soft and disbelieving.

“You gave me a second chance after I really fucked up. What kind of guy would I be if I didn’t give you one?”

Tommy shrugs. “A reasonable one?”

Buck huffs out a laugh and shakes his head. “Nah, I’ve never been that. Never been reasonable, never been great at thinking before I talk, I’m pretty bad at self-control, and I’ve got abandonment issues like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Yeah, but I love you anyway.”

It sounds so simple when Tommy says it, but Buck feels his breath stutter in his chest. Tommy knows about Daniel, about the lying, but he doesn’t know about that day. He doesn’t know what Buck had wanted more than anything from his parents, from anybody.

Tommy’s eyes dart between his. “Sorry, was that—”

Buck cuts him off with a kiss, Tommy's face still cradled in his hands. When a hand curls around the back of his neck, he feels safe.

“I love you,” Buck whispers in the scant space between their lips when they break apart to breathe. “We still need to talk, but I can’t let you fly off without saying that.”

Tommy kisses him again, and it’s messy and a little frantic and so, so familiar. It’s the way he’d kiss Buck when he seemed desperate for him, the way he’d kiss when they hadn’t seen each other in days because of shift schedules keeping them apart, the way Buck had kissed him in a hospital when he’d finally had someone show up for him.

“Hey, everything ok—oh, shit,” Lucy says from behind them, and Buck breaks the kiss quickly. It’s really not okay that they’re doing this on a call. “I mean, don’t let me interrupt.”

“No, sorry, I should—” Buck points his thumb over his shoulder and looks back at Tommy, who’s flushed and smiling and the prettiest thing Buck’s ever seen. “Cap’s probably waiting.”

“Yeah, I’d like to get home,” Bobby says from behind Lucy. “You okay, Buck?”

“Yeah,” Buck says with a shaky smile as he keeps staring into Tommy’s eyes. “Yeah, I’m great.”

He leans in and kisses Tommy again before slipping out of the chopper. When he looks back, Tommy is out of his seat and following him.

“Luce, can you fly us back?” he asks, and she nods, slipping into the seat he’s just vacated. Tommy turns his attention back to Buck and reaches for his hands. “I’ll make you dinner. Unless you want to go out or go to your place.”

Buck shakes his head. “No, that sounds nice. Also, all I have at my place is bread and two kinds of cake right now. Unless you want a bowl of ganache for dinner.”

Tommy’s brows knit together. “I—ganache?”

“Don’t ask,” Bobby says dryly.

“I’ll explain it later,” Buck says, flushing. “But, yeah, I can come over.”

“Okay,” Tommy says, smiling when Buck does. “God, I’m never letting you go again.”

“Good,” Buck says, leaning in until their foreheads are touching. “I’m not letting you go, either. I mean, other than literally, because I kinda have to go back to the station.”

Tommy laughs, and Buck pulls back so he can see the way Tommy’s nose scrunches. “God, I love you so much,” Tommy says.

“I love you, too,” Buck says, feeling every bone in his body melt away. He’s addicted to saying it now, he can feel it. His heart feels like it's made of air and sparks and butterflies, everything feels brighter. “I’ll see you soon.”

Tommy leans in and gives him a quick, too-fast kiss, because now they’re in public and really shouldn’t be kissing on a call. When they separate, Buck turns to see that Bobby, Eddie, Hen, and Chimney are watching with giant grins on their faces.

“Shut up,” he says, his face growing hot as he walks toward them, glancing back as Tommy climbs into the chopper. He waves, and Buck smiles and waves back.

“We didn’t say anything,” Chimney protests.

“Yeah, we’re just happy for you,” Hen says, throwing an arm across his back as they walk toward where the engine’s parked.

“Yeah, and I’m also happy because I just won like fifty bucks from Josh,” Eddie adds. “I said you’d get back together before Valentine’s Day, he had money on the day.”

“And we just cleaned out half of Harbor,” Chimney says, fist-bumping with Hen behind Buck’s back. “Because half of them said before New Year’s, half of them had Valentine’s Day or my wedding anniversary. We doubled down on January. I even got a bonus for it being under eight weeks.”

“I didn’t bet on your relationship,” Bobby says, patting Buck’s shoulder as he passes them.

“Thanks, Cap,” he says dryly.

“Because I knew you’d figure it out in your own time, and also Athena called it a ‘sucker’s bet,” he adds, grinning over his shoulder.

“I hate all of you,” Buck mutters.

“You love us,” Hen says, squeezing him tight.

“Not as much as Tommy, but we’re high on the list,” Chimney agrees.

“And we love you,” Eddie says. “Even though you were busy making up with your boyfriend while we finished putting out that fire.”

Buck throws up his hands in exasperation. “I had to get airlifted from the site!”

“By your bo-oyfriend,” Eddie teases.

“Guys,” Bobby says, opening the engine. “C’mon—”

Buck sighs. “Thank you.”

“—let’s not pressure them into any labels yet.”

Buck hauls himself inside. “Traitor.”

“My A1C is up half a point from last year, I don’t want to hear it. Let’s go, kids, some of us have dinners to get to and paperwork to fill out.”

They pile into the engine, and Buck slouches in his seat with a smile on his face. He texts Tommy that he’s bringing dessert, and he watches intently as a bubble appears until the text comes through.

Tommy

Sounds good :)

You can head over whenever you want. I’m leaving as soon as we land.

Got a hot date tonight. I hope. Lucy said she’s going to drop us out of the sky because she’s out $100??

I’ll see you soon, I’m getting reamed for not being a romantic and waiting until Valentine’s Day?

[briefinquiries]

Under the Blood Moon | Peaky Blinders | Chapter 16

Tommy Shelby x Reader: Chapter 16

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6|Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16

Fic Summary: You came to Birmingham for a fresh start, to bury the past and keep your head down. As a former nurse in the war, you’ve seen enough blood and death to last a lifetime. But fate (and the Shelby’s) have other plans. After stitching Tommy Shelby back together, you find yourself drawn further into their world, a world of violence, loyalty, and power. When Tommy offers you a job, it comes with more than just good pay, it comes with expectations and lines you never planned to cross.

Chapter summary: Tommy waits by your bedside in the hospital, wracked with guilt, blaming himself for every bruise, every wound, haunted by the possibility that he almost lost you. When you finally wake, the damage is done, and though you're alive, the injuries you’ve suffered may not fade so easily.

Word count: 5k

Warnings: Violence, injury, mentions of blood, gore, and open wounds, PTSD and war flashbacks, alcohol use, and mild language, mention of torture and vague, nonconsensual sexualization and touch, emetaphobia.

A/N: Thank you all for sticking with me this long. I'm actually going to be so sad when I finish up this story, this has been such a good escape for me lately. All your messages and replies have seriously been making my entire day, so it's all very much appreciated. Enjoy chapter 16 & all it's angst and fluff :)

(Also, a few people have asked to be added to a tag list, I don't really do a tag list when I post, but maybe that's something I can look to do at some point!)

--

The car skidded to a stop, the tires screeching against the wet pavement outside the hospital.

Tommy was out of the car before it had even fully stopped, his arms locked around you, unwilling to let go for even a second.

Your body was limp in his arms, your head lolling against his chest, skin burning with fever, clothes soaked with blood and filth. You had passed out on the way here, your body slumping against his chest, your breath shallow, uneven.

He’d said your name, shaken you gently, but you never stirred. Not when he spoke softly against your ear. Not when he tucked your face against his neck and told you he was getting you out of this. And now– now, you weren’t moving at all.

Arthur was already out of the car and shouting for help, his voice carrying over the storm of Tommy’s thoughts.

Within moments, nurses and orderlies rushed out, their expressions shifting from concern to alarm the second they saw you.

“She needs a doctor.” Tommy’s voice was low, sharp, commanding, but there was something wavering beneath it, something teetering on the edge of breaking.

A nurse stepped forward. “Sir,” she reached out carefully, gesturing towards the stretcher. 

Tommy didn’t move. He didn’t loosen his grip– couldn’t. His heart pounded in his chest. They wanted him to let you go. To give you up. To trust them– when he had no trust left to give.

“Sir, please. Step back.” The voice was firm, urgent. But the words barely registered.

All Tommy could see was your face– drained of color, bruised, unconscious in his arms. And when the nurses moved in, hands reaching for you, he jerked his shoulder and knocked one away, his elbow nudging another aside as he twisted, keeping you tight against his chest.

The nurses stumbled back, startled. One of them raised their hands cautiously.

“Sir, if you want her to live, you have to let us do our jobs.” 

Tommy grimaced. Because if he let go– if he let them take you, then he had nothing left but hope. And hope wasn’t enough.

Suddenly, someone grabbed his shoulder, hard.

“Tom–” Arthur’s voice was firm, but not unkind. “Let ‘em take her. They’re the only ones who can help her.”

Tommy’s breath hitched, his grip unwavering.

“I left her before– she needs me,” he muttered, his voice barely more than a rasp.

Arthur exhaled sharply, his hands digging into Tommy’s arms. “Right now, she needs a doctor, Tom. You’ll be waitin’ for her soon as they’re done. We all will.”

Tommy’s jaw locked, his chest rising and falling too fast.

“Christ sake– look at her,” Arthur pressed, his own voice cracking slightly. “You can’t fix this, Tom.”

The words cut deep. But they weren’t wrong. And Tommy knew it.

A muscle jumped in his jaw. Then, slowly, he loosened his grip. The second his arms unraveled from around you, the nurses took you, and the moment your body left his hands, it felt like something inside him ripped apart. The air vanished from his lungs. A sharp, visceral pain tore through him. Something he couldn’t name. Something he couldn’t stop. He staggered forward– instinct, refusal. 

But Arthur was there in an instant, shoving him back. “Tommy, let her go. Let her go.” His brother’s voice was low, urgent.

Just then, another car pulled up. The familiar sound of tires skidded against the pavement. Tommy barely registered it, his mind still fixated on your disappearing form. The car door swung open, and John climbed out, his coat still damp from the rain. He took one look at Tommy, his shirt covered in dirt and blood. Then he looked at Arthur and the scene unfolding in front of them. “Jesus Christ.” His breath came sharp. “Is she– ?”

Arthur turned, exhaling hard through his nose. “They’ve got her. She’s inside.”

John’s jaw ticked, his eyes darkening.

And just like that, the waiting began.

…

Hours passed. Tommy wasn’t sure how many. Time felt irrelevant.

The hands of the clock on the hospital wall moved, but the world outside didn’t exist beyond the walls of the waiting room.

He sat unmoving, elbows on his knees, jaw ticked, staring at the floor. His cigarette burned low between his fingers, the smoke curling toward the ceiling, forgotten. 

John and Arthur were still there, though their restless pacing had slowed. Polly had arrived not long after, her face like stone, her presence heavy with unspoken concern. Ada sat beside her, arms crossed, her leg bouncing restlessly.

Esme had shown up at some point, hovering near the back with John, arms folded tightly, expression unreadable.  Conversations flickered between the others, low murmurs filling the space, though none of them spoke directly to Tommy.

“Doctors are taking too fucking long,” John muttered, rubbing a hand over his face.

Arthur exhaled sharply, restless, agitated. “Shoulda’ found our own doctor.”

“She was our bloody doctor,” Esme scoffed, arms still folded tightly, expression unreadable. 

The words hung in the air, sharp and cutting. John’s jaw tightened, his shoulders tense. He didn’t look at Esme, but she wasn’t wrong.

Polly, sitting rigidly in her chair, pressed her fingers to her temple. “We wait. That’s all we can do.”

A beat of silence. Then Arthur let out a harsh exhale, pacing again, running a hand through his hair. “Fuck’s sake.”

Esme leaned forward. “Where was she?”

Arthur exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand over his face. “Old textile mill. Near the canal.” His voice was still raw, like saying it out loud made it real all over again.

Polly frowned, crossing one leg over the other. “It’s a fucking miracle we found her at all.”

Arthur nodded slowly. “Stuffed in a basement. No light. No heat. No way out.” He huffed.

Esme shook her head. “Jesus. And Campbell?”

Arthur shrugged. “Where we left him.”

“Six feet under.” John rolled his neck, exhaling. “I’m glad that fucker’s dead. I hope he suffered.”

Arthur scoffed. “It wasn’t nearly enough.”

Esme arched her brow. “Not enough? What more do you want?’”

Arthur shook his head, but his lips twitched. “You didn’t see her, Esme,” he muttered, voice tight. His pacing slowed, and for the first time since they arrived, his anger dimmed, just slightly, not gone, just simmering beneath the surface. “You didn’t see what that bastard did to her.”

Esme’s arms were still folded tightly, but something shifted in her expression. She had seen plenty of violence. Plenty of cruelty. But there was something in Arthur’s tone, in the way his jaw clenched like he was grinding his teeth to dust, that made her pause.

John exhaled sharply, rolling his shoulders. “Well, at least it’s done. Campbell’s gone.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Still gotta deal with Moss, though.”

Arthur grunted. “Fuckin’ right, we do.”

Esme’s brow lifted. “Moss?”

John nodded. “He was the one who tipped Tommy off.”

Esme scoffed. “And what does he want for that favor?”

John smirked, but there was no real amusement behind it. “Just a nice bag of cash and protection from Campbell’s ghost.”

Arthur huffed, crossing his arms. “Like we needed another bloody deal on our hands.”

Polly, who had been silent, finally spoke. “We’ll deal with it,” she said, her tone flat. 

John leaned back slightly, rubbing his jaw. “Doesn’t change the fact we owe the bastard.” He exhaled sharply.

Arthur grunted. “Right. And what we really need right now is another fucking problem.”

“That’s not what’s important right now,” Polly replied. 

The conversation continued, their voices flickering between grumbling and reluctant acceptance.

But Tommy still hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t even moved. His elbows were still braced against his knees, his hands clasped so tightly his knuckles were white.

Ada noticed before the others. Quietly, she stood and moved to sit beside him– close, but not intrusive. His suit was stiff with dried blood, his hair unruly. His hands looked like they had been clenched into fists for hours.

Ada sighed softly. After a moment, her voice came soft, measured. “Tommy.”

He didn’t look at her– didn’t even acknowledge her.

Ada pressed her lips together, watching him carefully. “You need to eat,” she said quietly. “Change your clothes.”

Nothing.

Ada studied him for a long moment, her voice even softer now. “It’s been eight hours, Tommy.”

Still, he didn’t move. She swallowed, watching the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers curled against his knees like he was holding himself together with sheer force of will.

“You need rest,” she murmured. “Even if it’s just for a little while.”

For a moment, it seemed like he wouldn’t react at all. But then, he inhaled sharply and held it. Just for a second. Just long enough for her to see it. She saw the way his jaw tensed harder, how the muscles in his throat tightened, and the smallest tremor rippled through his fingers.

And then, without a word, he put his head in his hands, not before Ada caught the faintest glisten in his eyes– gone before anyone else could notice. But she saw it. And she didn’t say anything. She just reached out, placed a gentle, steadying hand on his back, pretending she didn’t feel the way he silently trembled beneath her touch. 

The hours stretched on, slow and suffocating.

Outside, the night bled into morning, the city stirring with the first signs of life, but inside the hospital, time felt frozen.

Tommy hadn’t moved. Ada stayed beside him.

Arthur and John had shifted between pacing and sitting, muttering under their breaths, then falling silent again. Polly had remained still as stone, unreadable, though her fingers occasionally twitched against her knee, betraying her tension. Esme had eventually left, tasked with checking in on Carl and Finn, who’d both been left with the maids. 

The not knowing was unbearable. 

Until finally, a nurse appeared in the doorway, her uniform crisp, her expression calm but focused. Every head in the room snapped up. Tommy was on his feet before she spoke.

“She’s stable.”

A breath, a collective exhale of tension, relief, fear still tangled within it.

“But,” the nurse continued, her gaze flicking between them, “her injuries are severe.”

Tommy’s jaw locked. “How bad?”

The nurse inhaled slowly, glancing at the clipboard in her hands.

“Several broken ribs, extensive bruising, and lacerations across her body.” She paused, looking up. “What we’re really worried about is the head injury. It’s significant, looks like blunt force trauma. There’s swelling. She regained consciousness briefly but was disoriented.”

Tommy’s fingers curled into fists.

“She’ll likely experience lots of confusion, dizziness, headaches, probably some nausea,” the nurse went on. “We’re monitoring her closely for any signs of further complications.”

John exhaled sharply, running a hand down his face.

Arthur rubbed his knuckles together, muttering, “Fucking bastard.”

Polly nodded once, her voice even. “And what now?”

The nurse adjusted her clipboard. “She needs rest. No sudden movement. Limited stress. We’ll keep her under observation for the next twenty-four hours before making any further assessments. But as of right now, I’d say she needs to stay here for at least the next few days.”

Tommy swallowed. “Can we see her?”

The nurse hesitated. “One at a time.”

Ada exhaled through her nose, glancing at Tommy. “Go on, then.”

John nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. “We’ll wait.”

Tommy didn’t need to be told twice. Without another word, he moved, his strides purposeful, sharp, following the nurse down the corridor. The hospital smelled of antiseptic and old floors, the harsh fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Each step felt too slow– too far– too much distance between him and you.

Finally, the nurse stopped outside a door, her expression careful as she turned to him.

“She’s resting,” she said, lowering her voice. “She’s in and out, disoriented from the head trauma. But she’s stable.”

Tommy gave a curt nod, his jaw tight. 

She held his gaze for a moment, as if considering whether to say something more. Then, finally, she stepped aside, pushing open the door.

And then, he saw you. Laid against white sheets, looking smaller than you should have been, bruised and broken but breathing. 

The breath left his chest. 

A heavy wrap covered the side of your head, darkened slightly from where the wound had bled through. The rise and fall of your chest was shallow but steady. 

You were alive. 

He barely registered the nurse slipping out of the room, leaving you alone with him.

For a long moment, he didn’t move. He just stood there, staring, as if trying to grasp the reality of how close it had been. How close you had been to never waking up. 

And how, if that had happened, it would have been his fucking fault.

The thought slammed into him with the force of a bullet, knocking the breath from his lungs. Because this, all of this– The blood. The pain. The bruises staining your skin. Every last bit of it was on him. Because he had been the one to drag you into his world. To put you in Campbell’s line of fire. To make you a pawn in a game that should have never involved you.

And if you had died in that basement, if you had taken your last breath alone, in the dark– Tommy wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to live with it.

His fingers curled into fists at his sides, his whole body tensed, burning.

Then, slowly, carefully, he took a step forward. The chair beside your bed scraped against the floor as he pulled it closer, the sound sharp in the otherwise silent room. He sat down heavily, his body tired but too wound up to feel it.

For a moment, he just watched you– took you in. He studied the way your face, usually so full of life, was still and sunken, marred by bruising along your cheekbone– deep and dark from where Campbell and his men had struck you.

Your lips were cracked, dried blood at the corner of your mouth. There was discoloration along your throat, faint but there– a reminder that someone had pressed their hands where they never fucking should have been.

His jaw tightened. Slowly, carefully, Tommy reached for your hand and gathered it in his. Your fingers were cold, your knuckles scraped raw, bruising curling along your wrists from the cuffs.

The weight in his chest pressed harder.

He had done this. He had let this happen.

And now, all he could do was sit there, watching you, waiting, praying to whatever cruel God had spared you that you’d wake up.

…

The world swam in and out of darkness.

Shadows bled into light. Light bled into pain.

There was a throbbing sensation, searing pain that split your skull in two. Your head pounded so violently it felt like the walls were closing in– like something inside you was breaking apart.

You tried to breathe, tried to move, but everything was too much. Your body was too heavy. Your skin was too cold. Your stomach lurched.

A strangled gasp tore from your throat as your fingers searched blindly, reaching for something– anything– but all you found was air.

Suddenly, your hand flew to your head, clutching at it, desperate, trying to hold it together. Because it felt like it was splitting open. Like something inside your skull was cracking apart, splitting down the middle, a fault line giving way beneath unbearable pressure.

It was blinding, searing, suffocating. A hammer pounding behind your eyes. A blade carving through the base of your skull, dragging fire down the back of your neck. Every pulse of blood felt wrong, like it was trying to push through shattered bone, through bruised, swollen tissue.

The pressure built with every ragged breath, the world around you spinning so violently it felt like you were being dragged under, drowning in your own body. 

A strangled whimper escaped before you could stop it. You squeezed your fingers tighter against your scalp, as if somehow, somehow, you could stop the way it felt like it was caving in.

It just kept building, climbing, twisting into something unbearable. And then, a wave of nausea crashed into you. 

Violent. Overpowering.

Your stomach lurched so suddenly you barely had time to turn before your body gave in. Before you could even try to take a breath, you heaved and vomited, your body convulsing with the force of it, the sharp motion sending a fresh surge of agony tearing through your skull.

A deep, radiating pain that made you gasp, made your chest seize, made the world tilt even more.

It felt like you were falling.

Until suddenly, you felt a pair of cool hands.

Soft, firm, grounding. They found your temples first, brushing along the edges of your face, soothing, steadying.

And then, a hand cradled the back of your head– like it was holding your skull together for you. The touch was firm but careful, supporting your weight as you felt a forehead press against yours. 

The smell of whiskey and smoke, of earth and something distinct filled your senses.

“I’m right here, love.” A rough, warm murmur, pulling you back from the edge. “I’ve got you. You’re alright.”

Your breath hitched– your chest rising too fast, too sharp, but his grip stayed firm. 

In the distance, other voices flickered in and out.

“She needs something for the pain.”

“Someone get the doctor–”

The words were just background noise, muffled and far away.

But the sound of his voice was close, it was here. And the warm weight of his presence, settled the worst of the panic clawing at your ribs.

The pain was still there, it was fucking unbearable, but the fear? The fear lessened.

His forehead still pressed against yours, his grip firm, anchoring you. 

You whimpered, your fingers weakly gripping at his shirt. You could hear him, but you couldn’t see him. 

“Breathe, love.” His voice was warm, grounding. “Just breathe. That’s it.”

Your body trembled violently beneath his touch, but his hold didn’t waver.

“I know it hurts, sweetheart. I know.”  He pulled you closer, just slightly, just enough. “You’re safe, yeah? I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

His breath was warm against your cheek, his words soft but firm.

You latched onto it all– let his presence consume you. So when the darkness came again, pulling you under yet again– 

All you could hear was Tommy. 

All you could smell was Tommy. 

All you could feel was Tommy. 

And what a wonderful thing to know. 

…

They kept you asleep for two days.

The doctors said the head injury was worse than they thought– that you had swelling in your brain. You’d woken up days before, screaming. Thrashing. Vomiting. Sobbing. 

The moment your eyes had snapped open, panic had ripped through you, wild and uncontrollable.

All he could do was hold you down– cup your face, and murmur that everything would be alright. He had no idea if that was true, or if he was lying through his teeth just to comfort you. But he had never felt more helpless in his entire fucking life.

He couldn’t take away the pain, couldn’t erase what had been done, couldn’t change a fucking thing. And for a man like him– that was worse than anything.

So, he did the only thing he could do: he stayed. 

Because if you woke up again– if you woke up screaming, or crying, or terrified– He’d be there.

After a while, the nurses allowed more than one visitor. Tommy thought it was more for his own sanity than anything else, but he didn’t question it. 

Polly was the first to visit. She entered quietly, her movements soft, deliberate. 

She moved to your bedside, her keen eyes scanning over you, taking in every bruise, every bandage, every sign of the suffering you had endured.

A deep, quiet sigh left her lips. “My poor girl.”

Then, she reached out and took your hand.

Tommy watched from his chair in the corner as Polly held it gently, her thumb brushing over your knuckles, slow and steady. She murmured something, soft words, barely audible. A quiet prayer, maybe. She stayed like that for a while, her other hand patting yours lightly, a mother’s touch, something firm and grounding, even as you remained unconscious.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she released your hand. And then, she turned and walked over to Tommy.

“I know what you’re thinking. I know you’ve been sitting in this room, stewing for the last twenty-four hours. I understand you’re angry, I know you’re hurting. But this was not your fault, Thomas."

Tommy’s jaw tensed immediately. His fingers curled into his palms, but he didn’t say anything.

Polly waited. She wasn’t asking for a response. She was just stating the truth as she saw it. When the silence stretched too long, she sighed.

“Sometimes I think you forget I raised you. I know how you think.” Her gaze flickered toward you. “And I know what’s going through your head without you having to say it.”

Tommy exhaled sharply through his nose, shaking his head, but Polly wasn’t finished.

“This happened because of Campbell. Because he was a sick, twisted bastard, not because of you.”

Tommy’s stare was dark, glassy with something unreadable.

“You can sit here and blame yourself, waste away in this chair, punish yourself for something that was never in your hands, or you can move on and focus on how you’ll help her when she wakes up.”

His throat tightened.

“Because she’s going to need you, Thomas,” Polly said, her voice softer now.

A beat of silence. Then, Tommy finally spoke.

“I should’ve stopped it.” His voice was hoarse, heavy with exhaustion and something deeper.

Polly shook her head. “You did. You stopped him from killing her.”

Tommy swallowed hard, his fingers twitching against his knees. “I shouldn’t have let her work for me in the first place. I should’ve kept her away.” 

Polly sighed. “I hate that she ended up caught in the middle of this mess. I hate that she ended up hurt. But you and I both know you couldn’t have kept her away, even if you tried.”

She reached over, squeezing his hand once before letting go. 

“She loves you. Just as much as you love her. And she was meant to come into your life, and you were meant for hers.”

Tommy didn’t move. 

Polly tilted her head as she studied him carefully, watching the war raging behind his eyes.. “You need to sleep, Thomas.”

He let out a short breath through his nose. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know,” she murmured. Polly stood, smoothing down her skirt. “But you can’t keep going forever.”

She let her gaze drift to you one last time before giving Tommy’s shoulder a firm pat.

“I’ll be outside,” she said. “If you need anything.”

And then, she left. The door clicked shut, the quiet settling in around him like a heavy weight.

Tommy inhaled, slow, deep. He dragged a hand down his face before leaning back into the chair, exhaling.

The hours blurred.

Tommy wasn’t sure how long he sat there, watching the slow rise and fall of your chest, waiting for some sign that you were coming back to him.

At some point, John and Arthur had come in. Neither of them stayed long. John had hovered at the door at first, arms crossed over his chest, before stepping closer, muttering something like, “You’re tougher than all of us put together, love. You’ll pull through.”

Arthur had been quieter. He’d stood at the foot of the bed, hands in his pockets, looking at you for a long moment. Then, with a sharp exhale, he muttered, “We’ll take care of everything, Tom. You just focus on her, yeah?”

Tommy barely responded.

A nod. Maybe. A grunt at best.

Then they left him to it.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when Ada came in next. He only realized she was there when the chair beside him scraped against the floor as she sat down.

He didn’t look at her. Didn’t need to. She was quiet at first, just like Polly had been. Then, finally, “Tommy.”

Nothing.

She sighed. “You know she wouldn’t want this.”

His fingers curled against his knees. “Want what?”

Ada arched her brow. “You, sitting here, wasting away, waiting for her to wake up like that’ll somehow change things. They’re keeping her asleep on purpose. You can afford to slip home for an evening.”

His jaw ticked. “She might not wake up.”

Ada’s gaze softened. “She will.”

Tommy exhaled slowly through his nose, shaking his head.

“I know you, Tommy,” she continued. “And I know you’re blaming yourself.”

His throat felt tight.

“You think if you’d done something different, this wouldn’t have happened.”

He didn’t respond.

“But it did happen,” she said softly. “And you being here, tearing yourself apart over it, isn’t gonna change that.”

Tommy let his head dip, pressing his fingers to his temples, his exhaustion creeping into every inch of his body. Ada watched him carefully, her brows furrowed just slightly.

Then, she sighed. “Tommy, you need to go home.”

His fingers twitched, but he didn’t lift his head. 

“Not forever, you stubborn bastard,” she continued. “Just long enough to change your clothes, maybe sleep for an hour– hell, take a fucking bath.”

Tommy exhaled slowly through his nose, shaking his head.

Ada tilted hers. “You think she wants to wake up to you sitting here looking like a ghost? Smelling like a walking ashtray?”

Still, nothing.

She leaned in, lowering her voice like she was sharing a secret. “Tom, if she wakes up and the first thing she smells is you right now, she’s gonna leave you.”

A small, tired huff of air left Tommy’s nose.  It wasn’t quite a laugh. But it was close enough.

Ada caught it. Her lips twitched. “There it is. That’s the first reaction I’ve gotten out of you in two bloody days.”

Tommy finally lifted his head, rubbing his jaw, shaking his head.

At last, he sighed. “Fine.” 

Ada looked surprised for half a second before she masked it with a smug grin.

“Me and Polly will stay with her the whole time.”

Tommy grumbled something under his breath as he pushed up from the chair.

“She’ll be fine, Tom. Go home.”

He hesitated, casting one last glance at you.

Then, without another word, he turned and left.

…

Consciousness came in slow waves.

It wasn’t violent like before, or a drowning, suffocating pull into agony.

Just… slow.

Your head still ached, a dull, steady throb behind your skull, but it wasn’t blinding, or even unbearable.

And when you blinked against the dim light of the room– you realized that you could see again.

A slow, shaky breath filled your lungs.

The blurry haze that had suffocated you before was gone.

Your vision wasn’t perfect– a little hazy at the edges, the room slightly too bright, but it was there. You exhaled softly, letting your gaze wander, taking in your surroundings.

You weren’t in the basement.

You were somewhere safe.

A hospital, maybe.

The sheets beneath your fingers were soft, clean. The air was cool, crisp, tinged faintly with antiseptic.

A sharp contrast to the damp, suffocating stench of blood and stone that had clung to you for days.

Your gaze shifted slightly. A figure sat in the chair beside your bed, her legs crossed, fingers idly fidgeting with a loose thread at the hem of her sleeve.

Ada’s dark hair was pulled into a loose, messy knot, her brows slightly furrowed in concentration as she twirled the thread between her fingers.

You swallowed, your throat dry, hoarse. The movement caught her attention.

Her head snapped up, eyes locking onto yours. “Holy shit.”

She was on her feet in an instant, moving closer, eyes scanning your face.

Her voice softened. “You’re awake.”

You swallowed again, voice rough when you finally rasped out, “I think so.”

A small, shaky exhale left Ada’s lips. Then, her expression shifted, softer, but still firm. “How are you feeling?”

Ada’s voice was softer now, steady but careful, as if she was trying not to startle you. You swallowed against the dryness in your throat, grimacing slightly.

“Like I got hit by a train.”

Ada huffed out a short breath. “Yeah,” she muttered. “You look it, too.”

You gave a weak, tired smirk. Your body still felt heavy, weak, sore all over. Your ribs ached, deep bruises throbbing beneath the bandages. The dull throb in your head was still there, lingering behind your skull like an echo of something much worse.

Ada shifted beside you, reaching toward the bedside table.

“Here.” She grabbed a glass of water, guiding it toward you.

You tried to lift your arm, but the effort was exhausting. Your muscles trembled, too weak to hold the weight, and before you could drop it, Ada sighed and leaned in, pressing the glass lightly to your lips.

“Alright, alright. Just sip.”

Cool water touched your tongue, soothing the rawness in your throat. You sighed in relief. Ada pulled the glass away, setting it back on the table before looking at you again.

Her arms folded, her brow furrowed slightly. And then, her expression softened.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” she said quietly. “Everyone’s been so worried.”

Your chest tightened. There was something about hearing it– knowing that they had been waiting, that she had been waiting. That you had been missed.

You cleared your throat, voice quiet. “How long?”

She exhaled, leaning back in her chair. “Two days.”

Your stomach dropped as the weight of it settled in.

“Where’s Tommy?”

Ada scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Home, finally. Only because I convinced him that if you woke up to him smelling the way he did, you might leave him.”

Something small, warm flickered in your chest. For the first time in a long time, you managed a weak, tired smile.

Ada grinned. “He should be back soon. You alright if I go get Polly? She’s been waiting, too. Think she might kill me if I don’t go tell her you’re awake.”

You gave a small nod, but the movement made your head swim. Ada noticed immediately, her expression flickering with warning.

“Oi,” she leaned in, eyes narrowing. “Don’t go passing out on us again before I’m back, yeah?”

You huffed a breath, half amused, half exhausted. “I’ll do my best.”

Ada rolled her eyes, shaking her head, but there was relief in the gesture, in the teasing, in the fact that she could even joke with you at all.

She pushed up from the chair. “Alright. I’ll be right back.”

You murmured something incoherent in response, exhaustion tugging at you again, but Ada was already moving toward the door.

As she slipped out, the room fell quiet again.

Your body still ached, your head still throbbed, but you hoped the worst of it had passed.

You were here.

You were safe.

And before you could dwell too much on any of it, the door opened again. And the second Polly’s eyes landed on you, her whole expression softened.

Relief. Pure, unfiltered relief. “Oh, love.”

She hurried to your side, brushing your hair back, resting a hand against your cheek, checking you over like only Polly Gray could.

The second her fingers grazed against your cheek, something inside you uncoiled. Polly had that effect. She didn’t rush, didn’t overwhelm. Just watched you carefully, studying every inch of your face, her eyes sharp, assessing.

“You gave us all a fucking scare, love.”

You swallowed. “Sorry.”

Polly huffed, shaking her head. “Don’t be stupid.” She pulled the chair closer, settling into it like she’d done it a hundred times already.

And knowing Polly, she probably had.

Her fingers lingered against your temple, just barely ghosting over the bandages before she pulled away. “How’s your head?”

You shifted slightly, but the movement made your stomach churn. “It’s alright,” you lied. 

Polly raised a suspicious and knowing brow. 

You sighed. “Hurts like hell.”

Polly nodded like she’d already known the answer before she asked.

“They’re keeping a close eye on you,” she murmured. “You were out for a long time.”

You exhaled softly, closing your eyes for a moment.

“He wouldn’t leave,” she continued. “We had to force him to go home, just for a few hours.”

You swallowed hard. Something thick settled in your chest, pressing against your ribs. Polly must’ve seen it, because her expression softened. 

“Won’t be long now,” she murmured. “He’ll be back soon.”

You nodded again, slower this time, realizing just how much you craved Tommy’s comfort. 

Polly watched you carefully. She could see it, the way your shoulders tensed, the way you blinked a little too fast, the way your fingers curled weakly into the blanket.

She sighed, leaning forward slightly. “He just about tore the whole fucking town apart looking for you, love.”

Polly’s voice was soft, but there was weight behind it.

“Campbell was dead the second Tommy realized you were missing. He just didn’t know it yet.”

You swallowed, your throat tight.

Polly tilted her head, studying your face. “I know he doesn’t always show it,” she murmured. “Not the way you might want him to. But Thomas Shelby doesn’t tear the city apart for just anyone.”

Your fingers twitched. Polly reached over, patting your arm gently.

“He cares for you. More than you know.”

Your chest tightened as the guilt settled deep. Because for two days in that basement– you had let yourself wonder if Tommy had cared at all. You had let Campbell’s words sink their claws into you.

Before you could respond, the door was swinging open. 

Polly glanced over her shoulder. Then, she turned back to you, her expression unreadable.

“I’ll give you two a minute.” 

And with that, she stood, stepping aside for Tommy to step into the room.

Polly gave him a small nod as she passed.

Then, she was gone.

Your fingers curled into the blanket, grip weak but trembling. You wanted to say something. But before you could,  Tommy moved.

Slow at first, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed.

Then, all at once, like he couldn’t stop himself. He pulled the chair up right beside your bed. He sat down, leaned forward, his elbows bracing against his knees, and finally his eyes met yours.

And you saw everything: the rage. The exhaustion. The guilt. The relief.

Tommy’s eyes didn’t leave yours. He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, his hand absently rubbing at the edge of his jaw as he studied you.

Then, finally– his voice low, careful, steady. “How’s the pain?”

You swallowed, throat raw. “I’m fine.” Your voice came out hoarse, weak, unconvincing.

Tommy’s eyes didn’t move from yours. “Don’t lie.”

It wasn’t a demand. It wasn’t sharp. It was quiet. Steady. A simple truth.

Your breath caught, fingers curling into the blanket. “It hurts.”

Tommy nodded once. “Where?”

You hesitated, your chest feeling like it was caving in. “Everywhere.”

A slow, sharp exhale pushed through his nose. His jaw ticked, just slightly, his fingers tapping against his knee. “Your head?” 

You gave a weak nod, trying to fight the tears burning behind your eyes. Tommy’s gaze flickered up toward the wrap along your temple, his expression darkening. His hand twitched, like he wanted to touch, to check, to fix it. But he didn’t.

“Your ribs?”

Another nod.

“They’ll keep you here another night. Maybe longer.” His voice was still calm, but there was something tighter underneath it now. “You need to rest. Let the doctors–”

You never heard the rest of his sentence. Because somewhere, deep in your chest, something cracked. Your ribs ached with the effort to breathe through it, to stay in control, to keep from falling apart. But the walls were crumbling.

The pressure, the exhaustion, the sheer weight of everything you had endured– it all caved in at once. Your shoulders tensed, then slowly, slowly, they collapsed altogether. Your spine curled, your body folding in on itself, like you could somehow physically contain everything building inside you. But you couldn’t. 

A sharp breath hitched in your throat, and then, the first tear spilled over. Once it started, you couldn’t stop it. 

The dam broke.

A shudder wracked through you, and then another. You clenched your jaw, tried to hold back the sob, but it clawed its way free, raw and broken. Your hands shook violently, curling into the fabric of the blanket, clinging to something, anything.

Before you could even process it– before you could think, before you could be embarrassed, before you could try to pull yourself together– his hand was on your face. Warm, steady, thumb brushing away a tear as fast as it fell. His other hand wrapped gently around yours, his fingers curling tight, grounding you. You squeezed your eyes shut, but that didn’t stop the tears.

Every emotion you had buried, every moment of fear, every second spent in the dark, waiting for death– it all tore out of you at once.

You barely registered Tommy sliding onto the bed beside you, his shoes still on the ground, his arm slipping around your waist.

But when he pulled you close, when he tucked you against his chest, holding you tight, you moved without thinking. Your body curled into him, seeking warmth, seeking comfort, seeking the only thing that had ever made you feel safe.

His arms wrapped around you fully now, one hand cradling the back of your head, his fingers stroking slow, steady circles along your hip.

Tommy never moved– never loosened his grip. Not once.

He just held you.

And when the cries finally faded into weak, hiccuping breaths, when the exhaustion became heavier than the grief, you finally spoke.

Voice trembling, barely above a breath. “I was scared, Tommy.”

Tommy’s fingers froze. His grip on you tightened, just slightly. Then, he let out a quiet exhale. “I know, love. I know.”

You could still feel the ache in your ribs, the pulsing throb in your skull, the lingering, invisible grip of Campbell’s hands on your skin– But you also felt the warmth of Tommy’s body against yours. You felt the weight of his arms, solid, steady, unmoving and the soft, rhythmic push and pull of his breath against your temple.

You exhaled, slow and shaky, the last remnants of tension uncoiling from your muscles.

And finally, you let your eyes flutter shut. 

…

Darkness.

Heavy, suffocating, endless.

You couldn’t move.

Couldn’t scream.

The weight of him was crushing, smothering, pinning you down.

Campbell’s breath was hot against your ear.

His voice– low, taunting, cruel. "I like it when you struggle."

You fought, thrashing, clawing, screaming–

You woke up screaming.

Your body jerked upright, ribs screaming in protest, lungs gasping for air. The room around you was dark. Too dark. Panic seized your chest.

No. No, no, no–

Blackness.

A sob ripped through you, shaking, broken. 

Your breathing grew sharp, too quick, too shallow, and then, the pain hit.

White-hot, blinding.

Your head pounded, unbearable, relentless, splitting open like a hammer against bone.

You let out a strangled gasp, hands flying to your head, gripping, clutching, desperate to hold yourself together. 

Everything spun.

Your stomach lurched violently.

You thought you might vomit, your chest heaving, body trembling, and then– 

Hands.

Warm, firm hands gripping your wrists.

“Hey, hey, hey–” a familiar voice rang out. You kept your eyes shut, clenched tight.

“It’s not real,” you cried.

But his grip was steady, strong. It felt real.

He was pulling your hands away from your head, prying your fingers loose.

“Look at me.” His voice was low, urgent.

You shook your head, whimpering.

“Open your eyes, love.”

A firm hand cradled your face. Thumbs skimming over your cheeks, grounding you.

Your breath hitched.

“You’re safe. Open your eyes.”

Finally, you did– 

And there he was. Tommy. 

His stormy, blue eyes were edged with worry and rimmed with exhaustion.

You let out a weak, shuddering sob. Your body trembled. “Tommy–”

Your voice broke. More tears streamed down your face.

“It hurts–”

Your hands weakly grasped at his arms, grounding yourself in the solid weight of him. He nodded quickly, his hands never leaving your skin.

“I know.” His voice was softer now, urgent but gentle. “I know, love. You’re alright. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

The room was spinning. The pounding in your head grew worse.

More voices– somewhere distant.

A nurse, maybe. “She needs more pain medication,” she said.

You barely registered the pinch of the needle above the pulsating sensation in your skull. 

Suddenly, Tommy was climbing into the bed beside you. He pulled you against his chest again, the same way you’d been laying when you first fell asleep. You cradled your head against him.

His fingers threaded into your hair, slow, gentle, rubbing soothing circles at your temple. 

“Shh,” he cooed. “The meds will kick in soon. Breathe.”

Your body melted into him, trembling, exhausted. 

“Don’t leave,” you whispered weakly, voice barely above a whisper. “Please– stay.”

Tommy’s hand never stopped moving, never stopped grounding you. His grip on you tightened, firm and unshakable.

“I’m right here, love,” he murmured. “Not going anywhere. I got you.” 

His voice was low, steady, certain. It wasn’t a promise, nor a reassurance. 

It was a fact.

Your breath hitched, but the sobs had faded. The pounding in your head was still there, but his touch softened the edges of it, dulled it into something manageable.

The warmth of him, the unwavering, solid presence of him, was enough to pull you back from the edge. Your fingers curled weakly into his shirt, gripping it like an anchor.

His lips pressed against your hair, just briefly, just enough. And slowly, finally, the tension in your body began to ease.

You exhaled.

And when your body began to surrender to exhaustion, when your eyes fluttered shut again, there was no more doubt.

You weren’t in the basement anymore.

You weren’t alone.

You weren’t lost.

Tommy was holding you. And he wasn’t letting go.

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[rcmclachlan]

WIP Wednesday

Tagged by the lovely @beanarie!

Here's a snippet of something I started writing yesterday. It hit me out of nowhere, and once I came out of the fugue state, I discovered I'd written 4,000 words.

The premise: Buck is in the middle of making room for his stuff in Tommy's closet when he finds an old phone hidden in a shoebox. Unexpectedly, it starts ringing.

+

"Sorry, but I don't negotiate with terrorists," Tommy says, then chucks the hornworm into the bucket by his feet. It lands inside with a muted thunk. There must be a bunch more of the little bastards in there.

"USA! USA!" Buck chants, pumping a fist into the air as he gets closer.

Cracking up, Tommy dashes the back of his gloved hand across his forehead. All it does is smear dirt and make him look rugged and disgustingly sexy. Buck wants to lick every drop of sweat from his body. 

"Done already? Please tell me I got to keep at least three hangers."

"Is there a henley shortage coming that the rest of us aren't ready for? Jesus." Buck holds up the Nike box and says. "I, uh, found this. Or it found me? It started ringing out of nowhere and scared the living shit out of me."

The moment Tommy claps eyes on it, something fascinating happens. Every muscle in his body visibly tenses, like a wave that starts at his jaw and washes its way down, leaving quiet devastation in its wake. In a single almost fluid motion, he straightens up from his lean and folds his hands at the small of his back. Shoulders back, chin up, feet apart. Parade rest. 

Buck's eyebrows hit his hairline. "Tommy?"

"It started ringing." It's not a question or even an accusation. Tommy says it like a simple statement of fact, his voice is flat as a board, the edges sharp enough to draw blood. "It just... started ringing."

"I, uh, yeah?" Buck holds out the box to him, jostling the phone inside, but Tommy doesn't move to take it. 

In fact, Tommy does nothing. Tommy says nothing. Buck has to squint to confirm that he's even breathing. 

After the most terrifyingly silent thirty seconds of Buck's life, Tommy shifts his gaze from Buck to, oddly enough, the sky.

"Did you answer it?"

"No, of course not!" Just because they're on rock solid ground now doesn't mean there aren't still fault lines beneath the surface. He at least thought he knew most of them. "I-I wouldn't, I swear. I just let it ring."

Tommy's nostrils flare. If his lips were any thinner, they'd probably disappear. 

"Um, I'm sorry. I know you said I could have free rein, but I didn't mean..." He has no idea how to end that sentence. He didn't mean to do what? Dig up something that Tommy obviously tried to bury? Make room for himself in Tommy's closet? Make room for himself in Tommy's life in the first place? 

A moment passes, and then the statue that was once his boyfriend shivers back to life. Tommy closes his eyes, exhales, and steps forward to take the box from Buck's trembling hands, tucking it under his arm. He wraps the other around Buck's waist and draws him close for a kiss. Buck pushes into it gratefully.

"Sorry," Tommy says against his mouth, then pecks it again before drawing back. "Sorry, I'm being an asshole. Get that look off your face, you did nothing wrong, okay? I was just... surprised to see it. I forgot it was even in there."

"What is it?" Buck mentally slaps himself. "I mean, I know it's a phone, but who was on the other end of it?"

Tommy doesn't answer right away. Instead he looks up at the sky again for a long moment, a strange smile quirking at the corners of his mouth. When he looks back at Buck, his pupils have shrunken to pinpricks. "Think of it like, uh, an old war injury acting up. It's nothing for you to worry about."

"Is it something for you to worry about?"

No pressure tags: @dadvans, @liminalmemories21, @screamlet, @setmeatopthepyre, and @leashybebes

[joelmillers-wife]

take my hand (joel miller x f!reader) chapter two

18+, MDNI series masterlist: here | please check this for complete series warnings and tags pairing: joel miller x f!reader chapter summary: you officially meet your new neighbor–just not the one you were expecting. you also finally get your patrol assignments. wc: 6.2k rating: this story is 18+ (minors, do not interact), there will be eventual smut in later chapters  chapter warnings and tags: very minor violence (reader goes on patrol), cursing and tlou lore accurate outbreak content below, reader has no description besides she has hair, jackson!joel, age difference: reader is in her 30s and joel is in his 50s, sloooow burn, enemies to friends to lovers type-beat, ellie introduction ao3 | follow @writtenbynic and turn on notifications for chapters! dividers made by: @saradika-graphics , check them out!

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II. THE VIEW BETWEEN VILLAGES

Passed Alger Brook Road, I'm over the bridge A minute from home but I feel so far from it The death of my dog, the stretch of my skin It's all washin' over me, I'm angry again The things that I lost here, the people I knew They got me surrounded for a mile or two The car's in reverse, I'm grippin' the wheel I'm back between villages and everything's still

Sleep never found you that first night. 

Your bed was too soft—sheets too warm. The clock inside your bedroom ticking too loudly and consuming your already racing thoughts. Instead, you chose to spend that night looking at the details of your new home, attempting to memorize where everything was and recall memories of how to use all the different appliances.

The second morning you were there, Tommy had showed up to help you decide where you wanted to work for the next few weeks. You had settled on helping with the horses in the stable, sharing that you missed seeing the animals and found joy out of seeing them in an environment they could thrive more in. While not a lie, you chose the job as a means to see what patrol is like. Being set up more towards the front gates of the town, you could see how things operate–could see the kind of people who went in and out and what weapons they carried. The small bits of information you got were enough to give you a small peace of mind being here.

It’s been two weeks of working here when you hear the sounds of someone barging into the stables with a shout one afternoon.

“Shimmer!”

You quickly look to the entryway to see a young girl running towards one of the smaller horses they had. She looked young–couldn’t be older than fifteen–with long dark auburn hair tied into a low ponytail with a woolen hat pulled over her head. She wore typical clothing for living in Wyoming in the winter… minus the converse she had on that clearly had seen better days. You notice a scar on her right eyebrow that cuts through the hair there. 

She was petting the horse and speaking to her in a soft manner.

You clear your throat before speaking up to ask, “Is she yours?”

The young girl turns to you surprised, almost as if she was realizing she wasn’t alone. “Yeah! Well… not really,” she spoke shyly. “I’m technically not old enough yet to be allowed outside on my own to ride the horses. But, Shimmer is also young, and Maria says that she can grow up to be mine if I’m responsible in taking care of her.”

You give her a small smile, her enthusiasm making you feel at ease for a moment. “Well, she’s a very good girl. I’m sure you take great care of her with how she reacts with you,” you point out. The girl’s smile grows at your words, looking back to the horse–Shimmer.

Suddenly, her head snaps back to you with a look of realization. “Hey! You’re our new neighbor, right? I’m Ellie!”

You look at her a bit confused but respond, “Uh, yeah I settled in a few weeks ago. Is your house on the same block as mine?”

Her eyes light up a bit more. “It’s more like, directly in front of you!”

Your confusion deepens briefly before what she says dawns on you, your mouth forming a small “o” as you remember the shadowed figure in the window that first night in the house right across from yours. Joel’s house.

“Oh, so, you’re Joel’s kid then?”

Her face twists in a sort of comical disgust before saying, “Oh, fuck no! I’m not related to that old man. Can you imagine? I would not be as funny and charming as I am if I was raised around that one my whole life.”

Confusion enters your face again, along with shock at the crass language coming from someone so young. “Oh… I’m sorry. I—I just assumed–”

She cuts you off lightheartedly, saying, “Nah don’t worry about it. Common mistake people tend to make here.”

You nod in acknowledgement, looking back to your task before facing her again and speaking up. “So… if he’s not your dad, then how do you know each other?”

Her smile slightly falters. Fuck. Did you say something wrong? You frantically try to retract your words by saying, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked–”

“It’s okay,” she says while smiling again. But, it feels forced this time. Almost as if it pains her to answer—or, like she doesn’t know how to answer. “We, uh, we just found each other, I guess. Went on a… journey of sorts and, well, he’s stuck with me now! Old man doesn’t realize how lucky he really is.”

You don’t press further and instead offer something to try and make her more at ease. “Well, he’s lucky to get paired up with a kid who’s apparently an up and coming comedian,” you joke, recalling her comments on her charm and humor.

That genuine smile and excitement you first saw from her comes back again, and you feel this warm sensation wash over you. “Do you wanna hear a joke?!” She excitedly asks. Except, you don’t think she was really asking considering she’s already reaching into her backpack and pulling out a book.

“What is that?” You ask.

“This is a national treasure, you see. No Pun Intended: Volume Too, by the one and only Will Livingston,” she says with a proud look on her face. 

Does she carry this around with her all the time?

She flips through the pages, eyes quickly scanning the lines before she focuses on something that must satisfy her. Dramatically clearing her throat, she speaks up. “Wanna hear a joke about pizza?” Before you can respond, she adds, “Never mind, it was too cheesy!”

Oh my god.

“What did the green grape say to the purple grape?” She continued.

You follow along with the cheesy puns. “I don’t know, what?”

“Breathe you idiot!” She exclaims. A giggle comes out of you, not really because the jokes are particularly funny, but more so because she sounds so excited sharing such ridiculous dad jokes, that you can’t help but share her joy. It’s the first time you’ve genuinely smiled and laughed in what feels like years.

She continues along with a few more. “What did the triangle say to the circle? You’re so pointless!” Giggling as she reads. “What did the cannibal get–”

Her face almost pales as she cuts herself off, and her smile immediately drops as she stops reading the next joke. It’s such a different reaction from the girl you’ve gotten to know in a short time, that it causes you to become concerned.

“Hey, are you okay?” You ask, but she doesn’t look up at you or respond right away. Her hands start trembling slightly and her mouth slightly open as the next words die in her throat. “Ellie?” You push, your worry growing. You watch as she quite literally snaps out of it–shaking her head and shutting her eyes quickly, blinking away whatever thoughts she had.

“Yeah! Sorry, um, I just remembered I had to get some homework done before school tomorrow,” she rushes out while looking down at her feet. You don’t exactly believe her but don’t want to pry any further. 

Instead you tell her, “Of course. I didn’t mean to keep you too long asking questions.” Noticing her still uneasy expression, you try to make her smile by saying, “I mean, it’s not everyday I get to hear about a national treasure.”

She looks back up at you with a growing smile and a giggle forming as she says, “Well, ya know, someone has to do the hard work around here.” You laugh genuinely again, glad to make her feel better from whatever thoughts had popped up into her head.

Why do you care so much?

Ellie says her goodbyes to Shimmer, packing the joke book back into her bag, and starts to head out before she stops and turns back to you one more time. “Oh my god!” She says. “I’m such an asshole, holy shit. I never asked your name?”

You smile, stating your name to her and watching her smile in return and repeat your name back to you. “Thank god I remembered to ask. Joel’s been fucking hounding me about it for weeks,” she says.

What?

You can’t get a word out before she continues on. “I mean, seriously. You think with his damn brother and sister-in-law being in charge that he’d just ask them everything. But noooo—the big bad Joel Miller doesn’t care about anyone or anything, so he must keep that mysterious aura about him,” she says mockingly, before her brows furrow together. “Except, he really doesn’t pester me this much…” She trails off. 

Shrugging her shoulders, she continues rambling off. “I mean I guess it makes sense considering you're one of our few neighbors. So he probably just has to know if you’re like a crazy person, which you’re totally not, don't worry. I can tell. But god, fucking weeks of ‘Ellie, who is that? Ellie, what do you know about that woman? Ellie, why am I not capable of being a normal person and asking her directly?’” She mocks with an impression of a southern, deep-toned voice that makes you let out a small laugh. 

“Anyways… It was nice to meet you, neighbor. See you around!” She says before running out of the stables.

You're left with your own thoughts—a million questions racing through you. Why does Joel ask her about you so much? And why can’t he just do it himself?

The following couple months throughout winter became a routine that you’ve gotten used to more and more. You wake up, eat breakfast, go to the stables, go to patrol training, eat dinner, come home, shower, sleep. During this time, you’ve gotten to know the community a bit more–and in return, they’ve gotten to know you. You don’t know if you would count some of these people as friends, but they certainly don’t feel like complete strangers anymore. 

Tommy was right. Everyone has their roles and they stick to it, helping each other and everyone else out in the meantime. It’s something you’ve become acclimated to, and even appreciate.

Surprisingly, and pleasantly, you’ve grown closest to Ellie. Despite her being a bit younger than you, her company is one you adore and almost rely on. She would regularly come into the stables after school to see Shimmer, only to end up staying for hours just helping you with your work and talking about anything and everything. She shared her love of comic books, records, board games, books, space, dinosaurs, and whatever movies Joel makes her watch with him. You’ve learned she’s turning sixteen this coming spring, and that they’ve lived in Jackson for almost a year. The little she shares about their time before coming here is that they traveled together when she was fourteen, came to Jackson two winters ago, before leaving briefly and came back last spring—staying here ever since.

With the spring approaching, Jackson weather has ever so slightly warmed up by March–a nice change from the extreme cold you experienced after arriving in the late months of fall. Because of the weather change, Ellie’s attire has shifted from thick coats to rolled up sleeves, showcasing what looks like an old bandage haphazardly wrapped around her right forearm. When you first noticed it and asked her, she had that pale face you had seen on her the first time she came to the stables. “Oh, that. I fucked up as a kid back in the QZ’s and got a chemical burn. Now I try to keep it covered up so as to not freak people out,” she shares. She was firm and direct in her statement, you taking it as a clear sign to not ask further about the covered-up skin.

Considering all this time spent with her, and all the information you’ve shared between each other, she doesn’t talk much about Joel. Nothing outside of the passing comments of, “I gotta go get home for dinner with Joel. Or, “Joel and I watched this movie last night.” To be fair, you don’t ask–but you supposed you expected to hear more about him. But, that’s mainly because everyone else does.

You hear non-stop in town about Joel Miller. How harsh and cold he was in the mess hall. How he barged into town meetings to complain. How Maria supposedly cannot stand him. Which you believe considering the interaction between Maria and Joel when you first were shown your new home, and how she glares at him and challenges all his grievances he holds about how things are run. Really, the only good things you heard of him were that he’d come with Tommy to help fix things around town—something you assume his brother and sister-in-law forced him into.

You don’t see much of him, considering your proximity to each other. The rare instances occur either in the early hours of the morning, or late at night when you both go to and from your daily tasks. He still hasn’t spoken a word to you–hasn’t even given you more than a passing glance if your paths cross around town. Unsurprisingly, he holds the same annoyed expression each time.

Man, you think, he really does just have a permanent scowl. 

You would’ve thought you’d see more of him considering your job in the stables and being at the gates almost all hours of the day. But, conveniently, Joel’s schedule tended to find him already beyond the walls while you were there. It wasn’t till this week that things had changed.

It was almost four months of working in the stables, and three months of patrol training—learning what is needed out there. Three months of showing your skills and what you can offer. 

You started to get antsy, the previous Friday practically begging Tommy to let you join patrol officially. He laughed as if he understood the feeling, and shared that the main captains were pleased with your skills and how you handled yourself the past few weeks when you transitioned to short, supervised patrol runs with them. He promised that after the weekend, your first official partnered patrol would be held Monday. 

That brings you to now, that following Monday morning. While you feel more comfortable living here, you still haven’t been able to get a proper night’s sleep. Considering your lack of sleep, you had no issue being dressed and ready for your 7 a.m. patrol time. In fact, you had shown up thirty minutes early and headed towards the board posted outside the stables—papers pinned along the space showcasing each person’s designated patrol time, station, and partner for the month. Before having the chance to scan through where your name lies on the list, you hear shouting coming from inside the stables on the opposite side of the wall where the board lies. The voice you hear shouting the loudest happens to be one you have not heard in weeks. 

Apparently you were not the only person who had shown up early for patrol this morning.

“The fuck were you thinkin’, Tommy?!”

Walking closer to the wall, you hear Tommy sigh out. “Joel, just, hear me out okay? I promise you–” But Tommy gets cut off almost instantly.

“You paired me up with her?” He yells, venom dripping into the last word.

Your face twists up in confusion at that. Who did Joel get paired with to make him so—

No…

No, no, no. No fucking way.

You hurriedly, yet quietly, close the few steps between you and the board with the patrol information. Your eyes desperately scan through the list of names on the board, murmured begging of disbelief leaving your lips. Each day of the week for the month lists a row of a pair of names next to every time slot and location shown. You eventually hit today’s date and find your name before reading the name paired with yours.

Joel Miller. 

Fuck.

You don’t get the chance to properly process the realization before your thoughts are interrupted by Joel continuing to yell at his brother.

“Why the hell would you put me on patrol with her of all people? I don’t need some goddamn bubbly kid with me out there for hours a day. What were you thinkin’? That I have the fuckin’ patience to babysit the newbie on patrol? You expect me to be able to depend on a fuckin’ kid to keep me safe?” His voice bellows.

Kid?

Your face scrunches up with slight fury for the first time since being in Jackson. Kid? What the fuck does he think you are? Some innocent little thing that’s never experienced terror before in her life? Does he think you just walked in here unscathed for the past over two decades, without encountering anything that lays outside these gates? No. You’re not some damn kid. You haven’t been a kid for a long while–and even then you didn’t get to live or act like a kid in those years.

Before you can think for too long and get angrier, you hear Tommy respond back to Joel. His voice in a tone and manner you have not heard from him yet, one that challenges Joel’s and, for the first time since you’ve known them, you believe that these two are brothers.

“You don’t get a damn say in this, Joel. We make the list of patrols for good reason every damn month. We pair people whose skill levels not only match each other, but also highlight everythin’ that needs to be done. The things you may lack, she succeeds in, and vice versa. That’s how things have always been done, and you know that,” Tommy hisses back.

You hear Joel begin to say something, but he never gets a chance to as Tommy speaks up once again, saying, “And the hell do you know ‘bout her, huh? What do you know ‘bout anyone in this town? You haven’t taken one moment ever since you stepped foot into Jackson to really fit in. To try—not even for Ellie’s sake. You’ve taken everything we’ve given you without any ounce of fuckin’ gratefulness. Ya know what it took me to convince Maria to let you stay in this damn town? What with her knowin’ everythin’ you’re capable of? Everythin’ you’ve done?”

The anger you hold slightly subsides as curiosity takes over you as you wonder, what is this unknown reason that Maria does not like Joel? What did he do?

Joel has stayed silent for the past few seconds. A part of you wants to walk in, show your presence, and see the look on his face, but Tommy still talking keeps you frozen in your place on the opposite side of the wall.

“What ‘bout Ellie, huh?” He asks Joel. “I know you’re aware of Ellie’s time spent with her. Not only does the town trust and like her–Ellie trusts and likes her. You really think someone so incompetent and unable to take care of themself would be someone Ellie finally feels like she can be around without you breathin’ down her damn neck on her whereabouts?”

You notice Joel’s silence before he grunts and says something much quieter that you can’t quite catch. Assuming the conversation between the brothers has ended, you try to quietly walk further from the stables and back to the front of the path that leads to the patrol board—hovering near the small table that sits at the front of the path, pretending like you’re there waiting for Tommy to come over. 

From your left side, you hear gravel crunch before looking over to see Joel and Tommy walking towards you. Tommy, with the usual warm smile, and then Joel–sulking behind his younger brother with that perpetual furrowed brow, holding himself like a kid who just got scolded.

Ironic.

Tommy calls your name as he approaches you, greeting you politely. “Well, bit of a spoiler, but this here is gonna be your new patrol partner,” he says with a smile that feels slightly forced as he looks to his older brother, slapping his shoulder. Joel, on the other hand, has yet to make eye contact with you. Instead his eyes have taken interest in the graveled path, the front gates, the stables behind him, the sky–quite literally everywhere and anywhere but on your figure as his hand comes up to rub the back of his neck. 

It makes you have to stifle a scoff considering the first time–which happens to also have been the last time–that you saw him for longer than a passing glance, he couldn’t stop staring at you with that scowl on his face.

You try to force kindness, though, and give him a short, polite nod. 

Maybe he’s more like Ellie than he comes off, you think. Maybe you guys can talk about the same interests that Ellie discusses she enjoys with Joel. 

“Sounds good to me,” you say with a tight-lipped smile.

“Great! Isn’t that great, Joel?” Tommy asks while looking at his brother. 

Joel’s face turns to you, gaze scanning your body to look at your clothing and shoes. You assume he’s judging your choice of patrolling attire, and figuring out whether to deem you as fit. He finally looks up and makes eye contact with you for the first time in months. You didn’t think it was possible, but you swear his scowl deepened when he looked at you.

“Fine,” he grits out between his teeth.

Alright. That’s fine. Things will go fine.

He is nothing like Ellie.

This is literally impossible.

When the two of you had gotten onto your respective horses and gone past the gates, it was a quick trip up the hill and into the forest. Once the forest thickened, you had to slow to only a trot through the woods–watching and listening for anything that seemed abnormal on your journey into the nearest town. This morning’s patrol is meant to send the pair of you through town to check and clear any nearby hordes that may have trickled in before they get any closer to Jackson. You both were then to report your logs at the lookout point before heading back. It sounded easy enough, yet trotting next to Joel and his horse made the time go achingly slow, the awkward silence making you uneasy.

You could almost feel the anger radiating off him. It wasn’t just about him not being talkative–it was as if your mere presence near him pissed him off. You offered him quiet as you both rode through the area at first, before deciding to ask about Ellie, hoping that it may be a topic he feels fine with conversing in.

It wasn’t.

He immediately would sigh whenever you started a sentence, his eyes not even attempting to look in your direction. You tried to reason with yourself and say he just wants to make sure he stays alert and watches out for anything. Okay, that’s fair enough, you could do the same.

Some time passes by before he speaks up, his sudden voice making you flinch as he mutters, “Town comes up in a few miles.”

You turn to see him still looking straight forward, nodding in the direction you were headed. You nod and mumble in agreement before deciding to ask things about patrol. Surely he had to answer questions about that, right?

“Have you had to deal with hordes in this area often?”

Silence.

“What’s the usual protocol for taking them down in only pairs?”

“Oh I thought you’d know ‘bout that with Tommy’s trainin’?” He says in a sarcastic, condescending way. Of course this is how you get the most emotion and conversation out of him.

“I do know. I guess I… I just didn’t know like–” You trail off before sighing and giving up, feeling stupid. It felt frustrating, honestly–how Joel’s treatment towards you, dealing with you as if you were a child, was the thing that made you feel like you were one.

The trees clear as a tiny deserted town comes into view—the area essentially just one short road with a gas station, a small market, and a few abandoned cars scattered along the way. 

Joel wordlessly gets off his horse, the action prompting you to do the same before his head snaps in your direction at the sound of your movement. “The hell you doin’?” He harshly barks. 

You freeze and try to respond, but he gives you no time before saying, “You stay out here for lookout. I go in and check the stores. Didn’t anyone teach you that?”

He walks into the gas station with his gun raised before you get a chance to apologize, feeling upset with yourself for making a mistake. You stay outside as you’re told, looking around for anything while you hear the sounds of Joel rummaging through the stores. Finding nothing of importance, he walks back outside towards you before getting on his horse and riding off without a word or glance in your direction. You take that as a queue to follow him as the two of you continue riding up to the base of the lookout point.

Continuing through the woods, you both cross over a small river, a look up ahead showing a large yet broken building with a satellite station attached to it. You recall being here once before with Eugene—“It’s a radio tower,” he had said.

Joel and you ride your horses and jump over the barbed wire that surrounds the building—traps that the people of Jackson had set up around lookout points to catch infected that tried to wander inside the closed off areas. 

You both make your way inside the garage on the side, tying up your horses before making your way through the torn down holes in the wall. You stray from the room as Joel begins moving planks of metal out of the way to clear the path. Moving through a gap in the concrete, you stop when you come across a small balcony showcasing a beautiful view of the land. 

Noticing your pause, Joel whips his head around to search for you, before seeing your body between the small space. He calls out to you with a snapped, “C’mon, quit messin’ ‘round—we need to get up top.”

You sigh and follow him back into the room, the two of you making your way through a gap against the ground. Joel bends down to slide the final piece of metal out of the way, revealing the space for you both to crawl through. Making your way through the makeshift shute, you hear Joel grunt as he straightens himself out.

He takes a hold of the power cable that was dangling to allow patrol members to climb up to the lookout point. Joel makes his way up first, before stopping and bending down to help you climb up, taking your hand at the top to hoist you over the side.

The moment you make it over, his hand rips away from yours as if your touch burns him. The detail makes you grit your teeth in annoyance at how adamantly he seems to dislike you.

As Joel opens the door to the office, you scan your eyes around the room, recognizing the space from the last time you were here. Metal desks with radio equipment on them are placed around the room with office chairs—cabinets lining the area around the desks. You take a peek into the room branching off of this one, seeing two couches around a coffee table. A bong on the table making you lightly scoff and smirk as you remember Eugene’s interest in such… habits.

You enter back into the main office space to see Joel bent over a desk, signing your names into the log sheet to mark the time you both have arrived. You take the moment to walk over to the balcony that holds a telescope and sniper rifles laying against the barrier. You look out to find the next nearest town out in the distance.

As you take a quick glance around the view, you hear Joel come stand a few feet to your right. He moves his hand across the railing to pick up a pair of binoculars that rest between you two, when you notice a watch that sits around his left wrist—a small hole in the glass that separates into tiny cracks. Taking a closer look, you realize the hands aren’t moving… it was broken. Odd, you thought, but perhaps he just liked the look of the watch too much to replace it.

After spending some time scanning the area, Joel stops short and hands the binoculars to you, pointing a bit to the right of you two. You look through them to find what he had spotted–infected. Not a lot, in fact it looks to be about only six stray ones all mindlessly walking around.

He takes the binoculars back from you, keeping an eye on them and saying, “It’s only a couple. Doesn’t look like they’re part of a larger group. Seems to have run off chasin’ some animal and now they don’t have anythin’ to grab their attention. We can clear ‘em out real quick here, make sure they don’t get any closer–”

A sharp gunshot causes Joel to jump, pulling away from the binoculars before looking at you in shock and hearing another gunshot. You have one of the sniper rifles positioned against the railing, scoped in as you shoot down the stray infected miles from the lookout. Finished taking down the six that you two had spotted, you quickly scan the area to make sure any more haven’t appeared before pulling yourself away from the rifle.

“Got it,” you say nonchalantly, looking over at Joel to find his eyes wide, mouth slightly open, and that permanent frown on his face. His eyes look shocked for a split second before settling back onto the anger you had grown accustomed to. You feel briefly confused at his reaction, considering you’ve done this with other patrol members all the time during practice routes.

“Don’t just go shootin’ that thing—you call it out. Always. Gonna make someone go fuckin’ deaf shootin’ off a gun so close to ‘em without warnin’,” he says. You nod at him in understanding while he continues to just stare at you with a look in his eyes that you can’t quite place before shaking whatever thoughts were in his head. 

He throws down the binoculars and nods his head behind you both with a muttered, “C’mon,” before making his way out. You follow him down the way you both came, climbing back onto your horses to make your way back to Jackson. 

On the journey back, Joel rides a few paces in front of you, quicker than when you guys were headed to the radio station—as if he wanted to leave you sooner rather than later. You silently follow him all the way back to Jackson, the gates opening when you arrive as the people on guard recognize you too. Riding through the gates and towards the stables, you see Tommy climbing down from his post at the gates, jogging over with a grin on his face and clapping his hands together once.

“So, how was your first patrol?” He asks you.

Opening your mouth to respond politely, Joel brushes past you, marching over to his younger brother before grabbing his arm and pulling him into the stables with him. “I need to talk to you,” he demands through gritted teeth.

You see Tommy give you an apologetic look before catching up and follow Joel in the stables.

Looking over at them, but not hearing them, you see Joel rushing out something to Tommy—waving his hands out with an annoyed look on his face.

Well… there goes your first and last patrol with Joel.

Deciding to leave it, you walk into town, stopping at the market to grab a few items before heading back home to wash up in time for dinner in the mess hall. Reaching your street, you walk over to your house before getting cut short when you notice Ellie hovering outside your short fence.

“Ellie? Everything okay?”

Her head turns to you before sighing out of relief. “Oh thank god,” she says, “I am in the middle of trying to make this stupid fucking lemon cake that Maria told me about, but I don’t have any lemons and uh… I was hoping you had some.”

Her words make you smile knowingly. This has been happening a few times—not that you were complaining. You noticed the girl would appear outside your house, or at the stables, either needing something or needing help with something. Except, each time they were clearly things that she could get herself or go to anyone about. It wasn’t too long before you caught on and realized she just wanted an excuse to talk to you or have company. You found it endearing, and it became something you looked forward to and welcomed each time.

Responding with a small laugh, you say, “Yeah, I got lemons. Wanna come inside while I put these things away and grab you some?” You offer.

Her face lights up before she enthusiastically nods and immediately starts walking towards your door. With a laugh, you follow her to open your door before opening it and watching her walk right into your kitchen like she lives here. Rounding the corner after her, you see her jump up to sit on her usual spot at your kitchen island, swinging her legs back and forth as she watches you put away some groceries.

��Soooo… What’d you do today? I went by the stables this morning and couldn’t find you.”

“Oh,” you respond, “I actually had my first official patrol today, so I was out past the gates.”

You turn to see her expression and find her eyes have widened. “No shit! Really?! Dude how was it?” She asks.

“It was good, ya know. Typical. Nothing out of the ordinary,” you say quietly, hoping she doesn’t ask anything else. But, she does.

“So who’d you get stuck with as your partner? God, is it Seth? For your sake I hope not–he’s so fucking annoying and acts all high and mighty all the time,” she says while rolling her eyes.

Not making eye contact, you try to act nonchalant as you keep your focus on pulling out the lemons from the fridge. “Um, my patrol partner was actually… Joel…” you trail off.

You get no response from the typically chatty girl, so you look over to see her eyebrows raised, eyes wide, and mouth in a small o shape. 

Great, even a fucking teenager can tell how awkward this is.

The surprise leaves her face after a second, before she looks at her feet swinging in the air. Looking back up to you, she says, “Well… Maybe Seth wouldn’t have been so bad.”

“Shut up,” you laugh out loud, shaking your head at her as she bursts into giggles. Trying to change the subject off of patrol, you ask, “So are you the fan of lemon cake or is Joel?”

Ellie’s smile kinda wavers as she suddenly becomes very shy. “It’s actually for this girl in my class…” She says before she gets kind of panicky and rushes out, “Like, she’s my friend ya know. And… she said she likes lemon cakes, and Joel’s always on my ass about making friends so I thought ‘oh this girl says she likes something’, so maybe if I make it for her then she’ll like, wanna be my friend and… stuff.”

Your lips turn up at the ends a bit at her rambled statement. “Well I think that’s an amazing way to make friends. That, and showing up at people’s doors asking for things.”

She smiles before checking the time and groaning. “Ugh, I have to go home and finish making these lemon cakes before I gotta work on homework.”

You nod and hand her the bag of lemons before walking her back to her front door. When you get there, she reaches for the handle before her door flies open suddenly–Joel on the other side.

Guess he finished his talk with Tommy.

His eyes make contact with you first before he looks at Ellie. “Where were you?” 

Unphased by his cold demeanor, she rolls her eyes and pushes past him. “Oh relax, dude. I’m making lemon cakes for Cat from school and needed some lemons so she gave me some,” she says pointing to you. “You know, if you’re nice and say please then you can have some.”

He grunts at her in response and she looks back at you smiling. “Thanks again for these, I’ll see you tomorrow!” She exclaims before running into what you assume is the kitchen.

You smile after her and begin to walk backwards when you see Joel is still holding the door open and staring at you.

“Uh, bye Joel,” you offer, with no response from him. Ignoring it, you turn around and walk all the way back to your door.

Opening it, you turn around to take another look behind you and see Joel still standing in the same spot–still staring at you. He slams his door shut after a moment, prompting you to do the same to yours.

reblogs and comments are appreciated! i hope you all enjoy <3 a/n: thank you SO much for all the amazing love i've received for the first chapter alone. having never written before, it's really amazing to read all your lovely comments <3 posted this one day earlier than planned because i was too excited hehe! next chapter will be out saturday april 19th :) i also was asked by a few people to be tagged, so here you go! if anyone else wants to be tagged then please let me know! @dendulinka6 @suzysface @koshkaj-blog

[paperbackribs]

tags: steddie, pre-canon, season S2-ish, tommy hagan will always have a crush on Steve Harrington

🩵💥🩵

“Someday, you're gonna get bitch-slapped, and I'm not gonna do a thing to stop it,” Steve hears the echo of his words in the Hawkins High boys’ bathroom. Spinning off the tiles, pinging against its corners and stabbing at Tommy who stands gasping at his best friend.

But Steve doesn’t care. This has been a long time coming.

Tommy is a prick and Steve thought there wasn’t anything wrong with going with the flow, ignoring the snide comments, looking away from the rumours that Carol would spread, as long as his friends remained by his side.

But Billy Hargrove had infected Hawkins High. Steve stopped swallowing the cool aid. And Tommy is fuming; red in the face and ready to take it out on any unfortunate soul that crosses his path.

Enter Steve.

Or, really, enter Eddie Munson.

Steve wasn’t sure if Tommy followed Eddie into the empty toilets or coincidentally came across him or whatever could be going on in the mixed up mind of his former best friend. But watching Tommy square off his stocky, muscular body against the other boy, boxed into the corner and wide, brown eyes only visible over Tommy’s shoulder, Steve swears that he’ll no longer look away from Tommy’s indiscretions.

So, he says it again, nodding to the leather clad boy in the corner, “Eddie’s going to take a swing at you and not only will I not defend you, I might even fucking taking a swing too.”

Tommy gapes, “What the fuck, Steve? I know we’ve been having troubles, but you’d take the freak’s side over mine?”

Eddie’s face twists in the background. Steve can see the anger warping his eyes and he doesn’t blame him, almost wishes that Eddie would take a swing and then Steve could just stand back and let it happen.

He sighs: he’s allowed a lot of things to just happen so far and it’s not to his credit.

Weirdly, Steve's resigned gaze meets Eddie’s incredulous look and, just for a moment, Steve feels like he’s met someone who gets it. Someone who sees the ridiculous, short-sighted nature of the petty bullying in the hallways of their high school and knows how stupid and utterly pathetic it is.

Steve swears that the corner of Eddie’s lips kick up at the irony of their shared understanding but is distracted as Tommy strides forward, knocking against his shoulder hard enough to send Steve spinning against the wood of a stall. He steadies himself as Tommy slams the bathroom door shut behind him with a clamorous bang and shakes his head: how could he have had such loyalty for a guy who won’t even stop to talk out their stupid shit together?

Steve thought he’d at least earned Tommy’s patience, a moment of Tommy’s time so they could talk this out and find a way forward again. He stares after his former friend, a hollow, gaping hole in his stomach as he grieves the friendship he thought they’d shared.

Eddie approaches with a gentle hand, laying it on Steve’s shoulder, “Are you all right, man?”

Steve swallows around the thickness in his chest and belatedly realises that his cheeks are wet. He clears his throat and, through a tight smile, says, “Yeah, don’t worry about it. Are you okay?”

The deep richness of those brown eyes regard him for a long moment and Steve feels stripped bare. He thought he was the guy rescuing Eddie, but he suddenly feels like the one vulnerable and exposed to the other boy.

Eddie smiles softly, “Yeah, got saved, right? How could I be anything but peachy keen?”

Steve snorts despite himself, amused by Eddie’s tongue-in-cheek tone, “Like a summertime in Georgia.” He can’t help but flash to Tommy’s retreating back and hates that his tone is already bitter, “Except I’m the stupid fucking tree alone in the grove.”

His head twitching slightly to the side, as if he were weighing Steve’s words, Eddie lightly responds, “Well, maybe it’s time to try another field. Wanna hang out sometime?”

Steve blinks, bewildered at the offer. The suggestion given so freely and without conditions seems anathema to his experience of friendship, and especially friendship in the complex halls of high school. He eyes the other boy suspiciously, but Eddie’s eyes remain clear, his body loose and almost curled towards Steve as if he were the north to his compass.

What could it hurt? Steve thinks.

Looking at what he can only describe as kindness in Eddie’s eyes, Steve thinks that a lot of things could hurt. Could burn or scald or stab, but the sweet, clear acceptance in Eddie Munson’s eyes has him thinking of a world where Steve can offer his loyalty and receive it in kind. A place where he can be good and feel like he’s doing good and perhaps a lovely brown-eyed boy would wait and tell him he’d done the right thing.

Eddie sticks out his hand in a gesture of friendship that only bolsters the words he’d already extended to Steve. And nothing moves in the cold room of Hawkins boys’ bathroom, no wind or breeze, but as Steve reaches out to clasp Eddie Munson’s outstretched hand, he feels a seismic shift that he can’t explain.

Steve’s fingers fold around the warmth of Eddie’s palm and Eddie’s full lips stretch into a smile, welcoming and true. A gesture that Steve can’t be sure of, can’t let himself fully trust; yet, nonetheless, Steve finds himself hopelessly following after Eddie’s extension of friendship.

And it'll eventually allow Steve to follow him to the confusing halls of the Hellfire Club.

To the strangely welcome space of Eddie's uncle’s trailer.

And Steve follows.

Because he is helpless but to follow this wide, brown-eyed boy who smirks at him with a knowing smile.

[firewasabeast]

Tommy and Eddie's Wild Adventure

**If you start reading and feel a bit concerned, please scroll all the way to the bottom for tags/spoilers. Otherwise, enjoy the ride!** (read here or on ao3)

“I'm gonna get us an Uber,” Tommy said, pulling his phone out of his back pocket. He was a slightly off balance, the couple drinks he and Eddie had hitting him harder than usual tonight. Before he could get his phone unlocked, it slipped from his hand and directly down the drainage grate underneath him.

“Damn it!” He bent down to try and reach through the grate to get it. It was useless though. His hand was too big, plus the phone had already sunk beneath God knows how many feet of water and sludge.

“It's fine,” Eddie said, tapping his back. “We'll use mine.”

He started feeling around for his phone, then paused, his lips pursed together.

“What's wrong?” Tommy asked, standing back up.

“I don't have my phone. I must've left it at home.”

Tommy sighed, rolling his eyes. “Great! So we're stuck here then. We're gonna have to-”

“Tommy, shut up!” Eddie whisper-yelled, eyes wide as he gripped onto Tommy's shoulder.

“What? Eddie, what are you-”

“Shut. Up!” He demanded. He pointed behind Tommy. “Look!”

At the end of the parking lot there was a dumpster, mostly hidden out of view. There was a small amount of light that glowed from a nearby lamppost, just enough for Tommy and Eddie to see two men tossing what appeared to be a body into the dumpster.

Eddie nearly pushed Tommy behind a tree before hiding behind him, both boys holding their breath until the men drove off and they were alone in the parking lot.

“Oh my God,” Tommy said, eyes wide. “Oh my God.”

“Go, go!” Eddie pushed Tommy forward, following behind. They carefully but quickly made their way over to the dumpster, where a body laid on top of boxes and bags of garbage.

“We've gotta get her out!” Eddie said, already pushing himself up and into the dumpster. Once inside, he checked for a pulse. “She's gone,” he told Tommy.

He shook his head. “Damn it.”

Eddie hoisted the woman over his shoulder. Tommy reached out and grabbed onto her, pulling her out and onto the ground. He took Eddie's hand next and helped him out of the dumpster.

“What do we do?” Tommy asked, staring down at the blonde-haired woman.

“Call 911.”

Tommy huffed out a breath. “We don't have a phone, Eddie!”

“Well we can't just stand here,” Eddie replied. “The killers might come back.”

“Why would they come back?!”

“Have you never watched a Dateline? They come back to like admire their work, you know, like it's a trophy or something.”

Tommy looked around the area, searching for any possibility that someone was watching. “We've gotta go get help.”

“We can't just leave her here.”

“We don't have any other choice!”

“Shh!” Eddie waved his hands, getting Tommy to quiet down. “We- We'll take her.”

Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Take her?”

“Yeah,” Eddie nodded. “Yeah, we take her with us. To the police station.”

“Just... We just carry the body all the way to the police station? That's like ten miles!”

“I think it's only eight.”

Tommy shook his head. “You're insane, Eddie!”

“You got a better idea?”

*****

“You know they've killed people for less than this,” Tommy said, gripping the woman's legs tightly.

“What? They have not.”

“Oh, yes they have! We get caught carrying this poor woman down the street and next thing you know, we're on death row being asked what our last words are.”

“Whoa!” Eddie exclaimed, his hand slipping from underneath the woman's arm. He adjusted her before continuing. “What would they be?”

“What would what be?”

“Your final words, Man. What would they be?”

“Jesus, Eddie, I don't know. Who thinks about that?”

“I know mine! Watch your step.”

Tommy looked back and took a step left to miss some trash on the ground. “So what are they then?”

“'La muerte es segura, pero su hora es incierta.' It's a Spanish proverb. At least, I think it is. My abuela used to say it.”

“What's it mean?”

“It means death is certain, but its hour is uncertain.”

Tommy stopped dead in his tracks, causing Eddie to nearly topple over the body.

“What the hell?” Eddie shrieked.

“Eddie, that's the stupidest last words I've ever heard.”

“What?! It is not!”

“Yeah, it is. First of all, you're about to get a lethal injection-”

“I'm choosing the electric chair.”

“Whatever. They're literally giving you an exact minute of your death, so your hour is very certain.”

“That's not-”

“And second,” Tommy continued, speaking over him. “You really want that to be the last thing Christopher hears coming out of your mouth? Before you're electrocuted in front of him? Really, Eddie? Think this through.”

“Christopher is not going to be at my electrocution, Tommy. I'll talk to him the day before.”

“Oh, he'll show up,” Tommy replied with absolute certainty. “He will show up.”

“Okay, fine, if my last words are so terrible, then tell me yours. Also, start walking again. She's heavy!”

Tommy rolled his eyes but resumed his walk. “I told you I haven't thought about it.”

“Well, get thinking. Final words. Go.”

“Okay, fine. First, lethal injection, because who the hell chooses electrocution, Man, come on! Second, Evan would be there, so I'd probably look at him and tell him he gave me the best years of my life.”

“Ew!” Eddie gagged. “That sucks. You suck!”

“It's better than your stupid proverb that doesn't make any sense. Okay, I gotta put her down for a second.”

They moved into a little alleyway and placed the woman down gently, then Tommy ran his arm over his forehead, wiping the sweat away. “There's gotta be an easier way to do this.”

Eddie peeked out of the alley, turning back quickly when he spotted people coming their way. “Act cool, act cool!” he exclaimed, leaning against the brick wall with one leg crossed over the other.

Tommy took a couple steps back, plastering himself against a dumpster with an elbow resting over the top.

The people passed without noticing them and they resumed their discussion.

“Okay, let's think, let's think,” Eddie said, bringing a hand to his chin. “Your phone is down a drain, mine is at home. We've got a body here that we can't leave behind, but it's too risky to keep walking along the street. Also, too painful.”

“Excellent recap,” Tommy deadpanned. “Can we start the episode now?”

“You know this attitude your giving is not helping,” Eddie said with a glare. “Why don't you come up with an idea?”

Tommy took a deep breath, then looked past Eddie out toward the street. “Taxi.”

“What is this, 1982? Come on-”

Tommy pointed behind Eddie, making him turn around. There was a taxi parked across the street, a group of women laughing and fixing their dresses as they exited.

“You distract, I'll put the body in the trunk,” Tommy decided, nodding at Eddie.

“Wait, what?”

“Go, Eddie! Before someone else gets the taxi. Go!”

*****

“And what's that button do?” Eddie asked.

“That's the button for the radio,” the taxi driver replied, giving Eddie an odd look. “Are you sure your friend doesn't need help with his luggage?”

“Oh, no, no. He's got it.”

Just then, the trunk slammed shut and Tommy was getting into the taxi. “Could you take us to-”

“Fountain Avenue,” Eddie interrupted. “Anywhere on the street is fine.”

“Sure thing.”

They settled into their seats as the driver headed off, Tommy staring over at Eddie. “The police station is two streets over from Fountain,” he whispered.

“I know. Going right to the police station will look suspicious. We'll walk there from Fountain.”

“They'll see Lillian before that.”

Eddie looked over at Tommy quizzically. “Lillian?”

“Yeah. Lillian.”

“Who the hell is Lillian?”

“Eddie,” Tommy gritted out, eyes darting back and forth from the driver to Eddie. “Lillian.”

“Oh! You mean the dead girl?”

Tommy gave Eddie a punch to the shoulder. “Lillian is our friend. That we're surprising. With the gift. In the trunk.”

“Okay, ow.” Eddie rubbed at the spot on his shoulder, leaning in closer to Tommy. “It's a codename. Got it.”

“Anyway, I think we should get closer to the station.”

“No. We'll deal with Lillian from Fountain. It'll be fine.”

“We're gonna get caught.”

“Then we'll explain.”

“I don't know how you explain that.”

“We'll tell them,” Eddie said in an annoyed tone, “the truth. That we found the bod- Lillian and didn't want to leave her.”

“O- Okay,” the driver interrupted, coming to a stop. “We are a- at your location, sirs.”

“Great!” Tommy clapped his hands together, smiling at the driver through the rearview. “Pop the trunk for me, please. Eddie, pay the man.”

“Oh, no! No payment necessary. I- It's my gift for the night.”

“You sure?” Eddie asked.

“Mhm. Please, it's fine.”

Eddie shrugged. “Alright. Thanks! Have a good night.”

*****

“I'm never going out with you again,” Tommy said, back in position with his hands under Lillian's shins. “I should have stayed home with Evan. My back will never recover.”

“Oh please, when did you become such an old man? I'm carrying most of the weight here anyway.”

“You are not!”

“I am too!”

“Okay, I'll just let her go then. You can carry her the rest of the way yourself.”

“Don't you dare, Thomas!”

“Don't you Thomas me, Edmundo! What the hell are we gonna say when we get to the police station?”

“I'll go in first,” Eddie said. “Explain everything. You stay outside with the body until I get you.”

“Me? Why don't you stay outside with the body?”

“Because you asked me what we were going to say when we get to the police station, which means you obviously have no idea what to say, and I can just bat my eyelashes and get the lady behind the desk to listen to my every word.”

“Assuming it's a lady behind the desk is very sexist.” Tommy pulled a hand away to wipe the sweat from his hand onto his jeans, then switched to do the same with the other hand. “It could be a very handsome gay man.”

“Okay, so I bat my eyelashes at the man behind the desk. For the love of God, walk faster, Man!”

“I've been the one walking backwards this whole time, you try it! Also, no offense, but I've seen your game with women, I do not trust your game with men.”

“Don't be an ass,” Eddie glared. “I could've gotten you if I wanted you.”

“Ha! Don't flatter yourself.”

Eddie stopped, mouth agape and clearly offended. “You're seriously trying to tell me that Buck could get you by injuring me and moan about trying to get your attention, but you think I have no game? You're crazy.”

“And you're chronically single.”

“Take that back!”

“Absolutely not!”

“Tommy, I swear to-”

The sound of a siren cut Eddie off. Bright, flashing red and blue lights pulled up beside them. They froze in place.

It took a couple of seconds, but soon enough the driver's door opened. They both had to squint to make out the figure coming toward them.

Athena.

The passenger door opened as well, and there came Buck, his hands tucked inside the hoodie he was wearing.

“What the hell are you two doing?” Athena asked. “We have been chasing your behinds half the night.”

“You're not gonna believe this-” Eddie started as Tommy spoke over him.

“Evan, I swear this isn't what you think-”

“Both of you, quiet!” Athena demanded.

“It looks like you're, uh, trying to carry a body to the police station,” Buck offered.

“Then... Then it's exactly what it looks like,” Tommy breathed out in relief.

Eddie, still holding the body from underneath her arms, moved closer to Buck and Athena, forcing Tommy to move as well. “We saw her get dumped and we didn't know what to do because Tommy lost his phone and I don't have mine. We couldn't just leave her there so we decided to bring her to the station ourselves.”

“You don't have your phone, huh? And it didn't occur to either of you two walk right back into the bar and ask to use their phone?” Athena questioned. “Any phone?”

Eddie lowered his head. “Can't say that it did.”

Athena took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “That body you're holding,” she said, pointing toward it. “That's a sex doll.”

Both Eddie and Tommy's eyes slowly turned to the doll. It took a few seconds for the realization to hit, but once it did, they both dropped it to the ground with a simultaneous, “Ew!”

“I gotta say,” Athena started, crossing her arms over her chest, “I don't usually see men your age getting drunk and pulling these types of dumbass stunts.”

“We're not drunk!” Eddie protested. “Just had a couple beers. Maybe someone drugged us!”

“I don't think so,” she answered, pulling a small memo pad from her back pocket. “We went and spoke with the bartender and he informed us you two started with a couple beers, then moved onto shots, then decided to try some specialty drinks and ended with something called a Fruity Tutti, which you apparently made up yourselves.”

“That... That does sound vaguely familiar,” Tommy said, his hands going to his hips.

Eddie smacked a couple times. “Is that why mouth tastes like an entire packet of lifesavers?”

“How did you guys find us?” Tommy asked.

“Eddie's phone.”

Eddie's eyebrows furrowed. “I told you I don't have my phone.”

“Yeah, you do,” Buck said with a nod. “It's how we tracked you.”

“Guys, I'm telling you, I do not have my phone!”

Tommy moved toward Eddie, peering around him to look in his back pocket. He reached around and grabbed at something before holding it out in front of Eddie.

“Well look at that!” Eddie smiled as he took his phone from Tommy. “My phone!”

“You butt dialed me twice,” Buck explained. “When I overheard you two talking about finding a body and trying to carry it to the police station, I figured I better give Athena a call.”

“And as it turns out,” Athena continued, “the driver from the taxi you two were in also called the police, because, and I quote, “Two men were in the backseat of my cab, loudly whispering about a body they had put in my trunk.” Poor man was too scared to call the police until you had left.”

“You two were also carrying the doll through the streets of Los Angeles on a Saturday night,” Buck informed them. “Dispatch got lots of calls from concerned citizens.”

Eddie sighed. “I didn't think anyone saw us.”

“Oh no, the majority of the county did,” Athena replied. “Come on, boys,” she said, taking a step back and waving them toward her car. “This'll all have to be explained again in the morning. Let's get you home.”

“Can I go to you guys' place?” Eddie asked, pouting. “My home is so far.”

“Your home is ten minutes from ours,” Buck reminded him. “But it's late- or early- and I'm tired, so yes, you can. Athena's gonna take us. Let's get in the SUV.”

“Oh, Evan, can we snuggle?” Tommy asked, moving toward Buck and draping an arm over his shoulder, leaning in close. “I love to snuggle.”

“Gross,” Eddie whined. “I get shoved in a guest room while you two get it on two doors down.”

“Nobody will be getting it on tonight,” Buck assured him.

“Hey, if you want snuggles you can bring Lillian,” Tommy said, gazing down at the doll. “She will give snuggles.”

When Eddie stared down at it for a bit too long, Buck reached over and gave him a smack to the back of the head. “You're not bringing the doll. Come on, let's go.” He grabbed at Eddie's shirt, pulling him away from the doll. “Now!”

*****

When Athena pulled up to Buck and Tommy's place she got out and helped bring the boys into the house. Eddie leaned on her while Tommy leaned on Buck.

They headed for the guest room first, Eddie plopping onto the bed with his shoes still on.

“Absolutely not,” Buck said, helping Tommy to rest against the doorframe so he could go over and pull off Eddie's shoes.

Once they were off, Athena helped Buck maneuver Eddie so they could pull the comforter down from under him.

“God, I'm tired,” Tommy mumbled. He toed off his own shoes and walked over the other side of the bed, falling down face first against the pillow.

“Tommy!” Buck exclaimed. “This isn't our room.”

“Sleepy, Evan,” Tommy murmured into the pillow. “So sleepy.”

“Okay, well, you can go to sleep in our room,” he replied, pulling on Tommy's arm.

Tommy groaned, causing Eddie to open one eye and glare over at Buck. “Just leave him. God, he's so whiny!”

Tommy threw his arm out, shoving over at Eddie. “You're whiny!”

Eddie reached over and shoved back. “You are!”

“Boys, I have a gun!” Athena yelled, causing them to stop immediately. They both drew their arms in and away from each other, but refused to move otherwise.

Athena looked over at Buck. “Should we try to get Tommy up?” she asked.

Both boys breathing had already started to even out, clearly falling into a deep sleep.

“Eh, leave him,” Buck decided, tossing the comforter over them. “They can puke on each other.”

.

.

**tags/spoilers: there is no actual death involved in this story. the boys are very drunk.**

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

Meet the parents

Written for the @steddieholidaydrabbles, day 13

Prompt: Family Dinner

Rated: T

Tags: Modern AU; No UD AU; Meet ugly; Fake dating; Fake identity; Past Stommy

Eddie straightens his tie for the twentieth time, running a hand through his hair to check his bun. The restaurant across the street looks even fancier than in the pictures on his phone. He feels stupidly out of place just standing in front of it.

He's just lucky nobody he knows can see him now.

He imagined making it big in the city, performing in sold-out clubs, not squeezing into a suit and playing jazz music for rich farts.

But apparently the place needs a guitarist, because the rich farts enjoy live music with their overpriced dinner. And Eddie enjoys being able to pay his rent, so here they are. He squares his shoulders, adjusting his guitar case on his shoulder and fixing his tie. Again. The manager said to be here on time.

“Hey! You! Yes, you, guitar guy.”

Eddie pauses mid-step. A young man has emerged from the restaurant and is now weaving through the throng of passers-by. Eddie’s sure he's never seen him before - not just because he just called him guitar guy, but also because he's pretty much exactly his type - sun-kissed skin and caramel hair and a boyish smile that makes his eyes hazel sparkle. Eddie wouldn’t just forget a face like that. And yet, the guy keeps jogging towards him, waving and smiling. He comes to a standstill just in front of Eddie, pausing to catch his breath. He's evidently never heard of private space, because he's close enough for Eddie to count the freckles on the bridge of his nose.

“Wanna earn two-hundred bugs?”

Eddie blinks.

“Erm, I guess,” his mile-a-minute mouth replies while his brain is still trying to parse through the situation. “What-”

That smile goes impossibly brighter.

“Brilliant,” says the guy. Then he kisses him.

It's over as quick as it started, and before Eddie has a chance to recover, the guy has linked their hands and is pulling him towards the restaurant.

“Name's Steve, by the way. Yours?”

“I- um, Eddie,” says Eddie. His lips are still tingling.

Steve smiles tensely.

“Alright, I-um-Eddie. For the next one-and-a-half hours, you smile and nod, and leave the talking to me, okay? Oh, and your name's Tommy.”

“Wha-?” Eddie squawks, but Steve has already pulled him through the doors and to a table overlooking the busy street.

“Found him! Mom, Dad, this is-”

“Tommy,” says the man sitting at the table. He holds out a hand, which Eddie is too dumbfounded to not shake. “So glad you’ve made it. We’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

“Yeah, um-” Eddie says, shaking the woman’s hand as well. She wrinkles her nose like his fingers are something gross, and he wonders frantically if he did anything wrong. Was he supposed to kiss her knuckles? Do rich people still do that? He doesn’t know, so he quickly withdraws his hand and pretends to be very busy settling into his chair. “Nice meeting you, Mr. …”

He casts a helpless look at Steve, because he never mentioned his last name, and he can’t very well call the guy Mr. Steve’s Dad, now can he?

“Oh, please,” says the older man, “Call me Richard. And tell me about yourself, Steve has been awfully secretive. I hear you study business economics?”

“Um,” Eddie looks back at Steve, who nods imperceptibly. “Yeah, totally, it’s great. I love business, man. And economics. Can't get enough- ow!”

Steve smiles sweetly, like he didn't just kick him under the table like some sort of demented mule with anger management issues.

“And you're a musician as well?” the woman chimes in, eyeing his guitar case curiously. Eddie's assuming she's Steve's mom, but what does he know? All he’s certain of is that his shin is still hurting and he doesn’t wanna get kicked again.

“He’s been taking guitar lessons,” Steve says with barely a hitch. “To have- … how did you put it, honey? A creative outlet when you want to unwind from work, right?”

“Right,” Eddie parrots. “An outlet. Undwinding’s very important.”

“Isn’t that lovely?” the woman gushes. “You’ll need to play for us under the tree this Christmas.”

Now, it’s Steve’s turn to look petrified. “I dunno, Mom. Tommy probably has other-”

Richard makes an impatient noise and flips open the menu.

“Come on now, don't be like that. Guess you’re joining us for Christmas, Tommy. Hope you like skiing?”

*

“Okayyy,” Eddie drawls. They’re standing in the parking lot, hand in hand, waving after Steve’s parents in their abhorrently expensive limousine. “Now spill. Who’s Tommy?”

“My boyfriend.” The moment the car rounds the corner, Steve withdraws his hand. There’s an unhappy scowl on his face. “Well, my ex, I guess. Who broke up with me via text message five minutes before he was supposed to meet us.”

Eddie whistles lowly. “Whoops, sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Steve says, pulling his phone from his pocket. “He's an ass. So, you wanna give me your number? I’ll transfer you the money and text you about Christmas.”

“Yeah sure, gimme a-” Eddie, already fumbling for his own phone, freezes and almost drops his guitar. “Hold on, what are you talking about?”

Steve gives him a look. “You heard my parents. They want you to spend Christmas with us.”

Eddie gawks at him. “So? I’m obviously not doing that. Just tell them Tommy and you broke it off, what’s the-”

“I can’t do that,” Steve blurts. “They’ll cut me off, and I need that money.”

Eddie almost makes a snide remark, but there’s this panicked look in Steve’s eyes again, and something tells him that this is about more than just a spoiled rich kid fearing for his inheritance. He sighs.

“I want a thousand bucks,” he says. “I’ll need to cancel Christmas with my uncle, so I think that’s a fair compensation. Plus, I’m not going on any skiers.”

More holiday drabbles

They shake on it, and just like that, Eddie finds himself with both a new job and new plans for the holidays.

[unhingedangstaddict]

tease tidbit tuesday

tagged by the lovely @desert--moonchild I've been working hard on my fix-it fic and hope to have it posted soon, but in the mean time here's another snippet

Hen’s heart was breaking for Tommy, seeing how little he thought of himself. It was shocking, for a man who exuded so much confidence, so much self assuredness, to open up like this, to see him peel back his armor and show his true self. Someone who’d been hurt and broken and was desperate for love yet didn’t feel worthy of it, who felt he wasn’t enough.

In a way it was almost poetic- Evan "Buck" Buckley who often felt like he was too much, and Thomas "Tommy" Kinard who didn't feel like he was enough.

“And then I met Evan.” Tommy sighed and sipped his coffee. “And now I just wish I could forget how it felt like we almost had it all.”

“Tommy, you can still have it all with Evan.” Hen insisted. “Look, was Buck’s asking you to move in with him a little ridiculous? Of course it was. But he’s done the impulsive ‘hey move in with me’ before. He learned his lesson. Was it sudden and unexpected and dumb considering you own a house? Sure. But I’m telling you Tommy, Buck thought through it. He didn’t just ask because he felt like he had to do something in the heat of the moment.”

Tommy shook his head.

“I’m serious. Tommy I’ve never seen him like this with anyone before. He’s happy, he’s content, he’s off his damn hamster wheel and he’s ready.” Hen insisted. “Just because you’ve been hurt before doesn’t mean it’s all you’re ever destined for, Tommy. You deserve your happy ending, and you can still have it with Buck if you want it.”

“You really think so?” Tommy looked up at Hen.

“I don’t think you’ve broken what you two had beyond repair. You can fix this, and you can have your happy ending Tommy. You just gotta fight for it. Think you can do that?” Hen wondered.

Tommy nodded slowly. “Yeah, yeah I think so.”

“Good.” Hen smiled.

(not tagging anyone because idk who's up for it and/or already participated today)

[lxzy-bxby]

Once Again

Jackson!Joel × Reader

Summary: Joel's all trauma—and you're all wanting to heal him. When fate has other plans, you're ready to sacrifice all your wishes. Only to find out that Joel has other plans, too. WC: 2,863 CW&Tags: Accidental Pregnancy ♡ Mentions of Child Loss+Mentions of Abortion ♡ Fluff+Angst ♡ Brief mention of unprotected p-in-v sex ♡ Implied age gap mentioned ♡ No use of Y/N ♡ No proofreading AN: and that's a wrap! i've debuted w/ works in all my fandoms, makes me incredibly happy.

~ ♡ ~

Farm turned out to be a great change of scenery—the one you didn’t even know you needed. Aside from patrolling, you never really left Jackson because you already had everything you need right in Jackson, and this everything is too grouchy to drag his ass somewhere. Yeah, you put ‘Joel’ in ‘everything’. Then again, sometimes the words that spell one way, turn out to be completely different on ears.

“Good job!” Dina’s delighted voice brings you back to the current moment.

Right.

Because JJ currently does a great job at taking wobbly steps towards Joel. And honestly, you are ready to nominate an infant for sainthood for putting a smile on your lover’s usually sullen face.

The fact that infant learning to walk makes Joel smile causes something to explode in your ribcage. If someone told you, you wouldn’t believe. Not that Joel is a sworn child-hater—he’s the complete opposite. Used to be, at least. It’s just recently anything barely made him smile.

No wonder. Not with Sarah’s death anniversary upcoming and him not even having a grave to fucking mourn by.

Your gaze involuntarily flickers to broken watch on his wrist—barely a worn-out strap at this point. Frankly, right now you wish you could go blind.

Joel smiles. Joel keeps smiling. Maybe you should beg Ellie to beg Dina to borrow you JJ for like an eternity since he makes Joel smile so much.

Duh. You’re that desperate. And that in love. “Yer legs are so teeny yet look at ya,” Joel sneers, his calloused hands reaching out to steady the kid just in case. “Gon’ be trouble, eh? Chasin’ sheep, tramplin’ seedbeds.”

“Well I mean, I told her we don’t necessarily have to teach him to walk, right? I can carry him around perfectly until he’s like… I don’t know, thirteen.” Ellie hums, her arms encircling Dina’s neck by the the back of the chair, as the latter sits legs-crossed in armchair across you two. Obviously she gets a well-earned tug on the arm by Dina.

Joel lets out a low, velvety laugh, and you suddenly feel like someone lit a fireplace.

“More like he’ll be the one to carry y’all around when he’ll be thirteen. Such a big boy, gon’ protect his mamas.” He grins, a proud look at his face—that’s his grandson he’s talking about.

JJ gurgles, clutching Joel’s knees, trying to climb on to his lap. He hoists him up immediately, green veins and taut muscles rippling underneath tanned skin of his sinewy arms. The infant grins in satisfaction, settling on his lap and tugging on collar of Joel’s button-up. “Glad you two came over,” Dina smiles softly, leaning back in her armchair. “How’s Jackson?” “Same ol’, same ol’. If Jesse wasn’t patollin’, he surely would’ve join us. Maria’s still bossin’ everyone around, even though waddlin’. She got even huger, gon’ pop any day now.” Ellie chuckles mid sipping on water. “Can imagine. Think we’re gonna visit too, then. Just to see Tommy being awkward with his newborn.” That makes Joel laugh, and at this point you think that among with taking JJ away with you to make him laugh more, you can take Ellie as well. Anyone, anything to make him happy. Because you always feel like you’re not doing enough—which is wrong, of course. But your love to Joel is boundless, so in your eyes nothing ever is going to be enough to match the amount of things your heart desires to do for him. His palm rests on your thigh, squeezing it occasionally and making your heart stammer against your chest. You throw a glance at his beaming side profile, your pupils taking shapes of hearts and wave of nausea rising up to your throat.

Nervous. That’s what you’ve been this whole week.

Joel’s happiness so fragile, so precious, so… rare. If only you knew if that thing could make him even happier or ruin it all.

That thing, that decided to occupy your womb right a week before Sarah’s death anniversary.

Because you was meant to go get plan B the morning after the most wild unprotected p-in-v in your life happened, but then raiders happened and you got caught in the moment, birth control being the least of your worries.

Then pink two lines—and you had to muffle your curses behind the closed bathroom door.

You knew for a fact Joel won’t handle it.

That very same Joel who went decades without relationship just because he kept thinking he wouldn’t be able to keep anyone safe and would lose them as soon as he would get attached. That very same Joel who kept waking up in the middle of the night because of his nightmares, replaying Sarah’s death all over and over again.

Would be straightaway inhuman to drop this bomb on him.

Not like you could get rid of a tiny human he left in your vagina just like that, though. Moreover, you do not want to.

But for him you would.

You’ve been thinking of at least one person you could trust enough to tell the predicament you turned out to be in. Where do you even get abortions? You got zero idea because it’s not something you’ve been interested in before.

Well, there’s a first for everything, huh.

Probably Maria would be the safest choice. Yeah, exactly. Joel’s sister-in-law, who’s currently pregnant. The best option. Most definitely.

Pregnant. She is pregnant. So is you.

Yet you bet a thought of abortion didn’t ever cross her mind, not even once. Tommy was head over heels, happy and excited. Joel was, too. But this fetus—that’ll be his nephew or niece. Not his daughter or son. So of course he allows himself to feel joyous.

You’re so fucking jealous of Maria. Of Dina. Of Ellie. Of anyone who just went and had their kid.

You know you cannot. It’d be like a pound of salt to Joel’s open, still bleeding, gaping wound.

That’d be his kid. With them, he’d have to be committed. Responsible. Once again. Would be afraid of failing. Of growing attached. His former life is not exactly calling for it. He’s all PTSD. And you definitely do not want to gift him an eternal trigger of an offspring.

You won’t even tell him a word. Not after his Sarah-nightmare last night.

You’ll just go, abort it and forget it.

Because you definitely didn’t dream of creating family with Joel. That’d be so silly, honestly. Having a baby who’s a spitting image of him. Seeing his strong arms cradling a product of your love. Taking your kid out for walk, watching them play, grow, learn.

Stupid.

If you’re lucky, you can coddle Tommy’s kid. Should be enough. Should be grateful.

What a selfish bitch would bring a child wanted only by her into this fucked-up world just to satisfy her maternal instinct?

You wish you was this selfish bitch.

But you is not.

So you just stare at JJ, who’s currently tugging on Joel’s greying beard, with a dolorous smile, all longing and yearning. Joel seems to notice the way your eyes do not smile like your lips do, his brows knitting slightly, fingers twitching with need to soothe. But he’s not the one to be public—he just gazes at you briefly, a silent declaration of worry. You shake your head subtly.

Not reassuring enough. But he lets it go. For now.

He’s not bringing anything up for awhile. Not as you two are on your way back home, when only sound is the crunch of grass under hooves as your horses gallop to Jackson. Not as you two reach the gates, dismounting and making your way forward. Not as you two walk inside of his cabin, discarding your coats. Not as you two dine with morning’s leftovers, his chair across yours.

Not even as you two settle in bed, centimeters of space in between you.

Despite the blinding darkness, you know he’s not asleep—breathes too heavy, body’s too tense, silence between you both too deafening.

And you do not dare to break it.

So Joel does, so casually and awkwardly it makes your heart bleed.

“...Tommy invited us for lunch ‘morrow. Y’know, since they’re prolly gon’ be busy as hell after their li’l one arrives.”

You nod against your pillow, mental pictures of baby like stab wounds to your chest.

“So… I mean, we comin’, right? They got nursery ready, baby clothes, whole shebang. Ya haven’t seen it yet, bet you’ll like it.” He rasps, turning his head to you.

“Y-Yeah, I guess. Whole shebang… sounds cool. Yeah.” You chatter way more faux-excited than needed, lump in your throat so big it might block your airway.

Joel is done ignoring the elephant in the room.

“Hey, did I… do somethin’ wrong?” He lifts his head off pillow a bit, eyes searching yours. “Caught ya bein’ all melancholic back at the farm. You don’t wanna go to Tommy’s? Ya don’t have to, just tell me, gon’ figure it out.”

You shake your head vehemently, coming up with a realistic lie. “No, no, it’s… not that, it’s… nothing. Just… All those raiders, patrols… Kinda draining, so I’m not exactly all smiles recently.”

Joel’s face softens, his calloused palm going to your shoulder, squeezing it. “Maria said they’re expectin’ a few newcomers this month. Gon’ be easier when there’s more people. Given the boss lady is about to become a ma, tho… No idea how we all gon’ manage. But we’ll manage. ‘S okay, darlin’.”

You nod twice, wanting him to shut the fuck up and stop mentioning his brother’s fucking baby.

That’s cruel. Unbearable.

Right now you want to breathe spores in until your brain gets infected. Would definitely solve all of your current problems.

Joel keeps staring at your face, as if trying to read you.

Then another bullet comes out of his mouth.

“Dreamt of Sarah last night,” His voice is no more than a whisper, eyes flickering to some random spot in the dark. “She never talks in ‘em, but she did last night. ‘S funny, thought I forgot what her voice sounds like. Turns out I didn’t.” You squeeze your eyes shut. Anything, anyone to ease his pain. Anywhere, anytime. Any worth.

A goddamn baby of his own—a responsibility, a reminder, a mockery—wouldn’t ease it.

Then Joel continues.

“Told me to let her go. Just... three words. With a smile.” He smiles himself—sardonically. “Just my brain playin’ games. But… it felt right, y’know? Like… ‘s somethin’ she would say for real. Had a heart of gold. Jus’ like yours. She would’ve love you.”

“I would’ve love her, too.” You croak out, genuine and mourning.

Joel nods, his lips twitching. “Bet ya would.”

A pregnant pause fills the room.

Until Joel decides it to break it—and your heart while he’s at it.

“So I decided to do as she told. Let her go.”

You snap your head towards him, wanting to gauge his expression. Serene. Tranquil. As if, after all these years, he finally find solace.

That he did.

“I’m… happy that you’re finally able to do that.” You lift corners of your lips meekly, your hand finding his blindly in the dark and giving it a reassuring squeeze.

“All thanks to you, darlin’.” Joel doesn’t take his eyes off you, his voice nothing more than a whisper. “Didn’t have anyone t’babysit me through all those nightmares before ya came around. Not just that, you… Stayed.”

You let out a quiet laugh. “How could I not? I… I love you.”

Couple of wrinkles on his face disappears permanently as he hears that coming from you. His mouth curls upwards, smile lines prominent and heartwarming.

Joel still couldn’t bring himself to say it back—you never even thought to confront him about it. A chaste kiss to your knuckles that came afterwards was enough. “Got me all mushy n’ sappy, eh?” He chuckles. “Only yer makin’ me like this. Thinkin’, imaginin’, picturin’… Wishin’.”

“Of what?” You all but whisper sluggishly, still holding his hand.

“Of whoever’s higher above bein’ beneficent enough to not let me fuck this up. ‘Cause… I wanna move on, darlin’. With you.” Joel states it without second thought, not a hint of hesitance in his tone, “I… I’ve been wantin’ to for a big while now, but kept bein’ scared shitless. But if it’s wit’ you… maybe… maybe I could try once again, huh? And if… if I fuck it all up once’gain, I…” His voice breaks, and your heart does too—once again.

“You won’t.” You reassure him, barely moving your lips, holding his hand and looking at his face.

Joel laughs sardonically, “Got a feelin’ that even if I did, ya’d forgave me and called it a day. Yer… too goddamn angelic f’me, sweetheart. All this time and I still didn’t make a honest woman outta you, yet y’still here. Been deprivin’ you of life… Keepin’ you glued to me like a selfish sonuvabitch. Prolly ‘cause I am. Makin’ you waste your youth on a geezer like me. And to think…” He lets out another bark of laughter. “…to think dat this old fart now wanna play house.”

You can’t bring yourself to remember how to breathe. “What?”

Joel quiets down, his gaze burning into yours. “Exactly that. If you’ll have me… I’m yours. All yours, darlin’. If y’wanna white picket fence… we gon’ have it. I… I want us to. I’ll try… not to let ya down. ‘Cause I… l-lo—”

You don’t let him finish, clutching onto him like a woman possessed, an incoherent string of words following. “Yes? You… you want to? As in..? Really?”

He grins warmly, cupping your lower back. “I’ve finally found balls to tell ya those three words and y’dare to cut me off?.. As in… family, sweetheart. All that they all are havin’. Maria, Ellie n’ Dina… I… looked at JJ today and kept wonderin’ what a tot of our own would look like.”

That was your breaking point. Your head slumps onto his bare chest as a sob shudders through your whole body.

So no abortion.

Joel frowns immediately, his palm coming to your messy hair. “Hey, hey, what’s that ‘bout, sweetheart? Did I… say somethin’ wrong?”

You sniffle, raising your head up to meet his worrying eyes, your own full of tears. “Y-You don’t have to keep wondering, y-you’ll see soon enough yourself.”

He freezes.

“I… I’m pregnant.” You manage, staring at him as if your life depends on it—and it does, in a way.

Joel blinks a few times, confused. “Y-you’re…” He trails off.

You nod, “I didn’t… know how to tell you, not with Sarah’s annivesary upcoming, so I… thought I’d just… abort it somehow and you wouldn’t even know. But I… I didn’t want to. I do not want to, can we please keep it, please?” You sob once again, brain still refusing to believe that Joel isn’t planning on making you abort it.

Then you quiet down in surprise, thinking you got hearing problems. But then it comes again. And again.

Joel is sobbing.

You have never seen him cry in all those years. You doubt if anyone else did.

You suddenly feel awkward, not knowing what to do, wanting to reach out to him, but he outpaces you.

He shifts lower until his face is on the same level with your stomach.

And presses kisses all over it. As hectic as reverent.

You practically feel wetness on his cheeks with your own skin, his eyelashes tickling you, but it’s his words that you focus on—a neverending flow of “thank you”s whispered against your abdomen.

“For what?” You squeeze out, fingers going to tangle in his hair hesitantly.

Joel pauses as he looks up at you, moonlight reflecting trickles of tears down his cheeks, his brown orbs shining in the darkness of the room.

“For lettin’ me have it all. Once again.”

He gently tugs on you, making you slide lower on bed, his chapped lips caressing yours piously. “Since I still didn’t get t’say it…” He breathes against your mouth.

“I love you.” A kiss. “I love you.” A kiss. “I love you.” A kiss.

You chuckle through your tears, trying to keep up with him. “I love you, too.”

Joel’s forehead rests against yours, his palm on your still flat stomach. “With that bein’ said… Think Maria gon’ let us off patrol for, like honeymoon?”

You bat your eyes. “For… honeymoon?”

He grins like a Cheshire cat. “Oughtta make you a wife since I made you a ma already.”

Not finding any better words, your lips latch onto his.

“Is that a yes?” Joel smirks as your mouths finally part.

“That’s a thank you. For trying with me. Once again.” You whisper into his lips.

Only for them to claim yours once again.

Because, speaking statistically, doing something once again increases the chance of a favorable outcome.

The only source for this statistic you need is right in your arms.

Simple like that—if it’s with you, he’s willing.

To try once again.

~ ♡ ~

[buddieism]

i just think the physicality shown in 8x05 between buck, tommy & eddie was so interesting.

tommy hovers outside buck’s hospital room while eddie is already sitting inside talking to the doctor—tommy comes in but eddie stays. buck is the patient, tommy is the visitor (name tag and all), but eddie is simply there; a permanent fixture.

in buck’s loft, tommy sits at the table across from buck and eddie. tommy recoiled from buck when he first saw the boils, and even though eddie is grossed out by them too, he’s the one getting up in buck’s personal space to check them out.

at the hospital waiting for news on denny, tommy is sat right next to buck but is simultaneously excluded from buck’s personal bubble through the 118 group chat notification—which was specifically called out in the dialogue. eddie stares buck down while sucking on a ring pop which of course could mean nothing.

finally, at the cemetery, tommy is standing entirely separate to buck; not by his side the way cough buddie cough were in s6. the ending shot was the *perfect opportunity* to establish bucktommy as a serious relationship. buck could’ve taken tommy’s hand with the two of them walking into the distance together—instead, buck strides away without looking back while tommy jogs after him.

and that’s not even bringing up how there was quite literally zero explicitly romantic affection between buck and tommy the entire episode, even pre-boils (because hey after that fair enough). without those romantic cues, it becomes so much easier to draw comparisons between buddie and bucktommy (both physically and emotionally) and see how eddie is consistently occupying the role in buck’s life that tommy can’t even begin to try and take on.

[harmless-variety-of-garden-snake]

It's time for BuckTommy Fluffebruary Day Twenty: Baby Fever. These two are so ready to be dads, and I'm ready to see them be dads or at least cool uncles. This was so close to being a breeding king fic, but it's really just fluff about them wanting to start a family. Who am I anymore? Also, I fixed Melton not being a captain, ya boy is getting the promotion he already had in canon. I'm a hack, and I know it. This is also on AO3 over here. Tagging @bucktommyfluffebruary

Buck likes Tommy's captain, because even from the start he had been a nice guy, and over time Buck’s found out that Bryant protects the hell out of his team. He's been on the city about safety regulations to a degree that he has a routine for going in and raising hell, they have the lowest instance of equipment failure in any Air Ops division in the state, and he'd fired no less than three people for bigoted statements or actions toward members of the team or people being rescued. One of those guys had said something to Tommy, who'd brushed it off, but Bryant had overheard and come down on the man like the hammer of God.

When Bryant has to announce his retirement, Buck is sad to see him go. The man's health has taken a hit after some hazardous material exposure earlier in his career came back to haunt him in the form of a (thankfully early stage and already in remission) cancer that he's had treated, but the treatment was aggressive and visibly weakened him. Tommy is devastated and helps organize a party to send him off, and Buck is happy to lend his planning and cooking skills. He shows up to Harbor with ten dozen cookies, four sheet cakes, three trays of lasagna (regular, plant-based, and gluten free), and enough crudité trays to feed a small army.

“I know I should be alarmed, but we really were worried we wouldn't have enough food,” Lucy says as she grabs the lasagnas from the bed of Tommy's truck and walks into the engine bay. “BK, your man's here!”

Tommy's head appears from around a corner, and Buck grins and waves at his husband. When the rest of Tommy appears, he has a baby in the crook of his arm, and Buck feels his heart melt.

“Who's this?” he asks as he approaches Tommy.

“Cap’s granddaughter,” Tommy replies, picking up a chubby hand and waving it at Buck. “Nicola, this is Evan. Evan, Nicola.”

“A pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Buck says, kissing the back of her hand and grinning at her toothless smile. “Can I steal you from the nice man?”

“As long as you promise to give her back,” Tommy says, carefully transferring her to Buck’s arms.

He bounces her and raises his brows when hers go up, laughing when she giggles. “Okay, silly girl, let's go get cookies from Uncle Tommy's truck.”

Tommy's hand rests between his shoulder blades as they walk out to the truck, which has already been largely cleared out. The cookies are in bakery boxes, and Tommy grabs them so Buck can flip the tailgate back up as he talks to Nicola about all of the stuff he made and how Bobby had helped out with the lasagna.

He feels a tug behind his belly button sometimes, like a hook’s been attached, and he's started realizing what it is. He wants this. He wants to hold a baby and then a toddler and then a child and talk to them and console them and love them and teach them. He wants to see Tommy do the same. He wants them to do it together. They've talked about it at length, and they're on the same page that sometime before Tommy turns forty-five, they'll be fathers. Tommy's forty-two and makes jokes about being one of those elderly dads one day, and Buck wants that. Every time a baby or toddler is in his vicinity, he wants to hold them and interact with them and make them smile and show them to his husband.

He holds Nicola close and kisses her fine hair and inhales the smell of baby soap and lotion and powder and milk that always clings to them when they're this young. A hand settles on his back again and he blinks at his husband. He's been blindly following Tommy and hadn't realized that he’d led them to the hangar where the party’s happening and had set the cookies down on a table.

Buck knows Tommy better than anyone probably ever has, something he's fought for and felt honored to achieve. When he looks at him, he can see a reflection of what he's feeling, having seen it more than a few times. Tommy tells him about every baby or toddler or kid who interacts with him while he's at the store, which is a lot. Kids gravitate toward Tommy, and Buck’s turned a corner in the grocery store more than once to see Tommy engaged in a conversation with a six-year-old who's explaining why their dog is named what they're named. He knows it’s what they want one day, but that one day doesn’t feel that far off anymore.

“Melton’s taking over Bryant’s spot as Captain, Jack’s taking over as First L-T,” Tommy says, reaching up to rub Nicola’s back as she wobbles a bit trying to look around at all of the people walking past them. “So the Training Captain job will be opening up. I was thinking of applying.”

Training Captain would mean Tommy is taken off rescues, that he'd only be flying to train, that his hours would be a little more regular. It’s been their first step in starting their family ever since they mapped out what that might look like for them.

“Yeah?” Buck asks, feeling his chest swell with something like hope.

Tommy’s gaze meets his, and his husband looks happy at the idea. “Yeah.”

Nicola squirms against Buck’s chest, and he turns his attention back to her. She's getting a little pouty, and Buck soothes her softly, bouncing her a bit and talking quietly to her.

“Sorry,” a woman says, smiling. “I need to feed her. You're Tommy’s husband, right?”

Buck grins and nods, still not able to tamp down the thrill that goes through him at being able to say he's Tommy's husband. “Yeah, that's me. Evan Buckley-Kinard. Does this young lady belong to you?”

“She does,” she confirms, giving her daughter a smile filled with so much love that it lights up her face. “I'm Mary, Cap’s kid. You guys don’t have any yet, right?”

“Not yet,” Buck says with full confidence that he'll be able to give a different answer one day. One day, he'll be able to say ‘yes’ and pull out his phone to show a million pictures to someone who will coo politely and ask about milestones and how old and names and sleep schedules. And he'll be able to turn to Tommy and commiserate about sleepless nights and quiet moments and—

“Yeah, you've got it bad,” Mary says, laughing. Buck flushes and hands the baby over to her patient mother. “Don't worry, you'll probably get her back until my dad gets her. Thanks for keeping an eye on her.”

“Not a problem,” Tommy says, slipping an arm around Buck’s waist. “Tell your dad to share. He's about to get all the time in the world with her.”

Mary looks between them with a smile. “You guys know they don't sleep, diaper blow-outs are a ‘when’ not ‘if’ situation—not to take the shine off the idea, but I feel like everyone just gassed me up until it was too late, then I got all the horror stories.”

“Oh, we know,” Buck says, sighing happily as he reaches over to brush a thumb over Nicola’s petal soft cheek. “But look at that face.”

She tucks herself against her mom, and Mary kisses the top of her head. “Yeah,” she says softly. “It's the best one. Nice meeting you, Evan.”

“You, too,” Buck says, watching them leave. He waves sadly at Nicola when she peeks at him from over Mary’s shoulder. “One?”

“Or two,” Tommy says, kissing his temple. “We'll see. But at least one. I always wished I had a sibling.”

“They're great,” Buck confirms, even though Maddie is going to be so smug, because she'd called him wanting kids right after marriage and he'd denied it vehemently, saying they’d wait another two to three years. “Mostly.”

“You'll be a great dad.”

Buck smiles at his husband and presses their foreheads together. “So will you.”

He sees a bit of the fear and doubt and knows it's the spirit of Tommy's dad looming over him. He wants to reach back in time and throw the man down a mountain.

“You're one of the best people I've ever known,” Buck reminds him. “And I love you and will love you even when you let our kids get paint on the walls.”

Tommy chuckles and squeezes his waist. “It'll add character to the house. And I'd give them washable paint.”

“That stuff is bullshit and you know it and I know it and so does Crayola, because the stains—” Buck’s cut off from his rant by a pair of lips, and he sighs against his husband's mouth.

“Wanna practice after the party?” Tommy asks softly.

“Stain removal?” Buck asks faintly.

“No,” Tommy says, looking between Buck’s eyes with an intensity that burns straight through him. “Making a baby.”

Buck’s heart stutters in his chest and heat shoots through him. “Neither of us really has the right—but we could try.”

Tommy nods and kisses him again, and it's only the distant voice of the fire chief that keeps Buck from slipping him any tongue.

[theotherbuckley]

WIP Wednesday 🦵

Ok so I have been slowly chipping away at physio fic. It may not be out when I said tho because I have been focusing on driving and also studying for an exam I have next week asjdashkdha but I will get it out eventually. Let me know if you want to be tagged when it’s posted. Anyway here's a mostly canon scene + Tommy <3

The doctor looks at Buck. He can feel his eyes studying him like he can see right through his guilt. “Did it come out of nowhere?” the doctor asks pointedly. “No pain or tenderness in the leg? Skin discolouration, swelling?”

Buck swallows. He can see Tommy and Maddie both looking at him out of the corner of his eyes. He doesn’t make eye contact. Can’t look at their faces. “I— I just thought I pulled a muscle or something.” He’s not lying, he’s not. He didn’t know. Or maybe he just didn’t want to think about anything else going wrong. 

He sighs. “Okay, I— I’ve been training for my LAFD recertification test—”

“—He’s been pushing himself, hard,” Tommy adds, and Buck shoots him a glare only to be met with a soft expression of concern that only has him feeling guiltier. 

The doctor nods. “Well, it's not surprising. Training hard can lead to dehydration, which can increase the risk of clots.” 

So it’s his fault. He wasn’t taking care of himself. Not drinking enough water. He’s such an idiot. 

“I’m sorry…” Tommy whispers next to him, placing a gentle hand on his leg. 

Buck blinks up at him confused. “It’s not your fault? I don’t—”

“I saw how hard you were pushing yourself, and I didn’t stop you, even when I wanted to. I should’ve—”

“Tommy,” Buck says seriously. “I wouldn’t have listened to you. I— I didn’t listen to you. And— and Eddie. I thought I could handle it.” Buck looks back to the doctor, suddenly feeling too vulnerable. “Okay, um, well, great. Look, I— I'm not dead. You–You found the clots. When can I get out of here?” 

He needs to get out of here. Needs to get far away from the sympathetic looks of his sister and his— Tommy. Needs to get out of the hospital and back in uniform and fighting fires and— and helping people. That’s where he belongs. 

“We'll move you to a room. Keep you on the anticoagulants. Tomorrow, we'll run some more tests. And then, we'll see where to go from there.”

We’ll… see? Buck does not like the sound of that. The room is starting to feel smaller again. He blinks, takes a breath. He can’t do this. 

Tommy pats his leg. “Thanks, Doc. You know what, I'm gonna— I’m gonna go tell everyone that you're okay. Let them know that you're staying awhile, all right?”

“Tom—” Buck starts, but Tommy’s already out the door, without so much as a second glance.

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