#this is actually the longest fic I've written which is know is pathetic but uh wow go me

[sp00kymulderr]

part 3 - Afterburn

series masterlist

Pairing: Joel Miller x afab reader (no pronouns)

Warnings: 18+, cursing, details of grief, survivors guilt, dealing with emotions badly, reader is dealing with death of a loved one, general sadness, kissing, m masturbation, premature ejaculation, oral (f receiving), fingering (f receiving). Please let me know if I missed any.

Word Count: 5.6k

Summary: “Do you remember what it’s like to be happy?”

A/N: I'm sorry it's taken so long to post. I'm really proud of this one. If you like it please please comment and/or reblog. To follow for fic updates only go to @sp00kyupdates​ or see taglist details on my masterlist. Credit to banner/divider maker.

Joel is not the same after you return from your short shower. Your packs are waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs as he stands by the door scanning the horizon, an impatient tut leaves him.

“We gotta go, you ready?” He grunts, not even bothering to look at you.

“Joel c’mon…” You respond, your voice a little hoarse.

“Just-” Joel snaps and then sighs, finishing the rest of the sentence in a slightly softer tone “Grab your stuff. Put on your boots”

He shoulders his pack and walks out the door, waiting on the porch. You mutter your frustration. He isn’t being fair and you’re pretty sure he knows it too. You want to understand why this is such a bad thing - the two of you - but he doesn’t seem to want to even acknowledge what happened.

You sit on the sagging couch and look once more around the old house. It’s always difficult to come to these places, but somehow it’s also difficult to leave them. Someone lived here, someone loved here, someone was happy here once – you hope at least. You look around the dusty living room once more and contemplate, as you always do. What has this place seen, what kind of people called it a home? What secrets does it keep?

Those thoughts bring you to your own home too, where you’d been until the outbreak. You’d never gone back but you’d often thought of returning, seeing if anything of your old life still existed. Since you’d lost your last connection to your past.

You shake your head and pull on the new boots lacing them tight, ready to put them to the test at least. Joel is waiting for you outside when you finally make your way to him and he’s already walking, apparently sure of the direction.

You follow in silence for a while. Your feet don’t hurt as bad as before and you’re grateful for that.

“Did you ever go home, Joel?” You ask eventually, hesitant.

“Huh?” he’s only half listening to you, looking around for any signs of imminent threat.

“You ever go back to your old home?”

“No” is all he says.

You leave it at that.

The last thing Joel wants to think about is home. Home is where his broken heart is. He’d never go back there, he’d pull the memory completely from his head if he could. 

There’s a lot of memories he wishes he didn’t have to have.

And now he has a new one; his head feels so all over the place because of you and your lips, your warmth, the disquieting solace he found in you. He knows he shouldn’t punish you for any of it; for what happened, for how he feels, for how he doesn’t understand his feelings. But he’s already punishing himself for everything else that’s ever happened, so you’ll have to take the brunt of this mistake.

And it was a mistake, he knows that. You don’t want him the way you think you do. He’s sure of it. It’s not about anything more than forgetting for you, for finding some distraction from your pain. He knows it too well. He’s been there. He’s still there in a way but at least after all these years he knows better than to chase that feeling. He has to keep away, help you know better too.

“Keep up” He mutters as he looks back at you, and he knows he sounds harsh but he can’t stop himself.

That deceitful monster in him wants more. He feels it. He won’t give in to it.

When you were younger you used to run free and happy in the green garden outside your house. You would spend all your time outside, climbing trees, scaling rocks, swimming in the lake by the forest. You had a treehouse in the garden and you'd climb up to it every summer night and watch the world from up there, free and happy and something more.

Alive in more ways than just surviving.

She'd been with you even then, you'd share secrets and tell stories cuddled up in your sleeping bags in the treehouse at night together. You lived for those moments when you and your best friend would live in your own world and everything else was just background noise.

Now you're climbing trees and scaling rocks but not for the same reasons the innocent child of your past would. You have to scope out the land, find a good place to stop. Joel helps boost you up to a branch so you can climb, to check out some noise in the distance of the forest, and when you snag your shirt on a twig you have this pang of gut-wrenching muscle memory of that time she fell from the treehouse and you thought for a moment of blind panic that you'd lost her.

You hate that every single thing reminds you of her. You despise the memories for making you misty eyed and weak. The more Joel ignores you as the time goes on, the worse it gets. The more you remember, the more everything reminds you of your dead best friend and the lives you'd lost to this world of horrors. Your life next, you know. That’s all there is now.

Just you.

And Joel. 

Joel, who was pulling away more and more with every passing second. His hesitant gaze on you lands regretful and forlorn.

Eventually up in the tree you're able to see far enough to know there's a camp of people further down the forest, so when you’re back down Joel decides on a detour that leads you both far in the opposite direction not wanting to take any risks. Your new boots are finally starting to rub after hours and hours of walking - nothing good lasts forever. You wonder if the person they belonged to before you ever got to wear them, if you shared the pain of blisters from the same shoes. If the people in that house used to go hiking in this vast forest every weekend. You wonder if they are dead now too, or just trying desperately to survive. Are they trying to make it back to their home, to find the memories they’d left behind?

You'd go home. You would. If you ever could. It's too far now, too dangerous and too much to ever think you could make it there. Besides, what would you do when you got there? Hope you had anything of yours left? Let yourself drown in the pain of distant memories, of things you knew you’d never get back? But there were things, all these trinkets you wanted to hold to your heart now you have nothing else. Photos; pictures printed and framed or posted on your walls with sticky tack since you were a teenager. Family and friends and pets and all the things you have lost. The things you’d never, ever get back.

The silence consumes you and you think you’d rather wallow in your grief and misery back at the place where you were once happy, instead of being here where your longing and guilt are driving you to insanity with every ticking second. You miss talking, you miss having a friend. She was everything you ever needed in life, she was the only thing that had made you happy in the years since the world ended. You need that, and you know Joel won’t give you any of the things you need. He doesn’t want to know you any more than he has now. You can’t see past his actions back at the house and he can’t see you in any way other than shamefully anymore.

You don’t even know what to say to him now. So you just walk, and ignore the aching and misery consuming you whole.

It’s a few hours later and your feet are starting to bleed through your socks, because all good things must come to an end in this empty horror of a world. Joel finally decides it’s time to stop and make camp. It’s getting dark after all and there’s the opportunity for cover while you’re still under the protection of the vast forest - you’re nearly at the edge now. 

“This should work” he mutters more to himself than you as he looks over the spot you’ve stopped at.

He briefly glances at you and it’s nothing but it’s more than he’s given you in hours so it makes you feel a little glint of that spark from before again. What if you just kissed him again, the way he let you before? Would he stop you? You know he likely would, but it doesn’t stop you wanting to try.

Like he knows, he’s stepping further from you acting like he’s inspecting the site he’s picked. There’s nothing to inspect - it’s a patch of mossy forest floor with a large rock on one side and what looks like an ancient tree on the other. You watch him momentarily and feel that misery all over. Touch would solve it all. His touch would solve everything just like it did before. The darkness above the trees could hold a secret if he could just give you something, a tiny thing to keep your sadness at bay.

And yet you are both wordless as you set up the small camp; no fire - that would potentially draw attention and the woods are never an entirely safe place to be - just your sleeping bags set up with an arm's length between the two like he’s worried you’ll somehow get the wrong idea if he gives you even the possibility of touching him again.

“Here” He mutters when you’re both sitting down and you almost laugh with the ridiculousness of how hard he’s trying to not even give you his gaze anymore. He hands you some of the jerky that’s been wrapped in his pack for a while. It’s dry and hard.

“We got all that stuff from the house” 

“Gonna split it, when we…” He mutters without finishing his sentence.

“Oh”

When we go our separate ways. That’s what he meant and he doesn’t have to say it. He’s gonna leave you. Leave you completely alone.

“You know where you’re gonna go?” Joel asks and maybe there’s the hint of guilt in his voice but more likely you’re imagining it.

Tears prick hot in your eyes and you try to blink them away. All this time you’d done so well at not letting him see you cry; the tears from your loss and your grief had only once fallen in his sight and now you were feeling them fall down your cheeks right in front of him all because he was finally sending you on your way.

Stupid. You’re so stupid. It was only ever temporary and he’d made it so clear he didn’t want anything from you. He was just doing a sad, lost person a momentary favor but you’d lost sight of that completely after these last couple days. The way he had kissed you…the way you know it would’ve gone further yesterday if there hadn’t been an interruption…but none of it means a thing in the wake of his words.

He’s looking at you now. Of course this would be the moment he finally decides to turn those beautiful eyes back on you - you can feel the weight of his gaze on your face and you want it to be dark and lustful like before but when you look over at him he’s frowning. You sniffle and clear your throat, and finally give him an answer.

“I- I want to go home” You say so sadly and his brow knits in confusion for a moment before he understands.

“You think that’s a good idea?” Joel sounds more judgemental than he probably means to. He’s still watching you, but he never addresses the tears that are silently falling from your sad eyes.

You shake your head and sigh. Chewing on the last of the jerky for a bit and it makes you feel sick. His gaze burns you now, like it’s melting through the cold of him ignoring you all day and scorching at your flesh. Why won’t he stop staring? Why suddenly is he so intent on giving you all this attention? Does he just pity you that much?

He’s still eating slowly when you lie down on your sleeping bag, staring up at the trees and the night sky just above them. You’d spent nights like this watching the stars before - your heart pangs at the memory and you feel bile rise up in your throat for a moment before you screw your eyes shut tight enough to see the dance of colourful light behind your lids.

“Do you remember what it’s like to be happy?” Your voice is a whisper, it shakes as you shove that memory back down.

You open your eyes and turn your head in time to see Joel's sudden pained look and the shake of his head. You can feel the misery around him like it’s an aura. That only makes your heart hurt more. Damn it, why does he have to make you feel more? It’s always those eyes; he can make himself as hard and distant as he wants but his beautiful brown eyes betray him every single time

“Yeah. Well, I do. I remember. I remember living” If it wasn’t clear you were crying before it’s obvious you are now, you sniffle and wipe tears that race from the corners of your eyes into your hair.

Joel remains quiet for a while after that. Perhaps he just doesn’t know what to say, or perhaps he’s trying not to comfort you. The trees above the two of you wave gently in a breeze that rushes quietly through the forest, and the stars above them shine like they always have - unchanged by the death of this world and the screaming of your souls. Between you and Joel there is a blanket of grief and despair and both of you seem to be wrapping yourselves tighter in it at every turn.

Eventually he clears his throat and there’s a slight shift in Joel’s body, angling more towards you. It makes you bolder - like before - and you reach your hand between your two sleeping bags. Just lay it there between the two of you.

“I don’t want to remember, Joel. Not right now. I just want to feel something else” 

He rubs his watering eyes and sighs deeply. He is wavering, you can tell. He’s holding back but there’s the twitch of his hands as he looks at you lying there and he slowly reaches out - rough, calloused and warm hand encompassing yours slowly. He lets out a long breath.

“It’s not gonna help. I- I’m not gonna help you like you need. Nothing’s that simple. I should know…”

“You’re scared”

“Maybe” Joel shrugs. 

His hand holds yours a little tighter. You’re still crying silent tears that glisten on your face in the starlight.

“Don’t you feel alone? Don’t you just feel so fucking alone all the time? Why do we have to feel alone, when we’re here together?” You’re actually pleading now. It’s pathetic really but you just need the incessant heartache to stop for even a moment.

Joel hums low and gives you a long stare. His eyes soften more. There’s a shred more sympathy than there has been and it’s enough for your body to ignite with that burning hope just like last time.

“Fuck” He mutters, and then “Come here” and he is letting go of your hand and laying on his side on the sleeping bag, it seems reluctant but he’s inviting you to him and you’re almost embarrassed when you move in a heartbeat and close that gap between you and him.

Your breath catches when you lie beside him on your side and his body curls around yours, his arm over you and he holds your hand again. He’s warm like a comforting blanket - it feels almost like he’s protecting you the way he holds you close. It’s the closest you’ve ever been; even when he’d kissed you, when he’d touched you he’d kept a distance. You had never gotten to feel all of his body against you like this. Only in your hopeless dreaming. His breath tickles on the back of your neck and the warmth of it lingers, his heart beating steady where his chest presses against your back. He lets out a nearly silent sigh that makes you think he’s feeling the same thing as you. 

You are not alone.

For a while it’s nothing, and Joel starts to think you’re sleeping. Your breathing is steady just like his and those sweet little sighs could just be the slumber taking hold. You don’t move and he’s so afraid to make even the slightest change to the position lest he starts you on that downward spiral again.

He knows it’s a mistake. Such a big mistake to let you feel close to him. It is only going to make everything worse in the long run but your words ring so true in his mind - he has been so damn alone. Ever since…for too long. He’s been alone. You draw him in like a magnet; a strange and shameful comfort that he’s denied himself all these years.

Maybe it’ll be fine. Maybe it’ll just be this, nothing more and nothing less. No guilt. No attachment. Maybe you’ll leave willingly and he’ll never once think about this moment again and neither will you. Maybe. 

He murmurs your name softly and buries his face against your neck. He just wants to feel. Something. It’s wrong. He’s leading you on. But he wants to escape his loneliness just as much as you want to escape your pain.

He hears the smallest moan escape you like a breath and it makes him tighten his arm around you a little, because it brings him back to what happened before. How he’d touched you, how he’d felt you. There’s a stirring in him at the memory. You both feel it.

Joel knows you’re not asleep now, your breathing is less steady and your hand squeezes his a little.

“Don’t let me feel alone” You murmur and fuck Joel wants to let that base part of himself take control all over again.

He hesitates but only for a second. 

“I won’t”

And then he’s turning your head, and he’s kissing you.

There’s a moment of guilt that rises from your chest slowly, but it’s gone again the moment your lips meet his.

It's not like the first kiss. It's not even like the kisses in the kitchen when he'd pressed you up against the fridge and touched you. It's not like any kiss you've ever felt; it's urgent and desperate but not forceful or rough - there's a subtle tenderness behind it like he's really genuinely trying to give you that feeling of togetherness you crave so much.

It makes your mind go blank after a moment, when you feel his tongue and he’s asking for a permission which you grant without a moment of hesitation. It makes you forget where you are, who you are, what you've been through. 

He's good at that. Making you forget.

He's good at it all.

He kisses you harder when you open your mouth to him and it turns from tender to intense. It becomes more. More and more of him and you and it's what you've thought about all day. Like he really wants you. You're still on your side with your head turned and him over you, your back pressed against his chest and his subtle shift of hips against your ass makes your breath hitch. 

Oh, he wants you. And you want him. 

And what else matters?

“Joel…” you whimper. Sickly sweet and full of urgency. 

“Yeah, I know,” He says. 

There’s something else there, something you don’t want to hear. Something he doesn’t want to share. He shakes it away in a moment of a blink. He’s well versed in brushing away those moments. You need to learn it from him.

“I know” He says again, and he kisses you once more. Your lips lock in a moment that fans the flames that have been burning all this time; these weeks the two of you have been traveling together, these moments you have been sharing that are more than just moments. He stokes the coals of your desire with his mouth on yours and then down, down. To your cheek, your jaw, he’s over you and pressing you on to your back half on the cold ground as his lips meet your neck and you keen in some kind of desperation to be alight with his touch again.

Your hands traverse the broad expanse of his chest, clinging to the rough fabric of his shirt as he kisses the spot right under your ear that makes your soul leave you for a moment.

“You won’t stop this time?” You ponder, looking for a promise

“No”.

Simple, straight. Joel. He needs it. You know it’s been a while, you can tell by the way his hot mouth latches on to your soft flesh as he ruts against you like he’s already chasing a release he’s waited too long for.

“Doesn’t mean anythin’, right?”

“Doesn’t mean anything,” you repeat. 

He means it. Do you?

“Fuck” He groans, deep and guttural when your wandering hands reach lower. It’s all so urgent. There’s no moment for softness. It’s lustful and intentional and greedy. Teeth and nails and need. No moment to waste as your nimble fingers find the opening of his faded jeans and make their way inside.

He’s still exploring with demanding grunts of appreciation at the taste of your skin. He’d liked it before. He likes it more now, after the long day of toil. You’re intoxicating in all the ways he never knew how to resist.

You think he feels the same as you. It’s been so long. You can’t remember the last time you felt such intimate touch, before Joel. It’s more addicting now than it ever was back then as his fingertips dance with burning brushes against the skin under your shirt.

There are no memories. No pain. No distant threat. No trees. No breeze. No stars. Just him and you in this blank space you have created for yourselves - outside of time and reality. It is a kiss that takes away life, that takes away loneliness. His touch breathes hope into you that you’d only ever felt with…no. It’s just him and you and nothing else.

Just that.

Your fingers trace down, past where buttons are undone and the zipper is open. You touch him, a slight squeeze that makes his breath hitch so damn gorgeously you feel it in your core.

He’s big. God, he’s big and he’s hard and it’s for you. It’s for you.

He breathes out and grits his teeth as you feel him, he has to stop kissing you for a moment as you ease his pants down and free his hardened length from its confines. He’s not gonna tell you to stop. Neither of you are going to end this until it has to be ended, you know that when you look in his eyes and they are dazed with lust and desire that he’s been holding back for too long.

There’s no call for modesty here in this darkened patch of forest floor where the only sounds are the rustle of leaves and your panting breaths. He watches you with a knitted brow trying so goddamn hard to hold on to at least a bit of himself when you lewdly spit into your hand and wrap it around his thick length.

“Shit” Joel grits his teeth, pressing his forehead against your shoulder. He murmurs your name. It’s never sounded as good as it does when spoken by him like that. Your hand moves, thumb swiping his leaking tip to smear on him. He feels good in your hand, heavy and smooth and he’s already shaking.

“I…sweetheart, I can’t…”

“Yeah, you can” You shush him with your lips against his, oddly soft and caring in this moment of heady lust.

“No I mean it’s…fuck” Joel pants out, his voice a gruff whisper that tickles your skin and makes you clench “Haven’t had- I can’t fu-” words tumble from his lips to the side of your neck as he devolves into mumbles you can’t quite make out. He trembles and bites back a loud groan, before spilling warm and sticky onto your fingers.

“Sorry” He murmurs with heavy breath and it’s the sweetest fucking thing in the world from this man who has been pushing you away for what feels like eternity.

Ah, you make sense of the words now.

“Haven’t had anyone touch you in a while?” You say, biting your lip as you look at him - he takes your breath away as the moonlight catches on the glint of his eyes, the trickle of sweat down his brow. His eyes are big and brown and there’s an apology in them that you don’t need.

“It’s okay. It’s okay” You assure with a soft smile. You kiss him, a sweet peck on the lips which he returns with another. It feels almost too intimate and you know you’re falling to somewhere you can’t crawl out of.

For a beat there’s a silence; Joel zips his fly and is catching his breath after his release whilst you drag your lips from his and down to his chin then his jaw. Drowning in the scent and taste of him. He is like nothing you’ve ever known and you want to be devoured by his presence.

You’re making do with wiping your hand off on your trousers when he moves you, pressing you down on to your back fully. There’s a hunger in him. He is starved and he craves. You shiver at that; he can slip from one moment to another like a changeling. His demeanour seems to shift with the wind.

“Gonna make it up to you, darlin’” He whispers with a dark desire as he goes back to kissing your neck and his hand moves down your body and to the button of your pants. Your mind flashes back to before - the way he’d made you shake back in the house - and your cunt throbs with need for that again. For him to take away your mind and your breath and your sanity if he wants.

You need him in ways you cannot fathom.

“Oh god”  You moan as he cups you through your underwear, mouth still attacking the curve where your neck meets your shoulder. 

You’re ready to feel that way again. And you’re about to beg him not to tease you when he pulls his hand away and detaches from your neck.

“Joel” the whine is so needy you should be embarrassed but you’re not capable of feeling that at the moment.

He shushes you softly and finishes unfastening your jeans, as he kneels between your legs. And then he’s taking them off; your jeans and underwear pulled down to your ankles and off, tossed to the side. He’s a man on a mission, and he licks his lips as he nudges your legs apart further and looks down at you.

Fuck. You might come from the sight alone. God…is he going to…

Joels calloused hands slide up your thighs and to your lower stomach and he settles himself right between your spread legs. You can’t look at him down there like that.

“This okay?” He asks, holding on to your thigh with one large hand while the other slips up under your shirt to palm at your warm skin.

You have to let out a huffed laugh at that. It’s definitely okay. It’s more than okay.

“Mhm” You answer, lips pressed together and you look up at the stars instead of the beautiful man currently kissing your inner thigh. Before he had wanted nothing to do with you and now he seems to want everything with you, you’d have whiplash if your brain wasn’t slowly melting out of your ear at the feel of his lips dragging higher.

He’s taking it so. So slow. Palming your breast now and kissing the other thigh You’re going to combust and be left nothing but a pile of embers if he keeps this up. You need so deeply that it hurts.

You card your fingers through his hair. It’s surprisingly soft and the sensation adds to the tension in you. He grunts as you give a little tug, but you think he gets the message without you having to use your words, your words probably wouldn’t make sense in this moment.

“Oh!” you gasp. 

Yes, he proves that he got the message loud and clear as he’s parting you with his tongue and licking a stripe that ends at your clit and makes your eyes roll back. He’s good.

He tastes you and moans deep at it. His tongue swipes again against your clit and your grip in his hair tightens a bit again but he doesn’t seem to mind or even notice as he explores and delves deeper. He swirls against your entrance, and then presses in for a moment and you’re going to lose it completely.

The noise of your whines and whimpers increase, a muffled cry against your hand as he moves up again and sucks against your clit with a softness which quickly becomes much more fervent when you respond well. You buck your hips against his face, so he holds one strong arm across you as he continues to alternate between using his tongue and his mouth to bring you closer.

Your mind is all but scrambled with the way you feel. You haven’t had anything like this in so long and he’s fulfilling needs you had almost forgotten you had. He’s not just giving you pleasure, he’s giving you back something you thought you’d lost. He’s making you feel on fire in every way possible; burning skin on burning skin, scorching heat between your legs and deep in your belly.

You're winding, tightening, as he continues. He delves a thick finger in to you and then another as he focuses his mouth on your sensitive bud, listening to the sounds of your heavy breath and knowing he’s doing right.

“Joel…Joel you’re…yes, like that…” You moan too loud, Joel grunts against you with a light slap to the thigh. Keep it down. Even now he’s aware, does he ever really let himself go fully?

Right, you’re out in the open. It feels like you’re in a world of just you and him…you have to try and keep some kind of sanity as he makes you see the stars behind your lids. It’s almost impossible, biting your lip to try and quiet yourself.

It’s…it’s incredible. The way his tongue moves. The crook of his fingers inside you. The pressure in you when he purses his lips around your clit. Your body is too hot, alive, more alive than you’ve felt in weeks. Too alive, all at once.

“Oh god…I’m…it’s….please…” babbles of incoherence which earn you a pinch to your skin, but he doesn’t let up on his ministrations. He doesn’t give you a chance to calm down.

Suddenly, your body ignites as the tight coil in your stomach snaps and it’s like there’s no yesterday, no tomorrow. You writhe, hips bucking, Joel holding you down and continuing until the very last moment of your orgasm. You’ve come before, of course, even if not with a partner in a while you’ve known this feeling many times and yet it’s like something you’ve never fully had before. He’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced before.

Fuck, your eyes are shut tight as you ride out the waves. Little aftershocks that make your body shiver. You can feel him - a final kiss to your clit, another to your inner right thigh and then he’s raising up, moving away from you and you can hear him catching his own breath like he nearly drowned in you.

“Jesus” You groan, limp and a mess. He breathes out a quiet, pleased laugh and you finally open your eyes and try to adjust them to see his face again. 

He’s looking at you. He’s all lines and splotches and coloured lights but he’s looking at you with something like a smile. 

Everything is blurred.

The lines are blurred. What does it mean? What does that soft kiss he places against your lips now actually mean? You feel sluggish from the climax but somehow your mind is racing still despite it. The lines are so damn blurred and it’s going to make you crazy, it’s going to make you lose it all.

“Alright?” He asks softly as he helps you put on your underwear and jeans again. Where did all his uncaring gruffness go? When will it come back and how will you live when it does?

“y-yeah…I think…yeah” You mutter dumbly. “Joel, I-”

Whatever you were going to say is cut off. He lays beside you again, arm going right around you pulling you flush against his chest. Your heart won't stop racing.

“You still feel alone?” Joel whispers in a deep grumble against your ear. You can feel it come from his chest. You shudder helplessly.

You shake your head. There’s a feeling of exhaustion from the day's movement settling in and you succumb to it swiftly, resting your head down on him and letting your breathing match to his. Letting him take you over completely.

No, you’re not lonely.

This fate is worse than loneliness.