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braaan · 2 months ago

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Sunday Best (w/ Eunseo)

male reader & wjsn eunseo

fluff & smut, 3k words

As far as you’ve rationalized, it doesn’t make any sense.

For starters, you and Eunseo have been together since high school, and this is far from the first time she’s been in your apartment.

The first time, hours after a mutual friend’s birthday party gets cut short, Eunseo’s throwing up in your bathroom. It’s a tale as old as time: the Friday night of a long weekend, way too many groupchats, high school bravado kneecapped by Fireball shooters — it’s messy, and senior year. You get you’re her boyfriend’d into nursing her back to life, and one grueling night shift later, she’s under your covers while you’re trying to get comfy on your small-for-sitting futon. And despite how early she’s up the next morning, between the still warm almond croissants on your countertop, the deep hug she pulls you into before you can drum up anything sarcastic, and how much better your basketball shorts sit on her waistline — drawstring double-knotted, waistband rolled all the way up — it’s hard to stay mad.

Another time, you’re coming back from date night, and before the front door even closes in on you two, she’s walking your apartment’s perimeter, pulling out supplies from a backpack. You’re trailing her, trying to simultaneously close the distance she covers and read the tiny labels on household items she leaves in her wake. Before long, there’s not a countertop unmarked by these tiny rubber characters (“They’re called SMISKIs”), all of your spaces start to predominantly smell like daisies, and you don’t recognize half of the brands in your bathroom. Any other time: you’d say something. Any other time: you’d stand up for yourself; puff your chest into the slight height difference. Any other time Eunseo wasn’t reappearing from your bedroom in a tiny cotton shirt and all eight inches of these plaid blue pajama shorts: yeah, you’d draw your boundaries.

Sometime after that, in the lull of quiet comfort and work from home, her legs are in your lap as you both bat away questions on individual video calls. Difference couldn’t be any more stark. Twelve minutes into your morning meeting, in between unmutes of your desktop microphone, you’ve tallied up a total of twenty words, and have entertained a serious-and-three-quarters imagination about where else you could call into this — your camera’s off, after all. Eunseo’s your in-office foil: her chocolate hair freshly straightened, her baby blue button up perm pressed, her small talk status quo. Eunseo’s full of shit. Just off camera, unobvious in her digital four walls, she hasn’t changed out of your heather gray boxer shorts she wore to bed.

So, really:

It’s not the first time you’ve seen Eunseo wake up in a pair of shorts.

It doesn’t make any rational sense how much it still gets a reaction out of you.

Granted, it’s an unreal view.

The sun hurries through your curtains to pool around her feet, daybreak serving as stepping stones as she pads to your en suite. Golden yellow melts into her milk chocolate hair, spinning already light browns into shades of almond and sand between sunlit highlights. A breeze picks up through the fabric, and the light breaks. One moment she’s haloed, cast in sunlight, all of her curves etched in radiance; the next, momentarily obscured, a dream in soft-focus, half-glimpsed and inviting whole-yearning. From where you’re propped up on your elbows, she flickers in and out of reality and reverie, real-deal and daydream. She’s a light show in slow motion, superposition between technicolor and transfiguration; sunkiss and shadow in perfect ballet, catching an everyday angel between the light that loves her and pockets of beautiful mystery that make her all the more alluring.

All of this to Eunseo: her morning routine.

She walks without hesitation. Even when it’s mundane, there’s a tangible confidence in the way she sprays sea salt into her hair, carding her fingers through her roots.

It’s the one thing that threw you for a loop about her, really: for a long time, you were waiting for the character to drop. Blended between candor and how you’d be able to read anything just off of her facial expression, Eunseo was headstrong, and always heart first. Early into your relationship, it was unnerving. Younger yous bounced between bouts of ‘wow, that’s frank’ and ‘what are you compensating for?’. You got where you were in life — to you: where most people didn’t — by never playing all your cards, and here Eunseo was all the same, hand face up on the table.

Though it doesn’t take you too long to eventually admit that forward is sexy.

It’s in the way she asks for what she wants, unbothered by the answer, discarding pretense and step-by-step; it’s in the way she’ll take the lead without warning, showing up after work at your lobby to take you on a night she’s pre-planned; it’s in the way that — because on the weekend, you wake up on her time — she’s six feet away from you, tip-toed, peeling at the curtains: all the way stretched out.

And outlined in daylight, you don’t miss a detail.

For starters, her shirt’s way too small. It’s this light material: cheap white cotton that curls in on itself at the hem. And as she reaches out at the Roman shades, revealing more and more skin, you can explore all the small of her back, run imaginary hands along where her shirt stops, down the soft line where skin kisses spine. You can trace your thumbs at the space just above her hips, skirting shapes at her waistline, dancing just above the navy soccer shorts Eunseo wore in tenth grade, faded far from school colors, and tiny as hell.

You could sit there for hours — you’d find new angles to obsess over.

You get half a beat.

“It’s rude to stare, you know?”

And in one motion, Eunseo closes the distance between where she was and where you sit, quickly cross-legged on your comforter.

“And even ruder to have fun,” she starts, patting the blankets grouped around your waist, “all by yourself.”

“Fuck off,” you spit, batting away at her forearm. The blood runs to your cheeks, and your ears are hot. “You might as well be wearing nothing — what am I supposed to do?”

Looking at you through her fringes, the edges of her lips pulling into the start of a smile, she doesn’t need any words — it’s a brutally honest admission.

“You’re saying,” she whispers, “it’s these you like?” Both of your eyes flick to where her hands find the trim of her shorts, tracing the stitching at her thigh, following a runaway stripe with a fingernail — matte white, all insidious, and teasingly slow.

“Eunseo,” you try again flatly. “Fuck,” and there’s a pause here, implicit now anything but, “off.”

Which would be half convincing if you could take your eyes off of her legs.

You’re tracing her thigh in your head, filling the toned crease with your gaze, painting Eunseo’s legs with attention.

She leans into you, and makes it hard to think. Your thoughts are cloudy; in the moment. Nothing becomes more top of mind than the smell of daisies.

There’s a half beat.

Then a whisper against your lips: “Tell me what you like.”

Forward is so fucking sexy.

Kissing Eunseo is like fire: hot, and all at once. She’s running her hands under your shirt, snaking her legs under your stomach; she’s whimpering against your bottom lip, redirecting your hands onto her chest; she’s running her tongue against your teeth, wedging herself square in all of your focus — you’re trying to keep up.

You’re kneading at her chest through cotton, creating new creases, feeling the bud of her nipple get hard in your hands.

You’re tugging at her t-shirt, stretching fabric out of form.

You’re molding Aphrodite — palming, gripping, shaping. Sculpting divinity on earth called for hours of sanctification, and you were here to worship.

Eunseo’s like putty to it all — so sensitive, and pliant at your fingertips. She’s moaning at your mouth, then whispering praises. Hushed against your lips: more, more, more, more, more.

You blink life back into your eyes, and magnetically, inherent like gravity, they fall onto hers. Filled with the night sky — wine-dark, galaxy-wide, abyssal, fully oblivion — even now: hooded, sultry, and all shades of dangerous, they felt inevitable, like they were where yours belonged. They beckoned — like they were written in all of your universes, like all the right roads led back to them.

And it’s like Eunseo reads your mind, because all of a sudden: she’s scarlet, a very red blush dancing across her cheeks.

“Okay, pretty boy,” she starts, catching her breath. Then, gathering her hair into a ponytail: “I’m going to blow your mind.”

And without hesitation, because you’re still stuck in ten seconds ago: “You look so cute.”

And because now she has to: “I’m already going to put you in my mouth, you don’t have to flatter me anymore.”

Eunseo’s flipped over, her cunt inches from your lips, drawing lines along your length with her tongue. And you’d return the favor quicker, if not for how mesmerizingly methodical she was. You’re catching glimpses of bits and pieces in the negative space between your bodies. Through her t-shirt: a flash of the flat of her tongue as she reaches the tip of your cockhead, her white nails replacing her mouth around your shaft at the top of her dips, her pretty pink pout — how they all disappear as she takes your cock down her throat. She knows all your soft spots — what you like; where you like it — and always gave you what you loved.

It feels like it all makes sense -

Your hips bucking into her mouth on her downbeats, the saccharine song she starts humming mid-bob, the precum-stained kisses she’s leaving along your length in legato, the half-notes they send across your nervous system -

- all of you feels like it rhythmically belongs together.

“Eunseo,” you manage to grit out, and you feel her smirk against your cock.

You can narrate it in your head. Hm? she’s goading, minxy moxie maxed out. This is all it takes to make you cum? There’s a half-choke — a rough buck of your hips. Fingers curl around your shaft — the hum she has in the back of her throat picks up. A little bit of your cock in my mouth? You’re like a tuning fork to it all. You’re dizzy.

And you’d probably die then and there, if not for the last resort of your tongue on Eunseo’s cunt.

It’s one of the only things that levels her, really.

All the build up is cut in half, tempo slowed down to a grind as you swipe long, breathy flicks of your tongue on Eunseo’s pretty pussy. You’re pacing yourself against a water droplet–rhythm in your head. Arms hooked around her thighs, thumbs tracing circles counterclockwise on her skin -

Down.

Build.

Up.

Down.

Swell.

Up.

It’s unholy the noise she makes next.

Too adorable to just leave hanging.

“Look at you, Eunseo,” you taunt, where the start of a stanza would go, and then drop back into cadence — no air for her to respond — tongue back on her slit.

And against against your mouth, it’s almost like all of the candor is causal — all the forwardness just carefully-crafted camouflage to get you on her cunt — because reduced down to a mewling mess, white-knuckle around your bedsheets, spine arching to get even closer to the flat of your tongue, there is no back talk. Eunseo was yours, her cunt was all yours, and she was so willing to follow.

Doubling your efforts on her heat, lapping against her little pussy, tracing a thumb around her clit -

“Baby,” she whines.

- Eunseo knows she’s coming undone.

And in this full-on, two-part second that you’re completely lucid to -

- she does.

At first, it’s like time’s frozen. You can feel her tense up under your breath, cheat one last gulp of air, tighten her thighs against your forearms.

Then, everything’s in fast forward. Eunseo unravels. She’s scrambling on polyester, looking for a hold, any grip to support her through how hard she’s cumming on your tongue. The words caught in her throat catch up to her, and all the way through her high, she’s conjoining cuss words, peaking into falsetto as you line kisses along her cunt. Son Eunseo melts against you, onto you, unwound and fully fucked.

But never enough to return the favor.

Gracefully sensual, she straddles you, catching herself on your chest, sitting square on your hips, parking up against your length — you’re caught off guard by the sharks.

Plastered against Eunseo’s shirt: an elementary guide to enough shark species to line anyone’s trivia back pocket — Whale, Great White, Mako, Tiger, Basking -

And because now she has to: “My eyes are up here, perv.”

And without hesitation, because this time that’s genuinely low: “Oh, fuck you.”

And not a beat after that, right against your lips, and riding further up your cock: “You only wish.”

Eunseo’s mouth is on yours, and then so’s her tongue. And as she’s exploring your chest with her palms, thumbing at your nipples, you can only smile. You don’t know why you doubted yourself: with Eunseo, there’s no way anything’s a character.

There’s a beat that you both take, and in the next, there’s a shirt over your face.

You’re blinded, covered in SHEIN sheer, and — instincts taking over — you reach your hands out to grab at anything.

You find Eunseo’s waist as she takes you in her pussy.

It’s hot, it’s tight, it’s needy. She’s getting you both back on beat, picking up the pace, up-and-down on your cock, side-to-side on your hips — you’re trying to keep up.

Your grip tightens, and it’s downright unholy: your thumbs touch at her belly button.

She’s so small, so tight, so in your hands, and so fucked, so fucked, so fucked -

“Cum in me,” Eunseo exhales, then suffixes: “in me, in me, in me.”

Your head goes into overdrive — it’s a time bomb: pulsing, racing, tensing; it’s a million miles a second, and so fucking dangerous. You’re gritting your teeth, crushing her waist in your grip -

And because now you have to, and in lossless lucidity: “Eunseo, fuck off.”

She’s so fucked.

And you know in the moment that follows -

How quickly she finds her place under you, picking up where her fingers were last on your cock — kissing, twisting, sucking, her matte white fingernails hypnotic up and down your shaft -

How guttural the moan you let out feels, like it comes from your tailbone -

How hushed the holy shit is on your lips as Eunseo swallows load after milky load -

- how fucked you are, too.

(You always will be.)

There’s a little song and dance you play after Eunseo pops back out of the bathroom.

Again: it’s not either of your first times with each other, but like routine — still and forever — you’re falling into characters you know and love.

Eunseo’s laying it on thick, walking like a textbook taught her how to: drummed-up and exaggerated, heel-toe, heel-toe. Hands folded behind her back, she’s in this half-bend, lips pursed, eyes wandering: suddenly fascinated in the brushwork on your walls or how light catches random trinkets, bending over to the left, the right, and just under to make sure their shadows are still there. It’s all but complete, just missing a laid back whistle; it’s all comically stupid, just always the most adorable thing.

Of course — and only after two full minutes of the charade, drawn out and profusely slow-burned; only after you’ve rolled your eyes so hard they might stick, tension just under boiling point — her little exploration leads her to your bed.

And with that kind of setup: anything she said would’ve landed.

So “... you don’t want to put a kid in me …” absolutely does.

Her head’s in your lap now, face cracked in this darling half-giggle.

Outwitting Eunseo is a losing game. You never win. Not against the air that lingers around her, peppered sweet and spicy, intoxicating even when you were both sober. Not against her expert balance of prickly and precious, cutesy-cocky carefully-crafted. Not against the crescents in her eyes when you’re this deep into a bit. You don’t really have to.

She kisses you, and it tastes like the promise of time: that you’ll always have more.

It’s pre-teen sweet, spiked with hands brushing soft spots: it’s goofy, it’s whole, and you’re both giggling — trading tender breaths, sharing secrets in the exhales, melting smiles into each others’.

Here — in between the playful banter, nose-to-nose with Son Eunseo — you’re complete.

“Want a coffee?”

(And it’s probably the only thing you’ve done once and only once. You should make the coffee.)

“I’ll make us two.”

:')

feel like everything's been fast paced recently, so hope not cringe to say that this has been a serious refuge for me. domestic... interplay (?) is so fun to explore, and i could probably tease out established relationship footsies switchy blurry lines forever — hope you enjoyed!

thank you @majorblinks for the beta (my twin flame and no one is ever going to do it like us), @chunksworld for giving me the push to write eunseo (guys girl enjoyers!), and @passingnotions for everything in between (u next.)

#kpop smut #kpop fanfic #reader insert #idol x male reader #idol x reader #wjsn smut #eunseo smut #kpop fluff #wjsn eunseo

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sytoran · 9 months ago

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home is where the heart is ★ n.r

— 𝐓𝐖𝐎 ;; 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐅𝐁𝐎𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐒 & 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐃𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇

in which your married life with natasha romanoff is depicted through this comedy-drama series. with your dream job, three kids, and a plethora of friends, each day is blissful but all the more chaotic and unpredictable. (and ultimately, very horny.)

pairing ★ sub!wife!natasha x beefy!butch!reader

chapter summary ★ twitter's sole purpose is for you to thirst over your wife, the beach is a good place to spend time with your kids, and ogle at your wife in a bathing suit, but not a great a place to have sex. (lesson learnt).

warnings ★ (MINORS DNI) - explicit content, hard stuff: beach sex, doggy style, cunnilingus, daddy kink, SO MUCH thirsting

word count ★ 4.0k (get fed gremlins)

SERIES MASTERLIST || MAIN MASTERLIST

*****

In tandem with Tony Stark’s spontaneity, Steve Rogers’ unending enthusiasm, and the fact that you privately owned close to twenty beach resorts in New York alone, the lot of you and your other friends had a beach outing planned for that Sunday.

After the astronomically long time it took to get your kids dressed, beach toys packed, picnic dinner prepared, and everything loaded into the car, five happy L/N-Romanoffs finally kickstart their journey to the Westview Surfers’ Beach.

“SAND!” Emilia roars maniacally, once the five of you step foot onto the sandy shore. She’s gone like the ocean breeze, sprinting into the distance, grains of sand flying everywhere.

“Sea! Sea! Sea!” Emilio is equally as excited, already by the tide of the brilliantly blue ocean, following its ebb and flow with scampering feet and delighted cries.

“Careful, Emilio!” Marina says, holding his hand, preventing her over excited brother from falling over. You can see the way she laughs along, kicking up water with her slippers.

Behind your eager children, you swing you and Natasha’s interlocked hands as you casually stroll along the beach, giving her a sweet smile.

The sand that crunched beneath your feet was earthen and dry, such a gentle hue of gold, almost as grounding as the bright smile your wife returned.

“You look heavenly,” you murmur, bringing up the underside of your wife’s palm to press a gentle kiss to it. She flushes prettily, the sundress she’s adorning doing wonders to her skin tone and curves.

Natasha returns the softness, pressing into your side as you wrap a firm arm around her waist, hand cupping the curve of her motherly hips.

“Oy, lovebirds!”

At the sound of a distinctly familiar voice, you and Natasha spin around with bemused looks. From a distance, you can see Tony with a flamingo floatie around his hips, waving comically.

Next to him, the regular gang is sprawled across three separate picnic mats, conveniently hidden from the sun under several large beach umbrellas.

Pepper is fixing up Tony’s floatie, to which Carol and Valkyrie snicker at from afar. Thor is asleep on the mats, taking up more than half the area. Laura is busy reading, with Clint probably gone to find seashells for the sandcastle Bucky and Steve are constructing. The kids make a long human chain from the shore to the sandcastle, scooping up buckets of water to make a trench.

“Aunty Y/N! Aunty Nat!” Nathaniel squeals, dropping his bucket, running over and leaping into your arms.

“What’s up, you little rascal?” you ask, laughing as the youngest Barton giggles. Natasha ruffles his head, waving at Lila.

Morgan, being the same age as Emilia and Emilio, is already chatting excitedly with them and kicking up a loud racket. Marina joins Cooper in attaining bucketfuls of seawater.

“What’s up, my favourite lesbians?” Tony calls out to you and Natasha with outstretched arms, comically ignorant to the death-glare Valkyrie shoots him.

Natasha rolls her eyes in faux annoyance, strolling past him and brightening up animatedly to chat with the ladies. You pat Tony’s back sympathetically.

Your attention flits to an impressively large sandcastle with a sculpture of a mermaid on top, hand-crafted by Steve and Bucky. Leaning closer to Tony, you whisper, “Why does the mermaid kinda look like you?”

Leaving him to splutter at his intentionally uncanny resemblance to the mermaid, with a seashell bra and an elegant tail, you look up to see Clint coming back with his arms full of seashells.

“Hi, Y/N!” He greets distractedly. In the midst of his frantic haste, Clint’s foot gets caught on a stray rock —

And the rest is a scene out of a comedy movie.

The seashells go flying out of his arms, scattering onto the picnic mat and spraying sand everywhere, Clint loses his balance and flies forward, outstretched arms knock into the sandcastle, and everyone watches in horror as Steve and Bucky’s great unfinished symphony comes crumbling down, leaving only the head of Tony’s mermaid untouched.

A quiet hush falls.

Bucky and Steve’s faces are morphed into disbelief and heartbreak, and Clint trembles in fear with sand in his mouth. Tony shudders at his beheaded mermaid, the ladies have their hands over their mouths, and Natasha fights battles in order not to burst out laughing. Thor sleeps unperturbed, and even the kids' racket has died down.

“Well,” you announce, breaking the stunned silence. “Who wants to go surfing?”

*****

As Natasha lazes in a beach chair, away from the gory scene of Steve and Bucky dunking Clint in the seawater, she watches you with a budding fire in her belly.

Standing on the sand so casually, you have your hefty surfboard tucked under one arm, and Emilio in your other. You’re speaking to him with a roguish grin, unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt flapping in the wind, tinted sunglasses pushed up to muss up your perfectly tousled hair.

“You ready to ride the waves, bub?”

“Yeah! I’m ready!”

Your wife swallows, thinking she was ready to ride something else.

Natasha crosses her legs unsubtly. It was honestly unfair, how indifferently attractive you were, like it was a state of being instead of a practised art.

Perhaps it was her love for you and the longevity of your marriage that warped her perception of sexiness, but when you were casually strolling on the beach with that chiselled abdomen on display, who was she to be blamed?

“Y/N!” Natasha calls, sitting up slightly. There’s a devious little idea blooming in the back of her mind, and she feels like taking the bait, just for today.

You look up at your wife’s beckoning, and smile widely at her. Setting Emilio down gingerly and calling him a “little rascal”, you jog over to Natasha easily.

When you flick your hair back, it glints in the sunlight, and so does the sheen of sweat under your sports bra, defining the cutting edges of your abdomen. Natasha has the criminal urge to rip off your swimming trunks there and then.

Despite your obliviousness, Natasha is more than well-aware of the stares you’re getting from young women and married women alike, momentarily disregarding their boyfriends and husbands to gawk at you.

“Damn, look at that fine specimen!”

“Ryan, why don’t you work out more?”

“There goes my heterosexuality.”

You get feasted upon hungry eyes like a slab of beef, likened to your beefiness, but it only makes Natasha’s possessiveness skyrocket.

“Hey, honey,” you say, settling on a low and inviting tone that has your wife blushing. You crouch down next to her beach chair, holding her hand in a sweet gesture. “What’s up?”

You’re close to her, so close, and she can feel the heat radiating off you, and your distinct scent, and the overwhelming senses of want and need are washing over Natasha like those tidal waves in the ocean.

But well, Natasha knew more than a few ways to rile you up too.

“I think I want to go surfing too,” she lies through her teeth, having no inclination to partake in the sport. Natasha fakes a pout all too well, knowing it’s one of your many weaknesses. “But the sun’s really hot out there, so I need some help with the sunscreen.”

It wasn’t like she’d have needed it, anyway. Just like that and you’re sold, ever the gentleman and the golden retriever, digging for the sunscreen in the duffel bag.

“Of course, honey,” you reply readily. “Is it the Banana Boat sunscreen, or is that the kids’ one? Oh wait, we have the SPF 50 one, I think that’s—”

Words trail off comically when you look back up at Natasha, gradually dying down completely.

Your wife has conveniently slid off her outer layer of a sheer white blouse, leaving her in just a matching two-piece set of an azure bathing suit. The top piece is held together with thin pieces of string, accentuating her chest in a tight cradle. The lack of coverage shows off the dip of her hips and her soft curves.

Coherent thoughts in your mindwires get severed as Natasha plays with the string on her bottom piece, nearly flashing you as the material slides down ever so slightly. Your throat dries up as her fingers trail a path over her tummy and cleavage. She plays with another bundle of string that keeps her chest barely covered, and the irresistible urge rises within you to undo it.

“My eyes are up here, y’know,” Natasha murmurs, laying on her side and looking at you through lowered lashes.

“I know where they are,” you answer hoarsely, gaze still fixated on your wife’s enticing cleavage.

The sheer amount of bare skin that Natasha is showing off has your remaining fragments of sanity falling to pieces. There’s no point even trying to hide the tent in your pants, poking uncomfortably against the fabric.

“Gonna help me lather sunscreen?” Natasha asks with a silky lilt to her voice, turning over on the beach chair.

You groan out loud when you see the curve of your wife’s ass on display, her rounded bottom barely covered by a few measly pieces of material, all held together by flimsy strings and nothing else.

“Mhm,” you respond brainlessly, uncapping the bottle and rubbing your hands with a bountiful amount of the moisture, clearly in excess.

You begin applying your wife’s sunscreen with overzealous eagerness and desire. Large hands spread unnecessarily widely as you gain coverage over the soft skin of her back, trailing up and down and smearing the white moisture over her soft skin.

“Oh, that feels nice,” Natasha says airily, a dainty little sound that causes your cock to twitch in your shorts.

The line down the middle of Natasha’s back is emphasised as she tenses and relaxes it. Like clockwork, you begin massaging your wife’s back to release the tension in her muscles.

“Y/N…” The breathy moan she lets out is pure heaven, dragged out from the depths of her throat, then lifting to a higher tone that washes over you in a sea of goosebumps.

Of course, your faux masseuse skillset is just a simple ploy to grope and knead at Natasha. Fat spills through your fingers as you spread your hands across her torso, as Natasha whines softly.

It wouldn’t take a genius to realise that the heat building between the two of you was not just due to the heatwaves under the beating, unforgiving sun.

Your frighteningly quickly-growing arousal only heightens when Natasha feels that her back is done and flips over. Face-to-face with her hefty mounds, a round belly, and the blown pupils of viridescent eyes — you lose the plot completely.

Deft hands fly to your wife’s ample assets, squeezing her hips in sinful amounts and staking your claim. “You’re so pretty, baby,” you mumble, face buried into the crook of her neck, subtly mouthing at her neck.

“Mhm,” Natasha whines in agreement, but it turns into a gasp as your fingers slip underneath the material of her bra, plucking at hardened nipples in merciless haste.

You press down onto her, flat tongue and sharp teeth, licking a broad stripe up your wife’s exposed collarbone to the tender column of her neck.

Before you can taint clear skin with raging-purple bruises, you’re pulled away with a firm grip on the back of your neck. You look back up to see Natasha gazing at you sternly.

“Let’s try not to perpetuate public sex while you are the owner of this place, with all our friends present, and the kids building sandcastles no less than ten feet away.”

Much to your disgruntlement, these factors weigh in heavily and overpower your body’s built-in “pretty-wife-need-to-worship” mechanic. Now, your shorts fill up a lot more space than need be, your shaft pressing hot and tight against your left leg, clearly visible.

You grumble, hands still clammy with sunblock, the ghost of Natasha’s warmth still interlaced between each of your fingers. “You’re a meanie,” you sulk, lust-driven adrenaline coursing through your veins.

Natasha looks at you with a wicked smile. “And you’re too susceptible, darling. Now, where’s my flask? I plan on staying plenty hydrated before watching you rough it out against the waves.”

Clearly put-off by not being able to fuck your wife in your public beach resort, you flip off a little kid who openly ogles at Natasha’s ass, much to your wife’s horror.

*****

“I’M NOT BUILT FOR THIS!” Tony screams, arms flailing, as he rides a shallow wave. His firmly implanted foot adds too much weight on the front of his neon yellow surfboard, and the over-eager man overturns comically as the current rushes.

You laugh out loud, Hawaiian shirt flapping in the wind, surfing past Tony in a smooth motion. “Stick to the flamingo floatie, little guy!”

Valkyrie barely dodges the splash Tony creates, nearly falling off her own board. “Fuck off, you cunt!” she yells, full-chested and deadly focused on the tide. From a distance in the shallower part of the ocean, a reprimanding “Language!” can be heard.

Natasha’s wading in the shallower waters with Laura, while Thor had opted to sun tan on the beach while watching the kids.

As a large wave approaches, Natasha watches with intent. Upon your wife’s new found attention, you mentally prepare yourself, determined to impress her, and perhaps get revenge for her prior ploy.

You manoeuvre deftly, putting weight on your back foot to stabilise as you approach the wave head-on. Three… two… one. You add even more weight on your back foot as you go around the back turn while gaining speed, garnering energy like a coiled spring.

As the wave reaches its full height, broad and steep, your calves release with impact, propelling up the barrel of the wave like a spring. The surfboard moves in effortless motion, anchored by your back foot, navigated by your right.

The second you reach the lip of the wave, you find the sweet spot to execute the backside tail slide. You rotate your wide-set shoulders, swiftly switching the pressure to your front foot.

Your surfboard glides off the surface for a split-second, turning mid-air — there’s a camera-worthy frame of damp hair, stray droplets, and focused eyes.

You slide back down at an oblique angle with purpose and precision, like a scene out of a movie, locking eyes with Natasha as the wave crashes behind you.

“Damn, Y/N!” Carol hoots, looking amazed as you surf back to the rest of the gang.

“That was crazy,” Steve adds, resting belly-down onto the surfboard, strikingly adorable for a hulking man.

“Gotta admit, that was pretty cool,” Tony comments, his head bobbing above the surface of the water and his surfboard nowhere to be found.

You laugh along with them, attempting to explain the technical jargon of how you did it. But as much as you appreciated your friends’ enthusiasm, there was ultimately only one person you sought validation from.

“Hi,” you say to Natasha with a stupid smile, sitting on your surfboard, having escaped the rest.

“That was very sexy of you,” your wife wastes no time in stating, as if she wasn’t five millimetres away from flashing you and killing you with her sexiness.

Natasha is stuck on the image of your damp hair flying into place like a scene out of a superhero movie, unbuttoned shirt flailing up to expose your defined back and abdomen, concentration flashing in your eyes.

“Mhm,” you hum lowly. Fire burns low in your belly as you ogle your wife in her bathing suit, pulling her closer by the underside of her thighs.

In a moment of indiscretion, your left hand slips upwards and undoes the knot on Natasha’s bathing suit, letting the material slip from your fingers.

“Y/N!” Though blocked from view of the others as it was underwater, Natasha lets out a breathy gasp and presses into you. Her cunt, already soaked before, gets even wetter at the intrusion of seawater.

“Can I claim my prize?” you ask heavily, hot pants against your wife’s ear, driving her wild with the way your fingers slip through her folds to encroach on her entrance.

In no time at all, two of your fingers are at Natasha’s cunt, feeling slick even underwater, and you push in—

“Group picture!” Steve yells from a distance, as you and your wife effectively leap apart in the water, the heated moment dissipated into thin air.

But it lingers, the arousal, swimming in the back of your consciousness as you smile for a group selfie. Bucky’s arm is around you but you thank the heavens for hiding your erection under the water.

You can tell Natasha feels the same, eyes locking on you even after Steve successfully takes the group picture. (After many attempts.)

“I’m gonna go check on the kids,” Natasha finally says, gesturing back as if she was going to walk back to shore. She’s expectant, waiting.

“And I think I’m gonna go check with her!” you add, chuckling awkwardly, beckoning backwards with your thumbs.

“Okay,” Steve says disbelievingly, eyes glimmering with knowing and just a little amusement. Tony is much less subtle in his sniggering, and Clint looks horrified at the prospect of doing it at the beach.

Tony claps you on the back as you walk past. “Use protection,” he whispers, and you fumble out a haphazard response.

*****

Turns out, you and Natasha don’t even make it to a completely secluded area before you’re half-undressed and panting.

And maybe that’s half the thrill, hidden in a secluded beach cave, with regular people roaming around just outside. You’re pressed skin-to-skin with each other and tuning out everything else.

You groan as you snap the strings of Natasha’s bathing suit off, finally, finally. Teardrop tits bounce in place, shaking with the impact of how hard you jerk against your wife, unbearably uncomfortable in the constraints of your boxers.

Natasha takes mercy on you, helping you to tug down your Calvin Clein briefs, watching with heady arousal as your shaft slaps against your six-pack, red and raw and leaking.

“Hurry up,” Natasha whines, bending over and clutching at a stray rock, ass in the air as she exposes her leaking cunt to you.

“Fuck, baby,” you groan, grabbing onto her ass and slapping it just because you can. You sink deep into your wife, warmth and relief enveloping you as you bury yourself inside her.

The first thrust is like heaven, feeling the pulse and push of Natasha’s walls as she accommodates to take your size, stretching to a familiar extent because you’d made a nest in there for yourself.

The second thrust takes you there, an insurgent amount of slick coating your cock, flooding the path you proceed to pummel into. “Natty,” you whine, groping at her ass and pulling it closer to you, hilt-deep with no signs of stopping.

“Mhm, daddy,” Natasha moans, walls fluttering around you as you pull out, trying to stop your escape. But then you thrust forward, again, warm and full and deep, and your wife wails beneath you.

Natasha lets this velvet sound from her throat, silky and coated in honey as she breathes reinvigorated life into your arousal.

“Fuck,” you growl, rutting your hips with more rigour. Natasha whines, wrists suspended behind her back with one of your hands as you have your way with her.

“Baby I’m gonna come,” you gasp, virility cloaking the way your abdomen presses up against Natasha, left hand encircling her neck to bring your hot mouth up to hers.

You’re hardly embarrassed for how fast you’re barrelling towards climax, as Natasha is in much more of the same position. She’s panting your name, clutching at the rocks with hard sand digging into her feet. Your cock nudges and prods into her sweet spots effortlessly, the result of countless sex experiences.

“M-me too,” she responds breathily, breaking off into a whine as you press heated, open-mouthed kisses along the line of her back, tasting the salt and sweat on your tongue.

Pleasure blossoms in your lower torso, creeping up the base of your shaft and working its way upwards. Hot arousal overflows from its constraints, and your teeth sinks into your bottom lip as you come, quick and hot and messy.

“Oh!” Natasha moans, high-pitched and sensitive, as you pluck at her ruby-hard nipples. It only takes a few more thrusts for her to reach release, dripping down your cock and her thighs.

“Mhm, nhn—” As your wife raises in pitch and volume, you stuff three fingers into her open mouth, giving her something to suck on and remain quiet. You continue with gentle thrusts, feeling thick white liquid flow out the side of Natasha’s ruined cunt.

“Needa taste you,” you suddenly grunt, hips bumping into Natasha’s ass. She babbles her agreement, despite being half-conscious in a state of post-orgasmic pleasure.

Easily, you lift Natasha and set her down onto the sandy shore of the beach cave, where the tide is low and washes over your feet gently.

It’s a change of pace, a gradual end to your savage ravaging, slow and sensual, where the water meets the sand. You lower yourself between Natasha’s spread thighs, lips slightly parted and dripping with need.

Natasha swallows audibly, right hand twisting into your tousled hair, looking at you through hooded eyes and lowered lashes.

Words are left unspoken between the two of you, the tension speaking for itself, as you retain eye contact while lowering your mouth onto Natasha’s pulsing cunt.

You take your last breath of the fresh sea salt air and summer breeze before drowning in unbridled desire. As if making out passionately, you eat your wife out, switching between licking and sucking.

Poetry is written between the lines — the lilt of Natasha’s hitched breath, the crease of her thighs where your fingertips drag across, the shallow water that wades over your feet in a cool decrescendo.

Your head dips down once more, warm and wet, and the sun melts into the horizon, glazing golden and liquid orange.

With your tongue lodged fully inside your wife’s pussy, marking your inability to breathe, and wide hands spread firmly over Natasha’s thighs, the two of you converge in saintly devotion, hushed worship falling from her lips.

“Please, just like that, please, daddy, please.”

Just like that, and the ocean swallows you whole, taking you under Natasha’s hold inescapably. Your name is said in a breathless cry, lilting and pronounced, and you shudder between her clenched thighs.

“Nat?”

“Yeah?”

“I think there’s ocean water up my asshole.”

“Yeah, I got some sand up my vagina too.”

*****

and that's chapter two of 'hiwthi'! how did yall feel about the introduction of the rest of the cast? i personally enjoyed writing the build-up scenes the most. (sunscreen and surfing!) and for those keen on expanding the family dynamic, i'll be building on that in the next chapter!

reblog or i will take 292857192 years to post the next part

SERIES MASTERLIST || MAIN MASTERLIST

#⋆⭒˚｡★ home is where the heart is #natasha romanoff smut #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader smut #wlw smut #gxg smut #marvel smut #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff imagine #natasha x reader #natasha romanoff fluff #natasha x reader smut #top reader #sub natasha romanoff #dom reader #bottom natasha romanoff #butch4femme #butch reader #femme4butch

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shellshocklove · 7 months ago

Text

ridin' shotgun | joel miller

pairing/AU: joel miller x female!reader – post breakout & no ellie AU

summary: as the snow covers the land, joel starts to like his new life on the farm, but is it too good to be true?

warnings: this is an 18+ fic so mdni!!! canon-typical violence, age gap (reader is mid to late twenties), swearing, guns, vomit, use of pet names, fluff, angst, fingering, oral (f receiving), some tags are left out to avoid spoilers, no use of y/n

a/n: this is the second part to this. so i'd recommend reading that before this one. i'm very sorry this took me so long! i'm hoping it was worth the wait! <3 also a big thank you to @dustydaddyyy who's always up for helping me when i'm stuck <3 happy reading!

main masterlist / series masterlist / ao3 / playlist

from the river to the sea, palestine will be free 🇵🇸 this account stands with palestine. the creator of tlou is a zionist, and the second game is largly based on israel/palestine. please, everyone who interacts, educate yourself about the genocide happening right now, and support/donate.

“Morning, Joel,” Arthur greeted him as Joel entered the kitchen.

Joel felt far from rested. His eyes burned with sleep behind his eyelids. He’d love another hour or two on his pillow, but Arthur’s heavy steps coming down the stairs had woken him.

Damn, these thin walls.

“Mornin’,” Joel said as he sat down at the dining table, looking past the curtain on the portrait of the day. The world was blue with dusk, contrasting the low candlelight inside. Alma stood at the stove, butter crackling in the frying pan as she cracked an egg, then another, two suns in a greasy night sky.

“I think we’ll bring the logging sled today,” Arthur spoke up and gestured out the window, “I think the snow is more than deep enough for the sled.”

“Yeah?” Joel looked out the window again. Assessing the snow, he guessed it was about two feet give or take.

“Yeah, I think it’s gonna be enough– If not we’ll test-drive the sled, make sure it can handle the weight.” Arthur continued, but Joel lost interest as soon as he heard the sound of a door shutting down the hall.

Joel hummed, leaning back in his chair, his eyes flickering to the door of the kitchen waiting to see you walk through. A moment later, you padded into the kitchen in your pajamas, feet clad in soft wool socks. You’d thrown a sweater over your sleep shirt, but Joel remembered how the thin fabric had clung to your skin last night. Remembered the shape of your nipples poking through, the sounds you’d made as you’d whimpered his name. Joel’s cock twitched in his pants at the memory; crashing against the wave of shame and guilt that washed over him when he recalled what he’d done after he’d stepped back into his room.

“Good morning, sweetie,” Arthur greeted you as you sat down, opposite Joel.

“Good morning,” you smiled, resting your chin in the palm of your hand, tiredness like a faraway look across your face.

“Did you sleep well?” Arthur asked.

Your eyes widened at the question, quickly flickering to Joel before they found the table. Your face dug deeper into your hand as you twisted slightly in your chair. A shy smile blossomed across your face.

Huh.

A forgotten tickling feeling of pride filled Joel’s chest as he watched you. The way you avoided his gaze, like your dreams would show through your eyes if you did. But Joel didn’t need to hold your gaze to understand. Something had shifted, both for him and for you. It was different now.

A chuckle escaped Arthur at your motions, “That good, huh?” Arthur teased, “All fairytales and rainbows?”

“Something like that,” you breathed out a chuckle.

Joel cringed. He was closer to a nightmare. Why did he even entertain his thoughts of you? You were the one who was a rainbow, while he’d paint you in a dull grayscale.

Joel let out an inaudible sight, and leaned back in the creaky kitchen chair, as his hands twisted in his lap. He didn’t miss the way his movement caught your eye as he felt the drumroll of your gaze break over him. Joel didn’t dare move, scared he’d scare the warmth of your attention away. But something pulled at his chest, and he couldn’t deny himself to look at you, to drink in your early morning shyness. You didn’t look away this time, instead you smiled. It was a small and polite smile, but it still felt like a kiss to his skin. The small moment between you only lasted a second, but to Joel it felt like an eternity – one he wouldn’t mind spending with you.

You dropped your gaze when Alma placed the breadbasket on the table, and like it had broken a spell, you immediately stood to your feet, “Let me help you, Alma.”

A moment later the table was set and ready, and Arthur was already helping himself to a fried egg. Safe for the sound of cutlery against porcelain plates, a silence fell over the kitchen.

“We uh,” Arthur started, looking over at you, “We were thinking of using the logging sled today,” he informed with a dig into his eggs. “'Could use your help saddling up the horse.”

“Okay,” you nodded, reaching across the table for the butter, “but I need to milk the cows first– you know how they get if I don’t do it first thing–”

“I can do that, sweetie,” Alma interrupted you with a smile, taking a bite of her bread.

“Oh, okay,” you turned your head to Alma as you said it, giving her a smile, but Joel could see the worry behind it. “But if it’s too much I’ll be right there–”

Alma cut you off again, “I can handle it– I did this all by myself before you came along, you know.” She said it with a wink to put you at ease, but Joel saw how your teeth dug into your bottom lip, and he wanted nothing more than to ease it away with a kiss.

No. No kiss.

Shit.

After last night, Joel couldn’t think straight. He wanted you now. He wanted what he knew he couldn’t have– what he shouldn’t have. With his eyes boring down into his plate, he tried to will his wants away. Tried his best to not build memories on things not yet said – to not feel the ache of never having touched you.

The air nipped harshly at Joel’s cheeks. The sun had finally risen over the mountain, shining its light over the crystals in the snow. A thousand diamonds blinked at him as he helped Arthur pull the log sled out of the barn. It was covered in dust and dirt, and the cobwebs stuck to Joel’s mittens like cling film. Clapping his hands, a cloud of dust evaporated from his hands – almost cartoon-like.

Joel picked at the yarn, trying to cover the hole that had become wider and wider every day. He felt bad about it; you’d made them for him out of the goodness of your heart, and now he’d ruined them– or the work had. Sharp branches had hooked themselves through the stiches, and the rough bark had worn the yarn down.

As Arthur checked the sled, and got it ready, Joel felt himself drawn to the open stable door. Leaning against the barn door he watched you quietly. You worked with practiced hands, saddling the old workhorse, Ingydar, as you talked to it in a low voice.

“You’re going to work in the woods today,” you said to the beloved nag, “Work in the woods with Arthur and Joel. Do you remember Joel? He’s a nice man, isn’t he?”

Joel felt his cheeks warm at your words, his eyes falling to the worn wood floor, as he continued to listen to your little conversation.

“Yes, he is! He’s very nice– fed you too many carrots last time he said hello, didn’t he? But you liked that, didn’t you?”

Joel looked up at that, his eyes locking with yours’ as you looked straight at him, a teasing smirk covering your face.

“That ain’t how I remember it,” Joel defended, stepping closer to the open stall door. You tightened the straps on the saddle while your smile grew larger at his words.

“No?” You teased, moving on to checking the straps on the bridle.

Joel stepped closer, his mitten clad hand coming up to pet the old horse. “No,” Joel shook his head, “you kept handin’ me all those carrots ‘s how I remember it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you laughed, stepping closer.

“Sure, you don’t,” Joel teased, a rare smile tugging at his lips, matching your own.

Locking eyes with you again, Joel felt something light bubble under the surface of his ribcage. You really were beautiful like this – eyes sparkling and smile wide. He couldn’t remember the last time someone looked at him the way you were right now – like he hadn’t lost everything, like he didn’t have blood all over his hands, like he was worthy of a smile.

Stepping even closer, you noticed the holes in them. “Joel, your mittens.”

“Sorry…” he started, trailing off when you grabbed his hands, “They get hooked in the branches ‘nd–”

“Don’t apologize,” you cut him off, with a shake of your head, “I can fix them– it’s no problem.”

The sun shone through a small window in the back wall of the stall. Bright white light lit up the back of your head, crowning you in the morning. You stood so close now, the warmth of your finger brushing over his rough skin through the hole, and his hands suddenly felt heavy in yours.

A burden you shouldn’t bear.

“Uh…” Joel cleared his throat as he stepped away, pulling his hands from yours, “Thank you.”

Finishing up saddling the horse you led it out the stall door, the iron shoes click-clacked against the worn wood floor before it fell silent against the snow when you led the horse outside. With a nod in the direction of the house you told him to wait inside for you.

“Would ya let Arthur know he can go right ahead with the sled?” he asked you, his body half-turned towards the barn house.

You let out a breathy laugh, a frosty cloud of smoke clouding your smile before you nodded.

Inside, he waited for you on the couch, watching you wave Arthur off on the horse through the window. Joel’s heart picked up its beat when he heard your hollow steps across the porch. He shifted slightly in his seat when you walked in, almost standing but then decided against it in the same moment, rubbing his hands over his thighs instead.

Stomping off the snow covering your shoes you smiled at him like always, and Joel didn’t know what to do. A feeling starting to bubble under the surface of his skin. Excitement? Nervousness? Dread? Joel couldn’t tell. Maybe he felt all three at once– if that was possible. Excitement at the prospect of being alone with you, but also nervousness at the prospect of being alone with you. They gathered around his heart, filled his chest, but the dread, it climbed up his spine, bit its cold teeth in the back of his neck.

“Just let me grab my things,” you hurried with a gesture towards your room.

Joel cleared his throat and nodded. It felt clumsy and awkward, and he cursed himself for it while he waited for you. He couldn’t be alone with you. Couldn’t entertain the growing feelings. It wasn’t right – to you – Joel needed to stay away, to keep a friendly distance.

Joel sighed and closed his eyes.

Nothin’s happenin’.

Like a broken record, those two words spun in Joel’s head in the few seconds it took before you were back in the living room, dropping down next to him with your basket overflowing with yarn.

It felt like déjà vu.

You worked in a comfortable silence, and Joel didn’t know if he should say anything. He watched how you worked your needle with a practiced hand – you made it look so easy – but Joel knew it wasn’t. A lifetime ago he’d spent way too many nights with a needle in his hand trying to mend a hole over the knee of tiny pink pants, his stubby fingers gripping the needle tightly, guiding it clumsily through the fabric until he was red in the face from frustration.

He needed to thank you, but should he say it now or wait until you’d finished? The longer he watched you, the stronger that bubbling feeling felt, bubbling over, up his throat and over the bite of dread.

“There!” you smiled when you’d fastened off the last stich. You grabbed a hold of his hands before he’d had time to think and pulled the mittens over his knuckles.

“Thank you,” he said, voice scruff but tone still shyer than he’d expected.

You smiled at him again and leaned a little closer to readjust the mittens, tugging at the yarn where you’d mended them, pulling them into the right shape.

“You’re welcome, Joel.” You locked eyes with him and suddenly Joel noticed how close you sat. It made him hold his breath as his heart started hammering against his chest.

His gaze flickered towards your lips for half a second, wishing for something he couldn’t have– shouldn’t have. He caught himself quickly, finding your eyes again but they were fixated on something else, his lips. Who leaned in first, Joel would never know, the only thing he knew was the feel of your breath against his lips before they brushed over yours in a soft kiss.

Warm. Joel felt so warm.

His hands worked by their own volition; mitten clad, and soft against your cheek, pulling you closer to him, but not close enough. Your hand grabbed at his jacket in the crook of his elbow, tethering yourself to him, to the moment, like you’d float away if you didn’t. You hummed against his lips, a desperate sound as you shifted closer.

The sound messed with Joel’s head, he wanted to hear more of it, pull it from you again. His tongue teased at the seam of your lips, a distant thought at the back of his head questioning where his boldness suddenly came from, but he ignored it.

It didn’t matter.

The sound escaped you once more and you opened yourself up to him. Joel’s other hand, moving with desperate urgency, found your hip – pulling you even closer. He licked into your mouth, and he fell deeper into you, deeper into the grip you’d snaked around his heart.

A loud slam of the kitchen door pulled Joel away, and the reality of what he’d done trickled coldly down his spine. Out in the kitchen Alma rummaged around while you looked at him with bright eyes, pupils slightly dilated with a hazy smile across your lips.

Joel felt awful.

He shouldn’t have done that.

He’d taken advantage of you. He’s too old for you – none of this was right.

You noticed the change in him, you must’ve, because your eyebrows pulled together in the smallest of frowns as you regarded him.

“Joel,” you started, your voice low and soft, but he just shook his head.

“I’m sorry!” Joel quickly stood to his feet, wiping his hands on his jeans as though that would somehow erase what he’d done. “We– I shouldn’t have done that– I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” you tried to grab at his hand, but Joel only shook his head again.

“I’m sorry.”

Joel was out the door before he could regret it, lord knows he couldn’t take anymore regret. His life had been full of them, full of ‘I shouldn’t haves’. He dug his mitten-clad hands in the pockets of his jacket, his head hanging low as he headed down the road towards the forest.

A heavy blanket of clouds had shaded the morning sun, the world darkened in the beginnings of real winter. As a snowflake kissed his cheek, his thoughts wandered to the butterfly he’d seen all those weeks ago. How it had rested over his knee– made him think of Sarah.

You’re on the right path.

Joel had never felt this lost.

The kiss.

It took up most of Joel’s mind. When he worked himself hard with an axe in his hand, when he was counting sheep, but most of all, each time he saw you. Then his thoughts had a mind of its own, reminding him of how your lips had felt against his own, the feel of your body under his touch, and the sounds you’d made just for him. The kiss had been the first kiss who’d made him want another. The first kiss where he’d pulled away and not been satisfied. He needed to kiss you again, to feed this new hunger for you.

But it wasn’t right. An old man like him with someone like you. It wasn’t a good idea– would never be a good idea.

So, Joel tried his best to avoid you, but avoiding you was impossible – you lived in the same house, shared a bedroom wall. He saw you every day whether he liked it or not – and he did.

He liked you, and it scared the shit out of him.

He felt like he lived in a cruel state of limbo. He didn’t know what you were thinking. If you were mad (you had every right), if you were disappointed (he hoped you weren’t), or happy (maybe the most devastating thought of all).

The fire crackled loudly, sparks kicking, the sound making you look up from your book. Joel’s eyes found his own book, rereading the same paragraph he’d been trying to read for the last thirty minutes– ever since Arthur and Alma had retired to bed. This was the first time he’d been alone with you since the kiss, and he felt it all over his body. The aftermath of the kiss sticking to his body like the Austin heat had done in the peak of summer – he couldn’t shake it off, couldn’t ignore it.

“When was the last time you cut your hair?” you suddenly spoke across the silence.

Your question was unexpected, and it made him pull his brows together in a frown. “You sayin’ I look bad?” Joel asked, dogearing the page he was on before closing his book.

“No,” you said quickly, shaking your head, “No-no, I mean it’s just a little long.”

Joel looked at you for a second before he ran a hand through his hair. Well, it wasn’t like you weren’t right. Lately his hair had started to get in his eyes, even when he pushed it back. Most days when he was working outside, he could tame it under the knitted beanie you’d made him, but it had started to have a life of its own.

“Boston. I think, Tes–” he cut himself off before he said her name, clearing his throat awkwardly to cover his slip up. He’d forgotten, forgotten for a second that she was dead. Forgotten she’d died for him and his stupid quest to find his brother. Died for nothing.

“I can trim it for you… if you want?” you asked with a bite of your lip.

He couldn’t say no to you.

“Uh… yeah,” he nodded, “Okay.”

As you led him up the stairs to the bathroom, Joel tried not to think too hard about what it would mean – you cutting his hair. He tried not to think about how the last person who’d done something like that for him was Tess, and what it meant that she was gone– that it now would be you.

Your fingers running through his wet hair felt good– what didn’t feel good was the way his back almost gave out from leaning his head in the bathroom sink. The basin was too small, and the tap hung too low for him to comfortably turn his head, instead the water spilled down his face.

Why the hell was he drowning himself for you?

“Done soon?” he grunted, his hands gripping the sides of the sink while he felt your fingers scrub at his roots.

Yes, Joel was uncomfortable, but the way you stood so close – practically leaning on him – it felt nice. So nice that Joel thought that if his eyes weren’t already shut, they’d flutter shut at your touch.

Soap suds ran down the sides of his face as you giggled, “Just a little longer.”

You maneuvered his head back under the tap, your right hand running through his hair under the water while the left covered his eyes in a useless attempt. Then you grabbed the towel resting next to him on the porcelain, the world suddenly silenced through fabric as you dried his now clean hair.

“You can stand now,” you told him with a small tap to his back as you stepped away. You’d laid the towel around his shoulders, ready to catch any excess water.

Joel groaned, “I don’t think I can.”

You giggled again and then your hands wrapped around him, helping him up. Joel groaned again, but this time for show. He liked the way you touched him, gentle – always gentle. He plopped down in the chair you’d brought in from the spare bedroom, while you got your comb and scissors ready. The wooden chair creaked as he shifted his legs, widening them while he rested his hands in his lap.

He’d never seen this chair before, but then again Joel hadn’t explored the house much – it didn’t feel right. He was a guest after all, only staying for a few months– or was he? His eyes found you in the mirror, and then that thought suddenly felt awfully wrong.

“Ready?” you turned around to him, a pair of kitchen scissors in one hand, and an old shaver plugged into the wall in the other.

You didn’t say much as you worked. It was uncharacteristic for a hairdresser, at least from what he could remember. Back before the outbreak he’d rarely gotten his hair cut by someone other than himself. With his clipper guard set to four he’d tidy up the sides when it was needed and called it a day.

Your quietness was also uncharacteristic to you. You never talked his ear off, but you were never this quiet – at least you weren’t before the–

Stop.

Joel tried not to think about that.

He’d gone and fucked everything up now. Instead, he stole a glance at you in the mirror, watched the way your lips pursed in concentration to the metal sound of scissors snipping, and the low buzz of the shaver.

He needed to apologize to you.

“I…” he started, watching your head snap curiously to watch him in the mirror.

No turning back now– just say it.

“I’m sorry ‘bout the other day– It wasn’t right to kiss you like that.”

Your curiosity pulled into confusion across your face, and your eyebrows tugged together in a frown.

“You don’t have to be sorry, Joel,” you told him, your voice gentle, “I didn’t exactly–... well I definitely wasn’t stopping you.” You said it with an awkward laugh. Your kind, always kind, eyes that’d watched him in the mirror, now glued to the back of his head as you gently combed his hair.

Joel felt something bloom in his chest at your words, and despite himself, he felt his cheeks warm slightly as thoughts invaded his mind.

Maybe he should tell you why he did it.

Shit, did Joel even know why he did it?

“I thought you–” Joel felt the words stall in his throat for a second, before he cleared it decisively.

No going back now, he thought to himself, just rip off the band aid you idiot.

Another part of Joel screamed at him to stop the words before they even left his lips, and his doubts gnawed at his insides with more intensity than ever.

“The other night, when you were asleep,” he paused to swallow, a lump growing in his throat, “I was getting to bed and I heard–... well, y’were sort of having a dream, sweetheart.”

With nervous eyes, Joel found your face in the mirror, and watched the way the smiling expression dropped off your face, quickly replaced by a wide-eyed look of pure mortification.

“I–” you stuttered out, and Joel rushed to correct himself.

“It’s nothin’ to be embarrassed about, I shouldn’t a been watchin’ you, I just–... thought maybe y’liked me, or something.”

His words hung heavy in the air between you, and Joel’s heart picked up its beat as he watched how all your movements suddenly went quiet, along with the shaver, seemingly processing all this new information.

Your eyes found the back of his head again, and when he felt the comb run through his hair again, Joel suddenly felt very guilty for even bringing it up.

Stupid. Why on earth would he do that? Was he trying to send you into an early grave?

“I’m sorry you walked in on that,” you finally managed, your eyes fixated on your working hands as you refused to meet Joel’s eye – looking infinitely embarrassed.

You’re sorry? He didn’t want to hear those words leave your mouth ever again – the only person in this bathroom who was sorry, was him.

In the mirror you looked so small, and it was his own doing. Your teeth dug harshly into your bottom lip as your combed, and combed, and combed his hair in a shaky hand. Joel felt his heart break.

He’d dug himself too deep now, Joel thought, he had to tell you, to reassure you it was okay.

After a beat of silence, Joel spoke again.

“I’m not.”

Your eyes widened at his words before they snapped to the mirror, staring at him as the shears trembled slightly in your hand. Still, you didn’t say anything.

Joel didn’t have the faintest idea where he was going with this, and with the way you looked at him now, his doubts seemed to overtake him as he got the sudden urge to swallow his words right back up.

“Look, forget I even said anything angel, I didn’t mean anythin’ by it–”

The word slipped from his lips like the most natural thing in the world. Something flashed in your eyes through the mirror, he could’ve sworn it, and Joel seemed to realize a beat too late what he’d called you. Feeling his cheeks heat up, his embarrassment forced his gaze to fall anywhere but at you, quicklyfinding his hands knotted in his lap.

“Joel,” you said softly, and despite himself, Joel felt the earlier warmth expanding like a balloon in his chest, “It’s okay.”

He perked up at your words, his eyes snapping from his hands to you as you moved, coming to stand in front of him. Your hands deftly moved the comb through his curls as he looked up at you through the strands. You seemed focused on cutting the ends, before you let out a breath.

“It would’ve been okay if you had been watching, you know,” you said, your voice simple and even.

Joel felt his entire body tense at your words as his eyes bored into your face. He watched the way your face grimaced slightly; your eyes focused on snipping the strands right.

“I just mean I–” There was a pause as you gave him a half-embarrassed smile, your lips pursed together as you seemed to search for your next words.

You were standing so close, so close he could smell the sweetness off you. You made him dizzy. Dizzy with warmth. Dizzy with proximity. Dizzy with something heavy in the depths of his chest he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Joel didn’t know why he did it, didn’t know why the way his hands moved felt like second nature, but when the tips of his fingers grazed the back of your knee in an attempt to reassure you, it felt like something was calling to him.

“It’s okay,” he told you, “You can tell me, angel.”

Finally, your eyes met Joel’s. Those kind sparkling eyes bored into his own as you, in an attempt to gather some courage, swallowed hard.

“I–I do like you,” you said.

The finality of your words lodged something loose in Joel, and something he hadn’t felt in a long time flicker to life in his chest.

“That so?” he asked, his voice a little lower.

Somehow, you were stood even closer, only slightly taller than Joel as he angled his head up towards you. Your chest started to rise and fall in a quicker rhythm at his question. Looking at him, your lips twitched in a nervous smile as you turned slightly away from his, placing the comb and scissors on the sink gently.

You nodded.

Still turned away from him, he watched how you gathered yourself, your hands resting on the porcelain as your head hung low between your shoulder blades.

“When you…” you trailed off, moving the comb and scissors in a perfect parallel line next to each other. “When you,” you repeated, “kissed me… I thought maybe… you liked me back.”

It was now or never.

Joel knew it.

Standing from his chair, Joel’s hand found your shoulder, turning you to face him. You didn’t look at him right away, your head tipped in a bow as you fiddled with your fingers.

“Hey,” his fingers brushed lightly under your chin, tilting your head up. Your eyes were wide, flickering like sunlight over wavy water as you studied his face. His eyes fell to your lips – he couldn’t help it, and the memories of how they’d felt against him resurfaced in his mind. If he just leaned a little closer, he’d feel them again.

“Joel… if you don’t want me– if you don’t like me, you can just tell me– I’m a big girl.” Your voice sounded almost breathless, like you’d run up a flight of stairs or walked miles in knee deep snow.

Joel shook his head before you’d even finished your sentence. Don’t want you? Don’t like you? It was absurd.

“It ain’t that.”

“Then what is it?” The way the words left your lips, broken, beaten, it had Joel’s heart tear apart in his chest.

“It ain’t right, angel. I’m too old f’you– I can’t take advantage of you like that.”

A frown pulled at your face then, “Take advantage?” you questioned with a shake of your head. “I’m a grown woman, Joel. Would it be taking advantage if it was what I wanted? If what I wanted was… you?”

Joel had never thought about it like that before. The thought of you wanting him back had seemed like a fantasy – something that would never even be a possibility.

Your fingers moved a strand of hair out of his face, brushing it away, and Joel held his breath. Hesitating for just a second, you cupped his cheek gently and leaned closer. The softness of your lips over his own had Joel reeling – didn’t matter how quick or chaste the kiss had been – it only left him wanting more.

“I look stupid.”

“You don’t look stupid, Joel,” you laughed, full of joy.

You adjusted the bandana holder and fixed the crooked kerchief around his neck slightly. The red fabric picked up the warmth in his lined leather jacket, and the metal holder caught the shine of the sun.

Joel couldn’t believe he’d said yes.

This morning when he’d gotten up with the sun, Alma had stuck her head out of her and Arthur’s bedroom right as he was on his way out the bathroom. Arthur wasn’t feeling well, and Joel had prepared himself to work in the woods alone. It wasn’t the first time Arthur had gotten sick, and with the way he was looking lately, Joel figured it wouldn’t be the last.

He'd been washing his dishes from his breakfast when you’d padded into the kitchen. With a look over his shoulder, he’d caught the way you’d smiled at him before you padded over to him.

“Good morning,” you’d said and wrapped your arms around him from behind.

“Mornin’, angel,” he’d hummed back. He’d dried his plate and placed it on the counter before he’d turned around, still in your embrace.

Joel wasn’t used to it yet, your affection, he still had a hard time comprehending it was meant for him. That it wasn’t some joke you’d so cruelly played on him. A joke to see how long you could feed him this adoration until he’d get hooked on it, hooked on you, before pulling away.

Joel didn’t dare hold you too tightly. Everyone he’s ever held in his arms had been pulled away by death’s hands. Every day since you’d told him you liked him, wanted him, Joel had been afraid to lose you.

Maybe that’s why he’d said yes? You’d convinced him it’ll be safer for you if you knew how to shoot.

Joel didn’t know.

The only thing he knew was that he’d caved under your wide and blinking eyes. You’d looked too cute to say no, and he disliked seeing a frown upon your lips, unless he could kiss it away.

Which he did – but only when you were alone.

You’d both agreed to keep this thing, the fondness, the love, growing between you a secret. It was easier that way, at least until you both knew what it all meant. Right now, it was a thing, a fondness, but not yet a love, although Joel wasn’t far off if he were being honest with himself, especially when you looked at him with those moony eyes.

With a pat to his chest, you pushed off him with a smile. In a closet upstairs you’d found you both a cowboy hat and some bandanas you’d insisted on him wearing. The whole thing was silly, but the way you’d lit up with happiness when you’d placed the cowboy hat on his head, it didn’t matter to Joel.

“C'mon cowboy,” you laughed, and grabbed his hand.

He let you drag him with you before he caught up with you. He pulled at your arm so you crashed into his side, and wrapped his arm around your shoulder. It made you giggle, and the sound bubbled around Joel’s heart.

Ingydar stood waiting dutifully in his stall, where you’d gotten him ready. The saddle bags were packed with your lunches and a box of ammunition, and at the back of the saddle you’d rolled two sheep skins and tied them with leather ties. Everything was ready for your day out together.

Or your date, Joel thought as he trailed after you, closing the stable door behind him as you led the horse outside.

Joel insisted you get on the horse first with his help. He wanted to make sure you were comfortable and sat as safely as possible before he slid his foot into the stirrups. You wiggled around to mess with him, and Joel grabbed your knee to steady you. It made you giggle again, and he earned himself a ‘Relax, honey’. Then you leaned back and made space for him to get in front of you.

Joel liked the sound of ‘honey’.

“Y’alright back there?” Joel said over his shoulder after he’d gotten on the horse. Placing the shotgun over his lap, Joel made sure the safety was on before his hands came down to take yours where they rested over your thighs, and gently guided them to slot around his waist.

“Y’actually gotta hang on sweetheart, or you’ll slide right off the minute he starts trotting,” Joel said, fighting back a smile when he felt your arms tighten around him.

“I know how to ride a horse,” you retorted, and his chest shook with a slight chuckle.

“Not saying you don’t, angel,” he replied easily, and kicked Ingydar lightly in the sides.

The old horse started walking, and Joel pulled on the reins, steering it down the road and then south towards the woods.

“’Just makin’ sure you ain’t gonna fall off ‘s all,” he said.

You hummed in return, leaning your body against his back. “It’ll have to be a really bumpy ride for me to fall off, Joel,” you spoke, the innuendo not lost on Joel.

He decided to pull at the thread a little, “And I s’pose you’ve had a lot of these bumpy rides, have you, angel?”

Your hands around his waist tightened slightly as he felt you lean over his shoulder, your hat dumping into his. A smile tugged at his lips, and in his side vision he could see you narrow your eyes playfully at him.

“What are you insinuating, Joel Miller?” you asked him, your tone only half-sharp.

A chuckle rumbled in Joel’s chest, before he bit back a smirk. “I’m not insinuatin’ nothin’,” he replied, keeping his tone as normal as he could.

He felt your eyes study him for a moment before he heard you let out a dissatisfied hum. “You definitely are.”

“Well, we got an entire horse ride to god knows where to debate it,” he shot back, which made you smile.

You leaned back again, and a second later he felt you rest your forehead against his back. Joel figured you must’ve flicked your hat off; letting it rest against your back tied by the string around your neck.

“An entire horse ride to god knows where?” you repeated half-mockingly, speaking into his back but Joel could hear your smile in your voice, “You really know how to make a girl wait for it.”

“You have no idea, angel,” Joel replied, an otherwise joking tone overshadowed by something else, something more honest.

Behind him, Joel felt you shift, and a small spark of pride filled his chest. He had an effect on you, the same way you had an effect on him. Quickly, you changed the subject, and that spark of pride grew larger in Joel’s chest.

“Did you have a plan, by the way?” you asked him, your voice light and innocent, “Or are we just riding this horse off into the sunset?”

“It’s the middle of the day,” Joel pointed out, “And you’re the one who put me in a bandana, so don’t even bother tellin’ me you ain’t the one with the plan.”

You let out a giggle at this and pressed your face into his back once more. “Just keep going straight for now, you bore, I’ll tell you when.”

Joel chuckled at you, and did as you said, guiding the horse south at the edge of the forest where the snow wasn’t as deep. He felt you tighten your hands slightly around his waist, before you fell into a comfortable silence.

The horse held a steady pace, rocking you in a soothing rhythm in the saddle. The day was bright and sunny, almost blinding against the snow. Joel had never gone down this way before, never seen the stone face of the mountain up close, the way it cried glittery winter tears when the sun shone.

“There’s a river down here somewhere,” you suddenly spoke, breaking the silence that had built between you. “There’s a nice little spot down there where we can camp.”

Joel pulled at the reins, following in the direction you’d pointed. “You’ve been down this way before?” he asked.

“Maybe once or twice a year,” you started, “There’s this town, Jackson, maybe a week’s ride south. I’m not exactly supposed to talk about it– they run a pretty tight ship, coming off a little more threatening than they are, but they’re sort of like a commune. Arthur has this deal with one of the ladies, Maria, where we help each other out by trading.”

A frown pulled at Joel’s face, “I thought y’all were all alone out here?”

“Well, we are, but not really. It’s because of them we still have running water and electricity– we’re connected to the same system they use. And then usually in the fall or in the spring Arthur will go trade with them for things we need like soap, or nails and stuff we can’t make on our own at the farm.”

Joel hummed, and the puzzle pieces of information you’d given him, started to fit into the bigger picture he’d painted of your life at the farm. He could understand why Alma and Arthur still resided at the farm. It was their home, the place where they’d lived their whole life, but for you, for you it was different.

“So… you know ‘em? You’ve gone with Arthur to meet this Maria?” he asked.

“A little, I guess. She’s uh…” you trailed off, resting your cheek against Joel’s back instead.

The river finally came into view, and Joel let you have the silence. He guided Ingydar down towards the riverbank. A wound cut the ice in two where the river poured backwards eternally. The water clucked under the ice as you rode along the edge; was it wishful thinking to think it sounded like the coming of spring?

“She?” Joel prodded gently.

Joel heard you sight before you sat up, no longer leaning your weight on him. “She invited me to come live with them… in Jackson.”

Joel frowned, “’nd you told her no?”

“Well… yes– I just, I can’t leave them alone.”

“Sweetheart–” Joel started, but you cut him off.

“Let’s stop here!”

You didn’t say anything as Joel watched you loosen the saddle bags and sheep skins, while he petted the old horse. He found himself wondering how you’d ended up on the farm, and if you could’ve been happier somewhere else– like Jackson.

He tied Ingydar to a tree, before he waded back to where you were trampling the snow flat. He helped you form a bench out of the snow, cutting through the layers until you found a hard enough crust to hold both your weights. The sheepskin warmed under him, as he sat down with a groan. It made you turn around from where you sat on your haunches in front of the fire you were building, a teasing smile pulling at the corner of your mouth.

“Tired already, old man?” you teased as you stood to your feet and walked closer.

Spreading his legs, Joel made room for you to stand between them, as he tipped his head back to study you above him. Your smile was dangerous, wild and wonderful.

“Old man, huh?” He raised an eyebrow at you, not able to resist the urge to wrap his hand around the back of your knee.

Your teeth caught on your bottom lip at his touch, and a pride swelled inside Joel. Pride at pulling a reaction from you. Before you could answer him, a boldness took a hold of him, and he wrapped an arm around your waist to pull you down into his lap.

You yelped out a giggle and your hands came down to brace yourself against his shoulder. Joel felt a feeling overcome him; one he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Happiness.

It tickled at his heart, teared at something inside, and it scared him.

“You okay?” you asked, your voice coated in concern, and Joel felt his cheeks heat up. He let out a dry chuckle, embarrassed by how easily you could read him.

“Yeah,” he cleared his throat, “I just…” he trailed off, studying your face and watching how your eyebrows pulled together in the smallest of frowns.

He shook his head again, before he leaned forward, not thinking it through as he brushed his lips over yours in a kiss. You reciprocated the kiss immediately, although maybe a little caught off guard. Joel’s arm around your waist tightened, as his other hand brushed up your side. He needed to hold you close for just a second, just to know this was real, that this feeling was real, and that you were real.

You broke away first, breathless with a giggle before you dove down again for another peck. Joel let you kiss him; let you cup his cheek and bring him closer. You shifted in his lap, your core rubbing slightly over his crotch. It could’ve been an accident, but the small gasp you let out told him it wasn’t. His arm around your waist tightened, and he had to pull away.

Wide eyes looked back at him, and Joel couldn’t help but stare at your lips. He felt like a teenager, a teenager sneaking out the house to meet a girl. To finally be with you without the secrecy – to touch you and kiss you openly.

“You’re somethin’ else, aren’t you?” he whispered.

A smile teased at your lips before you leaned in closer, your breath brushing over his ear, “You have no idea.”

Blood coursed south, and Joel felt his cock come alive behind the confinements of his jeans. It was cold enough for a man to freeze his balls off, but desire’s warmth filled him anyway.

He pulled his head away, finding your eyes blown full of lust. A smile teased at the corner of his mouth as he spoke, “Let’me teach ya to shoot before you get too excited.”

“Before I get too excited?” you laughed, and sat up properly in his lap again, “I think that might be you, old man.”

Teaching you to shoot was less of a success than Joel had intended. He’d found a couple of old glass bottles in the barn to use as target practice, but your aim was terrible, missing each shot. To your credit, it wasn’t your fault. He’d taught you how to load the gun, how to stand safely, and with his hand snaking around your body, how to hold it properly.

He could swear his intentions were good at first, he actually wanted to teach you, to make sure you knew how to shoot, and safely, but when he saw how your body shivered from his voice in your ear – he decided to play with you a little.

Maybe he whispered a couple of innuendos in your ear while he dropped his voice an octave just to see your reaction. Or maybe he pressed himself a little closer to your body, showing you how it was done like in those cliché romcoms he’d been forced to watch with Sarah.

It didn’t take long before the empty bottles, or the shot gun was forgotten, as you pressed your lips against his in a desperate kiss, your cold nose rubbing against his own.

But Joel didn’t have it in him to complain.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The sound at the door jolted Joel from his sleep. He’d almost been dragged under, laying in that limbo state between awake and asleep– not yet in dreamland, but not still among the living.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Joel sat up, letting the duvet fall into his lap and exposing his chest as the streak of yellow light coming through the ajar door cut his bedroom in two. Joel had to squint to see you properly in the doorway as he shed the last grip of sleep.

“Angel?” he questioned, as a tight grip of fear ran through him. He sat up properly now, ready to jump out of bed, his hands already searching for his shotgun resting at the foot of the bed.

With his eyes now fully adjusted to the dark, he watched how you quietly stepped inside his bedroom, closing the door as gently as you could – and the panic seemed to seize just a little. You padded to the edge of his bed, still so quiet, with your hands clasped nervously over where the hem of your sleep shirt met the bare of your thighs.

“I couldn’t sleep,” you whispered.

Joel shifted over slightly and lifted the duvet for you to slip under. An open invitation– one you were quick to accept.

“D’you have a nightmare?” Joel whispered, the wolf hour keeping his voice down.

You shifted closer to him, your head rested on his pillow, and Joel couldn’t help himself from touching your waist gently – his fingers dancing over the soft cotton of your shirt.

“No,” you whispered back, “just couldn’t sleep.”

Joel hummed and shifted over onto his back, extending his arm for you to shift closer. It felt natural now – touching you. You felt like his, and he felt like yours. He didn’t know where it was going, but he was starting to enjoy the road to you. To get to know you more, what made you laugh, your quirks, and the way your body felt under his hands.

The weight of your head on his chest, Joel welcomed; his other hand quick to intertwine with the one you’d slung over his middle. He just wanted you close now, every chance he got.

“’Just try ‘nd get some sleep, my angel.” Joel pressed a kiss to the top of your head before he pulled back and closed his eyes. With you in his arms now, he knew he’d have no trouble falling back asleep.

“I–” you whispered.

Joel hummed; his eyes still closed.

“I kept thinking about you.”

Curiously Joel opened his eyes to find yours. You had tilted your head to look at him, you mouth slightly parted as you studied him with moony eyes. The way you looked at him stirred something inside him, a warmth pooling in the depth of his core.

“Yeah?” he questioned with a slight cock of his eyebrow, “’bout what?”

Then you got shy all of a sudden, hiding your head in his chest. “Thought about how you touched me,” you whispered.

“Touched ya how?” he prodded, gliding his hand up your arm slowly.

He knew it was wrong to play with you like this. Everything was still new, each touch unexplored and seeking. He couldn’t fuck you, even if he wanted to, and he did, badly, but Joel couldn’t risk it. Not in this world, not at this farm, it wasn’t fair to you.

Over him you held your breath as he teased your skin, eyes fluttering shut as his hand moved down the side of your body, and under the duvet.

“Like… like how you touched me in my dream,” you exhaled in a breathless voice.

Now Joel sucked in a breath, holding it in his lungs as he tried to calm himself down. He had an idea on how he’d touched you in your dream, but he couldn’t hold himself back from asking anyway.

“’nd where did I touch ya in your dream, angel.”

You squirmed against his body when his hand reached your bare thigh under the duvet, and soon your fingers locked around his wrist to guide it up over the soft skin of the inside of your thigh.

“Here,” you whispered.

A small gasp escaped you when he brushed his thumb gently over your clothed clit. Joel felt the wet warmth of you against the pad of his finger, making his cock twitch to life in his pajama pants.

“Here?” Joel whispered back, as his thumb started rubbing small circles over your clit.

“Y-yes.”

The noise you made, the noise he pulled from you from his small touch, sounded like the sweetest melody in Joel’s ear, and he wanted to hear it again. He ran his fingers through your cloth covered folds, and felt the wetness already seeped through.

Fuck.

“My angel… You’re so wet already,” he tutted, “Were you touchin’ yourself thinkin’ ‘bout me in that bed of yours?” he hummed in your ear.

A shiver ran through your body when his fingers found your clit again. Slowly, he started circling his fingers again, and the quiet moan that escaped you filled his chest with desire.

“Yes,” you breathed out, almost a whimper.

His teeth caught on his bottom lip, biting down to stave off the groan he wanted to let out at your words. He needed more of you, to feel the softness of you, to pull more of those breathy whimpers from your breath.

“Tell me, angel.”

In a bold move, Joel dipped his fingers into your panties, gliding two thick fingers through the seam of your folds, dipping into your arousal soiling your panties. His touch made you suck in a quick breath, as your eyes squeezed shut in pleasure. A proud grin spread across Joel’s face. It had been a while since he’d been with a woman, even longer since he’d been with a woman he felt something for.

He’d felt something for Tess, but that had been so complicated – it didn’t work right, they didn’t work right together as more than friends, like the puzzle pieces didn’t quite fit together. But the sex had been good, something to make them both forget for a little while.

Everything with you worked almost too easily, and Joel wanted to make you feel good, you deserved it, he thought.

“I-I,” you said breathlessly, as he worked his fingers slowly up and down from your hole to your clit, “I thought about your f-fingers.”

“Yeah, baby? Where?” He whispered in your ear before placing a kiss to the column of your neck. Joel was playing with you now, seeing how desperate he could get you before he tasted you.

“I-inside… I thought about your fingers inside me.”

Joel smiled into your neck. This felt as good a time as any to slip a finger inside you, so he did, slowly. You keened under his touch, and the sound of the small gasp you let out made Joel’s cock even harder.

“Like this baby?” he teased, pumping his finger slowly in and out of your wet warmth. He felt your hand wrap around his wrist, holding his arm, almost guiding him in his movements. He curled his finger inside you, trying to find that spongy spot inside that made you see stars.

“Y-yes, Joel–ah!”

There it was.

He liked the sound of his name falling from your lips like this, and he intended to hear it again. He couldn’t help but think about the way your cunt would squeeze around his cock, how tight you’d feel around him, as he continued to massage the spot with the pad of his finger.

“That feels good, doesn’t it?” he cooed, and placed a kiss to your cheek.

“Uh-uh,” you nodded, your eyebrows pulling together in a frown of pleasure, “Uh-uh.”

He felt your walls flutter around him, and Joel knew he had you just where he wanted you. Quickly, he pulled out his finger before slipping in a second. Your wetness dripped down his hand, coating him in your arousal with every pump of his fingers inside you.

Your breathing picked up, and small moans escaped you in time with the thrusting of his fingers. Joel had to contain himself from rubbing his bulge against your thigh, chasing any kind of relief.

This wasn’t about him, he told himself, he only wanted to make you feel good.

He knew you were close now, with just a flick of his thumb over your clit he’d have you coming on his hand – but Joel didn’t want it to be over yet. He needed to taste you, he’d thought about it as he’d jerked himself of, fantasized about how you’d taste on his tongue.

Suddenly, Joel pulled his finger out of your cunt. A strangled noise of, what Joel could only describe as disappointment, escaped your lips. It made Joel chuckle.

“Joel,” you whined, and squeezed your fingers around his wrist.

He didn’t answer, instead he sat up, a teasing smile coating his face as he shifted down the bed and pulled the duvet with him.

“Calm down, angel, be good f’me, okay?”

His hand wrapped around your calf to spread you apart for him, and he slotted between your legs. He placed a gentle kiss to your knee and let his eyes find yours where they looked back at him wide with anticipation.

“Are you gonna be good f’me?” he asked as he gave you another soft kiss, but this time to the inside of your thigh.

A breath escaped you in staccato, and you nodded, “Y-yes, Joel.”

“Good girl,” he rumbled, placing fluttering kisses up your thigh until he reached your core.

Joel didn’t want to waste any more time.

He stripped you out of your panties, and threw them to the side to get lost in the bedding. Finally, he got a good look at you, and fuck you were beautiful. Your cunt glistened with your wetness in the low white light of the moon coming through the window. Your hole pulsed when his thumb found your clit, where he pulling the hood back slightly as he teased you.

“Please,” you pleaded, your hand wrapping around his shoulder; searching for something to hold on to.

“It’s okay, angel,” he comforted you, as his finger spread your lips apart, and put you on display for him before he pinched them together. Under him you let out the smallest of whimpers as he played with you.

“I’m gonna put my mouth on you now, baby,” he told you, his finger back to circling your clit. “Gonna taste you pussy.”

His eyes flicked from your cunt to your face, searching for any indication that this wasn’t what you wanted. But Joel didn’t find any, your mouth had dropped open in the smallest of o’s, and your eyes were glazed over in lust.

“Please, Joel,” you begged, spreading your legs wider for him.

A grin spread across Joel’s face, and at last he finally closed the distance between his lips and your cunt, placing a kiss to your clit to start.

A hand found his head, as your fingers dug into his hair, which only made him smile wider. He dipped lower, flattening his tongue to taste you properly. You tasted so good, a sweet-salty taste he instantly craved more of. He licked a stripe from your clit to your hole, gathering up the arousal leaking from you, and hummed in contentment.

The fingers in his hair tightened their grip as he teased at your hole, pushing his tongue inside you a couple of times and earning himself the sweetest moans. Joel made sure to remember every twist of pleasure, and whiny moan.

He continued with a lick up the seam of your folds, which made your hips buck, chasing the swipes and zigzags of his tongue.

“That feel good, angel?” he prodded before latching onto your clit.

“Y-yes!” you gasped as he sucked and flicked his tongue.

The noises he pulled from you went straight to his hard cock. He could feel the precum leak from the tip and staining the fabric of his pajama pants. Shamelessly, he started bucking his hips against the bed.

He had to calm down, this wasn’t about him.

With a sudden move he pulled away, making a breathy whine escape you at the loss of his mouth. Joel sat up on his knees, before his hands found the back of your knees.

“Hold your legs f’me, angel,” he commanded, and pushed your legs up towards your chest. You did as he told you, and hooked your arms under your knees to put your cunt on full display for him.

“Fuck,” he breathed out, “so pretty f’me… so messy– listen.”

He ran a finger down your cunt to prove his point, a slick wet sound filling the air.

“Please, Joel,” you begged again, your voice broken with a breathless whine.

“Please what, angel?” he mocked, a spark of pride filling his chest as he watched you bite down on your lip.

“Please… make me come,” you whispered, and Joel thought he’d never heard anything sound so hot in his life.

He dove down again, consumed your cunt. His tongue lapped at your core, his finger teased your hole, pushing the pad just inside your opening; in and out, in and out. His lips found your clit again, where he flattened his tongue before drawing precise circles. Around his finger your cunt pulsed – you were close.

Joel never slowed down his tempo, determined now to make you come. He continued to lick and suck, thrusting his fingers inside you fully now as he pushed up against the spot he’d found earlier. Your breath picked up the pace, small breathy moans and whines escaping you in an increasing tempo.

“R-right there,” you heaved, your face scrunched together in pleasure. “D-don’t stop– I’m gonna c-come.”

Joel hummed against you, continuing his rhythm with his fingers and his tongue, coaxing you closer and closer to your orgasm. You started to mumble something, but Joel couldn’t hear it clearly between your heaving breaths.

He was determined now.

Curling his fingers again, your eyes snapped open, “Joel!”

Your cunt spasms around his fingers, and then you came around his fingers. Your eyes screwed shut as you moaned, as your body squirmed under him.

You looked so beautiful– you sounded so beautiful.

He continued to massage his fingers inside you, thrusting them slowly as you rode out your high. Making sure to drink in every sound, every squirm and twist of your pleasure as he watched you calm down.

When your breath had started to come back to normal, Joel pulled his fingers from your cunt. His fingers were coated in you, coated in your slick arousal and your cum. With a cheeky smile he brought his fingers to his mouth as he locked eyes with you and sucked them clean. The wide-eyed look on your face was the sweetest thing he’d seen.

“Joel,” you begged, your hand pulling him down over you.

He held himself up with a hand digging into your pillow, and he couldn’t help but smile as he looked down at you. He never wanted to forget the look on your face in this moment, never wanted to forget what you looked like glowing in a post-orgasm bliss.

Your hands cupped his cheek and pulled him down to your lips. The kiss was desperate, wet and messy, and it made Joel’s heart soar inside his chest. His cock was so hard. He could slip it inside you just for a moment, only the tip.

“Please,” you said breathlessly between kisses, “you can fuck me, Joel.”

No, not yet.

With a shake of his head, he came to his senses, “No, angel, this was just f’you.”

Your eyes widened with confusion; a slight frown pulled at your eyebrows as he pulled away. Joel bought himself some time by pulling you closer and wrapping an arm around you, careful not to press his hard cock into your ass.

“There ain’t exactly any condoms out here,” he told you, “It’s just too risky.”

It was a sorry excuse, Joel knew it, and he could tell you did too. His boner rubbing into your ass told you as much. Joel wanted to, he wanted to fuck you, but he just couldn’t, not yet anyway. Not until he knew that it was what you wanted, that he was what you wanted.

A moment went by before he heard you whisper, “You can pull out?”

Joel couldn’t hold back the smile threatening to spill across his face, “I’ve heard that one before, didn’t exactly go to plan.”

“What do you mean?” you asked, turning around in his arms to find his face.

Shit.

“Nothin’,” he shook his head. He didn’t want to think about that right now, didn’t want to feel that grief that’s never gone away, didn’t want it to tear at the happiness he felt in this moment. “It’s just somethin’ from before.”

Your interest seemed to pique at that. You turned around fully in his arms and slung your arm around his broad chest. Your eyes glittered with curiosity, “How was it? Your life before?”

Memories flashed before Joel’s eyes; days of hard work under the Austin sun, drunk laughter at the bar with his brother, pink birthday parties, and singing along to girl groups in the truck.

He held his breath for a moment before he let out a quiet sigh, “Normal, I guess.”

When he looked down at you where you rested your head on his shoulder, it seemed his brief answer had disappointed you, so he decided to elaborate, “I worked too damn much– me ‘nd my lil’ brother we uh, had a business together–”

“Contractors,” you remembered.

“Yeah,” he chuckled, “that’s right.”

“What’s his name?” you asked.

“Who’s name?” Joel frowned.

“Your brother,” you said, the ‘duh’ not spoken out loud, but your tone indicative of it either way.

“Uh, Tommy.”

“Joel and Tommy,” he could hear the smile in your voice. “What’s he like?”

Joel sucked in a breath, “A pain in my ass first of all.”

A playful slap landed on his chest and Joel couldn’t help but smile, “I’m serious.”

Interlocking his fingers with your hand on his chest, Joel opened up to you. “Tommy always wanted to be a hero. He enlisted in the army right outta high school, I was… well, it doesn’t matter– they shipped him off to Iraq a few months later and he…” Joel trailed off, his eyes fixating on a crack in the ceiling.

“What happened when he got back?” you gently asked with a squeeze of his hand.

“Turns out bein’ in the army doesn’t make you feel much like a hero,” Joel sighed, “I watched out for him, kept him outta trouble, made sure he had a steady job.”

“You’re a good brother,” you told him, but Joel felt the opposite.

“I don’t know,” Joel shook his head slightly, “Then the outbreak happens, and Tommy convinces me to join a group makin’ their way up to Boston, which I did, mostly to keep an eye on him, keep him alive. We meet Tess, join a crew ‘nd… did some things I ain’t proud of, but we were survinin’, right?”

You squeezed his hand again, urging him to continue. “Then Tommy meets Marlene. She talks him into joinin’ the Fireflies. Same mistake he made when he was eighteen– wants to save the world. ‘Course, last I heard he quit the Fireflies too. So, now he’s on his own out there.”

“And that’s how you ended up here, looking for him.” You said the words slowly, like you were contemplating each word, “and he’s still out there somewhere.”

A lump of guilt grew in Joel’s throat. Had he abandoned his brother for the safety of your arms? Let Tess die for nothing?

“Yeah,” he swallowed around his guilt, “Last contact I heard from him came from around the Cody tower– in Wyoming.”

“Cody?” you sat up, “That’s not too far from Jackson… maybe that’s where he is? I need to ask Arthur, but there’s no other settlements around here except in Jackson.”

A small glimmer of hope awakened in him, “You sure?”

“Yeah,” you nodded your head, “when spring comes you should go to Jackson with Arthur– maybe he’s there!”

Your enthusiasm was cute; the way you seemed to glow above him. “Maybe,” he hummed, noncommittedly, as he pulled you down to rest against his chest again.

A moment passed in silence before you whispered, “And this Tess… was she your wife?”

“No, she… she was my partner– but she was family.” The words strained in his throat, like they didn’t want to come out, “She’s dead… got bit.”

“I’m sorry, Joel,” you said, your voice gentle as you squeezed him tighter. “I understand… my family–” you cut yourself of, but Joel understood.

Dead.

“Arthur said I wasn’t the first person passin’ through. I’m guessing that was you?”

“Yeah,” you sighed, “I uh, my family and I, we were travelling with a group. It wasn’t very large, but I guess it was big enough to draw attention. One night, uh,” your voice started to tremble, and it broke something in Joel.

“Angel,” he whispered, his hand wrapping tighter around you, “It’s okay, you can tell me.”

“I’m sorry,” you sniffled, “it’s just really hard to talk about.”

“Don’t apologize, I know baby, I know,” Joel soothed before pressing light kisses to the top of your head.

“One night,” you cleared your throat, “We’d camped, had dinner and I… I waited for my parents to fall asleep so I could sneak into the tent of this boy that I liked, Ben. He was the only person my age in our group. I had just turned eighteen and I was in love, I guess.”

You paused, and Joel pressed another kiss to the top of your head. “We were fooling around in his tent when I heard something outside,” you continued, “Ben said I was being paranoid, that I was just afraid to get caught by my parents, but then we heard a gunshot. It was chaos, e-everything, t-they’d killed my family, Ben, e-everyone. I managed to hide behind a tree, my feet were like frozen to the ground, I-I couldn’t run. I saw each and every face of the men who murdered my family. They raided the camp, took e-everything.”

“Angel,” Joel soothed when you started crying, “You’re safe… you’re safe now.”

“I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to get away– I just ran, ran as fast as I could for as long as I could. I’ve never been so cold, or tired or hungry as when I stumbled on this farm. I don’t remember the first days, I was so sick, but Alma and Arthur took care of me– I owe them everything, they saved my life.”

You were full on crying now, and Joel tried his best to calm you. He whispered soothing words in your ear, pressed soft kisses to your skin, and held you in his arm. He let you cry, as he cursed the people who’d done this to you – cursed the world who continued to take, and take, and take.

Joel couldn’t leave you, and maybe deep down he’d know it for a long time. He’d do as you’d suggested and go with Arthur to Jackson come spring, but he was coming back for you.

He wasn’t gonna leave you.

The days came and went and collected into a tranquil rhythm of the cogs in Joel’s routine. He’d wake to the bleeding blade of the sun over the lip of the mountain, or your kisses over his heavy eyelids. After that first night together, you slept in his bed more nights than not, as his bed transformed into a room for just the two of you. A place where Joel didn’t have to think or be anything other than completely himself. A place to laugh and smile, whisper under the bright moon, and hear his name fall from your lips in breathy moans.

Your chest rose and fell in a steady beat, your eyes closed so delicately you looked like a sleeping angel. And you were, his angel. Joel never made a habit of watching you sleep, but sometimes he’d indulge himself in the peacefulness of the hour between night and dusk. By the time the room started to turn blue with the morning light, that’s when Joel missed you too much; wrapping his arms around you with just enough movement to wake you without being blamed.

He’d let you dream for a few moments longer, though. Content to lay in the silence with you before the noise of the day would pull you apart. But the moment of peace could only last for so long, the soft thumps of Alma’s steps down the stairs told Joel it was time to wake up.

Under the crinkling of the sheets, Joel’s hand found the dip in your waist. He was about to kiss you good morning when he heard Alma’s steps come closer and closer. A surge of panic coursed to his chest.

“Joel?” she knocked on his door.

“I ain’t decent yet, Alma,” Joel yelled through the door. The loud bass of his voice made you blink your eyes open, looking up at him with a curious look.

“I’m sorry Joel– I was just letting you know that Arthur isn’t feeling well today.”

Joel sighed. This was the third time in as many weeks Arthur was sick, and now Joel was in for another day alone with the work and the trees.

“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll be out in a second.”

“I’m going to get started on breakfast for you, Joel,” she answered.

When Joel had thanked Alma, and her steps had faded away, Joel indulged himself in a morning kiss. The way your lips slotted against his felt like oxygen rebounding his lungs.

“Again?” you sighed when you broke away from the kiss, your hand found his hair to brush a curl from his face.

“’s the cold I reckon– ‘nd the work… it ain’t exactly easy on the old man.”

You hummed and cupped his chin. “Maybe I should go with you today? Help you out?” you posed.

Joel heard himself chuckle and shook his head, “That ain’t happenin’, angel.”

A gasp left your lips in mock shock, “Why?”

“’Cause the animals would miss you, and I intend on stayin’ on their good side,” he said, a smile hanging off his face.

You narrowed your eyes at him playfully, intent on making him cave, “They’ll be fine.”

Joel only laughed, “You say that ‘nd the next thing I know I got Colonel Eggsworth on my ass.”

“I don’t believe that,” now you were giggling, “Colonel Eggsworth is the nicest rooster we’ve had!”

“I ain’t takin’ any chances, angel,” Joel pecked your lips.

“Coward,” he heard you mumble under your breath as he got out of bed. It made Joel smile, and a warmth gathered around his heart.

Back in the routine, after another quick kiss, you sneakily slipped back into your room to get dressed. While Joel pulled his sweater over his head, he thought about what it meant to wake up each morning with you and feel three words rive at his heart, never having it in him to say them, to let them spill out his mouth.

Maybe saying nothing was honesty’s default. Maybe it was how he could avoid telling you all the stupid things he wanted to say. So, for now he said nothing. Said nothing at the breakfast table. Nothing when you’d helped him saddle up Ingydar. And nothing as you waved him goodbye.

After months working in the woods, Joel did his work on autopilot. He always started with a reconnaissance round, looking for which trees to chop down. Then, with the weight of the axe in his hands, he’d start his work. Now, after they’d brought the horse out, the work was somewhat easier. He still had to chop down the tree, and clean off the branches, but he could move the trunks much easier now with the horse.

The wind howled like a hound, biting at Joel’s cheeks but the sun was out, and Joel didn’t mind. He’d gotten used to the cold by now, and Arthur had taught him quickly how to layer up. The increasing number of knitted pieces of clothing you’d made him also helped.

By the time the sun was at its highest peak, Joel debated going back for lunch. He’d done so every time he was alone out here, and especially after they’d started bringing the horse. The walk back had been cut in half on horseback, maybe even more than half now that he didn’t have to wade through the snow.

Looking back, Joel almost couldn’t see Ingydar where he’d tied him to a tree. He’d gone deeper into the woods than yesterday. Maybe it wasn’t worth it today? He could eat his packed lunch and finish up a little earlier instead.

The days had gotten shorter and shorter, and the hours of daylight had shrunk in the months he and Arthur had been working. But the sun had turned, Joel felt it. It wasn’t much, maybe a half hour or so, but he felt the difference.

He ate his lunch in the company of Ingydar, feeding him some carrots he’d snagged from the basement. He was a good horse, old and tired but hard working. Joel worked until the sun dropped behind the mountain, a shadow coating the world as it grew darker and darker. He needed to get back before it got properly dark. Joel quickly gathered his things, swinging his gun over his shoulders before he was back on horseback.

The horse knew the way back by itself at this point, even in the dark, but something wasn’t right. What was that smell? Small snowflakes started to fall from the sky the closer he got to the edge of the wood, but the smell only grew stronger.

Smoke.

Thoughts tumbled in Joel’s head, small fleets on a stormy sea. With a kick to the sides of Ingydar, they picked up their pace. The muted rhythm of horse hoofs against the packed snow trail, beat along to Joel’s heart.

A cloud of smoke rose up to the sky, dancing through bright yellow and orange flames. Joel couldn’t get there fast enough, pushing Ingydar to the limit as they galloped up the trail to the house. Joel’s heart was in his throat.

What the fuck was happening?

The flames licked at the sky, devouring the house, moaning and kicking like a beast. The heat was unbearable, the light almost blinding. Ingydar neighed loudly as Joel quickly jumped down, not bothering to tie him to something or calm him down. Joel watched the house burn in total disbelief. Frozen to the ground by shock, his heart beating loudly in his ears.

You.

Where were you? You had to been able to get out somehow, right? Why was everything so quiet?

Something caught his eye then, only a few steps from the porch stairs. His feet carried him without a second thought. Arthur was clad in only his pajamas and his robe. He must’ve been forced out of bed. The snow around him was stained crimson from where the life had spilled out of him.

Joel’s first thought was that he was dead, but then Arthur’s eyes flickered open to find Joel’s. The snow creaking under Joel’s shoes must’ve pulled him from his slowed death.

“Joel?” he croaked, blood spilling from his mouth.

“Don’t try ‘nd speak.” Joel’s voice came out colder than he’d expected. This couldn’t be real. Falling to his knees, Joel worked quickly, placing Arthur’s head gently in his lap as he found the source of the bleeding.

The blood oozed from a hole in his stomach. A bullet wound, most definitely. Joel put as much pressure on it as he could manage. His mittens drank the blood greedily, saturated by red. It just kept coming, the warmth coating his fingers.

What the fuck had happened?

Under him Arthur coughed, spilling more blood down his chin, coating his white beard in red. “Listen…”

Joel shook his head. This couldn’t be happening. This was just a bad dream. If he could just open his eyes, he’d be back in bed with you. He just needed to open his eyes.

“She’s alive,” Arthur managed to say, “They took her alive. Raiders–” another cough, “Broke in. Alma dead.”

The panic in Arthur’s face was almost too much for Joel to watch. His breath was heavy, breathing through this new information as his head spun with questions. Arthur’s eyes glazed over, and Joel knew there wasn’t enough time.

“Where is she?” he hurried, his hand lightly tapping Arthur on his cheek. He just needed to stay alive a little longer.

“Woods.” Was the only word Arthur could manage, as he used the last of his strength to point south.

An awful stench mixed with the smoke, and Joel knew Arthur was gonna die. His body couldn’t control itself anymore, ridding itself of the last of pieces of life. There was nothing beautiful about it. Nothing peaceful or dignified. Not how an old man like Arthur should leave this world.

Joel grabbed Arthur’s hand, it was clammy and cold, but it was the least he could do – Arthur wasn’t gonna die alone. He tried to think of something to say, anything at all, but the words died on his tongue.

“Alma…” Arthur whispered with his last breath, and Arthur’s hand went slack in his hand.

An eerie silence fell over the farm, safe from the fire crackling and moaning. Emotions raged inside Joel, fighting to bubble to the top. Anger, confusion, guilt, grief. A loud crack could be heard, like glass shattering, and it pulled Joel from his shock. He gently laid Arthur down on the ground, before he managed to rise on unsteady feet.

A loud noise started ringing in his ears, and Joel’s breath started coming out in an uneven pace. Shit. Joel tied a fist over his chest, his body tilting forward as he tried to catch his breath over the panic tying up his throat. He took a few shuffling steps before he hurled, gall burning his tastebuds as Joel vomited on the ground.

When he’d thrown up all there was in his stomach, Joel groaned. He ripped off the bloody mittens as quickly as he could, his hands digging into the white snow to wash his mouth of the bitter taste.

Joel burned inside and outside. Standing so close to the house, the heat was unbearable. Everything was unbearable. Sarah was dead, Tess was dead, Alma was dead, and Arthur was dead.

Could he take anymore grief? Joel wondered. How much grief was a man supposed to endure in a lifetime? None of this was fair.

Had he just gone back to the house for lunch, they’d all be alive. Had he not dragged her across the country to find his stupid brother, she’d still be alive. Had he not told that soldier she was hurt, she’d still be alive.

As he stared into the raging fire, Joel felt his own anger simmer to the surface. It pushed away all the grief, and the guilt, and sharpened his senses, made him laser focused. His arms and legs moved by their own accord, tugging the shotgun from his shoulder, before he started moving in the direction Arthur had pointed.

They were gonna pay for this. They’d made his world go up in flames and struck the match on their own life in return.

As Joel vanished into the night, he left a piece of himself behind. He was going to find you. He was going to hold you and kiss you again. Nothing or no one could come in the way of that.

Nothing could come in the way of Joel.

i hope someone liked this? i'm very curious about what your thoughts for the last part will be, so if you have them please leave a comment, reply or an ask. they are always super welcomed, and they make me super happy <3 other than that thank you for reading!!

next part -> here!

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