yoditostan - Tumblr blog

[yoditostan]

Pairing: Din Djarin x female sex worker!reader Rating: E, 18+ Word Count: 3.1k Content Warnings: touch-starved Din; reader is blindfolded; smut Summary: Mando makes regular visits to the healing baths. Note: A big thank you to @frannyzooey for always enabling my depravity and finding the dope ass images for my header ❤︎

He always waits for you inside the door.

“It’s the least I can do,” he says, when you’re surprised by the unexpected touch the first time. A light hand cups your elbow, guiding you to the middle of the room, until you can feel the smooth tiles that mark the edge of the sunken pool with your bare toes.

The marble is slick with condensation, heated by the same geothermal source that warms the spring water. The air is steamy and humid, braided with the rich scents of cardamom and argan oil, of rose from the petals you know are strewn across the surface of the bath. Candles flicker languidly in the shadowy corners of the room, but you can’t detect any of their light.

When you lower yourself to the floor—carefully, blindly—he checks the tightness of the black silk wrapped around your eyes with gentle fingers. He reassures himself it’s secure, that you can’t see a thing through the fabric in the dark, hazy room. A reassurance he needs every time.

You come to expect it. To expect him.

He’s consistent. He’s hesitant.

It takes dozens of visits before he lets you join him in the bath. You always offer; he always refuses—politely, always so politely: a no, thank you, eventually paired with a fleeting touch. A warm hand placed over yours. Two fingers stroked down the red silk of your dress. If you’re lucky, a squeeze to the thick of your thigh or a graze of your cheek. His denial is so soft, so warm—so regretful—that you ask every time just to hear him want it.

When he inevitably says no, you sit behind him on a velvet cushion on the edge of the pool instead, swathed in the inky blackness of your blindfold, your feet dangling in the warm water, and work scented oils into his skin and tension out of his shoulders, his neck, his arms, his back, his chest. Your existence is reduced to tactile information, your world narrowed to the sensations in your hands—the textures at the tips of your fingers. The taut muscles of his shoulders, the raised scars that litter his arms and chest, the hair dusted over his pectorals, the callouses on his palms. All slick with water, slippery with massage oil.

The helmet stays on for the first handful of visits. You know by the modulated sound of his voice, by the brush of beskar against your wrist when you work a knuckle into the base of his stiff neck. It disappears somewhere around the tenth visit. When he meets you at the door, your name sounds markedly different. You don’t mention it, don’t draw attention to it, but you do enjoy the unfiltered, raw quality of his voice from then on.

The noises he makes when you touch him are always better than you remember. Their tone and cadence mark a gradual progression from high strung and uneasy to mellow and sedate as the tension coiled in his muscles dissipates under your hands. The harsh exhales devolve into low groans, quiet grunts. Sounds of pleasure waited too long to be had, of physical release so desperately needed. Every once in a while, when you work out a particularly stubborn knot, he murmurs a hushed, rumbling oh, fuck.

Once, when you earn a delicious moan paired with a strained, needy fuck, just like that, he bites off the last word so harshly that you know it was involuntary.

It turns you on more than the touch of any client ever has.

Even with the blindfold, you can feel the burn of his eyes on your skin. Its weight is familiar from the start, when you meet him at the entrance to the baths, the echoing stone entry hall with its gilded fixtures and branches of guttering candles. A balled fist rested on the counter, he nods at you in all his armored glory, a cordial gesture that seems to gain gravity and intimacy each time he offers it. The black visor follows your walk down the long hallway to your rooms, dips to your hips when he thinks you’re not looking. Heavy, substantial. Pressure that could be measured, harsh enough to leave an imprint in its wake.

It stays on you until you shut the door between you, leaving you in the antechamber to tie on your blindfold and him in the main room to undress.  

When you knock and enter, you can still track his gaze despite the layers of black silk—the feeling of it like a searing brand. Settled on your face when you smile up at him. Dragged over the curves of your breasts when you shamelessly tip forward to trail fingers through the water and they just barely begin to spill over the low cut of your dress. Trained on the movement of your tongue when you part your lips and lick a slow, gratuitous line over the bottom one. Riveted to the dark space between your legs when you spread your knees unnecessarily wide and the fabric of your thin, short dress rides up your thighs.

You tell yourself not to hope for more.

Then one day he shows up, and you can tell something is off. His usual steady, controlled energy has been replaced with a pent-up buzz. He’s worked up. You can hear it in his clipped words, feel it in the extra touches. The hand on your lower back guides you to the pool almost hurriedly.

His shoulders are even tighter than usual when you get your hands on them, his back a series of stony knots. He groans when you work at the tension in his neck, your thumbs digging into the tautness at the base of his skull. And when you offer yourself this time, feeling optimistic that you’ll get your most reluctant no yet, a strong hand guides you slowly and wordlessly down the smooth stone steps to join him in the water.

Reflexively, you pull your dress up and over your head, tossing it behind you before the hem can catch in the water. You lose his touch in the process, but a path of goosebumps down your body echoes the course of his gaze as it pulls along your curves. You can feel his attention, his captivation at your nakedness in the fervent tension that snaps taut between you.

His invitation is so unexpected, though, that once you’re standing in the hot, waist-deep water, you’re stunned motionless. Disoriented. You don’t know where he is for a moment; you feel his hot gaze everywhere, all at once. You never actually thought you’d get this far with him, and now it feels daunting—the darkness of blindfold, the ever-changing line of his limits and preferences. You feel untethered.

Until the water shifts and he touches you.

“Beautiful,” he says, damp fingers following the curve of your cheek so lightly you can only just feel them.

You take his hand in both of yours and kiss his palm, soft lips brushing over rough skin. He catches you under your chin, and one fingertip traces your lips, his other hand settling on your waist, flexing. 

You don’t want to push him too fast, and you also want to take full advantage of this opportunity while you finally have it.

You part your lips, and his fingers still.

You let your tongue peek out to circle the pad of one finger, inviting. To your delight, he responds by carefully pushing two fingers into your mouth. When you close your lips around them and suck, he lets out a broken, pained sound, pressing down on your tongue lightly before he eases them back out and drags a wet line down your chin to settle his hand around your throat. 

You smile up at him, unseeing, as you trail fingers down his chest, the soft give of his stomach, dipping below the water as you reach the ridge of his hipbone. Moving slowly, always slowly, so he can stop you if he wants to.

Sure enough, his hand finds yours, trapping it against his skin. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to," you interrupt. "I want to touch you.”

It’s an understatement. There isn’t enough time to share all the myriad ways you’ve fantasized about touching him.

“I’ve thought about this since the first time I saw you walk in here in your armor,” you say, letting your voice pitch low. “What you’d feel like under all that metal.”

His hand disappears, and yours slips further down the v of his hips to wrap around the base of his cock. Hard, thick, big like you knew it would be. 

“I think about it every time I work my way down your chest. How easy it would be to slip my hands lower...to see if you enjoy having my hands on your body as much as I do.” 

He breathes out slowly, but his whole body is rigid as you drag your other hand over his shoulder, down his chest, a granite statue under your touch even as you start to work him over in long, luxurious strokes. 

“I’ve been dying to know, Mando.”

His cock twitches in your hand, his skin hot and slick as it pulls over his hard length. He isn’t relaxing into your touch like he usually does, and this white-knuckled, shallow-breath, penitent version of pleasure is not at all what you’d intended for him, what he deserves.

You tip your face up toward his. “I need you to relax for me. Can you do that?”

A rough exhalation. Noncommittal, a little wry.

You step closer, gingerly moving into his space. He lets you. The water shifts around you as you move into him, close enough that your breasts brush his warm body and you can place a soft kiss on his chest. His ribs expand in a rapid, deep inhale, a rough hitching breath, and his hand comes up to cup the back of your neck.

You press him backward with a palm to his sternum, and he resists reflexively, his feet planted firmly. A man not so easily moved. Who is used to doing the telling, not being told.

“Sit for me?”

He relents with a hum, going pliant for you as you back him up to sit on the submerged marble bench. He helps you climb up, strong hands guiding your movements, settling you onto your knees in a straddle over his lap.

You dip your head to find the crook of his neck and lavish open-mouthed kisses on his throat, below his ear, automatically respecting the limits of where his helmet would be, as you move your hand between your bodies. You’ve never touched above his neck and won’t change that now, even though you’re dying to trace the contours of his face, to fit your lips to his.

Perched over him, you can feel his body gradually relax under your attention, his posture softening, his breath dropping into a more natural cadence. His hands find your hips, your thighs, slide back to grip your ass, as you begin to increase the pace of your stroke.

“Have you, Mando? Have you thought about this?”

You feel him nod once against the side of your head. Jerky, frantic.

“Good,” you purr into his skin, letting your teeth drag over his collarbone.

He groans, his hips lifting off the bench to push himself into your grip harder. The heat that always simmers in your core when you’re around him grows and spreads. It’s overwhelming—so much of his bare skin on your bare skin, after so long with so little. Almost feverish as you move together in the hot water.

Your hand pauses mid-stroke; his hands tighten in protest, sliding you a tiny bit closer on his tense thighs. “Do you think about me?”

His ragged breathing stalls. He nods again. “All the time.”

You hum, pleased, and resume the tight pull of your fist. Your own arousal is approaching a blistering point, so hot and bright, and he’s barely touching you—one hand on your ass, the other dragged up your body to palm your breast, his strong thighs pressed to the inside of yours. He rolls your nipple between two fingers, and you gasp. 

“Feel so good,” he rasps, the heavy weight of his hands reverent as they catalog the slopes and rises of your body. “Just like I imagined.”

You can’t help but think about how easily you could sit on his cock right now. All it would take is a slight shift and tilt of your hips and you could catch the blunt head at your entrance. He’d stretch you so deliciously—that girth and length—but your wetness would let you work yourself down onto his lap until he was filling you completely. You’d fuck an orgasm out of him, riding him until he found his release in the tight clutch of your body, milking his cock until he shuddered from the oversensitivity.

One day. Maybe.

He’s close—you can tell by the strain in his voice, by his ragged breath, by the way his hands tighten on your ass. By the way he wraps one large hand around yours on his cock, tightening your grip. 

“Just like that.”

You’d give anything to see his face when you feel the urgent flex of his hips as he fucks into your joined hands, the jerk and shudder of his large frame as it curves over you, his forehead dropping to rest heavily on your shoulder as he moans brokenly through the pleasure. It’s the most intimate part of all of this—so human, so trusting. So tempting to reach up and touch his face, to put detail to what you’ve imagined so many times.

You regret that your hand is submerged in water, that you can’t feel his hot release slide over the dips and swells of your knuckles. That you won't be able to lick it off your fingers—to taste it, for your own pleasure and for his. To listen to the sounds he’d make as he watched you eat his come.

Instead, when it’s over, when he’s finished, the weight of his forehead lifts from your shoulder and his touch abandons your body. You resist the urge to search it out, to ask for it back.

You imagine how he looks unwound underneath you, his head tipped back against the edge of the pool, muscles slack. His body finally truly relaxed.

Your part is done. 

He’s never spent this long here, and you imagine he’s hyperaware of that. Always on a timeline. Some small part of you thought maybe—hoped—this time would be different, that maybe he’d linger, that maybe he’d want to touch you. You slide backward off his lap to take your leave reluctantly, but when you reach blindly for the edge of the pool, there’s the sound of quick movement through the water and he closes a hand around your wrist.

Relief courses through your veins.

He doesn’t say anything, just guides you. You can’t tell what his aim is until he arranges your body over his just so—just the way he wants you. He has you straddle his lap backwards this time, your back flush to his chest, your knees opened wide by the spread of his legs between yours.

You think about what he does for work, the command and skill it requires. Those capable hands and sure grip have wrestled so many bounties into submission—into handcuffs, into rope bindings, into his carbonite chamber—and here they are exerting their power and ability for the sake of your pleasure. Blunt instrument, suddenly fine.

His breath is hot by your ear, his heavy hand settling meaningfully on your inner thigh. “Can I—?”

“Yes. Fuck, please—”

You guide his hand between your legs, desperate, and his mouth finds the back of your neck. His mouth. Stubble scrapes across your skin, soft lips molding to the contour of your shoulder. The heat that’s been building in your body, that started as a low smolder in your core, has been growing to a rolling boil the whole time you were touching him. And his mouth on your body? Like striking a match to gasoline.

The reality of the situation, the surprise of this touch, ratchets your arousal to a precipitous height. It’s the sheer brazenness of it—the unflinching way he’s taking such a huge step. In the name of your pleasure, of his desire to taste you.

The offering of such intimacy, a secret shared.

A warm tongue blazes a lazy trail from the notch of your vertebra to your nape as two fingers slip into the slit of your sex, beginning a slow massage of your clit. Your mind goes blank.

It’s almost embarrassing how easily he makes you come, how little time it takes with his hand between your legs and his lips on your skin. He fucks you with two thick fingers, another swirling over your clit, and you wonder vaguely how he knows how to curl the two inside you just right against your g-spot.

You reach behind you to grip the back of his neck as you arch, your hips circling. He hooks his chin over your shoulder and you go molten at the thought that he’s watching himself finger-fuck you to climax.

“Are you going to—?”

“Yeah,” you breathe.

“Good.”

It's said through clenched teeth, a gritted jaw. He’s deriving so much pleasure from your pleasure, it's dizzying.

Teeth close over your shoulder and he bites down as you begin shudder and shake, as you clench and spasm around the thrust of his fingers—as you listen to his voice break on a groan as he feels it and draws it out—until the pleasure wanes and you melt back against him, boneless and sated, his strong body an anchor underneath you in the water.

You pant together, your head tipped back to rest on his shoulder, and all you can think about is how fucking close his lips are to yours. You could turn your face and kiss his jaw. He could angle your head and push his tongue into your mouth so easily. You’re so pliant; you want it so badly.

You consider asking. And then you consider the fact that he’s likely thinking about the same thing—your closeness is palpable, the tension a live, shivering thing—and he isn’t doing anything about it. He isn’t fitting a hand to your cheek to maneuver you just so.

You won’t ask for something he isn’t ready to offer.

When he finally does let you go, this visit that was so different from the others ends the same. He guides you back to the exit and hands you the robe that hangs by the door. As he helps you shoulder it on, he murmurs a sincere thank you, accompanied by a rumble of your name.

There’s one notable difference: as you're walking through the doorway, he catches your hand and squeezes it fleetingly before letting it drop.

The door shuts behind you with a click.

As always, a stack of credits far too high will be left in the room for you, and just like every other time, you’ll wait impatiently for his return. 

[yoditostan]

[yoditostan]

A Soft Place To Land

pairing: frankie morales x gn!reader

rating: F (this is really just 579 words of fluff, frankie strips but it’s not sexual)

a/n: the autumn chill is making me romantic for my fictional husband and this is what came of it

frankie masterlist

It was late into the evening when the headlights of Frankie’s truck shone into your living room window. It had been raining all day, autumn finally settling in with an icy chill. You knew how tired he must be, spending his day in the cold, damp body shop he co-owned with Santiago, dealing with cold, damp, impatient customers for the last ten hours.

You, on the other hand, had the day off and never once had to step foot outside the warm and cozy confines of your home. You busied yourself with chores, cleaning the house more deeply than you had in a while, maybe even since you and Frankie first moved in a year and a half ago. Now, fresh out of a warm-vanilla scented bath, you laid reading on the plush sofa Frankie insisted on buying despite it’s hefty price tag, feeling cozy in a pair of soft, fleece-lined sweatpants and a white, cotton long-sleeve.

When Frankie walked in, he looked just as glum as you predicted, a deep sigh leaving his lips as he kicked his boots off by the door while meeting your eye.

“Fucking cold out there,” he said, earning a frown and a nod from you. “You look cozy.”

“I am cozy,” you smiled, curling your finger at him to beckon him closer. Frankie obeyed, walking over to you and bending down to capture your lips for a sweet, icy kiss that left you shivering. “You’re freezing.”

“Let me in, then,” he said, yanking on the blanket covering most of your body.

“You’re dressed in your work clothes,” you giggled, batting his hand away.

“Fine,” he said, standing upright. You watched him with amusement as he started to peel off his clothes layer by layer until he was left in just a pair of black briefs and his socks. “Can you let me in now?”

“Fine,” you sighed, pretending to be burdened by his need to be close to you, when in truth it was what you loved most about him. Throwing the blanket open, you spread your legs to give him room to lay between them, Frankie’s head resting on your chest. You threw the blanket back over him and set your book aside to hold him for a minute, your fingernails lightly grazing the plains of his toned back while he slipped his icy hands underneath the dip in your back, hugging you closer to him. “How was it today?”

“Shitty,” he mumbled sleepily, his cheek squished against your sternum. “Got yelled at.”

“Cunts,” you spat, earning a chuckle from your husband.

“Missed you, baby,” he mused, turning his face to press a kiss over your heartbeat. “So warm…n’ soft.”

You couldn’t help the cheesy grin that spread across your face at the sound of his sleepy voice, your fingers lifting to lightly scratch at his scalp.

“Mm,” he hummed, squeezing you tighter. “Could fall asleep like this.”

“Go ahead,” you murmured, lightly tracing the ridge of his brow with your fingertip.

“Okay,” he said, nestling into you. “Wake me up if I get too heavy.”

“Mmkay,” you smiled, scratching his scalp once more before picking your book back up and resuming your place, Frankie’s soft snores the only sound in the world to you.

Though you wished he never had to face the cold at all, you couldn’t help but admit that you adored being the warmth he came home to every night.

A soft place for him to land.

[yoditostan]

the growth! for both of them, chef’s kiss

and Frankie licking his fingers clean after touching you 💀 I need him to lay on me like a weighted blanket after all that

let it snow (iii) [frankie morales x plus size f!reader/ofc]

written w/ @lowlights

summary: After your fight with Frankie, you're left wondering if everything you've been feeling between the two of you was all in your head. Frankie, meanwhile, just wants to know what he'll have to do to fix this mess he's made. rating/warnings: E [angst, fluff, FEELINGS, pov switches, cheesy holiday things, smut, unprotected PIV, frankie morales pussy eating king, frankie morales idiot man] wc: ~6.3k a/n: please go to @ezrasbirdie-updates to be notified of updates! heyyy so it's been exactly one year since i posted the first part of this fic and i am SO sorry about that lmao. me and laura both had a hell of a 2023 that made co-writing much harder than anticipated, so i idk how many of y'all are still here for this, but if you are? lord i hope this was worth the wait. because damn that was a hell of a thing to leave y'all hanging on and we are so sorry. i take full responsbility for any typos and missing words or whatever chaos, i was too excited to post it lol. dividers by @saradika-graphics my beloved<3

masterlist | series masterlist | part i | part ii

An eerie silence filled the truck, interrupted only by the crunch of gravel and snow under the tires. The inn grew smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror, and Frankie couldn’t get away fast enough. He laid on the gas pedal as he shifted into third gear. 

Betrayed. Used. Lied to. Just like before. 

He gripped the steering wheel with such force his knuckles turned white, thoughts racing as he replayed the conversation over and over again, her words swirling amid the tempest in his mind. 

He’s my ex-boyfriend. 

I don’t owe you anything, Frankie. 

She had laughed at him; laughed like his heart wasn’t about to spill out of his chest and stain his shirt crimson. Amy used to laugh things off, too, always with a convenient excuse the moment he questioned her. 

But she wasn’t Amy, was she? 

Frankie pulled over and took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

Had she laughed at him?

With some distance between himself and the inn, that pigheaded indignation started to clear. 

Frankie was a stubborn man; he knew this. That mulishness kept him in a relationship that died a long time before they finally called it quits, regardless of how miserable it’d made him. Was it going to prevent him from starting something good, too?

But what the hell else could those texts have meant? 

She’d never mentioned anything about some asshole ex-boyfriend. He swallowed, throat dry as he realized he’d never really asked her, either. He’d been too busy living their little snowglobe romance, too elated that a beautiful woman might be so interested in him, even knowing as much of his past as she did. 

Asking what he did before this. Offering to help with all his tasks around the inn. Helping pick out a tree for his daughter she hadn't met. It wasn't like this was some torrid, passionate affair, either--they hadn't even had sex. 

"Fuck," he muttered, looking at his phone--the one she'd so sweetly teased him about--and dialed the only person he could count on to tell him how much of an idiot he'd been.

“‘Lo?” Pope’s groggy voice greeted him.

“Hey, man,” Frankie said. “Time is it over there?”

Frankie heard grumbling and bedsheets rustling. “Lucky you didn’t wake up the missus,” Pope groused. “It’s seven AM.”

“Seven AM? Up and at ‘em, you lazy fuck,” Frankie goaded because he could never pass up a chance to give his best friend shit. 

“Ah, I miss you, too. What the fuck do you want?” 

Frankie chewed his lip, trying to figure out how to best approach the subject of Girl Problems about a woman Santi’d never met. 

“I think I fucked up,” Frankie said.

Santi groaned. “Not the goddamn coke ag—”

“No, it’s not the fucking coke, man. Listen.”

Santi listened with very few interjections, too preoccupied with the coffee maker Frankie could hear in the background. 

“So,” Pope said after long, noisy sip of coffee. “Let me make sure I get this. You meet a pretty damsel in distress, shack up with her for two weeks, get along great, by some fucking twist of fate she likes you back, and then you bail at the first hint of a problem. Am I getting this right?”

“I…yes,” Frankie grumbled. It sounded so much worse when it was repeated back to him. 

“And you accused her of lying when she tried to explain? And you got pissed when she told you to fuck off. Is that everything? ”

“Hm,” Frankie acknowledged. 

“You needed to wake me up for this?”

Frankie groaned again. “What do I do?”

“You know what you do. Go back and beg forgiveness, pendejo. On your shitty knees. You got scared, man. I get it. She sounds…too good for you, the way you describe her. But damn, maybe you need someone too good for you.” 

Frankie grunted because it was easier than admitting Pope was right. “How’s Yovanna?” He asked instead. 

"Not pissed off at me," Pope laughed.

Frankie hung up a few minutes later with his stomach in knots. 

He needed to apologize. He wanted to apologize. Accepting that she might not forgive him was the hard part.

“You need to try,” he said to himself, turning his truck around and heading back to the inn. “You have to try.”

He tried to rehearse what he'd say on the drive home, but everything came out wrong. Nothing felt adequate. He also practiced his reaction for when she inevitably told him to get lost because she never wanted to see him again. 

He did not, however, prepare himself for what he found when he arrived—an empty attic, cleared of every bit of her presence. The bed neatly made, no lotion by the nightstand, no face down well-read book on her pillow, no hoodie on the floor. Her bags were gone; even her toothbrush had disappeared. It was like she had never even been there. 

She wasn't even answering her phone.

Claws of panic sunk into his chest--she couldn’t have gotten far on foot, right? Unless one of the guests had given her a ride somewhere. Or, and his stomach twisted at the thought, maybe she'd told Alba and Ollie what had happened and they'd helped her. 

Frankie trudged back down the stairs, hands shaking as he opened the door. 

Of course it would be Jason who inserted himself into something delicate and new and ruined it. What the fuck did he mean he couldn’t wait to see you? He knew you weren’t in Atlanta anymore, and now here he was still making your life miserable eleven hundred miles away. You chose not to call him—instead, you sent a text that just said FUCK OFF, blocked his number (for good this time), and went back to your current predicament. 

Frankie had been so quick to believe the worst. Almost like he'd been waiting for you to disappoint him. 

Like he'd wanted you to.

You should focus on keeping your things off the floor.

You bristled at the way he’d spoken to you; as if you were a child and not a woman he’d invited into his bed. Anger helped, so you held onto it as long as you could, picking up all the things you’d scattered across his space and shoving everything into your bags. You’d put your things into one of those empty closets on the floor below and hope no one got too mad about it, at least until you figured out where to go from here. 

Asking if they had an empty room would be embarrassing, but what else could you do? You still needed a place to stay for a couple of nights. And Frankie, clearly, did not want you anymore. 

There was always that other place--the one across town where he'd threatened to stand guard if you insisted on getting a room. You doubted that offer was still good.

As the anger dwindled, you searched your memory for something you’d missed, something you should’ve picked up, but you couldn’t think of a thing. All the signals he’d given you were good, up until that very last fight. 

He didn’t want to sleep with you, you thought. 

You’d brushed that off on him being the kind of guy who took his time with someone new. But then, of course, he’d mentioned other women he’d brought up here, hadn’t he? And you doubted they were just here to stay until their cars were fixed. 

So maybe that was it. Just another asshole in a long line of assholes who took some weird pleasure in screwing with you. 

Alba caught you just as you’d opened the attic door to go downstairs.

“Hello, dear,” she said, taking in your puffy eyes and disheveled appearance. “I was just on my way to see Frankie about a leaky faucet. Is everything okay?”

“It’s…do you have any rooms available?” You asked, avoiding her eyes. 

“One just opened up, but why don’t we go have some tea first? I just restocked,” she said kindly. You didn’t really want tea, or to talk, but after everything she and Ollie had done for you, you couldn't refuse her.

“Sure,” you sighed.

The kitchen was in the back of the house, off a hallway next to the dining room. It offered a little more privacy than the rest of the house, especially when there were no meals to prepare for the moment. You’d snuck away here a few times to get a moment alone. It smelled like cinnamon and nutmeg, and now peppermint as your herbal tea brewed in your cup. 

Alba didn’t ask you what happened; didn’t push you for information. She just sat with you, asking about your new job (ugh) and what you’d been planning to do for the holidays had you not been stuck here (double ugh). 

“I don’t know what happened,” you blurted out eventually after a lull in the conversation. Alba said nothing. “I got a text from my stupid ex-boyfriend messing with me and Frankie thought we were still together, and I don’t know. He wouldn’t even look at the phone.”

“What do you mean?” She asked, lifting her cup and taking a sip. “He wouldn’t look at the phone?”

“I mean,” you said with a long-suffering sigh, “I tried to explain that my ex was just being a dick—sorry—and I held the phone up to show him the texts and he wouldn’t even look at it. Like, he’d already made his mind up and he didn’t want anything to change it or something.”

Alba sat down her cup, her eyebrows pinched together and head cocked to the side. “What’s Frankie told you about his past?”

You sat up straighter. “Well, I mean, I know he was in the military. I know he has a kid and an ex-wife. I figure…I don’t know, it hasn’t even been two weeks, and we’ve been busy.”

Alba nodded. “I ask because there are things in Frankie’s past that it doesn’t seem like he’s told you, and I don’t know if he’s comfortable telling you, so I won’t. Things that might make him a little skittish when it comes to finding someone he really likes, or might love. Things that might make him get in his own way.” 

You raised your eyebrow at her vague, ominous explanation. 

“I don’t say that to scare you, dear. I just think it’d be worth trying to talk again when he comes back. After he’s cleared his head,” she said. Your stomach was in knots again, but the peppermint tea helped. “He didn’t know about your ex-boyfriend?”

You shrugged. “No. I figured that was a lot to throw on him.”

“Maybe he felt like you’d kept it from him. You know men get these ideas,” she said, shaking her head. You weren’t sure exactly what ideas she was talking about, but she was right about one thing--you hadn’t shared much about your past yet, but that wasn’t unique to Frankie. Sharing too much always scared people. 

“So I should just wait, you think?” 

“Couldn’t hurt,” she said. You sighed. 

“I don’t even know where he went.” 

“Don’t worry yourself. He’ll be back. Besides, I know where he lives,” she winked.

“Thanks for the tea, Alba. I’m gonna…I think I’m gonna go do some thinking.”

Frankie had almost given up looking for her. Alba and Ollie were nowhere to be found, either, and none of the guests had seen her in the last few hours, either. 

Feeling defeated, he decided he'd go back to the attic and wait. Maybe she'd come back. 

His heart leaped into his throat when he found her sitting on the bed, her feet kicking back and forth as she stared out of the window, apparently so lost in thought she didn’t hear him come up the stairs. 

That last step, though—the one he’d needed to fix for ages—creaked loudly enough that she whipped her head around, eyes wide and weary. She offered a timid smile, like she was afraid he’d start yelling again. 

He really fucking hated himself for that. 

She stood, hands shoved in her coat pockets. Their eyes met and he was sure she had been crying.  

“I fucked up. I really, really fucked up.” His shoulders tensed as he waited for the verbal lashing that he deserved. 

She took a deep breath. “Yeah. You did.” 

“I’m an idiot,” he said, taking one tentative step towards her. 

“Yeah, you kinda are.” 

He took another step, and she didn’t move. 

“I understand if you want nothing to do with me after that. You shouldn’t want anything to do with me,” he said, pulling his hat off and running a hand through his hair. She still wasn’t yelling. He twisted the cap in his hands and took a deep breath. “But can I just—can I explain?”

“Of course, just…please don’t yell anymore. Just talk to me, Frankie. What did I do to make you think I’m a liar?” 

“Nothing!” Frankie said, desperate to find the right words. She deserved to know the truth. “You didn’t do-fuck, it was all me. I took out my stupid fear on you. I got scared. You said your car was gonna be ready and I thought, well, this is the end of it. And then I saw those texts, and I don’t know, I think it just gave me a reason. Me and Amy…I don’t mean to say I didn’t have a part in that relationship falling apart. I did. 

But she gave up on us and didn’t even tell me, and I thought we were doing okay. We went to therapy, we went on dates, we were happier. Turns out she was happier because she’d found someone else. I didn’t want to be that someone else.”   

He fell silent, searching her face for any hint of what she might be feeling and wringing his hat. She closed the gap between them in two quick steps, laying her hands over his, calming his fidgeting like she always did. 

“I’m not her, Frankie. I would never do that to you. Or anyone.” 

“I know. I know that. So fuckin’ sorry,” he mumbled. “Don’t deserve you.” 

“Hey,” she ducked her head, trying to make eye contact. “Hey, look at me. Please?”

As if he’d ever deny her another thing. 

She cupped his face in her warm hands, so close he could smell her perfume, and he let himself lean into her palm. “I understand why that scared you. I should have told you about Jas—”

“No,” he said, curling his fingers around her wrists. “You were right. You didn’t owe me anything and—”

“Let me finish, please.” He fell silent again and nodded. “You shared so much with me, and I didn’t do you that same courtesy, and I understand it felt like I was hiding something. You have your baggage and I have mine. But you have to let me explain. You have to listen to me, okay?”

He nodded so vigorously that something in his neck popped. If she was giving him a second chance, he’d do anything she wanted.

“I will! That won’t ever happen again. And I’m so fucking sorry,” he said, resting his forehead against hers. “I’m sorry I got scared. I’m sorry I yelled at you. You should hate me—I’ll never, ever do that again. That wasn’t me.”

Frankie cleared his throat, blinking away the tears stinging his eyes. He didn’t like that man—the man who yelled and sneered and found reasons to pick a fight. He didn’t want her to know him, not even the small glimpse she’d gotten a few hours ago. 

“I know it wasn’t,” she said, still rubbing her thumb over his jaw. “Can I give you a hug?” 

He didn’t answer, just pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her, ducking slightly to press his nose into her cheek. She pulled back after a moment and looked up at him through her lashes, her eyes dropping to his lips. Frankie swallowed thickly, suddenly very aware of her breasts pressed against his chest. 

She bit her lip and giggled, and Frankie had the overwhelming desire to worship her. Not that he hadn’t wanted to all this time; he’d kept himself in check only because he didn’t want to make her feel like he expected anything. She leaned up and kissed him, the softest whimper escaping from somewhere deep inside of her, and he let himself squeeze her tighter. When they broke apart, she looked up at him again, eyelids heavy with need.

“Baby,” she breathed. “Please.”

It might have been too soon, but you didn't care. 

You'd folded the moment he walked into the room with rosy cheeks and brown eyes full of contrition and hope. And thank the stars he’d apologized, begged for your forgiveness, explained himself as well as he could because you didn’t know if you had it in you to tell him off the way you'd planned.

Frankie was a good kisser, you knew that simply from all the kissing you’d done over the last few days, but you realized quickly as he sealed his lips over yours now—he’d been holding himself back. Your hands dropped to his waist, fingers curling through his belt loops and pulling his hips closer as he slid his tongue over your lips, a mess of teeth and tongue as you granted him entrance with a sigh.

He pushed you back toward the bed, a frenzy of needy groans and warm breath on your neck, fingers scrambling at the button of your jeans. Frankie stopped, took a deep breath, and you hoped—prayed-he hadn’t changed his mind. “You want this?” He asked. “Is it too soon?”

“Please,” you murmured, eyelashes fluttering. “I need you.”

Frankie overwhelmed you, distracting you so much you couldn’t even worry about the things you might have done before. Not with the way he yanked your pants off and fell to his knees, spreading your legs and nuzzling the embarrassingly damp gusset of your panties. 

“Oh, baby,” he cooed, licking at the wet fabric. “Gonna take care of you, don’t worry. Gotta get you ready first.”

The last of the cold winter sunlight bathed him in its glow, bouncing off of his red cheeks and illuminating the strands of silver in his hair. His eyes were closed as he pressed kisses to your inner thighs, his teeth scraping over the sensitive skin, teasing you.

“Frankie,” you whined. He chuckled as you slipped his fingers through your hair and gave it a light tug. Yes, you were impatient, but could he blame you?

“Just let me look at you a minute, baby, hm?” He asked, his voice rumbling in his chest as he pulled your panties down. “Lift that cute ass up for me. Good girl.” 

God.

All the doubts you'd had before vanished as he sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes roaming your cunt like he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life. 

“Goddamn, baby. So wet for me,” he murmured, sliding his thumbs up and down the outside of your lips and tugging gently. If it were anyone else you might snap your legs shut, close the curtains, throw a blanket over both of you—but this wasn’t just anyone.

 You only squirmed as the cold air hit you, desperate for relief. “Frankieeeeee.” You whined more obnoxiously, but he just chuckled again. 

“All right, baby girl, all right.”

He let you go to take his shirt off, shushing your protests with gentle reassurance and throwing your legs over his shoulders. He was warm and strong against you, nuzzling your pussy and breathing you in. 

And then you felt his tongue, wet and soft, lick up your seam until he brushed your swollen, needy clit. You bucked your hips, hands pulling his hair at the electric shock it sent through your body.

“Fuck, baby, you taste so fucking good,” Frankie groaned. His hands were curled around your legs, fingers digging into the meat of your thighs. You let go of his hair and tugged one hand away, lacing your fingers with his. He whimpered and squeezed, his tongue pressing firmly into your clit as he shook his head left to right. 

It was hard to keep your hips still, but he didn’t seem to mind it, just whispered encouragement into your pussy as his tongue dipped down to your entrance and slipped inside. “Take what you need, baby, fuck my face. Wanna make you come so fuckin’ bad.”

His nose nudged at your clit, providing just enough stimulation to drive you wild. His long tongue curled inside of you just far enough to brush something that sent tingles all the way up to the top of your scalp. You shivered, crying out a little too loud before clapping a hand over your mouth before the whole goddamn inn heard you. 

“Shh,” Frankie murmured, pulling his tongue out and drifting back to your clit, rubbing frantic circles with his tongue. “Fuck I wish you could scream, baby, bet that sounds so damn pretty.”

“Frankie, I need—I need, um—” You clenched around nothing, your brain too focused on the feeling of Frankie’s tongue to get out any coherent sentence. He gazed up at you, eyes glassy, looking just as lost as you felt. 

"Tell me. Tell me and I can give you whatever you want,” he said, his thumb taking over for his tongue as he waited for your answer. You squeezed his hand, still laced with yours. 

“Fingers, please, Frankie,” you sobbed, and a ravenous grin spread across his face. 

He let your hand go, slipping one large finger inside of you, moaning at the way you felt clenching around him. “You want another one?” He asked. 

You just nodded and whined, too overwhelmed for words. He slid a second finger into your cunt, twisting his wrist and curling up into that same spot his tongue hit earlier as he dipped his head back to your pussy. 

“Come on,” he grunted. “Come for me. Want you to come all over my face. Grind on it if you need to, that’s it, use me, do what feels good—”

Both hands pulled at his hair, pushing your hips up and doing exactly what he told you. You didn’t know how he was breathing like that, mouth and nose pressed entirely against your cunt, but he seemed more interested in making you feel good than getting oxygen. 

You felt him murmuring, the vibration of his voice rippling against your core, and with one last firm stroke, your legs locked around his head, eyes rolling back and walls shaking around his fingers as you gushed and gushed.

“That’s my girl,” he groaned, pressing delicate kisses to your thighs and clit. “Fuck, look at you, look at that, my good girl, look how much that little pussy needed that.”

“Frankie,” you whimpered, reaching for him with pleasure running through your whole body. He pulled his fingers out of you, at your side in an instant. 

“What is it, you okay?” He asked, eyes all wide with concern. Arousal still pulsed through you, and you pulled his fingers to your mouth, licking yourself off of him. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

You giggled, pulling his face to yours and kissing him hard. “That was fucking amazing, Frankie.” 

His ears went pink and he smiled boyishly, like he was pleased to have helped. You lay next to him, foreheads touching as you caught your breath.

“Take off your clothes,” you said softly. Frankie, always the good soldier, obeyed. Your eyes went wide at the sight of his cock, thick and long and leaking, peeking from his foreskin and standing rigid against his soft belly. “Now take off the rest of mine.”

He took your top off, not bothering to undo the clasps of your bra as he yanked it right over your head. Normally you’d cross your arms over your belly—normally you’d keep your top on the whole time—but he wasn’t your shitty ex, and he groaned at the sight of your tits, grabbing a handful of each and kneading them.

“You like those?” You teased. 

“Nice fuckin’ tits. Nice everything. Gorgeous everything,” he said, leaning down to draw your nipple into his mouth. “You’re so pretty.”

“You’re pretty, too,” you said, unlatching him from your nipple and crawling further up the bed. “Now come fuck me.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, but stopped when he was hovering over you, nudging your legs apart. “I…shit, I don’t think I have a condom.”

After everything, you did not care one fucking bit about a condom. “I mean…I have an IUD. And I can bring up the app my last test results were on. So, if you—”

“You trust me?” He asked. 

“Should I not?” You shot back. Frankie didn’t answer, just grinned, kissed you, and pulled your legs around his hips. 

“You ready for me, baby girl?” He asked. You eyed his cock, wondering the same thing. 

“Go slow?” You asked. 

“I will,” He said, reaching down to spread your slick around, pressing his fingers back inside of you. “But you’re so wet down there. Feel like I could slide right in.”

Frankie notched himself against you, pushing in slowly, his eyes bulging at your warmth. He shut them tight as he pushed further, and any stretch went away quickly, giving way to a delicious fullness. He bottomed out and dropped down, caging you with his arms and pressing his lips against yours as he started moving. 

“Feel so fucking good,” he groaned. His eyes were still closed, eyebrows smushed together in concentration. “Feel too fucking good. Dunno—fuck, shit, baby I don’t know how long—”

But it excited you, driving him that crazy, making him feel so good he had to concentrate to keep himself from coming. He tried to pull out, but you crossed your ankles around his lower back and pulled his hips back to you. 

His eyes opened to find you and your devilish grin egging him on. “Just fuck me how you want to, Frankie. Fuck me like you want me, please,” you begged. “Fill me up. I need it.”

Frankie’s eyes flashed, nostrils flared as he kissed you again, picking up his pace and slamming his hips against yours. “Yeah?” He asked. “You want me to fuck you like that? Want me to fill you up with my come? Make your pretty pussy leak with it?”

You must have hit a nerve—all you could do was hold onto him as he fucked you, kissing your lips, your face, your neck—

“Gonna, oh shit, baby, gonna—”

“Come,” you murmured softly against his mouth. He came with a low groan, sucking your bottom lip into his mouth until he was finished. You smirked at the feeling of him trickling out of you, his cock still hard and throbbing inside of you. 

“Ah, fuck,” he panted. “Shit. I should—couldn’t help myself. Pussy felt too good.”

You smiled and kissed the tip of his nose. 

“I’m flattered,” you murmured, because you were. “You liked filling me up.”

He slipped out of you, and you whimpered at the loss of him. “I, uh, have a thing about it,” he said with a sheepish smile. “Wanna do that again.”

“Me too, Frankie.”

“Gonna make it better,” he mumbled, nosing your neck, as if it hadn’t been amazing. 

“Don’t you have work to do?” You teased.

“Don’t care.”

Frankie rolled off of you, his eyes scanning your body as he cupped your breast with one big palm. 

“Why’d you stay?” He asked, looking away from you. “After I was such an asshole, why’d you stay?”

“Well, I was on my way out to see if Alba had any rooms available yet, and she made me go have tea with her. And we had a talk, and she said there were…things…in your past that might make you react differently.”

“Is differently code for ‘like a piece of shit’?” 

You huffed a laugh. “I don’t know, Frankie. That’s just what she told me. So I came back and waited for you because I didn’t think you’d been yourself. I wasn’t gonna leave. I was just mad.”

He furrowed his brow and frowned. “Where’s all your stuff then? It was gone when I came up here the first time looking for you.” 

“Oh, um,” you started, swallowing the lump in your throat. “I packed everything up, you know, right after, thinking I would find a different room and then just left it in case you…you know, in case you weren’t interested anymore.”

Frankie’s face crumbled, and you wished you hadn’t said anything about it. “I’m such an asshole,” he said, rolling off the bed. “I’m such a fucking—where is it, where’s your stuff?”

“It’s in the closet at the foot of the stairway—Frankie! Wait!” 

He was across the room in just a few strides, halfway down the staircase before he stopped. 

“...You’re naked,” you pointed out. 

You heard the sound of his footsteps climbing back up, giggling before he’d even reached the top. Your tummy flipped at the sight of his red cheeks and sheepish grin as he climbed back into bed, blanketing you with his warm body. 

“I should clean you up first anyway,” he murmured, peppering kisses down your body until he was back between your legs, watching himself drip out of you.

“Yeah,” you said. “You should.”

Several hours later, Frankie finally made his way downstairs, finding Ollie tinkering with the hot water heater. Ollie wordlessly handed the wrench over to Frankie and stood back to watch. 

“Little late today, Frankie.” 

“Yes, sir, sorry about that,” Frankie responded without turning around. He had no idea what Ollie had been trying to fix; nothing was wrong with the ancient appliance. 

“I heard a truck peel out of my driveway earlier. Made quite a ruckus,” he tutted. 

“Yes, sir.” The old wrench clanked as Frankie tossed it down into Ollie’s rusted metal toolbox. 

“You do something stupid?” 

“Yes, sir,” Frankie responded without hesitation. Ollie nodded and ushered him into the small sitting room down the hall. 

Like a kid called into the principal’s office, Frankie stood awkwardly until Ollie gestured for him to take a seat. A small fire crackled in the brick fireplace, but it wasn’t the cause of the heat that burned Frankie’s cheeks.  

“I’m sorry, Ollie, didn’t mean to be so late.” 

Ollie sighed and pursed his lips. “You know as well as I do the reason I sat you down. Has nothing to do with being late.” 

Frankie nodded. “I know.” 

Ollie continued. “You don’t speak much of your father, and I get the feeling that he isn’t around too much, if at all. If I had to guess, he took off when you were little and never looked back.” He paused and stared at the flames, clasping his hands in his lap. 

“You ran away this morning, and I would bet everything in my pocket that something with her scared you off.” 

Frankie’s silence was all the confirmation Ollie needed. 

“But, here’s the difference. You came back. Son, listen to an old man who has made more mistakes than you could ever know.” Ollie leaned forward. “Don’t run away from her. And if you do, dammit, you come running back as quick as you can. Hear me?” 

Frankie swallowed the lump in his throat. “I-yes, sir. Never again.” 

Ollie settled back in his chair, satisfied with his answer. “Good. Now go make sure she knows that.” 

Frankie’s alarm woke you just before the sun rose. 

You groaned and threw an arm over your face as the bed shifted beside you and Frankie pulled you into him, still very naked. After the previous day’s events, he’d spent the night on his knees—quite literally—worshiping you, wordlessly begging forgiveness. You’d been more than happy to let him grovel, but after keeping each other up half the night, leaving this warm cocoon would be a herculean effort. 

“Morning,” Frankie murmured, kissing the back of your neck, one hand wandering down your torso. You shuddered, goosebumps trailing in the wake of his gentle fingers. You squeezed your thighs together, unsure how you could possibly want more after everything last night and whimpering as his stiff length pressed against your back. 

“Morning,” you breathed. 

“Everything okay?” He teased, coaxing your legs open. “Something you want?”

There was no way your pussy could take more, not after last night, but you wanted it anyway. And from the way he throbbed against you, so did he. Frankie dipped his fingers between your swollen lips, retreating as you hissed from the sensitivity. 

“Did I hurt you? Are you okay?” He asked.

“I’m okay,” you said, pulling his hand back. “Just be gentle, please, Frankie, I need it.”

He groaned against you, rubbing gentle circles around your clit and shushing your whines as he slid one finger inside of you. “You can take it, baby girl, doing so good for me. Poor little thing. Can’t get enough, can you?”

You wanted to slap him a little, the cockiness evident in his voice, but he was right. “No,” you whimpered. “Need you. You could—fuck—you could fuck me again if you want. S’okay if it hurts a little—”

Frankie rutted harder against you, his cock slipping between the cleft of your ass as he sucked on the back of your neck. “Don’t wanna hurt you, baby, just want you to feel good,” he gritted out. “You feel so fucking good like this. So fucking soft, how are you so fucking soft?”

You felt it happening suddenly, built up out of nowhere, your cunt pulsing softly as you reached up and tugged at his hair, whining into his mouth. “Good girl,” he murmured. “Good fuckin’ girl, that’s right, perfect little pussy sucking me right in—fuck—”

Frankie pressed his hips into you, grinding his cock against your ass as his release splashed across your back. He groaned, his sweaty forehead pressed against yours as he gently pulled his finger from you and brought it to his lips to lick it clean. He turned over and dug around on the floor until he found his undershirt from the day before, wiping himself off of you before he turned you over and kissed you hard. 

“Hi,” you giggled. 

He nuzzled you. “Hey,” he sighed. “Fuck me, I can’t get enough of you.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” you teased, breathing him in as the sun’s rays filtered into the room, bouncing softly off his cheekbones. You kissed his nose and cheeks and chin and he blushed, bashful at the attention. 

“I gotta go do some stuff around the inn,” he lamented, as though leaving this bed was the greatest of tragedies. “But you stay here in bed, okay? And I’ll bring you something to eat.”

“Oh, you don’t—”

“Please let me take care of you,” he said softly. You swallowed your protests. 

“Okay, Frankie,” you said, brushing a curl from his forehead. “I need a really long shower anyway, I think. I’m covered in come.”

Frankie laughed as he rolled out of bed to take his own shower. You stretched as you watched his cute bottom disappear into the bathroom. 

Taking Frankie’s order very seriously, you lazed around after your shower. Your phone rang just as you were dozing off. According to Cal, he’d moved your car up to first in line since you’d been so patient with the process, and he knew you needed to get home. You thanked him enthusiastically, ignoring the nervous pit growing in your stomach. 

You’d hoped to have a few days of distance from the argument if only to let the dust settle before talking more about it. What if he wasn’t completely over it, and it just upset again? And what if you both realized that there was nothing really anchoring you here? 

There was barely time to worry about it before you heard the door open and close, followed by his heavy footsteps up the stairs. It was now or never. 

He was smiling, gripping in his big hands a couple of bags of something that smelled incredible. You savored this moment, this second of time when he was so happy to see you, holding it safe in your heart to remember in case everything came crashing down.

“Hey, Frankie,” you said, setting your phone down. 

His smile slid off his face as he clocked your concern, setting the bags down and coming to your side. “What is it? Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” you said, swallowing thickly and chewing your lip. “Um, Cal called. My car’s ready now.”

Frankie’s eyes softened. “You didn’t wanna tell me,” he said, and you couldn’t deny it. 

“Frankie, I just—I thought there’d be a little more time, you know? For everything to calm down,” you explained. “I don’t wanna leave yet. Or ever.”

It was the first time you’d admitted that out loud, fully aware of how ridiculous it was to tell a man you’d only known a little less than two weeks that you never wanted to be without him. 

“I don’t want you to leave yet, either. Or ever,” he said. “But I know you have to, and that’s okay. That doesn’t mean we can’t be together. I know I was an idiot, but you’re not that far away. And I think I love you, Dash.”

The room stilled with his confession, and you cocked your head, a smile spreading across your face. 

“Look, I know that sounds ins—”

“I think I love you, too, Frankie.”

He let out a shaky sigh, the tips of his ears flushing red. 

“Yeah?” He asked. 

“Yeah.”

Your heart was beating out of control, so loud you were sure he could hear it, but that was okay. Frankie Morales loved you, and you loved him, and you’d work the rest of it out. 

“So,” he said, pressing his lips to yours and drawing you closer. “I have a question for you.”

“What’s that?” You asked, throwing your arms around his neck. 

“What are you doing New Year’s Eve?”

part i | part ii

[yoditostan]

Season 4 ep 1, Din goes on a quest to find Grogu a nice crib but Grogu refuses to sleep in it — Abigail Larson

[yoditostan]

hi everyone <3

i wanna make another support post for our darling @lowlights. if you aren't aware, things have been a little rough for our girl medically speaking.

she got diagnosed with cancer not too long ago and she recently had to get surgery earlier this month to remove the tumor.

we had hoped this would solve the problem but, unfortunately, it turns out that type of cancer laura has is extremely rare. so rare that even the doctors are scrambling to figure out a treatment plan.

so everything is a little up in the air right now and we honestly have no idea what the future might look like for the next couple of months. laura is already back at work (because capitalism is a nightmare especially for sick people) but she doesn't have any more paid leave left and won't get paid again until january (which is honestly fucked up. we hate her bosses, booooo).

anyways if you can spare any extra money right now and send it her way, it would be very much appreciated!!! if you can't donate (completely understandable, times are hard!!) please reblog the post and spread the word, she needs as much support as possible right now. thank you <3

[yoditostan]

— BLEED FOR ME MASTERLIST

[complete] | [playlist] | [preview]

mand’alor!vampire!din djarin x f!reader

rated e - 20k

prompts: vampire!au + “i would burn the world for you.” + vampire has a taste for specific blood + revenge + (one-sided) enemies to lovers (+ 2 to be revealed!)

tags: vampire!au, blood/drinking blood, shared memories, angst, death/violence, biting, body worship, possessive!pleasure!dom!din, implied aphrodisiacs, mind meld, praise kink, oral, piv, marking

For the haunted hoedown, hosted by @psychedelic-ink and @inklore! References some themes from this fic & also inspired by this post.

When it's revealed that the Mand'alor is seeking a companion, you find yourself among those hoping to be chosen. A life of luxury in exchange for your blood seems a fair trade - even if you're hiding a closely-kept secret. One that would certainly put your life in danger.

Though, you are not as alone as you think.

Because he has one, as well.

❧ part i

❧ part ii

❧ part iii

❧ part iv

❧ part v

❧ epilogue

❧ just a taste - vampire!boba fett x f!reader

(And a huge thank you and lots of love to laur and sil for making such an amazing event!! 🥀)

[yoditostan]

daydreams

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

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

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

Wordcount: 6.4k

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

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

Beautiful dividers by @saradika

Masterlist

People fucking love you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But then he meets you, and he understands.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, you work well together.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Joel Miller!”

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

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

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

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

You notice.

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

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

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

How much everyone took.

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

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

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

Pathetic.

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

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

Because it doesn’t.

It doesn’t matter.

But it does.

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

And, dear Lord, he wanted.

He hasn’t stopped wanting, not since that first morning when he really noticed the curve of your lips, the shape of them taunting and tempting him. 

Now he notices them every time he sees you. The slight quiver of them in a brush of cold winter wind, and how you pull a tube of homemade chapstick out of the pocket of your jacket to run over them. How you rub your lips together to spread it along each gorgeous line and indentation before popping them out with a smack, and Joel nearly fucking moans at the sight the first time.

God, he wants so badly.

He needs, he thinks sometimes, on the coldest, darkest nights. Thoughts of your mouth and what it would be capable of plaguing his mind as he breathes hotly into his pillow and tries to stay still, tries not to rut into the mattress just from the thoughts of what a simple kiss from you would feel like, giving and taking until it was impossible to tell where he ended and you began.

Because it was you.

It was always you.

Some days, it’s all Joel can think about. Your eyes, your hands, your laughter, but most of all, every bend and curve of your lips. 

It’s embarrassing how much just the mere thought of you consumes him. 

And it’s frightening, the power you would have over him if daydreams ever became reality.

What makes it even worse, is that he thinks you know. Joel’s almost sure of it, the way your eyes linger on him whenever you pout or purse your lips together at something especially grumpy that he says.

It’s like you’re doing it on purpose now, and he falls for it anyway, gazing at the fullness of your mouth, the most beautiful color he’s ever seen, with an aching want that he pretends never happened when it turns up into a smile.

Time and time again, you catch him wanting.

And you let him.

You never make a move to stop him, to call him out on it. Instead, you feed the fire, with a kindness in your smile and a mischief in your eyes that Joel is fucking addicted to.

If all you’re doing is stringing him along, he’s more than willing to let you do it, if it only means that the joy that lights up your face whenever you see him never dies out.

He sees it again one afternoon when he runs into you on the street, a bundle of produce from the greenhouses tucked underneath one arm that he almost offers to carry for you by some forgotten reflex, manners he used to have, when you distract him with a question of, “Are you going to that dinner for the patrolmen Maria is putting on?”

“Uh.” Joel winces at how he always finds himself hedging around you. He doesn’t think the things he’s said in your presence is enough to fill a page, even though you’ve plagued his thoughts enough that he could write a whole fucking book on you. 

There’s already a little smirk on your face as he hesitates, and he clears his throat, shifting on his feet with startling uncertainty you always drag from him as he finally responds gruffly, “Yeah, I s’pose so.”

“Great!” you chirp, your free hand patting him on the chest as you move to brush past him, fingers idling on the buttons of his flannel, gliding down along them in a way that sets all his nerve endings alight. “Save me a seat, would you?”

His body turns with the motion of you stepping past him to watch you go, breath caught in his throat as he wonders if you’re joking or not.

Regardless, he saves you a seat when that night comes.

It’s not like anybody wants to sit with him anyway. Most of the others seem to avoid him like the plague. Even years into being in the town, and Joel still feels like he sticks out like a sore thumb.

He doesn’t blame them. Even with his rough exterior growing softer than it had been in decades, he was a shit conversation partner. Joel just didn’t know how to do the things that they did anymore, not amongst strangers. He was happy enough with his own people, and he wishes that he was back home, playing guitar or watching movies with Ellie instead of sitting here alone, reminded constantly of everything he was lacking in.

When he’s asked if the seat next to him is taken so somebody can sit with their friend, Joel hesitates, resisting the urge to just get up and leave altogether when a familiar voice rings out, “It is!”

His head turns, and there you are, face aglow with a warm smile when you round the table towards him, and Joel is already halfway up out of his seat before he even realizes what he’s doing.

Your smile turns to him, eyes brightening with a spark at his quick movement that makes his heart pound in his chest, before you’re taking the back of the chair from the other patrolman’s grasp with a sweet, “Thanks, Astrid.”

When you start to pull the chair back further to sit, Joel takes it from you to do it for you, and it’s the first time he sees genuine surprise flash through your eyes. Still, you smile, and there’s a quiver of excitement to your lips that turns his aching into a yearning the longer he looks at them.

It’s also then when he notices that they’re painted, a shade of lipstick that fills them out further, complimenting your beauty with the way you had dressed so finely for the occasion tonight.

To sit next to him?

The question of futile hope echoes in his mind as you sink into the chair with a grin you’re trying to hide, and his hands are shaking as he pushes the chair in and takes his seat next to you again, something he also tries to hide as he folds them together and tucks them under the table.

When a bottle of wine is offered around, Joel can’t hold in a quiet chuckle at the way you jump in excitement for a glass. It's tilted in your fingers, the liquid swirling gently around the glass before you take a sip, and he’s enraptured by the sight of your lips wrapping around the rim, unable to glance away from the mark you leave on it once you set it back onto the table.

He’s fixated on that lipstick stain, can’t fucking look away from the shape of your lips painted onto the glass, and Joel starts to vividly imagine you leaving that mark on him instead. He wants evidence of your kiss all along his skin, down the collar of his shirt, smeared across his own lips as he takes your mouth in his, again and again.

He wants those marks trailing down, down, wants those painted lips teasing him until it smears all across that pretty face, wants them wrapped around his—

“Joel.”

His head snaps up, catching the gaze of his brother across from him. Tommy’s brow arches in question as he asks, “You good?”

“Yeah.” Joel clears his throat when his voice comes out thick, shifting in his seat while his folded hands move into his lap, shifting the napkin to help his new…issue. “Yeah, ‘m fine.”

“Really?” Tommy asks, his gaze one of suspicion, and maybe a bit of amusement as he drawls, “‘Cause I asked you if you wanted a glass of wine about three times, and you didn’t respond.”

Joel pales at being caught, jaw ticking with annoyance at the glee in his brother’s eyes when they snap to you sitting beside him, and he reasserts roughly, “I’m fine.”

Tommy backs off then, turning his attention somewhere else, and Joel almost relaxes until you hold your glass out to him and offer with a smile, “Want to try some of mine?”

The look in your eyes when the blood rushes back into Joel’s cheeks is nothing but goddamn trouble, and he fucking loves it.

You watch him as he stares at the mark of your lips on the glass. He imagines what it would be like to wrap his own lips around it, wondering if he’d taste you with the wine, and he quickly clears the lump that tightens in his throat before mumbling, “No, thank you, ma’am.”

A grin plays on your lips at that, and he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything more in his life than to kiss you at that moment. He wants to grab your face and pull you into him so fucking bad, wants your mouth to claim him, bruise him, make him hurt until he heals.

Instead, he keeps his hands to himself, still folded in his lap in a vice grip over his napkin now when you tease, “Ma’am, huh? I think I like that one.”

You wink, and all the blood flooding into his face suddenly rushes south.

Without a doubt, you had him completely fucked.

You talk to Joel the entire night.

Your head is turned to him throughout dinner, and you ask him more questions than ever before. Unlike your patrols, where you were content to tell stories, and he content to listen, you gently prod him to tell you his own. 

Joel’s voice is quiet when he assents, the low, gentle timbre hardly audible over the din of conversation around the long table. He’s sure he must be boring, a drab collection of colors long washed out in comparison to your blinding vibrancy, but you may as well have been the only two in the room with the way you listen to him.

You’re leaning in with your chin resting on a closed fist, nodding along to what he says with eyes dancing over his face so intently, as if to memorize him the same way he did you.

He’s surprised that he wants you to.

At the end of the dinner, when everybody’s bellies are full and they’re filtering out the door, Joel isn’t even shocked that he’s unwilling to leave your side. Though he is startled when the question slips quietly past his lips, “Mind if I walk you home, darlin’?”

You look back from where you were grabbing your jacket with wide eyes, stunned at the unexpected question and the pet name that had escaped him without a second thought. For a moment, he’s worried he finally scared you away, but then you smile.

“I’d like that.”

Joel nods, trying to calm the racing of his heart as he gently tugs the jacket from your grip and helps you put it on. He doesn’t miss the shiver that runs through you when his fingers brush against your skin, and suddenly there’s a feeling of anticipation simmering low in his belly, a warmth that spreads through his chest when the two of you stroll under the streetlights and eventually reach your doorstep.

You don’t let him turn away.

Somehow, he ends up on your couch. His boots and coat are left by your front door as he sits next to you, a glass of wine finally in his hand to ease the strain of his nerves. Your legs are tucked comfortably underneath yourself, the side of your face resting on the back of the couch, gazing up at him as you talk about nothing in particular.

You never seem to run out of questions for him. He answers the ones he can, and you’re not offended when he avoids the others. 

Tonight, Joel asks you questions too. Things he once thought didn’t matter anymore, but right now, he wants to know them all—where you grew up, your favorite movie, the concerts you’d been to before the world went to hell.

It becomes a back and forth—you ask him a question, he answers. Then it’s his turn to ask a question, and you answer.

Hours go by, wine is refilled, and when it’s your turn again, you ask him with such startling gentleness, “How long has it been since you kissed someone?”

Joel freezes.

His breath catches in his throat, and he can’t bring himself to look at you. He knows that when he does, he’ll see for sure that you’ve been aware of his pining, his fantasies, all along, and he doesn’t think he can face that.

Instead, he takes another long sip of wine, swallowing down the liquid courage before he answers lowly, “It’s, uh...been a while.”

Silence falls between you then, with more weight to it than any before in that night, and he has to fill it. So he does with the first thing that springs to his mind, “What about you?”

You hum thoughtfully, even as his heart lurches in his chest when the question spills from his lips. He can’t believe he actually fucking asked that, and then you actually answer it, “A couple months ago.”

Joel’s head snaps up, eyes glancing over your face as you trace the rim of your glass with a thoughtful expression.

“Was it…” he hesitates, before deciding he may as well say whatever he wants now that he’s already gone ahead and fucked it all up by asking about it in the first place, “good?”

“Nah,” you sigh, shrugging casually as you smirk in amusement at the recollection, “it’s like he was eating my face.”

Joel snorts at that, brow arching as he retorts dryly, “You go on a date with a Clicker or somethin’?”

You laugh then, head tilting back with the joyful sound, and he realizes it’s something he wants to hear for the rest of his life, even as you playfully nudge his shoulder and mutter, “Shut up.”

He chuckles along with you, looking back down into his glass as a sigh falls from his lips, and he mumbles more to himself than you, “Not sure I’d be much better, at this point.”

Suddenly, you shift beside him, pulling his attention back to you as you sit up straight. There’s a spark of interest kindling in your eyes, one that makes his throat go dry as your eyes slowly scan over his face, down to his lips.

They part under your attention, and your pupils dilate in the darkness of the room, pulling a soft exhale from Joel’s mouth at the sight of you wanting.

You.

Wanting.

“I don’t know about that,” you murmur as you set your glass down on your coffee table, then do the same with his, tugging it easily from his grasp before leaning in towards him. “But we could find out.”

Joel licks his lips, and you’re on your hands and knees now, crawling towards him on the couch as his eyelids flutter and he rasps out, “I—darlin’, I don’t think I—”

“You don’t want to?” you whisper, stopping instantly at the idea of going too far, and horror rushes through him at the thought of you believing he didn’t want you.

“No, that’s not—” he sighs, rubbing a hand down his face. He exhales heavily into his palm, trying to find the words before he removes it to admit, “I just…don’t think it’d be that enjoyable for ya.”

You scoff, leaning forward to settle on your knees right beside him, fingertips finding the edge of his jawline. They run across it, and Joel’s eyes fall shut, sighing from the sensation of being touched after so long, of it being your hands on his face when you cup his cheeks, thumbs brushing along his cheekbones so softly. 

You stroke his skin like you were holding something delicate, and not a living, breathing instrument of death with the scars to prove it right under your palms.

What did you see in him?

“Joel,” you breathe, and a whimper gets caught in his throat, his eyes blinking back open, struggling to refocus on you under the heavy heat of the moment. “Do you want to?”

He doesn’t have to think twice, doesn’t even want to as his voice comes out in a hoarse whisper, a desperate beg of, “Yes.”

Your lips are on his then, and his hand finds the small of your back, tugging you into him as he groans into the mouth he’s been dreaming of, day and night, for months on end.

Joel tries to be gentle with it, but it feels so fucking good, and God, now his hands are shaking. He has to grip onto your waist tightly to anchor himself to the moment, to remind himself that you’re there. This isn’t one of his vivid daydreams, or images that taunt him in his sleep that he’ll wake up painfully hard from.

No, you’re here, lips pliable and just as wanting as his when his tongue tentatively traces the shape of them, knowing the curve of your mouth from long stolen glimpses even with his eyes closed, even through just the touch of his lips to them alone. 

Your mouth opens eagerly, and he licks into it, moans deeply into the sweet taste of you. His hand slides up your back to cup your neck, fingers tangling into the back of your hair as he tugs you forward by the waist until you’re settled in his lap, so he can wrap you up and pull you into him completely.

When your lips leave his, he tries to chase them with a whine stuck in the back of his throat, and he can feel that pretty smile pressed to his skin when you kiss along his bearded jaw and down the strength of his neck as it strains under your attention. 

Joel’s head falls back, sinking into the couch with the feeling of your lips descending, until there’s a sweet bite of pain that pulls his lips apart. It tugs a throaty grunt straight from the pit of heat building in his lower stomach, his hips bucking up hard into your own.

His hands are clutching your waist, the sweet syllables of your name pouring from his mouth like a prayer. The sound of his desperation, his need for you vibrates against your lips as you suck a mark on his neck, your tongue flattening against it and pulling another weak bucking up of his hips.

Your head lifts, gazing down at him with lidded eyes and a giddy smile at this mountain of a man you’d pulled apart and wrapped around your finger so easily, before you tap that very finger against the same spot on your own neck.

Joel’s jaw drops.

“I—sweetheart, I—”

He can’t find the words, can’t explain how he’s afraid he’s far too rough to do such a thing. It’s been too long, he’s out of practice, and the last thing he wants is to hurt you.

You just smile down at what he leaves unspoken, some look in your eyes that makes him tremble as you brush your hands through his hair and whisper, “You’re capable of much more softness than you realize, Joel Miller.”

A warmth eases his concern at your words, and he lets you guide his face to your neck, his lips finding your skin for a tentative kiss there. You’re putting yourself in his hands now, trusting him not to break you, just as he trusts you to lead him through this forgotten territory until it was familiar to him again.

Joel breathes you in, large hands grasping at your back as he pulls your body firmly against his, tongue darting out to taste your skin before he bites down softly.

There’s a moan that floats from your lips then, the most sweet, seductive music to his ears that’ll replay in his mind for nights to come, and Joel sucks at the skin, eager to leave his mark on you as you did him. He’s grasping desperately at your body now as you grind down into his lap, unwilling to ever let you go now that he has you.

Heavy breaths fill the air as you bring his face back up to yours, and you just kiss. Lips swelling from the attention, and Joel never wants to stop, even though he knows he’ll have to eventually.

When he does, the two of you finally needing to actually catch your breath, your forehead rests against his with a quiet sigh. It sounds dangerously like contentment, and it takes a moment before Joel realizes that such a thing isn’t so dangerous anymore.

Your nose bumps against his, and he whispers hoarsely, “How was that?”

You laugh, sounding just as breathless and raspy as him, and he can’t stop the goofy smile that stretches across his face when you hum, “Mm, I’ll need more evidence before I draw any conclusions.”

Joel’s lips meet yours again, a softer kiss shared this time, leaving the promise of more that he’d never thought he’d be able to make before he pulls back, and your smile returning his own tells him all he’s ever needed to know.

“That can be arranged.”

[yoditostan]

something wild and unruly [western!joel miller x f!reader]

summary: At Madame Aurelie's Secret Garden, men pay for beautiful courtesans trained in pleasure to give them whatever they want. And all Joel Miller, infamous outlaw and gunslinger, ever seems to want from you is a warm bath and quiet conversation. ratings/warnings: E [reader is a sex worker in a parlor house in the late 1800s and we are playing fast and loose with the realities of ALL of this mmk, use of the word "whore", angst, descriptions of sex work, references to losing a spouse and infertility, grief, arguably weird power dynamics, joel in the old west is just as grouchy and stubborn as the one in the apocalypse and is a little scary for a sec, lots of sexual tension, a single handjob, joel gets several baths like a baby lamb, mentions of blood and violence] wc: ~10k a/n: please go to @ezrasbirdie-updates to be notified of updates! i'm not apologizing for word count anymore this story slaps and you should read it. i played rdr2 and then i had to write this. i think his voice moves a little between game joel and show joel, but i pictured him as both as various times. he's like a little blend. kissing @starlightmornings on the mouth for the beta and all her sweet encouragement<3 and to all of YOU who hyped this up for me, i hope you enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it. Also, sex work is work and we support sex workers in this house.

masterlist | joel miller masterlist

“He will be good for your first.” Madame Aurelie speaks in a soft French accent as she gives the strings of your corset an extra tug. Your lungs scream as your ribs compress against them, organs shifting to accommodate the unfamiliar shape around your waist. Whoever stares back at you from the mirror, the woman with her painted red lips and breasts pushed to her chin, is no one you’ve ever met.

Your first.

“Why’s that?” You ask, ignoring the screams of mercy from your lungs. 

“He is a pussycat,” she says with a wink. That could mean anything coming from Madame Aurelie. “You will see.”

Your feet drag with every step up the stairs, lingering on the landing as you stare down the hall to the room you’ve been assigned for the evening. 

The only thing that keeps you moving is the knowledge that Madame Aurelie will put you back to work as a bar girl, no questions asked, if you turn around and tell her you’ve changed your mind. 

It doesn’t make you any less nervous about selling your body for the first time. 

Though you could argue, maybe, this isn’t the first time. That most of the women you know and love sold their bodies in one way or another. Sometimes to men they wouldn’t meet until their wedding day and sometimes to men with whom they went to the same schoolhouse.  

Or they were like you and married the first man your father could convince of it, simply because he and your mother were tired of caring for you. 

That brief union to the nephew of your father’s best friend taught you a single lesson—marriage is, at best, an overly cordial transaction. Maybe not for everyone, maybe not every single marriage in existence, but for girls like you? Girls like you settled down with inoffensive men who read their Bibles and went to church and unburdened your family of your troublesome existence. To thank the nice boy for agreeing to such a sacrifice, you’re to lay still and moan at the right time, and he might give you some money and pretty clothes. 

If you’re lucky, he’ll give you a baby, and you’ll have something to pour all that unwanted love onto.

Your husband had been one of those men; polite, if distant, and he gave you flowers on your birthday for all three years of wedded bliss. Your mother promised you’d grow to love him, and you tried to. You did all the things you’d been told to do to make him fall in love with you, but you may as well have been invisible most of the time. 

Most of it, you think, had to do with your failure to give him a son. Or a daughter, for that matter. It didn’t seem to matter how much you prayed or how often you let him into your bed, every month you bled, and every month he looked more and more disappointed. 

Every month you breathed a long sigh of guilt-tinged relief. Pregnancy and all its wonders scared you, no matter how much your mother insisted on it being a miraculous experience. 

And then, three years into your marriage, he had the very bad manners to go off and die from consumption, leaving you with nothing. He’d hidden his debts well, and the bank had no qualms about leaving you a penniless widow. 

You had two choices: hope another man would want to marry a twenty-seven-year-old widow or find your way alone. 

The thought of starting over with someone new made your skin crawl.

So you headed west after you heard it was lawless and wild and even women could make it on their own out there. Neither of your parents would think to look for you in a house of ill repute. You started as a saloon girl at Madame Aurelie’s Secret Garden, serving drinks and cleaning in exchange for a place to sleep, until Madame Aurelie herself took a liking to you. 

“The men love a girl who looks like she’s never been properly fucked,” she’d said. You’d choked on the drink she’d handed you. After all these months serving drinks to cowboys and traveling salesmen, her language still scandalizes you. 

And yet, you cling tight to her every word. Everything she says makes more sense than anything in the Book of Revelations.

The more experienced girls get a room to themselves on the third floor, but that would come with a level of seniority you do not intend to reach. For now, you'll rotate with other newer girls in the smaller rooms.

Madame Aurelie had you practice all week long—looking seductive, sounding seductive, pouting your lips out just the right way, spreading your legs just enough to entice but not enough to be lurid. 

“There are plenty of places they can go for something quick and dirty,” she says, lighting a cigarette. “That is not what we do here. We give an experience.” 

The Garden may well be a house of ill repute, but its flowers are well-tended. 

Word has it that she owns the building. It lights up something inside of you, the idea of a woman owning anything. Maybe you’ll ask her about it one day, once you’ve impressed her enough. 

For now, you have a gentleman to take care of.

Situating yourself on the bed in what you hope is an aloof, seductive pose, you wait for him to knock. It’s quiet today, but it’s only six in the evening. The cowboys and farmers’ll be coming in soon, and the merchants, too, once the shops close. 

So who is this, you wonder, here with the sun still out?

As if on cue, the clattering of boots on stairs reaches your ears. His gait is slow but noisy, growing louder on the wood floor as he approaches. Three sharp wraps on the door echo through the room. 

“Come in,” you say in your throatiest voice that doesn’t sound anything like you. The door clicks open and the man standing there is not what you’re expecting, so broad his shoulders take up most of the doorframe. “Pussycat” isn’t the word you’d have used. 

“Ma’am,” he grunts, taking off a black gambler’s hat and holding it over his chest. 

He has manners, at least.  

And Good God Almighty, is he handsome. His graying facial hair gives him a more distinguished air than he probably deserves, but his dark, round eyes are almost boyish.  

He sighs and runs his hand through matted waves. Those broad shoulders and chest taper off to a narrow waist, and it might not be such a chore, seeing this one naked.

You’re supposed to be doing something here, too. You shoot up from the bed, concentrating on not tripping over your feet.

“I’m Sugar,” you offer, but that’s not your name at all. 

You suspect you don’t know anyone’s real name here. Madame Aurelie prefers it that way.

He nods but doesn’t introduce himself, so you push on.

“I was told you wanted a bath, too? Before or…?” You trail off. It occurs to you that it might offend him, implying that he’s dirty. He is, of course, but you’ve been bought and paid for, and he can fuck you in whatever state of hygiene he’d like.

The ghost of a smirk slides across his lips.

“Now’s good, Miss Sugar.” He says “Miss Sugar” like he’s put a spoonful of it in his mouth, rolling the little grain around his tongue like a forbidden treat. You ring a bell for one of the boys to bring up a few buckets of hot water, then set to work filling the bath with oils and soaps that bubble and foam. Your hands shake, but he doesn’t mention it.

He doesn’t speak at all, actually, and still doesn’t offer a name.

You ponder what it could be while you work—Buck? Levi? Arthur? He doesn’t look like an Arthur.

When you’re satisfied with what you’ve done, you turn around to find him already naked. Your eyes, of course, go straight to his cock. 

How could it not? 

You’ve only seen one other, and your late husband’s was not quite so impressive. Blood rushes to your face and you look away again as you try to reassure yourself.

This is what’s supposed to happen. 

He walks past you and climbs in, sighing as he sinks into the water. 

“Would you…would you like me to wash you?” You ask. 

“I’d’ve gone somewhere much cheaper if I didn’t, darlin’,” he says. A nervous titter slips out of you, and you shake your head as you grab a washcloth and a bar of soap. 

Hair first, unless he tells you otherwise. You pour the water over his head, carefully avoiding his face, and rake your nails across his scalp. He doesn’t make a sound, but his eyes close as you reach the soft nape of his neck. 

“Good weather we’ve had lately,” you say. Madame Aurelie instructed you to try to make small talk any time you weren’t…busy. 

“It makes them feel important,” she’d explained. “Men love to feel important. But don’t chatter too much—just give them an opening and they will do the rest of the talking. Believe me.” 

That philosophy, apparently, did not apply to this gentleman. 

“No need for all that,” he grunts. You freeze, opening your mouth and closing it again.

This is off to a real good start. 

“Sorry, mister,” you say. He turns his head and you pull your soapy hands back, waiting for another reprimand, but his soft, disarming eyes calm your racing heart. 

“Didn’t mean nothin’ personal by it, Miss Sugar,” he says. “Just ain’t in the mood for conversation.”

You nod. “Yessir.”

So you focus on your task instead. It’s relaxing; the plink! of the water trickling down his broad shoulders into the tub, the bath oils slick between your palms rubbing over a constellation of scars on his otherwise soft skin. You almost forget what you’re here for until your hand disappears under the water as you reach his midsection.

“Is there anywhere I should give…extra attention to?” Your breath hitches at the end of the sentence. Your toes curl in your boots as he gazes down at you with heavy-lidded eyes. 

“Just the regular amount of attention everywhere’ll be fine.”

He’s an older man—maybe he’s just not ready yet. As your hand slides down to his thighs, though, it’s clear that’s just not the case. He’s hard as iron, but you don’t linger, despite the almost inaudible grunt he gives. A few simple passes with the washcloth and it’s on to his legs. 

When you brush over his knees, he tosses his head back as you apply the slightest pressure. 

“Felt good,” he says when you glance back. You do the same thing a few more times, and to his other knee, and the tension between his brows melts away completely. 

“You got trouble with those?” You ask, then hastily add, “I’m not bein’ nosy—it’s just, I can add in a little massage for a nickel.”

“You new around here?” He asks, disregarding your questions completely, and your smile falls. 

“That obvious?” You ask with a self-deprecating chuckle. He lifts his arm from the water and hooks his finger under your chin, pulling you around to meet his eyes. Anticipation crawls up your spine, your breath coming in short puffs. 

That might be the corset, though. 

“Just got a sparkle to you I don’t usually see ‘round here is all.” He searches your face, but you don’t know what he’s looking for. 

“How often are you here?” You ask, grabbing a towel from the stool next to you as he stands up.

“Oh, every few months, I reckon,” he says. He steps out and since the day isn’t too cold, you take your time drying him off. He watches you with a relaxed mouth and soft eyes, and something in his posture makes you a little braver. 

“That the only time you bathe, mister?” You ask with a sly grin, looking up through your lashes. He doesn’t smile, but you hear something like a chuckle unstick from his throat. 

“Only time I get a proper one, anyway. S’why I come here.”

He’s dry and warm now, and you expect he’ll lead you to the bed to have his way with you now. He’s sweet, if gruff, and you hope that’ll translate to how he treats you. 

Maybe you won’t have to pretend too much. 

“It’s a performance, Sugar. Make them believe,” Madame Aurelie’d said.

“I ain’t never been much of an actress,” you’d told her, but she’d just waved you off.

“Ah, but it does not have to be a very good one. A little goes a long way.”

He looks you over in your corset and your petticoat, and sets his hands on your shoulders, rubbing his thumbs over your skin. “Thank you very much, Miss Sugar,” he says quietly, reaching for his clothes. “You have a good evening now.”

Your throat goes dry. This isn’t what’s supposed to happen. He’s supposed to take you now, and you’re supposed to pretend he feels so good you can’t help but scream his name. 

Not that he’s given you a name to scream.

Maybe he has a type, and maybe you’re not it. The other girls told you some of them were picky. 

“Was I—do you want me to send someone else? If I’m not pleasin’ to you?” You ask meekly, swallowing your humiliation. “I know I said I’m new—but it’s not my first time, I know how to—”

“No, that’s all right,” he says, pulling on his boots. “You’re more than pleasin’, Miss Sugar.”

He puts on his hat and walks out with a final nod in your direction before he shuts the door. 

Of all the things you’d expected to feel tonight, rejection is not one of them.

Madame Aurelie wastes no time bursting in a few minutes later, her brown eyes eager for information.

“So,” she asks. “How’d it go?”

“He just wanted a bath,” you say. She gives you a smirk and nods. 

“He only ever wants a bath,” she laughs, offering you a cigarette. You take it, shaken enough from your first venture into this business to indulge.

“He was…very sweet,” you say. 

“He’s a decent sort, that Joel Miller,” she says, and something clicks in your brain. You’ve heard of him. You’ve heard a lot about him. 

“The outlaw Joel Miller? The gunslinger? The murderer? Wanted in six states? That’s him?” You sputter. Madame Aurelie laughs again and fans the smoke away from her face. 

“Rumors! Most of it, anyway,” she says but doesn’t specify which part. “He is not wanted in this state, and we’re gonna keep it that way, darling. He lived a rough life. Lost his daughter before she was sixteen, and her mother before, during childbirth.” 

“You sweet on him, Madame?” You tease.

“Who wouldn’t be? My Martin wouldn’t like that very much at all, though, would he?”

“I suppose not,” you murmur.

“Do not get too used to it. We don’t get a lot of his type here. He left you a tip,” she says, handing you a stack of bills. 

“For me?” You ask, eyes widening. 

“Mmhmm,” she says. “And here’s the rest of your cut.” She slips another stack in your hand and tells you to go up and get some rest. You got off easy tonight, and she’s glad for it. 

That night you stare up at the ceiling, adrenaline coursing through you—you’d made more money tonight than you’d ever even seen before. 

And that Joel Miller—you hoped he’d come back. Mysterious and brooding, just like all the heroes in the cowboy novels, but much kinder. 

The thought of his fingers on your shoulder is enough to make you shiver, enough for arousal to replace that adrenaline, and as your hand slips under your thin cotton nightdress, you thank the Lord that the girl who shares the bed next to you is otherwise occupied for the evening. 

“Mr. Miller requested you,” Madame Aurelie says. 

That was nothing new—the regulars all have their favorite girls.  

You aren’t anyone’s favorite yet. 

It isn’t a big deal to you, the job gets done, you get paid, and no one has complained. Being someone’s favorite is last on your list of concerns. 

You wouldn’t mind being his favorite, though.

After triple-checking your appearance, you make it up the stairs in half your usual time. 

He makes it to the room before you this time, towering over you when he throws the door open. His eyes are sharp and so much darker than the last time. One hand curls around your bicep and he pulls you into the room behind him before he sticks his head out of the door and looks around with swift, purposeful movements. 

“Is everything—”

“Anyone follow you up here?” He asks. 

“No…not that I know of.” You cross your arms, all that excitement turning to cold dread. “Somethin’ I should know?”

He gives the hallway one last look and slams the door behind him. Something dark and angry pours off of him, and you don’t know him well enough to judge where he’s directing that rage. You never could stand when a man raised his voice or slammed a door, especially not here. Madame Aurelie protects her girls as best she can, but could anyone stop the man in front of you if he really got it in his head to hurt you?

Your heart slams itself against your ribcage as you take a step back from him.

The sudden movement breaks whatever hostility had taken hold of him. He takes his hat off, holding it to his chest as he shakes his head. 

“I’m sorry, Miss Sugar,” he says in a soft voice. “Don’t mean to frighten you. Had a run-in with some jackasses full as a tick and didn’t want them comin’ in here and causin’ trouble in your establishment.”

The heart settles itself as you take a deep breath and smile. “That’s all right, mister.”

“It’s Miller,” he says. “Joel Miller.”

“Nice to meet you proper, Mr. Miller,” you say, smoothing the front of your petticoat. “You just want the bath again?”

He nods, his cheeks flushing red. “I know it’s unusual.”

“Hey now,” you murmur, approaching him slowly. “I don’t think it’s unusual at all.” His lips twitch and you resist the urge to cradle his face in your hands. “Let me get that bath ready, all right?”

Joel undresses just like last time, no shame at all as he lowers himself into the bathtub. You start slowly this time—if this is all he wants, you’ll make it the best goddang bath he’s ever had. A massage is extra, technically, but you’re happy to keep it between the two of you. 

His muscles melt as your fingers dig into his slick skin, and anything left of that dangerous energy from before melts off of him, too. He sighs and groans, and every little noise is a victory. You work him until he’s boneless, like melted candlewax in your hands. He even lets you kiss his damp forehead and smiles fondly as you stand to fetch a towel.

He dries himself this time, but before you leave he catches you by the wrist. “I really didn’t mean to scare you earlier, Miss Sugar. Take this, would you? For your trouble.” His eyes are soft and round again as he folds an ornate gold pocket watch into your hand. It’s the prettiest thing anyone’s ever given you, including your wedding ring. 

“Thank you,” you breathe. “I’ll see you next time?” 

“I hope so, Miss Sugar.”

“Where’re you off to?” 

Tommy’s nosier than usual these days. Used to be he’d just wave and nod, tell Joel to be careful and come back with something good. But Tommy Miller’s better at reading his brother than anyone in the world, and he must see the eager look in his eye as Joel sets off. 

“Need to go into town,” Joel says vaguely, swinging one leg over a chestnut Morgan and patting her neck as he settles. “I’ll be back in a few days. Keep an eye on things here?”

“I think Tess has that handled,” Tommy says, a wry smile at the upturn of his lips. “You’re goin’ to see that girl, huh?” 

Joel shakes his head, but Tommy keeps on. He means well, his brother, but Joel doesn’t want to hear it. “I’m sure she’s a nice girl, Joel, but since when has fallin' for a whore ever worked out?”

Joel’s jaw ticks as he glares down at Tommy. “Ain’t about that,” he says, dismissing his concerns. “Got some business to look into.”

Tommy raises his hands and shakes his head. “All right. Don’t go bein’ reckless is all I’m sayin’. You got that kid now—”

“Ellie’s damn near an adult,” Joel says, not bothering to hide his irritation. “She can handle herself just fine.”

But as he looks across the camp to where Tess sat with Ellie demonstrating the proper way to clean a rifle, he can't say that with any certainty. Ellie's barely older than his Sarah was when he lost her, and she was just a little girl then. Smuggling, stealing, sometimes killing--this is no life for a kid, no matter how much of it they try to shield her from. It's just easier to pretend she isn't. 

Still, he can trust Tess and Tommy, and he’ll only be gone a few days. And he isn’t lying about that business—a bounty’ll bring in good enough money that Tommy won’t be able to say anything about it. 

“Be careful, brother,” he says, and Joel just nods, digging his heel into Starfire and setting off. He doesn’t know how much longer they can stick around these parts, anyway, not as a group. Folks go around kicking up dust and putting a target on their backs, and sooner or later they’ll need to find a new place to settle. 

He stews over Tommy’s wording the entire ride. Even if it’s true. Even if that’s what she’s chosen to do, even if she didn’t mind. Tommy said it to make a point, and he’d made it well. 

He never gave himself a chance to get attached before, rotating venues and girls while he indulged in the closest thing to intimacy he could bring himself to receive. 

It’s not real if they’re getting paid.

But then she happened.  

At first, it was curiosity—he requested her that second time because he wanted to know if she would stick around. She’d been so new, hands shaking as she ran the cloth down his legs like she’d never touched a man before. 

Now he just likes her company. Now he finds reasons to go into town and for an hour or two with her. He books her the whole night, even if he shouldn’t, even if he never stays that long. 

Less time for her to be with other men. 

Joel has no right to jealousy, but his heart doesn't seem to care too much about that. He tries not to think about what the rest of her time there is like because it just makes him want to break the closest thing to him. 

He calls her Sugar like she asks, Miss Sugar because he was raised with manners, but he’d like to know her real name one day. He wants to know what she smells like in the morning, what her skin feels like under his lips, what she tastes like.

And he can’t goddamn let himself have any of it. 

He tries to imagine her sleeping outside, but it makes no sense even in his fantasies. She’s meant for plush cushions and red silks, not dirt and snow and low-life criminals. 

“Hi there, outlaw,” she purrs as he opens the door. His eyes drop to her lips, then the curve of her breasts, wondering what they’d look like out of that corset. He could see them if he wanted. He could rip it off of her—he could push her to the bed, spread her out underneath him; show her exactly how much he wants her. 

And she’d let him because paid her.

“Everything okay?” She asks, the question tinged with uncertainty as he realizes he’s been standing there for too long. 

“Just fine, Miss Sugar. Come on in,” he says, shaking his head. “Had a long ride here, I guess.”

She looks at him with soft eyes, and he wants to believe that concern is real. Couldn’t he pretend, just for now?

“Come on, big boy,” she says, unbuttoning his shirt for him. “Let’s get you comfortable.”

He lets her take care of him, trying to swallow his urge to undress her, too. His life is full of blood and pain and gunshots, and she is warm and much too soft for it. He opens and closes his fists with indecision, and she tuts at him. 

“Those hurtin’ again, too?” She asks because she’ll rub his knuckles if they do. It’s easier than telling her the truth. 

“Yes ma’am,” he says as she kneels and urges him to sit on the bed so she can take his boots off. He catches her cheek and rubs his thumb across her jaw. 

“You look real nice today, Miss Sugar,” he says, and for a moment she smiles as though she needed to hear that. 

“Bet you say that to all the girls you visit.” She still teases him delicately, still wary to push a button that might make him angry. 

She’s afraid of him, and he’s all too aware of it. 

“Ain’t got any other girls,” he says, and it’s true. “'Less you count Ellie, and she’d kill me quick if I ever said as much.”

She furrows her brow, and it occurs to him—he’s never mentioned Ellie. 

“Who’s Ellie? If you don’t mind me askin’?” She asks, shrugging off her coat to reveal smooth shoulders and soft arms. He wants to tell her, but it feels too personal now. 

“Just a girl I know,” he says, clearing his throat. She doesn’t pry, but he can see she wants to. 

“All right, mister,” she says. “Time to get you clean.”

Her strong hands and nimble fingers dig at sore spots, exquisite torture as she loosens muscles he’s never been able to reach. He sinks further down until the water laps at his beard and sighs as she scrubs his scalp with her fingernails. 

Joel wants to talk more, but he’s the kind of tired you feel in your bones, the tired that won’t be ignored no matter how much he sleeps. And he doesn’t sleep much these days, anyhow. That’s what twenty years of living like this’ll do to a man, he supposes.

He doesn’t know how Tess does it. How she manages to have a plan for everything, how she’s kept them all from being hanged or worse all this time. He reckons if he had to have all the answers all the time, he’d have turned tail and run by now. It was bad enough being the one to carry the orders out—he can’t imagine coming up with them.

Tess has never even mentioned his visits here, but he suspects when he returns this time, she’ll have something to say. Now that he’d brought back a foul-mouthed teenager, Tess wouldn’t be happy he’d gone off and left her there, no matter how much she liked Ellie. 

“All right, outlaw, you’re all cleaned up. Anything else I can do for you?” She asks, and he knows what she means. She asks every time, and he always tells her no. 

He gazes down at her fooling with the buttons of his overshirt, and he pretends for a moment that she's his wife and it's the morning and she's getting him ready for an honest day's work. 

The delusion vanishes as quickly as it came. Nothing’s ever been that simple for him.

But he can pretend. 

“Come sit a minute,” he says. Her head snaps up, and the look on her face is so alarmed it makes him chuckle. “That a problem?”

“‘Course not,” she says, shaking off the surprise. “Not a problem at all. Should I…?”

He answers by unbuttoning his shirt again, stripping down to his union suit and slipping into the ornate bed he’d never used. It’s odd, considering that she’d seen and touched every part of him, how very naked he feels.

“You, too,” he says.

She strips out of her petticoat and corset, which always looks so uncomfortable, and she really is the barest he’s ever seen her. His eyes trail over her body, admiring her. She moves more fluidly, less restricted without those extra layers. For a moment, she looks like that girl he met the first time he came to her. 

“C’mere,” he says quietly, and she crawls into bed with him, fitting herself against his side and cuddling against his chest. 

“Is this okay?” She asks, and he pulls her closer to him. 

He wants to feel all of her, but he can’t make himself do it. If it’s the last time he sees her, he wants it to mean something. He wants to talk to her, tell her things about himself she’s always gently poked at but receded if he gave any signs of discomfort.

So he does. 

They talk late into the night, shifting positions now and then when his back starts to protest. They talk for so long his throat gets scratchy and dry, so he asks her more questions about herself. 

“You like it here, Miss Sugar?” He asks after she's finished telling him about her favorite books, and how she wishes she had more time to read these days. She gives a dry laugh and rolls onto her back to look at the ceiling. 

“It’s all right. Not my first choice, but there ain’t mucha anything else around here. It was either try to find another husband or die an old maid, so I chose neither. At least here I can make my own money.”

He rubs his thumb and forefinger down either side of his mustache, frowning. 

“Another husband?” He asks. 

“I was married before,” she says, still looking up at the ceiling. “He died. Bank took all the money.”

She says it so plainly it takes him by surprise. He doesn't know what to say at the best of times, and especially not now, so he says nothing. Instead, he tugs on her hand, a silent plea to come back to him.

“But one day,” she says, crawling back up to him and settling herself on his lap, straddling his hips and laying her head on his shoulder. “One day I’m gonna save up enough to buy some land. They let anyone own land out here, gunslinger, did you know that?”

“Mmhmm,” he says. She’s so close and warm, wrapped around him like this. He breathes her in and closes his eyes. “What you got planned for that land, Miss Sugar?”

He wants to kiss her so badly. 

“Gonna have a little cabin built up the mountain. I already know how to fish, and my daddy used to take me huntin’. He didn’t have any boys. And I can grow a good garden. Before my husband died I had onions and carrots goin’ real strong,” she says. 

“Why didn’t you stay with your folks?” He asks. She leans back on her thighs and considers him for a moment. 

“I wanted to live for myself, I reckon,” she says. “If I’d stayed they’d have just found some old widower to put a baby in me. Or try to, anyway. I never…” She trails off and looks away from him.

“And you don’t want that?” He asks. 

“No,” she says. “I don’t. What about you, Joel? How come you don’t settle down?”

“Only one way of livin’ for a man like me,” he shrugs. She bites her lip like she means to ask him something. “Why? You want me to come help build that cabin?”

“I’d pay you real good,” she says. “I think it’d be nice, me and you. I don’t even snore.”

She sounds serious; she means to offer him a place in her little dream. He closes his eyes and pictures it—maybe Ellie’s there, too, and she teaches Ellie to read. 

I’m sure she’s a nice girl, Joel, but since when has fallin' for a whore ever worked out?

His brother’s words come unbidden, and Joel’s eyes fly open. “Ain’t much of a carpenter,” he says gruffly, dismissing her offer of domesticity and peace. 

She isn’t serious. She’s just good at what she does.

But he swears the light in her eyes dulls a little more. 

“Well, all right then,” she says, shrugging and changing the subject. 

They fall asleep, eventually, and he leaves before she wakes up.

He’s never been any good at goodbyes.

He’s gone longer this time. 

You ask after him around town, but no one’s heard from him, not even the mail clerk. 

“You that hard up for customers?” Your bartender, Teddy, asks.

“Of course I’m not,” you snap, scowling at him. “I…was just curious. He just ain’t been around.”

“Worried about him?” Teddy asks, not unkindly. 

“S’pose,” you shrug, wrapping your shawl around you as the doors open, bringing a strong gust of wind with them. “Gets cold quick around here, y’know.”

You keep the pocket watch he gave you in a drawer next to your bed in the room you shared with a girl who called herself Ginger. She’d had her own encounters with Joel.

“He ain’t never gave me nothin’ so nice as that for my trouble, Sugar. He must like you,” she’d said when you came back with it that evening. You brushed her off.

“He just felt bad for scaring me. And he was awful scary,” you admit. Ginger shook her head at your protests. “Did he ever…did he ever let you touch him?” 

“Lord no,” Ginger says. “He’s wound about as tight as a nun’s twat—”

“Ginger!”

There are fewer travelers in the cold months, and for the first time in almost a year, you have time on your hands. Since you can read, Madame Aurelie has you help with the books, but otherwise you’re free to do whatever you want. 

You’ve never been able to do whatever you want. 

It hits you, one day, that you don’t even know what you like to do. When you were married, you’d sew and cook and garden and keep the house like a proper woman. But you never much liked any of those things. 

When you were a girl, though, you’d read and dream about going on the adventures in your story books. It’s hard to remember the last time you read something for fun. 

A man comes through town with a cart full of books every few weeks. It’s full of trashy romance and cowboy dramas and even penny dreadfuls that’d made their way across the ocean, and you buy up as many of them as your arms can hold. 

It’s not an ideal life, but at least you can escape now and then. 

Sometimes you read to Ginger. She’s an excellent audience, gasping and clapping at just the right places, her “oohs” and “ahhs” filling your heart with warmth.

“You do the voices so damn good, sugar cube!” She says. 

If you close your eyes, it’s almost like being back home, reading adventure stories to your little sister by candlelight hours after you were both supposed to be asleep. 

Sometimes these moments are the only thing that get you through the day. 

He comes back just as the ground thaws. 

You try to keep your cool; to pretend it’s not him you imagine when there’s another man inside of you. 

He opens the door, covered in blood.

“Ain’t mine,” he says as your mouth drops open. “Not all of it, anyway.”

“Lord above, Joel Miller, are you okay? What happened?” You ask as he tosses his empty holsters on the bed. No weapons allowed in Madame Aurelie’s establishment. 

“Nothin’ out of the ordinary,” he says, but his split, bloody knuckles tell you otherwise. 

“Joel—”

“Please,” he says quietly. “Please, Miss Sugar. I’m all right.”

His tone disarms you as he pulls your chin up to look into his eyes.

“If you say so.” The bath’s already full of warm, fresh water—he always pays a little extra for it. 

It’s been just over a year since you became his favorite girl. Neither of you mention how long it’s been since the last time he was here, or how he’d batted away the idea of a simpler, kinder life with you. 

You suspect the offer of it is what kept him away for so long.

He’s silent today, brooding as the water turns pink with blood. The baths have become your specialty—the men like your sure grip and the way you listen. Sometimes they want sex after, sometimes they just want to talk. Regardless, he’s not the only one who calls you his favorite these days. 

But he’s still yours, and it’s as infuriating as it is painful.

All the others are married and miserable, complaining about their wives and lamenting how they wish they’d found a woman like you when they were younger. 

Did your husband do that, too? Visit parlor houses and complain that you didn’t keep the houses tidy enough while he was buried inside another woman? Do they all do that? 

Joel doesn’t have a wife or a business to complain about. Would he, if he did? 

You like to think he wouldn’t. You like to think that if he had a wife he wouldn’t even be here, and you’d have never met him. 

Your thoughts drift to the last time he was here, when he pulled you in bed and held you there and talked and talked and talked until you’d opened your mouth and stuck your foot in it.

It’s foolish to fall in love with clients. Even you, with all your romantic notions, know that. And you won’t be here forever. Once you get enough money saved you’ll leave and buy yourself a place high up in the mountains. You’ll live off the land; learn how to hunt and fish. 

And you’ll never see Joel Miller again. 

It shouldn’t sting so bad to think about. He doesn’t even know your real name. He could be lying about everything and you wouldn’t know the difference. 

Some foolish hope tells you he isn’t, though.

You grab a bottle of cheap whiskey to clean the congealed blood from his knuckles, biting back your questions about what happened. He hisses at your delicate dabs to his wounds but doesn’t protest. 

“Thank you, Miss Sugar,” he says. You wish you could tell him your real name, but at least you like the way he says it. He still cradles it on his tongue like something precious, like he relishes saying it out loud. 

“You can just call me Sugar, you know,” you say. “No need to be so formal.”

That pulls one of those vague smiles from his lips as he nods. “All right, then, Sugar.” 

Furtive glances to check for bruises yield nothing. Someone got the mess knocked out of him but didn’t seem to land any blows on Joel at all. 

His mood hasn’t lifted any at all, even with one of the shoulder rubs you’d started throwing in for free. Free in theory, at least; he always gave you some trinket worth more than a whole night with you afterward. 

He’ll never tell you what happened, even if you beg him, and you think it’s because he wants you to see him as anything but the man he is. But you like him just the way he is, and you wish you could just say that. 

He trembles when you reach his inner thigh, letting out a noise between a gasp and a grunt. You’ve never heard that noise from him before, and goes straight to your core, warmth and need blooming between your legs. His tired eyes meet yours, and they’re begging for something. You can help, can’t you? You know what would relax him, what would take all the stress off of his tense shoulders.

“You can let me help, if you want. It’s okay,” you murmur, waiting for his permission. 

“Please, Sugar,” he says in a low rumble. You move slowly, giving him a chance to change his mind.  

You can feel yourself throbbing the second you wrap your hand around the base of him, saliva pooling in your mouth as he twitches. He makes no noise as you stroke him; he doesn’t even move, but his hands grip the side of the tub so tightly that his once-blood-red knuckles have turned white with strain.

He’s still denying himself. 

“It’s all right,” you murmur, scooting close enough to lay your head on his shoulder, right in the crook of his neck, your lips just centimeters away from his warm, wet skin. You don’t kiss him, but you’d like to. “Relax.”

He lets out a shaky sigh and turns his head toward you, pressing his forehead to yours, eyes closing as his breath ghosts over your skin. His lips are centimeters from yours.

Rarely do you watch any of the other men like this. Now and again some lovely thing you can’t keep your eyes off of shows up, but it is, for the most part, very much a job. 

You couldn’t look away from him or his fluttering eyelashes if you wanted to. He lets out a soft grunt, his nose scrunching as his teeth dig into his bottom lip to keep from crying out. 

This big, strong, violent man reduced to a quivering mess with just your hand. 

He throws his head back, exposing the corded muscles of his thick neck and shoulders, finally letting a harsh grunt slip from his throat. You swallow as he grabs at the strap of your bodice, pulling you closer and gazing at you with hooded eyes. His hand trails down to your low, flimsy neckline and he cups your breast through the fabric with his rough, wide hand. A soft, needy whimper tears from you, and he squeezes. 

“Gonna—gonna—”

But you already know, his cock throbbing and pulsing in your hand. “Come on,” you whisper, urging him on. “For me, just for me.”

He makes the most beautiful noises as he bucks into your hand, eyes closed and still clutching at you. Your eyes sweep down to his waist underwater where his release is still coming as he shudders beneath you. 

You brush his hair from his forehead as he catches his breath. For once, he’s fully at ease, mouth slack and eyes heavy, the lines between his brows almost invisible. 

When he opens his eyes all the way to look at you, you’re suddenly aware that you’re still holding him. You let him go and pull away, putting on a nervous smile. His face is inscrutable, and you don’t know where to go from here. Not with him.

Most of the time, you leave after this, wishing the man a good day and a cheery “Hope to see you again soon!” But this is Joel, and Joel’s different. 

Joel’s different. 

He doesn’t say anything, either, as he rises from the water and grabs the towel from the stool, stepping out and drying himself. He says nothing as he gets dressed, pulling out a wad of bills and separating a stack. 

“Thank you, Miss Sugar,” he says, holding it out to you. He frowns when you don’t reach for the money. “Somethin’ the matter?”

He doesn’t invite you into his bed like last time; doesn’t even ask how you’ve been. You don’t know what you thought would happen, or what you expect of him. He's paying you for the service you provided, just like he always does. 

And you must have done a good job. He even gave you a tip.

It’s silly. You knew better. Know better. You know why he’s here, what he came for. It just took a while for him to warm up. There’s no reason you should be upset, no reason you should have assumed he thought of you as anything other than a whore he visits from time to time. 

You plaster on the smile you keep ready for everyone else and take the money, still not quite sure what's happening in your head. “Nope! No, sir. Nothin’ at all. I’m…happy to help. Hope to see you again soon!” You say with that false cheer reserved for everyone but him, turning on your heel and heading toward the door. 

It isn’t fair to be upset with him. This was a business transaction. Always had been. Just because you jerked him off this time didn’t mean anything had changed. It just meant he needed something different. 

Your job is to give him what he needs. 

You’re his favorite girl in the parlor house, and that’s all. 

Ginger finds you on your bed holding that gold pocketwatch he’d given you so many months ago. The one you’d mistaken for a gift. 

“S’wrong with you?” She asks, unlacing her bodice and sighing. 

“Nothin’,” you say. You’re not the youngest girl here, but you’re certainly the most naive. The last thing you need is Ginger finding out about your thing for Joel.

She is, unfortunately, way ahead of you. 

Ginger’s red hair tumbles down her shoulders as she unpins it, coming to rest on her ample breasts. She has child-bearing hips and a soft tummy, and as she curls herself around you in your bed, you inhale the scent of jasmine she dabs between her breasts and on each pulse point. You’d never smelled jasmine before you met her, and you think if you should leave this place, you’d never smell it again without thinking of her. 

“Is it that Mr. Miller?” She asks softly. You don’t want to answer—you don’t want to admit how stupid you’ve been. But Ginger’s kind and patient and her green eyes are easy to lose yourself in.

“Oh, Ginger,” you sigh. “It ain’t nothin’ for me to be upset over. I did my job, and that’s it.”

“He took you to bed?” She asks, surprise evident at the uptick in her tone. 

“No,” you laugh. “No, I just…gave him a little extra in the bath today, and he left. Paid me good for it, too.”

“Then what are you so upset for?” She asks, pressing her cheek to the top of your head. “If you just did your job and he paid you good and it was fine.”

You breathe deep, already regretting what you’re about to admit. 

“I reckon I thought he liked me, after all this time,” you admit, your voice catching in your throat. Ginger doesn’t say anything at first, and you wait for her to scold you. 

She never does. 

“I’m sorry, Sugar,” she says quietly. “I’m so sorry.”

Her sympathy opens a floodgate, and the tears you’d been holding back seep out as she whispers soothing words to you. 

“It’s happened to everyone,” she says, and she calls you by your real name. “We can talk to Madame Aurelie, ask her to put him with someone else. She protects her girls.”

You think about it for a split second—you know Madame Aurelie is a good woman with a ferocious heart—but ultimately, you decide not to. If he’s gone for as long as he was before, you’ll have time to get past it. You’ll mourn whatever you thought you had with him the way you mourned your poor husband, and you’ll move on. And maybe by the time he comes back, you’ll be long gone to that place in the mountains he didn't want anything to do with.

The next morning Madame Aurelie gives you a package in brown wrapping, secured in string and tied off with a bow. A scrap of paper sticks out from underneath the twine.

“Your cowboy left it for you as he was leaving. He looked quite sad,” she says.

You pull at the end of the string and it comes apart, a leatherbound book staring back at you. 

It’s a first-edition printing of Little Women with a signature in loopy handwriting on the front page.

L.M. Alcott

You shudder to think where or how he got this. It doesn’t make any sense—why wouldn’t he just give it to you himself? The scrap of paper that falls on the floor as you turn the book over catches your eye. It has another message, this time in hasty cursive. 

Meant to give you this last night. Wish I could be better for you. 

-J

You wish you could be better for him, too.

Joel never gets that look on her face out of his head. That crushed disappointment when her eyes drifted to the second stack of bills in his hand. 

Her tip. 

He meant it as a compliment. He meant it as a way to thank her. He meant it as a way to show he still understood the relationship, that he wasn’t foolish enough to fall in love with her, that he hadn’t spent months and months thinking about her. That it didn’t make his heart float right out of his chest watching her clean his wounds and wrap his hand. 

By the time he’d gotten dressed enough to go find her, she’d disappeared, and he’d almost gotten in a fight with one of the big guys the madame had stationed around the place. That makes him feel better when he thinks of it—at least she has people to protect her. 

And then he had to leave. He wasn’t even supposed to be there, and if Tess ever found out she might wring his neck for stopping in when he had business the next town over. 

He left the book with one of the other girls and hoped it made its way to her, and he moved on with a pit in his chest. She’d taken care of him, and he’d acted like it was nothing. 

It haunts him when he thinks about her, so he doesn’t. He distracts himself in every way possible. He doesn’t even know if he should go back to her—if some line had been crossed just like he feared from the beginning. 

Everything he touches falls apart. 

Eventually, though, he needs to go back. He needs to see her and explain himself before it eats him alive.

“She’s not here anymore,” Madame Aurelie says. 

“What do you mean, ‘she’s not here’?” He demands, maybe a little too aggressively. 

Madame Aurelie shrugs, unperturbed by his outburst. “She made her money and she moved on. That was always part of the deal. She didn’t tell you?” 

“Haven’t been around,” he mutters. 

The older woman looks him up and down with a pitying smile. “I noticed. She liked you, you know.”

“I know,” he says, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Shit. Pardon my language, ma’am.”

She shrugs again. “Last I heard she was to buy a parcel of land further up the mountain. Maybe she’s still around there. If you are that distraught.”

He realizes he doesn’t even know her real name. 

“Thank you, ma’am,” he says before he departs. He pauses. “You don’t happen to know her real name?”

Madame Aurelie gives him a sly smile and beckons him closer. 

It’s not much, but it’ll get him started.

It’s harder to leave than you expect. You’ve grown so close with these other women, especially Ginger, and they’d become a strange patchwork family. But no matter how many times you tell Ginger it would be fun to be two women on the frontier surviving on their own with no men to answer to, she doesn’t want to come live in a cabin in the woods.

You’re only half-joking about your offer. 

Madame Aurelie was so gracious about it all, even writing recommendations to the bank to start a line of credit. It was her suggestion, rather than buy the land and a house outright, to pay it back over time. And then, should you ever need any more credit, you’ll already be in good standing with them. 

You leave her with a hug and your real name, just in case. 

Joel never came back, but you didn’t expect him to. It must have clicked in his head, finally, that you’d gotten attached to him. And it wasn’t like it was hard to find some pretty girl to bathe him. 

It hardly matters now. It’s just you and this little cabin surrounded by pine trees and evergreens and the quiet rush of the stream out front. The little kids call you a witch when you go into town for supplies, but the shopkeep is perfectly happy to take your money. He doesn’t care if you’re a witch or a whore or a widow. 

Winter’s already creeping in, and as you’re chopping firewood to last those long months, you can’t help but think of Joel. He’d disappeared all last winter; he must have some place he goes. Him and that gang of his. 

You’re jolted out of a sound sleep, slumped over in a rocking chair next to the fire. Your ears prick up, listening for any slight sound. Something creaks just outside your front door, and you tiptoe to the cabinet you store your rifle in. The curtains are drawn, closed off enough that no one would be able to see in, but it keeps you from seeing out, too. 

You're more than used to all manner of creatures wandering onto your porch, whether hungry or just curious, but their little footsteps don’t sound like boots on wood. Before you can think too much, you pull the door open and pray it’s some lost hunter. 

Light from your fire and kerosene lamps pour out and wash over his face, half-shrouded by the hat pulled low on his head. But it doesn’t matter. You’d recognize those lips anywhere. 

“Joel?” You ask, still pointing the rifle at him.

“Whoa now, Miss Sugar,” he says, hands raised. “S’just me.”

You lower the rifle but narrow your eyes. It doesn’t feel real. You’ve never seen him out of the confines of that room at the Garden, and it’s like some figure from a dream just walked out of your head and onto your front porch. He’s not supposed to be here. 

“What the hell are you doin’ here?” You demand. It’s not that you’re not pleased to see him—you’re not sure what you’re feeling right now. “How did you find me?”

Joel brings his hands to his sides and tucks his thumbs through his belt loops. “You mind if I come in?”

The cold hits you for the first time since you opened the door. You stand aside and let him. He takes off his hat as he walks in, eyes darting around your messy little cabin. 

“Wasn’t expectin’ company,” you explain, but he shakes his head.

“It’s a nice place,” he says quietly, and it warms you to your core. 

“Thank you. Can I get you some tea? Whiskey?” You ask, very conscious of how ill-fit your home is for guests. 

“Wouldn’t say no to whiskey,” he says. 

Neither of you speaks as you settle down at your table. You’re still not entirely sure he’s real. 

“What are you doing here, Joel?” You ask again. 

He takes a sip and grimaces, the cup clattering against the lacquered wood. “Needed to see you,” he says.

“Might be a while before I can get that bathwater warmed up,” you quip, and his lip curls in a smile. 

He lets out a long breath before he answers. “I needed to…I had to tell you. I didn't mean to hurt you,” he says, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallows. “And I think I might’ve that night.”

Heat blooms in your cheeks and you wave your hand. “Oh, don’t worry about—”

“Please, Sugar,” he says, then shakes his head. And then he says your real name, and it knocks the wind out of you. “I got…I got these feelings for you. And they got me all messed up, sweetheart, they got me actin’ foolish. And when you…when you did that…”

You don’t like to think about it much. When you woke up that next morning, eyes puffy from crying yourself to sleep, it was guilt that consumed you. You’d pushed him too far, too quickly, overwhelmed him with the sexuality your mother shamed you for when all he’d wanted was your companionship. 

It was silly, considering your choice of profession, but it still ate you up. He’d trusted you.

“I’m sorry for that,” you murmur, taking a drink of your whiskey. “I am.”

He moves so quickly it makes you jump, suddenly right next to you, taking your hand in both of his. “Sorry? Why are you sorry, darlin’?” 

“For pushin’ you,” you say, eyebrows furrowed. “You never wanted that before, I should have just let it go. I thought you were just…punishing’ yourself or somethin’.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” he says firmly, leaning his forehead against yours. “I wanted that. I wanted that bad, sugar. I swear it.”

You nuzzle him, gathering the courage to ask what you need to ask. “Then why didn’t you come back?”

“Because I’m a fool,” he murmurs. “And because I don’t deserve you. And I thought you were…I didn’t know if you were bein’ genuine. You gotta understand. I didn’t wanna be the man who fell for—”

“I know,” you say. Because you do know. You know he didn’t want to be the man who fell for the girl he paid to lie to him. “But I ain’t that good an actress, Joel. And I meant every single word. I meant what I said that night. I meant that you could be here with me. I like you how you are, Joel, just like this.”

You know what he’ll say before he says it.

“I don’t belong here, in this life. I am not a good man, and you deserve better. I don’t know no other way but this one, you understand?” 

You reach up and thumb his jaw, and he leans into the palm of your hand. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, Joel Miller. You come when you want, stay when you want. I never wanted to take care of a man anyway.”

He pulls back and searches your face, a smile playing delicately on his lips. You want him to kiss you so badly. 

You almost stop breathing when he does. 

For such a violent, bad man, he kisses you like you’re made of spun sugar, gentle and cautious against your lips. He tastes like whiskey and smells like cold mountain air, and you’d like to sink into him, to live in this moment forever. When he pulls away he’s smiling, eyes twinkling. He’s so handsome it makes you ache.

“Don’t like you livin’ up here alone,” he tells you, out of nowhere. 

“I think I’m doin’ okay,” you laugh. 

“You are. You are somethin’ else, sugar.” He frowns. “Can I still call you that?”

“I think, Mr. Miller, you might be the only one who makes it sound that nice. So I’ll allow it for now,” you tease. You stand up and glance at the bedroom door. “Stay with me tonight. It’s cold out. I got a spare bed if you need it, but it’s warmer in mine.”

“I think I’ll take you up on that, ma'am,” he says. 

You fall asleep curled around each other, so close your lips touch. 

In the morning you’re not surprised to find the spot beside you empty, but you find a piece of paper with a post office box address and a hastily scribbled note.

Not any good at goodbyes, so I ain’t saying goodbye. I got someone I want you to meet. You can contact me at this address. Be there before winter starts proper. 

Your head hits the pillow with a thunk and you pull the note to your heart, basking in the golden morning sunlight streaming through your window. For the first time in your life, everything is exactly as it should be. 

[yoditostan]

Joel Miller x f!reader

Rating: E

A/N: Thank you to the incomparable @bageldaddy who not only looked this over for me, but who also inspired the entire idea by being such a inspiring, delicious Joel Miller whore. This one is for you ❤

--

“Stop squirmin’,” he scolds, a hard hand on your hip. 

You’re trying not to, but tension builds between your bodies, the solid wall of his chest rising and falling along your spine. So close you can feel heat leeching through his clothes, his warm breath skims along the nape of your neck and a damp throb beats thick and distracting between your legs. 

Slow, steady breaths are all you have, and so you take them. 

In and out. In and out. 

His hips shift when he zips up the sleeping bag along the side and when his lap nudges you from behind, you hold your breath and clench your eyes tight, your thighs squeezing together. 

The masculine scent pressed into his clothing fills your senses, the strength in his solid form enveloping you in a protective press when he slings his arm around you in an attempt to get comfortable, and struggling to quell the need building deep between your hips, you squirm. 

Waiting a beat, you do it again. 

“Come on now,” he scolds, impatience slipping into his tone. “I know it’s not ideal, but it’s all we got. You need more room, or somethin’?”

That drawl of his is driving you crazy, just as arousing as the constant frown you know he has on his face right now. His sternness shouldn’t turn you on as much as it does, and yet it constantly plagues you: is he always this stern? In every situation?

“No, I’m good,” you reply, letting out a sigh. 

You’re really not, but in order for you to be okay, he’d have to be outside the sleeping bag, and so you try to still yourself again, focusing on the sounds of the night. 

Weeks spent traveling together, it’s now a familiar background that often lulls you to sleep: the soft chirp of crickets, the rustling of leaves, the creaking of trees as they sway gently in the breeze. Up until now, you’d gotten away with sleeping separately on the ground but tonight marks the first truly cold one of the season and when he rolled out the single sleeping bag, you bit your lip. 

“It’s a double,” he said gruffly, kneeling to spread it out. “Plus, it’s all we have.”

You knew it would be a tight fit, but this is unbearable. 

His hand twitches, the heavy weight of it brushing just underneath your breasts and your nipples tighten into sensitive peaks underneath your layers. His hand is so close, you can’t help but imagine how it would feel if he slid it up just enough to touch you. 

Taking another slow breath, you try not to move. 

“You sure we can’t light a fire?” you ask.

“Now why am I gonna tell you no?” He sounds exasperated, a tone he uses more often than not with you. 

The closeness of his mouth to your ear has his deep voice sending a shiver through your torso every time he speaks and needing him to be quiet if you’re going to survive this night, you don’t answer. 

He lifts his knees, the front of his thighs coming in contact with the back of yours and the brush of his lap against your ass has you biting back a moan that almost crawls out of your throat. You fit the cradle of it perfectly, and if you really focus, you swear you can feel him through your layers of clothing. 

With that image filling your mind, you try to press your thighs together in hopes of relieving the ache between them, but not only does the squirming ratchet the heat higher, it earns you another scold.  

“You gotta stop.” 

A slight plea to his words, his hand settles on your hip again, but this time his fingers accidentally brush the hem of your shirt up in his haste to stop you from moving and you bite your lip at the warm, dry heat of his palm on your bare skin. All sensation centers on that point of contact, and you feel a fresh wave of dampness creep into the crotch of your underwear. 

“Sorry,” you apologize quietly. 

Restless with want, arousal blooms through your system: starting slick and sticky between your thighs, it spreads low and heavy between your hips, travels with tingling heat through the tips of your breasts, and envelopes your head in a dazed cloud of need. You close your eyes, attempting to will it away, but it only makes all your other senses heighten. 

You feel his presence even more: the weight of his arm around you, the damp heat of his mouth near the delicate skin of your neck, the sound of his breathing. Moving on their own accord, your hips shift again, connecting with his and he lets out a sigh.

“You sleepin’ on a rock, or somethin’?” he asks, propping himself up on his elbow. Taking the space he’s left, you roll onto your back to face him and instant recognition registers on his face. He frowns, his stern expression causing another wave of sticky wetness to gather between your thighs. 

“That why you’re so squirrelly?” The register of his voice has dropped lower, more intimate in the darkness yet no less forgiving. “If so, you’ll just have to deal with it later. You ain’t the only one who’s uncomfortable here.”

Your eyes drop down from his face to where you think his crotch must be, automatically seeking confirmation of his words as if you could actually see anything and his head tilts in silent reprimand at the action, his frown deepening. 

“I told you no.”

He did. He said it weeks ago after you kissed him by the fire, again after you took his hands in yours and pressed them along your body in the saddle, again after you kissed him with urgency after a close call in the last town. Every one of those times he responded with his own need: blatant and wanting, all low groans and rough lips and hands and touches, until he pulled himself back. 

“Wouldn’t be right,” he said.

“I’d be takin’ advantage of you,” he said. 

Like you didn’t know your own body. Like you couldn’t make up your own mind. 

He looks down at you for a long moment, the silence heavy between you in your wordless standoff and right when he’s about to lay back down, you speak. 

“Please.”

You almost don’t recognize your voice with how helpless it sounds, breathless with need. 

Dark eyes searching yours, they study your own for a weighted beat and the thing that’s been growing for weeks between your bodies pulls taut: a string, ready to snap. 

You throb and ache, squirming next to him. So, so empty. 

“If I do it, you’ll go to sleep?”

“I promise,” you hastily agree.

His jaw shifts under his sparse beard, his expression contemplative and then his eyes scan the darkness around you for a moment, making sure it’s all clear. 

“Undo your pants.”

You’ve never obeyed a command faster in your life, already reaching under the covers to fumble with your belt. Your fingers trembling, his dark eyes drag down the parts of you he can see and his hand covers yours, stopping you. 

“So needy.” The words are said to himself with a slight shake of his head that has you squirming again, and he pushes your hands out of the way, making room for his own. There is a weighted feel to them against your skin where his knuckles brush against your belly, his fingers working open the button of your jeans and you let out a shuddering breath, the liquid heat between your thighs flaring bright. 

Jeans open for his access, he keeps his eyes on your face when he slowly slips his hand down the front of them, pushing beneath the band of your underwear. When his fingers find the damp, warm heat that greets him, a pained look crosses over his features. 

“So fuckin’ wet, and I ain’t even hardly touched you yet.”

He is touching you, you want to argue, but the words are caught in your mouth when he slides his hold lower, his broad hand cupping you wholly between your legs. The thick tips of his fingers press heavily against your entrance, and you widen your legs to give him more room. 

“Goddamn,” he breathes out, swallowing hard. 

His middle finger dips into your slick seam, immediate wetness covering the digit before he drags it through your folds with a testing stroke and your back nearly arches off the ground, needing so much more yet not being able to breathe with what he is doing. He slips it inside you, just down to the second knuckle, and then he’s sliding his soaked finger up to your clit, finding it with ease. 

Your hips jerk up to meet it, the calloused pad of his finger providing instant relief. Your head falls back, your throat straining with the effort to be quiet. 

“Feels good, huh.”

There is a smugness to his tone that you think faintly should bother you, but it doesn’t. Instead, your body responds in a wholly different way, wanting nothing more to find out what else he seemingly already knows about how to make you feel good. 

“Tell me, or I stop.” 

The harsher tone of his words brings you back to the present, and you frantically nod, eager to obey.

“Yes. Yes, it feels good.” The roughed pad of his middle finger is swirling firm, neat circles just over your clit, the texture and intensity just right and when you answer him, he rewards you with a second finger. Arching your hips into it, your mouth drops open, a silent cry forming in your throat. 

“That’s my girl,” he praises, his hooded eyes looking down at you. 

His fingers speed up, quickly slipping down between your thighs to coat his fingers with arousal before bringing them back up again and your hands find his wrist beneath the sleeping bag, holding on while he swirls, swirls, swirls. 

So wet you can hear it, you’re sticky and slick underneath his touch, and it’s almost clinical  with how quickly he’s going to make you come. Your thighs starting to tremble, his dark eyes never leave your face and chasing his touch, you focus on the centered need he’s building deep within you. 

Still so empty you could cry, your breasts tighten under your sweatshirt, and when you imagine how the cold air would feel on them paired with the contrast of his hot, wet mouth, you pull tight with your release, your hand tightening in its hold on his wrist. 

“It’s –,” you beg him, “I’m so close.” 

Your mouth slack as his thick, calloused fingers work, work, work, he dips his head, his mouth resting just beside your ear. 

“Come on, honey. Just give it to me. I know you want to.”

The rough rasp of his voice is deep enough to pierce through the fog he’s built in your brain, your fingers curling into the front of his shirt to hold onto something as you start to tip over the edge. Right when you’re on the cusp, he slides his fingers lower and fills you swifty with three and the startled cry that breaks free from your throat doesn’t even hit the air before he covers your mouth with his. 

He swallows every low moan, every hitch in your breathing, every hot puff of air you let out as he pumps his fingers to wring every last drop of release from your trembling body and even when he slides his fingers out, his mouth still doesn’t stop. Coated with your slick, his hand smears damp across your jaw as he presses you into place and takes, his tongue sliding hungrily against yours. 

Your own taste is thick on your tongue when he pulls back, and breathless and spent, you’re finally blissfully pliant and loose beside him in the sleeping bag - but not for long. 

Slipping his fingers into his mouth, you blink your damp eyelashes up at him as you watch him suck on them with a low, satisfied groan. The lewd action paired with the deep sound, his eyes are still on your face when he pulls them from his mouth to reach back down into the sleeping bag.

“Feel better?” he asks, and though you don’t even know how to begin to answer that question, you find yourself nodding anyway.

As if nothing happened, he grasps your jeans and gives them a perfunctory, swift tug, putting you back together. Lifting your hips in a daze, you let him. 

Satisfied, he positions you on your side again, facing away from him and settling down behind you, he drags you tight to his chest with a thick arm banded around your waist. 

A thick, solid heft is felt between the two of you, pressed against your ass and his usual gruff voice softens, but only just. 

“Good. Now go to sleep.”

[yoditostan]

Needs.

3.3k, joel miller x virgin f!reader | joel master

Summary: Joel wants to find a bed before you go all the way, but neither of you can wait that long.

A/N: Follows Aches (900) and Thoughts (1.6), but can read alone. For sleeping bag with a non-innocent reader, see For Survival 2.

WARNINGS: I8+, big girthy age gap (20/50s), still only one sleeping bag, pining, c*ck hunger, fingering, grinding, masturbation, oral m receiving, cum eating, unsafe P in V, reluctantly pulling out, loss of virginity, pet names, praise, POV alternates, NO Y/N.

“God have mercy,” he mutters to himself.

He's gonna give it to ya good one day, but not yet. Not in a sleeping bag on the forest floor. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet, he tells himself . . . Your first time shouldn’t be like this. Shouldn’t be here. But god damn . . .  

-------

It’s all over your face. He’s never seen anything like it, the way you crave his cock. You shamelessly stare at his pants. His whole body, really. You were bad enough before you touched it, and it’s only gotten worse. You can’t focus, you can’t listen. It’s dangerous.  He should put a stop to this, take it away cold turkey. Sleep back-to-back. But you both have needs, and he's not gonna do that.

Joel feels like he might as well be a virgin himself, it's been so long for him. Frankly, he’s dying to put it in you just as much as you long to have it.  He’s been trying to wait until Jackson so he can do it somewhere safe, somewhere a little nicer, more comfortable. 

He wants to wait and make sure it's nice and special for you, but good lord, you’re makin' it hard. You make the sweetest little sounds when he touches you, and even when he doesn’t, like in your sleep. You ask him things like, “doesn’t sex feel better than hands?” He tells you half-truths, like “not always.” Of course it would with you.  Of course it would.

-

You’re in the forest. With dusk approaching, you're just about to set up camp while there's still light. Joel is taking a leak at the edge of a small clearing, calculating mileage in his head, counting down the days ‘til you should get there. His back could use a real bed, too.  He's shaking his dick dry and a twig snaps behind him. His head whips around and he reaches for his gun. 

It’s you. God damnit, he could’ve killed you. 

“Can I see it?” you ask. 

“What the hell are ya doin’ over here?”

“I just wanna see it.” You look down toward his jeans. “Can I?” 

It’s fair that you’re curious, he knows that. You mentioned it the night before with your hand wrapped around it, I wanna see it, really see it, I bet it’s good looking. You’ve only felt it at night and caught glimpses in the moonlight. At the time, he mindlessly reassured you, you’ll see it, baby, you'll see my cock, and he should’ve known you’d spring this on him.

“Not now,” he mutters, trying to calm his heart rate.  “Can ya gimme a second, honey?” 

“Okay.”  He can hear the sadness, practically see the disappointment on your face. God damnit. He tucks himself away and zips up. You're only about eight feet away.  “Now?”

“No.  Ain’t nothin’ to see right now.” You probably don’t realize what a big difference it can make. 

“What do you mean”

“Just trust me, it’s not how you wanna see it.” 

“Why?" 

“Cause it ain’t as. . .”

“Ain’t as what?”

“Nothin’, baby. Just not the right time.”

“Better if we’re close together, right?” You step closer. 

He closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and takes a deep breath. “This ain’t the time or the place, honey.” 

When he looks at you again, your face has fallen, and you mumble, “K.” 

He puts a big, comforting hand on your shoulder and walks you back to where y'all are setting up camp. “When we find a bed, I’ll show ya. . .”  

"And when we find a bed," you repeat. Don't say it, don't say it, he prays to God you don't say it. "We can do it, right?" He doesn't answer. "You can put your cock inside me, right?"

Fuck, you're gonna drive this old man crazy. At least one of you needs your wits about you if you'll ever make it to Jackson. "We'll see," he sighs. 

After a moment of silence, your voice trembles as you ask, "We'll see? Why not yes?"

"Cause we ain't gonna make it there at this rate," he complains, then sighs with instant regret. "I'm sorry, honey. But you gotta try to knock it off with this stuff."

You swallow and your eyes glimmer. "Sorry," you whisper. 

He turns away to adjust himself, then sits down on the ground, leaning back against a log and extends an arm for you. "S'okay, c'mere."

You sit on the ground next to him. He squeezes your shoulder and changes the topic to twenty questions. 

——

He’s nicer at night. He’s nice in the day, too, mostly.  Once in a while, you can tell you’re annoying him, and you feel bad.  If only he knew how many times you thought about it and didn't say something, he’d appreciate your efforts. It’s practically all you think about. It’s even worse now that you feel it in your hand every night, but the last thing you want is for that to stop. 

You had been thinking about it all day when you finally asked what you thought was an easy request – if you could just see it, just a glimpse while he already had it out anyway. 

Even if you don’t get to see it, at least it’s easy enough to recall what it feels like.  Smooth, warm, and stiff. Soft veins, tiny wrinkles. A leaking slit. 

—--

“Can I taste it?” you ask one night with your little fist wrapped around his shaft. 

He groans quietly. “Yeah, you wanna taste it?”

“Yeah,” you whisper, your hand sticky with the lube of your own slick, a bead of precum under your thumb. You smear the precum and let go of his hard cock, making it slap against his stomach.  You take your thumb into your mouth and hum, “Mmm,” at the salty taste. 

“Whatcha think,” he whispers breathily. 

“Can I have your cock in my mouth?”

“Oh, baby, ‘course ya can.” The zipper of the sleeping bag jingles, then you hear the satisfying zzz as it unzips.  He folds it down and you get up on your knees. You bend at the hip and don't waste a second. You wrap your thumb and forefinger around the base, trying and failing to make your digits touch. 

Then, your lips wrap around the head.  He inhales sharply through his teeth.

“Did I hurt you?” you ask.

“God no, honey. Go ‘head, taste it all ya want.”  

 You curiously tongue the slit and suck for more. 

“Oh god damn,” he breathes.

You lick around it under the crown and you’re salivating. 

He wraps his hand around yours and moves it up and down, then leaves you be. “Use your spit, honey.” You let it dribble out of your mouth and onto his tip and catch it in your fist. You kitten lick the shaft, tasting your own tang, and letting your saliva fall out of your mouth as it accumulates, occasionally sliding the open ring of your finger and thumb up and down but mostly forgetting because you’re so focused on it in your mouth.

“Ya like that, sweetie? ya like how we taste?” You take a couple inches into your mouth then suck a little more of it in. It twitches against your tongue. The biggest vein throbs. 

“Alright, baby,” he pants and takes it from you. He urgently pulls up his own shirt, slides his hand a few times, then comes with a groan, his voice and pulsing manhood making you ache with need, even though he already made you come. You stay there on your knees.  In the dim moonlight, you watch his tummy rise and fall with the shiny trail leading to, and pooling in, his navel. 

“Can I taste that, too?” you ask. 

“Yeah,” he nods. 

You dip your tongue in the trail below his navel. It’s thicker, headier, saltier than the precum.  It’s not every day you get to taste something new. It’s not often at all. It's delicious.

“Like it,” you whisper.

“Yeah? take all ya want.” 

You lick and seal your lips as you suck it up. You pause to pluck a hair from your teeth, then continue to his navel. You dip your tongue in and his stomach flexes abruptly. You take your mouth off and pause. “Sorry,” you whisper.

“Nothin’ to be sorry ‘bout.” 

You tongue his navel, then suck, and he inhales a chest full of air as you do it, his stomach rising into your lips. You lick up every drop. 

“Good girl,” he sighs and  cups your cheek. “Such a good girl," he sighs.

—

All day you think about it in your mouth, in your hand, resting hard against your back, between your thighs. You imagine it all over your body. Doesn’t matter if he’s pressing it up against your hip or resting it in the crook of your elbow, God, you just want to feel it somewhere. You try not to think about it inside you too much because that makes you want it so bad, you could cry. Like really cry.

It’s not a want. It's a need.  You see it happening everywhere you look. You see a tree, and you imagine him sitting on the forest floor against it, holding his cock at attention, ready for you to sit on it.  You see another tree and he’s pinning you up against it with your legs wrapped around him, jeans pulled down under his ass as he rails you. You see a patch of moss and cluster of ferns that would be a nice pillow with him on top of you.

You think about it, and you dream about it, too. You can’t help that. He starts wearing jeans to sleep, and you can’t feel the shape of him quite as well against you, but it doesn’t matter. The fact that it’s there and it’s hard is enough to drive you mad. Even after he gets you off, it's bound to come back at some point in the night. Worst case scenario, you lose sleep over it. Best case, it works its way into your dreams.

----

One night, you're moaning in your sleep again, and Joel can hardly take it. His cock is painfully stiff and the strain against his jeans makes him ache. His hips press into you on their own; he can't stop them. All he can do is take off his jeans in hopes that being free of the rigid confines will lend some relief.  He was wearing them as an extra layer between the two of you for this exact scenario, but he can no longer bear it.

On one hand, he’s taking precautions, like keeping his jeans on.  But on the other hand, in the heat of the moment, when he’s touching you, he’s taking measures to prepare you, and to see how ready you are. Lately, he scissors his fingers, inserts three to see how you take it.  “Good girl, that’s real good,  honey.” He curls them inside you, “Ohhh, baby, you’re takin’ this real good.”

God, he wants a bed for this. You deserve a fuckin' mattress at the very least. He’s gotta wait. And yet now he finds himself taking off his jeans. He carefully removes them without waking you up. He lies there with his fist around his cock for a minute, still in his boxers, doing nothing but softly squeezing, as if that’ll make it go away.  Then he resigns himself to the magnetism of your body.  He curves his form around yours again and silently sighs as the hardness in his boxers rests against you and he wraps you in a hug. He manages not to thrust against your ass, but in no time, you're pushing yourself back against him. "Joel," you mumble in your sleep. 

"God have mercy," he mutters to himself. 

He's gonna give it to ya good one day, but not yet. Not in a sleeping bag on the forest floor. Not yet. . . not yet. . . not yet, he tells himself, taking deep calming breaths. Your first time shouldn’t be like this. Shouldn’t be here. But god damn he wants to take that tight little hole.  

"Joel,” you whine and push back on him again. He can't stand it. He really can't. He has to wake you up.

He whispers, "Whatcha dreamin 'bout, sweetie?" then feels your breathing change. 

When you blink awake, your hips are slowly moving, pushing your ass back into Joel's hard cock until you stop yourself. 

"Sorry," you mumble. "Did I wake you up?" The sweet sound of your voice isn’t helping.

"Don't be sorry, baby," he murmurs into your hair. 

"I dunno how to stop it," you whisper. "I'm sorry."

"Nothin' to be sorry 'bout, baby doll." He hugs you tight. “Don’t be embarrassed.” His cock swells harder against you. He whispers in your ear, "They want each other real bad, that's all." 

"I know." 

"Have a good dream?"

You sigh. “Yeah.”

“‘bout what?”

“I dunno if you wanna hear it,” you tell him. Fair enough, he's told you to knock it off, after all. 

“Sure I do, honey. Was it you and me?”

“Yeah,” you wedge your hand between your legs. 

"You want a hand?"  

“Yeah.”

“What’d ya dream?” he asks as he reaches into your panties. "God damn," he whispers. You're soaked, swollen, and your clit is throbbing against his hand. "Poor thing." He thrusts his hardness against your ass.  "No wonder you're tryin' to get at this, huh?" 

You're quiet. 

"No wonder ya can't stop thinkin' ‘bout it." He thrusts against you again and moans softly. "What'd ya dream, baby?"

“It was. . .” you can hardly form words thinking about it. It was so vivid, so real. “We were right here, like this.” 

“Yeah?” He uses your ample moisture to lightly rub your clit. 

He begins to make peace with himself that this might happen before he wants. He hooks his fingers into your panties. “Let’s take these off for a lil bit, hmm? Let her breathe.” 

“Okay.”  You bend your knees as he pulls your soaked panties down. 

—-

"We were right here like this, in the dream?" He repeats. 

“You took it out of your pants,” you whisper. He moans softly, takes his hand away, and jostles behind you. Then you feel his naked cock against your skin. Your breath hitches and you whimper at the contact.  He returns his hand between your legs and lazily circles your clit, pressing his naked dick against you.

"Took it out like this?" He asks soft and deep.

"Yeah," 

He thrusts against you and whispers in your ear, "Then what?"

"You put it between my legs." 

He inhales sharply then wedges his cock between your thighs, shuddering as he slides it forward along your dripping seam and the head meets his fingers on your clit. 

You tilt your hips and he whispers, "Oh, baby. Like this?"

"No, you put it inside," you whisper. 

Joel's breath hitches and he twitches against your heat. You moan. He slides slowly through your folds to your clit and back. He tries to slow down and think it over, but there are no thoughts, just his stiff, aching cock and your tight little pussy begging for it.

——

“Will you do that,” you ask, looking over your shoulder but not enough to meet his eyes. 

Joel takes a deep breath. “You think I should? Don’t wanna wait for a bed?” He thrusts in small pulses. “Just a few days, baby.”

“They wanna be together real bad,” you whisper. “how they’re meant to be," you remind him.  

Joel groans at your words. “I know, baby doll.” He takes a deep breath. “How’d it feel in your dream?”

“Full, really full,” you tell him, then sigh. “Felt so big.’

“Ohh, fuck,” Joel breathes into your hair and slides his cock against you, wet and stiff.

“It was like I was hugging you with my, um,” you say, then swallow and tilt your hips. "Hugging it."

“God damn,” he sighs. He pulls his cock back, and as he slides it forward again, it catches at your entrance. You spread your thighs ever so slightly. “You sure ‘bout this,” he confirms, and uses the hand between your legs to nestle his tip just inside. You gasp. 

“Yeah,” you nod. “Yes, please. Joel, please,” you whine. You push back on him with a small grunt, stretching yourself open on his tip. 

“Oh god, baby,” he sighs, then he holds you still and slowly pushes himself inside with a quiet groan muffled by your hair. “Fuck, you’re–ohh, you’re tight.”  You gasp as his girth parts your walls and your body makes room for him.  “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you nod urgently, and he twitches inside you. 

You shiver with pleasure as he pushes further and sighs, “Oh, baby.” 

“Joel,” you whine, “its so big”

“Too big?”

“No,” you reassure him. “I want it.”

He pushes the rest of himself in until his pelvis is flush. He breathes heavily and mutters, “fuck.”

You moan and push back on him. “s’perfect,” you whine.

“you like havin’ me in here?”

“I love it,” you say. 

“As much as the dream?”

“More than the dream.”

“What happened next?” he asks

“Then you it moved like you do in my hand.”

“Yeah,” he begins to rock his hips, his thick cock dragging inside you. “Like this?”

“nnngghh–yeah,” you nod then gasp as you're filled by his length again. “ohhh,” you moan. "And then you came inside—”

He groans, then pants as he’s moving inside you, “Ohh fuck, sweetie I can’t—ohh, I can’t do that, uggghh–god damn.”

“Felt so good, like a massage”

“Ohh, baby, please don’t–”

“And warm”

“Fuck,” he breathes and covers your mouth with his free hand, bicep flexing under your neck as he does it. No way he’s gonna last with you talking like that. 

He begins to slowly move again and you whimper.  You’re right, it is like you’re hugging him. You’re so tight and wet for him, taking his cock so good. 

"Good girl," he whispers, burying his length in you every second or so, only pulling back halfway each time. 

"Such a good girl, wantin' my cock so bad." He moans. "Waitin' all this time—uggh." You push your hips back to meet his thrusts. "That's my girl, takin' me so good," his next thrust is harder and you moan. "Yeah, just like that," he breathes.  His hand teases your clit as he fucks you. You whimper and he repeats, "just like that," his voice shakier, his breath heavier on your ear, “yeah.”

You moan into his hand, and his fingers circle your clit. “C’mon, baby,” he pants. “Gonna come on my cock?” You nod and hum your agreement. “Better do it now, then, you can do it.”

You let go and your clit pulses madly, your walls clench down on him. It feels so good, your eyes well up in tears.

“Ohh, baby,” he sighs, and suddenly pulls out. He replaces his cock with two fingers that your cunt begins to hug. “Such a good girl, squeezin’ my fingers.”  

His aching arousal presses against your ass, and he humps against you as he fingers you. “Ohh, yea--ohhhh.” His cock begins to pulse, spreading a silky warmth across your skin. He moans and sighs as you finish coming on his fingers and his balls empty. 

—-

He uses a shirt of his to clean you up. As his breathing calms down, he hears you sniffling. “Hey, hey, you okay, sweetie?”

You’re fine, more than fine, but you can’t talk.

“Shit,” he mutters to himself when you don’t answer.  He peeks over your side, gently stroking your arm. “Hey, c’mere, talk to me, sweetie.”  You turn around and face him.  “You okay, honey?”

You nod and smile at him with watery eyes.

His brows knit as he finishes catching his breath.  He kisses you on the forehead and wraps you in a hug. You sniffle again and he speaks into your hair. “I know that was a big deal for you, baby.”  He pulls his head back and tilts your chin up. “It was big for me too, okay?” You nod.  He reads your eyes, then presses his lips into yours. He reads your face again, then repeats the kiss and you kiss him back. He kisses you on the forehead and holds you, stroking your head. You fall asleep holding each other face-to-face.

-----

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Thank you so much for reading and engaging! Your comments and reblogs go a long way in motivation. There's a virgin section on my joel master list right above the one shots. Left in Lincoln is a pretty similar Joel, in terms of how he is with you sexually.

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[yoditostan]

thoughts

1.6k / joel miller x virgin!reader / master

sequel to Aches but can read alone. WARNINGS: I8+ mdni, big girthy age gap (20/50s) only one sleeping bag, pining, fingering, grinding, jacking off, hand job, mutual masturbation, innocence, pet names. No use of y/n.

🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤

“You don’t have to do it for me,” you whisper.  

The problem is, the more Joel relieves you, the more often you seem to ache.  The more you think about him and his body - his body pressed against yours, wrapped around yours.  Inside yours - It’s what you think about all day, every day now.  It’s getting really bad.  It’s hard to keep eye contact sometimes.  

-

Earlier, you were both rummaging through an abandoned convenience store. Joel walked up and asked, “Find anything ya like?”  You turned around and your eyes instantly fell on his tight jeans.  He followed your gaze down, then slowly stepped toward you.  “Hmm?” he prompted you.  

You stammered, “Sorry. What?”  

He smiled to himself.  “See anything ya like?” 

“I, uh-”  

“In the store, honey.”  He briefly glanced around the building.  “Find anything good?” 

“Oh.  No, I guess not.” Your whole face was hot.  

He cupped your burning cheek and his brow furrowed as he asked, “You okay, sweetie? You’re warm.” 

“Yeah, I’m okay,” you whispered with your eyes drowning in his.  A pool was forming in your panties and his touch on your face made you throb between the legs.  It was that moment you realized how out of control your desires were getting.  It was a constant distraction. 

-

Now you’re huddled in his sleeping bag as usual.  Joel is spooning you with his hard dick pressed against you.  Your top leg is back slightly behind you, between his legs, to make room for his hand between your thighs. He’s two knuckles deep and you’re already close to falling apart. He’s been helping you for a couple of weeks now, and it gets easier and easier to let yourself come. 

“Course I don’t have to,” he says and pushes another finger into you.  You inhale a chest full of air as he pushes his digits to the hilt and curls them.  Your hips lift into his hand which was already soaked with your arousal before he inserted a single digit.  “Why? Want me to stop?” Your clit rubs against his slick palm as he expertly works his fingers. 

“No,” you whisper. “I don’t want you to stop.” 

“Good,” he murmurs, moving his fingers rhythmically as you grind into his hand.  Then he whispers in your ear,  “Cause I kinda like doin’ it.”  

You moan softly. 

“Ya know,” he says softly, “You might like helpin’ me, too.”  

You’ve thought so much about his cock.  You’ve felt it pressed hard against you so many times through his boxers and your panties.  You’ve never touched it though, not with your hands.  You haven’t felt the skin, except one time when it was accidentally peeking through his boxers and the tip touched your lower back, making a wet spot on your shirt.  When you flinched, he apologized. 

“Yeah,” you whisper. “Maybe.” 

“Why don’t we find out,” he murmurs. “try just a few seconds?”

You swallow, ashamed of your eagerness for anything involving his cock.  “Okay,” you say hesitantly.  

“Good girl.”  He takes his hand away from between your legs for just long enough to free his aching manhood from his boxers and lube it with your slick. “Gimme your hand, sweetie.”  

“I dunno how or anything,” you tell him. You clench your thighs together, still in need of relief.  You’re not sure if you’ve ever ached this badly.  

“That’s okay.  Don’t gotta do anything.” 

You slowly reach back, offering him your hand as you crane your neck to look to his eyes for reassurance.  It’s too dark to see, but you can still feel what his warm eyes would look like. 

“Think you’re gonna like this. But if ya don’t, ya don’t have to, okay?” He wraps your hand around his cock upside down. “Yeah,” he whispers.  “Just kinda hold it. That’s all ya gotta do.” His breathing is heavier with your hand touching his stiff cock. It’s larger than you thought it would be.  You always imagined you’d easily be able to wrap your hand around one.  

Joel thrusts into your slick hand and you feel a stab of need.

“How’s that?” he asks, thrusting slowly into your hand again with a barely audible grunt. 

“Good,” you whisper, holding your hand behind you. The skin of his shaft is so smooth. Now more than ever, you’re aching to be filled.  

“Attagirl,” he murmurs.  “Still want my help, right?”

“Yeah,” you breathe.  

“Good girl.” He reaches his arm over yours and slides his hand between your legs again. He softly groans when he feels how much wetter you are than you were just a minute ago.  All this, just from touching his cock.  “God damn,” he whispers. 

“What?”

“Nothin', baby.”  

It would be hard to say what you prefer - having his cock thrust into your hand or against your body. But finally feeling it naked, feeling its shape, the softness of the skin, the impossible firmness of the erection – it takes your breath away.  He slides two fingers into your cunt and pumps them at the same slow rhythm he’s thrusting into your hand. 

Your pleasure builds rapidly, and you badly need release. “Doin’ great, baby,” he says in a deep, gruff whisper. “Just perfect.” He gradually increases the pace,  moving his fingers and cock in unison.  His cock fills your hand as his fingers fill your dripping cunt.  You’re keenly aware of what you’d rather be filled with.  

He softly grunts into your hair.  “Ohh, yeah,” he sighs as he thrusts into your hand and pumps his fingers.

You whimper at the edge of your climax, your upper back pressing into his chest and your hips grinding desperately into his large hand as his fingers fuck you. Your whole body tenses. 

He talks you through it soothingly as usual, lips planted near your ear. “Yeah, baby,” he murmurs, “you’re there, I got ya.”  Your hips push desperately into the palm of his hand, and his hand pushes back just right.  You whine his name as your core finds its stuttering release. The pleasure is more explosive than ever.  

“Good girl,” he whispers.  You recover for a few seconds, then turn around to face him.  He quickly folds down the unzipped sleeping bag for more space and rolls onto his back.  “You wanna keep helpin’?”

You nod and whisper, “yeah.” Then you add “Am I doing okay?” 

“'Course you are, baby. Get your hand wet between your legs now,” he says, which embarrasses you.  

“Nothin’ to be ashamed of, remember?” 

You take his cock in  your hand again and he covers it with his, showing you how tight to grip it and how to stroke it over the head. 

“Good girl.” 

-

Once you’ve got the hang of it, he asks, “You like helpin’ me?” 

You nod as you keep stroking his cock.  

Joel says, “Mmm hmm,” and looks at you curiously.  “Why’d ya say I don’t have to help?” His breathing is still heavy, but he’s trying to control it as you talk. 

You open your mouth but hesitate to answer. Instead, you stare down into the darkness, imagining what his cock must look like based on all the details that are gliding in and out of your hand.  He’s soooo hard.  

“You can tell me anything, pretty girl.”  He takes a deep breath. “We figure stuff out together, remember?” He breathes again. “Always do.” 

“Yeah,” you whisper, then you swallow. “I dunno how to say it,” you admit.  

“Do your best,” he says. 

“Since you’ve been helping me, I’ve been feeling it more often.”

“You have?” he asks. “Like how?” His hips subtly move as you keep stroking his cock. 

“Like during the day.  Randomly.” 

“That’s okay, baby.” 

“But it aches, and it’s distracting.” 

“Distracting?”  His voice becomes more strained. 

“I have a lot of thoughts all the time.” 

“What kinda thoughts, baby?”  His voice has a sense of urgency. 

“About you.” 

He moans softly. “Uh-huh. Like what?” 

“Um-”

“Tell me anything, baby,” he quickly reassures you, nearly out of breath.   

“About this,” you whisper. You pause to give his cock a squeeze to make sure he knows that’s what you’re talking about.  “Yeah, about this.” Then you continue stroking.  

“Ohh baby,” he exhales. “Course ya do.” 

“All the time,” you whisper. 

“And what about it?”  he pants.  

“I’m not sure,” you mutter.  

“Thinkin’ ‘bout me bein’ inside you?” he asks, still panting.  He moans softly.  

“Yeah,” you whisper. 

“Ohhhhhh, God,” he sighs as he begins to pulse into your hand. “God damn, baby,” he breathes as he releases his last hot, sticky rope into your fist.   

-

Joel catches his breath, then says, “'Course ya have those thoughts, sweetie. I have the same thoughts. Everyone does."  

“You do?” 

“It’s normal,.  They teach biology in FEDRA school right?” 

“Yeah.”

“It’s biology, honey.  Our bodies feel things for each other.  They wanna be together in the way they’re meant to.  It’s how we work -  Nothin’ but science.” 

You’re not sure how that’s supposed to help you.  

He reaches for his backpack and grabs some paper to wipe off your hand and his stomach. 

“So what do I do about it?” you ask him. 

He’s quiet for a few seconds.  "Let’s think about it, honey.  We’ll figure it out together.” 

“Okay.” 

“We’ll figure it out, sweetie.  We always do.” 

“Yeah.” 

He wraps himself around you and kisses your head, then you say good night.  You think about what he said so matter of factly.  The thought of it excites you but also scares you.  Especially now that you’ve felt how big he is with your hand for scale. 

🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤

Thank you so much for reading and engaging.  Love you guys <33

if you like this, please check out my dbf x innocent virgin! reader fic Left in Lincoln (dbf x virgin) which has been ongoing since April. Read warnings. Also, my master list has a virginity section on it.

You can subscribe to @toxicfics for notifications and @toxicrecs for my fic recs.

-

All Joel:@ethanhoewke @silkiers @eiviea @evyiione @xdaddysprincessxx @queerly-anxious @chernayawidow @ambassadortotrilliusprime @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @jasminespringtime @romanarose  @fandomsfallnomore  @djarinxore @blackvelveteen1339   @manazo @wolvesandvampires  @taeslarityy  @str84pedro @lokanda  @kyloispunk  @filthfairy  @fieryglutenfreechickennoodles  @harriedandharassed  @moonlightdivine @worhols @fan-fiction-floozy  @cutesyscreenname  @weddingfairy  @pedropascal-whore  @spideysimpossiblegirl  @feministfanboi @gracieispunk @prettypartyfavor @am-3-thyst @babeincolor @milla-frenchy @switchbladedreamz

[yoditostan]

i had dream about this lol. reader is naive/innocent/virgin, they know about sex but not much about masturbation. reader tells joel that they’ve been having this problem at night (usually) where they get all hot and achey down there. joel’s like well i know a way you can fix that feeling!! hopefully this isn’t too outrageous, i just love perv!joel lololll

Aches

900 / Joel x innocent!Reader / master / sequel

WARNINGS: I8+ mdni, big girthy age gap (20/50s) only one sleeping bag. fingering, grinding. mention of Joel being a girl dad.

You can't sleep.  You scoot your lower body forward and away from Joel's crotch.  

"You okay, sweetie?" 

Not really, but you don't know how to talk to him about it.  You’ve been sharing a sleeping bag with Joel ever since yours was lost in a scuffle.  Joel's is big enough for both of you, but barely.  You’re settled in against him with your head on his bicep trying to get to sleep, but he was poking into you again, and it makes you ache.  The feeling between your legs is so distracting, so overwhelming you can't sleep.  

It seizes you and won’t let you relax, but you don’t know what to do about it.  You’re a grown woman, of course you’ve tingled before, felt the warmth between your legs, thought about sex, hoped to have it one day.  But this aching, throbbing feeling worries you.  It’s so beyond anything you’ve ever felt before.  It's extreme and sometimes it hurts. You worry something has happened to you from sleeping so rough, not having the right products people used to have for their periods.

The feeling is at its worst when his dick gets hard and presses up against you.  That makes you suspect it's sexual. But you never learned how to get yourself off, and it's too late now.

"Um, yeah," you whisper. "I'm okay."

You squirm uncomfortably and dig a hand between your legs just to stay there.  

"What's wrong honey?" 

You sigh. "I just feel funny, that's all. You can't help. It's girl stuff."

"Now, hold on. Gimme some credit. I was a girl dad remember?  You havin' cramps?"  He gently rubs your lower belly, making the throbbing between your legs even worse.  

"No, not like that," you groan.  

He lifts his head up and gets more serious. "What's goin' on, sweetie? Where's it hurt?" 

Your face burns as you start to try to tell him. "In the front between my legs." 

His breath hitches.  "What's it feel like?" 

"It just aches and tingles and feels like a lot of pressure." 

He inhales deeply. "Anything else that goes with it?"

"I get wet," you say. "But I don't think it's like normal. This is really a lot, and I'm afraid something's wrong." 

He's quiet for a moment. "Nothin's wrong with you, baby," he murmurs. "Imma try somethin', okay? Tell me if this makes it worse or better."

"Okay." You're desperate.  Plus, you've been traveling with him for weeks and you're past the point of modesty.

He nestles in behind you and grinds his hard cock into your ass. "Worse or better?" 

"Worse, worse." 

"Okay, now we know what the problem is. It's just tension, baby. Built up pressure. Your body's reactin' to mine."

"Okay. . ."

"Just gotta relieve that pressure. It's okay, we all do it. I can give ya some space if ya want" 

Your heart rate speeds up.  He must assume you know how. "I don't do that," you whisper. 

"Ya gotta. Not gonna go away on its own, sweetie."

"I never figured out how. maybe something's wrong with me"

"Nothin's wrong with ya sweetie." He's quiet for a moment then he strokes your abdomen reassuringly. His hand finds yours between your legs. "Want some help?" He asks. 

"Um, alright." 

You move your hand out of the way and Joel's replaces it, first feeling you over your underwear. He whistles silently when he feels how wet you are. Then he slides his hand into your waistband.  "This okay?"

"Yeah." 

He backs up and urges you to lie down flat on your back.  His hand wedges between your thighs and you move them apart, making space. He watches you watch his hand. He bypasses your clit to wetten his fingers with your arousal. "This okay?" He asks and you nod. 

His middle finger prods at your entrance "can I go in?"  You nod again. 

He scoots up and presses his hard cock into your hip as he swirls his finger, then inserts it to the first knuckle and your mouth falls open with the intrusion. "Real tight," he mutters. 

"What's that mean?"

"Nothin', baby."

He proceeds to insert his whole finger, then adds another.  He slides his fingers through your folds then finds your clit and begins to rub wet circles. "Tell me when it feels right," he says. 

He tries a few angles, speeds, and techniques until one really hits the spot and you say "that."

"Good girl." 

He rubs you just how you like. "Now if you wanna touch your nipple or somethin', sometimes that helps, too." 

You slide a hand under your shirt and lightly caress your breast. You feel your lower belly heating up, you're getting more tense but also feeling so good with his hand between your legs.  He grinds himself into you as he fingers you and watches your spine begin to arch. 

"Come on, sweetie. Let it happen."

You whine from the pressure. "Joel, I - I don't know how"

"Sure ya do, baby just let go, let it happen," his voice is soothing and low. 

You whine again and pinch your eyes shut. 

"I know baby, you're almost there;" 

A few more strokes and you see stars.  You ride massive waves of pleasure and relief. It feels so good you cry. 

-

"Shhh, it's okay, baby. I got you."  He caresses your face. "You're okay, I got you, sweetie." He presses a kiss to your temple.

SEQUEL: Thoughts

Thank you so much for reading. I always love your comments 🥹🙏

If you're into innocent readers, there's more where this came from. . . My ongoing series Left in Lincoln has an innocent, naive, virgin reader. And my master list has a virgin section lol.

-

All Joel: @ethanhoewke @silkiers @eiviea @evyiione @xdaddysprincessxx @queerly-anxious @chernayawidow @ambassadortotrilliusprime @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @jasminespringtime @romanarose  @fandomsfallnomore @djarinxore @lokanda @blackvelveteen1339   @manazo @wolvesandvampires  @taeslarityy @str84pedro @kyloispunk @filthfairy @fieryglutenfreechickennoodles @harriedandharassed @moonlightdivine @worhols @fan-fiction-floozy @cutesyscreenname @weddingfairy @pedropascal-whore @spideysimpossiblegirl

[yoditostan]

𝑨𝑸𝑼𝑨𝑻𝑰𝑪 𝑹𝑬𝑯𝑨𝑩𝑰𝑳𝑰𝑻𝑨𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

genre: smut, minors dni, no outbreak au, strangers to lovers

word count: 7.2k

summary: Joel has been experiencing knee pain for the past two months. When he finally sees an orthopedist, he learns that he has some minor damage to his meniscus. The doctor prescribes him anti-inflammatory medication and physical therapy, recommending swimming. At the pool, he meets you.

warnings: conversation about past failed relationships + sexual relationships, sarah's off at college, reader being briefly self conscious about her body, touch starved joel, oral (giving), both reader and joel not being intimate with anyone for a while, piv sex, riding for the first time, ass play, messy, joel showing small signs of relationship anxiety, sexual tension, size kink, dirty talk, joel is mentioned to be older than reader but how old isn't specified, praise kink, joel being...well-endowed

a/n: this ended up being more emotional and longer than I intended lmaodfbvfg whoops?

Joel worries his bottom lip between his teeth. His right knee bobs nervously, his jeans making a sound every time. The early morning sun filters through the small window. A soft yellow light bounces off the picture frames on the orthopedist's desk. She’s not here yet. The kind nurse had let him in early, saying she would be there shortly. It smells like medicine. It’s too clean and he doesn’t like it. 

His stomach turns. Some part of him actually hopes the doctor doesn’t come in. Joel’s not hopeful about the results. His knees have been bugging him for the past two months. Locking painfully whenever he sat too long and got up. Or when he was sitting in the truck for too long. It just started to ache out of nowhere. It had gotten worse. He’d give in, finally, after Sarah practically begged him on the phone to see a doctor. After all this time he still couldn’t say no to his sweet girl. 

The door opens with a click. Joel becomes stiff, eyes nervously following the woman. She takes a seat. Placing the folder neatly on the shiny table, she opens it and smooths it out with the flat of her palms. 

“Good morning, Mister Miller.” she says, not bothering to look at him. “I've taken a look at your knee x-rays and it seems that you have a bit of damage in your meniscus.”

His molars catch the smooth inside of his cheek and sink into it. She just said a whole lot that he doesn’t understand. He shakes his head. She’s finally looking at him, sharp eyes peering between thinned lashes. 

“Is it serious? What does that mean?” he asks, hands finding the curve of his knees. 

“Well, the good news is that it's not a major injury. There’s just a bit of damage in the tissues and can be treated with some medication and physical therapy. You won’t need surgery unless it escalates. Which, hopefully, it won’t.”

“Okay, that's good to hear. What kind of medication and therapy do I need?”

“I'm going to prescribe you some anti-inflammatory medication to help reduce the swelling and pain in your knee. And as for physical therapy, I'd recommend you try swimming. It's a low-impact exercise that can help strengthen the muscles around your knee and promote healing. I also have some stretches I want to show you. I want you to do them daily.” 

She closes the folder, picks up a deck of Post-it notes, and starts scribbling something. 

“You were a contractor, right? I’m going to need you to refrain from heavy lifting for a while. No jumping, no running, no extreme movements that can affect your knee. Some walking is fine, but not a lot.” 

“Well,” he smacks his lips. Now relaxed, he leans back into the chair and crosses his arms. “There goes my weekend plans.” 

“Do you work out a lot? Because this is quite common in athletes.” 

“Uh…It was a joke.” 

“Oh.” 

Suddenly he’s fidgety again. Not wanting to look dumb, he explains. “Because you said jumpin’ and runnin’ and no one spends their weekend jumpin’ do they?” 

A nervous laughter bubbles in his throat, and he manages to swallow it down. She nods and peels the paper away. Handing it to Joel, she looks at him with a small smile. 

“Sorry about that, it’s still early. And you’re right. They don’t. 

You step into the small shower cabin and allow the cold water to trace over your skin and wash away the outside. The elastic of your swimming cap digs into your forehead, the goggles applying pressure right above your head. Slightly irritated, you sneak two fingers under where the plastic starts, allowing your head to breathe one last time before taking a dip in the pool. You come here almost every day. It’s relaxing, soothing. 

Your fingers slip as you twist the knob, turning off the spray of water. You might be biased due to your childhood, but you love the pool. You love the chlorine that fills your lungs with every breath. It’s sharp and pungent, leaving a slight burn in your lungs. During summers your parents would send you off to summer camp, which you thoroughly enjoyed. Though, calling it a “camp” felt wrong. It wasn’t outdoors, and you would return after the day ended, just like regular school, but instead of math, there was swimming and basketball. 

You remember those days fondly, which is why you sigh blissfully at the scent whereas a lot of people would wrinkle their noses. 

Walking to the pool, you roll your shoulders. You wince upon hearing them crack. It’s been a long week. Your gaze lifts to the ceiling. The soft pitter patters of rain echoes. You love to swim when it rains. It also meant there would be fewer people, and no children. You don’t have anything against the tiny humans, but they had a habit of being loud. 

You spot an older couple, their bodies swaying in a lazy backstroke, their voices spilling out in laughter. You also notice one other person that’s aggressively swimming back and forth. In one lane, you notice a man. His cap and black goggles make it hard to catch a glimpse of his face. It’s hardly inappropriate, but you can’t resist stealing a few more glances at him. 

You take in his broad shoulders, thick neck, and shapely arms. You narrow your eyes. You catch a glimpse of his salt and pepper beard, the darker hue of his mustache hinting at the  color of his hair. Your eyes drop to his hands, hidden in the water up to the knuckles. He clenches them into fists before releasing them.

Your curiosity piques. You’ve never seen him before, he looks lost. He’s standing above the built-in stairs which are mainly used for people who are just learning to swim. He takes another step lower. The light blue water splashes over his soft stomach and he jerks away. You instinctively smile. You usually don’t reach out to people. If they smile at you, you smile back or talk about the weather. But the stranger’s nervous energy prompts you to take a couple of steps closer—close enough that he can hear you. You take a deep breath, pressing your nails into your palms, you push down the thoughts about your own appearance. No one really looks that good in a one piece. You feel exposed, which is why you usually dip into the water as fast as you can before anyone can get a good look. 

“Hi there,” you squeak, with an awkward lift of your hand. The man stiffens and turns. Your own image is reflected back at you thanks to the goggles he wears. “Sorry to bother you, I was just…wondering if you need help?” 

He stares at you in silence for a brief moment, his brows drawn together with confusion. But a moment later he relaxes, his shoulders drop and he playfully shakes his head. 

Finally, he removes the goggles, and you see his eyes— his gorgeous, big brown eyes. Your breath catches in your throat. You’re suddenly feeling very clammy and sweaty. 

“Is it that obvious?” he asks, a grin teasing at his lips. “My doctor said I need to start swimmin’ before my knees give out entirely.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” 

He waves his hand in dismissal, “Don’t be. It's nothin’ that serious, just small damage to my meniscus. I know how to swim, so it’s nothin’ like that but I guess my nerves are fried from worryin’ all weak about the results. My brain still ain’t convinced that everythin’ is fine.” 

God, he’s gorgeous. All you can do is focus on the movement of his lips. Him speaking is enough to fluster you. You need to get it together before he thinks you’re a creep. You part your lips, but the words die in your throat as you watch him. He starts climbing the steps one by one with an extended hand. The water cascades down his body, his trunks sticking to his thighs. In a fit of panic, you glue your eyes to his. 

“I’m Joel by the way.” he takes your hand and gives it two firm shakes. You introduce yourself but all you can hear is your own frantic heartbeat. 

“I’m glad it’s nothing serious,” you blurt out. You have no idea what to say or what you’re doing. “If you’re nervous we can do a couple of laps together if you want—if you’re comfortable with that, of course.” 

You swear your heart stops when his eyes flit across your face, assessing how serious you are. His smile never fades. You inhale sharply when his tongue darts out from between his lips, sweeping over his damp bottom lip.

“I bet you say that to all the older guys.” 

“Only the cute ones.” 

Clearly, the circuits between your brain and mouth are heavily damaged because there’s no way on god’s green earth did you just say that. You blink fast. Images of you choking out another you vivid in your mind. You’re insane—only the ones that are cute, who even says that? No more romantic comedies for you. 

Joel pushes his shoulders back. He exhales a deep breath, his chest heaving. 

“Well, ain’t that kind of you.” he takes a step back into the water, some part of you regrets not sneaking at least one more glance at his nethers. “I guess I should take you up on your offer. It’s only polite.” 

A nervous bubble of laughter escapes your throat. You don’t say anything and follow him into the pool. You’re glad to be finally submerging your body in water. Ever since you were little you would believe that water had magical healing properties. You would go into the water, thinking that someone it would speak to you. Despite being an adult, you still think that sometimes. It just makes life a little bit more fun. You know it’s stupid to think of chloric water having any kind of benefit to your body, however, it’s hard to break old thought patterns. 

Joel dips head first, and after watching his distorted silhouette underwater, you follow. You smile, bubbles coming from your nose. Your spine cracks as your body becomes more fluid. You turn around so you are facing upwards. Light bounces on top of the small waves. The ceiling is nothing but a blur of white and blue. Some part of you wishes this was an open pool so you could feel the vibrations of raindrops hitting the waterline. 

Turning again, you notice Joel moving up. His head pops above water. You take one last glance at his body before propelling yourself up, joining him. 

Your eyes follow the way waterdrops smooths a line down from his neck to his shoulder. Your mouth goes dry. 

“So,” you say. “Did your doctor give you any specific exercises?” 

He shakes his head, “She just told me to go swimmin’. And not to put pressure on my knees.” 

You think for a bit before answering, “Alright then. We’ll just take it slow, so a couple of laps first, take small breaks in between.” 

“You…really don’t have to, you know,” Joel looks almost guilty before his eyes move away from yours. Confused, you raise an eyebrow. 

“I don’t have to what?” 

“Swim with me.” 

You feel your heart shattering into tiny pieces of glass that stick to your lungs. His voice is barely above a whisper, cracking at the end of his sentence. Your body moves towards his by instinct. The most natural thing would be to place your hand on his cheek and pull him for a tender kiss. Your body singing at you to do it. And man, you’re tempted alright. You want to trace the seam of his lips with your tongue, taste the chlorine on his lips. 

You ball your hands into tight fists, thankful to be hidden underwater. You recognize the loneliness that maps across his handsome countenance. 

“I know I don’t have to,” you say instead. He looks back at you with surprise, eyes immediately dropping to your wet lips. “I want to.” 

He lets out a breath of relief, and nods, a smile gracing his lips. “A’right then. As long as I’m not keepin’ you from anythin’.” 

The swimming had gone well. Joel definitely had the body and stamina for it, and the more laps he did, the more confident he became with his strokes. You found yourself staring at him openly, stealing glances before you dipped below the water, hiding your embarrassment. 

However, he was still a beginner, and he’s knees began to ache after the tenth lap. He insisted that you continue without him as he sat at the side of the pool. You were hesitant at first but agreed, however, your cheeks burned from the mere prospect of that man watching you swim. 

When you’re done, you catch him staring at you with a fond smile lingering on his lips. You imagine that’s the same look he’d give you with the first rays of sunlight after a rather passionate night. 

Your pussy bottoms out, heat spreading between your legs. You inhale sharply, accidentally snorting a bit of water. It burns and your eyes water, but you manage to swallow down the frantic coughs that threaten to rip from your throat. 

“Sweet little mermaid.” he mutters as you approach, eyes following you with greed. Your breath hitches, and Joel loses his grounding for a moment. He clears his throat and looks away. “You swim well.” 

“Thanks,” you answer. “You’re not so bad yourself.” 

You ignore the heat that emanates from his thigh, your arms accidentally brushing against the hard muscle. You clumsily push yourself out of the pool and take a seat next to him. 

“How’re your knees feeling?” you ask. 

He lets out a hum, stretching his legs underwater. “They’re fine. Hopefully, this works.” 

“I’m sure it will.” 

"Even if it doesn't work out, at least I won't be going home empty-handed," he says with a smile. Your eyes flick to him and widen slightly. Very inappropriately, your nipples tighten. A blush starts from his neck and spreads across his broad chest, you notice the goosebumps bursting over his skin. He starts to fidget with his thumbs. “And by that, I mean that I got to meet you. I think I put that weirdly.” 

The world comes rushing back and you feel the soft waves of the pool on your skin again. You smile. Without thinking much, you playfully nudge his shoulder with your own. A soft chuckle parts his lips as he leans into you. Neither of you moves away from the other. 

“So,” you say, flinching at how high-pitched you sound. “Is there a Mrs. Joel?” 

He laughs. The sound reminds you of an open field with colorful flowers dancing side to side with the wind. Instinctively, you sigh, your lashes kissing your cheeks. 

“Nope,” he answers. “What about you?” 

You shake your head, “I’ve been single for two years.” 

“I find that hard to believe.” 

“Well,” you look ahead, the old couple you spotted before is getting out of the pool. “My heart got broken quite a few times. I think without noticing I closed myself off after my last relationship. I find it hard to open up now and—” you cut off, your gaze drifting back to him. You bark an uncomfortable-sounding laugh and drop your head to your chest. “Aaand, I have no idea why I’m telling you this. Sorry.” 

“Don’t apologize, darlin’. For what it’s worth, I haven’t been with anyone for a long time either.” 

You grin and raise an eyebrow, “I find that hard to believe.” 

Joel smiles but it’s a soft one, like he’s remembering something—or in this case, someone. With unblinking eyes, you wait for him to elaborate. He notices your gaze, his smile stretches into a grin. 

“It’s not that interestin’ of a story,” he sighs. “I had my daughter when I was quite young. Mother left. And until Sarah went to college there was no one. After she left…I had a couple of flings but that’s pretty much it. Nothin’ long term.” 

“You have a daughter?” 

“Uh, yeah.” he answers, scratching the back of his head. You feel kind of bad now that you made him feel awkward. That wasn’t your intention at all. You’re surprised, but you find it to be sweet that he has a daughter. It must’ve been hard to raise her on his own. 

Before you can say anything, you sense him pulling back, both emotionally and physically. His shoulder isn’t pressed against yours anymore, the lack of contact makes you ache. He moves his legs languidly under the water, your gaze follows the movement. 

“I know it might be awkward. And not ideal. But I would love it if we could get to know each other more.” 

Your ears burning, you take his hand into yours, squeezing it tightly. If he’s surprised by your sudden gesture, he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t look at you and you squeeze again, drawing his gaze back to you. 

“That’s not why I asked. That was probably a bit insensitive of me, I was just surprised and it came out wrong.” you let out a breath of relief when his thumb begins to draw slow circles over your skin. A shiver settles at the base of your spine. “And I would very much like to get to know you.” 

Your heart skips a beat at the way his entire face lights up. Looking at him proving to be similar to looking into the sun, you lower your gaze and grin. You feel dizzy. 

“Does that mean I can ask for your number sunshine?” he asks and leans closer. His warm breath fanning your cheek. 

You nod, “Of course.” 

The pleasant buzz that thrums in your veins soon shift into one of simmering annoyance. Of course, someone took—no, stole—your umbrella. It’s just your luck. It’s raining cats and dogs and all you can do is watch the heavy drops collide with concrete as you wait outside. You look up to the sky, pleading that it stops. You love the rain, love listening to it, but only if you’re surrounded by your cozy home wrapped in a blanket. Or if you’re swimming. 

You could’ve handled a soft drizzle, sometimes you even enjoyed walking under the rain, but not this. You swear one of those drops alone can poke an eye out. It’s deafening. Thunder echoes, and you can’t help but flinch. Everything is so loud. Your body is refreshed, but at the same time, your muscles are drained from all the swimming. Exhausted from the workout and the excitement, all you want is a cozy nook with a steaming cup of tea and a good book.

You don’t have much else to do until the rain stops, therefore, you think of Joel. He’d been truly a splendid surprise. Sometimes life sucked but moments like those made it better. After exchanging numbers, he’d promised to call you as soon as he was back home. 

A smile tugs at your lips. You find it cute that he said he called instead of texting you. You’ll get to hear his voice which is a huge plus. 

You’re viciously ripped away from your thoughts when a loud honk echoes above the rain. With your hairs standing on edge, you see a truck with the window pulled down. You narrow your eyes. The rain and headlights create a thick fog, making it difficult to see clearly. 

“Joel?” you call out, hoping that you’re seeing right. 

“Hey,” he answers, leaning over and popping the door open for you. “Hop in.” 

You take the first step, a bit uncertain with your movements in fear that it might be an illusion created by the stormy night, but it’s not. The leather seat under you is solid and so is the man sitting next to you. You wipe your face with your sleeve. 

“Thanks. You basically saved my ass right now. Some asshole stole my umbrella.” 

He grins, “It’s the least I could do.” 

The rain pounds relentlessly against the windshield, the sound a chaotic symphony that drowns out everything else. Thunder rumbles in the distance, and you flinch as a particularly loud crack splits through the air. You jump in your seat. Joel’s hand lands softly on your thigh, sending a jolt of electricity through your body. You look at him, surprised, and he meets your gaze with a small smile.

“Is this alright?” he asks, his voice gentle as he squeezes.

You nod, your heart pounding in your chest. His touch is warm and inviting. Like a soft caress that makes your skin tingle. You feel a sudden urge to lean into him, to climb on top of his lap, and allow his wide hands to roam all over your back. 

Joel starts the car and drives onto the road. The world outside is a blur of colors and lights. Neon signs flicker in the rain, casting a rainbow of colors on the wet pavement. The buildings are tall and imposing, like ancient giants looming over the city. The headlights of passing cars slice through the darkness, creating sharp streaks of light that dance across your vision.

You watch the world pass by in a daze, lost in thought. The rain is a soothing sound, like a lullaby that whispers you to sleep. Joel’s hand on your thigh is a comforting presence, grounding you in reality. 

The rain grows louder, the drops striking the windshield almost violently. Much to your disappointment, he pulls his hand away, leaving you feeling a sudden emptiness. You open your eyes, watching as he shifts gears and maneuvers the car through the busy streets.

You lean your head against the window, watching the world outside blur by in a dizzying whirl. You don’t have much to say and that’s okay. His presence isn’t forcing you to make awkward small talk. You’re completely content just being here with him, a moment you’re positive that you’ll never forget, no matter which direction your relationship with him goes. 

When you finally pull up to your house, dread washes over you. You want to invite him inside for something warm, as a thank you for rescuing you from the rain. But you’re not entirely sure that you should. 

You push back your worries.

“This is me,” you break the silence. "Would you like to come inside for a bit? I have tea and coffee— or perhaps you would prefer wine to warm you up?" 

The last addition was meant as a joke, a little bit of humor to break the tension. Joel’s lips are tightly pressed together, his knuckles almost white from how hard he’s squeezing the steering wheel. After grueling moments of silence, he swallows and turns off the car. 

“Wine sounds great.” 

The sound of your front door closing behind you feels momentous. Ironically enough, you don’t get to open the bottle of wine. You kiss him first, and he follows, pushing you up against the wall with possessive hands. You barely manage to push the door closed. He’s all consuming. Inhaling your chlorine scented skin and drinking lust from your lips. He kneads your breasts in his large palms and you gasp into his mouth, he swallows the sound. Parting away, he licks the seam of your lips before leveling you with a steady gaze. 

“I promised myself to take this slow,” he rasps, panting heavily. When the first hints of laughter tickle the back of your throat, he takes hold of your hips and presses them firmly together. You feel the hardness of his length through the fabric of his jeans. Your eyes roll back. “That feels good don’t it—fuck—I just don’t want to fuck this up, you’re really nice and—” 

“Joel,” you say, cupping his cheeks and forcing him to meet your gaze. “Calm down. You’re not going to fuck this up. We’re in this together. I really want this, you do too. But if you want to go slow, have that wine, we’ll go slow. But I don’t want you to be stressed out of your mind no matter what you choose, okay?” 

He exhales a breath, deep and steady. “Okay,” he says, hands squeezing your hips. “Okay. Sorry ‘bout that. I hope I didn’t scare you off.” 

“You could never,” you say, brushing your lips together. “So, what do you wanna do?” 

“I think I want to show you to a good time, sweetheart.” 

“Meaning?” 

“I want to fuck you.” he swallows. “If you want it too.” 

“Oh, believe me. I do.” 

You catch the curve of a mischievous smile before he crashes into you, claiming your lips in a heady kiss. He pushes a leg between your thighs and your grind down, gasping at the friction. Warmth gathers under the tissue of your stomach, everlasting. It’s been so long since you felt like this. The heat of someone tearing you apart and pulling you back again. 

A pleasant tingle spreads from your legs up your spine. Joel licks into you, his tongue moving over yours. He nips at your bottom lip. You whine when he parts away, his lips leaving a trail of wet kisses down your neck. He feels your pulse with his lips. An involuntary giggle leaves you as his mustache chafes the skin. He teeths at the flesh and you grind your hips down once more, wetness growing between your legs. 

“Sweetheart,” he breathes shakily. “Show me to the bedroom.” 

The trip to the bedroom is a disorienting one; A blur of limbs and kisses being traded with one another. You feel like a teenager, not being able to keep away not even for a second. You don’t bother to close the bedroom door. Joel pulls your shirt off, your ears left ringing at the force of it while your hands fumble with his zipper. Joel chuckles and bats your hands away. The way you furrow your brows goes unnoticed. He dips his head, closing his lips around the tight nipple. 

Your legs start to shake. He flicks his tongue, the tight nub pebbling swiftly. Your head falls back, a deep moan coming from the back of your throat. He sucks and moves his jaw, applying pressure. While one hand rests over the curve of your waist, the other promptly toys with your unattended nipple, pinching and twisting until it’s hard and aching. 

“Shit—Joel—” you gasp, voice quivering. “It’s been a while, it feels so good. Fuck.” 

He parts away from your chest, the tip of his tongue swirling deftly around the areola. His warm breath makes you shiver. “That’s okay honey, I’ve got you.” 

“Take this off,” you mumble in a daze, pulling at the hem of his shirt. You bend your knees to cup his erection, it pulses under your palm. “And take these off too. I want you in my mouth.” 

“You’re killin’ me, sweetheart,” he breathes out. “You’d like that, huh? My cock in your mouth, cummin’ down your throat as you wrap them pretty lips around me—what a sight it would be.” 

“Fuck yes,” you choke out, gently pushing him towards the bed. 

You’re almost delusional in the way you speak and move. He’d painted you a picture you so desperately wanted to make into reality. You tug off his shirt as he kicks off his jeans along with his underwear. A sharp exhale parts your lips when you feel his dripping cock against your lower stomach. Heavy and hot, pressing against your skin. You wrap your fingers around the base and they barely close around him. The tips of your ears burn. 

“J-Joel, oh my god,” you say with awe. “I-I don’t know if I can take you all.” 

His fingers touch the back of your neck and he pulls you between his legs as the two of you tumble onto the bed. He gently squeezes, your body melting at the touch. His lips touch your ear. 

“Sure you can, sunshine. We’ll just take it nice and slow, a’right? I’ll fuck this pretty little cunt with just the tip if I have to, it feels good all the same.” his thumb traces your bottom lip, and slowly, he pushes the digit into your mouth. Your eyes fluttering, you suck his thumb. “Just get my dick nice and wet with this dirty tongue of yours. Been twitchin’ since you uttered the words.”  

He pops out his thumb and leaves wet streaks across your cheek. You move down his body, dragging your nails down the swell of his stomach as you get closer and closer to his length. Joel hisses when you wetly kiss the tip, a bead of precum forming. You wrap one hand around the base and rest the other over his stomach, fingers caressing the coarse hairs that form a sinful trail. 

“You’re so big,” you whisper, lips dancing over the length of his throbbing cock. He moans. “That swimsuit of yours doesn’t do you justice at all.” 

“If you continue to talk like that I’m going to bust,” he chokes, hands fisting the sheets. “Please just—” he swallows. “Just stop toyin’ with me.” 

Answering him with a throaty hum, you dip your tongue into the slit, groaning at the taste of him. His cock twitches against your lips, smearing precum over the tender swell of it. Parting your mouth wide, you take the bulbous head between your lips and flatten your tongue. You feel a vein that curls underneath his length. You groan and take him deeper. He’s been truly blessed, the width stretching you wide, forcing saliva to dribble from the corners of your mouth. Your cunt clenches around nothing. Slick glistening at the insides of your thighs. 

You’re still worried about not being able to take him all. You want to feel every inch of him buried deep inside, and even though Joel assured you that it would be okay, you still want this to go perfectly. It’s been a long time for you both, you want it to feel good for him too. 

“Deeper,” he croaks out and when you look up, you find those gorgeous, dazed out, brown eyes looking down at you. “Can you?” 

Your lids flutter heavily. Nodding, you force your head down, your chin straining as you take him halfway. Your vision blurs with tears. Spit oozes down his length, your throat convulsing at the pressure. 

“You’re takin’ it so well,” he praises through grit teeth, his southern drawl deeper and more noticeable than before. “So fuckin’ well. You feel so good—I ain’t gonna last sweetheart.” 

Encouraged by his sudden honesty, you mentally grin. And with more fervor than before, you bounce your head up and down while stroking the rest with your hand. Briefly you remove your lips, swipe your palm over the head and move it back down, coating the rest of him with slick. You take him again, his thighs tightening around your frame, shaking uncontrollably as he forces his hips to remain still. 

Moans echo from the back of Joel’s throat, filling the room with his deep cadence. He reaches out for your hand and locks your fingers together, holding you and guiding your hand further up his stomach. You’re a bit unbalanced now. His cock spears almost painfully down your throat. While trying to limit yourself with only the half of his length, his cock twitches, and throbs. You repeatedly swallow around him, your hand starting to shake. 

Large drops of precum coat your tongue and go down your throat, his grip on your hand painfully tight. You breathe heavily through your nose. He’s about to come. With a ferality you haven’t felt with anyone before, you push apart your legs and force yourself down against the sheets. The soft fabric doing little when it grazes your aching clit. You moan around him. 

Then you find yourself empty. A gasp rips from your throat at the way Joel pulls you off his cock, breathing in heavy pants. Your gaze drops to his cock. The head a beautiful shade of red, glistening with precome and spit. You lick your lips. 

“Sorry,” he grunts, pulling you so that you’re straddling his waist. He pushes himself up by the elbows, face only an inch away from yours. “I didn’t wanna come just yet. Need to feel you around me, sunshine.” 

He closes the distance and claims you with a devout kiss. He tastes himself on your tongue, hips jerking up in a weak attempt to seek you out. You breathe him in. The scent of chlorine and something so undeniable Joel fills your lungs. 

“Don’t keep me waiting then,” you grin against his lips. He mimics your expression grinning as he lays back down. He guides you to raise your hips, and briefly, worry crosses your face. 

A question quickly follows, “What’s wrong?” 

“I…fuck, it’s stupid. Don’t worry about it.” but of course, he doesn’t let go and fixes you a look that has you spilling your guts. “It’s just been a while and well. I’ve never actually done it like…this.” 

“You never rode someone before?” 

You shake your head and bite your bottom lip. Frowning, he touches the abused flesh with his thumb and tugs it away, smoothing it with the pad of his finger. 

“We can switch positions. It’s okay.” 

“But I want to try it.” your words coming out in a rush, it’s followed by a nervous laughter. “I always did, but my partners usually had other plans. And after a while, I just generally chickened out and stopped asking. I got embarrassed.” 

“Oh, honey.” 

Your eyes widen upon feeling his arms around you, pulling you into a bear hug. His hand cradles the back of your head and you bury your face into the crook of his neck. You kiss the skin. Warmth blossoming in your chest. Both of you suspended in the moment, breathing each other in and out. Soon, his fingers trace a path down your spine, and a chill spreads at the end of your back. 

“Believe me,” he mutters, you feel the movement of his jaw. “I would want nothin’ more than to have you on top of me, takin’ you deep. I’m sorry those assholes made you feel otherwise.” 

You choke out a sound, smiling and shaking your head. “It’s not that they were assholes—well, maybe some of them—but maybe I just wasn’t good at expressing myself. Or I just didn’t look…” you clear your throat, his arms tighten around you, forcing the air out of your lungs. “Anyway, it’s not important.” 

“You express yourself fine if you ask me.” his thumb skims over your clit and you gasp. The digit slides between your folds with ease, he hums in approval. “And it looks like your body is expressin’ itself quite well too.” 

An understanding without words forms between your two. He cups your ass and you lift yourself up by holding onto his broad shoulders. Joel jerks himself with one hand before he motions you to lower yourself. Despite how soaking wet you are, the stretch still makes you wince. You continue a bit further, having to stop when it proves to be more painful than pleasurable. Sliding his one hand back to your front, he leisurely circles around your clit. You clench and dig your nails into his shoulders. 

“That’s it, go slow sweetheart. We have all the time in the world. You’re doin’ so good for me. Spreading yourself around my cock like that.” 

Feeling yourself becoming loose, you sink further down, only having to stop again a few inches later. You groan in frustration and Joel puts his mouth on your breasts, sucking. 

You draw in a long breath, “Is that all of it?”

Joel looks up and allows himself to smile. 

“Well, nearly. Just a bit more.” 

His mouth moves down and captures your nipple between his lips. Your walls flutter around him, adjusting to his size. With a moan, you sink down completely, his hips flush against yours. Joel breaks away from your tender skin, both of you moaning loudly in unison. His head falls back against the bedpost, staring at you between heavy lids. He looks completely blissed out. 

Wanting more of the debouched expression, you ever so slightly move up your hips and sit back down again. His eyes squeeze shut, his throat trembling with a wrecked groan. You’re not doing any better, your eyes rolling back as your muscles start to spasm. 

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, you’re wet. Shit. Can I move, sunshine? Please?” 

“God yes,” you breathe out, your head spinning. His hands cup your rear, helping you to lift halfway off his cock before lowering you again. Electricity runs up your spine. Your cry out his name, pulsing around him uncontrollably. “J-Joel, I don’t think I’m gonna last,” you say apologetically. 

“That’s okay,” he groans, voice hoarse. “I ain’t gonna last long either.” 

The two of you capture a soft rhythm that works for the both of you. Joel guides the sloppy roll of your hips, and you do your best to move up and down his cock. Your legs aching due to the swimming. You want to go faster, the burning between your legs growing with every grind of your hips. There’s an itch deep inside. An inch that you can’t seem to scratch with the way you’re moving. You whimper and fix Joel a pleading look. His cock twitches. 

“You want it harder?” he rasps, lashes fluttering. 

“Yes,” you exhale. “Give it to me, Joel. I want you to fuck me hard with this big cock of yours.” you make a show of rolling your tongue and pressing your hips flush against him, grinding yourself into his pelvis. 

“The mouth on you, Jesus.” he drawls but with a smile. Your heart skips a beat, a grin of your own touching your lips. 

You’re confused when Joel sucks two fingers into his mouth. Not that you’re complaining. You see the pink of his tongue, the glistening spit that coats his thick fingers. Pulling them out, Joel massages your asscheeks and spreads them, you moan as the open air hits your other hole. He brushes two wet fingers over the rim, making you quiver. 

“Feels good?” 

You nod and he slips one finger, your entire body jolts, your breath catching in your throat. However, you don’t have time to focus on the new sensation. Joel presses his feet into the mattress and with fervor, he starts fucking up into you. Railing you until you’re gasping for air and left feeling nothing else but the heavy stroke of his cock. You shout his name, your lungs burn. 

“That’s it make a mess of me, darlin’. Such a good fuckin’ girl. All you need is my help isn’t it? Look at you, doin’ so well for me.” the words he continues to mutter force out a visceral reaction from you. You claw at his chest. Dragging them down as his cock spears into you over and over. The slick sounds echoing throughout the room. You notice him watching where you two connect, he looks hypnotized. His lips parting as he watches his cock disappear into your wet cunt. 

He pushes his finger in deeper and you’re suddenly aware of how full you feel. Your arms that keep you upright buckle and you fall down, covering him like a blanket. An apology touches your lips, but before you can, Joel’s lips are already on your temple, kissing and whispering praise all the while continuing to fuck you senseless. He pulls out his finger and slightly lifts your hips for a better angle. You whine at the loss and hear him chuckle. 

“Another time, sunshine.” 

Your walls start to spasm and contract, his hips start to stutter. His strong steady strokes becoming sloppy and rushed, he pushes you down against him rolling his hips and grinding deeper into you. Fuck. Your head is spinning violently. Your cunt dripping and making a mess of his cock. He rubs into you again, the dark hairs that crown his length stimulating your throbbing clit. 

A silent scream shakes your chest. You see white before you squeeze him tight, the force of it making his breath hitch. You gush around him. Slick rolling down his cock and seeping into the sheets. You don’t even notice the wet tears smeared all over your face as you nuzzle him. Waves of pleasure wash over you again and again. Leaving you shaking and panting for air. Joel holds you still, his hands comforting against your heated skin. 

Your jaw goes slack when he gently thrusts up again, shushing you when you let out a whine. 

“Where do you want me?” 

It takes you a while to understand the question. Lifting your head, you give him a blank stare. His eyes glimmer with amusement, a lopsided smile forming on his lips. 

“Look at you,” he coos. “Pretty little thing completely fucked out. You look beautiful, sweetheart.” 

You’re pretty sure you actually purr at his words. You leisurely smile. You lift your hips and push them back down, both of you groaning in delight. He keeps uttering pretty from under his breath, his own composure breaking down. Another orgasm rolls over you, albeit much softer this time, like a fire warming your skin. You sigh happily, kissing him on the lips. 

“Where?” he asks, a bit more desperate this time. 

“My mouth.” 

“Oh, fuck.” 

Everything is sloppy and uncoordinated. You’re not even sure how you make your way down between his legs. You’re still throbbing when you suck on the tip, your eyes closing as you taste the mixture of you and himself. You take him as deep as you can, feeling him at the back of your throat. He holds your head but doesn’t force you to the more. 

“Sweetheart, move your tongue.” 

Your skin prickles at how hoarse he sounds. You happily obliged, stroking the underside of his cock with the flat of your tongue. He sucks in a sharp breath, his chest expanding, and on the exhale, he lets out the loudest moan of the night. It comes from the depths of his lungs. His hips jerk, finally spilling down your throat, you swallow him greedily, your walls pulsing with a need to be stretched again. 

He comes and comes and comes. There’s so much of it. It floods your mouth, trickling down your chin. You breathe heavily. His cock throbs on your tongue and god you love the feeling. 

“Fuuuuuuuuuck, that felt so good.” his hands fall limp to his side. With a grin, you release his cock and swallow once more, more audibly this time. His dark gaze drops to your lips. He shakily wipes the come that spilled from your lips, popping it back into your mouth. You lick at the digit eagerly. “I should thank whoever it was that stole your umbrella,” he mumbles. 

“We should get them a cake,” you tease, kissing the empty patch on his beard. “So…should we get cleaned up and then…talk?” 

He squeezes your hips and then follows the curve of your spine. “Sounds like a plan, sunshine.” 

You end up sharing that bottle of wine after all. 

[yoditostan]

“Bath Time” drawn by Abigail Larson

source: https://bit.ly/3Zi6trQ

[yoditostan]

Adjustments

Summary: Adjusting to life in Jackson isn't easy. But making friends with one of school teachers certainly helps. Or, Ellie makes a friend and kind of sets Joel up.

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!teacher!Reader

Word count: 9.4k

Warnings: mostly fluff, smut (piv, fingering), soft Joel Miller, good dad Joel Miller, protective Joel, some jealousy, post-season 1, mentions of past death, mentions of depression and suicidal ideation

A/N: You voted and I listened! Here's the Joel fic! Thank you for reading! As always, I would love to know your thoughts! Please please please, be sure to leave feedback! 💕

“He’s quiet, huh?” You ask, scrubbing a rag over the counter. 

“What’s that?” Tommy turns back to you. He’d been staring across the community hall at his wife. 

You grin, amused, and meet Tommy’s eyes. “Your brother. He doesn’t talk much.” 

Slowly, you cut your gaze to the table where Joel Miller sits, his eyes on his daughter across from him. There’s an affectionate smile playing around his mouth. One that only appears when he’s looking at Ellie. “His kid does though.”

“Oh, yeah, Ellie’s always got somethin’ to say,” he agrees. “They’ve been through a lot.” 

You nod, “Looks that way.” You don’t ask what, just go back to polishing glasses. “You put ‘em up next to me.” 

“Figured you’d keep a good eye on them,” Tommy’s eyes turn back to you, away from Joel who’s glanced up and caught both of you looking, his expression flattening. “They might need it. Kinda feral.” 

You nod, “Remind me of cats.” 

Tommy laughs, pushes his glass across the scarred wood to you. “They’re havin’ a hard time adjustin’. Not used to regular society.” 

“Well,” you splash whiskey into his glass. “Who among us is?” 

“You did okay,” he takes the glass back and lifts it to his lips. “When you first got here.”  

You nod slowly, replacing the cork in the bottle. “Well, I didn’t have a little girl to worry about. The world looks a lot worse when you’ve got that.” You know that from experience, but quickly zip the thought away. 

You glance up from the bottle to find the pair in question making their way over to you. “Speak of the devil,” you chirp lightly. 

Joel is frowning at you when he and Ellie arrive at the counter, the divot between his brows deep. He’s handsome, you think, and not even just for an older guy. He’s handsome, full stop. You like his dark eyes, the gray of his hair, and the broad planes of his chest and shoulders. 

You even like the stony expression on his face. It makes the corners of your mouth twitch. 

“Tommy,” he greets his brother. “We thought we’d come over since it looks like we’re the subject of conversation.” 

“Yeah, you guys fuckin’ suck at hiding it,” Ellies adds, mirroring Joel’s posture when he leans into the wood next to his brother. 

Joel turns to shoot her a look. “Mind your manners,” he reprimands. 

Ellie just rolls her eyes. 

“You’re right Tommy, they are kinda feral,” you smile at both of them. “Just talkin’ about how we’re neighbors now.” 

Joel raises a brow, “Feral?” 

“Like cats,” you confirm. “I was just tellin’ Tommy I’d keep a close eye on you.” 

“We’re gettin’ babysat now?” Tommy snorts into his glass at the outraged cut of his brother's voice. 

“No,” you smile. “But if you need anything I’m right next door, haven’t gotten to come over and introduce myself yet. I keep pretty busy.” 

Ellie’s face blooms with sudden recognition. “Oh, shit! I know you! That’s why you look familiar. You’re the teacher. For the younger kids.” 

“I am,” you nod, polishing another glass to sit in front of Joel even though he hasn’t asked for a drink. 

He watches you pour the amber liquid, his eyes not moving from your face, his features set into stern lines. 

It doesn’t bother you. You’ve learned from watching him that’s just how he looks, unless he’s talking to Ellie or Tommy. “What are you doin’ here, then?” 

“Like I said, I like to keep busy.” 

Tommy claps his brother on the back and drains the rest of his glass before standing. “Neighbors, I’ll leave you to get acquainted,” he says before ambling in the direction of Maria. 

“Hard to believe you’re our neighbor,” Joel comments. “House looks empty.” 

He has a nice voice, you like the gruff way the words roll off his tongue. “I guess it mostly is,” you shrug, “It’s just me there. And I’m busy.” 

“So you said.” 

“Don’t be an asshole, Joel,” Ellie says. “Sorry, he just sounds like that.” 

Joel shoots her another look.

You try not to laugh, folding up the cloth in your hands to replace under the counter. “I am there, most evenings,” you say. “I only pick up shifts here when Tommy really needs me to. I’m usually out back at home. If you do ever need anything.” 

“You should come over for dinner sometime,” Ellie says. “Since we’re being neighborly.” 

“I’d like that,” you glance between them. “Since we’re being neighborly,” you repeat.

Joel doesn’t quite meet your eyes. “Anytime.” 

You don’t expect Joel to take to you. 

He’s silent and gruff and focused on his unit, his family. 

That’s fair, that’s fine. You understand that. You’d been that way too, until you lost everyone, until you came to Jackson. 

You’re still like that, it’s just that your unit consists of just you. 

But he does, after a while, take to you. Mostly, you think, because Ellie seems to like you so much. 

Ellie invites you over to dinner one evening when she catches you on your front porch. Her tone was one that brooked no room for argument, for turning the invitation down. You hadn’t so much been asked, but told you were having dinner with the Millers.

Ellie had cooked, and the food was very solidly okay. She had been proud of herself, and that made it five stars in your opinion. 

You’d watched with some amusement the verve with which she’d devoured the food, eating too quickly and talking her mouth full. Joel had apologized to you several times, his scandalized expressions only making you laugh harder. 

Ellie started walking with you to the school in the mornings, and waiting in your classroom in the afternoons to walk back home again. 

Joel was usually still out when you got back, and so she started making a home for herself in your house - reading your books and abandoning them halfway through, listening to your sparse music collection, helping you work in the vegetable patch in your backyard. 

“You should show Joel,” she’d told you when you showed her your little workshop in the basement, that you built things when the materials were available. “He used to build stuff. He was a contractor.” She’d said the word with such reverence and pride you hadn’t been able to help the laugh that escaped. 

Joel stopped in on your front porch to fetch Ellie sometimes, apologizing to you as he did. “You can tell her to leave if you’re busy,” he says each time. You weren’t and you liked the company. 

She reminds you of your niece, of the good days you’d once had together. She makes your heart ache, but it's not in a bad way. 

Dinner with your neighbors quickly became a weekly occurrence. There was just no way of avoiding it. But it became something you looked forward to, and which Joel jokingly started calling parent-teacher conferences, and which Ellie did not appreciate. 

You always leave before it gets too late. You feel as though you’ve intruded on a world you didn’t belong to. 

You do better on your own anyways. There was a reason Joel and Ellie had thought your house was empty their first few weeks in Jackson. You tended to keep to yourself for the most part.

Aside from your weekly dinners, you hardly see Joel, and certainly never on his own. Ellie is always glued to his side. 

Which is why you’re surprised to hear his voice call out to you one afternoon and find him alone. 

“You need help with that?” 

You lower the heavy chain in your hand, the end of it attached to a wooden bench swing. It thumps down onto the porch, the other end still suspended by the chain on the other side. 

You glance up, “What?” You squint out into the autumn sunshine. 

Joel Miller stands just outside the perimeter of your yard. “Help,” he calls, louder this time. “Do you need help with that?” 

Your first instinct is to tell him no, but you reconsider. Joel is taller than you, he might be able to reach the hook in the ceiling more easily and you could be done with the thing. “If you’ve got a second,” you agree. 

He swings your front gate open, his stride long and jilted. “Hip hurting you?” You ask as he approaches.

“Just gettin’ old,” he grumbles. 

“I think it’s the cold,” you step back when he climbs the front steps to your porch. “It came early this year and my joints hurt like hell.”

Joel takes your place by the swing, reaching down for the chain. He easily slips the end back into the metal hook in the ceiling. “What were you doin’ anyway?” He asks, stepping back with hands on his hips, examining the swing and the chains it hangs on. 

“One of the links was starting to rust through. I was replacing it,” you answer. “I got it down just fine. I guess it’s pretty heavy.”

Joel nods, his eyes still on the swing. “It’s well built. Where’d you get it?” 

“Oh,” you take a seat on the swing and gesture for him to do the same. “Well, I didn’t get it from anywhere. I built it. I’m surprised Ellie hasn’t said anything to you. She helps me some afternoons.”  

He looks surprised for a moment before taking a seat next to you. “Really?” 

“Yeah, showed her a while ago now. I did a lot of woodworking with my grandpa. Before the outbreak. Every summer we made a couple swings. Sold ‘em to neighbors and friends usually.” 

Joel looks uncomfortable, settled stiffly on the swing next to you. You wonder why he decided to sit down at all. You’re both a little bad with people. “I wanted to ask you about Ellie,” he says suddenly. “She’s over here often enough. Almost all summer.” 

“I enjoy her company,” you reassure him, but that just makes his brow furrow tighter. “She’s no bother, really. Go on and ask.” 

“How’s she at school?” His voice takes on a worried edge. “It’s hard to tell how she’s settlin’ in sometimes. She’s still crazy about the food.”

You nod, “That’s to be expected. I was too. We all are in some ways.” 

The food in Jackson, the amount of it, is overwhelming sometimes. Nice, but overwhelming. 

You lean back against the swing back, pushing your foot against the floor to sway you along a little. “I don’t know much about how she is at school. I’m not her teacher. She’s with the older kids.” Joel nods but waits, staring at you in that intense way he has. “She does okay,” you relent. “Good as any other kid. And a lot better than she did at first. Made some friends. She’s still a little skittish with groups. Standoffish sometimes, but she’s doing better.”

“She’s been through a lot,” he admits. “I worry about how she’s taking to life here. But she seems to like you.” 

You nod, “I like her, too. She’s a smart kid. I heard you both went through a lot. She’s doing okay, really. You’re doing a good job with her.”

Joel clears his throat and glances around your porch, obviously trying to think of how he could change a subject he brought up in the first place. Your compliment seems to make him uncomfortable, like it’s something that just is, that he does, and shouldn’t be mentioned. 

“Gonna start sitting out front?” He asks gruffly. “Thought you liked the back better.” 

You smirk, “Well, if I’m to listen to you teach Ellie how to play the guitar I’ve got to. You only practice on the front porch.” 

Joel shakes his head and crosses his arms over his chest. “Heard that, huh?” 

“Little hard not to,” you shrug. “She’s a quick learner.”

“Too quick sometimes,” he says.

“Quick is good in this world,” you remind him. “Thanks for your help with the swing.”

A little to your dismay, Joel takes your words as a dismissal. “Sure. Anytime,” he grumbles as he labors to his feet. 

He stomps down your steps, and tosses a surprisingly domestic, “See you at dinner,” over his shoulder. 

Joel pops in more often after that, usually under the guise of helping you with something, like he had with the swing. 

Radiator needs fixing, the banister is wobbling, the upstairs sink won't stop leaking - Joel takes it all on for you. 

Ellie gets a little annoyed at the intrusions sometimes, possessive of her time with you. “He’s just shy,” she tells you one day. “I think he likes you. Like a crush or something.” 

You just chuckle, and point her back to the homework she was supposed to be doing. 

When Joel emerges from your basement several minutes later, his face is just a little flushed, and you think he might have heard. 

Then comes the day when Joel finds you after the school day ends in place of Ellie. 

“Not that I’m not thrilled to see you Joel Miller but where is that menace you call a daughter?” 

Joel steps into your empty classroom, looking too large and slightly uncomfortable among the tiny desks and colorful drawings. “She came home early with a cold and made me promise to come walk you back. Didn’t want you to worry, I guess.” 

“Well, that was kind of her,” you pull your backpack on and follow Joel outside. “I would have worried about her.” 

“Yeah,” he answers. “Easy thing to do.” 

It’s silent for a moment, and you try to hide a smile as you watch Joel struggle to find something to say. You wonder how much of this had been orchestrated between the two of them. Ellie had been fine, after all, when you walked to the school that morning together. 

“Were you a teacher before the outbreak?” Joel asks, hands fisted in his pockets, his back stiff.  

You shake your head with a smile, “I was just starting college. My mother was a teacher, though, and I always knew I wanted to be one too.” 

“Jesus, you’re young,” he says suddenly, looking surprised, like he hadn’t realized.

You smirk, “I wouldn’t say that. I’ve got the bones of an eighty year old.” 

“Younger than me,” he says, glancing sideways at you. 

“You aren’t that old, Joel,” you roll your eyes. “Don’t go gettin’ a complex about it.” You nudge an elbow into his side, “Ellie told me you were a contractor before. Seems to think it was a pretty cool job.” 

He chuckles, “Yeah, well, why not rewrite history a little bit?” 

“And with all the things you’ve helped me with you’ve never offered to help with my building projects?” You tease. “Afraid you’ve lost your touch?” 

“Just figured it was personal,” he says, drifting into your side a little as you walk, the brush of his arm against your sending pleasant nerves singing through your veins. “You said about your grandfather and all.” 

“Hm.” 

“What?” 

“Just didn’t know you paid such close attention.”

“Of course I do,” he says simply. 

The rest of the walk goes by quick enough. Joel talks more than you’ve ever heard him talk before. But it’s nice. He smiles a couple times, and the wind turns his hair into a mess. 

You like Joel, and it's clear that he or Ellie or both liked you enough to keep you close, to make sure you were okay. 

It’s an odd feeling. You’ve been in Jackson for a few years, but you’ve never felt a part of it, not really. 

Grief had eaten you raw, scooped out your insides and left you hollow. But recently that’s started to change. Maybe Tommy knew exactly what he was doing when he put his brother in the house next to yours. 

Joel leaves you at your front door, and, lo and behold, Ellie turns up five minutes later, claiming to feel much better. 

Ellie yawns and leans into your side. “We should have dinner over here more often.” You open your mouth but she continues, “I mean you have fucking candles everywhere. Coffee for Joel, hot chocolate for me-,” 

Your porch is infinitely more cozy, at least from your perspective. You’d gone to great lengths to collect those candles, and burning them at night on your front porch is an indulgence you love to take. Ellie had helped you set them out after dinner, and you let her have the matches to light them one by one. 

Before you had let them go outside after dinner, you’d announced you had a surprise. “It’s not as good as dessert but it's hard to come by,” you’d offered. “Coffee or hot chocolate or both?”

You knew Ellie had a sweet tooth, that she’d want the hot chocolate, but you hadn’t anticipated Joel’s reaction to the word coffee. 

You may as well have told him that you found the answers to all of life’s questions. So, you’d brewed coffee for Joel and made the hot chocolate for Ellie, letting her pick whether she wanted some from the fancier canister of the stuff or from the boxes of cheap packets that had been a staple in your childhood. 

You’d let Joel watch over the coffee, brewed the old fashioned way on the stove. 

When they had their drinks, Joel had brought out one of the dining chairs and sat across from where you and Ellie sat on the swing, mug of coffee clutched in his hands like a lifeline. 

You have a blanket tossed over you and Ellie, fingers tangled in the material, to keep the cold at bay. 

“You can have the rest of the hot chocolate,” you interrupt Ellie. “If you want it.” 

“No fucking way, seriously?” 

“For sure,” you agree, turning to meet her eyes. “I was waiting for someone special to give it to. And I don’t drink it.” 

She presses her face into your shoulder in a rare moment of physical affection, like she’s embarrassed. “Thanks.” 

“Oh, anything for you, kid,” you say, patting her hand. “It’s pretty late though, and I hear you’ve got school in the morning.” 

Joel nods at you from his place across from you in thanks for mentioning it. “Yeah alright,” Ellie grumbles and looks up at Joel, a question in her eyes. 

“You go on ahead,” he says. “I’ll be there in a minute.” 

She stands, shaking the swing as she does, but carefully keeps the blanket over your lap. “Ellie,” Joel starts when she starts down the steps, but before he can say anything further she turns back to you. 

“Thank you for dinner.” 

“You’re very welcome, Ellie, and you don’t have to thank me.” 

Ellie raises a brow at Joel and then tromps down the steps without another word. 

You and Joel watch her make the walk next door. Ellie gives a sarcastic wave before going inside. 

The second she’s safely inside, Joel rocks to his feet and moves to sit next to you on the swing. 

You toss the blanket over his lap, and Joel doesn’t make a noise of complaint as he sets his empty mug to the side. 

“Who’d you save it for?” He asks. “The hot chocolate?” 

You shrug, “My sister’s kid. She died a couple years ago now. Before I got to Jackson.”

“They who you were traveling with?”

“Just the kid. My sister died the day of the outbreak. My niece just happened to be staying with me that night. I was the cool aunt, y’know? I had just moved into my first apartment and she liked to stay with me.” You look over at him, “We found the hot chocolate right before she died. It’s wild that we did. Those packets of cheap shit and the fancy stuff. It was her favorite when she was a baby.”

The breeze ruffles the wisps of gray curls, and his eyes don’t leave yours. “How’d you know?” You ask quietly.

Joel smells nice. 

Like cedar and soap, something earthy and warm. 

You resist the urge to lean in and inhale. 

“Takes one to know one,” he says. “You don’t like mixing with people. But you like Ellie.” He meets your eyes, “Lost my daughter. First night.” Joel hesitates, then asks, “How old?”

“She was, uh, three, at the start,” you try to clear the tightness from your throat that always comes when you think about your niece. “She died just before her eighteenth. Just before I got to Jackson.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” 

You still aren’t clear on how Joel and Ellie came to be together, other than they’d traveled from the Boston QZ to Jackson in search of Tommy. However it happened, you’re glad of it. You can’t imagine one without the other, not really.

They’re a little less like feral cats now, but still territorial in a way that makes it hard for you to believe they’ve half accepted you into their little fold. 

“You’ve got yourself a great girl,” you say finally. “I find it really hard. To be here. Sometimes. Around normalcy. Or whatever we’re close to. She shoulda made it. I wasn’t strong enough. I did horrible things to keep us alive. I mean, she was only three. When it started.” Your heart pounds, anxiety chasing your breath away. You hate thinking about it, talking about it. “It was real hard. And it didn’t matter in the end. I get to be here and she doesn’t. But you two make it easier,” you admit. 

Joel’s quiet for a while, the guttering candles casting shadow over his face. “Ellie makes it easier,” he agrees.

That’s not what you said, but you don’t correct him. 

Joel clears his throat roughly, just like you had, “And the coffee? Where’d you come by that?”  

“Well, now, that,” you say smugly, the pressure in your chest easing a little, “I’ve been hoarding for years. Since the early days.” 

“Really?” 

“It kept me human. It reminded me of before,” you shrug, “For special occasions only, when times were tough or something really good happened.” 

Your nerves feel oddly stretched when you look back at him, a pleasant fluttering in your belly. “Was this a special occasion?” He asks. 

“I don’t know,” you tease, “Maybe I just really like you two.”

Joel shifts closer to you, his arm along the length of the swing behind you. “I know Ellie does.”

You nod and jump a little when his knee bumps into yours. Joel leans closer, his face tilted over yours. “And what about you?” You ask. 

“I like you just fine,” he answers, his hand slipping down from the back of the swing to settle at the nape of your neck. 

You keep your gaze settled on his, not blinking away from those dark depths. “I know what you mean,” he says. “About it bein’ hard.”  

His breath ghosts over your lips. Between the pressure of his hand on your neck and the intense look in his gaze, your breath has arrested somewhere between your lungs and your mouth. 

Joel’s thumb caresses the column of your throat slowly, and you finally manage to breathe. The breath you pull in is sharp and nearly painful. “Yeah,” you manage, voice hitching. “Doesn’t seem right sometimes.” 

You glance down at his mouth, wondering how his mustache and beard would feel against your skin, if his lips are as soft as they look. 

When you look up, you freeze, the dark depths of his eyes heavy and intense, like freshly turned soil and ink. 

His other hand cups your jaw when you start to glance away, the pull of his gaze making you dizzy, sucking you into an orbit you’re not sure you’ll ever be able to exit again. 

Joel tilts your head up, his eyes still searching yours. 

You aren’t sure what he finds, but whatever it is convinces him to lean in and kiss you. 

Your eyes flutter shut, Joel’s thumb pressing lightly at the underside of your jaw. 

His is an oddly soft kind of possession, like it could turn hungrier and darker at any second. Like it would turn violent should someone try to take you away. 

That’s okay, you’ve never minded the dark, you’ve gotten used to violence. 

He presses closer to you when you hook one hand on his wrist, trying to steady yourself against him. 

Joel drags you closer, groaning into you. The sound is because of the stretch of pulling you closer and not from pleasure. 

It makes you laugh, and you toss one leg over his lap before kissing him again, this time opening your mouth to his tongue when it swipes along the seam of your lips. 

Joel moves one hand to the crest of your knee, his broad palm sliding down your thigh. Goosebumps race across your skin, heat blooms in your chest. 

You think he’ll do more, press you back into the swing and devour you, but he pulls back and rests his forehead against yours.

“I have to get home,” he says. 

“Yeah,” you say breathlessly. “Ellie’s gonna give you shit.” 

“I know it,” he pulls away, and you move your legs from his lap, standing when he does, feeling rather shaky on your legs. “She probably saw.” 

He glances at the side of his house, squinting into the darkness. You flush with heat at his words. “Jesus, that’s embarrassing. Worse than being caught by your parents.” 

Joel laughs, then turns back to you. “A little worse,” he agrees. “This one wouldn’t let me hear the end of it.” 

“Oh yeah?” 

“Houndin’ me about it.” 

“So that’s what that look was,” you tease. “She wasn’t wantin’ you to come home with her, she was wantin’ you to man up.” 

He shuffles a little and then nods. “Yeah.”

You smile and move to his side, glancing up at the windows and catch the curtains moving. “Like I said, you’ve got a good girl. She’s lookin’ out for you.” 

Joel fits his hand between your shoulder blades, and turns you toward him, his hand sliding up to the back of your neck again. “Let us look out for you too.” 

“I already do,” you disagree with a shake of your head. “Tell Ellie I’ll give her that hot chocolate tomorrow. I’ll teach her how to make it and all after school.” 

He nods, and drags you back for another kiss, this one with a little more bite than the first one. It makes your body sing, nerves skating down your spine to settle heavily in your belly. 

You fist your hands in the front of his shirt, to keep him close to you for just a second longer. 

It’s not a loud moment, this claim over you. It simply is. 

“Excuse me,” a man stops on your left at the bar. 

You’re drinking tonight, not tending. You shoot him a smile. He’s new in town, or maybe he’s not. You’re not familiar with a lot of the residents of Jackson, aside from the school children and sometimes their parents. You’re too much of a recluse for that. 

“Can I help you?”

You don’t like going out. You never have, not even before. But you hadn’t wanted to be alone with the thoughts tying knots around your head and against the top of your spine. You feel like you’re being choked by the past. 

Those voices were creeping up again. The ones that told you to run as far as you could, to walk into an ocean, to throw yourself in front of a clicker or off a cliff. 

It’s been awhile since you felt that kind of itch, since your niece has appeared in your dreams, and in your waking hours. You just needed to drown your sorrows for a bit, forget for just a little while. 

She wasn’t much older than Ellie when she died. 

Maybe that’s what’s brought it up again, the worry that something terrible could happen again. 

You should have went and checked on Ellie and Joel instead of going to get a drink. You’d seen them in the front window of their house as you passed by earlier in the evening when the sun was still up. 

Forgetting what happened to your niece with them would have been better. You bet Joel would have something strong to give you, a drink. And you could have watched them. 

They both had mugs, and were sitting around a little game. 

But you’re like a wounded animal in that way. When you’re hurting, you want to hole up and lick your wounds. 

Instead of stopping in, you’d decided to try to drown yourself in something that would make you forget. 

Only, you haven’t quite gotten that far. 

“I was wondering if I could buy you a drink,” he says, not unkindly, his voice soft. 

He’s handsome, young, probably just a few years younger than you with wheat blond hair and green eyes.   

You smile, and lift your glass. “No. I got it covered. Thanks though.” 

“Fair enough,” he laughs, the sound nervous. 

You nod and he leaves you alone about it. But he doesn’t leave, instead taking the seat to your left while you sip your drink. 

Your head is starting to pound, and you regret coming to the hall. 

“I heard there was a pretty school teacher around here. But I couldn’t believe it. No one ever sees you,” he tries again. If you weren’t already spoken for, you might be flattered. He’s cute and clearly anxious about trying to talk to you. 

You laugh despite yourself, lifting the rim of your glass to your lips, “Pretty huh? You let me know when you find that teacher.” 

“Aw c’mon. It is you, isn’t it?” 

“Hey, you gotta be careful,” the guy on his other side warns him, leaning around his friend to get a better look at you. “I heard Miller was after the pretty one. Y’know how he can be.” His eyes flick over you, “Are you Miller’s girl? Little old for you, isn’t he?” 

You raise a brow, “I look younger than I am.” 

The blond laughs before you can answer, seeming to have gained some confidence. “Leave her be. We’re just talking, right?” He addresses you with a smile. “Nothin’ against talking. So, why don’t we see you around more?”

You’re interrupted again when a strong hand curls around your waist. You stiffen against the touch before Joel’s voice asks, “She is pretty, isn’t she?” You tip your head up to glance up at him. “I wouldn’t speak for her, but she is mine.”  

The two men next to you go a little pale when they glance up to see who had spoken. “Hey darlin’,” he greets you. Joel slides close to your other side, his hard gaze not leaving the guys next to you. 

You certainly hadn’t expected him to be at the community hall. Joel hates being out as much as you do. He must have come looking for you, and you can’t decide on what his mood about doing so is. 

He smells nice though, like leather and something earthy and Joel. His presence is a comfort you hadn’t expected, his shoulders are dusted with melting snow, his hair damp around his ears. 

Joel’s arm is heavy around your waist and you wish again you’d just gone over to see him and Ellie. 

You don’t respond for a moment. Not sure how. Too surprised that he’d come to find you at all. 

“Hi,” you answer, staring up at the ticking muscle in his jaw, beneath the gray patchy beard that you’ve come to adore. “What are you doing here?” 

“Ellie saw you pass by,” he answers, finally looking down at you. His features soften a fraction, and so does his voice. “We were expectin’ you to drop by when you came back past. But you never came home.”

They were waiting for you, one or both of them. You hadn’t realized either of them had seen you, but of course they had. 

You should be angry, that he’s keeping tabs on you, monitoring your comings and goings. You should be angry about the possessive glint in his eyes and the hand on your hip, but you aren’t. 

It’s nice to feel claimed, even a little. It’s nice to feel protected. 

You like it. You haven’t had someone look out for you in a a long time. 

There’s an odd look in his eye, his hand still firm on your hip, fingers digging into your flesh. 

It’s territorial, you realize. 

That thought comes to you again, the one that always lingers in the back of your mind - Joel protected his unit, his people. He doesn’t just protect them, care for them, he’s territorial over them. His expression is possession and protection all wrapped up in one. 

He and Ellie are both that way. 

You aren’t sure when you became one of his people. 

That’s why he waited for you to come home, that’s why he came out to find you. 

“I just wanted a drink,” you say honestly. “I didn’t have anything. I was gonna come home.” 

Joel nods and slips onto the stool to your right, corralling all your attention to himself. It’s a dismissive move to the blond guy you’d been speaking to, but you very seriously doubt Joel cares. 

“I’ve got somethin’ at home. You could have just come over. You wanna come home with me?” 

You drain your glass and let Joel pull you to your feet. His hand stays grounded against your back, a firm guiding pressure until you’re outside in the early autumn snow where he tugs you into him, his mouth firm on yours. His hands anchor on either side of your face, calloused fingertips brushing along your cheekbones and behind your ears. 

“Was he flirtin’ with you?” He asks against your mouth when he pulls away. 

“Badly,” you admit, watching the snow stick in his hair, the gray going slowly white. “But yes.” 

One of Joel’s hands moves to the back of your neck. He holds you steady like that for a moment, staring into your eyes.

He doesn’t say anything but you can read the look in his gaze, the warring swirl of emotion. “I couldn’t get in a word between the two of ‘em. Nobody means anything to me. Nobody but you.” You hook a hand around his wrist, sweeping your thumb along his pulse. “Joel. There’s only you.” 

That seems to snap him out of whatever thought is trapped in his mind, like a fish behind glass, wavy and warped and unknowable. “I know,” he agrees, releasing your face to trail his hands down your arms before wrapping his arm around your waist. 

The walk back to his house is silent, and Joel keeps one hand tucked in your back pocket the entire walk. 

You’re surprised to find the house dark when you get there. “Where’s Ellie?” 

“Stayin’ with a friend,” he says. 

“Really?” You ask, surprised. “That’s great, Joel.” 

It’s great for both of them, that Ellie felt secure enough to be parted from Joel for a night, and that Joel felt safe enough to let her go. 

He nods absently, flicks on the lights and reaches for your hand. He pulls you into him so he can kiss you again, this time with heat. You meet his tongue with yours, and let him guide you backwards until your thighs hit the back of the couch. His teeth hook against your bottom lip, your breath strangled in your chest when he slots himself between your thighs. 

Joel cradles your face between his palms, his breath sharp against your cheek. “I didn’t know you were one to drink alone,” he says. “What happened?” 

“You pay too much attention to me,” you huff, reaching up to circle your hands around his wrists again.

“What happened?” He asks again, chasing your eyes. His gaze is intense. “You scared us.”  

It’s that look he gets when his mind runs on a loop of fix, protect, care. 

Fix, fix, fix. 

He wants to fix it. He wants to be good enough to fix it, fast enough. 

But you don’t want to call it what it is. You don’t want to say that sometimes you don’t feel like living anymore. You also don’t want to tell him that you just have to wait for it to run its course, that the feeling comes and goes. 

“It’ll sort itself out,” you say, tired. “It always does.” 

“What does?” 

You nudge your knee against his hip. “Me,” you say simply. “I’m missin’ my - I’m just missin’ people today.” 

“Okay,” he says slowly, his accent drawing the vowels out as he pulls away from you. There’s an odd look in his eyes, one you can’t decipher and you know you’ve revealed more than you meant to. “Settle down here. I’ll get you something.”  

You nod and hop off the back of the couch when he moves away, shrugging out of your coat and toeing off your boots. You glance around their living room which is oddly still and silent without Ellie in it. Boggle lies on the table by the front window, the pieces still scattered. “Were you losing?” You call toward the kitchen. 

“Yeah,” he answers when he comes back into the room. His coat is gone, and his hair is a mop of tousled curls, like he’d run his hands through it. “Of course I was. We need a different damn game. I always lose at Boggle.” 

You smile and settle next to him on the sofa. “I have some games if you want to borrow them,” you offer. 

Joel just hands you a lowball glass with just a splash of something clear in the bottom of it, a matching glass in his own hand. You toss it back and it burns going down. 

Joel shakes his head at you and then does the same, before taking the glass out of your hand to set both aside. His lips are on yours again before you have a chance to breathe, the burn of alcohol on his mouth like fire. 

You sink back into the couch. His hands are still chilled from your walk home, and the caress of them on your hips when he sinks his hands beneath your shirt burns hot. He’s an all consuming presence. Everything about him is intense. His scent, the heated chill of him, the demanding touch of his hands. 

His facial hair scrapes along your jaw and chin, his tongue parting your lips impatiently to meet yours. 

The burn of him sets you on fire, presses out all the other thoughts that had been swimming in the back of your head all day, louder and louder. 

Joel tugs you down, so you’re flat against the cushions, his knee slotting between your thighs. He knots his fingers into your sweater and pulls it gently upwards. 

You let him, and he curses when you slip out of it and toss it to the ground. “Jesus,” he says. “You’re tryin’ to kill me, sweetheart.” Decades roughened hands slip up your torso, brushing over your belly and hips to your chest. 

The sweater had been bulky enough you didn’t feel the need to wear a bra. 

He traces the pads of his thumbs over your nipples, a hungry, nearly ravenous look in his eyes. “Joel,” you say, and his eyes flick up to yours. “Take me to bed.” 

He nods and helps you up, grabbing your sweater to carry with him. 

It’s an oddly sweet thing to do, and it makes a lump form in the back of your throat. 

Joel’s room is cozy and when you crawl onto the bed, the sheets smell like soap, like Joel’s skin. He’s just behind you, already over you again, weighing you down, pressing himself into all the cracks of yourself. 

He lowers his mouth to take one nipple in his mouth, his body aching against yours. You bury one hand into his hair and he groans when you tug. “Joel,” you croak, something in you already broken. His fingers sink into your waist, guiding your hips up so he can pull your jeans off. 

It feels vulnerable, to be naked in front of Joel. But its oddly nice too, like being seen for the first time in years. 

Joel slots himself over you again, and you make a point of raking your hands up his back, beneath his shirt. 

You can hardly breathe from the way he kisses you, sharp with teeth, sucking on the tip of your tongue. He licks into you he means to leave the taste of himself with you forever. You moan and arch into him when his fingers skate down your side to the plush of your thighs and pass briefly through your wet folds. 

You work at the buttons on his shirt, desperate to feel his skin against you. The fabric feels harsh on your skin, too rough, bruising. 

He pulls back and presses his forehead into yours, shrugging out of the flannel before he lies down next to you. 

Your face burns when you’re forced to watch his hand against your body. 

An embarrassing sound leaves you, and you bury your face against his shoulder so you won’t have to see.

His hand pauses and he says your name. You only look up when he presses one broad palm to your jaw, his fingers slip behind your ear when he strokes his thumb slowly across your cheek. 

“Look, sweetheart,” he says. “I get it. I get sortin’ yourself out,” he traces a thumb beneath your eye. “More than you know, I get it. But don’t leave us. Don’t do that.” 

His words are heavier than the sentiment warrants. 

Your throat closes and you nod into his shoulder. Joel’s hand trails back between your legs, thick fingers sliding against your lips. “Open up, honey,” he says, and your belly clenches. 

“It’s been a long time,” you admit, parting your legs. 

“‘S okay,” he murmurs, sliding one finger into you, and then a second. “I’m right here.” The gravel of his voice soothes you into it. You clench around him, digging your nails into his arm. “Yeah, you know I’ve got you, honey.” 

Your eyes flutter closed, his thick fingers curling deep inside you, reaching places your fingers can’t. “Mm,” you bury your face in his neck. “I know.” 

His thumb presses against your clit, one long, slow circle traced there. “Look at me,” he says. 

You pull away from his neck and reluctantly meet his gaze. He’s frowning at you, his brows lowered over his eyes. “You can’t leave us, d’ya understand?” He pulls his fingers out, and thrusts them back in. Your eyes roll back, pleasure settling heavily around your bones. “I understand. But you can’t do that. You come to me. If you feel like that. But you can’t leave.” 

“Yes,” you agree. “I won’t.” 

“No, you won’t,” he says, like he can will it into existence. 

You stifle a moan when Joel curls his fingers against that spongy spot inside you, stars bursting behind your closed lids.

Joel nudges your face up and kisses you hard in a clash of teeth and tongues. His voice is rough when he pulls away, “You’re takin’ me so well, sweetheart.” 

You keen and trace your fingers up Joel’s torso, determined not to look at him looking at you. Joel is littered with scars, and so are you. Only some of them could be considered beautiful, others are jagged and sharp, like the hooks of teeth sunken into prey. 

His cock strains at his jeans. You fumble with the zipper, your hands not obeying your commands. 

The sound of you around his fingers makes your skin burn, like iron hot needles pricking the inside of your skin. “I got you, darlin’,” he coos, his voice almost sweet. His fingers slip out of your pussy, and you gasp against him, giving up on the zipper to palm him through his jeans. 

Joel’s hips stutter into your hand when you squeeze him through the rough fabric. He groans, the sound loud and surprised, and the appealing idea of making him come like that flashes through your mind for a moment. 

That would have to wait. 

You want to see him, you want to feel him inside you, heavy and full. 

He drags his hand through your folds, his fingers swiping over your clit before he pushes back inside you. “Come for me,” he whispers, his voice a strained rasp. “Let me feel it.” His thumb presses against that bundle of nerves as his fingers thrust at a steady pace. 

The pleasure and heat swimming under your skin suddenly bursts, your hips pushing up into his hand even as you grasp at his wrist. “Joel,” you keen his name, eyes clenched shut. 

But he just moves his fingers faster, wringing every bit of pleasure out of you until your mind goes white and blank. 

The pleasure turns briefly to pain before it crests into something euphoric. You aren’t sure if you ride the same high or if you come a second time. Your cunt pulses, clenching hard around Joel’s fingers. 

“That’s it sweetheart,” he’s muttering, a man possessed, not stopping until you’re mumbling, begging him to give you a rest. 

His mouth is against your forehead, the brush of his lips warm as they move against your skin. 

You aren’t sure what he’s saying until. “-gotta stop squeezing me like that or I’m going to come.” 

“Want you to,” you say, rubbing your palm against the bulge in his jeans. 

“I’m going to,” he assures you. “But not like this.” 

He peels himself away from you and you turn to watch him pull off his jeans. 

You’re covered in a thin layer of sweat, your chest still heaving. The space between your thighs is wet. Slick drips down your legs. 

Your mouth goes dry when you turn your eyes to Joel, propping yourself up on your elbows. He fists himself in his hand, but when you reach for him, he pushes your hand away. “C’mere,” he pulls you to the edge of the bed, hooking your knees against his hips. 

His cock slides against your messy cunt, the head nudging against your clit, bolts of pleasure racing up your spine at the feeling. 

You reach between you when Joel presses himself over you, his lips finding yours. He still tastes like booze, his breath minty against chin and cheeks. He’s heavy in your hand and when you twist your wrist around him, he groans against the corner of your mouth and thrusts into your first. 

Before he can complain again, you notch him at your entrance. Joel is by no means an average man, and he seems aware as he pushes into you, giving you time to adjust to his girth. 

The stretch is painful, but good. 

He sits heavily inside you for a moment, mouth tracing down your neck and over your clavicle and chest. Letting you have time to adjust for him. 

His hand soothes along your side. “Ready darlin’?” He asks, teeth scraping lightly over the swell of your breast before he sucks one pert nipple into his mouth. 

“Yes,” you sigh, tangling your fingers into the curls at the nape of his neck.

Joel pulls back slowly, letting you feel all of him before his hips snap forward. You gasp, raking your fingers down his back. 

He groans into you and does it again, the rhythm of it culminating in a frantic chase to his high. It’s rough and fast. It’s dizzying. It’s Joel. 

His skin is warm beneath your fingers, the broken moans falling from his lips brushing against the hollow of your throat like angel’s wings. He keeps his face buried in your neck as he fucks you, muttering something under his breath. 

Just your name at first. 

Eventually words come to him. 

“Takin’ me so well, honey, just like that,” he says, tracing one hand down your waist, his thumb divoting over old scars. “Come again for me, sweetheart, you’re taking me so fuckin’ well.” 

You can hardly breathe, your body flushed with a delicious heat that makes you feel as though you might burn out, like a falling star laid to rest. “Joel,” you clutch tight to him, listening to the smooth guide of his voice. 

“What is it?” He slows, the thrust of his hips harder against you. “I’m right here. Doin’ so well. Takin’ me so well. Come for me. You can do it.”

Joel skims his thumb over your aching clit, the touch light against your overly sensitive core. 

Your body seizes hard, pussy clenching around him as you cry out a silent scream. You aren’t sure you’ve breathed in the last minute, your vision swimming as pleasure courses through you. You arch into him and clutch at his shoulders, riding out your orgasm, clenching hard around his length. 

“Jesus, you’re squeezin’ me tight,” Joel manages to choke out before he curses and wrenches back from you. He fists his hand around his cock as he comes on your pussy, your lower belly. 

You finally manage to take in a gasping, stuttering breath, your lungs finally filling with air as your cunt flutters around nothing.

Joel collapses into you, his messy, sweat dampened curls stuck to his flushed forehead. 

He pushes back up the bed, to lie next to you. “Please, Joel,” you coax, babbling, begging. “Back inside.” 

“Want me back inside your pussy, darlin’?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, slipping his cock back inside your soaked cunt. 

“I’m here,” he says after a few minutes, lips against your neck, his breath still coming in low pants. “Calm down. You’re okay.”

It’s only then you realize you’re repeating his name, over and over. “You’re alright,” he soothes again. 

You bury your nose in his neck, the scent of him stronger there. “I know,” you murmur, your racing pulse finally slowing. “I know,” you say again, breathing him in. 

Joel shifts and tugs a folded blanket up from the end of the bed. He surprises you with the gentle way he tucks it around you, holding you tight against him. 

A silence presses between you, a comfortable quiet that lulls you nearly to sleep, the warm solidity of him enough. “I’m gonna get somethin’ to clean you up,” he says in your ear when he slips out of you, gently extracting himself from your grip to sit up. 

“Okay,” you murmur before reaching out to grip his hand before he can stand. “Wait, Joel, is it alright if I fall asleep here?” 

He stares at you through the light reflecting off the snow that still falls outside. “Yes. Why wouldn’t it?” 

“Ellie-,” 

Joel leans in and presses a kiss to your forehead. “It’s alright,” he says simply. 

You close your eyes to the feeling that blooms hot in your chest. Joel cleans you gently and then climbs back into bed with you. 

He tucks you into his arms, close to his chest. You feel warm and safe, and you’ve almost drifted off when he takes your hand and brings it to his temple. 

You feel the bump of the ridge of scar there.

You try to pull back from Joel so you can see his face but he holds you fast, your head tucked under his chin. “I just want you to know I understand,” he says. “I get it.” 

“Oh,” you murmur. “Jesus, Joel, I-,” 

“It’s alright,” he says, his accent drawing the word out long. “Settle. It’s okay. I just want you to know. But you can’t go anywhere, understand? You come to us. We’re yours.” 

You loosen your fingers on his, calming. “I understand. I know. I wouldn’t.”

“You aren’t going to go anywhere are you?” Ellie asks one day that winter. She’s sitting in front of your blazing fireplace, staring deep into the jumping flames.

You’ve come down with a cold and she hasn’t left your side. Even going so far as to sleep on your couch. 

Her concern doesn’t match the situation but you try not to dwell on it, not sure you should ask. 

You glance up from the book in your hands. Snow peppers down outside in thick drifts. “What do you mean?” You sniffle. 

“Don’t get pissed,” she starts and you groan, closing your book on your finger. “I just - don’t get pissed at Joel but he told me about your kid.” You glance up at her, and she corrects, “Your niece but she was your kid.” 

You tilt your head at her, “Why would I leave because of that?” 

“He seemed worried about it,” she says and you raise a brow. “Jesus, okay, fuck, I overheard him talking to Tommy about it.” 

Surprise settles heavily in your belly. “Really?” 

“Yes, and I just -,”

You hold out a hand, and Ellie rolls her eyes and dramatically drags herself over to your place lying on the couch. “He has no reason to worry and neither do you. I’m not going anywhere.” You press a hand to her cheek, “Really.” 

She looks embarrassed but doesn’t push your hand away, instead settling against you on the sofa, her back against your hip. “You can talk to us, y’know,” she says cryptically. “We like you.” 

You laugh and pinch her side, “Ow, fuck, what was that for?” 

“The mouth on you, Ellie,” you roll your eyes. “Well, I would hope you both like me. I love you both of you.” 

“You do?” 

“I thought it was obvious when I handed over my whole stash of hot chocolate.” 

“You told me you didn’t fucking like it!” She accuses. “I’ll got get it right now and give it back to you-,” 

You pick up your book again and crack it open. “You’re right, I don’t fucking like it.” 

“Hey, now who’s using bad language?” She says, staring across the room at the fireplace again, seeming content to sit against you. 

You glance up to answer and jump, causing Ellie to fly to her feet. “Jesus, Joel, how long have you been standing there?” 

His face is set in its usual grumpy expression. “You two need to pay more attention,” he says instead of answering. “I could have gotten the jump on you.” 

“It’s not like we’re the ones that are deaf,” Ellie says, earning a glare. 

Ellie settles back down against your side and rolls her eyes at you. “Well,” you say, “Maybe someone shouldn’t be creeping around.” 

“You left the back door unlocked.” 

“Oh,” you say, watching Joel take his shoes off and then his coat. 

“Yeah, oh,” he grumbles. “Oh gets you killed.” 

“Good thing you’re here then,” you say, and Joel’s head snaps up, his eyes flickering between you and Ellie. “What?” 

He shakes his head, but seems flustered by your words. “Nothin’.” 

“Well come sit down then,” you hold out a hand. “Ellie was about to tell me how she’s going to make me soup to help me feeling better.” 

“I was not,” she protests.

You pout at her, “C’mon, I would do it for you.” 

She rolls her eyes and stands, “Fine. But only because I like you.” 

“Love you too,” you call after her as she swings around the doorway and down the hall. 

Joel takes her place, shifting your legs and then tugging them into your lap. “You heard me didn’t you?” 

He doesn’t answer, just digs his fingers into your legs, massaging the muscle. “I’m not taking it back,” you tell him. 

“I know,” he nods. “That’s okay.” 

You tilt your head, Joel’s dark eyes following the movement. “Do you need anything? I came over to see if I could help.” 

It’s the closest you’ll probably get to an I love you from either of them, but that doesn’t mean you don’t hear it. “‘Course you did. You two act like I’m on my deathbed. It’s a cold. That’s all.” 

“Just let me take care of you,” he says. “Let us take care of you.” 

You want to hound him about what he said to Tommy, but you decide to let it go for the moment. For now, you have the two people you love most in the world taking care of you like you mean the world. Neither of them know how to say it, but they know how to show it. 

“Okay.” 

💞 Thank you for reading! Comments and feedback are so appreciated. 💞

[yoditostan]

Din wants to talk about his life so bad but he mentions things like he’s making a facebook status so nobody knows how to respond 😭