Latest Posts by bboh032 - Page 2

Oh my queen. I admire you.

i keep seeing posts about how ppl wish that deadpool and wolverine actually fucked in the honda odyssey... but they did! they used almost every cinematic shorthand for sex possible in that scene. the focus on penetration (knives, claws) in incredibly close proximity. the bodily fluids (blood) spraying everywhere. the car rocking. the day-to-night transition. the way they're laying beside each other afterwards. the very deliberate choice of "you're the one that i want" playing in the background. they fucked!! it's hays code era fucking, bc it had to be approved by disney at the end of the day, but it still counts!!

This is how the burning of the ships went right?

I posted this on twitter and it got almost 200k likes so I guess that means I’m legally required to post this here too

drawinfs

I know people clown the erect codpiece in plate armor but . personally. Sitting on a knight’s lap and grinding on this would uhhhhh

I don’t think I’ve ever felt a stronger urge to motorboat an old man😽

i don't know what canon is. just tumblr and ao3 ❤️

I just think medieval snail ladies are neat.

Some see Beren as idiotic for relying so much on Lúthien’s dad’s blessing to marry her instead of just running off with her as she was willing to do … but don’t y’all see how … un-toxic that is of him? He doesn’t want to take her away from her family forever or force her to cut all ties with them. He knows there’s a chance her dad will disown her if he takes her away and he doesn’t want to put her through that. Especially since, at this point, he believes that she will outlive him by centuries - he has no idea of what is to come. So if he were to just take her away, he’d condemn her to eternity as an outcast from her family and people, long after his death. Instead, he takes the most dangerous path because that is the path that will allow them to be happy without costing Lúthien her loving relationship with her parents. A lesser man would’ve just swept her away. But Beren doesn’t want Lúthien to lose or give up anyone she loves in order to be with him. Come on, ladies, that’s husband goals right there.

Happy June 14th

Okay so I THINK I FOUND ALL SINGING AUDIOS FOR ARTHUR at least most of them for sure. (Divided into multiple tracks because size is too big and I didn't want them to sound like shit with compression) They were such a pain to find because they're one of those "named like a fucking code" files

For context, if anyone is interested. Here's, for example, how files with some horse lines are called.

Yeah, I have to look through every "Arthur" folder to find the specific thing, but, still, pretty simple to find. I can export them all without even listening. Here's where I found one of the humming/singing files

Like wtf does this mean??? The only way I can figure out what it is, is by listening to each folder, that all look like THIS

Oh and btw

Saw this and knew what I had to do sooo here’s a late night doodle smooches

Rest in peace Hosea you would’ve loved being a Facebook mom

on that note it’s crucial to understand that there is no twosome from the challengers trio that could ever work. like patrick and art alone are repressed tashi and art alone are resentful tashi and patrick alone are toxic it simply does not work they always need the third to balance each other out this is is a throuple movie a threesome movie you’re literally not understanding

LAWRD this audio is SO bfd!joel im frothing at the mouth

Sugar & Spice | Joel Miller x Reader

This is a follow up to Soft & Sweet. It can be read as a standalone, but it is highly encouraged to be read as a sequel!

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

Summary: You lose your virginity to Joel Miller.

Warnings/tags: MDNI. Foul language. Alcohol consumption. Drunken behavior. Arguing. Implied age gap (no numbers specified). Insecure Joel. Soft Joel. Loss of virginity. Reader is not clueless, just inexperienced. Praise. Dirty talk. Pet names. Joel guides reader through it. Oral (f receiving). Fingering. Unprotected p in v. Mentions of pain during sex. After care. Unbearable fluff. No mentions of body type or race, except slight implication reader is shorter than Joel. Platonic Ellie x Reader.

Word count: 9.8k (i’m sorry??)

soft!joel collection masterlist.

a/n: i am so thrilled to be sharing this with y’all! i’ve been working so diligently on it, and i’m really proud of the final product. special thanks for my bea @cupofjoel for reading so many parts of this and listening to me ramble on and on about ideas. tbh, we have also decided game joel suits this story a lot better, but if you’re imagining hbo joel, he canonically has long hair for this. see pic above. ty all for all the support on part 1!

You went on your date.

Two weeks after sharing your first kiss with Joel Miller, and you had yet to cross paths with him again. The excuse was air tight: Maria was only weeks away from labor which meant neither she nor Tommy were on the patrol routes. Times shifted, and for the next month, you and Joel would be on separate schedules. You knew it wasn’t permanent, that he would have no choice but to face you in a few weeks. But something about the way he averted from your gaze within Jackson’s wall, the quick pick up to his feet whenever you would accidentally cross paths in the town square, had your stomach in a knot.

Joel was avoiding you.

At first, the realization devastated you. You spent days cooped up in your room when you had no other necessary duties, ashamed of the tears you let stain your pillowcase. Your chest lingered with an unfamiliar ache that had once been ignited by his lips, but was now a throbbing reminder of a moment shared and lost. You pitied yourself, and it was sickening.

Then, you were angry. How dare he? Who did he think he was? Even if it was just any old run of the mill kiss, you didn’t think his respect for you would reduce that drastically. To not even acknowledge your presence? It was like a knife to the back. And after dwelling with that demon for some time, you came to realize you had two options: to face him or pretend it never happened.

The former was out of the question.

Therefore, you reduced yourself to compliance. Life couldn’t stop over a momentary lapse of judgment, and while reluctant, you decided to accept the invitation of drinks at the Tipsy Bison. Noah was nice enough; tall, slender, and dazzling hazel eyes that lit up when he smiled. You had met him at the market one afternoon, recognizing one another through a few mutual acquaintances. There were only a handful of people around your age group in Jackson, and everyone knew everyone, for the most part. It was something of a worst nightmare. But assimilating was survival, so that following Friday night, you found yourself sitting across from him in a booth towards the back of the bar, a heavy pour of vodka and seltzer water filling your glass.

Thank goodness for alcohol was what you spent most of the evening thinking. Noah was the kind man who loved to talk, mostly about himself. And while you were content on listening to get yourself through the evening, you couldn’t help but feel bored. Anxiety filled your stomach then; was this how Joel felt when you talked his ear off on patrols? 

Fuck. Why were you still thinking about him? This excursion had been a means of forgetting about him and the disappointment of his attitude towards you. But the thought of him only seemed to increase when you realized the company of the man before you was even more disheartening than Joel’s blatant rejection of you. 

You felt nothing for Noah. Not anywhere near the way you felt for Joel, seeming to burn from the inside out at the mere thought of him. 

When your date came to its natural conclusion, Noah offered to walk you home to which you quickly declined, using the excuse of needing to use the restroom and not wanting to keep him waiting so late. Truthfully, you did not want to be alone with him. The expectant connotation the idea held rubbed you the wrong way. Not like it did with Joel. You would welcome a secluded space again with him. 

As soon as you were able to convince Noah you would be fine and bid your farewells with the exchange of an awkward hug and forced smiles, you ran into the bar's bathroom, immediately seeking the sink to splash cold water over your burning cheeks. This was ridiculous, and if you couldn’t get yourself together soon, you were sure you would lose it. You stared at yourself in the mirror, scowling. Something had to give. 

Marching back out into the crowded room, you made certain Noah had left before seating yourself up at the bar and ordering another drink. Drinking alone; bleak, but effective. And by your third vodka soda, you were feeling much better. Invigorated, even.  To the point where you strode right out of the bar, a bit of an uneven waver to your step, and down the main strip of town. Impulsive and intoxicated, you decided you had every right to protect your sanity, your wellbeing, your heart. 

You were going to give Joel Miller a piece of your mind.

Joel didn't know how badly he wanted you until he had you. 

A moment so brief, and yet, it was ingrained into the depths of his very soul. How was he supposed to have said no to you? He knew how; he was a grown ass man, and should have had more self control. He should have been more adamant in his denial of your request. Should have ended the conversation before it even started. But the moment you flashed him those somber doe eyes, he knew he was far too weak to listen to any sort of rationale. Thus, the feel of your silken soft lips buzzed on him for days to come. He had the curves of your body mapped out on his hands, even though they only touched you for a short while. And your scent. It hung around him like a cloud, a drug he got addicted to off of one hit. 

He needed to clear his head. Therefore, when Ellie asked if she could spend the night at Dina’s, Joel happily obliged. A quiet home to himself. There was nothing Joel Miller enjoyed more. 

He settled himself on the couch, keeping only the glow of a lamp on as a source of light, a glass of whiskey he had traded for in hand. He swore he would only drink it on special occasions, but the week's torment proved it necessary. Closing his eyes and leaning back against the cushions, Joel was prepared to will himself to sleep if that meant he could have a moment of reprieve, but as soon as he was beginning to find his peace, a harsh knock pounding against the front door sent him startling to attention. When it came for the second time, he jumped to his feet, pacing towards the door with visible annoyance to his wrinkled brow. 

“You’re gon’ wake up the whole damn neighborhood if you keep knockin’ so—”

He halted his surly rant when the door swung fully open, and Joel was shocked to see you standing on his front porch with a bitter look in your eyes. He breathed your name almost questioningly, as if he couldn’t believe it was actually you standing there. A figment of his imagination haunting him for how often he had thought about you over the week, entertaining the idea, for a split second, that you may not be real. 

But then, your hands were on his chest, shoving at him until he stumbled back from the doorway, and you were stomping into the house, uninvited. 

“The hell are you doin’?!” he barked at you. Joel had never witnessed such a blatant display of indignation from you, at least never directed towards him. To barge over here, unannounced, and show such clear disrespect— 

“Why are you avoiding me?!” you screeched, and his agitated expression instantly fell.

Oh. 

He saw it then, the bloodshot look in your eyes, the sweat to your brow. He could smell it, the alcohol mixed with your natural aroma he had convinced himself he could still sense around him the entire week. But now, it was here. At his doorstep. Drowning him, consuming him. 

Joel sighed heavily. “Jesus, you’re fuckin’ wasted.” Clearly, that was the wrong answer, because as soon as he said it, you were lurching after him again. But before your palms could make contact with his chest, Joel grabbed at your wrists, stopping them mid air. 

Okay, so you were an angry drunk. Great. 

“Cut it out,” he seethed, taking a step forward to tower over you. You were looking up at him fiercely, and he hated how much he loved the heated look in your eyes. He would never admit it to you, but Joel rather enjoyed your attitude. It was endearing. Cute. Whenever you went on your seemingly endless rants during your patrols together, he often found it hard to conceal the smirk that would creep onto his lips at your relentless slaughter of whoever had pissed you off lately. The tremble to your bottom lip that he noticed now, however? That he was enjoying a lot less. 

He kept your wrists in the confines of his hands when he spoke. “M’not…not avoidin’ you.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. He wasn’t necessarily doing it on purpose, and the shift in patrol schedules made it an easy out. But Joel knew it wouldn’t be that simple. You were far too smart, and he respected you far too much to lie to you 

“Bullshit,” you slurred, hands balling into tiny fists against his chest. “You–you don’t even look at me. You walk away from me when you see me in town. And–and you won’t, won’t talk to me.” Your words were a sputtered mess, coming out through trembling lips that fueled tear rimmed eyes, leaving Joel to frown deeply at the sight. Oh, sad drunk was worse. So, so much worse. 

It was true, he hadn’t spoken to you once since he kissed you that day in the safehouse. The question of why was one he couldn’t seem to answer; maybe he was worried he overstepped, regardless of how adamantly you asked him to. Or even more frightening, he was afraid that you regretted it. That you may never look at him the same way again, the only partner he could even remotely imagine tolerating was now going to be taken away from him over his foolish, selfish indulgence.  

“You–you kissed me, and–and now y-you don’t want me anymore.” 

Joel’s brows furrowed instantly, and he couldn’t help himself in the way he dropped your wrists from his grip, bringing his hands up to cup your cheeks, forcing you to look at him. He studied your tear filled eyes with an intense focus, a pain coursing through his gut at the way you looked up at him, sniffling back the growing tears. Joel had seen you cry before, but never at dealing of his own hand. It ate him alive with guilt. “Hey,” he said sternly, but calmly. That was why you were upset? So troubled over it that you got yourself drunk before coming to his doorstep to confront him? It was supposed to be easy for you to tell him things, tell him everything, but he had made you feel otherwise. More guilt. “That just ain’t true,” he whispered, catching one of the tears that cascaded down your right cheek with the pad of his thumb. 

Joel had never spent this much time so close to you. Save for the moment in the safe house and this one, he didn't think he had ever touched you. He never had any reason to. He was unprepared for how strong the urge to keep touching you was, wallowing in the hope that he never had to let go. 

“Yes, it is,” you argued shakily, your once intense tone losing its strength as you gave way to your emotions. God, he felt like a dick. Joel knew how your brain worked; you probably spent the better half of the week meticulously worrying over what you could have done wrong, when in reality, it was his own compulsions Joel was concerned about. 

“Darlin,’” he breathed, trying to keep his tone as even as possible. “You’re…not thinkin’ right, it's late, why don’t we talk about this in the mornin’?” He really didn’t want to argue with you, and if he was going to, he at least wanted to hear your thoughts in a clear state of mind. Contrary to what you may believe in the moment, Joel did give a shit about what you had to say. 

“You’re just gonna avoid me again,” you muttered, the pout to your bottom lip only increasing the sharp pain of guilt in his gut. 

“No, I won’t.” 

“Yes, you will.” 

“No,” Joel stressed, squeezing your cheeks tenderly between his hands until your lips pursed. Your tears had subsided, but the gloss over your eyes was still present. He so badly wanted to ask what he could do to soothe away your sorrow, but his attention was quickly deterred when you slumped forward with a deep huff, languidly wrapping your arms around his torso and burying your face in his chest. 

Initially, Joel froze. This was…new. Despite the large step of kissing you, Joel had never embraced you. The feeling was odd, foreign. He hadn’t hugged anyone other than Ellie or his brother since, well, since the world went to shit. His hands tingled in mid air, body gone ridgid at your sudden closeness. But eventually, he willed himself to relax, trying not to overthink the moment and gradually wrapping his arms firmly around you, one at your waist, the other at your shoulders, pressing you gently into his chest. The alleviation of all his tension was instantaneous. 

“Why don’t I walk you home?” he whispered, letting his fingers paint gentle circles against your scalp. He loved how soft your hair was.  

You shook your head, still nuzzled into his chest. “Don’t wanna go home,” you muttered, and Joel felt his stomach tighten in what he could only decipher as anxiety. That pesky little pest, always gnawing at him from the inside out. 

He could tell by the heaviness to your body and the weight in your voice the alcohol was catching up to you, fatigue nearby. He contemplated the predicament for a good long while, using the time to relish in the warm and comfortable affection of your shared embrace. 

“Alright,” he replied, his voice nearly as low as yours muffled in his shirt. Joel knew it wasn’t the best idea to let you stay, but he was also quickly discovering just how difficult it was for him to deny you. You were both playing a dangerous game. 

Wordlessly, Joel led you up the stairs with one hand at the small of your back, and the other at your bicep for stability. Your steps were heavy, and he noted the way you would lift your hand every few moments to rub at your tired eyes. He couldn’t help but find it painfully adorable. 

There was no harm in you sleeping here, right? He would lead you to his bed, help you get settled, and dutifully take the couch. There, he could spend the rest of the night reeling over his questionable judgment. 

Guiding you up the stairs, Joel made sure to flicker the big light off before maneuvering you into his bedroom. He got you safely seated at the edge of the mattress before you finally gave way to your weak muscles, snorting under his breath at the way you unabashedly splayed back against the mattress, groaning and squeezing your eyes shut. He knew that feeling all too well. 

“Want somethin’ else to sleep in?” he asked, observing the undoubtedly uncomfortable jeans and white button up you’d spent your evening in. But you were already shifting on the bed, curling into a fetal position with your head nuzzled into the pillow he usually slept on. You reached for the covers, pulling them absentmindedly around your body, mumbling a nuh uh. 

Joel sighed. Well, he wasn’t going to get anywhere else with you tonight, that was certain. So instead of dragging out your consciousness any longer, he carefully approached the side of the mattress, adjusting the sheets so they laid nicely over your huddled body, gingerly swiping a strand of hair that had slid over your eyes back away from your face. He stared at you for a moment then. Even in the darkness, he could make out your soft features; long eyelashes tickling your cheeks, lips slightly parted with gentle puffs of air. He didn’t indulge himself in watching you sleep for too long, but he was a bit alarmed at just how long he could have stood there, content in observing such a mundane activity. Of course, it was only because it was you partaking in it. No one else could make dreams look as peaceful. 

He steadied his hands on the mattress, leaning down to press a ghost of a kiss to your temple. “Sweet dreams,” he whispered, leaving the door cracked just the slightest when he left the room. In case you needed him. In case you wanted him. Even if, like it had been so many times before, it was just to have someone to talk to. 

Joel didn’t know how much he missed the sound of your voice until he heard it again.

Sharp, searing pain is what you were awoken to. Mostly behind the eyes, radiating through your skull and throbbing in a way that had you struggling to open them. But just as you were able to get a good squint, the sheer shock of your environment outweighed the pain. You shot up with a gasp, frantically looking around and grasping at the unfamiliar bed sheets until it hit you. You were not in some stranger's bed. 

This was Joel’s room. 

The scent of it alone could’ve told you so, but as you blinked away the lingering fatigue, the night came back to you in pieces. Your less than thrilling date with Noah. Your decision to drown those sorrows with some hefty drinks, which was quickly followed by the even more foolish decision to stomp your way over to Joel Miller's house and tell him off for kissing you then ignoring you for two weeks. 

Oh fuck. 

You cradled your head in your hands. What did you say? Even worse, what did you do? You were a notoriously emotional drunk, and while you couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact words you chose to give Joel, you knew they couldn’t be good. 

Immediately, you began looking around for an escape plan. You could use the window; it was the second story, but these old houses weren’t built too tall and Joel’s yard was covered in grass. Maybe he was still asleep? The front door seemed like a much less likely option. But just as you began contemplating the escape, your eyes quickly fell to the bedside table where a glass of water and a worn bottle of ibuprofen sat. Below each item was a scrap of paper that read drink me and take me, respectively. 

You felt that warmth rush into your chest again. Leaning over, you picked up the slips of paper, running your fingers over the scribbled penmanship. There was something incredibly intimate about him leaving you a handwritten note, and you couldn’t help but savor the feeling. Maybe this was proof alone that you didn’t embarrass yourself too bad last night. 

You reached over for the water and pills then, popping two into your mouth and chugging back the cool liquid when you heard the creak of the bedroom door. You froze, eyes wide over the rim of the glass as you watched it crack open, Joel’s head peeking through seconds later. 

His own brows shot to his forehead. “Oh,” he said quietly, pushing the door open the rest of the way to stand still in the doorframe. “You’re awake.” 

You quickly swallowed the rest of the water, setting the glass back on the table, and attempting to smooth back some of the hair in your face. You probably looked like a mess. Meanwhile, the morning suited Joel. You had never seen him so lax; charcoal sweatpants hanging deliciously on his hips, coupled with a black t-shirt that hugged his body a little too well. His usually tame curls were messy, and your fingers ached with the instinct to touch them. This was certainly a sight you could get used to. 

“Yeah,” you breathed, opting to fiddle with your nails below the sheets instead. “Thank you, um…thank you for taking care of me.” 

He shoved his hands in his pockets, giving you a few gentle nods. “‘Course,” was all he said, and you felt like you could scream. You couldn’t read him, couldn’t decipher the thoughts behind those intense eyes. The anticipation of his mood was almost too much to handle, and before you knew it, the incessant anxiety was taking over. 

“Joel,” you whispered after a long moment, watching the way his brows quirked at the sound of his name. And then, just like they had done so many times before, the flood gates opened. “Joel, I’m — I’m so sorry. I don’t, I don’t know what came over me. I went on that stupid date, and it was just, just awful, and I was mad at you, and didn’t know how to handle it–”  

He held up a hand to cease your prattling, and you did, shutting your mouth and opting to chew on the inside of your lip instead while you anxiously awaited his voice. 

When he dropped his hand, he sighed a heavy sigh, slowly making his way across the room to the bedside. Wordlessly, you shifted over, giving him the space to sit down at the edge of the mattress, turning over his shoulder to face you. The sudden proximity had you tensing. “If anyone should be apologizin’, it’s me.” It wasn’t what you were expecting him to say, but you didn’t interrupt. Something in the way his countenance faltered told you this kind of conversation wasn’t all that easy for Joel. 

You felt the air leave your lungs when he looked up at you through hooded eyes, the utter remorse in them palpable, honest. “You trusted me with somethin’ personal, somethin’ special, and I — I broke that trust.” Your heart ached in your chest, and you felt guilty for ever assuming he was incapable of owning up to his mistakes. “And m’sorry,” he concluded. All you could do was stare at him, trying to process his earnest apology. Even though it filled you to the brim with adoration, it still didn’t answer why he had avoided you in the first place. 

“Do you regret it?” you finally whispered, barely audible. You were afraid of the answer. “Do you…do you regret kissing me?” 

The knot returned to his brows. “What? No.” His hand was on your thigh over the blankets then, and you felt your entire body ignite in response. He gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “No, not at all.” 

Taking a brave leap, you carefully placed your own hand atop of his, savoring the familiar roughness. “Then why haven’t you talked to me?” The way your eyes bore into one another, you weren’t sure if you had ever looked at Joel this long. At least not while he was looking back. You thought you would be afraid of the intensity, but quite the contrary. Your bodies had shifted closer to one another on the mattress, like magnets. 

He released another heavy sigh, dropping his eyes to your touching hands. His fingers twitched the slightest bit, and you used the opportunity to slip yours between them, curling them over the top of his hand. You gave him a squeeze back. It’s okay, you wanted to tell him. You can tell me. You can talk to me. But you were patient, knowing Joel was the kind of man who needed to come to you in his own time. 

“‘Cause I– I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did,” he admitted quietly, so quietly you almost missed it. He still didn’t look at you. “And when I felt the way I did about it…I panicked. Didn’t know what the right thing to do was, didn’t know what you were thinkin’ about it all...” His words trailed, and you considered them for a long moment. 

Didn’t know what you were thinkin’ about it all. 

What were you thinking? So many things, too many to count. But right there, sitting in Joel’s bed with his hand on you, his body and breath so close, all you thought about was the good. How good you felt when he kissed you. The bad and ugly melted away with your sadness, your anger. 

“I think…” you started after a beat, your voice almost as soft as his. “I think that I haven’t stopped thinking about it for a single moment since it happened.” 

His eyes were on you again, but this time, there was questioning to them, as if he was searching for any sign that your words were less than sincere. You didn’t give him a second of doubt. Instead, you dragged his hand across your lap and settled it on your hip. He watched you intently, compliant to your ministrations. You used the opportunity to scoot forward again, his hip touching up against your thigh. 

“Yeah?” he asked, quietly. 

“Yeah,” you breathed.

Then, Joel Miller stole your second kiss, and it was just as magical as the first. 

The hand that wasn’t on your hip came to cradle the back of your neck, teasing his lips against yours with a delicate brush before giving you the feeling you craved most over the past two weeks. It bursted inside of you like a goddamn bomb, coating your belly in warmth. 

You leaned into him, gripping his arms, then his shoulders, holding yourself steady. His kiss was slow, and deep. Savoring every second of your lips. This time around, when his tongue taunted your bottom lip, you parted them. He tasted like coffee and something sweet, and you quickly found it was one of the most delectable tastes to ever touch your tongue. 

You were starting to feel hot. Still confined in the clothes you wore the night before, you became acutely aware of the situation. Alone together. In Joel’s bed. With his hands and lips on you. You wanted to feel him everywhere all at once. 

“Joel,” you sang during a brief break of air, nails digging into his shirt. He continued to steal quaint kisses, only humming in response. You snuck one of your hands up into his hair, mimicking his hold on you. “I need you…I need you to touch me.”  

This seemed to get his attention. He stilled, pulling back only enough for his nose to bump yours. Dark, brown, beautiful eyes blown wide to study you. 

“Darlin’,” he whispered, giving your hip a tender squeeze. “We shouldn’t, I mean, I—you’re—”

You knew what he was insinuating. You didn’t have to say it out loud for Joel to assume. 

You’re a virgin. 

“I don’t care,” you rushed out despite the bubbling anxiety in the pit of your stomach. It had to happen eventually, why not now? Why not with Joel? 

You saw him bite at his bottom lip, his gaze ravenous even in the midst of his hesitancy. “I just…I wanna make sure you know what you’re askin’ for.” 

“Tell me,” you whispered against his lips breathlessly, tugging at his curls to keep him close. “Tell me you feel nothing for me, and I’ll stop. I’ll stop pushing it.” 

Joel groaned, the kind that suggested the frustrating restraint of desire. “You know I can’t do that, sweetheart.” You knew. God, you knew, but that didn’t stop the rush of heat from darting to your core when he admitted it.  

“Then please,” you begged, slinking your arms fully around his shoulders to pull yourself up. You hovered over him, lips barely dancing atop of his. “Please touch me, Joel.” 

There were a few more beats of reservation until he simply couldn’t help himself any longer. He stood from the bed, bringing you to your knees with him at the edge of the mattress. Your hands never left him, engulfing yourself fully around his neck, his own steady at your waist, holding onto it for dear life. Then, he was kissing you again with an increased intensity that knocked the wind out of you. 

Everything suddenly became overwhelming, the heightened awareness of your body and the way he maneuvered it foreign and exciting. You were unable to mask the whimper that escaped you when his lips abandoned yours for your jaw, your neck, finding a deliciously sensitive spot at the base of your throat and sucking on it gingerly. Your head lulled back in a daze, and you felt his hands slip under the hem of your button up, tickling at the skin of your sides.

“You’re so goddamn soft,” he muttered into the crook of your neck, his hands traveling further forward until they were toying with the buttons on your shirt. “Can I take this off, darlin’?” 

You nodded frantically, unable to quite find your voice. You scooted back a bit, giving him space to manipulate his fingers down the front of your shirt, carefully popping each button. When the fabric fell open, Joel seethed a shit under his breath. You weren’t wearing a bra, the cool air peaking your nipples. You felt the heat rising on your skin at the way his eyes took in every inch of you, careful fingers pushing back the collar until the shirt slipped off your shoulders.  

No man had ever seen you naked. Well, not purposefully. With the group you traveled with before you ended up in Jackson, it was inevitable to reveal yourself a time or two, changing or bathing in such close quarters. You thought you would be bashful, maybe even uncomfortable. But with the way Joel was looking at you, eyes full of nothing but careful adoration, you felt exhilarated. 

“Lay back, babygirl,” Joel instructed softly, the new pet name making your heart flutter in your chest. You obeyed his wish, carefully shuffling yourself until you could lay your head back onto his pillows, watchful eyes following him as he sauntered over to the end of the mattress. 

He moved with such diligence, a man of many years who seemed to have perfected just living in the beautiful state he inhabited. You watched him with the same intensity as he rid himself of his own shirt, revealing his sturdy chest and plush belly. Your mouth watered with anticipation when the mattress dipped, Joel crawling up the empty space to settle himself between your legs. 

Bare chest to chest, your skin was on fire. You looked up at him wide eyed, suddenly in a suspension of disbelief. This was happening. Really happening. The fantasies you had worked so diligently to shove deep down inside you manifesting before your eyes; you would have been content to never see them flourish, as having Joel Miller by your side in any shape or form was a reward, but this? This was so much better. 

He leaned down, pressing the softest kiss to your parted lips. “You okay?” His forearms rested on either side of your head, and when you nodded, he brought a single hand down to toy with the strands of hair at your temple. “If we’re gonna go any further, I need you to talk to me, darlin’. Think you can do that?” 

You nodded again, and he gave you a knowing look, a small smirk quirking up on his lips. “Sorry,” you squeaked. “Yes…yes, I-I can do that.” 

Talking. Talking was good. Nerves were inevitable, and hearing Joel’s voice would soothe you through it. Dampen the fears, the inexperience, the insecurities. 

“And if you want me to stop,” he continued, his lips returning to your fiery skin, trailing barely there kisses down the expanse of your neck. Your eyes fluttered shut, hands grasping at his bare sides. “You tell me right away.” His kisses littered your throat, your collarbone, all the way to your breasts where they ghosted over your nipples, aching for attention. “Understand?” His lips wrapped around one of them then, and you arched off the mattress with a gasp. 

“Y-yes,” you mewled. Maybe talking was going to be much more difficult than you expected. “I-I understand, Joel.” 

“Good girl,” he praised softly, and good god if it didn’t shoot straight to your core, which you were now vividly aware was pressed up against the growing outline in his sweatpants.

He continued his descent, gracing your skin with his feathery kisses and stopping just short of the waistband of your jeans. The discomfort from sleeping in them was quickly replaced by the discomfort below them. You were dripping. 

“Do you touch yourself, pretty girl?” Joel whispered against the skin below your belly button, bringing a hand down to slowly undo the buttons on your jeans. “When you’re all alone, do you make yourself feel good?” 

You had your arms splayed to either side of you, unsure of where to touch, to grab, fingers balled into fists. His question alone drew another whimper from you, and you heard the zipper on your pants go down. 

“Yes,” you answered honestly. You had done your fair share of exploration over the years, always in private, and always just enough to get you over the edge so many seemed to talk so highly about. But you never felt this hot with your own hands.

Joel hummed in approval. “Good. That’s good. Lift up—” he said, giving your thighs a light tap. You lifted your hips from the mattress, allowing him room to shuffle the fabric off your legs. You assisted him towards the end, fluttering your feet until you could kick the jeans to the floor. Within seconds, he was back between your thighs, this time straddling his shoulders as he settled further down the mattress. His face was inches away from your cunt, now only protected by the thin cotton barrier. 

“And when you touch yourself,” he continued, fingers tracing the softest shapes on the outside of your thighs, over your hips. You could feel his hot breath through your panties, and it made you squirm. “How many fingers do you use?” 

The subject matter was crude at its core, but something about the words coming off Joel’s lips made them sound completely earnest. Like he wanted to know, needed to know. You weren’t sure how much longer you could last without his attention where you needed it most. 

“Two. Sometimes, maybe three, but I like—” Your chest heated with embarrassment. You had spoken so openly about so many things with Joel over your months as partners, but never anything like this. 

His brows perked up in interest from between your legs, continuing the teasing caresses of your thighs. “What, darlin’?” He placed a kiss on the inside of your left thigh, and you could’ve sworn you saw stars. “What do you like? You can tell me.” 

Your breath was no longer your own, heaving uncontrollably. Sweat rolling on your temples. He certainly knew how to work you up.

You bit your bottom lip. “I like…I like to rub my clit,” you whispered, wincing at the way the vulgar words sounded coming out of your mouth. But Joel practically growled below you, eyes closing momentarily. 

He leaned forward, breathing in your core and running his nose along the patch of dampness. That was when your hands abandoned the sheets, instinctively coming up to grab at his curls. “Oh, baby,” he hummed, hands leaving your thighs to curl his fingers into the waistband of your panties. “Yeah, I can do that. Promise to take real good care of you.” 

And you believed him, which had you wasting little time in lifting your hips again, allowing him to strip you of your last piece of clothing. He took a moment to rake his eyes over you before leaning back down, your glistening center clenching around nothing as the cold air tickled the flesh. 

“So beautiful,” he murmured, guiding the crux of your knees over either shoulder. 

You were fully exposed to this man, for the first time ever to the eyes of another, and yet, you had never felt more exhilarated. You wondered if that was simply because it was Joel. No one else in this fucked up world could make you feel so comfortable as to bare your heart, soul, and body to them. 

“Joel, please,” you begged again, this time, giving a bold tug to his hair. “Please.” You needed something, anything he would provide you. 

He didn’t keep you in anticipation much longer.  He wetted his lips before his head dipped between your legs, warm tongue licking a slow strip across your outer lips, all the way up to your clit that stood taut, moving the tip of his tongue in calculated flicks. 

“Oh, fuck!” you shrieked, eyes screwing shut and hips bucking up off the mattress. Joel was quick to combat this, sturdy hands gripping you by the hips and bringing you back down to earth while he paid mindful attention to your swollen clit, just like you asked him to. 

But it was much different having someone’s mouth on you. Joel’s mouth. The familiar coil in your belly built much quicker while he suckled on the sensitive bud. “Joel,” you moaned, to which he hummed in response, sending the most delectable vibrations through you. “More. Your fingers, please.” 

He never took his lips off of you when you felt the pads of his fingers prod at your hole, already leaking with desire. You anticipated his fingers to be much larger than yours, but when he sunk his two digits in, the stretch was satisfying. The way he worked up your arousal aiding in how easy it was to slowly pump them in and out, curling up ever so slightly to find the spongy spot inside of you. 

You couldn’t quite process it; the attentiveness, how effortless it was for him to listen to your needs. Word of mouth had given you a low standard of expectation for your first experience, but something told you Joel would exceed every string of disappointment. 

He began to quicken his pace, the flex of his forearm curving his fingers up into that sweet spot with precision, leaving your toes to clench and your thighs to squeeze around his head. You were singing his name like a prayer, the only word you could find as your abdomen tightened, a subtle tremor cursing through your legs. You craned your neck up from the pillows, compelling yourself to find the image of him nestled between your thighs. And fuck, was it glorious. His hooded eyes were already on you, pupils blown wide, breathing frantically through his nose while his lips continued their ambush on you. You quickly brushed the stray curls from his forehead, wanting to have a clear view of his eyes when your jaw fell slack, the euphoric high starting at your core and bursting out over the rest of you. At first, you couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. But Joel kept working his tongue over your clit and his fingers inside of you through your orgasm so adamantly that your head flung back, thighs clamped around his head, and a lewd moan echoed off your lips. Thank god no one else was home, as you were pretty sure the neighbors could hear how good Joel Miller was making you feel. 

“Fuck, fuck, oh fuck.” You were a sputtering mess while he teetered you towards overstimulation, but soon enough, his sucking turned to gentle kisses, and his fingers slowed their assault. When he dragged them out of you, you could hear the sound of your slick. And when you finally had the energy to peer down at him, you could see his patchy beard covered in it, too. But Joel was as much a taker as a giver it seemed, for when he pulled his face away from between your thighs, you watched him bring the glistening digits up to his lips and suck them clean. 

He grinned down at you when he popped them out of his mouth. “So damn sweet, darlin’.” This had you giggling, a mixture of inevitable embarrassment and bliss. You brought your hands up tiredly to cover your heated cheeks, but Joel was having none of it. He dragged them down, replacing them with peppered kisses to your nose, your forehead, your cheeks, until he landed on your lips, joining in on the soft laughter between each peck.

It was cathartic. Sharing in such joy after a moment of such intensity. You had always thought sex needed to be this serious, meticulous act. That didn’t seem to be the case with Joel; he was the same him, you were the same you. And that was enough. 

Hovering above you again, you wrapped your still shaky legs around his hips. His hands were back at your hairline, now doused in sweat, carefully pushing back the pieces that stuck to your skin. 

“You okay?” he asked softly. 

You nodded. “Yes.” You snaked a hand in between the two of you, mimicking his soft caresses to the saturated patches of hair on his jaw. “More than okay.” 

You were fucking incredible. On cloud nine, in fact. Every worry of the day, week, month seemingly lost to the euphoria that was Joel’s hands on you. 

“We can stop at any time if it’s gettin’ too much,” he reminded you, and you knew the terse look in his eye came from nowhere else but concern. 

Your brows pulled over your eyes, pouting up at him. “I don’t wanna stop,” you muttered, tracing your finger over his jawline. “Do you want to stop?”  

“No, fuck. No, sweetheart, ‘course I don’t wanna stop,” he reassured you. “I just want you to know that even if we don’t go all the way…that doesn't make this a failure.” 

You could’ve cried right then and there. This man. This stoic, brooding man who you had spent so much time avoiding your feelings for might have been the sweetest, gentlest man you had ever encountered underneath all of that heavy armor he insisted on carrying. You wanted to help him with the weight, take as much of it as you could muster onto your shoulders, and free him of his worries and pain. 

You took a deep breath, swallowing back the lump in your throat and bringing both hands up to cradle his cheeks. He looked you in the eye, focused. “I want to feel this with you,” you spoke softly, never faltering from his deep gaze. “I trust you, Joel. With everything I have.” 

Taking a leap of faith, you trailed your hands from his cheeks all the way down his torso until your fingers fiddled with the tie on his sweatpants. You gave it a tug, letting the stings fall open. He watched you, and when he felt the still of your hands, took it upon himself to slowly peel back, shuffling to the edge of the mattress to rid himself of his pants. 

When they hit the floor, your lips parted in a sharp inhale. Joel Miller carried every trait of a man who was well endowed, but to see the sacred part of him up close was an entirely different experience than imagining it. Thick and already leaking with precum, you were enamored by the dark vein that ran along the underside of his cock, standing proud and eager against his lower stomach. You tried not to let your eyes linger on it too long when he crawled back up to you, settling between your legs. You felt another rush of arousal when his warm cock laid up against your core. 

“I’m a little nervous,” you whispered, scared that if you admitted it too loud, he would change his mind. 

That couldn’t be further from the truth; you knew so when he graced you with that subtle, doting smile. The kind that just reached his eyes enough for you to see the little crinkles at the edges. 

“I know, baby, but I promise I’ve got ya. It’s just you and me, okay?” You nodded slowly, suddenly overcome with unexpected emotion again. Your eyes glistened, the tenderness of his voice healing something deep inside you. “If we’re bein’ honest, I’m a little nervous too.” His grin only increased upon your reaction, looking up at him as if that was the most ridiculous thing in the world. “S’been a long time for me.” 

Oh. You suppose you never thought about it that way. You gave way to the moment, leaning up to press a quaint kiss to his lips. “You and me,” you echoed his words and his smile. 

He returned the gentle kiss. “Hold on to me,” he instructed, and you brought your arms back around his neck, keeping him close. He reached between your bodies, and you felt the tip of his cock run across your awaiting folds. You dug your teeth into your bottom lip, tensing in anticipation. “Relax, baby. S’gonna feel a lot better if you try to relax.” 

You heeded his warning, taking in a deep inhale through your nose and out through your mouth. “Go slow, please,” you whimpered. His forehead touched yours when he nodded. 

“I will,” he promised, nudging the tip of him against your hole, still slick with arousal. And you were grateful for it when he notched himself inside of you, eliciting a gasp from the both of you. 

You knew it was just the tip of him, but that didn’t stop your eyes from rolling back. Warm and firm, nestling perfectly inside of you. You welcomed the intrusion, continuing to focus on your breathing. “A little more,” you urged him, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of neck. Joel was panting right along with you, and despite the growing lust, kept his promise of taking it slow. He guided himself an inch further, then another, another, until you were digging your nails into his scalp, a whine coming through gritted teeth. 

The stretch stung, but his pace kept it bearable. You did your best to stay perfectly still, worrying if you moved too much any way, the pain would worsen. Tears began to prickle at your waterline, a combination of discomfort and every overwhelming emotion coursing through you. 

“That’s it, sweet girl,” he praised, lips tickling the shell of your ear. “You’re doin’ so good for me. So, so good.” 

His genuine words made you want to do better, sending little flutters through your stomach. It was astonishing the way his words alone could inflict such a response from you. 

After a moment, you were able to relax into the intrusion. Eyes still shut, you nudged your nose up against his. “Just…just do the rest all at once,” you squeaked. The sooner, the better. Dragging it out would only elongate the process of getting it over with, and you couldn’t wait any longer to cross the threshold. He was still for a moment, and then, placing a steadying hand on one of your hips, Joel sheathed himself fully inside of you, filling you to the brim. 

Your lips fell open in a wail, the tears that lingered at your eyes falling over your cheeks. Joel’s delicate lips were on your neck, leaving kisses and whispering words of encouragement. 

“M’gonna stay just like this for a minute,” he said after a moment, your walls involuntarily fluttering around him, getting use to the sheer size of him. With every passing moment, you willed yourself to unwind, focusing on the sound of Joel’s breathing. 

You took your time, only opening your eyes when you really felt ready. You found Joel had lifted his head from your neck, already looking at you with tender concern. “It’s okay,” you panted, nodding slowly, sniffling back the tears. “I’m…it’s not so bad.” It was only then that you realized how full you felt, full of Joel. He was reaching a depth of you otherwise untouched, the thought alone having you clench around him. 

He grunted, and you noted the twitch of restraint in his focused brow. “You can move,” you said, bringing a shaky hand up to push the sweat-clad curls off his forehead. 

He looked at you hesitantly. “Are you sure—”

“Joel,” you hummed, carefully tilting your hips up, inviting him in. Another shared gasp. “Please.” 

The thrusts began as gentle rocks of his hips, never pulling too far in or out, just enough to explore the feeling of him moving inside of you. The pain was no longer the instigator of your tears — it was the intensity of Joel’s eyes, looking down at you as if you were the most precious thing in the world. 

Then, he was grinding into you in languid strokes, the sound of slick skin singing in the air. Gradually, you got used to the fullness, anticipating it every time he would pull out of you before advancing forward. Soft grunts fell from Joel’s lips when he’d hit the deep spot inside of you, something about the sounds he made sending shivers down your spine. 

But the real pleasure came when he reached a hand between your conjoined bodies, finding your neglected clit, and circling the two of his fingers around it. 

The moan that fell from your lips was obscene. Oh. Oh, this was new. Suddenly, the pain was a dampened after thought; the feeling of fullness mixed with the sensation of his fingers rubbing at your sensitive bud sent your body alight. You didn’t even notice how vocal you had become, wanton whines and increased panting, until you felt Joel’s lips at your ear again. 

“Yeah?” he muttered, his voice dropping an octave. “That feelin’ good baby?” 

So good. Oh, it was so fucking good. You wanted to tell him, scream it at the top of your lungs, but your voice was caught in your throat, too overwhelmed by the newfound ecstasy. Your ankles had mindlessly latched around his back, too hellbent on keeping him deep inside of you to let go. 

When the circling of his fingers picked up, so did his thrusts. The weight of his heavy balls slapped against you, nestling up into the same spot his fingers found earlier, leaving you to arch off the mattress. 

“Fuck, darlin’,” he growled, teeth grazing your carotid. “You feel so fuckin’ good around me.” 

You were a whimpering mess, legs starting to tremble again around him. “More, Joel,” you breathed, not even quite sure what more of you were asking for. “P-please, I need more.” 

He seemed to understand, because before you knew it, he was rutting into you quicker, deeper. The curve of his cock worked into you, somehow finding the right spot inside of you every single time. Your body moved on its own violation, hips grinding upwards to meet him in the middle of every thrust. The litany of your moans and his grunts sung through the air like sweet music, and you thought you may have never experienced life before the way you did in that moment; body and mind completely consumed by another, this feeling forever Joel’s to give you for the first time. 

You were burning from the inside out, unable to keep up with the way your body gave way to the pure euphoria coursing through you, until the pressure in your belly was too much to bear. Your toes curled, legs trembled so hard that they fell limp around him, a fire traveling through you from your point of connection. 

“Oh god. Oh fuck, oh fuck — uungh — Joel—!”

He held you through the entirety of your second release, stronger than any you had ever experienced. You clenched around him feverishly, coating his swelling cock in your honey. Your head thrown back, you felt the tickle of his hair against your neck as he buried his face into the crook, the sputter of his hips growing sloppy as you milked him towards the edge. You weren’t even down from the high when his hand abandoned your clit, quickly pulling himself out of you and giving himself a few steady pumps. You opened your eyes just in time to see the way his lips fell apart and his face contorted in beautiful bliss before he was spilling himself onto your stomach. 

You had low expectations for your first time, always had. The idea of finishing not even a pressure you bothered to burden yourself with. It would be easier to pretend it was something magical, extraordinary. A fluke, even. But the truth was…it was just Joel. 

You and me. 

His words continued to ring true. And when you both settled your breathing, finding each other again in the exchange of wide, wondrous eyes, you slowly fell back into the soft fit of laughter. Pure contentment. A happiness long abandoned to a world that robbed you of any glimpse of achieving it. 

When he kissed you then, soft and sweet, you knew he felt it too.

The rest of the morning was spent in a domestic stupor. You spent a good chunk of time basking in each other's arms, curled up against Joel’s chest, tracing the shape of every scar you could find. You didn’t press him for their backstories, instead, choosing to admire the character and history they gave him. 

When you both finally found the strength to get up, he suggested a shower. At first, he was content to let you go alone, offering to take one after. But the glint in your eye and the pout at your lip told him you had other plans, and soon enough, you were both crammed into the small space. It didn’t bother you, giving you ample excuse to have your arms around him and feel his hands on you. 

He washed your hair, the soothing circles of his fingers nearly aiding you back to sleep right then and there. Of course, he was stubborn in letting you return the favor, so you settled for a gentle massage to his shoulders while he worked his fingers through his curls. 

He offered you some of his clothes, considering yours reeked of alcohol and sweat from the night prior. One of his flannels and clean pair of sweatpants, which you rolled up to avoid tripping over. 

He graciously invited you downstairs, offering to whip up some breakfast and get a pot of coffee started. There was something undeniably sexy about Joel in such a casual setting. You had never spent this much time in his house, normally only stopping by for a brief moment to pick up something you had left behind on patrol or drop off a menial item Ellie asked to borrow. 

The air was different now. Something palpable shifting, and it was equal parts frightening and exhilarating. You felt like you were glowing.

You had so many questions. So many doubts. Hopes. Afraid that if you pushed them too soon, you would risk the chance of losing an opportunity for something altogether. So you kept your mouth shut, opting to sit atop the counter next to the stovetop while Joel cooked, savoring the scent of brewing coffee and freshly washed hair. 

When the pot dinged, Joel reached in the cupboards for two mugs, and just as he poured yours, handing it to you, the front door slammed open then shut. You both froze. 

“I’m home!” Ellie’s voice shrieked, followed by the sound of her shuffling about and approaching footsteps. 

“Shit,” Joel muttered quietly under his breath, bracing a hand against the counter. You turned your head towards the kitchen entryway just as she approached it, the guiltiest look on both of your faces. 

The thud of her backpack hit the wooden floor, and as soon as she looked up, her eyes began to process the sight before her. She fluttered her gaze between the two of you, damp haired, disheveled clothes, tired eyes. Not even a beat later, a brazen grin spread across her cheeks. 

“Well, well, well,” she tsked slowly, folding her arms across her chest. You bit at the inside of your cheek to prevent yourself from laughing, maybe crying? Both. You could see Joel going rigid in your peripheral, knuckles white against his own coffee mug. 

“Looks like I’m not the only one who had a slumber party.” 

You literally snorted out a laugh, immediately bringing your hand up to smack over your mouth and nose at the sound. 

“Ellie!” Joel barked, but the teenager remained unfazed. She flashed you her knowing smirk before her eyes were back on Joel in torment. 

“What?!” she feigned innocence. “I’m just sayin’, it’s about fucking time you two stopped dancing around each other. It was painful to watch, seriously.” 

“Oh my god.” When you looked over to Joel, his face was bright red, jaw set tense while he glared at the girl in plain irritation. You couldn’t help but find it utterly adorable and quite amusing. “Would’ya just…just go to your damn room or somethin’?” 

Ellie simply continued her coy stare while she leaned down to pick up her pack, slinging it over her shoulder. She turned to you then, putting on her best polite facade and bidding you a proper good morning, to which you returned, both quite giggly. Just before she slipped out of the room, she stopped short, peeking her head back in. 

“Oh, hey,” she chirped towards you. “They’re showing a new tape in the barn later. And this one —” she gave Joel an aggressive point, “has patrol duty. You wanna come with me instead?” 

You had experienced your fair share of activities with Ellie. You were friends. The age difference could not diminish the joy the girl brought to you and so many others in Jackson; she was a firecracker, reminding you a bit of yourself at that age. A breath of fresh air to the community after months of stiffs who had nothing better to do than gossip or stir up trouble. 

And yet, the nonchalance of her invitation — as if it was the clearest thing in the world to her in that moment, that embarrassing, unexpected moment — made your heart swell. 

You smiled back at her, nodding. “I’d love to.” You would love to spend time with Ellie. Joel’s Ellie. Undoubtedly the most important thing in the world to him, and she wanted to share her evening with you. 

As she puttered out of the room, you waited until you heard her door shut upstairs before your eyes were back on Joel. His own were an array of annoyance and embarrassment, to which you returned with a reassuring smile. 

He went on to mutter something about that kid being the death of him, and you let him. Let him grump away as he continued the breakfast preparations, otherwise casual over the intrusion. He wasn’t ashamed that she saw you, caught you both like this. The realization of it all consumed you rather rapidly. As you watched him tend to you in his kitchen, his home, you felt a bit of that worry dissipate into more hope. 

And for the first time since Joel Miller came into your life, you could truly imagine what it would be like to be his.

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Born lucky, under a bad star.

Summary: Joel has always been lucky, in the worst of ways.

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!Reader

Word count: ~13k (sorry)

Warnings: game!Joel, major spoilers for tlou part 2, angst with a happy ending, major injuries and recovery, anxiety, depression, relationship healing, mentions of death, mentions of violence, suicidal ideation

Disclaimers and A/N: Though this fic was based around some events in tlou part 2, almost all of the canon after the divergence from the canon timeline is thrown out. This fic is also based entirely around game events, characterization, and canon. This is honestly one of the most difficult things I've ever written. It took months and many many drafts, but I'm very proud of her. I hope you love her too, she was a labor of love.

As always, thank you for reading! I would love to know your thoughts! Please please please, be sure to leave feedback!

Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red. - Kait Rokowski.

The lights of the clinic are so bright they’re blinding.

Your hands are still shaking, covered in Joel’s blood. It’s been hours since you returned to the safety of Jackson’s walls but there’s still a frantic, frenetic energy in the air. Everyone is shaken. It feels a little like a thousand year old tree has been felled, like a giant has been swung at and leveled, like something monstrous and infallible has been brought to its knees. 

You’ve seen it happen before. Rebar right through his belly. It should have killed him. It would have killed anyone else. You’ve pulled more bullets out of Joel than you would care to count, and swaddled him in probably several football fields worth of bandages over the years.

Still, nothing like this.

Because Joel has always been lucky, even when he hadn’t wanted to be. 

Lucky, in all the worst ways. 

That fucking rebar, you think bitterly. It should have hit at least one organ, should have severed his fucking spine. But it didn’t. He walked it off, really, mostly, at the end of it all. 

This though — to see him tortured, beaten, bleeding to death slowly—

Your edge of your vision tips black, like your mind is already refusing to go back to that room, like you’ll pass out if you think of it for too long. 

A part of you wonders if maybe it’s your fault. Maybe you forgot to stick lavender in his pocket before he left that morning, like you always do.

Someone pushes the door open, snow swirls in against the tile. Voices, rising and falling. The cold that rolls through the tiny waiting room is frigid. 

It’s still so red, his blood, even dried and crusted around your fingers and up your wrists. 

Tommy is still bleeding and even Maria hasn’t been able to convince him to sit down and let someone look at him. No, all attention needs to be focused on his brother. Anyone with any medical know how, has to be with Joel. 

You agree. 

Tommy, you, anyone else—can fucking wait. 

Ellie is sitting next to you, looking just as numb and shocked as you feel, her fingers twined with Dina’s. 

The chatter reaches a crescendo. Something about the worsening storm, something about tracking folks with that big of a headstart through a storm like this one, something about the rapidly deepening darkness, night coming on, something about well who could do something like that anyway? Who the fuck would we even send? 

The quiet that follows is painful. 

Joel. 

Joel is the one you send. Joel is the one that could get a job like this one done, the one that could track people through a blizzard with a dogged determinism, with pragmatism and infallibility. 

“What did they want?” Someone asks the room at large. You aren’t sure who asks, you can’t make the shapes in the room resolve into people you know. “Why us? Why Joel? They wanted something right? Who were they?” 

You and Tommy look at each other, Ellie makes a half muffled, pained sound beside you. Joel crossed a lot of people, maybe there wasn’t any sense in guessing. 

No one answers. You look at your hands again and wonder if the crimson will ever fade.  

Someone says your name and you look up. A coat is tugged over your shoulders. You didn’t realize you were shivering and you don’t know what happened to your own coat. One of the patrolmen is looking at you, his name slips your memory but Jesse is standing behind him, Maria on the other side. 

You feel the ghost of Ellie’s hand against your arm. Odd, you think distantly, because she hates you. She has for a long time. 

“What happened?”

You look around, but Tommy isn’t where he’d been standing just a moment ago. Did they ask him, too? 

There’s a dark hole in your memory. 

“I don’t know.” 

And it’s the truth. 

There’s no one more dedicated, more involved, in keeping Jackson safe, than Joel. 

Aside from Tommy, maybe.

Joel is an effective killer, like an executioner with a mission. It’s the thing that scared Tommy the most about his brother, and it’s also the thing that had kept him alive long enough to get his second chance in Jackson. It’s the thing you have always loved most about Joel, the violence born of necessity. 

And, you suppose, that’s what he’d been. Dispatcher, destroyer.  

Protector. 

At the heart of it all, the meat of it is, that it had always been that with Joel. It had always been in the name of protect, provide, survive. He never shied away from telling you of his days as a hunter, or, something close to a hunter. And even then, it was keep Tommy alive, it was survive until Boston, it was we needed fucking food. 

Survive and provide and protect. 

Joel. 

Jackson had been wary of him, at first. The stories of his dealings with infected and raiders alike at odds with the way he moved in the commune, with kindness and a certain gentleness, a competency and dependability, with something so soft in his gaze when it came to that little girl he arrived with. 

That reticence and worry had dissolved as quickly as it had come. 

They describe him as quiet and funny, because he’s prone to good natured teasing. They describe him as fierce and short to anger, because no one can say a word about him or his. They describe him as wonderfully dependable, ask Joel for something on a supply run and you would have it in short order; sigh about the state of something in your home and it would be taken care of, fixed, the very next day.

Jackson loves Joel.

Especially that softened up, gentle creature that had emerged in the wake of everything that had happened between Boston and Jackson. Joel had always had a soft interior, trotted out in brief glimpses over the years, but the shell he wore had been so thick and sharp it was near impenetrable, nearly unknowable. 

Ellie is around plenty in those first couple of weeks after. She even takes to sleeping on the living room couch. She doesn’t say much to you or Joel, hardly anything at all, but she’s there and you figure that’s what matters. It seems like she isn’t sure what to say, and desperate for the connection that nearly shattered. 

The first few days when Joel comes home from the clinic, someone knocks on the front door every couple of hours and you open it and have the same conversation over and over and over again. It’s always people worriedly asking after Joel’s wellbeing, dropping off food, expressing their anger that something like this could happen to one of their own, that it could happen to someone so widely and wildly beloved.

When the knocks finally stop coming, and you can convince Tommy to go home to Maria, before Maria has to walk over and collect her husband again, you take the stairs slowly up. 

You’re exhausted. You hardly sleep and when you do, you have nightmares of Joel. Formless, mind numbing dreams that you can never remember when you wake up gasping. You aren’t sure if Joel dreams of it, too. He’s always mumbled in his sleep, eyes flickering behind closed lids, so it’s hard to tell. 

And he hasn’t really been coherent enough, awake enough, to ask, anyway. 

“Hey,” Ellie says when you round the doorway into the bedroom, lowering the comic book in her hands. She’s beside Joel, sitting on your side of the bed, back against the headboard. “Sleeping again.” 

“Was he awake?” 

“A little. Drank some water.” 

Despite the tension of the last few years, you know she’s thinking of another time that Joel had slept a lot, injured and only half alive. 

Now isn’t like then, but in some ways, it’s worse. 

You nod and take a seat at the edge of the bed by her feet. “That’s good,” you reassure her. “It’s a good thing that he’s sleeping. He needs it.”

Ellie just holds up the comic in her lap and then jerks her chin at the box on the bedside table, Joel’s glasses and book about space pushed aside. “I, uh, found them in the study.” 

You shrug. “He always picked up any he found on supply runs.” You watch her from the corner of your eye and then shift your gaze to Joel. The slow rise and fall of his chest is reassuring in its steadiness, though you hate how still he is. 

The skin by his temple is puckered and red, the stitches a neat little row up to his hairline. It still looks raw as a live nerve, the swelling extending to his eye, purple and shadowed in a dark bruise that trails down his cheek and jaw. 

“He never said—” She stops and shakes her head. “So stupid.” 

“Well,” you scoot closer and pat her extended leg. “You didn’t exactly want to talk then. We tried giving them to you, once. Left them outside your door. They got a little rained on.” 

“Yeah,” she says, mouth twisting to the side. “Some of them are. . .can’t fucking peel the pages apart.” In that moment, she sounds like that little kid you left Boston with, being told not to touch something and doing it anyway.

That might have been when you fell in love with Ellie, watching her snap at Bill, and watching Joel react like any father would. It had come back to him so quickly, so naturally. 

There’s a long pause in which Ellie flips rapidly through the comic book and doesn’t say anything, her fingers nervous. She looks how you feel — exhausted. “Why don’t you go get some sleep in your own bed?” You ask, reaching out to twitch a fallen lock of auburn hair behind her ear. “You’re just across the yard. If anything happens, you’ll know.” 

She looks up at you, eyes flicking over your face. “I was fucking mad at you too, you know,” she whispers suddenly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

You drop your hand and shake your head before looking back at Joel. He sleeps deeply now, deeper than you thought possible for someone like him, even drugged and injured. 

There’s a knot tangled in your chest, that only tightens further with her question. “It wasn’t my place. He didn’t. . .he didn’t say anything to me about it for a long time, either. Wouldn’t explain what happened while we were separated. He told me the same lie. And you were going to be mad at me, too, no matter what. It had to be between the two of you.” 

“And you think he was right,” she accuses hotly. 

“And,” you level your eyes to hers, “I think he was right.” You dip your head. “I wouldn’t change anything, Ellie. I wouldn’t. You know Joel wouldn’t either. You matter more than that.”

Her bottom lip trembles for just a second. “Even knowing this happens?!” She gestures around the room, maybe just the situation at large. 

Some of the tension knotting up your shoulders bleeds away. “He’s still here. It’s not too late.” She glances away and sucks in a harsh breath. You wait until she meets your eyes again. “And Ellie, it is not your fault. It’s not. None of it.” 

“It almost was.” Her voice is strained. “Too late.”

You shrug. “He knows you care. Trust me, he does.” 

She scrubs roughly at her eyes with the sleeves of her hoodie. “Yeah, uh, well, I’m still gonna sleep on the couch.” 

“Why don’t you just stay right here, then? With Joel?” You ask and stand. “I’ll take the couch tonight.” 

It is the ultimate admission of how scared she is, that she does not argue, doesn’t even try to.  

For the first few weeks after the attack, Joel is in and out of consciousness. He sleeps much more than he’s awake.

And, it’s hard to tell, at first, why he’s sleeping so much. The pain medicine? That carefully doled out, nearly impossible to come by miracle drug — was it just knocking him out? Was he just sleeping because that’s what his body needed? Or, was it something deeper? Brain damage? 

“He’s fucking. . .old!” Ellie says to you one morning around a mouthful of toast. It’s kind of odd, how easily she’s taken to old routines. And how weird the old routine is, because the third piece of your puzzle is missing, sleeping. “Old people take longer to heal, right?” 

Right. 

But he’s also Joel. And he isn’t that old. 

It feels wrong, that he’s so still and silent. 

“It’s not—” Her fist opens and closes. She sets down the toast in her other hand on the plate and turns, pacing the length of Joel’s kitchen, fidgeting with her fingers as she goes, white morning light slatting over her. You eye the toast. It’s hard to get her to eat, these days but you figure most of one piece is better than nothing. “His leg. It’s not infected or something, right? We’d know if it was.” 

“It’s not infected,” you agree. When your own hands start to shake, you set down your mug, afraid to drop it or spill hot tea all over the floor, and make Ellie even more anxious in the process. 

You don’t like to talk about it. You don’t like to think about it. The memories are like a hot brand. 

The staircase creaks with the heavy thud of footsteps, before Tommy appears in the kitchen archway. You’ve always thought Tommy and Joel resembled each other, but now you see similarities in the kinds of expressions they make, too, the quirks in their movements that only siblings could share, and Tommy is sometimes a little hard to look at. 

“Heading out?” 

“Yeah, he’s, uh, sleepin’ again.” He leans against the doorway and crosses his arms over his chest.

Ellie doesn’t say anything, just slips past Tommy and heads up the steps. Tommy looks after her and then back at you. “She won’t say it but she doesn’t like leaving him alone,” you explain. 

Tommy nods and then pushes away from the door to settle at the kitchen table. “Well, I don’t like the idea of it either. Good she’s with him.” He tips the chair onto its back legs and tilts his head. “How ya holdin’ up?” 

“Probably about as good as you are.” 

He huffs a bitter laugh. “Yeah. Maria told me you want off partols.” 

You swallow and look away from him as you take the seat across from him at the table. “I - I know we’re down people already but I can’t. . .Tommy I can’t even look at the goddamn gate without feeling like—” You shake your head. “I just don’t think I can do it. I’d get somebody killed.” 

“All right,” he says, not unkindly. “We’ll figure it out. It’s okay.” 

A burn starts at the back of your eyes so you stand again and swipe your fingers against your cheeks. “You want coffee before you head out?” 

“Nah, save that for Joel.” Then, “How you think this is gonna go? When he’s awake more?”

“I don’t know. You’d know better than me.” 

Tommy laughs. The chair scrapes against the linoleum as he stands. He looks tired, and worried. It’s an odd look on him. It isn’t like Tommy at all. You and Tommy have always bonded over teasing Joel. There’s none of that now. 

“Like hell. You’ve spent the last fifteen years with him, not me.” 

“He’s your brother.” 

“And you’re the love of his damn life.” He pauses and leans on the counter next to you. 

That makes your mouth twitch, the pleasantly warm feeling in your chest consumed in the next second by a lancing pain that can only be an approximation of grief for someone and something that still breathed. 

“I just can’t help worryin’,” he continues. “This might be enough for us, but not for him. If Joel can’t ever do anything again—”

“He just needs time, Tommy,” you cut him off quickly. Not able to stomach the thought. “We’ll figure it out. He’ll figure it out,” you say with more conviction than you feel. “We can probably figure something like a prosthetic out. People have been making them for thousands of years. We can do it. It’ll be fine. But it’s going to be different.”

Tommy’s right. You’ve spent the last fifteen years with Joel. You aren’t sure who you are without him anymore. You aren’t sure you know how to get along without him anymore. And you never want to have to find out. “He’s alive,” you finish with a nod. “Everything else, we can figure out.” 

He nods. “You think we shoulda went after ‘em?”

“Maybe. But this is more important.” 

Before he goes, Tommy wraps you in a hug. “So long as you and that girl stick around, it’ll be all right.”

“Ellie’s been playing the guitar up there,” you answer. 

He nods and pulls back, one big hand clapping down on your shoulder. “See? Things might be all right yet. Always told Joel she’d come around eventually.” He releases you and heads toward the door then. “And get some sleep. Y’look terrible,” he calls over his shoulder. “Orders from Maria.” 

For the first time in weeks, Joel wakes with some semblance of clarity. The bedroom is warm and dark, the tiniest pool of light washing over the form next to him from a little light plugged into the wall.

It’s the nightlight he found for Ellie when they first got to Jackson and her nightmares gave her more grief than she cared to admit to. 

His whole body aches. He feels sick. 

The sharpness of the pain is disorienting. He’s only been awake in brief, muddled flashes, the dulled fingers of drugged pain lancing through him and consuming most of his thoughts. He’d only been awake long enough to eat or drink or be helped to the bathroom like some kind of damn—

He remembers Tommy at his bedside. He hears the ghost notes of music in the air, your voice in his ear, the gentle slide of warm fingers over his skin. He remembers Ellie reading aloud, curled on her side next to him, like she used to do when she was younger, like when they’d stop for the night on the road.

That can’t be right, though. She hasn’t done that in years. She wouldn’t do something like that. Not anymore. 

You’re next to him now, face tilted against the edge of his pillow. It’s hard to make you out in the dark, the shape and slope of your features hidden in the dim light. 

When he says your name, you twitch, the slightest wrinkle to your nose, the tiniest spasm of your fingers against the sheets. “Darlin’,” he tries again. His voice grinds, catches and snags around his teeth. It feels like he hasn’t spoken in years. 

He reaches for you and it’s agony, because his shoulder must be broken. His ribs contract painfully right, like the shrapnel of the bone is digging up into his lungs, piercing his heart. But your skin is soft and warm, pliant, beneath his fingers. It smells like you’ve been burning sage again. He wants to burrow his fingers beneath your skin, you’re so warm. 

The cut of your cheekbones are sharper, the angle of your jaw reminds him of winter in the QZ, winter traveling with you and Ellie. Discolored circles line the space beneath your eyes like little hollows. You look exhausted, wan. 

You blink, slowly at first, then more rapidly. “Joel?” Your voice is a whisper, like the dark is stealing it away. 

Your fingers slide through the backs of his against your cheek when you shift closer, so careful about it, until you’re pressed to his side. “Joel,” you repeat, eyes sliding shut, forehead against the edge of his sore jaw.

He breathes you in, the warm scent of your skin, the smells of hearth and home, lavender and sage and woodsmoke. He closes his eyes for just a second when you shift up and tilt your forehead against his, breath whispering against his chin. “Joel.” 

“You all right?” His voice still sounds rocky but clearing it doesn’t seem to help any.

Slowly, you sit up, hand still in his when you pull it away from your face. “You’re asking me that? You’re kidding, Joel,” your voice creaks. You’ve never really been a crier, but there’s a thickness in your mouth, softening out the vowels and snapping at the consonants. “Are you - We didn’t want you to be in pain. But you’ve been sleeping for so long, we gave you a lower dose so that—” 

“I feel okay,” he interrupts your fretting, sweeping his thumb against the back of your hand. “Considerin’.” 

You swallow and nod. “Hungry?” You glance at the window, where a gray, pale morning light is starting to leech into the room, the color of dirty snow. 

“Yep.” He wishes you’d keep your eyes on him. “If you’ve got somethin’ ready.” 

“We have anything you want,” you assure him. “Anything.” 

Joel nods and attempts to push himself up next to you, chest and shoulder aching something awful. He bites back a groan but it still pushes past his teeth.

“Careful,” you say sharply. Before he can protest, you’re up and around the bed, one hand behind his back. “Your shoulder is broken in a million places.” 

“A million?” He grunts. 

“Three.” 

“That ain’t a million.” 

You don’t laugh and your hand doesn’t move from his back. “And broken ribs. Now lean back.” He does as you ask, real careful about it so you don’t worry.

An odd feeling creeps up inside his chest, dulled by the lighter dose of pain medicine coursing through his veins. It ain’t just a sick feeling, but something else. A helplessness, maybe. It feels wrong, in more ways than one. 

Joel becomes acutely aware of what he already knows, every single injury, the graveness of them. He knows about the broken shoulder and ribs that had to be reset, torn skin that had to be stitched together, that he has internal bruising but by some miracle no internal bleeding. His face throbs suddenly, his temple tight with pain. He feels his heartbeat behind his eye and in the swelling in his cheek. 

And, the worst of it, leg amputated to just above the knee. Sick crawls up the back of his throat. He doesn’t dare look. 

The feeling in his chest swells until it chokes him. 

Helpless, useless — something hard and fanged digs into his mind. It feels like grief, but what is he supposed to be mourning, exactly? 

Everything, maybe. 

His whole damn life. 

“I’m fine,” he grunts suddenly. Sharply. “Quit fussin’.”  

He feels like fucking crying. 

“Just - shut up, Joel,” you snap back. “You almost fucking died.” 

A fist curls around his throat, warm and tight. He almost can’t breathe through it. “Yeah,” he croaks, voice breaking the word in two.  

“Yeah,” you snarl. “So shut up and let me fuss.” 

You turn and leave before he can say anything else, footsteps rapidly descending the stairs. Voices trundle up, creased and folded, rising but muffled. You’ve always been mean when you got scared, ever since Joel can remember. You were mean as hell when he first met you, a hissing kind of frustrated, new to the QZ and new to trying your hand at smuggling. 

You’ve softened up over the years. He hasn’t seen you like this in a long time, maybe not since you got separated in Salt Lake City. 

More footsteps, this time heavy, stomping, coming upwards. 

Ellie appears in the doorway a second later. Her hair is messy; her eyes are wild. She’s in sweatpants and a shirt that’s too big for her. She looks tired but unharmed. The knot tangled up around his lungs eases just a little. “Hey, kiddo.” He tries not to sound surprised. 

Her eyes flick over him and then away. She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t leave either. Instead she picks up a book from the corner of the dresser and settles in the chair across the room. 

A firm but unyielding presence. 

He closes his eyes, tips his head back against the wall, and tries to push down the feeling of failure rising in his throat like a tide. 

Joel’s fingers are clumsy. 

He can’t walk, can’t work, can’t do much of anything without irritating every ligament and tendon and bone in his body. 

But even worse than that, he can’t remember how to play the guitar. 

And nothing makes him feel so helpless as that. 

Even after not playing for twenty odd years, the notes and the placement of his fingers on the strings and frets had come back easily to him, almost like he’d never stopped playing at all. 

Now, it doesn’t. 

In part his shoulder is to blame. Even nearly healed, it’s stiff. But the other part of it is that he can’t remember how to play. Every note seems wrong, and he can’t decide if he’s hearing it wrong, if there’s something wrong with his hearing, his perception, or if the note really is just wrong. 

Ellie plays for him, instead. 

It’s easier than talking. Neither of them are really good at that, anyway. He’s just glad she’s around at all. 

He can’t help but think of that last conversation he’d had with her on the back porch, that she wants to try to forgive him, even if she thinks she might never be able to. He supposes this is her way of trying her hand at that.

Sometimes he wonders if it would be like this if he hadn’t almost died, if he wasn’t collecting sympathy from everyone like there was some kind of shortage. Maybe that conversation on the porch would have meant nothing, otherwise. 

The thought hurts him, no matter how glad he is that she’s there. 

One evening, pretty late, as snow peppers down through the early winter black that curtains the window, she stops playing. 

The living room is quiet, aside from their breathing and the crackle of flames in the fireplace. 

“I was going to invite you over to watch a movie.” 

The metallic twang of the last note she plucked hangs in the air. 

“I was - I was going to fucking ask you to watch a movie with me. That night. One of those dumb action movies you like. Like the ones we used to watch, remember? Curtis and Viper 2.”

She doesn’t look at him. She stares at her fingers, idly, nervously, twisting the tuning pegs of the guitar. “Think I saw that one before,” he answers, voice a little choked. “Pretty good.” 

Ellie rolls her eyes and doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. “Yeah, you would think so, old man,” she replies eventually but still doesn’t look up, her mouth twisting to the side. “I just - don’t want you to think I’m only here because you—” She shakes her head, and props the guitar against the wall before she stands and paces the room twice, toying with her fingers in that way she always has. “I never wanted anything bad to happen to you. Even when I was really mad.”

“Ellie,” he says but she doesn’t seem to hear him. “I know.” 

“Anyway, I meant what I said.”

“Ellie.”

“I wanted things to get better. I wanted to try. I was going to.” 

“Ellie.” 

She spins suddenly toward the front door, one hand on the back of her neck, rubbing awkwardly. “I gotta get going.” 

“Kiddo.” This time she turns and finally looks at him. The scent of pine and smoke fills the room. The red of the flames flash across her face, so serious and anxious. 

When they first came to Jackson, they spent a lot of nights on the couch together. His neck always ached the next morning from sleeping upright but he’d never complain about it. Then the distance between them had grown, and he doesn’t know when the last time something like that had happened. 

But that same distance is slowly shrinking now, even if things might never, never be the same again. 

So many times when he looks at her, he still sees that fourteen year old kid. He’d had the same problem with Sarah, looking at his twelve year old and seeing her at five and eight. It was just how it went, being a parent. 

“I know, Ellie,” he reassures her. “I do. It’s all right. Even if you didn’t mean a word of it, it’s all right. I meant what I said, too.”  

And even though she said she needed to leave, she nods and sits down again. She plucks a few notes out on the guitar when she pulls it back into her lap. 

“D'ya still wanna watch it?”

She does. 

Joel is whittling.

It is decidedly not going well. 

He’s too distracted for it. He never realized how much pressure settled on his shoulder, how much it pulled at the muscle around his ribs, from doing something as simple as this, and he doesn’t like the nausea that comes with the pain. 

But it’s something he can do, so he does it. 

It’s snowing outside again, wind raking against the siding, rattling the window panes. There’s a thin stream of air coming in around the window’s frame, cold. 

His hands are chapped and raw, blood pooling at the seams of his knuckles. 

The fix would be easy enough, but everything he needs to do it is in the basement. And the basement is a near impossible location for him to reach, so he puts up with it, hands growing more frustrated by the second because he wants to fucking fix it. 

You use the office, his work space, often enough, and it’s one thing for him to be cold and uncomfortable, but another thing entirely for you to feel that way. 

But he can’t make it down to the living room without help these days, let alone down two flights of stairs to the basement, and then back up them, too.

“Joel?”

He glances over his shoulder to find you standing in the doorway. You have a pair of shears in your hands. 

“Still want me to cut your hair?”

He wants to do it himself. But you’d offered earlier, because you’ve been doing it for him for a long time, for years and years now. And he’d always liked it because your hands are kind with it and you’re better at doing it, anyway. But now it just feels like one more thing he can’t do for himself, one more thing he’s relying on someone else for, and that makes guilt and shame choke him. 

Joel can’t seem to do a damn thing, not for himself, but, worse, not for anyone else either. 

“Joel?” You ask again when the silence stretches until it’s uncomfortable. “I don’t have to; you can do it yourself.”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s all right, darlin’.” You start forward when he labors up from the chair, teeth gritted, but quickly stop when he meets your eyes, warning you away with a glance. 

You don’t say anything else, just back out the door and pad down the hall to the bathroom. 

He isn’t sure if your feelings are hurt or not, all his focus directed on hauling himself upwards and then limping down the hall with one crutch under his arm. Feeble threads of pain lance up his leg, centering in his joints, the hinge of his knee. The space under his arm is sore too, from the crutch, even wrapped in cloth. 

Joel is used to pain. He’s used to temporary aches, the sharp stab of healing wounds, the quick rip of a bullet or knife through skin, chronic pains from age and long healed injuries. On cold days, his side aches something fierce, like that rebar never really came out of him. 

But this pain is different, without origin, and he’s having a hard time adjusting to it. Or maybe he’s just having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that this is not a healable injury, at least, not in the way he wants it to be. 

For the rest of his life, he will be disabled. He’ll never get back to himself, never be what he once was. 

The bathroom light is gold. It washes his skin into a better color, not so pale and strained and pained looking. 

He hates looking in the mirror now. Joel never considered himself particularly good looking, never thought about it much, really. And, for most of his life, looks haven’t really mattered anyway. 

But seeing his reflection now is a reminder of his failures. It’s a reminder of everything he can’t do.

His whole body is nothing but reminders. 

He is a patchwork quilt of scars. 

He doesn’t know how you can stand to look at him. But you just brush your hands through his hair when he leans the crutch against the counter and sits heavily on the stool you dragged upstairs. 

The bathroom is thick with the scent of lavender and earth. Every winter it turns into a makeshift greenhouse, all the plants that can’t survive the winter dragged inside for the season. 

The feeling of your hands through his hair is soothing and the tension in his shoulders slides away. 

“I can do it myself,” he grumbles, despite himself, and without conviction when you run a comb through his hair. 

You hum under your breath, not really paying him any mind. You know he doesn’t really mean it. Even if he feels like a fucking burden for it, it’s something you’ve always done for him, so it’s a little easier for him to accept. “I know. I like to.” You tilt his chin up and Joel steadfastly avoids looking in the mirror. “Besides, I’m better at it. You take to it like it’s a hack job.”

The trim doesn’t take long, since he keeps his hair longer anyway. It’s mostly an excuse for you to rake your fingers through his hair. 

“The window needs fixin’,” he says when you slide in front of him and set about trimming his beard without asking. That’s fine, too. “I know you been, uh, kinda cold in that room.” 

“It’s not so bad,” you say when you finish with him, brushing your fingers against his cheeks and then through his hair. You smile, eyes crossing his face, tracing his features like a well known map, before you twitch a lock of hair away from his forehead. “You gonna fix it for me or what?” 

“Mighty big ask of ya,” he grouses, irritation itching at the edge of his mind. 

You’re still smiling faintly, touching his face, the curl of hair behind his ear, the scar along his hairline and then the one over his nose. 

“I just can’t see how,” you say and Joel almost snaps. He wants to. He wants to say you don’t fucking get it, that you don’t want to get it, that it’s different now. He wants to say he’s not the man you’ve always known, that shit ain’t as easy as it’s always been. He can’t do shit for you, anymore, and isn’t that the reason you’ve stuck around all these years? 

But then you continue. “I left that damn caulking gun on the side table three days ago.” 

“You what?” 

You shrug. “Thought you might have noticed it too. And I’ve always been so bad at that stuff.” 

The guilt that settles in him is heavy, but familiar. The shape of it is different, but it's still like shrugging on an old coat, it’s so natural and intimate.

He must be destined for some kind of failure, born under a bad star, something.

Everything he touches falls apart, no matter what he does. Everyone he holds dear, leaves him, one way or another, somehow. His mama, Sarah, and then Tommy, and then Tess. Most recently Ellie, though maybe things there were being mended. Maybe you were next, soon as you came to your senses. 

Joel has spent most of his life taking care of people. And when he wasn’t taking care of people, he was moving, working. He hardly ever sat still. He didn’t have time to sit still. 

Not before the outbreak, and certainly not after. 

Even in Jackson where the pace of the world is slower, he was always busy. If he wasn’t on patrol, he was on wall duty, looking after Jackson’s security. Or, he was fixing something for someone, building something, helping with the horses. If he wasn’t doing any of that, he was improving his house, he was working on a new carving, he was playing the guitar.  

Healing up, it’s involved a whole lot of sitting still and feeling useless. It had involved a lot of other people fussing over him. 

A lot of sitting still and feeling like he was failing everyone he knew. Like he had already failed everyone he knew. For all the effort he put into it, it would never be enough. He cares wrong, he loves wrong, and now he can’t even do that. 

He fails you in this, too. Of wishing he could accuse you of all the things he thinks of himself. 

Joel knows you think of it too, you just haven’t gotten frustrated enough with him to say it yet. You haven’t had the full weight of his broken, uselessness on you, yet. 

That day will come. There’s no way it won’t, because he can’t do for you what he’s always done, what he was put on this god forsaken earth to do. The one thing he’s always been able to do. Not just for you, but for everyone. Ellie, Tommy and his family, Jackson at large. 

It’s always been the thing he could point to and say look, this is why I am like this, this is why you need me, why I’m around. You survived because of me. Because I made sure you did. 

So he’s not worth much now, really, and all the promises he made you and all the promises he made to himself, he can’t keep them anymore. And isn’t that why you stuck by him all these years? Despite all his shortcomings? 

“Sorry, darlin’,” he cups your face in his hands, smoothes his thumbs over your cheeks, the hinge of your jaw. “I’ll get right on fixin’ that for you.” 

“I know you will. Thank you, Joel.” The full weight of your head tips into his hands, and your eyes slide shut. His hands are large against your jaw, scarred and calloused, harsh. Reminders, maybe, of what he used to be. He looks at the hollows beneath your eyes, the raw, worried skin of your bottom lip. 

You don’t sleep anymore and when you do you have nightmares. You hate to leave the house. And sometimes you flinch even when nothing is happening around you, like memories are snapping at your heels. 

He did all that to you, too. Terrible gifts he’s given and can’t take back.

When he glances back up to your eyes, you’re staring at him, a worried, anxious kind of look lodged there that he absolutely hates. 

“What?” He asks, smoothing his thumbs over your cheeks and then the delicate hinge of your jaw.

“Nothing.” Your eyes shift away from his, and you twitch in his grasp. He already knows what you’re about to say, because you’ve never gotten better at saying it, just like him. He doesn’t need you to say it, but you do anyway, and he hates how much he likes hearing it. It’s like a ray of golden sun. “I love you, Joel,” you murmur and hook your hands around his wrists.  

For a long time, you just look at him, the silence is heavy with unsaid words, but he isn’t sure which of you is the one not saying something. “That enough?” He eventually grunts. “For you?”

You frown. “Why wouldn’t it be? Do you think it’s not?” 

It shouldn’t be. All those promises stack up in his mind again, everything he can’t keep.  

“It shouldn’t be.” 

You pull his hands away from your face with a shake of your head and lean in to kiss him. Your lips part softly against his, the hitch of your breath sweet against his mouth. The heat of you is so close and intoxicating, it’s something he never wants to have to give up, not when your thumbs are pressed to the pulse in his wrists, and not when you taste like apple, honey. 

He shakes one of your hands away to wrap his arm around your back and pull you closer, until the warmth of your body is pressed securely to his chest. Your tongue slides against his, teeth nipping gently at his bottom lip. Something warm floods his cheeks and his chest goes tight. 

When you pull back, you tug on a piece of his hair then touch the blush pinking on his face. “You look real handsome, Texas.”  

He tucks his forehead against your collarbone, and you fold your hands against the back of his head. “It’s enough,” you say. “Always has been.” 

The next day, he finds that most of his tools have been relocated upstairs, either to one of the cabinets in the living room, or to the office upstairs. 

Either way, he no longer has to traverse two staircases down and back up. 

He isn’t sure when you had the time to do it, or why he didn’t at least hear you doing it. 

Joel’s chest swells with love for you, right alongside the guilt that does nothing but grow. 

He fixes the window. 

Some days are easier than others.

He has good days and bad, and some of the bad days are worse than others. He sows the feelings up inside himself, cocoons the bad away inside his chest. It’s easier that way. And it’s necessary now. It’s just another thing you’d have to deal with. 

He’s never been good at saying the things that needed said, anyway. 

He tries not to snap at you. He’s trying not to get mean, and he can’t just walk away like he used to be able to when his mind got messy. But he’s been failing because he wants you to fight with him, wants you to hate him. 

Joel wants you to say that he fucking failed, that he’s been failing his whole life at the one thing he was supposed to be able to do. The one thing he’s really good for. 

“Stop it,” Joel snarls one day in the spring, when you offer your hand down the steps to the living room. 

He doesn’t mean to snap at you like that, but he doesn’t take it back either. He’s in too much pain. And he doesn’t want to admit it. 

The smile slips off your face as you step back from him, a stoney expression sliding over your face instead. It’s routine, you helping him, and maybe that’s the problem. He grits his teeth, that look reminds him of Boston, reminds him of the time before you used to trust each other. 

“I ain’t helpless.” 

You raise your hands and take another step back, looking away from him as you do. 

The breeze that comes in the landing’s open window is cool. It isn’t quite warm enough for the window to be open but the house needs airing out after such a long winter, such a hard winter. The air is crisp with the scent of pine and the lavender hung in dried clumps above each doorway. 

“I know, Joel.”

When he looks at you, you visibly brace yourself. 

A wave of self-hatred so hot it burns immediately follows the guilt. But it also doesn’t stop the angry, frustrated pulse beneath the surface of his skin, pressing against the back of his teeth. 

“I don’t know why you didn’t just leave me there.” The words are bitter, poisonous. Accusatory. “You should have left me to fuckin’ die.”  

Whatever you might be expecting him to say, it isn’t that. Your breath catches hard. 

You can be cruel, too. He waits for your anger, the burn of words he deserves to hear, something mean and hateful but true. 

But the words don’t come; your anger doesn’t come. You just look tired and empty, sad. 

You pace the landing, the soft shush of your footsteps echoed by the creaking of the floorboards. Your silence pricks at him. He wants you to scream at him, blame him, for failing, for being so fucking stupid. 

“What if it was me?” 

Your voice is so low, he almost doesn’t catch your words. 

The quiet of your footsteps come to a halt. “What if it had been me, Joel? It could have been. It could have easily been me. They knew who you were. We’ve done a lot of the same shit. We’ve made a lot of the same enemies over the years.” 

Your hands are shaking, your breath comes in quick little pants. The acrid, bone aching feeling of cresting anxiety and panic floods the little landing. “Me and you and Tess, we were kind of a package fucking deal. So, what if it was me?” 

The breeze sliding through the open window feels different now. Colder, older, more brutal. 

“That’s fuckin’ different and y’know it,” he snarls. 

“Why?” Anger floods your face, the curl of your fingers harsh against your arms when you cross them. “Why would that have been different? Because you think I always need to be taken care of?” 

He doesn’t answer. He looks away from you, but he can’t go anywhere. He’s at your mercy and you both hate it.

Joel leans heavily against the wall, his right hand curling around his left wrist, a nervous, anxious tick he’s never been able to shake. 

“Tell me,” you beg. “Say it, Joel. How is it different? Why?” 

He shakes his head once, slowly, and doesn’t look up at you. “You can say it,” you continue, your voice eerily quiet. “You never trusted me to have your back.”

That ain’t it at all. 

It’s not your failure. It’s his, in every single way. He doesn’t blame you or Tommy or Ellie or anyone else. He doesn’t believe for a second that you don’t know that. 

It would have been better, probably, if he died. 

He doesn’t understand the guilt you feel. 

He can’t take care of you anymore, can’t protect you anymore. 

Worse, he can’t do that for his kid. 

If he’d died, maybe that final sacrifice would have been enough to make up for everything else. Maybe it would all just be done.

He’s the one breaking promises, not you, just like he always has been. 

Sometimes, when he thinks of Sarah, he can only remember her final moments. He can’t think of anything else but her blood, how red it was in the dark. He can’t think of anything else than what could have been. He can only see the halo of that mounted flashlight glaring into his eyes, his own voice pleading. Please don’t. 

If he’d just been shot, he would have died first, he wouldn’t have ever known how bad he failed in that moment. He would have died first, like a parent was supposed to. No good father should ever outlive his kid.

Maybe, this had been his second chance, to finally die first. 

Born lucky, bad star, like always. 

So, what would he do, if it had been you? He’d have taken care of you, just like you’re doing for him. But that is not anathema to him; that is just how things are supposed to go. It wouldn’t have been a failure. 

He’s no use to you anymore, no use to anyone.

He doesn’t say any of that. 

Instead, he nods. 

“You’re right.” He shrugs and pain splinters across his shoulders. “It would have been different.” 

Your expression flickers blank and you turn away. It would have been easier to stomach if you screamed at him, if you slammed a door. 

But you’re just quiet. 

Once, during the late autumn, when you were traveling with Joel and Ellie, you noticed Joel wasn’t eating. 

Food was in short supply. None of the houses or buildings you looted turned up anything edible, and wild game had been elusive for weeks as the weather turned wetter and chillier. 

You’d noticed him doing it a few times before, but nothing like then. Joel would dole out carefully rationed food and not allocate any to himself. The bags under his eyes deepened. His temper was shorter. He’d gotten pale and hollows appeared in his cheeks that meant he hadn’t been getting enough. Joel had always been huge, broad and strong and tall, with thick arms and thighs, but when he dropped weight, it always showed in those little hollows first.

Then, one evening, after clearing out a barn of infected, he’d stumbled, hand to his forehead, pale as you’d ever seen him. “Christ,” he’d mumbled. 

“Joel?” Ellie’s voice had pitched up with worry. She’d looked at you, and said, “He hasn’t been eating.” The words were all a rush, accusatory and begging for you to do something. 

“Ellie—” He’d growled. 

“I know she’s right, Joel,” You’d interrupted with a snap. “You think we wouldn’t notice? You think I wouldn’t notice?”

He’d gotten pissed off and marched off into the woods to the stream to refill your canteens. You’d given him a wide berth for several hours, making the newly cleared barn into something livable for the night with Ellie. When dark had started to set in you went after him, boots crunching through frozen leaves.

He’d been sitting by the creek bed, an inscrutable expression on his face. “We ain’t got enough,” he’d said, not looking at you. “You and Ellie need it more. I’m fine.” 

“But you're not. You can’t just not eat. You can’t take care of us if you aren’t okay, Joel.” 

The air had smelled like earth and decaying leaves and stagnant water and ice. The scent reminded you of better times, of apple cider and cinnamon and new beginnings, of autumn fairs and coffee shops. 

You’d sat behind him, pulled him against you for just a moment, chin on his shoulder, and said, “It’s all right to let me look after you, too.” 

You figure that even with the change in circumstances, things are still like that with Joel. He’s always doing the metaphorical equivalent of making sure everyone else eats first, even if it means he’s starving.

He’s never been one to give up or give in or let go. When Tess was bitten, Joel hadn’t wanted to leave her. He’d wanted to stay and fight. To fight a useless and unwinnable fight. That mindset was never going to fade.

You don’t speak for a few days. Guilt swallows the whole of your heart and leaves you dry and empty. Joel blames you, you think, even if he won’t say it. 

He comes to you late one night. 

It’s dark and the bedroom is overly warm. He sits heavily but without help at the edge of the bed. He’s getting better at that, even if he doesn’t think he is. 

His hair is longer and it falls into his face when he leans over you, fingers against your forehead and temple and then your cheek. 

“When I was real young,” he says. “My dad died. We didn’t have much money and my mama worked all the time.” 

You turn on your back and try to make his face out but his expression is unreadable. 

Joel hardly ever talks about his folks. 

“I got my first job when I was fourteen, to help with the bills. Money was better on account of half of it not bein’ drank away, but we still needed the cash.” Joel pauses and you scoot over. It takes a minute for him to find a comfortable position with you but when he does, he continues. His voice echoes against your ear, the beat of his heart pounds against your cheek. His chin rubs against your forehead, one large hand splayed across your shoulders. 

“Since she worked so much, I was always takin’ care of Tommy, of damn near everything else. And my mama, too, sometimes.” He swallows, and you feel the bob of his throat against your forehead. His chest is warm beneath your cheek, even through the two layers he always wears. “So I knew I was young when Sarah came along, but I didn’t really feel it. I took care of her and her mother, ‘til she went her own way. Just the way I always had.” 

The rise and fall of his chest is steady. He cups his free hand around yours and tucks your palm against his heart. 

“I know I’m not easy, in any sense of the word. I never have been.” A heavy tug of shame weighs his voice down. “Too mean and bitter, I guess.” There’s a long pause, and you want to protest but you’re sure if you interrupt, Joel won’t finish saying whatever it is he needs to. 

“So anyway,” he continues. “I try to make up for it. By doin’ what I always have, even if it means I end up alone. I wouldn’t change anything. I don’t know what I’m good for if—” His hand slides up your spine, thick fingers resting at the base of your neck. “And I can’t do it anymore. Can’t take care of ya. So, it woulda been different, if it had been you. Because it’s you we’re talkin’ about.” 

Joel goes quiet after that. His palm continues its nervous path over your spine. The bristles of his beard are soft against your temple. The rhythm of his breathing is still slow and even, but you feel the prickle of nerves in the way he touches you. 

It isn’t easy for Joel to say the things he feels, even to you, even all these years later. 

His body is so familiar to you, so warm and strong beneath you. Comfort, in short, in its purest form. 

You aren’t expecting him to say any more, but he does. “Things. . .they always have a way of fallin’ apart, in the end.” 

When you lift your head, he doesn’t look at you. You press a finger against the edge of his jaw, turning his head gently until his eyes meet yours. “Joel,” you touch your forehead to his. You aren’t good with words either, but you try. “You are more than that. More than what you can do for people.”

He’s quiet for a long time, eyes fluttering closed, his breath a calm pool against your mouth. “And I’m more than that? To you?” 

“Joel, if I only wanted some guard dog, I would have gotten one that could listen better.” 

He snorts, and a little of the tension melts away. “Yeah, I reckon you would have.” 

The dark is a warm cocoon of things less easily said in the light.

“Yes,” you say quietly after a long, peaceful silence. “Joel. You’re so much more to me than that.”

It’s late spring again. The Wyoming air is mild, and heavy with the scent of blooming life. 

Sage grows in dense clumps up in the mountains, deep between the ridges of the sharp peaks. The smell of it, earthy and crisp, chases itself on the breeze, all the way down to Jackson. It twines with the smell of flowers painstakingly planted along his front path. 

Arrowleaf. Goldenrod. 

Lavender, right by the mailbox, courtesy of some superstition held onto from before the outbreak. 

It’s thick, cloying, pungent. 

It’s overripe, rotting. It smells like death. 

It’s making Joel fucking nauseous. 

He squeezes your arm, a warning without words that he needs a break. 

It’s the smell. 

It’s the sun and the gentle breeze. 

He tells himself the sick, crawling pain mixing sourly in his stomach has nothing at all to do with his newly fitted prosthetic leg. 

Slowly, without a word, you turn and guide him back through his familiar backyard to the porch. 

He sits heavily on the steps, just inside the cool pool of shade, and pulls in deep breaths that rattle in his lungs and do nothing to stave off the dizziness, or the pain. 

Your hand slides up and down his back before your palm settles against the back of his neck and urges his head down between his knees. 

Joel feels like a fucking kid. His hands are shaking. 

“Damn thing is useless,” he growls after a minute when the nausea passes and he can lift his head, because it’s the only thing he can do, because it’s goddamn humiliating. 

Everything is, these days. 

You just bump your shoulder into his and hum low under your breath, used to his attitude, used to his bark that only sometimes has a bite. 

You’re patient with him, but tough, not willing to indulge his foul moods. “It’s just something you have to get used to,” you assure him. “It’s not going to be like before.” 

Joel doesn’t want to admit that he wants to take the prosthetic off. It’s like admitting defeat before he’s even gotten a chance to fight. 

And he’s tired. 

Exhausted, really. 

“Hey,” you dig your nails into his wrist. He meets your eyes, pragmatic, practical, his match in everything. “We aren’t supposed to go at it so hard anyway, remember? You did really well.” 

He doesn’t want to admit that, either, that your praise washes pink in his veins, that he likes to hear it, thrives on it. If he’s doing right by you, good in your eyes, things can’t be awful as they might seem. 

That’s what he latches onto. Your pride. Your acceptance. 

“This was just the first time, Joel,” you continue. “You’ll get the hang of it.” 

He ain’t so sure about that, not with the way his leg aches. A leg that isn’t even there anymore, chopped off right above the knee, to save his life, apparently. It’s part of why it hurts so goddamn much. Feels like he’s pushing his calf into something it can’t fit in, like the long gone meat and bone are getting ground up into his thigh. 

But if he gets the hang of it, then things will be better. He’ll at least be able to move on his own. He might be able to find some way to work again. Wall duty was looking pretty good, because all you really have to do is sit there and watch the horizon and be able to shoot pretty well. 

There is hope in the future. There is hope in you reminding him of that, realistic to a fault, pragmatic to your core. 

And unlike Joel, you’ve never had it in you to lie. 

Joel tightens his hand on your forearm again, pressure on your sun warmed skin. It’s a poor substitute for the thank you that you deserve. You seem to get his meaning though. Your hand feathers through his hair again and the sun doesn’t feel so abrasive, and the smells of spring don’t seem so weighed down by death. 

“Ellie’s coming for dinner,” you offer. “Said she’s got a movie or a game or something that she wants to show you.” 

Yeah, so maybe the day ain’t so bleak as he thought it was. 

“All right.” 

You offer him a hand up, and slip your arm behind his back. He carefully drapes his arm around your shoulders, mindful, even now, of his weight against yours. “What a strong thing you are,” he comments, not able to stop the corner of his mouth from twitching. You look so determined.

It’s the way you always look, when put to task.  

You roll your eyes. “Lucky for you.” 

“Lucky for me,” he says, soft about it.  

The stairs are the worst part of getting back inside, but it's much easier than it had been before. 

It’s a relief to collapse into the couch and take the prosthetic off. The phantom pains still ache and stretch painfully tight, like the skin is being pulled taut, like there was a knot that just needed massaged out. He grits his teeth and represses the urge to reach down and rub sore muscle that no longer exists. 

It’s a relief to collapse into the couch, even if guilt punches him in the chest for it. 

It’s an even bigger relief when you press yourself into the space next to him. He doesn’t know how you stand it sometimes. How you can look at him and still not hate him for every mistake he’s ever made. 

“Knee always fuckin’ bothered me anyhow,” he comments, turning his head so his words brush against your temple. “Don’t gotta worry about it gettin’ stiff now, I reckon.” 

You reward him with a snort, the scrape of your fingernails against his cheek, a kiss. 

It’s easier to get around, with the prosthetic that he hates. 

But he’s slow. Slower than he’s ever been in his whole life. And sometimes, most times, it frustrates him. 

Being able to walk is one thing. It’s a fine thing. But he needs to be able to do more than that. Run, fight, shoot. A fucking pipe dream. But he’s back to building, carpentry, and that’s something at least. Something useful. 

Joel has tried asking you about that day, because he doesn’t remember a whole lot besides the pain. But your chest goes fluttery with panic, the rise and fall of it unfamiliar to him. You don’t get nervous. You never have, not over anything. 

But when he asks about that day, you mutter something about Tommy and blood, and he can’t get anything else out of you. Tommy does the same, eyes cast to the side, thumbs hooked in his belt, foot starting a nervous rhythm. 

He doesn’t understand what’s wrong with either of you, what the goddamn problem is. 

In some ways, Joel’s always thought you were tougher than him, a balance of brutal and rough and unforgiving with softened sweetness. Bash the skull of a hunter in with a metal pipe, then use your unsullied hand to stroke back Ellie’s hair, to offer help to strangers, to pat the nose of your horse gently. 

He would never want to be on the other side of the wrath you kept wrapped up inside your heart. 

But, now, you don’t leave Jackson anymore. You haven’t been outside Jackson’s walls since that day. 

Tommy tells him you can’t even bear to take a shift on the wall, which mainly comprised of sitting at the top of the wall and doing a whole lot of nothing, looking at the horizon, shuffling your feet to keep warm.

It’s unlike you. You love to patrol, just like him. 

That’s his fault, too. Your nightmares, your sleeplessness.

Ellie plays the guitar for him, even after he gets the hang of it again, even after he’s walking on his own again, the chords coming back to him easier and easier. They don’t have to talk much, that way. 

She’s still mad, but he almost died, and she’s willing to try with him. 

She comes over for dinner. She always brings a movie. 

It gets easier. 

And slowly, by the end of the summer, she smiles when she sees him.

He’s gotten the hang of walking again, which is never a sentiment he thought he’d have about himself. Joel always assumed he’d be killed before something like really old age could set in, or something like this, a disability he doesn’t want to learn to live with. 

It’s rained recently and the yard smells like perchitor and the ever present mountain sage. The grass is just a little muddy from the many loops around the yard. “You’re going to fall and break your neck, old man.” 

“Breakin’ my neck can’t be much worse than what it is right now. We ain’t goin’ around the yard anyhow. Now c’mon, put your shoes on, kiddo.” 

“It’s still raining,” she complains. 

“Means no one’s outside to see me humiliatin’ myself.” 

Ellie only rolls her eyes but does it anyway. He doesn’t need a hand anymore, but he’s shaky sometimes and despite your best efforts he’s still refusing a cane. But he also hasn’t been using the track in the yard in weeks.

That, and he actually has somewhere to be these days, figuring out better security for Jackson, looking after the patrol teams, assessing who was ready to be put into rotation. Managing is what he should be calling it, though he doesn’t care for it. He and Maria butt heads too often for it to be anything close to enjoyable. 

When they pass the mailbox, Ellie points to the lavender. “I never thought to ask about it before. It’s everywhere. Some nailed above the door and everything.” 

“Some kinda thing about protectin’ the home,” Joel explains. “Far as I remember, it protects from bad energy. Somethin’ like that.” 

“I thought that was sage?”

“Sage you burn,” he explains. “And we get plenty of that too. Whole damn house smells like it.” 

“Seems like the kinda thing Dina would do,” she says and then seems to realize who she’s said it to. But she doesn’t change the subject. “Didn’t take her for the superstitious type. Doesn’t seem like it really works anyway.” 

Joel shrugs. “She was before the outbreak, I guess.” He watches Ellie from the corner of his eye. She’s steadfastly not looking at him, but she also doesn’t usually say so much to him. “Didn’t have reason to think of it for a long time. Lavender wasn’t exactly in high supply in Boston.” 

Ellie nods.

“She used to, uh, put some in your backpack when she knew you was goin’ out. Same with me, always put some in my pocket.” 

There’s a long silence. Jackson’s streets are oddly empty in the pouring rain. Lights glow in the windows; inviting, homely. “She didn’t have to do that.” 

He shrugs and his shoulder only aches a little for it. “It’s just the kinda thing parents do, even if it don’t make any damn sense.” 

“Yeah,” Ellie agrees as the turn toward the center of Jackson. “You wanna stop in the Bison?” 

“Sure,” he agrees. “For a minute.” 

“Full schedule?” She teases. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your sunset years?”

“Well, gotta have something to fill up the days, kiddo. Maybe one day you’ll actually be able to keep up.”

She just scoffs and rolls her eyes. "Yeah, whatever."

Joel tries not to smile.  

Being mobile again, busy again, feels good. 

It feels good, but it also means he’s in near constant pain.

He tells himself it’s good, that pain sharpens him, makes him better. 

Until he’s slumped on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night, heaving his guts up from the ache in his leg. 

You find him there, sweaty and panting, with a glass of water in hand. Joel pushes himself upright against the wall with a sigh as you close the lid of the toilet and flush it before sitting beside him on the cool tile. 

“You’re overdoing it again,” you say, not unkindly.

“I ain’t tryin’ to,” he mutters and takes the glass of water when you offer it to him. 

“I know.” You cover his free hand with yours. “Wanna get up?” 

You smell faintly of peppermint, burned incense. 

When he shakes his head, you stretch to flip the light switch over your head. He’s plunged into darkness, alone, for just a moment, before you settle again. The warmth of your head against his shoulder feels stolen. 

For a long time, neither of you say anything. He breathes through the pain still crawling around his knee, the phantom flesh of his calf. 

“I was a goddamn fool,” he whispers into the silence. “You know what I was thinkin’ that day?” He’s not sure where the words come from, the confession. It feels a little like the words are being pulled up out of his body, yanked right from the center of his chest. 

“Tell me,” your nose is warm when it bumps against his collarbone. 

“‘Bout Ellie. How I’d want someone to help her, if she needed it. So I helped that girl. Almost got all of us fuckin’ killed.”

You don’t answer, not at first. But eventually, you lean into him and say, “If you want me to blame you, I won’t. I will never find fault in kindness.” Your thumb strokes his knuckles slowly. “Never. Especially not yours.” 

He brushes his mouth along your hairline, skin silken against his mouth. “Y’know when we was on the road, I was sure you’d get us killed. But y’always knew when to trust someone. How much to trust ‘em.” 

“I. . .” you start and then trail off, fingers squeezing around his. “I was always lucky, and I always knew I had you at my back. If I messed up, you were always there.” 

His eyes have adjusted to the darkness of the bathroom, and when he meets your gaze, he can see the glaze of tears in your eyes. You suck in a shaking breath and clear your throat but don’t continue. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t there the same way.” 

“This ain’t on you,” he says. “Don’t think that. It’s me. It was a long time comin’ somethin’ would catch up to me.”

You settle in against him, one hand digging into the sore muscle of his thigh. The heat feels like, the flex of your gentle fingers even better. The pain that doesn’t exist fades just a little. 

“And for the record, darlin’, you were there the same way.” 

It’s autumn again when you go back onto the patrol rotation. There’s frost on the windows and on the spikes of overgrown grass in the front yard. He just got back from a night watch on the wall.  

You’re taking his old routes with Tommy, and you don’t tell him about it until the morning of. Not a fucking soul breathed a word of it to him, and he’s the one figuring out the goddamned rotations. 

And Joel realizes though he’d been worried about you not wanting to leave Jackson anymore, not even being able to go near the gates, he was glad you hadn’t wanted to. It meant you were safe. Even if he couldn’t keep you safe anymore, the walls of Jackson could.

“I’m not doing this with you right now,” you say before you leave, pretending like he can’t clearly see your hands shaking before you walk out the door.

He follows you onto the porch. He can’t remember what he says, just that you look upset and then hurt, just that you don’t say goodbye when you walk away and that you probably don’t have lavender tucked into your pocket like he always did. 

“Please.” A word he hardly ever says, a plea he never gives into. 

He says it to your retreating back as you pass the mailbox, but you either don’t hear him or choose to ignore him. 

Maybe he didn’t say it at all.

That day is hell. It’s long and pocketed with anger and anxiety. If something happens to you, he isn’t sure what he’ll do. He doesn’t like that you left him upset. 

Maria doesn’t entertain his outburst about it when he finally corners her after looking for her all morning. “She was ready.” 

“I didn’t even know we were considerin’ sendin’ her back out!” 

Maria just levels him with a glare that could freeze hell over. “That isn’t up to just you. And why do you think she didn’t want to tell you?” 

He’s at the stables with Ellie that evening when you come home, waiting. It’s cold and his leg is aching something bitter and awful but he doesn’t move and Ellie doesn’t suggest going back home because she knows he won’t hear it. Dina stops by and he listens to them talk. Ellie’s face softens when she looks at Dina, cheeks a soft pink in the fading light, ducking her head and fidgeting with her fingers. 

Joel tries not to pay them any mind, but it's hard not to find endearing. 

When you and Tommy get back, it’s full dark. He wants to throttle his brother for not telling him you were going back out on the trails, but it’s too cold for much of that. All thoughts of strangling Tommy fly from his head as soon as he sees you, because you have a smear of blood on your cheek and down your neck. 

“Goddamn it, what happened?” He demands, hands against your face before you’ve even fully dismounted. 

“I’m fine.” 

“That ain’t what I asked,” he sweeps his thumb over your skin, flakes of red shifting to the ground. The knot in his chest tightens as he watches it flutter through the air. “What happened?” He growls again. “Tommy?” 

“The usual, Joel,” you pull his attention back to you. “It was just cleanup. A couple of infected. Nothing.” 

“Uh huh,” he tilts your face one way and then the other. 

“Just some splatter.” You shrug and smile at him; your mouth twitches, and he realizes you’re teasing him. 

“Splatter,” he repeats flatly. “That ain’t funny. You ain’t funny. C’mon, let’s go home.” 

Ellie and Dina have disappeared with your arrival but they aren’t far; he can hear their chatter as they walk along the street toward the center of Jackson, the echoes of their voices reaching back towards him. “I’ll deal with you later,” he says to his brother. 

Tommy just raises his hands and says he’ll stable the horses. But he’s grinning and maybe that’s a good thing. It’s been awhile since his brother has seemed himself. It’s been awhile since the two of you have given him grief together. 

“Leave Tommy alone,” you say as you walk toward Rancher Street. You seem steadier than you had been that morning, more confident, more yourself. It isn’t a long walk back, even with his leg, though he limps worse than usual because of the cold. You wrap an arm around his waist, your fingers digging into his back pocket, body warm against his side. “We did good together today.” 

“Mhm. I’m sure you did.” 

“You mad at me?” 

“I wish you’d tell me,” he murmurs. “When you’re goin’ off to do somethin’ stupid. I need you to talk to me. Worried the whole goddamn day. You ain’t exactly in practice out there anymore.” 

You hum and then nudge closer to him. “Put your arm around me.”

“I’m fine,” he grunts, maybe a little harshly. 

“Joel,” you laugh and nuzzle your face against his shoulder. “C’mon. I’m cold and I had a rough day. Put your arm around me.” 

So, he does. And he leaves it there until you’re in the bathroom, sitting on the counter in front of him, lavender plants stacked in the sink behind you once again as the colder weather sets in. 

This is better. So much fucking better, than the other way around. This is right.

He cleans the blood away, finds the swell of a bruise on your shoulder and a cut lengthways over your collarbone. 

It’s easy enough to take care of. It isn’t as bad as what he’d been imagining all day long. 

He’s well in practice for this sort of thing, for bandaging and assessing wounds. 

“Sorry,” he says as he works. “For this mornin’.”

“Mhm.”

“I worried all day. Not much I can do now, if you get into a spot of trouble.”

“I handle myself fine. Tommy was there. He’s a good partner out there.” 

Joel grunts, dabs rubbing alcohol along the cut. “He is,” he agrees reluctantly. He supposes if you had to go on patrol with anyone, he’d prefer you go with his brother.  

You touch him as he works, fingers patting over his jacket, the collar of his flannel, the frayed edge of the t-shirt beneath that. “I had to go back out, Joel. You would have argued with me and I can’t be afraid and useless forever.”

“Useless,” he scoffs and unspools a length of bandage. “You don’t know nothin’ about that.” 

“Joel,” you say softly, exasperated. “Baby, you don’t know what it was like that day. I thought you were already dead.” Your voice trembles and you have to swallow harshly before you can continue. “Helpless and useless doesn’t even begin to cover what I felt. What I still feel.” You shake your head and cup your fingers around his. “I dream about it every single night and I still don’t really remember what happened. That scares me a lot.” 

He slides his thumb along the gauze, your eyes wide and worried when he meets them.“I’ll never be who I was, sweetheart.” His voice sounds mournful to his own ears. 

“You’re exactly the same man, Joel. I’m just happy you’re here and alive and you’re worried you aren’t alive the right damn way.” You shake your head. “I can’t ask for much more than what I have. Than what we do. Me and you. Ellie back in our life. A home. Food. Family. You,” you touch his jaw and smile. “Still here. Still taking care of me.” 

There’s a lump in his throat, hard as a stone. “Yep.” He coughs in an attempt to clear his voice but he sounds just as wrecked when he speaks. “Patrol musta been real good to y’today.”

You just laugh, and the sound of it is wet. “Yeah. It was. I thought it would be terrible but I missed it.” 

“I know you did.” 

“You should come on a ride with me sometime,” you say slyly. “I bet it’d feel good to be back in the saddle. You’ve always been a good shot from the back of a horse.”

He has. 

Maybe he should. 

💞 If you made it this far, thank you for reading! Comments and feedback are so appreciated. 💞

There's something so wonderfully, perfectly autumnal about the Lord of the Rings and even the Silmarillion. It is profound and beautiful and filled with splendor, but also so melancholic and tragic and bittersweet that it makes your heart ache.

The elves are leaving for the Western Shores and magic is dying, but there is something so beautiful about it, even as it slowly withers, like the changing leaves in the autumn trees. There is beauty even in the loss, life in death, joy found even in the midst of pain. It is fair even in the fading.

me after reanimating the corpse of tolkien: so later on in the show, galadriel’s new bestie, halbrand, is revealed to be sauron, which kind of erases celebrimbor as a character and his contribution to the main conflict

tolkien: that’s what you’re worried about when two of the beatles are still living? go finish the job

nothing, just tolkien originally writing down the hobbit because his son christopher kept complaining that he'd change the details from night to night and then christopher later being so crucial in taking tolkien's notes and turning them into fully written novels of worldbuilding. loving someone to the point of creation and then having them help you finish the job.

Pride and Prejudice (2005) + tumblr posts (part 1)

Mi ammazzo

Here’s that horse again

*in the tone of a estranged grandmother*

You love horse

Horse was always your favourite what happened?

i am a sucker for the typical stoic fictional man who is actually so soft for his s/o. who buries his nose into the crook of your neck and wraps his arms around your waist whenever he can. maybe he’s not always good with his words, but for you? god. he literally hands you his heart on a silver platter

Blessed trinity together at last