desiré

! like ! paramore, bts, southamerican literature, character study, outlast, joel miller.

! info ! desireé. 21 years old. she/her. slow. latina/arg. spanish/english. writer.

! DNI ! minors, xenophobes, racists, transphobes, zionists, pro shippers, pedro haters, pedro stalkers or weirdos.

find me in twitter

essays, dissections, review:

౨ৎ 'Everybody Wants a Piece of Pedro Pascal'. (VF interview)

౨ৎ 'Crashing on the rocks' jackson!joel

౨ৎ 'The right side of my neck' jackson!joel

౨ৎ 'Cain's Curse' jackson!joel

౨ৎ 'All These Broken Pieces' au!joel

౨ৎ 'Strange dynamic' Joel Miller x f!reader

౨ৎ 'I Know' Joel Miller x f!reader

౨ৎ 'Midnight Crib' Joel Miller x f!reader

౨ৎ 'Ecstasy' Joel Miller x f!reader

౨ৎ 'Curls' Joel Miller x f!reader

౨ৎ 'We have to talk about Ted García' Ted García x f!reader

౨ৎ ' Long, long time' Joel Miller x f!reader

౨ৎ 'Bite me to the marrow' Joel Miller x f!reader

౨ৎ One 'Nook'

౨ৎ Two 'Drunk text' (one shot: Long, long time.)

౨ৎ Three 'Sounds'

2 0 1 5

You always thought sex was the beginning of everything. That it was everywhere, in everyone, like background noise. In everyday conversations, at work, in jokes, on the news, in the street, in your mother's eyes, in Joel's hands.

In your own house.

It was a constant, simmering low beneath everything. Under the foundations of life, under the roots of trees. Animals, people, cells. You found it in the way your brother's friends looked at you, in coworkers and the coffee cups they tried to invite you, in your own wedding ring.

You lived horny. It was your default state of mind. Everything turned vulgar in your head no matter the situation, you replayed your nights, carried that dragging feeling inside you, remembering it, craving it. The constant pounding, the haze of sweat, skin against skin. Sticky, slick, wet.

You liked what it stirred up in the other person. A reaction. An expression. A sound.

Cumming.

When you had sex, sometimes you'd slip out of your own mind. You'd wonder what your parents would think if they were in the room. Would they think you were finally an adult? Sometimes you asked Joel to finish inside you, to pull off the condom and fill you up.

Maybe that would make you a woman.

But Joel did it once and never again. Then he would just refuse.

You could stay angry for a whole week over his refusal. Joel would tell you to stop asking for that, that he was too old to be a father, and the last thing he wanted was to be the absent father of a kid because he'd died long before it hit its teens. But that wasn't what you cared about. You wanted to be marked, wanted him melted inside your walls.

Either way, Joel wouldn't do it.

You | 2:40 AM u off yet?

Joel | 2:55 AM not off til six told u this mornin when you were makin my lunch.

You | 02:55 AM i need u

Joel | 02:57 AM gonna hafta wait. not off til six.

You | 02:57 AM what if i come? fuck me in the morgue. nobody goes in there.

Joel | 03:02 AM darlin can you not do that, please.

You | 03:04 AM gonna wake me up soon as u get home?

Joel | 03:05 AM no. need my sleep.

2 0 0 0

You couldn't place the knocking sound coming from the hallway. You still had the doll an aunt had given you, and you still wore that pale blue pajama set you'd more than once, without meaning to, wet in your sleep.

Because you still wet the bed.

The hallway twisted like a cheap horror movie. The sound grew louder as you got closer, and by the time you'd woken up you already had that feeling in the center of your chest, like a little worker digging out room for the next horror. A dread that built up in all that silence in the middle of an intermittent chaos, a storm growling offshore that never quite made landfall.

When you reached the living room, the first thing you noticed was that every light was off—even the kitchen one, the one always left on so no one would bump into the furniture in the middle of the night. But you'd learned to make your way in the dark, to manage on your own during the early mornings when a sudden urge to throw up would call your name.

Then, a moan.

It sounded so distant that for a moment you thought you'd imagined it. In the rush of your thoughts, it might've blurred with the edge of reality, your own early griefs. Of knowing way too much. Suddenly the knocking picked up a faster rhythm, a steady creak from a piece of furniture. Springs. The same sound the couch made when your father sat down heavy after a long day of work.

You peered around the doorway.

Your mother was sweating, one hand over her own mouth. Your father's hands gripped hard at the saggy flesh of her backside, pushing her down onto him, making her take all of him. They looked at each other in the dark, like two shadows that met eyes only by accident, and she gripped the back of his neck with her other hand.

You turned away, facing the hallway wall, hiding. Your whole body was pounding, in your chest, like your heart wanted to break loose from your ribs. What you'd just seen looked like what was buried in all those browser tabs your father kept open on the living room computer, and your mother looked like those women with the huge eyes, drooling all over their bodies.

Your parents had been separated for three years already and had been sleeping in different beds for a long time. Waiting for one of them, her or him, to finally move out of the house so they could get the divorce done for good.

2 0 1 3

When your father started dying, the ICU became a second home you had to return to for as long as he stayed there. It was quiet, sealed off, cryptic. Every time someone passed you on the way to your father's room, you got a look that always seemed to mean the same thing.

Oh, so young to be in here. I'm sorry for your loss.

You were afraid of him. But even more afraid of him leaving. What was there to do once a father wasn't in the picture anymore? What definition would you take on without the one he held for you in his eyes? Maybe this was what becoming a woman looked like. Maybe these were the first steps into adulthood.

When your father was assigned a bed in the ICU, two nurses rotated shifts taking care of him, along with the doctor in charge of postponing the inevitable. One of the nurses was a beautiful woman in her forties, curly blonde hair, freckles across her nose, and deep crow's feet at the corners of her eyes that tangibly celebrated the happiness of her decades. She looked after your father during the day, chatty even with the graceless body of a father in a coma—somehow, the way she cared for him made you feel like everything would be okay.

Then there was the other one. Tall, tired by default, quiet, something gentle buried in his roughness. He barely made a sound. Unlike her, he never spoke to your father, didn't even bother greeting him. He'd just look at you when he walked in, mutter a "mornin'" and go on with his work. That's how the first few weeks in the ICU went.

Then, he turned out to be a little more human underneath the monotony.

"You haven't had anythin' to eat yet."

When you lifted your head from your notebook, you saw him pulling on a pair of latex gloves, his tired eyes fixed on you.

"I did."

"Coffee and one cracker ain't real food." he said, turning your father onto his side on the bed and uncovering his hips. He was cleaning him up, like every night. "I can get some lunch box from the kitchen." Silence. "We have plenty for patients, you use to stay here a long time" his eyes, fixed on the work he was doing, lifted for a moment and looked at you. "you're something similar to a patient."

"I'm not a patient. That's my dad." Silence. "And no, I don't want a lunchbox."

Silence.

"'Kay." He murmured, and went on with his work in silence for at least another twenty minutes.

He had something that filled the room. Gray hairs crept along his sideburns and through patches of a beard that fought the morning razor. The inevitable passing of years, years that had already worn him down, with lines carved into parts of his face, into a permanently furrowed brow.

Your eyes dropped before his could find you. A name tag on his chest read J. Miller. Then, J spoke.

"You always stay here for like ten hours. I haven't seen you near the vending machine not even once."

"I said i'm not hungry." You glanced at him, sideways. "The hospital jus'... takes away my appetite. It smells like ill all the time."

"Well, if you don't eat, you'll get ill soon too."

For a moment, something like the ghost of a smile flickered across his face. Barely there. But you felt it like an attack. Anger. Anger always rose in you fast, like boiling milk, so the second you heard him, you said:

"Are you done?" Silence. "Can you get out?"

He chewed on something hard enough to tense his jaw. Then he turned and walked out in silence. The little that lingered of his stare on you made the hair on your lower belly prickle faintly. There was a silent boundary his eyes staked into you, like a command to a K-9, like a bullfighter holding up a red cape. It hadn't taken words to knock the wind out of your sails, so when the door shut behind him, you felt the weight of green, bitter shame settle over you.

After about twenty minutes spent watching the violet veins traced under the fragile, pale skin of your father's feet, you decided to step out and let fate decide what came next. If you ran into him, you told yourself, you'd apologize; if not, you'd go back to the hospital room.

For a while, walking down the hallway, you didn't run into anyone but nurses from other rooms and other patients' relatives. At one point, turning a corner in the hallway, you spotted him in the distance. He was unmistakable, somehow. Maybe it was his height, his impassive face, his tired shoulders, his rough hands. There was something moving through him like an invisible haze only you seemed able to see.

Then you felt it. Again. Low in your belly. Like a ticklish feeling that wasn't funny at all, something close to a summer chill, the kind that makes you sigh without meaning to and then gasp for air like your lungs had forgotten how to work for five seconds. He caused it.

And he tamed it with just a look.

You turned around and went back to the room.

Two weeks later…

Olivia | 10:22 it wasn't even the hardest exam i've had tbh it was… normal.

Clara | 10:24 normal bitch it was a three hour exam

Olivia | 10:25 welcome to the real world, babe hopeee somebody answers before lunch u skipped the exam bc of your dad, right?

You | 11:01 hey yeah dad's really bad and i had to miss again school sent me an email about my absences i'll probably have to make up everything

Clara | 11:03 oh babe wanna grab food?

Olivia | 11:10 yes!! clear your head a little

Clara | 13:20 so…?

Olivia | 13:21 i don't think she's gonna answer…

You lifted your head from the crook of your arms resting on the edge of the bed when you heard a plastic thud against a surface. When you saw him, you frowned. J. Or rather, Joel, like the nurses called him out in the hallway.

Your eyes dropped to the tray of food. A plate of mashed potatoes with boiled chicken and pieces of carrot. A juice box. A small cup of jello. And him, watching you.

"Eat."

"I'm not hungry."

Joel looked at you with that faint tic in his jaw. He still had on an old jean jacket, no scrubs. Just a gray t-shirt with a flannel over it and black cargo pants, boots, and a backpack slung over one shoulder. He'd either just gotten in, or was on his way out.

"I ain't askin'." He said, closing the distance in a few firm steps and grabbing the tray suddenly. He yanked the lid off, grabbed the plastic fork, and dug it into the mashed potatoes, bringing it toward your face. "You wanna end up on a bed like your old man?" He leaned in, muttering through his teeth. "Eat the fuck up."

He dropped the tray onto the wooden surface and walked out of the room, letting the door shut a little too hard behind him. You picked up the plastic tray and ate, ignoring the cold in your mouth and the heat low in your belly.

Three months later that same year.

With the months, like a battery that never got changed, you slowly wore down in front of everyone, but the fact that nobody did anything about it made it feel like something you just had to get through. Again, that feeling of confusion, of getting lost in the maze of adulthood, came back. It made sense, at your age, to feel that way. But you hadn't even had enough time to really settle into your twenties before your father died and you fell straight into Joel's arms.

You couldn't say it had been inevitable, because that would be a lie. Ever since he'd started showing up with lunchboxes and spending way longer than he needed to while looking after your father, the thought had started gnawing at you—that maybe he was there more for you than for your dad.

But part of you didn't want to accept that.

There was something, back behind your brain, that shut down every hope, every sign, and looked for any way to sabotage it. Because why would anyone ever set their eyes on you?

Had you done something to deserve it?

Had you behaved?

It's pointless to even point out that idea came from your own home. It was obvious. You felt like you were only good for one thing. For your father? You were only good for that. Serving, being there, fetching things, taking care of others, and keeping your mouth shut. For your mother? For listening to her, listening to her cry over your father, not even knowing who she was without him.

But outside the family unit, did you even know what you were? What you were good for?

The night your father died was too quiet, like the whole world had heard about your pain. You didn't want to stay in the hospital waiting room, and even less in the chapel downstairs. You just ran the second you saw the look on the doctor's face when he stepped out of the room, twenty minutes after the heart attack, and bolted for the parking lot to hide in the back seat of your car.

The thick air in the car smelled like family vacations from a long time ago, arguments with your mother on the drive home, pointless tantrums kicked out from the back seat. Now, it would carry this new memory too: one that would wrap around you every time you started the car in the morning to go to college, trying not to drive out of sheer uncertainty toward a place your dad had once promised he'd leave as soon as he got better.

It felt like losing a school tournament as a kid. That collective sadness everyone feels, deeply physical, sitting in the middle of your chest, but that feels almost ridiculous to cry over. You didn't feel brave enough to cry, even though the burn was already there, sitting in your throat, looking up and waiting for permission to come out.

A few knocks on the closed window made you lift your head, and you saw a shape through the glass that had fogged up from your own breathing. When you opened it, you saw him, like he was lost, like he was expecting you to take a swing at him.

"I hear what happened." He murmured, hands stuffed in the pockets of his cotton jacket. "Have y'called someone? Your mom, siblings."

It took you a second to shake your head no. You hadn't known he even knew which car was yours. Then you shook your head again, trying to clear the mental fog threatening to leave you in shock for hours.

"You should." Joel says.

"If I do, it becomes real." You said, looking at the half-open car door. He breathed in like the air had suddenly asked his permission to come inside, and leaned against the seat behind him.

"I get it." He said, "when my daughter's accident happened, I couldn't even get past the hospital door. It would mean that things were actually bad."

You looked up. He was staring at the pavement. "Lost a leg." he murmured. "Car crash, her mom died." Silence. "She was so angry with herself, thinking it was her fault, that it should hav' been her, not her mum. It was a hard place to get a kid out of, she got really dark those years."

Silence.

"It should have been me." You said, looking away. "What am I supposed to do, huh? The stupid 'keep going for him,' is that what he would have wanted'? For fuck's sake, he had so much to do, to live. But I got him sick." You buried your face in your hands, breathing hard.

You heard the brush of his clothes as he moved, that faint joint-crack as he crouched down in front of you, pushing the car door open a little more. "How'd you get him sick?"

"He'd always said it. That I would get him death someday, with my attitude and selfish actions, and I did." You wiped your nose that started to run even if you weren't crying, yet. Like your soul trying to find a way out. "I did by being this. Always wanting so much, needing more. He said it, my ungratefulness would only get me bad things, and now it's too fucking late."

"You say it as if you're being punished by a sort of God." Joel said, and you finally met his eyes. He said it with a tone pretty close to mockery, even though you fervently believed you could be punished for wanting or asking for more. "Your father is dead because his heart was fucked up. Not because you were a bad kid."

"You don't know how bad I can be." You said, frowning at the audacity of him trying to argue against something as obvious as your own rottenness, which you could feel bleeding out through your pores right now. But Joel didn't flinch.

His eyes caught your frown. Fangs bared, claws out. Your whole body ready to start throwing drowning-man swings. Then his eyes dropped to your mouth, and you noticed his pupils blow out, just a fraction.

"Then show me." he said. Low, not a challenge, even less a taunt. There was a plea dressed up as a statement in his voice, a need he wasn't having much luck hiding. But you couldn't, you couldn't just turn cruel on command, you were too aware of yourself.

"You're not funny."

"I ain't tryin' to." Silence. "I jus' know you're hurtin', you need to put that pain somewhere and I can see it." His hand came up, settling on your knee. "Giv' it to me, I can handle it."

But how? What were you supposed to do? Start hitting him right there? Break his jaw against the ground like you would fantasize in the back of your mind when someone would make you angry? He was letting you do that?

Then Joel leaned in just far enough to press his mouth to yours, closing his eyes, and you frowned hard. This was a completely different kind of hit, it hurt in a different way, but somehow it still managed to create that same release. Did a man's mouth have the power to empty a woman's anger out of her without causing pain?

Your hands rose to the sides of his face like his skin burned too much to touch, and when he nudged his nose against yours to tip your head back slightly, your lips parted just enough to let his tongue settle against yours. He knew his way around well, how to make a body respond, how to guide the shell of a woman you were.

He kissed like time was nothing but something invented by whoever was against your peace of mind, and that mix of urgency with drops of a wiser calm made that low fire start to burn through your gut and set that spring of water running way too soon.

Joel wraps one arm around your waist, the other sliding up to the back of your neck, fitting to the shape of your head and deepening the kiss. Your tongues search for each other, recognize each other in the dark of the parking lot full of empty cars. When his mouth pulls back a little from yours, he breathes you in, and then guides you into the car as your hands tangle around his neck.

He climbs in after you, shutting the door without looking and shutting out the cold of the night, which will soon fog into heat once it's trapped between the two of you. With his mouth inches from yours, he says: "Tell me to leave…" He whispers, brushing the hair from your face. His knee works its way between yours, fitting his frame closer to you. "Tell me to get out, say it…" His nose dips under your jaw, tipping your head back and burying his face to kiss your neck, your collarbone. Mouth open.

But from you, he got none of what he pretended to want, instead, you hooked your leg over his side just as Joel's kisses climbed back up your neck to meet your mouth, and when his lips landed near yours, you traced a line of saliva over them that made a full shudder run through him against you, like a small tremor before the crack of thunder.

He feels you instinctive, clumsy, and it's killing him. Not because of any obvious inexperience or virginity, but because of the way your body responds on instinct, moving against something it doesn't know but somehow already senses promises what everyone quietly understands. He doesn't want to scare you, but his body wins out, grinding his hips against you, open beneath him, against your clothes.

His hand slides up your thigh, squeezing gently when it finds the curve of your ass. The other slips to the back of your neck, guiding you into a much filthier kiss, teeth and noses shoving for room. "God, I can feel jus' how much…" And he cuts himself off with a groan. You can feel it. The obvious erection there's no point hiding, and one he isn't apologizing for. He wants you to feel it, wants you to know what you do to him. And more than anything, he wants to bury himself in the thing you've wondered for so long if it's capable to make someone feel something.

That's when you feel this won't last, and you start to panic a little. What if he starts to feel disgusted as your taste sinks into his tongue? Would he eventually feel the bitter, rotten part of you that spills out of every inch of your skin? Would he just be putting up with it? Your hands landed quickly on Joel's ass, pulling him against you, wanting to fuse him into you as fast as you could.

The pressure makes him groan, and he drops his forehead against your chest, hooking two fingers into the waistband of your pants and stretching it out before letting go, snapping it against your skin.

"Christ." Joel pants. "You feel that?" He presses his erection against your panties, slow enough to border on cruel. "'s what you're makin' me do… This is all your fault…" he murmurs, taking your hand and guiding it to his belt. He just leaves it there for you to feel, for you to take.

"Take it if you want it so much…" He says, rolling his hips in a slow, taunting rhythm. "'s yours. You provoke it, you take it out…"

And then, those words.

"Use me…"

The impact hits like a headbutt that leaves you dizzy. How can a man like that say something like that? You? Use someone? Take something? That's not right, that's not something you do. But there he is, feeling you grip his belt with one hand while your other tries to work your own pants down.

He notices the frustration and yanks them off himself, tossing them onto the dashboard without looking. "I'll take care of it." he says, voice rough, sure. His big hands find your panties, soaked through with hot, slick heat that makes a wet sound when he tears the fabric in one pull. Your hips lift on instinct, your face goes hot, the fire in your stomach now molten, settling low in your body. When you gasp, startled, he kisses you, swallowing the sound, and his fingers finally move between your folds, not entering. Learning your shape from your trembling.

"...So fuckin' wet. You're so ready…" His fingers circle your clit, slow, rocking with just the tips.

Your moans against his mouth are burning him up with the raw need to bury himself in you without any care, but he can feel your shame in the sounds you make. Your inexperience, the way you keep trying to close your thighs. But when he feels your fingers on his belt again, the groan that comes out of him is pure want.

"That's it… Take it out, baby…" He whispers, and feels you slide the leather out of the buckle. When the belt gives and the button pops, Joel finishes yanking the belt free with a snap that cracks through the silence. When he's free in front of you, his erection sits heavy against your stomach. He doesn't force you to look at him, instead he leans in, pushing your shirt up under your arms, kissing your breasts over the fabric of your bra, biting without sinking his teeth in. For the first time in years, he prays he doesn't cum before he's even inside.

When you feel it, a heavy, wet throb against your stomach, you gently lift Joel's head so you can see him lying against your belly. Your mouth trembles as you swallow, blinking a few times. He's thick, veined, red at the tip like his own body were furious with you.

Joel takes one of your hands and guides it to his cock, letting you wrap your fingers around him, feel his weight. "'s just a body. Yours to take and use…" His other hand slides up your bare torso and hooks under the edge of your bra, pulling it down to reveal your nipple. Hard. His mouth waters, and he leans in, sucking it into his mouth. Barely biting. His self-control hanging by a thread.

Your hands sink into the back of his neck as your moans fall out of you like pleading, and once your legs wrap around him, Joel doesn't want to find a way back anymore. He pulls up for a second, looks at your body open beneath him: breasts bared, stomach rising and falling, wetness shining on your thighs, lips swollen and your hopes in his hands. He pushes his jeans down a little further, dark hair trailing up toward his navel. He spits into his hand and wraps it around himself, pumping twice while breathing through his teeth, lining himself up to your entrance.

He watches you as he traces his tip along your slit, coaxing your want open wider and wider. And he starts to push, slow. Forward, hold, back. Like he's feeding your body spoonfuls of himself. You inhale deep, feeling him. Like alcohol hitting your bloodstream. Like the car crossing the bridge. Like death entering your father's body. He enters you the way pain has entered you without permission, for years. But for the first time, something is there because you want it.

When Joel meets that barrier, soft and yielding, you rest your hands against Joel's soft stomach. But your heels press into Joel's ass. He feels that resistance, and his breathing, already a mess, catches. Something in him calls out to push hard, like a scream from the abyss. Something that wishes he didn't give a damn and could just bury himself and start pounding on you. But he doesn't.

His forehead drops against yours. "Breathe. Breathe with me." His hands take hold of your thighs, gentle, tilting the angle. "Good girl… Good girl…" He whispers. And that earns him a clench from you, "Jus' like that…" he growls against your mouth and pushes. He feels your nails in his back and your moan, something sharp and sudden that breaks the night open, makes him drop a hand between you both to give you more than just that brief sting. And he feels it, honey between his fingers, and more inner clenching that pulls him further in.

Joel brings one hand up to your chest, pinches a nipple, drops his mouth to lick it. His other hand braces against the seat, giving him leverage, and every thrust goes deeper, fuller. Your moans feel like hot rain on his sweat-soaked back, and Joel feels like he could come from that alone, from your voice, your trembling, the sheer miracle that you let him in.

When you suddenly push yourself up on your elbows, your foreheads bump lightly by accident, but you look down between your bodies with a pleasurable urgency. You're close. Very.

"Nngh! Aah!"

You look up at him through your lashes, moaning out sounds of urgency. Of need. And you look at him because he's the only one who can give it to you, the only one who can take you there.

"That's it… good girl…" he murmurs against your mouth, tongue brushing your lips. "Don't fight it. Take it. It's yours." His hips show no mercy, his voice breaking. "Come on, baby… give it to me."

The car creaks. Rocks. Wet sounds filling the silence. Joel groans. Something making its way through your body.

A cry.

"…there you are."

2 0 2 6

It takes you a little time to get used to the blue haze of dawn coming into the room when your eyes opened. The rhythmic knocking of the blind against the window frame made you wake up completely—it had been thumping like an alarm you don't want to turn off but know won't stop ringing unless you deal with it.

"Joel…" You murmured, the back of your hand hitting his left shoulder, waking the man sleeping behind you. "I told you to close the blind last night… Before we went to sleep…" Your hoarse whisper cuts through the silence full of city that seeps in through the open window panes. The city that refuses to stop for even a second to take in the beauty of silence, as if it feared it, as if that would mean some kind of natural disaster.

"Get up and close it yourself…" The gravel dragging in his voice is a low murmur, almost inaudible amid the rustle of sheets as his heavy body turns over, giving you his back. You feel the absence of his heavy arm across your waist, the now-missing warmth at the back of your neck where his breath used to rest.

Your arm stretches behind you, patting his hip. Two soft taps. Joel exhales with a sigh of resignation, his legs sliding to the edge of the bed as he gets up with a quiet grunt. One hand at his lower back, the other scratching at the murmur of stubble showing along his jaw—the same stubble he'll let grow for a few months until he gets tired of it and starts over once he feels too exposed.

The series of firm knocks and reverberating sounds that come next are the window closing and the blind coming down. The snap of the cord hitting the wall is the last thing before the room sinks into silence.

When he comes back to bed, the mattress dips under his weight, the frame creaking for a second as he settles in fully and pulls the heavy winter comforter back over himself. A last conscious sigh escapes your lips before closing your eyes and drifting back to sleep, now without the city's annoying knocking at the window.

Warmth.

Your eyes open again, two seconds after closing them. His form press against you from behind, his arm wrapping around you now under the comforter, over your nightgown. He's a furnace you're used to sleep against, like a corpse that's too warm and a living thing that's too cold. Eyes close again when you feel his hot breath at the back of your neck, ready to fall back asleep.

Joel buries his nose in the start of your hair. The fabric of your nightgown gives way up to your ribs, where he pushes it up. The rough feel of his palm slides down to your hip and closes around it, his breathing deep, measured, and cruelly devastating.

You slide your hand out from under the pillow and rests it on his arm.

I'm here.

I'm yours.

Joel's palm slides up again. It cups the curve of your breast beneath the fabric, squeezing slow and heavy. Your breathing was meant to sound calm, but it barely fooled him. Not him, when he knew every corner of you the way he knew the labyrinth of the hospital he'd worked in for more than twenty-five years.

"Joel, tomorrow—"

"Don't recall askin'..." he murmured, leaning further over you. His hips against the soft curve of your ass, seeking refuge, aching for warmth and that sweet wetness he'd been thinking about for long months.

His other hand finally moved down to feel the heat through the triangle of fabric that held you in the most intimate way. The nook that held the power to make him lose all restraint, to turn him into this— someone who needs you and seeks this out amid the heavy curtains of a night drowning in routine.

You two won't say another word once that line is crossed. Because silence is far more comfortable than telling each other what you're really thinking.

A thin, broken moan cracks in your throat when his thick fingers sink between your wet folds, slick with that wetness that reduces him to a bundle of primitive want that only you have ever been able to tame. The low growl rumbles down your spine as Joel presses his forehead to the back of your neck.

He's slow, tracing circles over the raw nerve, scrambling every thought in your head, and every irritation you were surely still carrying from past arguments.

Nothing pulled you under faster than Joel's quiet, catastrophic heat, doled out to you drop by drop, in the smallest amounts, always leaving you wanting more.

Slowly, he sinks two fingers into that tight place inside you. Learning every groove of that raw flesh, recognizing every ridge, brushing the tender folds that lead to the center of your heat. When the back arches, he knows he's doing something right, knows he's on the right track.

The hollow, slow drag, fingertips against that small, sweet bundle of nerves, curving his fingers inside, drawing out those ghosts of sound wanting to escape from your mouth. You feel him like a threat behind you, throbbing low between your cheeks. And you want it. God, you need it. But you know him, know he won't give it to you.

Because everything you want, doesn't want you back.

It's four twenty-seven when you arrive at a date you scheduled for three thirty. The smell hits you the café receives you, pushing through the heavy glass door. Approaching the table while unwinding your scarf, Olivia and Clara waiting at a near table.

"You're early." Olivia murmurs into her cup.

"The train."

"The train, the traffic, work, the door that gets stuck. It's always something." Clara stirs her nearly empty cup. "We set this up two months ago."

"I'm here now. That's what counts, right?"

Olivia and Clara look at each other. Then they look at you.

"I got the promotion." Olivia changes the subject, and Clara claps, smiling.

"Yesss! Really?"

"Congratulations, you deserve it." You look at her with tired warmth and your arms rest over the table. "Good pay bump?"

"Ugh, more than perfect." Olivia fixes a loose strand of hair and sets her cup down on the round table. "With any luck I'll move downtown next month."

"That's four digits talking, girl." Clara nudges her gently and the blonde laughs, looking at her cup.

"And… how's motherhood treating you?" You ask Clara. Clara raises her eyebrows a little, sighing and pushing her cup aside.

"Well, this is my first outing alone since Demian was born. It feels strange."

"Don't even get me started, they're like burrs, right?" Olivia tilts her head.

"Yeah. I feel like I lost myself somewhere along the way, it's so strange not having my purse full of diapers and baby oil." Clara laughs and the three of you laugh along. The waitress arrives, leaving the menu in front of you, but you barely glance at it.

"You don't want anything?" Olivia asks.

"No. I'll pass. My stomach's off." You shake your head while clutching the purse on your lap under the table. The wallet empty, the cards at zero.

Olivia glances at Clara.

"And what about you? What's new?" Clara looks at you, with that maternal instinct that senses something under your eye bags. Something so overwhelming has stripped the expression from your face for a while now.

Thirteen years now.

"We're trying to trade in the truck with Joel." You scratch the back of your neck. "He didn't want to sell it, but a sedan would be so much better and he's finally come around."

"Well, that's something." Olivia lets out a breath through a smile.

You narrows your eyes. "Well, sorry it's not a promotion or a damn baby."

Silence.

"I… that's not what I meant. I was just saying—" Olivia's brows knit together as she speaks. But Clara cuts in.

"What's going on, darling?"

You stare at Clara. Clara looks t you, up and down. Like a living scanner that knows and will catch every one of the shitty lies you'd been holding up for years now.

"You know you can tell us, sweetie…" Olivia rests her hand over yours, but you pull it back like it burned you.

"Nothing's wrong with me, damn it!" The holler cut through the hubbub. "Not a single thing is wrong in my shitty life. Because nothing happens and nothing will ever be happening! Not in this life or the next, and I have to live with that..." You spit out as you stand. The café, generously full, stares at you. Every eye on you, like cameras, like vultures. Your skin like carrion, your presence radiating decay. The chair screeches as you get up and leave.

Walking to the station, you pinch the wedding band softly.

Olivia | 04:58 PM Hey. Please. What's going on?

Clara | 05:01 PM Call me. At least let us know when you get home. Don't make me call Joel.

The subway sways gently, making it hard to focus much on the phone in front of you. You don't want to answer them. Your phone drops into your bag and stare at your reflection in the window. Passing through a tunnel, it comes into sharper focus. You look miserable in the neatest possible way. You look away, unable to bear witnessing yourself for one more moment.

Your eyes meet those of a man sitting diagonally across from you. One of those moments where, without meaning to, gazes just happen to meet. He looks young—younger than Joel, older than you. For some reason, you don't look away like you usually would.

You don't avoid it. You want to look.

Then, for a fraction of a second, the man's eyes slide over everything that makes you a woman. Your body, clothes, the shame and your easy arousal. Because you get turned on by ideas. You swallow and look up at the ceiling, your hand tightening around the pole you're holding onto. Knuckles white. You don't look at the man again, don't dare to. What does he want to see? What is he expecting?

When you reach your station, you walk through the waves of people, avoiding anyone's eyes. Touches and brushes scare you, questions and the smallest interactions terrify you. Your fingertips rub against each other repeatedly the whole way home, the only movement that mirrors the rusted gears struggling to turn in time with reality.

2 0 1 3

Living in another house was something you'd longed for since you could remember, but you never truly imagined it would happen. A prisoner adjusting to society, a stray dog in a family home.

It was the beginning of the year, so it was still cold. You tried not to be left alone to avoid exposition to thoughts or to the inevitable possibility of sadness. The absence of shouting was strange; the slammed doors and loud blows had been the daily soundtrack.

"Didn't hear you come in." Joel leans against the kitchen doorway. Arms crossed under his flannel, his eyes drift over the shopping bags on the kitchen island.

"Sorry." You turn slightly, holding two packages of pasta, setting them in the cupboard. Joel tilts his head, pressing his lips together.

"For what?"

You don't answer. Keeps putting things away. Joel watches your back, your slow, quiet movements around the kitchen, your controlled breathing. The scar of your home still carved into you.

"I want you to go back t'school once we get settled." Joel steps into the kitchen and leans against the counter, looking at your profile. "I can pay for it."

"I'll handle it, don't worry." You crouch down to store some cleaning products under the counter. "I'll find a way to get a scholarship in another college."

"How?"

You look up at him.

"You think I'm not capable of getting one?"

Joel frowns. He hates that. Hates your endless defensiveness against the world, hates the way you draw your claws at any word. At any shift in tone.

"I ain't said that."

Silence.

You stand up and points at the bags. "You finish putting them away."

When the hours carry you into night, the blue light of the television paints your face as Joel and you eat dinner watching a variety show. The coffee table is still the washing machine's box.

"I reckon I rather you not hating me if we gonna live together." Joel murmurs, his lips pressing to the mouth of the brown bottle. Then he sets it down on the box. He turns to look at you, noticing you're barely making a sound as you eat.

"If I hated you, I wouldn't live with you."

"You lived with your parents for twenty years."

You looked at him. You could feel your eyes filling with blood, skin rotting in front of him, the anger becoming a throbbing vein on your temple. Suddenly, you threw your plate of pasta and it crashed against Joel's chest.

"Hey! What the hell is wrong with you?" Joel throws the plate to the floor, trying to get the hot food off himself as fast as he can. He gets to his feet with quick movements and looks at you, thrown.

"Go kill yourself!" You screamed at him. "Kill yourself if you say that again!"

"Calm down!" Joel steps closer but you went to throw the fork at him. "Hey! Easy!" Joel steps back, looking at you like he couldn't recognize you. But it's you.

This is purely you. Cruelty, rage, sickness.

You two slept back to back. In the morning, waking up early to an alarm Joel had set to make it to the civil registry on time. He put on a blue tie; you wore a matching blue dress.

"Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Miller." The justice of the peace said, once Joel and you signed the marriage certificate. The witness, a coworker of Joel's from the hospital–the other witness, a neighbor. At the back of the small office, an officer. Then, the seats, empty. "You are officially married."

The officer applauded along with the witnesses. Out of sync, echoing. The heat of the air conditioning filled the room, sweat trickling between your breasts, disappearing once the collar of the blouse closed over again.

You turned, looking at him. Joel took a moment before turning, but he finally did. His hand settled on your thigh, giving a soft squeeze, and he leaned in, kissing your lips briefly. A faint brown smudge stained his own lips from your lipstick.

HELLO. this is a fic I've been really wondering if sharing because it's a bit crude but I love writing about this kind of stuff and I feel inspired.

This new reality began to settle over the orphanage like an inevitable doom. Quickly, everyone started to pretend nothing happened and you felt wrong by being so touched by the situation. Consequently and inevitably, you felt the urgency to meet Maverick in the confessionary as you could feel that monster crawling back and forth inside your head.

“Have you seen Maverick around?” You asked to a violet passing by with a tray, carrying empty plastic plates.

“The Father?” Nod. “Oh, yeah! He was on his way to the upper floor, actually. I just saw him on the stairs. I guess he went right to the storage room, to get the candles for… for the baby’s funeral.”

“Oh. Right, well… Thank you.” You said with a light nod, and you made your way to the stairs. After you and Eloise finished with the archives, you didn’t had an actual reason to get back to the upper floor, so it was still a place you didn’t know quite well. It was as eerie as you remembered it, and the humid scent was as strong as the last time.

While you expected him to walk out of the storage room where the church stuff usually was, the sound coming from Madeleine’s office startled you. A loud rumble, like furniture being moved around. Then, a muffled masculine voice, upset. 

“This morning… too much, you think?”

“...rules are rules… once… Must stop.” Silence. “...Can’t let it slide…” Silence. “They knew… I told them clearly…”

You tried to take a step further close to the door. Maybe try and press your ear against the wood, but as soon as your leg lifted, the steps coming to the door made you quickly walk down the stairs, almost tripping on the last one. 

It was clearly Madeleine. But the other voice. Was it Maverick? You hadn’t seen Maverick since after the argument he had with Joel back in the birthday party, after he stormed out in a silent that made the rest of the day feel strange.

You wouldn't miss that tone, not even in a storm. Still, you weren’t able to understand the conversation. Was this about the birthday? 

He said something?

When you reached the tulips alley, you saw Caroline leaving one of the rooms. You slipped in after she was gone. The curtains were loose, the last rays of sunlight filtering through the white fabric, pouring orange streaks over the wooden toys,  the plush teddy bears, and the asleep baby girl.

This calmness lodged an uncomfortable nail in your brain. You were useless. Weaponless. A spectator to a battle raging right in front of you.

“I knew you’d be here.” Caroline opened the door and walked in, holding a bottle of milk. “I guess you heard about what happened earlier.”

“I was there…” You muttered, holding your arms against your torso. “It all happened so fast.”

“Death usually does.” She stroked the baby’s cheek gently, looking down at her in the crib. “And still, you never really get used to it, though.”

The silence hung. Despite she was right, the way she said it–so easily–felt wrong.

“How’s the archives mess going so far?” She asked, both of you looking at the baby 

You briefly moved your eyes to Caroline. She seemed… so relaxed. As if the orphanage didn’t shift its course an hour ago. You looked back at the baby.

“We finished already. Eloise finished all the paper work with Mrs. Lois.”

“Mh. And the protocol?” She looked at you.

“Almost done” You said, dry–mouth.

“It's complicated, isn’t? The body is…” Caroline bites her cheek. “A wonder.”

The baby sighed in her sleep. Both of you looked at her. Nothing.

“I’ve read something about it. It’s like… Tricking the body into thinking there is a baby.” She looked at you. At your stomach. Then, she shook her head. Looked back at your eyes. “I need to help at the nursery. Care to give her the bottle once she wakes up?”

You nodded, once. “You can go.”

When the door closed, your hands drifted to your stomach. No baby. She was right. Taking care of one baby wasn’t allowed in order to avoid attachment and it was also prohibited to take the babies out of the nursery. But her words hung. 

Again, it all pointed to the same step. 

Tricking the body.

When the baby woke, you held her while staring out the window. Thinking. She would nuzzle your skin and look around. Cooing, grabbing your blouse. Her face was a million wonders that would emanate from her pupils, and there, outside, was a world she deserved to meet, to explore.

“You’re hungry…?” You asked her. Her hands clenched into small fists and she took one into her mouth. The little sounds were soft, that little coo that would get you to melt a little inside. “Don’t suck your hands, missy…” You murmured, drying her fist with your blouse and grabbed the bottle over the little table.

As the nipple touched her lips, she frowned her mouth and shook her head to the side, fuzzily. “What’s wrong, little girl?” You tried again, and she let out a grunted cry. “Okay, okay. Shhh…”

While rocking her, you spilled a few drops of milk over the back of your hand. The white drops slid over your knuckles, cold. “So that’s why..” You said while holding her against your chest. “I’ll go warm it up for you, okay?” 

The wail she let out when you tried to leave her in the crib made you gasp. For a moment you thought maybe you pinched her accidentally, or worse, you broke something. But as she grasped your blouse and nuzzled into your chest, her calm breath made you feel a wave of relief.

When you looked down, she was staring at you. Big eyes, soft cheeks, and a strong temperament. That made you smile a bit.

She deserved a way.

And there had to be a way.

There was a fluffy rug in the corner of the room with a few toys sprawled over it. Since she was awake and seemed to not let you go any soon, you decided to sit on the floor with her between your folded legs. With you  behind her as a support for her small body, she wiggled her hands at the colorful pieces of painted wood and the teddy bear sitting in the farthest edge of the rug, made with old pieces of cloth. 

Her chubby hands would wrap with a strength unknown to a baby around the small cylinders of wood and every time she would try to chew it with her gums, you would push it away from her mouth, softly. 

There weren't many things for the babies to play with, but the pieces of sanded wood, painted with fun colors by the volunteers, seemed to be the greatest thing on the planet for those innocent eyes.

Even the train you painted nearly a month ago was there too.

You picked it up and placed it near the baby. Your hand held her by the front of her belly as she slapped the top of the train and chuckled a bubbly laugh. Almost as if the train was the best thing that happened to her.

You smiled. Caught up in the laughter. With her company, it was easy to forget all that had happened, but still there were things that were waiting to eat you up. 

At the debrief in the common area, you couldn’t stand paying attention to anything Madeleine said. All the violets were seemingly exhausted but keeping up, almost as if nothing really happened. Again you felt out of place, with your emotions blooming easily on your face.

“Tomorrow will be a new day. I expect everyone at the time you’ve been assigned this week, and I expect everyone to start perform better than these past days.” Madeleine said, both hands over her cane. While she spoke, you noticed Maverick behind, arms crossed over his black cassock, staring down at the floor. Glum. 

“Good things happen, if the right decisions are made.” Madeleine concluded. 

No one made a sound.

“Now, those assigned for night shift, put hands to work. The rest, have a good rest.” She said, finally. Everyone started leaving the common area.

Thelma grabbed her bag, and without dropping an eye on you and Eloise, walked straight to the exit. Eloise turned around to put her hands over yours on your knees, thumbs rubbing a warm caress as she spoke softly. “Would you like to go to the diner with me? I heard there’s a cookout tonight. Pre - Winter fair. It’ll be fun…”

“I don’t think so. I’m sorry, I think I need to sleep this day off.” You answered, sliding one hand up your nape, scratching you skin as the monster started to bother even more.

Eloise’s eyes watered lightly. “I don’t think I will be able to sleep this day off at all…” Said in almost a whisper. You reached for her shoulder, squeezing something near to comfort.

“I think you’re still on time to catch Thelma. She likes to play though, but I bet she would love some company too…” You said and a small smile bloomed on the corner of Eloise’s mouth. She nodded lightly, and grabbing her jacket, she stood up.

“Take care. Let’s walk together to church tomorrow.”

You nodded. Your fingers pressed one more time around her hand, almost reluctant to let go even though you rejected going with her in the first time. Then, she left sliding her arms inside her jacket.

Looking back to where Maverick was, he was looking down at Madeleine while she spoke to him, her back towards you. He glanced at you over her head, no expression on his face more than that somber you never seen before on him. Then he just turned right back to her.

Your chest felt cold.

In the night, the alcohol seeped into your veins again. This was the longest time you’ve ever been sober, usually you wouldn’t last more than three days without a drop of alcohol, but today, not even the puke the alcohol smell started giving you  before stopped you from chugging down a bottle of whisky on your own.

You couldn’t even bear to watch a movie or do something else to just detach from this reality for a minute, everything would take you back to the shiver that ran down your spine after the baby wrapped in a blanket left the orphanage. There was death everywhere, all the time. Not even children were safe from it and now—it was too tangible.

You started thinking that maybe it was your fault, everything that has been happening so far. Maybe this was your karma catching up on you, biting your ankles, stepping on your tail, because you would never be safe from the truth pursuing you. 

Of this monster pursuing you.

And there it was, sitting in a corner, staring. White eyeballs, small black nervous dots, a line for a mouth, sliced with a knife, from cheek to cheek. And it stares at you, how you drink whatever the fuck you find, whatever thing crosses your path.

Your eyes would bump with the figure of the map on the coffee table. Like a fly hovering around your ear, buzzing uncomfortably. The old familiar urge came back, running through your body, bolting below your skin, small ants biting your skin, knees bobbing restless.

Your hand grasped the map while looking at the monster. Your eyes attached to every circled place, every scribbled word, all the small annotations on the blank edges. ‘Nest.’, ‘Armed group.’, ‘Runners.’, ‘Museum (Ellie).’

Joel’s handwriting was bold. Quick. Taking up space. Your fingerprint traced the lines that would connect spots around town, and then, you noticed a different color. Blue. Not red. Blue. There were blue lines made with a marker, running across Jackson, crossing walls.

Your head tilted slightly.

Your legs answered, you started moving. As you sat back in your mind, witnessing, you levitated around your place, picking up stuff, packing your bag poorly and tying your shoes like a kid.

The monster didn't intervene, just evaporated. Again.

Your self dragged you outside, and the sky, dark and cold, blazed white for a millisecond, illuminating the whole town. The thunder made your body jolt out of your skin and then walk back into it, the drops started falling over your head and jacket, slowly.

It wasn’t white. Not white like movies or tales. It would stick, greasy, uncomfortable. Brownish, damp and dirty. The snow. biting and swallowing.  Death was crawling behind you, and before it got you, you needed to just run away once more. At least once more.

Let him get you.

"...no..."

He will get you, one way or another.

"...no."

You deserve pain. You deserve to die.

You gripped your head and closed your eyes so tightly that your whole brain started palpitating like a second heart, making you see white strikes behind your lids. 

Your hand slapped down against your locket, then it shoved into the pocket of your jacket, feeling the form and light weight of the map. This was a sign, your sign. And if it wasn't one, then what did God mean by putting it in your way if not running away?

They die, they die because of you.

Everything dies because of you.

That pushed you further away from everything, dragging the shell of an empty body that is yourself, out. To disappear like dust, like a ghost, without a trace. 

You started running, following the line on the map and the, you saw it. Massive iron bars rose out of the pitch-black dark, briefly lit by another flash of lightning. The sewers tunnel. The lines brought you here, to the sewers. 

A escape route.

The water was running fast, but it only came up to your knees, soaking your jeans and boots. It felt safe enough to wade through, slipping between the bars.

But you were still drunk. Very, very drunk.

"Ah!" The second your sole pressed on something slippery beneath the dark water, the current snatched you. Before you could scream, your head went under, and the flow dragged you faster and faster.

You clawed at the dirt, nails breaking, holding on for dear life, trying to lift your head, trying to get air. Then someone hauled you out, sharp and sudden, and your back slammed against the hard, damp concrete floor of the tunnel. Your head cracked against it, but you still twisted around to see who—

"RAAGGH!!"

"Oh s–shit!"

You scrabbled backwards, desperate to get away from the infected. Its head exploded and toppled onto you, everything was so fast. The gunshot rang loud in the tunnel, and the corpse splashed into the water.

"You out of your goddamn mind?" Joel yanked your wrist, hauling you to your feet, and aimed a flashlight beam right in your face, making you squint and squeak. "You almost got y’self killed. What the hell are you doin' down here?"

You tried to snatch your wrist off his grasp, but he pulled you back by giving a hard yank. That got a frustrated groan from you.

"Get your hands off me!" You pushed him, trying to wave the light away, but the alcohol did wonders. You shoved too hard.

His boot slipped on the edge of the concrete, and his arm flailed. "Joel!" You shouted. He tried to let go of your hand but you clung to his wrist tightly, falling with him.

The moment you both hit the current, the water turned furious, flowing quickly and violently. Joel snatched you by the collar of your jacket and reached the concrete edge with his other hand, but it slipped again.

Your hands tried to do the same. Useless. Joel jerked you back against his chest and pointed forward.  “Breathe!” He shouted, just before ducking underwater. 

You saw it. A smaller tunnel, its mouth dark and small, swallowing you both. No air pocket. No light. 

Your lungs filled to the brim with oxygen, every space of flesh expanding before you sealed your lips tight and dove underwater. You felt his hands, grabbing onto you for dear life. Fingers splaying across your ribs, curling around you like a shell. He took the hits with his back against the walls, his skull bouncing off the bars as the water forced both of you through.

The last bubbles of air started slipping from your nose without permission. 

And you opened your mouth.

No! No, no, no…

Why did you leave her alone!?

I don’t care if there’s water everywhere, Will! Your daughter is dying!

Breathe.

Breathe, baby, breathe.

You're a big girl, breathe.

Breathe for mama.

Good girl.

“...Good girl.”

"...Breathe."

The fourth harsh flat palm on your upper back made you throw up brownish water on the shore, grasping Joel's thigh with one hand and the rocky dirt with the other. 

“Good girl…” You heard him murmur. Again. His hand rubbed circles as you coughed and babbled about your mom. He didn't understand and didn't want to either.

"We gotta get out of here before we freeze our asses off, or worse…" He grumbled, pushing you off until you rolled away and he got up with a grunt, feeling every piece of his joints like gears getting rusty in real time. "Get up."

"No... I'm gonna stay... Here..." You mumbled, laying on the wet dirt. Sobbing, trying to hug the mud. "I can't move. I can't."

Joel grasped your hood and almost choked you with the collar. He hauled you upright and shoved you forward. "Walk, or I'll make you."

Your legs were still weak. The wind would sometimes knock you back a step, howling harder as the storm began to settle behind you. Joel stayed behind, arms clamped across his coat, one hand resting on his gun. The mountains circled both of you like a mass of obscurity. The tip of the pines were barely visible and the clouds seemed to be too close to earth. 

For a second, you thought that maybe you were dead. And Joel was too.

You were still sobbing. Still, because you didn’t know when you started. The path was pitch-black and you could hear wolves around. You didn’t feel safe at all–least of all with Joel. When he walked past you, brushing your shoulder, you quivered and shrank to the side.

He was upset. Very.

Joel pushed through thick bushes and low branches, until he uncovered a door. He shoved his hand into his backpack and pulled out a handle of keys. Four. maybe six. Fed the right one into the lock and twisted it open. Then, he turned half body towards your direction–looking at your pathetic stance–and reached harshly, dragging you inside.

The door slammed shut.

Joel moved fast. The hearth crackled with fire, the candles flickered barely but did the job. He started peeling off his wet clothes as he walked down a short hallway. 

In the meantime, you stood there, in the middle of what tried to be a living room. The place wasn’t glamorous in one bit, but it had everything someone would fantasize about in the middle of a blizzard and on the edge of hypothermia. A slice of heaven. 

However, the fire by the couch and the absence of wind were doing nothing to the icy feeling in your skin and the uncomfortable sensation of your bones freezing inside your being, cracking with every small movement. You hadn’t missed that part of living by the day. Least in this state of alcohol in blood flow.

In spite of the coldness running up your spine, you did nothing to stop it. The presence of Joel wasn’t gonna stop the current punishment you were going through. He wouldn’t understand it, but he wasn’t gonna stop it.

He appeared a few minutes later with dry clothes on.

"Why are y'still with that on." He gestured to your clothes. You just stared. "Take ‘em off." Joel said while holding the wet clothes on one arm.

"No."

Joel stared at you, already upset.

"You have a bathroom down the hall,” His voice became a lower pitch, his head lowered slightly. An order.  “Take that off and grab clothes from the closet."

"I’m fine."

"Are you fuckin' drunk or somethin’? Because you're more irritating than usual." Joel crossed his arms, staring a hole into your skull.

"No."

"Fine,” The ball of clothes dropped to the floor with a humid pop. “'m doin' it myself."

Joel approached quickly, and you started stepping backwards. 

He suddenly wasn’t the Joel you remembered and you weren’t able to point out what was different. Was the way he didn’t hesitate when it came to yank your arms open? "Leave it!" Or how he sharply pulled down the zipper that screeched like nails on a chalkboard? “Joel!”

The jacket dropped soaked on the floor. 

"No." Joel said with a tight jaw, nostrils flaring. While he stared down at you, his hands went to the hem of your jeans, ignoring your nails digging into his wrists. “Stop squirmin’.” He growled low through his teeth, his breath hit your face. Joel pulled at the button and zipper, crouched and pulled down sharply.

Your jeans pooled your ankles and for a second, the sight–Him, crouching–made your chest bloom with something soppy.

Was this Joel? Was this you?

"Hell!" You pushed at his face. He snatched your wrist and stood up, pulling the sleeve up and taking off your sweater. "Wait" Your hand, the other one, grasped his shirt over his chest, fisting the fabric trying to push him away. Trying to stay with these clothes. Trying to get colder.

"G'damn." He grumbled as you kept trying to push him. Your head still hurt after falling. After the infected’s head exploded in front of your face. After your mom. The world was twisting around you.

He pushed you with his torso, caging you against the counter to keep you still.

"Let go!" Your hand lifted and your nails scratched his cheek. Joel grasped your jaw suddenly.

"Don't scratch me." He forced you to lock eyes with him while pointing a finger at you, near your nose. Your limbs came to a halt. Your eyes trembled, staring at him, lips tight. "I ain't hurting you.” Joel said, low. Strangely agitated, like a pot about to whistle. “No scratching." He repeated, his fingers loosening.

Gulp. 

His eyes left yours slowly and his hands finally fell to the hem of your shirt, pulling it up. But Joel stopped before pulling up past your ribs. He saw no fabric beneath. The bare curve of a breast about to show.

The shirt dropped back to its place.

Silence.

You were finally only with your undershirt, boxers and your socks. Damp.

"Get the clothes." Joel said hoarsely, staring at you and pointing to the hall. "I ain't sayin' it again."

Your eyes dropped to his jaw. He's trembling. His lips are, his breath is. Then, he moved away, entering the kitchenette and putting something on the stove.

You walked holding from the wall, holding your head, taking off your socks and your shirt in the way. Inside the bathroom, there were medical kits, clothes rolled inside a closet and bottles with water. Supplies for patrollers. The mirror was broken but you could see bits of you, your eye, your belly button, a lock of hair.

He saw it all. Your skin was burning, suddenly. 

You took clothes. The shirt was the same Joel had on, and the pants were just regular sweatpants and a pair of socks. After getting dressed, you chugged down a bottle of water.

You were still cold, your hair still wet. Your eyes jumped at the closed door. Joel was out there. Joel took off your clothes. Joel pushed you to keep walking, shoving you. Joel brought you back to consciousness. Joel killed that infected. Joel knew where you were.

Why?

Your steps echoed in the hallway.

"Were you following me?" You walked back, holding from the wall and frowning, trying to formulate your words. "Why were you following me?" Your voice was raspy, and your throat itched, making you clear it every five seconds.

"I wasn't followin'" Joel was sitting on the torn couch, hands around a cup of what seemed to be tea or just hot water. His eyes darted from the flame to you standing in the beginning of the hall. "Someone stole my map."

Your face was surely a piece of art.

"You were the last person that stepped into my room." 

“Maybe some kid snuck upstairs while you weren’t looking.” You blurted, drunk and immature.

He stood up, leaving the cup on the coffee table and pulled something from his pocket. The map. Well—what was left of it. Pieces. Wet and spoiled. Lumps.

You couldn't say a thing.

“Took it from yer pocket while dragging you out of the water.” Silence. “It was jus’a matter of time” Joel just crossed his arms, staring at you with an annoyance that burned on a low fire. “I jus’ sat back and waited.”

A thick gulp of saliva went down your throat, weighed what an iron bar, and the words seemed to escape you.

“Y’know what you’ve done?” Joel asked. “Do you even know what this was?” Said, hand pointing at the spoiled paper.

“A map.” You said. Dizzy, shifting your weight on your bare feet, everything blurry.

“Years of expeditions on my own. Jus’ for it all to go down the drain.”

You snorted briefly. Down the drain. Quite literally. You thought. Then, his gaze settled back on you and for a moment you swore he would throttle you if you kept that attitude up.

It wasn’t your fault. The alcohol was it.

“You can ask someone else to… lend you a map. Every patroller has one, right?” You murmured, hands behind your back. Joel shook his head as you spoke, looking down to the floor.

“Every patroller has their own fuckin’ map. Not every patroller goes past the damn Snake River! Least past the 191 highway!” He exclaimed, slamming one hand open against his thigh. "That map had years!"

It startled you.

“What were you tryin’ to do? What the hell were you tryin’ to fuckin’ prove?” Silence. Joel stared at you, pity in his gaze. More like helplessness. “You were fine hours ago and now, this. What the hell it’s happenin’?”

Silence.

“A baby died in the orphanage.”

Joel’s shoulders slumped down, and a heavy exhale ran through his teeth. His eyes drifted to the blocked window, staring at the blizzard through the wood gaps. After a long minute, he tried to formulate words. 

“And that… Why? Why would y’ want…” Joel frowned, looking at you up and down, trying to find answers in your body. “There’s nothin’ out here. Nothin’.”

“I know.” You answered, holding from the wall behind you. Your head was throbbing. “But… I don’t… Jackson… I’m not… They’re not safe.”

“Who?” Joel tilted his head, his brow furrowing. “The… babies? The violets? What are you talkin’ about?” A quiver in his voice, confusion. Trying to keep his composure.

You chewed your own tongue, tearing bits of it while staring at him. Silent. You looked pathetic. Lost.

“I’m scared.” You said, with the last thread of voice you had left on you. “I don’t want to hurt someone else…”

Joel stared at you. Up. Down. Back to your eyes. “What did y’… do?”

Your stomach turned inside out suddenly and you curled forward, throwing up in the space between you. Your knees hit the floor as you kept vomiting. Joel staring down at you.

Then you felt it.

His hand rubbing your back, the other holding your hair behind your head. He didn’t say a word, neither made an expression of disgust or similar. He just stayed there, near. 

“Water?” He asked. An exhaustion in his voice.

You nodded, still on your knees. 

A moment later, when you sat on the couch drinking water from a bottle he brought you and you stared at his back while he cleaned up the mess you’ve made on the floor, you felt the shame sitting comfortably over your chest. He moved mechanically, twisting the cloth he used to clean, inside the bucket with water.

After a moment Joel stopped wrenching the cloth, dropping it on the edge of the bucket. He turned his head, looking over his shoulder.

“What happened?”

“Kidneys.” You answered. “The milk is killing them.” 

“I know.” Joel murmured and nodded, lips tight. He exhaled sharply, standing up.placing his hands heavily on his hips.

“And no one does a thing.” Silence. “I tried to…”

“I know.” He closed his eyes, massaging the bridge of his nose. Then he walked to the couch and sat on the other edge. 

“But I don’t know… I don’t know what to do...”

“You’re not doin’ yourself any better” Joel said. Next thing he grabbed the blanket from the backrest and placed it over your legs. “You’re… drunk. You’re… you need to lay that head down and get some shut–eye before we go back.”

“Back?” You pushed the blanket against him. Moving it off your legs. “I’m not coming back to Jackson. I don’t care what you say, is not a decision you make.”

“Neither one you do in this fuckin’ state.” Joel snarled, leaning forward. You could see he was already touching rock bottom. His hands threw the blanket over you again and you just laid down, staring at him.

Joel got up, scratching his head on his way to the kitchen, where he disappeared after crossing the threshold. The alcohol was making your vision spin even if your whole body was still like a tree. The ceiling had waves, like a dark ocean above your head. The fire–crackling–whispered near, like a body that doesn’t want to die.

You slept, poorly, waking up every ten minutes. The night wouldn’t pass, neither the dizziness that was making your stomach churn and growl. The anxiety was running in circles around you, and you wanted to run away again, but you were aware it was impossible.

Joel appeared sitting on the armchair between the moments you drifted away, his form was suddenly there, staring at the fire. Sipping something warm from a mug.

“What were the blue lines for…?” You asked, a raspy voice coming from behind him. He tilted his head just a bit, just to point his ear towards you.

“Underground routes.” He murmured. Lips barely moving below his whiskers.

A nod was all you felt strong enough to gesticulate as an answer. Then, another question slid out of your mouth.

“All patrollers have those routes?”

“No.”

Silence.

“And why do you have them?”

The silence was the answer you thought that you were going to get from him, but then, he cleared his throat.

“Three years ago… Spring, or somewhere near. It was still fresh outside, but Ellie was… nagging ‘bout goin’ out and hunting near the lake.” His fingers slid over the armrest as his eyes followed the weak flames. Joel tilted his head slightly, glancing at you for a brief second were thoughts ran through his mind. 

“I reckon I didn’t pay enough attention, and it was my fault…” He continued, looking back forward. “That shit came outta nowhere and jumped right over Ellie, too fast. Too quick for me to do anythin’.”

Silence.

“It… lunged at her and I froze. Next thing, infected had a hole in the middle of the head, and Ellie was starin’ at something in the middle of the trees.” Joel scratches his nape, grumbling. “It was Maverick.”

“Maverick? The father?”

“Same fella.” Silence. “He saved Ellie, but then he noticed… Kid had a…” Joel glanced at you again.

“Ellie got bitten?” You sat slightly on the couch, getting on your elbows, frowning your brows. “But… You said this was three years ago?”

“Yep.” Joel gave a short nod, looking down to the floor but keeping his head turned to your direction. “And she has been bitten before, and before, and even more before.” And his eyes slid up.

“She…’s not infected?” You murmured. “But how?”

Joel shrugs, heavily. “Long story short, Maverick tried to kill her after he saw the fresh mark and I shot him on the thigh. He fell and he started begging for his life. He was dehydrated, famishing, and by what I understood later, he was part of a cult that got murdered in mass in Canada. Told ‘im that only if he kept his mouth shut, we we’re gonna get him to a safe place with food and somewhere warm to sleep.”

Shrug.

“Ellie ‘s immune?” You asked after a long time in silence.

Joel nodded, his fingers curled in front of his mouth, his eyes attached to the fire eating the last log it was fed.  

“I started searchin’ for routes right after that. In case Ellie needed ‘em in the future, in case Maverick was stupid enough to try some witch hunt. With time, I kept findin’ routes, even though Maverick has kept his silence.”

You thought about Ellie. She looked… healthy. Like a normal kid, and for a moment, you could start imagine why he was so protective over her by the few interactions you had seen between them. She wasn’t his daughter, but she was important enough for Joel to threat someone to that kind of deep fear.

If it was fear.

“No one else knows.” Joel said, locking eyes with you. “And I prefer it staying like that.”

You held his gaze for a long minute, staring at each other, then you noticed the slight tremor on his lower lip.

"She's jus' a... kid." Joel said. A husk. A slight break in his voice. A small glimmer on his eye. Could it be the light, could it be fear.

“Ellie had enough stuff to deal with…” You added.

His jaw worked lightly before just letting his head fall back on the edge of the backrest, closing his eyes for a second. He melted slightly on the couch, exhaling a long breath that slid from his nostrils.

“So… The blue lines.” You murmured. “I imagined those were escape routes.”

“Jackson it’s like a high security prison. No one is able to get out or come in with no person knowing. And no one is let out with an actual reason.” Joel opened his eyes. His hands interlaced over his lower stomach, pinching the fabric of his shirt. 

“You don't use them, right?” Silence. “I mean, you’re respected in town, right? You have permission to get out if you want to.”

“Not with someone not knowin’ or talkin’. If I need silence I just use one for a few hours and then I come back using another. Nobody knows.”

“And why didn’t you let me.”

He looked at you over his shoulder.

“‘cause I ain’t sure why yet, but I know you weren’t gon’ come back.” Joel said and held your gaze, maybe hoping you finally spoke about what is eating your head, but your throat felt strange again.

You didn’t refute. You didn’t deny it.

“I ain’t letting you kill y’self out there.” Joel concluded.

After the storm passed and the day found you both outside the shelter, Joel began walking back towards the direction where Jackson gates were. For a moment, you saw the white horizon spreading in the distance, in the opposite direction. You had no map, but you were out, it was your opportunity.

Nevertheless, when you looked back at Joel, he was staring at you. Hands limp on his sides. His jaw tight. He didn’t push, didn’t say a word, but still: you turned around and started walking.

Back to Jackson.

taglist: @babielli @cinnxmxngxrl @cowboylikelil @steadybasiliskemissary @pedropascalsbbg @youdontknowe @glitterspark @madmelz @time-for-my-weekly-spanking

hello. thank you so much for waiting. I currently have a break from college so I'm being able to edit the chapter that I have in the archive.

again, thank you for being there on the other side of the screen. you give Cain's Curse a way.

After what felt like an eternity, the baby finally let go of you. She turned her head around, staring in silence at the barely illuminated room, watching the shadows that nervously tried to hold her world. Her big eyes found Joel, who was still in front of you, shifting his weight on his feet. He took a step forward and opened his hands, stretching his fingers while still holding the bottle in his other hand.

You fixed your blouse, shaky fingers trying to pretend calmness as you placed the baby gently between his arms.

When he turned away, feeding the nipple into the baby’s mouth, the sound of her rapid gulping–breathing shallow between suckles–made you feel something painful but subtle right in your sternum. An acid rising from your stomach, bile.

“Y’okay… Y’fine…” Joel shushed. Sat on the chair near the crib, holding the bottle, staring at the heavy eyes of the baby that started to shut down, like cascades of heavy rain against the window pane.

Everything started coming down before it even ended. Standing there, cracking your knuckles. Joel saw your eyes on the baby, the way you would bite down onto your lip, the way your throat would bob. It was written all over your face how this started to eat you.

“Sit down. You ain’t doin’ much standin’ there.” Silence. “Y’neither gon’ do much fidgeting.”

“I’m not fidgeting.” You murmured, part to yourself. Sinking your hands in your backpockets. “Please, don’t—”

“Why would I.”

He finds your gaze before you even look his way. 

“What?”

“Why would I tell anyone ‘bout this?” Joel’s eyes went back to the baby, who chugs the last drops of the milk. “Were y’gonna say that?”

“Yeah…” You look back at wherever his form isn’t filling the space. “I know that what I did was wrong, but—”

“Y’did what you thought was mighty.” Silence. His hands placed the baby against his chest, patting her small back with slow and firm claps. The little burp filled the silence and it was met with a satisfied grunt from his part. 

The chair creaked when he stood up. Some soft swings, rocking the small bundle until she gave up between his arms. Safe. Tummy full with warm milk. Finally, he eased her in the crib, caressing her small chest.

“Wrong or right… it comes after.” Joel straightened his stance, not moving his eyes too far from the crib. His hands low on his hips, above the belt. He turned his head to look at you. 

Your lips were tight in a permanent and barely noticeable tremor.  “Is she okay?”

“Why wouldn’t she be?”

“I’m afraid I might’ve hurt her…” 

Joel frowned lightly, looking at the baby while trying to scan for injuries or something out of the ordinary. “She’s fine.” 

You felt ridiculous, out of line. 

“So…” Joel turned around. A big breath heaving his chest below the flannel. “Why don’t we jus’... sit down?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure…” You stopped fighting it. The weakness in your knees finally gave out and you landed on the edge of the bed while Joel took the chair across from you. After some eternal silence, the words started falling like a cascade from your mouth, unstoppable..

“I read it.” Your voice was something similar to a person giving back something stolen. Something painfully similar to shame. “After… After you left, I went to Rosemary’s. I took some books from the MED section and then I read everything at home."

You scratched your throat, looking around the room. It was a lie, you didn’t read, you devoured, like a famishing animal, every inch of ink. “Well, not everything, but most of it. I… came to some conclusions and—”

“Why are y’telling me this?” Joel had his hands folded over the buckle of his belt, his gaze was on the crib. Both of you were avoiding each other like stray dogs in a new shelter. 

“I wasn’t planning on hurting her.”

Joel drifted his eyes across the room, looking at you. He seemed lost for a fragment of a second. Somewhere between the girl you were twenty years ago and the scared woman that now sits across from him. He searched the exact point where you thought of yourself being able to consciously hurt someone.

If he only knew you’d always been like this.

“The last thing I thought y’wanted to do was hurtin’ her.”

You sank further into your seat, feeling a damp cold blanket over your shoulders, all your bones started hurting and the feeling of him staring at you made that sensation worse.

For the length the silence stretched, neither of you said a thing further. What you did was still settling in the air like a layer of reality you can’t yet wrap your head around, feeling as if if you don’t accept it, it meant it didn’t happen. Your skin started to cry for pain, pain it deserved. Nails that dug into your palms, body that curled around itself, trying to break itself like a coiled wire about to give out.

What would Maverick say? His eyes, would his eyes forgive you? He would, right? He’s forgiveness, he’s love. He’s everything you desire and yearn for, purity, kindness, a body free of sins.

Joel was staring at you.

“Thelma told me about the birthdays…” Joel took his words like a knife and ripped the wall of silence you built in front of yourself. Breaking that opaque wall, tired of watching the shadow of your punishment. “She told me what happened with Madeleine.”

Madeleine. The darkness that stands tall like a veil over your head. It’s the name that made your skin hurt as if it was tightening over your muscles, drying and burning. The negative, the cruelty, slamming a door and running away. Your head jerked up, flew to his face like a dart. 

“And… what does this have to do with that?” You babbled.

A dry chuckle escaped Joel. Twisted lips in a half smile that was far from amusement, his eyes moved to the crib again, thoughtful.

“Everythin’.” His head came back to you. “You wrong for lookin’ for a damn solution but she’s not by denying kids a fuckin’ birthday party?” He leaned forward, his arm slumping over his thigh. “Or worse. Denying the babies their god forsaken right to live.”

Then, the water bucket landed. Cold water dripping over your spine.

Your shoulders went slump, and all the tension became tiredness, a heaviness in the middle of your chest. “It… It was a waste of time. It was clueless from us to even ask.”

Silence.

“We’re doin’ it anyway.” Joel said gravelly, below his whiskers.

You almost got whiplash from jerking your head so fast again. Was he joking? Maybe it was his way to ease the tension. A joke. But the way his eyes were staring, calm and also, expectant, told you that this was far from being one of those attempts.

“A small party. A time for t’children to just be… hell, children.” His fingers scratched his jaw while he stared somewhere near you. “Then, we get ‘em back to the orphanage”

“Ok, you’re even more clueless than I thought I was.” You said through your teeth, tight. Joel huffed and placed his hands back over his thighs, sliding them up over the buckle of his belt. 

Your eyes followed the motion.

“Thelma gets the kids to school.” Clears his throat. “I asked her to… drop the kiddos with some of their friends at my place.”

Silence.

“We get a cake, Ellie loves ‘em,” Joel kissed his teeth, something similar to warmth in his expression. “Kid learnt to bake some months ago. She has… quite a hand for sweet stuff.” His eyes moved back to you. “And we can ask Eloise to… I dunno, prepare activities to let ‘em have fun for some hours.”

This felt illegal. It was.

“And if she finds out?” The name hangs in the air. Her.

“She won’t.” Joel murmured. “I know some teachers at school, they owe me a favour or two.” He made a light pause while scratching his stubble. “I’ll just ask them to fill the record as usual. No absents.” Then, Joel let the silence hang, staring at the crib. When you were about to say something, he grunted while standing up and gave a single, firm nod to himself, shaking hands with the idea.

Then he looked at you. He hasn't shared silence like this with you since the morning after your first night with the baby. You looked distressed, and he asked himself if you ever felt something else than that.

“Hey.” Joel approached, standing in front of you.

His hand lifted, a moment away from finding your cheek, but he flexed his fingers and dropped it on your shoulder, giving a light squeeze. “There’s… always a way.”

“Why are you doing this?” You asked, looking up. Sliding your eyes up his frame. Joel stared down at you.

He took his time to answer, pupils tracing your face.

“‘Cause I have to.”

Running in snow was like trying to walk in a sea of honey. Your steps were everything but stable and the pain in your body was the cold eating every nerve alive in your sentient being. 

You whimpered a wet choked gasp, with pain and disbelief as you tried to run. Blood. There was blood all over your body. You smelled of iron and sorrow, of a situation that surpassed all human thought, but you were no longer human, nothing in you qualified for the empathy or simple reason and morality of a human being.

You were running away. From the moment, from the situation, from the monster, but it was useless. It would find you, it would pounce on you, and it would make you feel every last ounce of pain you had ever inflicted upon it, like an endless, inescapable exchange. 

There was nothing after this moment, after dawn. 

Directions. The wide white field in front of you. Trees, pines. Green, black, mountains. Going back, going somewhere new. Taking the knife and just end with everything, jump off a fucking cliff.

You tripped with a metal bar and landed dry on the snow, burning your face and every inch of visible skin. As you sat up, scrambling backwards, whipping your head around looking for threats, you saw a man. Pale, lean, with the face of a scared ram, holding a rifle.

“Easy… Easy…” He ushered. Then, from behind, another man approached with his hands reaching you.

Quickly, you tried to reach for the knife in your boot but the man was fast, and his hand curled around your wrist like an iron handcuff.

“Let go of me, motherfucker!” 

You got suddenly snatched, sharply, out of the snow from the back of your jacket, like a scaredy cat. Your body was being dragged over the cold right after one of them put a bag on your head, covering your sight.  You started kicking the air, hopefully landing your boot hardly into someone’s crotch.

“Grab her ankles! She’s kickin’ me!”

“I’m gonna rip your eyes out of your fucking skull!”

“Shut yer damn mouth before I shut it for ya.”

“C’mon. We don’t have time.”

They dragged you up onto your feet and wrapped a rope around your wrists, behind your back.

“Did she see your face?”

“I don’t think so. I took her from behind.”

“Fuck! Once I get my hands on you!” You jerked your head forward, harshly.

“She bit me through the bag!”

“Grab the armpits!”

“Just knock her out!”

…

“You’re safe” the woman said as soon as her eyes opened fully. “In a community. Jackson, Wyoming.” She saw your shallow breath spread through your body on the stretcher.  When your hands flew up, trying to reach for her face, you noticed your wrists were handcuffed to the metal bars at each side of you.

“I’m María.” She didn’t mention the wildness that seemed to kick in your chest. Your eyes attached to her brown ones, widened but calm. Gave you the sensation that her eyes were too big.

“Take this off me or I will fucking kill you.”

“How?”

Your nostrils flared, however, the fire that was about to burn through every piece of furniture in the room, was met with her calm water.

“I want to apologize.” María crossed her legs, sitting beside you on the armchair. “We started with the wrong foot.”

“The hell you have.” You snarled. “Your petty little men almost asphyxiate me.”

María blinked a few times, calmly. Took a slow breath, gathering her words for a woman in such a situation like yours. But she looked like the type to be used to people who carry horrors from the outside.

“You were armed and seemingly distressed. Also, you were covered in blood.” She tilted her head, sighing. “We’re careful.”

Blood.

“Why the fuck am I here?”

“You were hurt, in our territory,” María crossed her legs and placed her hands over her upper knee. “We wanted to make sure you weren’t an infected or worse, a raider.” 

“Territory.” You repeated, looking away, slumping your head back on the pillow.

“We never let people out of our community.” You heard the springs of the armchair whine lightly, then, with a few steps she was in front of you again.  “We hand out shelter and the ones who want it, stay. We know how it feels to be stranded and alone.” 

Silence.

“Were you alone?”

Your eyes drifted to the window behind her. The sun was kind here, glowing with a kind gold dust, bathing the roofs. It was strange to hear the hubbub outside. It reminded you of the school hallway, or the girl’s bathroom, hearing their gossip while eating lunch sitting alone in the toilet cubicle.

Society.

“Where’s my stuff?” You asked, breathing slow and controlled through your nose, staring at María. She nodded, looked to the white door of the room and answered.

“We have a place for you.” Her answer made you sigh sharply, clutching the blanket over you. “It’s a small condominium near Moose Street. Most of the newcomers start there, having something of their own until they prove themselves of really wanting to be part of the community.”

You bristled. “Where is my stuff?”

“There, in your condominium.”

Silence.

“Care to tell me how you got to Wyoming? We found a map in your backpack. You come from very, very far.”

“Did you steal my map?” You jolted forward, which made María startle for a second. The metal clicking against the metal bars made her shoulders ease.

“No. It’s at the, how I just said, condominium.” Calm. Collected. “Can you at least answer one of my questions? I’ve been answering yours.”

Negotiation.

“I was alone.”

“And the blood?”

Silence.

“There was also a knife in your socks. And we found someone at the shore some miles away. He had a clean—”

“Shut up” Your eyes shut tightly. A buzzing sound in your ear, something being born in the back of your mind, wailing and scratching the walls of your skull. “Shut the fuck up!” You tried to reach her neck, hands spreading. But the chains rattled. The heavy puffs coming out of your nose made María look to the ground for a moment, thinking.

The silence stretched. You needed it to. Gave you time to cradle the creature in your arms, the invisible pain and guilt. It has blood, smeared, it has its eyes wide open. 

And it has your face.

“Did you know him?”

Your eyes moved to the white and beige furniture. You still can hear the sound of his flesh, of his bones, of his life leaving his body.

“You don’t want me in this town.” You murmured, without looking at her. “I’m not like you. Like all of you.”

“All of us? What are we?”

Silence.

“Humans.”

In the end, Joel was the one who stayed with the baby and you went back home, with a bittersweet taste in your mouth, and your throat squeezing around a ball of nothing. When the morning arrived, it found you still awake, barely getting any shutseye. Still, you got up. You walked in circles in the bedroom, thinking about the baby, the birthday, the breastfeeding, Joel and everything. Your fingertips were red since you had nothing else to bite down on, and you could feel your sternum stiff every time you tried to take a deep breath.

“Violet…” The front door opened slowly. No one in Jackson usually locks their doors, and you weren’t the exception. When Thelma entered your bedroom and found you still in pajamas–a worn shirt and something you called pants–she raised a brow. “What’s with the face?”

“What face. I just got up.” You blurted out. Thelma dipped her chin and walked to the window that looks out to the street, opening the curtains. Your eyelids shrinked and as you grunted, Thelma took you by the arm.

“Get dressed. We have a birthday to organize.”

You frowned, following her with your gaze as she walked to the kitchenette.

“We’re doing it today?”

“Of course we are. The kids don’t deserve to be waiting for some fun.” She said as she opened the cupboard. Then the pantry. The cabinet. Alcohol. Everywhere.

She jerked back when you snapped the cabinet closed. Her eyes locked with yours as your nostrils flared with a long exhale.

“Wait outside.”

It wasn’t usual for you to be around and about in town, less this early, but Thelma wanted to grab the first cups of coffee of the morning before heading to the orphanage. Since you were around, she didn’t ask but took you by the sleeve and dragged you out of your condominium.

The diner was empty. Barely. There were a few patrollers around about to run a loop and some other townsfolks who had the same idea as Thelma.

After she got two cups of coffee with cream, both of you took a seat in one of the booths in the back. Thelma said something about having to polish the plan well, and all the anxiety came back after a whole night of trying to ignore the sting of it. 

“I take the little ones to Miller’s, we make them have a little fun, and we take them back right after the usual hour. It doesn't have to be hard, right?” Thelma licks the cream off the corner of her lips while writing something on her memopad. “He told me he could prepare some chocolate milk and that Ellie will be baking something sweet for the kids with Eloise’s help.”

“Sounds good…” You nodded, murmuring while watching her profile. It looked like something usual—talking to him, a daily basis, someone who’s always on the other end. It made your stomach tighten strangely.

You felt itchy, your nails scratching your neck softly. “You two seem to handle logistics very… well.”

“With Miller? Yeah.” Thelma writes the orphanage’s menu for the day without dragging her hand away. Her handwriting was pretty, clean. Confident. “He thanked me after I sent you to take care of him. Gave me some flour and eggs. You did a good job.”

“Oh.” You scratched behind your ear, looking at your untouched coffee mug. Thelma looked at you and noticed the light rash on your skin;  she frowned softly.

“Why’d you ask?”

“Oh. Nothing, just…” You shrug, unable to even explain yourself.

“He runs the patrol team. I run the violets wing.” She places her hands against her chest over the blue sweater. “He’s good at solutions…” Silence. Thelma crosses her arms over the table while you aren’t meeting her gaze and then, she shrugs a bit with a small curl on her lips. “He saw you talking with Maverick at the courtyard and said you looked disappointed.”

“You told him about this because he saw me? Why?”

Another shrug.

“Seems like he would move the sun when it comes to you.”

The density of the air getting through your nostrils made you cough as you looked away. Your mug rattled on the small plate when you placed it down. “Move the sun?” Your eyes snapped back to Thelma, your frown deepening. “You mean–”

“Yeah, I mean. He’s always around, eyes on you. Like at Maria’s birthday or the night of the code purple.” She gives you a sidelong smile, placing her chin on her palm. “You haven’t noticed? I think he has a soft spot, that’s why I sent you to take care of–”

“Ok. Stop.” You lifted a hand and closed your eyes. Shaking your hand, waving a hand as if to clear smoke from your sight.“You’re delusional.”

“You mean? I think you have him eating from your hand.” She chuckles while closing her notepad and takes her mug. “I’d never seen him in the orphanage ‘til this year. He was more of doing favors if asked but never accepted a wristband.”

“Well, maybe he’s just trying new stuff. I don’t know.”

“Mhm, surely he is.” Thelma closed her memopad and turned. “You’re the new stuff?” 

Your eyes moved away from Thelma, right back to your cup of coffee. Silence. 

“Do you hate him?”

“What?” You looked back at Thelma.

“Did he ever do something to you?” Her expression was calm, she wasn’t interrogating you, but she was making a question she expected you to finally answer, with the truth.

“No. He did not. I don’t know him.”

“That’s growing old, violet.” Her head made a light tilt to the side. “You know you don’t fool anyone, right? You two act with such a… I don’t know, I’ve never seen someone talk to Miller like that.”

Silence. More silence.

“Neither have I seen Miller speak to someone else like he speaks to you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“This town has eyes everywhere, violet…” Thelma said with a light chuckle. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Don’t Jesus me, girl.”

“No, Thelma, look.” You pointed outside and Thelma gasped. Both of you bolted out the door where Ellie was beating a boy on the edge of the sidewalk. “Hey! Enough!”

You snatched Ellie by her hoodie and Thelma crouched beside the boy who surely got a broken nose. The boy screamed when Thelma touched the bridge of his nose, she turned over her shoulder, looking at you with a wince.

Ellie tried to throw herself at the boy again, your hands clutched her arms again.

“Hey, calm down! I’m sure he understood...” You whirled Ellie around. Her eyes were injected in rage, her cheeks and her teeth clenched like fangs ready to sink into someone’s skin. “What the hell happened? Why did you do that?”

Ellie avoided your eyes, breathing harshly through her teeth. She was still deep into the adrenaline shock and you could see it by the quiver in her hands. Around you, a very few people began to gather and whisper while pointing at the girl. A cold lightning hit you, taking her by the wrist.

By the boy, Thelma followed you with her eyes while you took Ellie inside the diner to a booth at the back. You crouched in front of her, taking her hands in yours and scanning her reddened skin with open flesh on the knuckles. 

“You wanna tell me what happened…?” 

Ellie kept avoiding your gaze. Looking to an empty spot on the formica table. From your bag, you took a water bottle and some napkins from the table holder. Her lips frowned lightly by the sting, the dry napkin scratching on her sensitive flesh. 

“Dyke.”

Your eyes lifted at her ragged murmur.

“He called me a dyke.”

Your stomach made a weird twist, one that knew about the past. You’ve heard variants of the words, a very long time ago, in another place. For a moment, the world felt like the old one, when words were knives and they would draw shame and fear. 

The words swirled in your mouth, tasting like copper. You noticed you were biting your cheek, drawing blood. Swallowing heavily, you stopped moving the napkin, squeezing it in your hand as you stood up.

One of the women at the diner approached with two mugs. Tea. Then, she left a piece of cake with white frosting in front of Ellie. When the woman left, you noticed Ellie biting down on her lip, the small glimmer in her eyes, the reddened water lines. 

“He’s an asshole.” You said, sitting across her, hugging the mug with your hands. It was stupid, short, awkward. But you couldn’t vomit everything you were thinking to a fifteen year old girl. You wanted to let Ellie go and destroy that boy to pieces, maybe help her. 

But you just couldn’t do that.

“He was telling the truth, though.” Ellie said, looking to the side, out the glass of the diner. You followed her gaze, watching how a patroller was taking the boy on his horse to the health center. Thelma entered the place again but as she flapped her memo pad against her fingers, glancing at you, she moved to another booth, waiting.

“Ellie. He had no right to call you such a thing, but you weren’t right on jumping him…” You tilted your head, wrinkling your nose. “When things like that happen, you must tell someone, an adult.”

The girl jerked her head up, sucking her breath.

“And let everyone know I fucking like girls?” Her whole face reddened as she stammered, gesturing the street. “Let Joel know I like girls?” For her, it was an impossible situation. Ellie placed her elbows over the table and covered her face, sighing.

Joel. Right. Joel, Ellie.

“Ellie…” Your hand slid over the table until you touched her arm. “I don’t think your parents would get mad at you for liking a girl.” 

Ellie slammed her hands down on the table, making you snatch your hand back. “He’s not my dad!” She spat with her eyes closed. Some heads turned around, then got back to their business. Ellie covered her face again. “And… there’s no mom…”

Oh.

You could hear the heaviness of her breathing, the way she would emanate distress.

“Still. I don't think Joel would care if you like girls or boys. Because there’s nothing wrong with liking someone, Ellie, in spite of their gender.” 

“Yeah, right.” She peeked through her fingers. “Seems like everyone who’s been calling me names hasn't got the memo.” She sputtered. “And you don’t know Joel.” Said, with a hiss.

You don’t.  

“I know there’s assholes everywhere, but I know he’s not one…” You placed your hand below your chin. “You tell me. Are you hurting someone by liking a girl?” Your head leaned forward, raising a brow.

Ellie lifted her eyes, looking wary at you. “...no.”

“So?” 

Ellie finally uncovered her face, dropping her hands—with injured knuckles—over the table and looked down at her tea.  “Then why don't they understand it?”

“Because…” Sigh. You looked around, searching answers for a teen in the air. “Teens are… complex, Ellie. They don’t understand stuff and they get mad at what they don’t understand. They make fun of what they don’t understand. They hurt what they don’t understand. And not only teens, everyone.” You gave her a small shrug. “Sometimes because they never saw something similar, or because they’ve been taught to hate stuff. It is not your fault.”

“And you?” She asked, now with a slight embarrassment, residue from yelling. “When you were a… a teen. Would you get mad at people like me?” Ellie took the small spoon between her fingers, rolling it around, fidgeting.

You felt something melt inside your chest. Her eyes were expectant. You’ve been called enough names to know how it feels to be on the other side of the court.

“There’s nothing wrong with loving someone, Ellie…” You said, taking your mug and lifting it to your lips. Ellie frowned her lips in a small smile. She took her spoon and ate the cake in silence white you took sips from your mug. 

“Please. Don’t tell Joel about this.” Ellie asked with a hushed murmur, cracking her knuckles. “I will… think about how to tell him this.”

“Wha’ happened to you, kid?”

Tommy. 

“Oh, hey.” You locked eyes with Tommy, who was holding a mug on his hand and fixing his bag strap over his shoulder. “You've been long around?”

“I came for my coffee before the loops.” He moved his gaze back to Ellie. “What happened to your hands, Ellie? Been hitting walls again?” Tommy left his cup on the table and tried to reach for the girl’s hands. She snatched her hands away and ran past Tommy.

Both of you stared at the door which slammed closed with a hard sound. 

“Wha’happend?” Tommy turned. Forehead tight in a furrowed brow.

“Nothing. She just fell.” You stood up, avoiding Tommy’s eyes. He studied your expression and your shoulders felt like they had an ice block over them.

“Yeah. Okay.” Tommy took a sip from his cup. 

“Joel?”

“Joel? Oh. Last thing I knew, he was sleeping like a mule at his house. He got home late as hell for what I’ve noticed. S’been passing too much time around that church, hasn’t he?”

“I’ve seen him a few times.”

“I bet you did.”

Frown.

“He talks about you. Says you’re smart. Quick to anger, but smart.” Tommy said, eyes hovering over the way you would bite your cheek, watching the street through the window. Then, he sighed. “Well, the day isn’t getting any longer, so I better get goin’”

“Yeah, sure.” You answered, nodding, looking at the table and then at him. “Careful out there.”

Tommy smiled with his eyes. “I’ll be.”

Thelma approached once Tommy walked out the diner, and placed her hand on your back. “Okay, the clock is ticking.” 

The tension came back when you two crossed the church’s courtyard. Thelma was relaxed, like another day on the field. Waving hands at other violets, moving around like you weren’t about to do something that was explicitly forbidden. 

You felt dirty. After yesterday’s actions and the ones you were about to make in a few hours. You were pushing your luck and you knew it. You were asking for it, deliberately planning, getting other people into it. 

The feeling was spreading, slowly. Dirt, sweat sticking, bad odor. 

“Violet.”

“Yeah?”

“Someone’s looking for you.” Thelma pointed to the end of the hall. María.

You took a quick jog towards her. “Hey. Is everything alright?” You asked her, looking at a fuzzy Benji on her chest. María smiled lightly.

“Just checking in. Maverick told me you’ve been struggling a bit.”

“Oh. Sweet.” You murmured, looking away for a moment. María nudged your arm.

“Hey, he cares. You can’t blame him, it’s in his nature.” María placed her hand back on Benji’s back, caressing in circles while her body would rock, automatic, gently. “Said something about not being happy with Madeleine’s decisions. Something about a birthday.”

You rolled your eyes, lightly. “Yeah, ‘cuz I believe no one is happy with the decision she’s taking. I mean, María she’s about to kill ch–”

“Please.” She raised one hand in between you and closed her eyes. Seemingly not expecting you to bring up the subject. “I know. I know, I…” Sigh. “Everyone is telling me the same thing, and again, I can’t–”

“Do anything because this place is hers.” You finished, nodding your head with closed eyes. “That’s bullshit.”

Her brows rose. You gulped.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She smiled, slightly. “I know you’re worried. I'm trying to talk this out with the council, we’re doing what we can. But it can take time, there’s… Territory rules and… members benefit stuff.” María shrugs, and that small comment about this being talked about, makes you feel at least a ray of relief.

“Members benefit?” You frowned. “Can’t be this… I don’t know, prosecuted?” You lowered your voice. “We could maybe take this to the council with a collective report. 

“I’m sure that will not be possible.” María sighed her answer with a slight disappointment. “Yes, many members like you are disgusted with the actions Madeleine is taking and with every decision she made in the past. But there’s a reason no one ever said a thing.”

Silence.

“Many women, on the orphanage side, depend on this.” María started walking while looking at you and lowering her voice. You followed. “Benefits, like I said. Yes, it’s a volunteer group but the orphanage has its own… Economy. Members receive their monthly exchange in species.”

Her hands adjusted the baby which was pulling her sweater and sucking his fist. “Whether it be food for their kids, clothes, and a hand lended anytime they need it.”

It made sense. Everyone in Jackson has to work, even elders do what they can to receive their slice of bread, and most of the time, single mothers, disabled women and elders, or those whose family members are sick, have to find a way.

“If they speak, they lose.” You murmured, looking away, a thought in the air. María frowned her lips. 

“And not only in the economy.” 

Her steps came to a halt when both of you reached the church. The air around became more silent, held in a sacred way, a way that would echo your words and María’s. A way that would make the paintings feel like disguised witnesses.

“Madeleine has been here longer than all of us.” María locked eyes with you. “And she keeps… Records. Of everyone. Things she has been told, things she witnessed, horrors some of the violets have made in order to survive.” María frowned her lips, looking at the tall tinted windows of the church and sighed before continuing.

“Madeleine’s silence… is bought. With work. With loyalty. With the fear that if anyone steps out of line, their past becomes public. And in a town like Jackson…” She shook her head. “a past like that can be a death sentence. Not by the council. By the people.” She shrugged lightly.

“We’re talking about death sentences so early in the morning?” Maverick walked up behind you and María smiled softly when he spoke. “Good morning, violets. How’s the morning treating you two?”

“Oh, just catching up a bit. This town and motherhood doesn’t really give you time to hang out with friends at all” María locked eyes with you and as you held her gaze at the word “friends” she winked with warmth.

“Well, while I hate to be the party killer, I’ve got a call for you.” Maverick placed his hands over his buttoned flannel, in that stance he always has. Calm. “Madeleine wants to have a word with you.”

“Well,” María sighed. “ I know better than to keep her waiting.” She smiled at both of you. “I’ll see you guys later.”

As María made her way out of the church, what she said kept sinking in. Jackson was taking depth in the idea you had of it in your mind. The past being used as a weapon made your chest tighten and your heart started thumping like a coward running in circles.

“You alright?”

“Yeah. I…” You took a heavy breath that wasn’t enough as you felt your lungs overworked. “I need to sit down.” You walked past him, taking a seat on one of the pews. Maverick took a seat next to you.

“It didn't look like an easy conversation.”

“Well, it wasn’t.” You murmured, looking at your hands, nails digging into your knees over the fabric of your pants. Maverick tilted his head lightly.

“You wanna talk about it?”

You gave Maverick a sidelong glance and he raised his brows.

“What?”

“Doesn’t look like you know how to keep a secret.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. What we talked about in the courtyards was private.” You finally faced him, turning your head towards him. He looked at you with patience. “And now it happened that María came to me like a high school therapist.”

He kept silent for a moment.

“I’m truly sorry, violet. I just… I wanted to help since you seemed really touched by the kids birthday’s and–”

“Forget it. It’s stupid.” You shook your head, looking forward again. Your eyes dropped to the wood in front of you, placing your hands over it and laying your forehead on your knuckles.

“I thought that maybe talking with another woman about it would help.” Maverick added after a few seconds of silence. You looked at him, without lifting your head and he was looking down at his hands folded over his lap.

Something moved, tender, inside your chest.

“It’s…” You sat back again. “It’s resolved.”

“The birthdays?”

“Yeah. But…” Your hand lifted lightly, hovering over his arm as your voice dropped to a whisper. “I need you to not tell anyone.”

His brows perked up and he tilted forward, lightly. “Tell me.” 

Your skin felt his breath as he moved forward. Tea. Chamomile. After a moment that stretched long as you analyzed if telling him about this was a good idea, you decided to do it, because his eyes would tell you to.

“We’re gonna do a small birthday party for the little ones” Your eyes roamed Maverick’s expression as you spoke. “My… A friend of Thelma is gonna help us.” 

“Really? How?” Maverick frowned softly. 

“We pretend we take the kids to school but we take them to the party, then right after school, we take the kids back to the orphanage.” You bit down onto your lip, shrugging. “Just to let them have some fun and feel… appreciated.”

Maverick stared at you for a moment, then, his face softened as he let out a small smile. His hand reached for yours gently. “Am I invited? I love birthdays.”

That got a smile from you, and after you nodded, Eloise crossed the threshold. “Oh, there you are.” She jogged towards you two. “Hey, father.” She smiled at him and then looked at you. “You ready? We have stuff to do.”

“He knows, he’s coming with us.”

“Really, father?” Eloise jerked her head so fast to look at Maverick that made the man smile. He nodded and Eloise took her hands to her lips, smiling beneath “Oh, that would be so sweet, the kids love you.”

“And I love a good birthday party.” He got up, still hand in hand with you. “I’m all yours today for help.” Eloise attached her gaze to the scene of your hand folded around his. She blushed and looked at the door.

“Uhm. I’ll tell Thelma to get going. The kids are waiting in the courtyard.” And Eloise bolted out of your sight. Maverick, still holding your hand, looked at you. 

“Shall we?”

“Yes.” Your hand slid off his slowly, as if it didn’t want to be alone again.

When the kids left the orphanage and Maverick came back from picking his coat, you both departed after, leaving a gap of time that wouldn’t raise suspicions. Maverick walked by your side while rubbing his hands and then sliding them inside his pockets.

“You’re nervous?” He asked after a while.

“A bit. Madeleine would get so mad if she found out. I don’t know what she would do to us.”

“Oh, god. You paint her as a villain.” Maverick let go a chuckle and you looked at his profile as he would laugh, frowning your brows lightly, confused.

“I mean, she’s a villain enough. No need for me to paint her as nothing.”

He briefly looked at you, with a small smirk. 

“What?”

“Nothing. You’re cute.”

That caught you off guard like a sudden blow on your nape. More confused, you looked at him, and by your face, he started chuckling. “I meant it’s cute, how you worry about everything so much.” 

He came back to take you by the arm since you stopped walking after he called you cute. “Come on. Relax, get a smile on that face, we’re heading to a party.”

And he was right. For a moment, you could pretend to leave everything at the orphanage. The babygirl, Madeleine, the protocol. 

Your father.

And that image of you leaving that bag there, made your flesh feel light, your bones slime, your feet feathers. And when Maverick’s hand slid down your arm to take your hand, your heart felt like a furnace.

Was this… happiness?

“Miller’s?” Maverick said when you let go of his hand and opened the little garden gate of Joel Miller’s property. You frowned your mouth, looking over your shoulder at his direction. “Why?”

“Long story.”

“Then make it short.” Maverick closed the gate behind him. You stared at him for a moment while you walked towards the poche and he followed behind, holding your gaze. You just looked forward, feeling a strange shiver running down your sternum, a bit acidic.

“Come in, they’re all in the backyard” Eloise said as soon she opened the door. You expected Joel, but he wasn’t even around every corner you looked at. The backyard door was open, some kids running around, chasing each other, a few paper garlands hanging from the ceiling and crossing the backyard.

It was simple and lovely.

The scent of baking and sweet cinnamon scented cookies coming from the kitchen made you follow the thread like a hungry puppy. In the kitchen, Ellie was mixing something in a bowl with Dina trying to stain her cheeks with flour and chuckling as she turned around, swerving her hands. Her eyes, as soon she noticed you, widened with surprise.

“Hey!” The bowl was forgotten over the counter and she approached you with Dina following. “He thought you wouldn’t show up.” She looked back, locking eyes with Dina and gestured to your direction. Something you understood but didn’t point out. 

He?

“I had to. I’ve been whining over this.” You answered, taking off your coat.

“Oh, shut up.” Thelma entered the kitchen with a tray, empty with some cookie crumbs. “You were part of this to make it possible.” She caressed your shoulders and Maverick walked straight to the backyard. A collective father! chorus came from the backyard when the kids noticed him.

“So… where is Joel?” You asked, glancing very briefly at Thelma who was already biting back a smile.

“He’s upstairs. He said he was gonna be back in a minute but that was like an hour ago already.” Ellie looked at the wall, watching the clock ticking a whisper. Thelma gasped a bit, and her fingers tightened over your shoulder, tilting you to her.

“Why don’t you go and look for him, violet? We’ll be finishing the sweets with the girls.” Her palm patted over your back and the smile was all. Devilishly innocent. You were about to to say something, an excuse.

“Yeah! Tell that old fart we need him here to help.” Ellie said and Dina elbowed her lightly, making her chuckle and scrunch her nose. 

Those eyes. Those shiny dovey eyes. You smiled a little when Ellie locked eyes back with you and when she saw your small nod, she blushed and ran away with Dina following.

Your eyes glanced at Thelma who was already walking away and just decided to get over it and be an adult. “Yeah. I’ll go for him. Upstairs, right?

Ellie nodded and pushed Dina back to the kitchen. Walking past the hallway, you had a moment to look outside at the backyard, noticing Maverick and Eloise playing with the few children outside. There were five or six, apart of Brian, Keila and Sylvia. The laughs were unstoppable, and Maverick was doing a great job with Eloise. When Maverick noticed you, you just stepped back and walked upstairs.

You had that sensation again. The same you felt while walking up these stairs before. It was like an army stomping inside your stomach, trying to crawl up your esophagus. 

When you got upstairs, the sound of the party got muffled by the distance, still audible but calmer. The bedroom was empty when you knocked on the wooden doorway and peeked inside, the bed was made and the windows were open, letting the bedroom receive that grayish light of a winter afternoon.

Your eyes moved to the small bureau near a wall, a few pictures, a box, some papers. The portrayed pictures caught your attention, the one of Joel with Sarah, after a football tournament, her big smile, her shiny curls, his proud expression. Another polaroid of them, of the past. You realized you had almost forgot her face a bit, and watching the picture, you suddenly found yourself getting your eyes watery.

You remember that day. You were sitting at the grades, because the students were obligated to attend just to make up the numbers, and to be honest, every place was better than being at home. Joel was a few grades away following a running Sarah in the field with his eyes, with Tommy sitting beside him yelling stuff and being shushed by other moms. 

Your eyes turned to his back the whole time. The slight line of sweat on his gray tshirt, crawling down his spine, his temples shiny with sweat beads, a cola can in his hand, looking small like that day by the river. You were squeezed between the other students that were doing everything but paying attention to the tournament. And, in the end, you weren’t paying attention to it either.

You heard a shower muffled in a nearby room. Water running and something being dropped softly on the floor. Your attention drew back to the bureau. There were other pictures. One of him with Ellie, feeding a horse. Another of Ellie holding up a dead rabbit with a big smile. You scrunched your nose and placed the frame back in place, then, you slid your fingers to the box, lifting the lid lightly.

A gun.

Your saliva turned coppery, thick. You felt the weight in your hand, lifting it a bit, sliding your fingertip over the dentures of the barrel. Iron. Some dusty feeling. Below the gun, there was a folded paper, so you took it out, placing the gun back in place. When you started unfolding it, you heard a door cracking open, whining with movement, so—quickly—you closed the box and shoved the paper inside your jeans, below the sweater. The heavy steps were near, so you turned around smoothing your sweater. “Ellie sent me to look for—”

Oh.

Bare.

Towel.

Hips.

God.

Damnit.

“I’m sorry, I thought you… Would… Uhm…” Your hand raised to slide down your mouth as your eyes processed what you were watching. He was naked. Well, not naked. But half half. The towel was… Hanging low on his hips, and he was… Frozen in place.

“I… Guess I should've dressed in the bathroom.” Joel mumbled low, holding the front of the towel tight against his lower stomach, where the dark trail below his navel would disappear, trickling down. 

“No, it was… My fault… I should have said… Made… Uhm.” 

And you both were standing there, like fools. His hair was damp, drops falling on his shoulders and chest, beard trimmed in a way he expects no one to really notice, just to look presentable. And he finally spoke.

“I’m gonna…” Said, pointing back at the bathroom. 

“No. No, I’ll get downstairs.”

“No, ‘s fine. Stay there.”

And he just bolted inside the bathroom.

The sight that left your lungs was long and heated, nervous and shaky. The image was already imprinted in your head, doing things to your imagination. Things you were strongly trying to avoid.

Then, another pair of steps coming up the stairs, and when Maverick appeared, you made yourself get over it, again.

“I was looking for you. You’re gonna help us with the games? The kids will be really tired once they get back but it’ll be worth it.” Maverick approached, sliding his hand over the bannister. You nodded.

“Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute. Ellie sent me to look for—”

“What are y’doin’ here?”

Joel walked out of the bathroom rolling up his sleeves and crossing his arms over his chest. Maverick tightened his jaw and raised his hands lightly. “Helping with the kids. She invited me, told me it was fine.”

“Did she?” Joel turned his gaze to you. You frowned.

“He’s just lending a hand, Joel.”

“No, it’s okay. I will… I think my job is done here. I’ve done plenty with the kids” Maverick shook his head softly. “Instead of… hiding upstairs.”

“You smart?” Joel gave a step forward.

“I like to think that.”

“Okay, okay. What the hell?” You frowned, stopping the both grown men from throwing a tantrum. “Maverick, thanks. I think you can go back.”

Maverick looked down at you for a second, unreadable. Then, he turned around saying That’ll do. When Maverick left, you looked back at Joel. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I don’t want that man in my house.” Joel stated, holding your gaze. “And since ‘s my house, I think I have the right to decide who the hell I let in my place. You ought’a asked me.”

Silence.

“Ellie wants you downstairs.”

You turned around, walking away. But Joel, faster, gave two steps forward and grabbed you by the arm. “I know that man better than you think y’do.”

“Oh, you always know better than everyone, don’t you? Always the same speech, it’s growing old and is tiring the fuck out of me.” You yanked your arm off his grasp, and his fist clenched on his side. “Grow the fuck up instead of fighting every person that you run into.”

After you got back downstairs, before anyone saw the piece of art your face was, you hid in the bathroom. Pacing the small space, you took the paper still folded beneath the hem of your jeans. As you spreaded it over the sink, your eyes slowly widened at the sigh and your heart, which was running after Joel’s small tantrum, it felt like it was trying to dig out of your skin.

A map.

Circled in places, with annotations, some spots scribbled with red, covering danger zones. And many, many routes. There were clinics, warehouses, police stations, a gold fountain in your hands. 

“Violet, you there? Cake’s ready and the kids want to sing happy birthday.” Eloise said from the other side of the door. “You’re alright.”

“Yeah. Just needed to relieve my needs.” You said, opening the door and fixing your sweater. Eloise smiled softly, but then, frowned her brows lightly, looking behind her.

“Maverick just left. I tried to make him stay for the cake but he just… Seemed bothered.” She looks back at you. “You know if something happened? It’s not usual to see him so upset, you know?”

“Oh, that’s strange. Maybe he’s just not used to kids that much. Maybe he got overwhelmed.”

Eloise chuckles. “Men.” After sighing, she gestures to the kitchen with her head. “Let’s go.”

In the kitchen, Ellie was dragging Joel out to the backyard while he was putting on a jacket and groaning about the kid being too impatient. Thelma was carrying the tray with the cake, with Dina following behind with plastic plates for the children and the small candles in her other hand. Eloise had her arm curled around yours, taking you outside.

“Cake! Cake!” One of the kids hollered and the others quickly circled the makeshift table in the backyard, giggling and staring up at the cake decorated by Dina and Ellie.

“Okay, okay! If we calm down, we’re gonna sing happy birthday to Brian, Keila and Sylvia. Alright?” Thelma set the cake down and the children stared at the cream and candy beads with sparkling eyes, curling their fingers around nothing but excitement.

The three kids found a place one beside the other, smiling and staring at Thelma light the candles. Their little voices in an innocent chorus, clapping without a sense of rhythm but joy, the birthday kids staring at their friends, friends that celebrate them, their existence.

That they’re here. Still.

While clapping, your eyes found Joel, standing behind Ellie and Dina, clapping too but also staring at you. You rolled your eyes slightly, looking back at the kids. Then everything unfolded calmly. The kids sat wherever they found a place, eating a slice of cake coursing the last steps of that short but warm birthday.

“You want a piece? It’s freaking delicious, I swear.” Eloise approached you, licking her fingertip, smearing the leftover frosting on her plate. You smiled, shaking your head.

“I’m okay.” Your hands took her empty plate, glancing at Joel on the other side of the backyard, taking a plate that Ellie hands him with a fork. “I think I’ll start cleaning up, we’ve got to be back in an hour or so.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll get the other plates for you.”

As you parted ways, Eloise to the plates on the table and you to the kitchen, being away from the kid’s hubbub let you think for a moment, in peace. As you washed the cutlery that was used to make the cake and cookies, your gaze was set on the kids getting up to play again, running in the backyard, jumping over the old truck covered with snow, getting barked at by Joel. Your hand moved to your sweater for a moment, feeling the folded paper beneath.

Your eyes fell to the running water. The soap running down the drain. Your damp hands.

Blood.

A sharp gasp escaped your lungs when you jolted back and stared at your hands after blinking a few times, harshly. 

“y’alright?” Joel entered the kitchen, setting the pile of plates over the kitchen island and placed a hand on your shoulder, staring at your hands. “Did y’ cut your hand?”

“No… No, I… I thought I did.” You shook your head, taking a rag from the counter, drying your hands. He stared at you and his hands found a place low on his hips. “It’s fine.”

“I… reckon I was an asshole earlier.” He mutters, looking at the sink. When he felt your eyes on his profile, his jaw tightened a bit, feeling too exposed. “I never really got along with… him.”

“You never got along with anyone.”

Joel scoffed with what seemed to be something. Too weak for a smile, too relaxed for annoyance. It made you feel lighter, and your shoulders stopped curling around themselves so hard.

“Maverick’s a good person.” You said, taking the plates and placing them inside the sink. “But that’s very you. You like those who aren’t good.”

Joel huffed a breath and looked up at the ceiling.

“Can we not?” He murmured. “It’s something mine against Maverick. That’s it. Since way before you even got to Jackson.”

That got you back to when he called you selfish, and you remembered that he maybe still had that image of you. You had to stop making it about you.

“So? What is it?”

“What is it what?”

“What did Maverick did to you?”

Silence.

“Thelma says it’s time to go!” Ellie entered the kitchen, hollering. 

“Ellie.”

“‘m sorry. Thelma said it’s time to go” She said now, quieter and smiling. Joel shook his head, staring at her. The same way he would stare at Sarah.

The way back was quiet. Now that Maverick was gone, you walked alone behind the line of children that got longer as more kids joined after passing by school. Eloise and Thelma were heading the line, telling the younger ones not to say a word about the birthday party, and the little ones shushed at each other, giggling.

The church felt immense when you crossed the threshold, and somehow, the air felt eerie. Like when you do something your parents told you clearly you shouldn’t do, and in the end, it was like that. And how can you keep a lie to yourself in the eyes of God?

You were in charge of getting the girls to their room, so Thelma and Eloise went to the other side with the boys. Walking past the tulips rooms, you stared at the ajar door, getting a sight of Caroline rocking the babygirl gently, and everything came back to you, like picking up the backpack you left before leaving.

When you crossed the arch, the air felt weighed with a different kind of  hubbub, it caught your attention the amount of people waiting outside the nursery corridor. There were volunteers but also people from outside the church and even some doctors from the medical center walking inside and out of the nursery. What got you restless was the anxiety etched on everyone’s faces, there was an indelible sense of urgency and threat in the air. Tangible.

The cold feeling started freezing your shoulders. Tightening them up again.

When you approached Thelma, she barely wanted to meet your eye, and Eloise coming out with tears in her eyes made everyone—who were seemingly waiting for an update of what was happening inside—let out a crowded and painful wail.

Eloise buried herself into Thelma’s arms and sobbed against her shoulder, grasping her sweater while her whole body would tremble with pain. Thelma just placed her hand over her nape while staring at the nursery door with a stone cold face. You didn’t want to even begin to think what happened inside, and a part of you knew, very well, what happened. Your gaze drifted to the violets that parted ways, walking in different directions, unable to hold the weight of this new reality that was hitting the orphanage to its core.

“Poor thing, oh no…” Belle turned around, walking away while wiping her eyes. Following her with your eyes, you noticed Madeleine standing beside the cloister’s exit. Hands over the curve of her wooden cane, eyes on you.

She was there, standing alone, watching. Because she has eyes. Here, there, everywhere. Because she is everywhere even when she isn’t. And this, came along with her name, with making the babies comfortable, with her cruelty that she tried to slide as pragmatic, as normal. When her fingers tapped the top of her cane, once, twice, she turned around and left.

Tic, tac.

“What happened?” You asked, grabbing Thelma by the arm. Thelma tightened her jaw and took a deep breath, snatching her arm off your grasp. She took her time, because saying it out loud was, in the end, joining this horror to the reality of the orphanage.

“One of… One of the babies. Her kidneys…” Thelma slowly shook her head and struggled to gulp down what everyone was letting out around you. 

The nursery door opened and one of the doctors walked out with a bundle wrapped in a white blanket, holding him against his chest. They left with some volunteers and nurses. Eloise and Thelma went somewhere in the nursery, leaving you alone in the middle of the cloister. This was happening. This was a point on her tally. This was one step closer to make them comfortable.

This was your clock, ticking.

taglist: @babielli @cinnxmxngxrl @cowboylikelil @steadybasiliskemissary @pedropascalsbbg @youdontknowe @glitterspark

He's old. He has been, for a long time.

He had seen much, been through a lot. Nothing really surprised him a lot these days, and is not like he was easy to throw off the hook at all.

He remembers every now and then, a hooker in the old world. Marnie. Or Marie. Brunette, bright brown eyes, an amazing mouth. He remembers it as the dirtiest fuck he ever had.

But nothing else.

But there was something, with you. In you.

Maybe because you weren't exactly what he had expected. You weren't a delicate piece of glass and he knew, but you were... different.

You didn't try to conquer him, didn't try to seduce neither. You we're a natural. Or maybe he got so silently obsessed with you that every little thing you would do, would make him close his eyes and count to ten to not let his thoughts wander.

Wander.

Wander where?

Far. Far in a corner of his mind where he keeps those thoughts he would never say out loud. The ones that came with the horror, with splitting heads open, with twisting knives inside of someone's guts. The ones that came in order to deal with all that.

And you were a vessel.

Your naked skin. Your heavy sighs. Your humidity.

Your stickiness.

Hot. Hard to get rid of. Feeling it even after hours.

Like blood.

All of it was intense. Out of nowhere, but also after a long time of electricity and silent yearning from his part. The sporadic nights were... something he would wait awake for.

You were smart. You didn't hesitate when it came to differ with him or his ideas, you didn't flinch whenever he would bark, neither would step back whenever he would give you those killer eyes that seemed to make everyone stumble back.

Not because you thought you were capable to fight him.

But because you knew that there wasn't anything in him that you haven't seen before in a man.

He wasn't special. And in fact, he sometimes seemed pathetic to you when he tried to pull the bad dog card on you. And he seemed strangely... challenged by that.

Joel wasn't the way to prove things to people, but he wanted to show you he could make you feel something, more than you could make him feel. He wanted to do it.

And he did.

He had wished long for those legs trembling on his sides. For that skin crawling deliciously for him. For those nails to dig on his shoulders. For your mouth letting out a sound for him. For your wetness making that sweet clapping sound every time he would meet you.

"There... Fuck, there... Yea.."

"Joel... Slow... Please, slow, I don't want to cum yet... Ah!"

He had to shook his head and slide his hand down his beard, scratching his jaw. You were messing him up. His ideas. His days.

But he was addicted to replay those moments.

"Oh... Mgh..." Your hands drowning into his grayish strands, messing his hair while he would slowly drink your heat, with his eyes closed and a slow desperation. Then leaving your place with his hair tousled and thirsty for another.

There was something in you. Inside of you that he wanted to reach. With his fingers, his tongue, his cock. He was in a heated fight with your body, trying to see what was inside of you that would get him like this, this visceral, this close to the most primitive part of his humanity.

"Mhg... Let me hear that again, sweet thing..." Joel would growl against your neck, pining you down against the mattress while slowly sliding his cock inside and dragging outside your delicious soppy entrance. He'd close his eyes tightly, gasping through his teeth against your shoulder, feeling your walls moulding around him.

He needed your gasps. The way you would get more and more wet, even when he thought it was impossible. And looking down at you while going through it, it was the best gift.

Your eyes, shiny. Hooded. As if life was leaving your body. You were a fucking sight. You were a vulgar piece of art. A masterpiece he wanted to tear apart by the seams and rearrange to start all over again.

He needed to drink all the sweat between your breasts and the drops that would slide from behind your knees. He needed to make you gasp into his mouth to receive your oxygen and make it his.

He wanted to fuck your ideas. Your beliefs. Your thoughts and complaints. He wanted to be used like an insult by you. He wanted to make you demand him more of anything you wanted. He wanted to make you see you were the only one able to get him like this, crazy over a single drop of you.

He wanted you to ask him to stop.

He wanted you to ask him to disappear.

He wanted you to ask him to make you disappear.

"Let it go, darlin'... That's it, baby, I feel ya..." He said, as his hands ran down your waist and settled on your hips. Fingers curling and tilting your hips up, slightly, to press that sweet spot that was making you pulse around him.

He could feel it. Oh, it was delicious. A rhythmical beat around his cock, contracting around his flesh, sucking him way more inside until his pelvic bone pressed against your clit.

"Mhg... Ah.." Your hands landed flat, softly, over his lower belly, which was already wet by you. Sticky.

Blood.

"You want me t'stop, baby?" Joel asked, ragged, about to start thrusting again. The sweat from his neck falling over your breasts.

And you shook your head, breathing open-mouthed.

"Again..."

★

it has been in drafts toooo loooong. 💋