An Intergalactic Tour of Ineptitude

“Wanna know what I was thinkin’ ‘bout today?” Joel asked after joining your walk. Uninvited. Again.

“Not really,” you answered .

“Ouch,” he laughed. “Alright, I won't tell ya then.”

“Okay,” you shrugged.

“But I’ll tell ya I got hard as fuck thinkin’ ‘bout it.”

“Doesn’t seem to take much,” you replied.

“That's all you, baby,” he said at a lower, hornier pitch. “You’re somethin’ else.”

Your cheeks warmed, and as you passed the next few houses, the only sound was your sneakers and Joel’s leather flip flops on the asphalt.

As the two of you neared Joel’s house, you couldn’t help but glance at him. Your gaze lingered on his face. At first, it was just to keep your eyes from falling to the inevitable bulge in his gray pj pants. But then, your eyes got caught in the silver bits of his scruff, and when the corner of his mouth twitched into that lethal, little smirk of his, a bolt of desire zapped you right between the thighs.

Right where you wanted him.

Right where he wanted to be.

In one swift move, he stepped ahead, then turned around to face you, blocking your path.

You didn’t try to step around him. You stopped.

His eyes sparkled as he admired your face. He lifted your chin, and his thumb gently brushed your bottom lip.

Your tummy fluttered, and blood rushed to your core.

He let go of your face, and slowly stepped away, inching toward his house without taking his eyes off yours. He nodded toward his basement door as he slid his hands into his pockets.

“C’mon, let's have a drink or somethin’. Lady's choice.”

“I kinda wanna go to sleep,” you replied, fighting the urge to fold instantly.

He offered in a low, sing-song tease, “I can make ya sleep better.”

You smiled, and he murmured, “Ain't that right.”

“I should get home,” you mumbled.

He bent his knees in exaggerated disappointment, then recovered. “At least lemme walk ya there.”

-

The sizzle of the heat between you felt loud as you approached your house in silence. He was going to walk you all the way to the door, and neither of you could stand in that doorframe without thinking about what had happened there.

As you both slowed down in your side yard, he lightly stroked your inner elbow, then trailed his fingers down to your wrist. It was dangerously close to holding hands. Instead, his hand found your ass, and he pivoted to face you.

“Mm,” he grunted and pulled you into a hug with a slow grid of his hips. “Sure ya don’t wanna know what I was thinkin’ bout earlier?”

A quiet sigh slipped from your lips. His breath was heavy above your ear. Your arms wrapped loosely around his broad trunk, and your fingers spread across his massive back muscles as he hugged you with all his filth and charm.

“You know you want this,” he breathed.

No lies detected.

“Good night, Joel.” You insisted, and it might have been convincing if you weren’t melting into his arms at the same time.

“That don’t sound like a ‘no’ to me,” he murmured with a forward push of his hips.

You didn’t reply. Your nostrils flared with a deep breath. That special mix of weed, deodorant, and man… it intoxicated you.

His package had hardened from vague arousal into that perfect, inviting shape that he could just spear you on, if he wanted.

He could just shove himself right in. Your pussy twitched for it.

He pulled his head back to search your eyes and was satisfied to see your pupils wide and your lips parted. His face closed in on yours, and his hand cupped the back of your head. His lips brushed against your mouth, and he stole a bit of your breath. Your lips reached for his, but he wouldn’t seal the kiss. He brushed the tip of his tongue against your lower lip ever so briefly, followed by his teeth. Then he stopped with the side of his mouth against yours.

“Night, pumpkin,” he whispered, and his breath filled your lungs with filthy memories that tingled all over. The hand on your ass relaxed into an affectionate palm. His hips pulled away, and he looked at you deadpan.

“I’m gonna keep walkin’,” he said, then took a deep breath as he adjusted the crotch of his pj pants. “I’ll be around,” he added with a wink.

Really?

He took no for an answer?

Your heart sank a little, and you brushed it off as how badly you needed to get off. He had you all wound up, but you’d finish the job yourself.

—

After getting ready for bed, in a big tshirt with nothing else, you took your vibrator under the covers.

No smut, no audio, no gifs of your go-to actors in sleazy roles.

Nothing could do it for you but Joel after all that heat.

What was he thinking about earlier?

You knew what you were thinking about.

Your body was re-experiencing little flickers of that time he broke in while you were doing yoga. How he put his hand over your mouth. How dominant he was. How forceful, but careful. He indulged in you like a sin and wouldn’t let you deny yourself.

You felt it in your chest. God, it was hot.

HE was hot.

God damn it.

You were thinking about his big cock, about it shoving into you from the back, about him pushing you down on the floor.

With A Good One one building in your depths, you turned the vibe up to max. Your thighs trembled as that memory ripped through your body.

You should’ve been coming on his cock.

—

After you drifted to sleep, your covers were slowly pulled down, just a little at first. Your nipples hardened through your thin t-shirt.

Then, the covers slid down a little more, then further, and the air hit the slick between your thighs. A chill settled over your exposed body, then your heart jumped as you woke up.

Someone was in your bed.

The thought of someone being in your bed took a few seconds process, and by then, he had pinned you with his weight and his hand clamped over your mouth. His cock throbbed against you like it owned your body, like you were it’s personal sheath to fuck and fill.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” he whispered, glancing at the toy on your night stand. Then his gaze returned to your face.

Just as you made eye contact, he took his hand off your mouth so he could put it between your legs. “Bet ya were thinkin’ ‘bout that time over there… that little yoga workout I….ugh,” he groaned softly as his skilled fingers found the mess you’d made of yourself.

He slid his digits up and down your slit just twice before shoving two of them into you, just to see the look on your face and hear your breath change.

He cooed, “Oh, you're gonna sleep so good, baby” as his fingers fucked you better than any other man’s cock. His hand moved in powerful thrusts, not too fast. “Ain’t gonna make ya beg for it,” he breathed, massive arm flexing.

His smooth digits made an obscene wet smack with each thrust of his hand. Then he stopped with his fingers fully inside you and palmed your mound, holding your cunt with a possessive grab.

“Don’t even gotta ask,” he whispered with a squeeze, then pulled his soaked fingers out. “I’m just gonna give it to ya….real good.”

He grunted as he got his cock out and into position.

Hot and smooth, his arousal hit your thigh, making your insides throb with greed. “Here we go, baby. Nice n hard, just how ya like it.”

His tip teased your clit, and you teased him back, “How do you know how I-“

“Oh fuck yeah, baby, put up a fight,” he encouraged under his breath, with his eyes coming to life.

You tried to get up on your elbows, and he let you struggle for a few seconds, with his tip nudging between your folds.

“Gonna make me make you? Fuck yeah”

Then his forearm pinned you down, just as his stiff cock pushed into you, spreading your insides with ease.

“God damn, you can take a dick,” he chuckled.

With his cock seated fully inside your warmth, he paused to read your face, then urgently pulled your T-shirt up over your tits, and his mouth fell open as his hips began to move.

He became more aggressive, bottoming out with each punch of his hips, like he'd finally broken into somewhere he needed to be.

Through two slams of his hips, he panted, “You’re so fuckin’ hot, pumpkin.”

“Oh, God,” you closed your eyes and caught yourself tensing as you got close. You took a deep breath and relaxed with a vocal sigh. Your pussy fluttered.

“Attagirl,” he growled, keeping the rhythm steady, snapping his hips a little harder.

You let out a whimper, so close to the edge, not feeling quite safe enough to tumble over it.

“Look at me,” he demanded, and your breath hitched.

You opened your eyes.

“I got you,” he said, eyes darting between yours as he buried himself in you. “Let go, baby. Let go.” He nodded.

You nodded back.

“Yeah,” he breathed. His face darkened with desire. He looked down and palmed a breast as he watched his length slam into you. “Love the way you take this cock.

He lowered himself, and the damp gray tee stretched across his chest grazed your nipples. He brought his face to yours.

Breathing each other’s heavy breaths, you were so close.

You spasmed, then he grabbed your jaw, and his lips captured yours. His tongue plunged into your mouth as he held your jaw like you might pull away. He thrust deeper, stayed deep, and rocked his hips like he couldn’t get deep enough inside. And that did it for you, the tension burst. He let your mouth break away to moan, and he watched you unravel before capturing your lips again, softer, for just a moment.

He stayed deep, rocking his hips, only pulling back every few seconds. He shuddered, and you found yourself craving the feeling of his seed throbbing into you, until the moment it started. Coming to your senses, you squirmed with a half-hearted effort to get him to pull out. “Joel,” you complained, and his hand moved to your hip, firmly holding you in place to shoot his load as deep as he could get.

After the first warm burst, it was a lost cause, you reasoned. You relaxed, and your hips rocked into his as he finished.

The post-nut clarity was unforgiving this time. There was a creep in your bed. In your bed. Your sheets were going to smell like him. And these encounters were becoming regular. You tapped his hip, signaling him to pull out. He grumbled and you said you had to pee.

When you returned, he was still in your bed.

“You should go,” you told him.

“God damn,,” he chuckled. “Still catchin’ my breath here. Give an old man a break.”

“Sorry,” you muttered. “Ten minutes, max.”

-

You fell asleep faster than that.

He left, eventually, but not in ten minutes. Watching you sleep felt too good. And no, he didn’t pick your lock. He didn’t have to.

-

-

-

Call of Duty

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley

‘Indigo’ by @slater-baby ☁️ 🌙 🌕 ⭐️ “Ghost didn't like to dwell on the past. Whatever happened, happened. He left Manchester, covered his face, took a new name. To him, it was little more than moving on from the past, from all the blood and gore of his family life. But then on some bleary, Tuesday morning, you somehow stand before him: his ex from before he was Ghost.”

‘I Feel It In My Bones’ by De_caffeinated on ao3 ☁️ 🌙 🌕 ⭐️ “Bones is a quiet combat medic with a troubled past and enough knowledge to fill a library. As whispers of a new bioweapon begin to spread across Europe, she is assigned to Task Force 141. Still haunted from her previous deployment, she thinks she can only count on witnessing new horrors, spilled blood, and the sound of dogtags clinking against the ground. What she isn't expecting is finding a team to count on, or the way her heart quickens in the presence of a certain skull-faced man.”

‘Ghosts & Mirages’ by @stararch4ngelqueen ☁️ 🌙 🌕 ⭐️ “After a dangerous encounter leading towards your own capture and torture, you; Codename "Mirage", went from one of the best snipers on the task force with a bubbly sense of humor and strong wit, to a stone-cold demeanor woman who let her vendetta get the better of her, almost costing her the lives of her teammates. Ghost wasn't too happy about this, and based off experience, he refuses to let your mind head down that path any further.”

‘Mail Order Bride’ by @beebymoonlight ☁️🌙🌕

‘Squeeze Me, I Squeak’ by Charlie_M on ao3 ☁️ 🌙 🌕 “While your interactions with Lieutenant Riley started out cold and tense, he's been warming up to your secondary specialty. Apparently, you make for a great stress-toy.”

‘Heartless’ by @thevampiremarie ☁️ 🌙 🌕 “You need health insurance. Ghost is sick of sharing living quarters with the rest of the 141. Soap, your childhood friend, thinks the two of you can fix each other’s problems.”

‘Give you the gun (blow me away)’ by endymions on ao3 🌙 🌕 “In the back streets of Prague, you watch through the scope of your rifle as your target—one of Makarov’s inner circle men, the man you’ve been tailing for two and a half weeks—gets his throat viciously slit from behind.”

‘In The Walls’ by @theorist-fox ☁️ 🌙 🌕 “Simon fucks his Sergeant until he’s not sure whether it’s sex or love.”

‘In Limbo’ by @ilium-ilia 🌙🌕 “Joining the mafia is no different than selling a soul to the devil, and it’s something Simon Riley is all too willing to do if it means keeping his family safe. It isn’t until he meets you- the girl who runs from everything- that he realizes there are much worse things to get caught up in.”

‘You’re Drunk’ by @howyoulovelikeweaponskill 🌙🌕“y’wanna know what stupid looks like?” he mutters, head dropping down until his lips near your jaw. “you, wakin up with my fuckin dog tags round your neck and nothin else.”

‘Through Me (The Flood)’ by @peachesofteal ☁️🌙🌕

‘Splinter’ by @bitterrfruit 🌙🌕 “Your car breaks down in a snowstorm. A crude stranger takes you in from the cold.”

‘Houndtooth’ by @bitterrfruit 🌙🌕 “You're the pampered wife of a russian warlord. Ghost hunts you down and finds a use for you.”

Captain John Price

‘Squeak ‘Em If You Got ‘Em’ by Charlie_M on Ao3 ☁️ 🌙 “You belong to Task Force 141. Task Force 141 belongs to Captain Price. It's simple math - but math was never your strong suit.”

‘Landscape with honey’ by @ceilidho ☁️🌙🌕“You've been living in this town for almost six months; it's only now that John's picked up on your scent.”

‘Ursa Major’ by @the-californicationist ☁️ 🌙 🌕 “Lumberjack John Price, retired British Army captain, owns and operates 5,000 acres of selective harvesting land for his logging company. Unfortunately, you work for an environmental firm as a consultant, and it’s your job to tell him he has to stop logging at once since his harvest is encroaching on rare bear habitats. But, something’s not quite right about the bears, or about these lumberjacks, and you’re determined to get to the bottom of it.”

‘I Wonder How Many Days I’ll Bleed’ by thethingsthatimake on Ao3 “Captain John Price is forced to lay low, so Laswell sends him to a secluded home in Alaska - inhabited by you.”

TF141

‘Cherry Red, Crimson Blood’ by @soaps-mohawk ☁️ 🌙 🌕 “Task Force 141 operates successfully without an omega, at least that’s what Price has been saying since its formation. Two alphas and two betas balance the pack just fine, and they have the numbers to prove it. It works for a while, until the Omega Initiative is born and the 141 find themselves having to adjust to the sudden addition of an omega to their pack. Fresh out of an institute, you’re hardly fit for their secretive, dangerous world, or so Price thinks. As each member of the team gets closer to you, things begin to come to light, not only about you but about the decision to force you into their lives. Maybe, just maybe, Price was wrong and the 141 does need an omega after all.”

König

‘Trapper, Keeper’ by @tinypandacakes ☁️🌙 🌕 “A dark, hooded figure emerged from the dense snowstorm, growing far too tall as it approached. You shuffled back weakly in the bloodstained snow and winced as you jostled the trap clamped on your boot “What is this?” the man’s voice rumbled, muffled behind his mask. “You are…not what I expected to catch today.”

‘Obession’ by c4rp3_n0ctem on Ao3 “From the first second he saw you, König was completely and utterly obsessed with you. So when you ran into him late at night, tears streaming down your face, the universe served you to him on a silver platter. "Come in, we can sit down in my room and get you cleaned up, and then you can tell me what happened, ja?" he said quietly, a smirk hidden beneath his mask as he guided you into his room.”

‘Sworn Sword’ by @vivwritescrappythings “You go to a tourney, a knight you’ve never seen before wants your favor”

The Last Of Us

Joel Miller

‘A Stranger’s Heart Without A Home’ by @morning-star-joy ☁️🌙 🌕 ⭐️ “After leaving the Fireflies, you ended up in the settlement of Jackson with Tommy, unwilling to part with the only friend you had left. You were even able to carve somewhat of a life out for yourself after a few years. Until Tommy's older brother shows up. You think Joel Miller is gruff and rude, and you're pretty sure he doesn't have a fond opinion of you either. That doesn't stop the attraction you feel for each other, but he's gone in a day. You settle back into a routine, thinking you'll never see him again. Then Joel returns a few months later, and screws up everything about the comfortable life you had established in Jackson.”

‘Short Days, Long Nights’ by @frannyzooey ☁️🌙 🌕 “Part of a band of travelers, your party is slowly picked off one by one, until there are only two of you left. Finding an abandoned cabin in the woods, you decide to make camp there until you figure out your next move. As the seasons change, the nights get longer and longer…”

‘Fear of God’ by @netherfieldren ☁️🌙 🌕 “Big bad Joel Miller falls in love and doesn't know how to deal with it.”

‘So Much To Lose’ ☁️🌙 🌕 by @auteurdelabre “Newly settled into Jackson City, you’re assigned to patrol duty with Joel Miller; a man of rough edges and cool appraisals. His story is buried deep beneath scars of loss while you hide your own grief behind flour-dusted hands and the desperate hope of belonging. What begins as forced proximity slowly shifts into something fragile and all-consuming. But as the past creeps forward through old wounds and the ever-present threat of raiders, your feelings for one another become both a sanctuary and a liability. In a world already broken, where there is already so much to lose, can you let yourself love Joel Miller?”

‘One Thing I’m Missing’ by @pedropeach ☁️ 🌕 “You don't, under absolutely any circumstances, talk about it. Or… You and Joel accidentally end up falling asleep together, and what follows is the beginning of a quiet and tender relationship neither of you saw coming.”

‘Texas Sun’ ☁️🌙 🌕 by fromtheclouds on Ao3 “Joel doesn’t know how to describe what you were to him. You’d never made any promises to each other, but you loved his daughter like she was your own. Had he known what would happen, he wouldn't have let you go.”

‘Lavender’ ☁️🌙 🌕 by @justagalwhowrites “You're a college student in Austin, Texas, who gets a summer job nannying Sarah Miller. It's not long before her dad sees you as more than a babysitter - or more than a friend. But life - and an apocalypse - have other plans.”

‘Yearling’ ☁️🌙 🌕 by @justagalwhowrites “After years of surviving in the wilds of Wyoming after the cordyceps outbreak, you find yourself in Jackson. It's a town filled with friendly faces and the kind of world you hardly remember, let alone can connect with or understand. But one man - Joel Miller, another loner, like you - makes you think that trying to find your place in society again might be worth it.”

Narcos

Javier Peña

‘Siempre’ by @kiwisbell ☁️🌙🌕 “She’s a waitress in a little café. He’s a DEA agent who likes the coffee. Just the coffee. That’s all.”

‘It’s Never Too Late’ by @javierpena-inatacvest ☁️🌙 🌕 ⭐️ “You are an elementary school teacher who just moved to Texas for a fresh start when you meet a very handsome man from the Laredo Sheriff's Department coming to give your class a presentation. After your co-workers pull some strings for you to meet again, you and Javier Peña find yourselves falling head over heels for each other.”

‘The Third Wheel’ by songsformonkeys on ao3 ☁️🌙🌕"You had often wondered how you ended up here, the third wheel in the well-oiled, grumpy and semi-alcoholic DEA duo consisting of Steve Murphy and Javier Peña... Actually, that was a lie. You hadn't wondered at all. You knew exactly how you'd ended up here. The two male agents had never been particularly good with following orders, which had been a thorn in ambassador Noonan's side since day one. And as everyone who knew the old saying “if you can't beat 'em, join 'em” could tell you, you were the intended solution to that particular problem. And boy had you let everyone down.

‘Hermosa’ by keala on ao3 🌙🌕 “You shouldn't have gotten so drunk at that Christmas party. You shouldn't have worn that tight, little dress. You shouldn't have offered to take a certain drunk DEA agent home. You also shouldn't have answered that phone.”

Star Wars

Din Djarin

‘Rough Day’ by guardianangelcas on ao3 ☁️🌙 🌕 ⭐️ “Who knew that agreeing to babysit a bounty hunter’s weird, green little child would be so full of surprises.”

‘Beskar Doll’ by @justagalwhowrites ☁️🌙 🌕 “You have a knack for finding trouble, be it in the midst of Galactic Civil War or when trying to live the quiet life after getting out of the game. So when you're stuck fleeing your new home planet after pissing off the wrong people - again - there's only one person willing to take you: the Mandalorian. But after years of fighting faceless men, you're not the trusting type toward someone always wearing a helmet and the Mandalorian quickly suspects there's more to you than he knows.”

‘What Kind of Man’ by so_much_for_stardust on ao3 ☁️🌙 🌕 ⭐️ “The first time she caught sight of that silver armor, she just knew that the man would be trouble. She's just a girl who works in a bar, and he's just a guy who needs a job. They weren't looking for anything. It's funny how the galaxy sometimes gives you something you didn't know you needed at the time when you most needed it. They both just needed to scratch an itch. They weren't going to get into a relationship... they weren't...”

‘Something More’ by @amiedala ☁️🌙 🌕 “Meeting the Mandalorian was like colliding into the rest of your life at a moment’s notice.”

‘Elusive Quarry’ by @ninaloveshiddles ☁️🌙 🌕 “‘And what makes her so elusive?’ his tone bored, pushing Karga to get to the point. ‘I guess you’ll just have to find out for yourself, won’t you?’ Mando takes a job hunting down the reader, but bringing her in may be more of a challenge than he realized.”

‘The Space Between (your heart & mine)’☁️🌙 🌕 by dirty_holy_things on ao3 “The galaxy had dealt you a rough hand of sabacc in this life. A family who couldn’t comprehend or understand your connection to the Force; a wolf in sheep’s clothing, who used and abused you for your talents; and you had come to understand that the galaxy cared very little for its inhabitants. But an unexpected visit from a Mandalorian offered you the chance to leave it all behind, to reclaim your place as the author of your story.”

‘The Stowaway’ by ThroneoftheThorn on ao3 ☁️🌙 🌕 “You hadn't planned on fleeing for your life, jumping planet, and stowing away on a random vessel. Nor had you planned on being employed by a Mandalorian wanted by the empire for kidnapping a random baby, having an imperial bounty on your head, and tagging along on dangerous bounty hunter missions. Least of all, you REALLY hadn't planned on somehow integrating yourself into the tiny clan of two you found yourself in. The force moves in mysterious ways, you suppose.”

Poe Dameron

‘The Bet’ by guardianangelcas on ao3 ☁️🌙 🌕 “1. No sex. 2. No touching yourself. 3. No orgasms.”

Kylo Ren/Ben Solo

‘Velvet Nights’ by orphan_account on ao3 🌙🌕 “In which you and the Commander Kylo Ren navigate through shared unspoken tensions while recovering information from the wreckage of a First Order TIE fighter.”

’Reconditioned’ by Lionhearted_DragonEmpress on ao3 (deleted fic but it was 500k of the best writing that is forever ingrained in my mind and always deserves to be mentioned)

Superman

Clark Kent

’The Gravity Between Us’ by th3honored1 on ao3 ☁️🌙🌕⭐️ “You grew up beside Clark Kent, the quiet boy with kind, blue eyes and a secret heartbeat. From scraped knees to stolen glances, Smallville held your shared history— but time has a way of turning best friends into strangers. Now you’re a nurse in Metropolis, and he’s the city’s beacon of hope. Maybe you were meant to fall apart. Maybe you'll find your way back.”

‘Take Me Back to Smallville’ by fitbby14 on ao3 ☁️🌙🌕 “You've returned to your hometown of Smallville, here to finally get your life on track and figure out where it is you belong. But your childhood friend, Clark Kent is back too and that...complicates things.”

The Pitt

Dr. Jack Abbot

‘Diagnosis : Married?’ by @s-writing-s ☁️🌙⭐️ “One glitchy tablet, one HR email, and suddenly you’re married to your attending, Jack Abbot. HR thinks it was intentional and has already started merging your records. Claim it was a mistake, and your residency could be delayed. With only three months left until you’re an attending, Jack agrees to play along. Pretending to be married might save your career- but can your heart survive the side effects?”

‘Transatlantacism’ by @se7entyrell ☁️🌙 “Jack Abbot has had a terrible eighteen months. Truly one for the books. Losing his mother, and then you, sometimes he wonders what the point is. If things will ever look up. Until you turn up at the Pitt, with a little girl who looks exactly like him.”

Dr. Michael Robinavitch

‘All For Something’ by @theetherealbloom ☁️🌙 “It’s your birthday, but the Pitt doesn’t slow down for that. Between subway accidents, drownings, shootings, and the quiet heartbreak of patients who come back again and again, you do your best to keep your hands steady and your head clear. Somewhere in the blur of alarms and blood, you realize you’re holding onto something you shouldn’t- feelings for your quietly grieving chief attending. At the Pitt, you don’t just learn how to save lives. You learn how hard it is to ignore your own heart.”

‘My Heart Is On The Floor For You’ by @domesticblisss ☁️🌙 “She never thought she would beat Robby’s seven week itch, but almost a year later, she finds herself in a label-less relationship with him. They are happy, but several little things pile up, and when the arrival of her ex, John Carter, gets added to the mix, the recipe for chaos is served.”

Dr. Brendon Park

‘Vegas Baby’ by @lpmurphy ☁️🌙“A week-long medical conference in Vegas was exactly what you needed- a break from the Pennsylvania winter, a chance to network ass your fellowship wound down, maybe even an excuse to have a little fun. What you absolutely didn’t need was to spend that entire week with Brendon fucking Park; your arrogant, insufferable, asshole of a boss- much less in the same hotel room.”

Animal Kingdom

Andrew ‘Pope’ Cody

‘Redamancy’ by @softundermoonlight ☁️🌙🌕⭐️ “Andrew has survived his whole life by wanting nothing. Until Craig introduces one of his friends, and suddenly, Andrew wants everything and more.”

‘Three Years’ by @fru1t4fr0gs ☁️🌙🌕 “You and Pope have loved each other since you were teenagers. And then he went to prison, and cut you off. No apology, no explanation, nothing. Just a sledgehammer to your heart and utter radio silence.”

‘Before We Knew Better’ by @longlostx11 ☁️🌙🌕 “When Andrew ‘Pope’ Cody was taken into care Smurf pulled some strings and got him put in a place close to Oceanside. That place was with you and your parents. Something Smurf would later regret when she realized that the bond you and Andrew forged in the month he was there was never going away. The years went by and the older boy became your best friend. Your protector. Your person. Fast forward and when Andrew gets out of prison he finds out Smurf’s hatred for you has gone to a whole other level.”

‘Pope’s Girl’ by @evancelinewrites ☁️🌙🌕 “What starts as a mutually beneficial arrangement between you and Pope Cody slowly becomes something far more complicated once the lines between lust, comfort and attachment begin to blur. But the deeper you get pulled into the Cody family, the more you realize people like Pope were never really meant to belong to themselves.”

‘Love You Anyway’ by @rynwrites4fun ☁️🌙 “You’re best friends with Deran Cody, a surfer with big dreams. When he brings you to a party, you meet his brothers but don’t know about their criminal lifestyle. Andrew ‘Pope’ Cody soon realizes you don’t belong in their dangerous world.”

You frowned a little, considering. Joel took the moment to memorize the light creasing of your forehead, the small line that formed between your sculpted brows. 

“Don’t think I have,” you said. “Should I?” 

He chuckled. 

“It would explain a lot. She helped straighten his ass out. She’s an attorney - on retainer for his company now - and he knew from the minute he met her that he was punching pretty damn far above his weight. That and having to look out for me…” 

His voice trailed off and you offered him a small, sad smile. For the first time, he didn’t need to say anything else. You knew now. 

Joel hadn’t anticipated the relief that came with telling you everything. He hadn’t even known that he’d wanted to until it was all spilling out of him, desperate to make you understand and not seeing a way to make you get it without telling you everything. 

I was a father.

It wasn’t until the words were out of his mouth that he realized the desperation was just an excuse, the last push he needed. He wanted you to know him, all of him, and that was impossible without knowing Sarah, too. 

He spoke about her rarely because it hurt too much. It was like picking at a cut that was trying to scab over but never really seemed to, the wound pulling and bleeding and not making anything better. It hadn’t taken long, after she died, to figure out that keeping her safely tucked away in his memory was the best thing to do. But telling you felt right, a relief in a way. Like you were supposed to know her and know him, he was just correcting a wrong he’d let go on too long. 

That was hours ago now. The two of you hadn’t gone far since coming to the little guest house. You were beside him in the bed, your bodies bare and aligned, your face so close to his that your nose brushed his sometimes when you laughed. 

At first, you’d just watched each other. His thumb traced your cheek, fingers feeling the flutter of your pulse at your neck and your eyes searched his face over and over again, like you weren’t quite believing what you were seeing which made no goddamn sense to him at all. He was just him, just a man, and you were you. You were more human and mortal to him now than you’d ever been before but you were still extraordinary in so many ways. Fuck if he knew why you’d be looking at him like he was some kind of miracle when you were the only miraculous part of this. 

He wasn’t entirely sure how the two of you started talking but once you did, he couldn’t seem to stop and neither could you. He told you things he’d never told anybody else, how he knew what it was like to just want your parent to love you only to feel like nothing you did could be enough, how it seemed like everything he did in his life was just short of what was needed of him, how he wasn’t sure what his daughter would think of him now, if she could see what he became without her there to guide him. 

“I think she’d understand,” you said softly, your fingers trailing a slow path through his hair. “I didn’t know her but if she was anything like you described, I think she’d understand. She’d understand and she’d love you.” 

He kissed you gently. 

“I hope you’re right.” 

You told him about Anna, about Elise, about how you didn’t even realize what you were missing from your own mother until you saw what they had up close. 

“It’s probably pathetic,” you said, playing with the tips of his fingers, watching the abstract patterns you were making with him instead of looking at his face but he was watching yours, the small frown on your lips and that little crease between your brows. “But I clung to them so hard once I pieced it together. That’s probably why Elise brought me around so much, I just kept hanging on to them both. I tried to get my mom to be like that with me and when I couldn’t I just…” 

“Not pathetic,” he said gently when your voice trailed off. Your eyes met his then, soft and open. “You deserved to have someone lookin’ out for you that way. You just knew what you needed, that’s all.” 

“Sometimes I think there’s something wrong with me,” you whispered, like a secret, and Joel supposed that it was. That, like what he’d said to you, you’d never said this to anyone else, either. “Like there’s something rotten inside me that I can’t see but everyone else can, once they get close enough. Like they know I’ll poison everything I touch if they don’t cut me out and I’m scared it’ll get Ellie, too. That just by being close to her and making her need me, she’ll get hurt.”

He took your face in his hand, making your gaze meet his. 

“Not a damn thing wrong with you,” he said. “Plenty wrong with the world and the people in it but none of it’s got a thing to do with you. Ellie needs you. She’s lucky to have you. Anyone who gets to have you is lucky.” 

You dozed off in his arms more than once through the night, eyes drifting closed and body relaxing. He didn’t try to stop you even though he couldn’t sleep himself. His mind was moving too quickly, trying to absorb as much as he could - the way your lashes fanned over your cheeks when your eyes were closed, the steady pattern of your sleeping breaths, the softness of your limbs that reached for him in dreams and the way your lips curved up ever so slightly when you found him there beside you - and trying to figure out what to do next. 

This could not be a repeat of what happened before. He would not lose you like that again, and it’s not like he could separate himself from you now if he tried. But he was still your bodyguard, still responsible for your safety and the safety of your niece. He couldn’t trust anyone else to look out for you and her the way he did. 

He was treading on new, dangerous ground. He’d never cared about anything the way he cared about you, never felt like this for a woman. Even before he’d lost Sarah he’d never felt like this but to have it now - so much vitality and fire and life in every inch of him now that his guard was down - after feeling nothing at all for so long was overwhelming. He couldn’t let you get hurt, let alone anything worse, but he wasn’t sure how to protect you like this, either. There was a reason this sort of thing wasn’t just frowned upon, it was down right forbidden. 

The sun started to break on the horizon, orange and red streams of light cracking over the mountains. Joel watched the dawn, cupping your head gently in his palm. He was strangely aware of himself, how his movements might effect you, how easily he could fuck up and hurt you. His thumb delicately stroked your temple and you smiled ever so slightly. 

“You’re warm,” you said quietly, eyes still closed. 

He laughed a little. 

“If you say so.” 

“I do,” you smiled a little wider. “What time is it?” 

“Not sure,” he said, his thumb keeping that path over your skin. “But should get back before we have to explain ourselves to that niece of yours. Love the kid but she’s too smart for her own good.” 

You opened your eyes then, meeting his so fast it almost surprised him, that anyone would be so aware of him and where he was. 

“You love her?” You asked, a hopeful lilt to your voice. 

Joel’s heart stuttered. He hadn’t meant to say it but that’s what it was, what it had been for a while, and it scared the shit out of him. 

But he was in it now, why pretend like it was anything but what it was? 

“Yeah,” he said. “Not sure she gave me much choice in the matter, but yeah, I do.” 

You laughed. 

“Yeah, she does that,” you said. “Had me wrapped around her finger since the day she was born. Before, that, really.” 

He smiled. 

“Can only imagine. But we should get back, she’s… observant.” 

“She is,” you agreed. “But she’s also a teenager who sleeps late.” 

You bit your lip, watching him closely. 

“Yeah,” he said, taking his thumb and gently tugging your plush flesh free of your teeth. “She does.” 

He kissed you then, soft and slow. It was almost oddly intimate, kissing you like this, the taste of sleep on your tongue and the delicate feeling of your skin after your body had been relaxed alongside his for so long. 

Joel would have been satisfied with that, just that, but you deepened the kiss, pressing yourself against him. He loved it at first, the feeling of you against him, the warmth of you. But something had shifted. He couldn’t even put his finger on what it was, exactly, but he felt it. It reminded him of when you were about to go perform or when you were doing an interview, a change in how you held yourself, like you weren’t really you anymore. 

He pulled back from you enough to look at you and you frowned, almost pouting. 

“Hey,” he said, taking your chin in his fingers so you couldn’t so easily look away from him. “You don’t gotta do that.” 

Your frown deepened. 

“Do what?” 

“That… thing you do,” he said, wishing he was better with words. “The thing where you’re not really you, you’re just acting like you think people want you to act. You don’t need to do that, not with me, and you really don’t need to do that when we’re like this.” 

You just blinked at him for a moment, watching him. 

“You noticed that?” You asked quietly. 

He nodded once. 

“If this ain’t what you want…” 

“It is,” you said quickly, your eyes searching his. 

“Then why are you doin’ this.” 

You looked at him for another long moment before taking a deep, shaky breath. 

“I just… I want to be what you want,” you said, tension in you that wasn’t there before. “I know it’s different, that I’m not like my characters or what I seem like out in the world. I’m kind of a let down in comparison, I know that, and I don’t…” 

“Hey,” he cut you off, holding your face a little firmer. “That’s not true.” 

You gave him a look, one that made him feel younger and dumber than he had in years, like he was harboring some naive view of the world that you’d known the truth of for so long. 

“Joel.” 

“I’m serious,” he said. “I’m not interested in some character you’ve been or some version of you that ain’t real. I want you and that’s the only way I want you. You gonna let me have you?” 

Your eyes searched his for a moment, like you thought he was going to change his mind somehow. Eventually, you nodded, and stretched to kiss him. 

It took some time, Joel just cradling your face, a hand on the small of your back just to touch you and not to push you. He felt you relax, like you were coming back into yourself. This time, when he kissed you deeper, you moved against him in a way that felt like you. 

Joel slipped a hand down over the curve of your ass, your thigh, to the hinge of your knee. He hitched your leg up and over his hip before tugging you closer to him, his cock - already aching and hard - pressed against the wet heat of your pussy. You groaned into his mouth, wanton and needy, and he rocked his hips against you, coating himself in your arousal. Your breaths grew more ragged and his heart was pounding as he notched himself at your entrance and pressed slowly, firmly into you. 

He had to give himself a moment to collect himself once he was inside you and he wondered - fleetingly - if he would ever get used to this. It was overwhelming, being this close to you, able to feel your heartbeat and your trembling breaths and your tight, wet heat. The rest of the world may as well not exist and everything that was worth a damn was somewhere inside of you, anyway. He just had to find a way to not lose himself to you too quickly, wanting to savor it and make it last instead of giving into the screaming drive to chase his orgasm because he knew just how fucking good it would feel to do it. 

So he made himself move slowly, surely, within you. He lingered where your breath hitched and held your gaze as he pressed his forehead to yours. Neither of you spoke but you didn’t need to, everything that needed to be said shared through your skin and eyes and breaths. 

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he felt you tightening around him, like you were trying to pull him impossibly deeper and hold him there, your ragged pants becoming stronger and needier with every long drag of his cock. He pressed in deep, his head finding the soft, sensitive place inside and you cried out softly as you pulsed and fluttered around him. He didn’t let up, your wide eyes locked on his as your orgasm brought on his own and he came hard inside you. 

Both of you went limp and he kissed you, gentle but sure, as he cradled you against him, trying to stay in this place with you as long as he could. 

Eventually, he disentangled himself from you, kissing you as he slipped out of you because he needed to be connected to you in some way for a second longer, and the two of you silently got dressed before heading back to the main house. The blanket from the night before was wrapped tightly around your shoulders and Joel wished he’d thought to throw on a damn jacket the night before, if only so he could give it to you. 

“So,” you said eventually, breaking the silence that had fallen between you. “Justice obviously knows what’s going on.” 

Joel laughed a little. 

“Yeah, he does.” 

“But… I don’t think we can tell anyone else,” you said, eyes darting to him for a moment before looking ahead of you again. “I need to keep up the relationship with Justice in public, the whole point of that is making things stable for Ellie and…” 

“I know,” Joel cut you off. “And that’s OK because I don’t think we can tell anyone else, either.” 

You stopped walking and turned to face him. 

“You don’t?” 

“Can’t tell anyone,” he shook his head, stopping too. “Not while I’m protecting you. This… it ain’t allowed. It’s risky, for you and for me. I should tell Tommy, tell him to assign someone else but…” 

“I don’t want you protecting me,” you said and he frowned but you didn’t give him a chance to say anything. “I don’t like the idea of anyone getting hurt to protect me but I really don’t want you to, if something happens to you because of me…” 

“I should tell Tommy but I’m not going to,” he said, reaching out and taking your shoulders in his hands. “I can’t trust someone else to look out for you the way I do. Can’t let you get hurt because they hesitate. I know what I’d do to protect you, can’t trust them to do the same.” 

Your jaw quirked, like you were biting your tongue. 

“It’ll be OK. Haven’t died on an assignment yet,” he said after a moment, giving you a wry smile, and you scoffed. He didn’t bother to mention all the times he’d wished he had died or how now, for the first time since he lost his daughter, he was glad he hadn’t. “Need you to trust me, baby. I know we’re just figurin’ this out but I need you to let me take care of it. I know what I’m doing.” 

You sighed and looked toward the house for a moment, the haze of dawn still on the air and the golden light made it seem like you were glowing. When you looked back toward him, you had the smallest smile on your face, a glint in your eye that he hadn’t seen in what felt like forever. 

“Well as long as the great Big Miller knows what he’s doing…” 

“Jesus,” he shook his head, trying not to smile. 

You started back toward the house again. 

“Gonna have to keep giving you shit,” you said as he followed behind you. “Only way to make sure no one gets suspicious.” 

He scoffed. 

“Yeah, sure, that’s why you’re gonna do it…” 

“Seems like the safest thing.” 

“Uh huh. You’re just gonna find new ways to make me lose my damn mind, ain’t you?” 

You smiled, a little proudly. 

“Probably. Why, got a problem with that?” 

He just shook his head, giving in to his urge to smile. He wouldn’t have you any other way. 

***

“Mornin’.” 

Justice was sitting at a bar stool at the kitchen island when you came in, drinking a steaming mug of coffee with a shit eating grin on his face. 

Joel cleared his throat awkwardly. 

“Morning,” he said, his eyes darting from Justice to you and back again. 

Justice clicked tongue and gave his head a small shake before nodding to the coffee maker. 

“Help yourself to some caffeine, something tells me you two need it.” 

Joel’s jaw tightened for a moment before he went to get a mug and you went to lean against the counter beside your friend. 

“Proud of yourself?” You asked brows raised. 

“Dunno,” he smirked. “You have a good time?” 

“Sure seemed like she did,” Joel said before setting a mug of coffee in front of you. Justice barked a laugh and you looked aghast between them. 

“So he does have a sense of humor,” Justice said, shaking his head. “Good to know.” 

He polished off his coffee before setting his now empty mug on the counter and getting down to business. 

“Ain’t seen Ellie yet today but sure she’ll be up before too long. Already asked my ranch hands to get some horses ready for us in a few hours. Figure we could go for a trail ride after breakfast. Animals are good at helping people through their shit, thought it’d do us all some good.” 

You nodded slowly, the reminder of why you’d come here in the first place settling heavy inside you. It had been easy, in the cocoon of the guest house in Joel’s arms, to pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist. You’d forgotten, for a while, that the only real mother you’d ever known was gone, that the person who mattered more to you than anything else was coping with a kind of pain and loneliness you were deeply familiar with and that made you ache for her all the more. You weren’t entirely sure what was happening with Joel, what was even possible with Joel, but you couldn’t let that distract you from what was important. You took a sip of coffee and only then realized that Joel had added the perfect amount of sweetener to it. You looked toward him but he didn’t seem to notice, focused on Justice, and you wondered just what parts of you he’d noticed over the past year. 

“I think that’s a good plan,” you said. “Ellie’s always loved animals, getting on a horse will help. I think just being out here, away from everything else, will help.” 

“That is the idea,” Justice smiled a little sadly and took your hand, giving it a squeeze. “A reset is good, for you and for her.” 

When he finished his coffee, Joel excused himself to get cleaned up for the day and he paused before he did, looking at you like he wasn’t entirely sure what to do before heading to his corner of the house. You watched him go until he was out of sight and instead focused on your remaining coffee, turning the mug slowly in your hands and watching the black of it ripple. 

“So,” Justice said conspiratorially after the two of you had been quietly alone for a minute. “Is Big Miller actually Big Miller or…” 

“Oh my God!” You shoved him lightly. 

“What!” He laughed. “He’s got that… what the fuck are the kids sayin’ now? Big Dick Energy?” 

“You’re the worst,” you rolled your eyes and he laughed. 

“I just want to make sure you’re taken care of, that’s all,” he teased and you rolled your eyes, laughing a little, too. But he shifted then, an earnest look in his eyes. “Being serious, though… You two talk? Figure some shit out?” 

You took a deep breath, nodding slowly.

“We talked. We haven’t figured out everything but we understand each other a lot better now.”  

“S’good,” Justice nodded slowly. “Mind if I ask when all this started?” 

“A while ago,” you said, looking back at your coffee cup again, cheeks getting hot. “It’s hard to exactly say… We didn’t seem to like each other much at first and I’m not sure when things really started to change… But I’m also not entirely sure they actually changed, not really. The first time I met him, he saved me, did I tell you that?” 

“No,” Justice said. “What happened?” 

“Someone must have seen me in the lobby of the hotel where Quinn was staying when she was meeting with Joel and Tommy, his brother who owns the security company,” you said. “Word got out, a bunch of people showed up and swarmed me. I thought I was going to be OK, it wasn’t anything that hasn’t happened before, but it got out of hand fast and some guy decided to feel me up… Anyway, Joel just jumped into the middle of it all. He wasn’t even working yet, he didn’t start until the next day, but he punched the asshole who decided to grope me and then got me out of there. He got my car from the valet, had them bring it around back, made sure no one followed me. I think we both resented the situation we were in - I didn’t want someone following me around, he didn’t want to be protecting some stupid actress for months on end - and we took it out on each other. But he was always taking care of me. I’m not sure what I did to deserve it but he was.” 

“You’re allowed to let people care about you, you know,” he said, watching you closely. “Know you got your own shit you’re dealin’ with but you’re a good person. You don’t gotta constantly be trying to prove that you’re worth giving a shit about, it’s OK to just let someone care.” 

You scoffed. 

“You sound like a therapist.” 

Justice laughed dryly. 

“Yeah, well, we could probably both use one of those, so.” 

You laughed, too. He was probably right. 

Justice made breakfast for everyone while you got dressed for the day - he’d always been good at cooking, something you’d always meant to ask him to teach you but never had - and Joel joined the two of you in the kitchen, neither of you really sure what to do or how to act around the other. 

It was merciful when Ellie eventually got up, shuffling into the kitchen in her pajamas like she’d been roused at the crack of dawn instead of rolling out of bed of her own accord at 11 a.m. Texas time. 

“Well aren’t you pretty!” You teased and Ellie gave you a grunt as she fell into a chair at the oversized table set into a bay window. She put her head down in her arms dramatically and you resisted the urge to laugh. 

“It’s bright outside,” she groaned and Justice chuckled. 

“Yeah, don’t gotta worry about sleeping in much on a ranch,” he said. “No blackout curtains here, kiddo. Hungry? Figure we’ll feed you and then take you out to meet some horses, sound good?” Her head shot up. 

“Horses?” 

“Horses,” Justice smiled before going and loading up a plate of pancakes and bacon for her. 

The motivation of riding horses had Ellie wolfing down breakfast and it wasn’t long before the four of you were walking toward the stables, picking your way through the tall grass with the mountains on the horizon and the sky wide and crystal blue overhead. 

You looked toward Joel, his tall, broad body looking at home working his way through the field and you were thankful that Ellie was ahead of you, walking alongside Justice as he told her about the mountains and the horses, so you could actually appreciate Joel for a moment. It’s not like you were unfamiliar with beautiful men. Hell, you’d fucked three of People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alives, you were surrounded by beautiful people all the time, but there was something about Joel that struck you. There was something honest about how he looked, rugged and real. It was oddly comforting, knowing that he wasn’t trying to sell himself in the way you and so many people you knew did. He caught you staring and you looked straight ahead again, fighting the urge to smile. 

The stables were busy when you got there, a few ranch hands grooming horses and mucking stalls, going about the daily work of running Justice’s ranch. 

“Mr. James,” one of the men gave him a nod and you could have sworn you saw a small smile pulling at his mouth. “Heard you wanted to go ridin’ this morning.” 

“Colten,” Justice nodded to him and smiled a little, too. “Got my best girls with me, figured we could all use a little equine therapy today.” 

“Well, why don’t we get your guests introduced to the horses,” he said. “Get ‘em saddled up. Think you can take it from there.” 

“Think I can,” Justice said, turning to Ellie. “Want to meet the one I picked for you?” 

“You picked a horse for me?” She asked, her brows rising so high they almost disappeared into her hair. 

“Sure did,” he smiled, jerking his head toward a stall. “Let’s see ‘er.” 

You followed him to a corner stall, a large, chestnut horse with a white blaze down its face watching you pensively. 

“This,” Justice said, leaning against the door to the stall. “Is Shimmer.” 

“Hi Shimmer,” Ellie said, her voice reverent, reaching for the horse. 

“Let ‘er get a whiff of you first,” Justice said. “So she’s nice and comfortable.” 

Ellie obeyed, holding her hand out toward the horse, who considered her for a moment before pressing her nose into her palm. Ellie beamed and Justice smiled. 

“Rescued her from a nasty breeding operation not long after I bought this place,” he said. “he was just a yearling back then but the first time I saw ‘er I knew she’d be your horse.” 

“My horse?” Ellie asked, gaping at him. “Like… she’s mine my horse?” 

Justice shrugged. 

“If you want ‘er,” he said. “Figure she can live here. Colten here takes real good care of her when I’m not around and we bring some kids out from the city once a month so they can experience nature and spend time with animals, she’s real good with ‘em. Given all that, wouldn’t be good to just send her to Texas with you but you can come see ‘er whenever you want, as long as your aunt says it’s OK.” 

Justice gave you a little wink as Ellie turned her attention back to Shimmer, giving her gentle strokes. 

“We’re going to be best friends,” she whispered to her. “Promise.” 

Justice pointed out the horses he’d selected for you and Joel to ride that day and asked Colten to help saddle them up while he showed Ellie the ropes of getting a horse ready to go riding. It wasn’t long before you were out in the open pasture, your heart racing a little at the idea of getting on something this big. 

It was almost strange, being nervous about something like this. For so long, you’d done reckless things just because you could. You’d gotten a reputation for doing your own stunts and it had started because it seemed like a win/win. If everything went right - which it usually did - you’d at least feel something for a moment. Even a simulated near death experience gave you that much. If something went wrong, there was a chance it would kill you. You didn’t dwell too much on the appeal of that because you knew that it wasn’t great to feel that way. If you spent too much time thinking about it you’d have to do something about it. Instead, you learned how to stunt drive cars and got thrown around sets because that tantalizing possibility was there and it required no examination. 

Things had changed when Ellie came along. The smoking stopped, the drugs, too. You still did stunts but there were nerves there that hadn’t been there when you’d started doing them. It changed more when Anna got sick and the fact that she wasn’t going to make it was obvious. Then, you knew you couldn’t risk it because you had to take care of Ellie. Life had purpose and that purpose was her. 

This was different, too, and you hadn’t expected it. 

For the first time that you could remember, you wanted to live for yourself. 

Justice helped Ellie up onto Shimmer and you stood there, looking at the mare that had been saddled up for you. 

“Need help there, Siren?” Joel said, a hint of a teasing edge to his voice. 

“No,” you resisted the urge to smile. “But if you’re offering…” 

“Well, can’t have you fallin’ and breaking your neck on my watch,” he said. 

He helped guide your foot into the stirrup and boost you into the saddle, his hand on your ass and you had to adjust yourself in your saddle to ease the ache in you once you were seated. 

“You ridden before?” he asked. 

“Nope,” you said, looking down at him from your perch high on the back of the horse. “But how hard can it be?” 

You looked to Justice, who was showing Ellie the basics. 

“Well don’t go tryin’ to do anything crazy,” Joel said, his hand going to your ankle. The callus of his fingertips trailed gently over your skin. “Keep your heel low in the stirrup. Squeeze your legs together to get ‘er to go forward and nudge her the direction you want her to go with your legs and by leaning your weight.” 

“Oh, so you’re an expert?” You asked, brows raised. 

“I’ve been on a damn horse,” he said before giving your thigh a pat. “Try not to give me a heart attack, alright?” 

“Now where’s the fun in that?” You called after him as he went to his own horse. “And who’s going to help you get on your horse, hm?” 

He didn’t respond. He just lifted his leg, put his foot squarely in the stirrup and pulled himself up smoothly into the saddle as you gaped at him. He guided the horse to yours, shit eating grin on his face. 

“Who said I needed help?” 

You glared at him. 

“Shut up.” 

He laughed and you got the hang of guiding your horse - who Justice said was named Justified - eventually letting her trot around the field, Ellie riding alongside once she got the hang of Shimmer. She beamed, looking prouder than you’d ever seen her as she guided the horse around. 

“Alright ladies,” Justice called eventually, grinning from the back of his own horse. “Wanna hit the trails?” 

“Hell yeah!” Ellie said, nudging Shimmer toward Justice and you smiled at him, feeling like she might actually be OK. 

*** 

Joel felt almost light headed. 

It was like the last five years of his life had been spent in a dark room and he was seeing the light for the first time. It was overwhelming, everything bright and intense and there was too much to focus on. 

He wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt like this before. Knowingly caring about someone couldn’t have always been like this, a knot of anxiety lodged deep in his chest right along side this almost perverse little bubble of warmth that was there because you and Ellie were smiling. 

Justice was leading the way down the trail, the sound of birds and the rustling of leaves everywhere, and it was easy to see how much you and Ellie needed this. You kept reaching your hand out to run your fingers over the leaves on trees as you passed, turning your face toward the canopy-hidden sun and closing your eyes and breathing deep, green light dappling over your skin and making you glow. Ellie kept asking Justice questions - about the horse, the ranch, the plants Shimmer pulled leaves off of and chewed like gum as she walked. 

It reminded him a little of when he’d first come to guard you, back before the threats weren’t concrete, when Ellie hadn’t found reasons to be pissed off and Elise was still alive and well. He hadn’t realized that he’d missed this version of you the last few months or how much he felt like he needed to protect you like this. Not just from would-be kidnappers or rabid fans but from anything that might hurt you, even some small wound because he knew you’d had too much of that in your life. He had to protect you from all of it. Even him. 

“Hey Joel!” Ellie called, twisting in her saddle to look around you and back at him. “What do you call a guy who buys a horse and has money left in the bank?”

You looked back toward him, too, lower lip between your teeth as you held back a grin. 

He sighed in contemplation. 

“Dunno, Trouble, what do you call ‘em?” 

She grinned, victorious. 

“Financially stable.” 

You laughed so hard you threw your head back, whole body shaking, and Joel groaned if only to make Ellie smile wider. 

“That’s terrible,” he said. “Worst one yet.”

“No it’s not!” She laughed. 

“It’s pretty bad,” Justice called back. “I’m with Big Miller on this one.” 

“Ignore them,” you said, still laughing. “They’re just boring.” 

“Thank you,” Ellie said, looking between Joel and Justice. “I knew Sissy was the cool one.” 

You looked back to Joel, proud little smile on your face, before facing forward again. 

After a while, the trail widened and forked in two directions, Justice pulling his horse to a stop, you, Ellie and Joel pulling up alongside him. 

“Alright,” Justice said. “Which way are we going, girls? Left is easier, path’s clearer, but right’s got the better pay off at the end.” 

“What do you think, kiddo?” You asked, looking to Ellie. 

She considered for a second, chewing the inside of her cheek. 

“Hard way’s worth it?” She asked, looking to Justice. 

He shrugged. 

“I sure think so.” 

She nodded, looking ahead again. 

“Hard way it is.” 

Justice took the lead, followed by Ellie with you behind her and Joel in back. Things were smooth at first, like they had been on the earlier parts of the trail, but things got trickier. The brush was thicker, trees had fallen, rocky areas that required more trust in your mounts that made Joel even more nervous than he already was. 

The four of you had been working your way through the more challenging path for what felt like a while when, suddenly, Ellie’s horse spooked. 

She started almost dancing on the trail, hooves stomping into the dirt, head tossing. Ellie lost control of the reins, yelping as she grabbed onto the saddle horn. 

“Ellie!” he yelled, pushing his horse faster, trying to force him up the path but you were closer to her, reaching for the reins and dropping your own in the process. 

It didn’t help. Your horse reared back and time slowed. Joel could see you trying to think, in a fraction of a second, what to do but you never had a chance. You were off balance from reaching for Ellie’s horse and you didn’t have a hand on your own reins or saddle when your horse panicked. You held on to the reins of Ellie’s horse until you couldn’t anymore and then you were falling, hitting the ground with a sickening thud. 

Joel jumped off his horse before he had a chance to really think about it, stumbling through the brush to get to you. His heart beat so fast that he could hear the blood in his ears and he fell to his knees beside you, looking you up and down, searching for some sign of injury but he didn’t see one. 

“Ow,” you said, flat on your back, staring up at the trees with wide eyes. He reached out slowly, delicately cupping your cheek and your eyes met his. His other hand found the base of your ribs, where he could feel your body move with your breaths and his thudding heart slowed. 

“Sissy!” Ellie yelled and Joel suddenly remembered that you weren’t alone. He looked to find Justice off his horse, the reins of yours and Ellie’s mounts in his hands and the animals’ feet on the ground as they anxiously tossed their heads. Ellie scrambled off Shimmer, almost falling as she slipped off the horse before running for you. She skidded to a stop, sending dirt and leaves flying, before dropping to her knees on the other side of you, panting for breath. “Are you OK?” 

“I’m fine,” you laughed a little before reaching up to stroke her hair. “Are you OK?” 

“Yeah,” she said, relaxing then and sitting on the ground next to you. “You scared the shit out of me!” 

“That goes both ways!” You said, going to sit up, but Joel held you in place. Your eyes darted to him for a second, giving him a quick frown before looking back to Ellie. “What happened? Did you get thrown?” 

“No clue but no, Justice calmed Shimmer down before things got too crazy,” she said. “Shit, that was nuts!” 

“Hey Ellie,” Justice called. “Need another set of hands, c’mere for a minute.” 

She rolled her eyes but obeyed and you watched her go before looking back to Joel. 

“Think you can let me up, cowboy?” You teased, brows raised. 

“You sure you’re OK?” he asked, looking you over again. “Did you hit your head?” 

You rolled your eyes in a way that was so like Ellie that Joel wondered if it was something that you’d picked up from her or if it was the other way around. 

“No, I’m fine,” you said. “Just going to have a nice bruise on my back tomorrow.” 

“Neck’s OK?” He asked, his hand slipping from your face down to your throat and then to the back of your neck, his fingers tracing the bones that seemed far too delicate to be doing a job that important. “Not gonna paralyze yourself if you move?” 

Your eyes softened and you smiled gently, reaching up to take his face in your hand. Your palm was soft and warm and he resisted the urge to press his lips to the place on your wrist where he knew he could feel your pulse. 

“Joel, I’m OK,” you said, thumb stroking his cheek. “It’s all going to be OK. I promise.” 

He nodded once, jaw clenched tight, and gently guided you to sitting upright. You adjusted yourself, tilting your head and rolling your shoulders back before picking dead leaves off your jacket. 

“Still feelin’ alright?” he asked, not able to bring himself to take his hands off your body yet. 

You looked at him for a moment, considering him. 

“I’m good. Really.” 

The two of you rejoined Ellie and Justice, the horses now calmed and eating apples out of Ellie’s hand. 

“What the hell happened?” Joel asked, trying to keep from sounding pissed off but he wasn’t sure how well that was really going. 

“This trail ain’t used as much,” Justice said, eyes on the horses. “More wildlife. Shimmer saw something, got spooked, scared Justified. We all OK?” 

“All good,” you said before Joel got a chance to speak.

“Maybe we should head back,” he said, looking you over one more time for good measure. 

“Aw, come on Big Miller!” Ellie said. “We’re so close to the end! Wait.” She looked to Justice. “We are close to the end, right?” 

He chuckled. 

“Only about another 10 minutes on horseback and then five on foot but yeah, we’re close.” 

“Joel,” you looked at him, barely hidden smile on your face. “Come on. We can’t let her down.” 

He sighed heavily, the tightness of fear in his chest warring with the fact that he knew he could give you something that would make you happy. 

“Fine,” he said after a moment. “We go the rest of the way. Assuming you don’t give me another damn heart attack.” 

Ellie squealed happily and Justice helped her back on her horse as Joel put you back on your own. 

“You sure you’re OK?” he asked, looking up at you once you were firmly seated in your saddle. You gave him a look. 

“Joel.” 

He sighed, just shaking his head and going to get on his own horse, hoping he wasn’t going to regret this. 

But the rest of the way up was easier, until the four of you came to a stop where the trail thinned and Joel could see brighter light beyond. 

“Alright,” Justice said, dismounting. “This trail is too narrow for the horses, gotta go ahead on foot. I’ll hang back, stay with the horses, you three go on ahead.” 

“You sure?” You frowned. 

He smiled a little and gave you a nod. 

“Go ahead, take your time,” Justice said. “Oh and there’s a pretty cool echo up there and next closest ranch is a few miles away so there’s no one around to hear. If… you know. You need to blow off some steam.”

Ellie led the way, picking her way through the brush with you close behind and Joel at your back. You kept looking over your shoulder to him, smiling gently when you did like you were happy to see that he was still there with you. 

“Woah,” Ellie said as the three of you broke through the tree line and he saw why. Justice was right, it really was beautiful. 

There were mountains and lakes and open land as far as he could see, the view full of nothing but things that were wild and free and ancient. 

He hung back as you and Ellie got closer to the edge, looking out over it all. Your arm went around her waist and Ellie’s head went to your shoulder. You rested your own head on hers and the two of you stood silent for a while. 

“Do you think Justice was right about the echo thing?” Ellie said after a few minutes. 

You smiled. 

“Only one way to know for sure.” 

Ellie pulled away from you, stepping one foot closer to the edge of the outlook and cupping her hands around her mouth before yelling. 

“Hello!” 

It echoed back to her and she laughed, waiting for the echo to die down. 

“Is anybody out there?” She yelled again and stayed silent as it all echoed back to her. 

No one responded and she let the quiet hang in the air for a moment and something shifted in that moment. Joel couldn’t put his finger on how he knew, he could just feel it, some desperate longing that was so thick he could practically taste it. 

She crept closer to the edge, so close that Joel went to reach for her but you held a hand out to him, going alongside her instead but not pulling her back. 

“We’re all alone!” Ellie yelled out into the abyss and her own voice yelled back alone, alone, alone. Just as the echo died she yelled again. “Everyone else is gone!” 

Gone. Gone. Gone. 

It was all but silent for a moment and then she just screamed, harsh and hurt and broken. She kept screaming, her hand groping for yours and you took it, lacing your fingers with hers before screaming, too. It was a gutting sound, so viscerally full of pain that it hurt to hear. All Joel wanted to do was take care of both of you enough that you never felt like you needed to make a sound like that again. 

That aching sound trailed off with a broken sob and Ellie all but collapsed into you. You put your arms around her, tears in your eyes, just holding onto her as long as she needed you to and Joel looked out from the clifftop, something too intimate about the two of you together to keep watching you. 

Eventually, she pulled away from you, her face wet and cheeks red, and you tugged your sleeves down over your thumbs, drying her tears with your jacket. 

“Ready to get started, kiddo?” You asked, smiling gently at her. 

“Yeah,” she sniffled, wiping her nose on the back of her wrist. “I’m ready.” 

After dinner that night, Justice built a bonfire in the pit out back and the four of you roasted marshmallows, Ellie tucked against your side, her head on your shoulder as you stroked her hair and held her close. Justice told a ghost story with with so much flourish Joel had to fight to not laugh and Ellie dozed off with her head on your lap, fire still burning bright, your breath rising in front of you like fog. You just watched her for a bit, running your fingers through her hair in a soothing pattern. 

“Here,” Justice said quietly when Ellie had been good and out for a while. “I’ll get her inside. Joel, you seem like the capable type. Can I trust you to make sure nothing burns down and everything’s taken care of out here?” 

“I’ll handle it,” Joel said. 

“I’m trustin’ you,” he said, tone heavy and serious, and Joel knew he wasn’t talking about the fire.

He considered him for a moment. 

“I know.” 

Justice gave him a nod and then went and slowly, carefully, lifted an unconscious Ellie from your lap and carried her inside, leaving you and Joel facing each other, the flames between you casting you in a crackling orange glow. 

“Turns out you didn’t need to worry about bears out here, it was the horses that got me,” you teased lightly, smiling a little at him.

He chuckled a little. 

“Leave it to you to find trouble in the middle of nowhere,” he said.  

“Need to keep you on your toes,” you said, watching him through the flames. “Are you alright?” 

“Me?” he asked, brows raised. “I’m fine, I’m not the one who got thrown off a damn horse.” 

“No,” you agreed. “But you seemed… I don’t know.”

He nodded slowly, trying to figure out how to put words to it all. 

“You and… and her,” he said slowly. “You scare me. After… after everything, think somethin’ in me just decided it was better to not care about anything at all. It was safer that way. Meant what I said last night, that if something happened to you… Didn’t think I’d have to look that in the face so quick, especially not out here. I’m not used to giving a shit anymore. Not used to wanting to live anymore. Still figuring out how to deal with that.” 

You nodded slowly, watching him for a moment before you got up and moved around the fire to sit beside him.

“It’s not the same,” you said slowly, looking at the fire instead of at him. “But I used to think I wouldn’t be around long enough to see my 30s.” 

He stiffened beside you, heart pounding, but didn’t say anything. 

“I’m not sure I really wanted to die, exactly,” you said, frowning a little, like you were trying to find the words. “It was more that I just didn’t want to live. I did a lot of stupid, risky shit and figured that, at the very least, I’d join the 27 club.” 

“The 27 club?” Joel frowned. 

You smiled just a little, looking at him. 

“You know, troubled celebrities who died when they were 27? Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison?” You laughed darkly. “Just… add me to the list.” 

Joel fought to stay still and not give into this foreign, amorphous terror that gripped him. Back when he first started protecting you, he wouldn’t have thought it was possible for you to have felt like that. It had seemed like everything in the world had conspired to give you everything a person could ever need, how could that have left you so wanting? How could someone like you ever understand what it was like to really, truly lose something. 

Now, he knew better and that knowledge came with pain. What if you’d been right and you were just gone, back when you would have been a headline and his daughter crying on his shoulder? What if he’d never met you, known you? Would he even have had any idea of what was missing from his life or would he have just moved hollowly through the world with this empty piece he didn’t even know existed?

You looked back toward the fire, your fingers gripping the rock you were sitting on. 

“I remember what it was like when Ellie changed that. I wanted to be around for her, to see her grow up and have a life, to be the cool aunt who she could actually depend on, not a bad influence who was just a story after she was gone. She changed everything for me.” 

You looked to Joel again, eyes searching his. 

“It’s different,” you said. “But… I get it. Or, I think I do, anyway.” 

Your hand covered his, grit from the stone embedded in your palm harsh in the contrast to the softness of your skin. 

“This doesn’t need to be anything you’re not ready for,” you said quietly. “We have time. We can figure it out but… I’d like to figure it out.” 

He twisted and took your face gently in his hand, tilting your head so he could kiss you, the peppery bite of red wine and the syrupy sweetness of the marshmallow mixing on your tongue. He pulled back enough to look in your eyes but stayed close, pressing his forehead to yours like it could somehow keep any version of you from meeting that imagined fate. Like as long as you were close, you’d be OK.

“I’d like that, too.” 

A/N: WOW this took a million, billion years. If you're still here, thank you. Work has been swallowing my creative energy whole the last two months and I'm taking a math class this semester of grad school so that's got me stressed tf out all the damn time.

That being said, it's not the AO3 author's curse (...yet) so I'll take what I can get.

I hope this was worth the wait! Thank you for spending your time here with these characters! It's interesting to explore them as they figure out this part of their relationship and are becoming more in tune with each other instead of the clashing that's been happening for the past *checks notes* 20 goddamn chapters or so.

Love you!!

Joel

There were two bedrooms.

For a lonely cabin in the woods, it wasn’t half bad. It wasn’t Jackson, that cozy community with its electricity and neighborly kindred spirit, but it was something. It was home. The walls smelled of pine sap and old smoke from the wood stove in the corner, and the floors creaked in a way that reminded Joel of winters where sound traveled differently. It always seemed quieter, slower, full of memories of a time before.

They'd been given the resources they'd needed and still traded regularly with the town, only being a couple miles away since people knew they were useful despite what had happened. Hunting, fishing, hauling. Useful was something a man could still be, even after everything else had been stripped away.

Jackson wouldn't have them back, not after the taboo they'd committed. And of course everyone knew right away. Besides the way word traveled at the speed of light in such a small community, it was also a curse of their kind. Others were able to smell that something had changed, it clung to every breath, to the skin, to clothes. It stuck in the fibers of their very being.

Even out here, miles from the gates, Joel could still feel the weight of that knowing on his back, like the eyes of god that never stopped watching.

Claiming one omega between two alphas wasn't only frowned upon…it was downright blasphemous.

But Joel had made his choice, and so had his brother. They were exiled for it and ended up here, in this small cabin in the woods, where one bed lay bare with only a sheet and a quilted blanket, no pillows or fuss until it was time. When you would shape it into what you needed—a little nest, your safest space.

The other bedroom was for sleeping, though Joel hadn't always welcomed the idea of sharing a bed with his brother while you slept between their two warm bodies. But when they'd tried separating in the beginning, giving you choice of which brother's bed you wanted, it had turned ugly fast. Possessive. Two grown men with their hackles high as you'd make your choice of one bedroom or the other.

So this was the way. One bed for sleeping, one for mating. A truce.

He was making the bed now, the one for mating, knowing any day now you might start your heat and be needing a clean, safe place. The linens were fresh from where they'd hung overnight to dry, cold beneath his touch as he tucked the corners, fabric stiff and flat. His palms worked slowly across the seams, your scent living within them even now, even in the quilt he laid across the mattress. It stirred something in his chest, memories, of you face down, ass up, presenting yourself to him. Memories of your sweet, blissed out face as he knotted you again and again. It made his loins tighten, his jaw clench and unclench, a small smile flitting his features as he hung your clothes up in the closet. Sweaters and jeans that smelled even stronger of you as he brushed his knuckles along the fabric once it hung in neat lines.

Your coat was gone with you into the snow, having asked Tommy to take you with him to check traps. You always wanted to help, wanted to prove you were part of the team, eager to carry your own weight out there instead of sitting by the wood stove while the men worked. Joel never asked you to do anything—he wanted you warm, fed and rested, your hands wrapped around a steaming mug instead of rope or freezing in the snow. But you were stubborn and bright and Tommy had said yes, and that was that.

His brother liked to show you things. How to track, how to tell poisonous berries from friendlies, the way animals could be hunted humanely. Tommy's voice always had a little easy hum in it when he talked to you. About anything. Like a wolf pleased with something soft and gentle and open. He still went back to Jackson for trades, the one people greeted and spoke to, the one they hadn't fully turned their backs on.

When Joel went, folks didn't look him in the eye for long. They gave him what was necessary and no more. He came home with medicine, salt, fruit, freshly baked bread. Tommy came home with that plus a little barrette someone thought you'd like, or a knitted beanie one of your old friends wanted you to have. Sometimes you'd even have letters to exchange, Tommy always bringing home answers in stacks of papers from the people you left behind. Joel felt the jealousy in the titch of his jaw sometimes, sharp and animal, the same way a dog might bristle when another was offered something he was not. But he swallowed it down, would rather bite his own tail off than say it out loud.

He wondered if you missed them—your people. When he'd asked, you'd said you wanted to see everyone once spring came, once the roads thawed and travel wasn't so much of a risk. For now, you were content and happy to be with them in a warm cabin. The life you'd chosen with them had felt right to you. Except… Joel knew that you still believed that this might not be forever. That in time, the people of Jackson might look at the three of you and see more than what you had done.

He wasn't sure that would ever happen with him in the picture. But he wouldn't take that hope away from you, the belief in a future you wanted.

And just as he was walking across the threshold of the second bedroom into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind him, the sound of the front door opening carried into the cabin, letting in a breath of cold air that brought your laughter with it. Low and content, it was a sound that often softened Joel's hardest thoughts, his shoulders dropping a fraction at the image of you now in the doorway, smiling. You were grinning at his brother when the two of you stepped inside, your fingers pulling your gloves from your hand finger by finger, Tommy easing your heavy winter coat from your shoulders. He just watched, watched how the snow darkened the floor by your boots, how you pushed your unruly hair back from where it had hidden under your hat.

When you finally looked up and saw Joel, your expression brightened in wattage, something warm and glittering rising beneath a dazed softness, and you moved towards him without hesitation. Lifting onto your toes, you looped your arms around his neck to greet him.

"Hi," you said, smile wide and toothy, voice carrying a kind of breathless glee.

You smelled like the woods, like the frost of cold breath and iron from the traps.

And you smelled like Tommy.

"Hi, baby," Joel replied, wrapping thick arms around your warm body (he'd traded an entire elk for Jackson's thickest jacket for you). He lifted you from the floor and planted a fat, long kiss on your lips, his scent enveloping you now. He’d gotten used to the overlap of scents: yours, so velvety and vanilla and cashmere; Tommy’s, gunpowder and mint from the sprigs he’d crush and chew; and Joel’s, a musk with the tang and warmth of good whiskey.

"How'd it go?" he called over as he set you back down to your feet, hands lingering at your hips, reluctant to let go.

"As good as it could," Tommy answered from the closed doorway while he tugged off his boots with a low groan, his toes flexing in his socks as he shook the cold from his feet. He pulled the rope of animals tied to his bag up for Joel to see, and Joel gave a short nod of acknowledgement before his eyes returned to you. He took in the way your body relaxed into him, thought your brows were lightly pinched, arms now wrapped around your own belly as you laid your head on his chest.

"Let me make ya some tea, baby," Joel offered, cupping your hands in his, bringing them to his mouth, "you're freezin'," he breathed, huffing warm air into the hollow of his hands where he held your little fingers in his. You hummed dreamily, eyes fluttering shut, welcoming the feeling of him so close.

"I've got it," Tommy said as he meandered into the kitchen with renewed purpose, though his voice came out short. He reached for your favorite mug with the little owl stamped on it, filling it from the canteen of safe water.

"It's fine," Joel said, spine tightening then easing again, "Pass it here, I'll warm it up. Can't make tea with cold water, leaves won't steep right."

"I know how to make a cup of tea," Tommy shot back.

Joel clenched his jaw but swallowed his pride, softening his face as he looked at you once again. Your cheeks were blazed with chill, nose frost bitten and lashes damp where snow had melted. Your eyes, though sleepy, moved between the two of them. You always had such a quiet attention on the two of them, aware of their moods and mannerisms more than they were of their own.

"Come lay down with me," Joel offered softly, his hand settling against the small of his back, guiding rather than pulling. His voice soothing itself out for you, "Tommy can finish up."

You followed him to the couch and eased into it with a long, tired breath, letting him draw you between his legs and over him, laying on your side, your head against the solid rise and fall of his chest. Close. Where you belonged. Your fingers curled around the edge of the wool blanket that Joel wrapped around the two of you, settling into one another as you breathed him in, a thicker, warmer musk beginning to lift from your skin as you pressed yourself closer, as if your body was seeking his heat without thought.

Joel held you there, his arms circled around your waist, hands resting against your ribs while your breathing slowed and drifted, the two of you slipping into something that felt like a contact nap, skin and fabric and warmth layered together while the cabin went quiet around you. He felt every small shift you made, every soft sigh that left your mouth, the heaviness in your body that told him you were giving in to rest after your long trek in the wilderness.

He listened as his brother moved through the kitchen, half aware of every movement: the scrape of the iron kettle, the rattling of tin against wood, and the smell of chamomile and cinnamon rising as his brother added the leaves and sprigs to the now steaming water. Joel watched all of it from the corner of his eye, aware of his brother's presence the way an animal remains aware of another.

You reached out when Tommy brought the mug toward you, your fingers loosening from the blanket so you could take it gently from him, your smile soft and hazy. Tommy smiled back at you and leaned down, his face close, his lips brushing your nose in a gesture that might've been sweet if Joel's body hadn't reacted out of instinct: a rumbling growl starting in his chest and thrumming in his throat in warning.

"Stop," you sighed, not startled, only tired, leaning back into Joel as he shifted upright so you wouldn't spill, your back to his chest now, his weight and warmth hopefully soothing to you.

And when your tea was gone and your eyes finally grew too heavy to fight against, Joel gathered you up in his arms and carried you to the sleeping bed. He settled beside you and drew you in close, the two of you tucking into each other the way you always did, limbs threaded together, breath shared, the room dim and quiet around you.

The day closed its weary eyes around you, dark settling gently over the cabin in a blanket of stars, the world shrinking to the sound of a branch that kept sliding along the roof, the wind in the trees, the quiet of winter. By the time Tommy came in and lay down at your other side, Joel only half noticed the long, tired sigh that left his brother's chest, the weight of an arm finding your body in the dark, all of you gathered there in the quiet, unaware of what was kindling beneath.

Tommy

He woke to heat the next morning. It was heavy, syrupy in a way that made his brain claggy, unable to put thought to anything for a long while, as if a furnace had been opened beside him, embers blasting hot air on a winter morning. He blinked his eyes half open, lids stiff with the thickness of sleep. The first thing he registered was your smell, your hair, your skin. That heady sweetness he always associated with you, the familiar vanilla deepening into something richer, thicker, like molasses warming in the sun, his nostrils flaring as he dragged more of it into his lungs.

He buried his nose into your hair and stayed there, breathing you in, only dimly aware that the blanket had been shoved down toward the foot of the bed in the night, your sleep pants thrown off somewhere with it, both tangled together at your feet. You were curled up into him, bum tucked tight against his lap, your body so small in comparison to his massive breadth, like a river of life in a valley of two mountains. You were so god damn warm in the cradle of his lap, skin blazing against his, legs drawn in and your breath still steady and deep and trusting.

Tommy's arm slid further around your waist without thought, only pure instinct. His nose stayed buried in your hair for a long moment, then lower into the warm hollow of your neck where your scent filled his mouth, making it fill with saliva, making him yearn to open his teeth and lick and wrap his jaw around you. It was sweet and dizzying, his cock twitching where it pressed into your little ass, your soft heat nestled back onto him.

You sighed dreamily, pushing back into him, a small, almost helpless movement, your body seeking his warmth even in sleep. The sound you made…it made Tommy's jaw clench, made him sort of purr to soothe you, pressing into the clutch of your perfectly outlined core with his thick member. He fit so perfectly against you, thicker and harder as he dragged up against you slowly, his breath growing heavier, his hands more insistent as they pulled you in. His minds eye was full of memory of the last time he'd taken you like this, laid out for him on the other bed and stuffed you full.

Across you, Joel slept deep, your arms still wrapped around his middle, face tucked into the crook of his armpit, his chest rising and falling beside your cheek. Even so, you pushed back into Tommy, nestled your perfect little warm center into his lap, hips snug against him. Like it had been made to fit him, the line of his cock through his briefs fit between your soft and puffy crux while your heat closed in on you. You weren't quite ready yet, though it was blooming, softening you, ripening.

He reached to splay a wide hand over your belly, pressing down on your womb, making you whimper as he brought you closer. You garbled something viscous in your dream state, perching your ass even higher, so he could feel it blaze against him, clit pulsing like a heartbeat for him. He could feel how slick you were through your panties, rubbing against the hardness of him until he was really aching, heat meeting heat, your scent turning richer and heavier in the space between breaths.

He understood now, all of it settling into his mind with a certainty he'd come to recognize.

Why you had wanted so badly to join him yesterday, why you'd let him push you up against the trees between checking traps. He'd kissed you so soft and sweet, though you'd been the one to hike your legs around his hips and grind against him, moaning for the world to hear. It had been your little omega whines that had him grabbing a fistful of your coat, turning you around and pushing into the layers that covered your ass, much like he was now. He'd heeded every lupine instinct, to calm you into submission, with his thickening cock between your ass. He told you to not be so greedy, that he'd fuck you proper if you could stay awake long enough that night, but not out in the wilderness where infected could hear your crying. You'd pouted, but obeyed like a good little thing.

Tommy knew what would happen—that by the time you got back, you'd be sleepy and dazed, though he hadn't realized this had been why. A heat beginning to bloom. No wonder he was so close to taking you then and there in the snow. No wonder you were so god damn happy to see Joel, no wonder the men had been at each other's throats over a cup of fucking tea. And yet, even though he knew it would happen, the beast inside of him had wanted to rip his own brother's throat out for taking you, comforting you, kissing you like that. A curse of his kind.

The past twenty four hours had been drawing them towards this… like always.

Every few months it caught them off guard all the same, always creeping in slow and almost patient. Until it wasn't. Until it demanded the three of you heed an instinct as old as time. It was like a hunter circling its prey through tall grass, unseen until it was already upon you, warping the mind, bodies running on smell and heat and need more than logic. Tension would always coil between the three of you, tight and unavoidable and jaw snapping. It always was stupid things too, small things that made them possessive in nature, over their right to claim your sweet ripe cunt when it was ready.

It was how they had lost Jackson, too.

Tommy had already been there when you arrived with your family, skin and bone and unmated, still learning how to belong to a place that was so civilized at the end of the world. He had helped you acclimate, maybe drawn to you in ways he hadn’t yet understood, something quiet and patient in the way he watched you take to the town. You befriended him easily, trusted him slowly. You always said it was because he looked you in the eye when he spoke, because he kept his promises, because he was a good man in a world that had almost forgotten what that meant. He never asked you to trust him outright. He built it with you through that first winter, and then into the bright, trembling promise of spring. It wasn’t lightning or fire. It was brick by brick, laid steady and true.

And when your first heat struck, you came to him and let him take you, as natural as anything, as if the world had always meant for it to happen that way. You had been so soft for him, so open, so perfectly attuned to the bond that settled between you afterward.

And then Joel came back.

He walked into Jackson with Ellie at his side, wearier than he had been the time before, as if the road had carved deeper into him. The air around him felt different. He was unmated too, and he met the onslaught of attention of other omegas with a sourness that kept most of them at arm’s length. But Tommy saw the way you reacted to him, and the way Joel took to you in return. It was as if you had been the only one able to draw the sword from that stone-bound heart, different in the way Ellie had chipped away at it.

And you looked at Joel with a softness Tommy had never seen Joel receive from any woman, from any omega. It confused you, it confused the brothers. But you never hid it, not once did you pretend or lie or cover it up. You would ask Tommy if Joel might join for dinner, if he’d come along on patrol even when he didn’t have to, if he needed anything, if Ellie needed a hand with the garage. You just wanted him near.

Tommy had never been blind to it, he had never been the kind of man to turn his cheek to the way you and his brother looked at one another. It wasn't hungry or wandering, not disloyal. It reminded him of those early days with you, when you'd first learned how to trust and didn't yet know the feeling of being a mate.

Joel fought it longer than either of you.

He stayed closed off, denied your requests of spending so much time with him, as if he knew it was wrong, what a sin it was to be so close to another man's omega. Tommy knew that look on his brother all too well, from the years of surviving together, of the ruptures and sutures between them. The way they'd chosen different roads to meet again, losing each other, coming back to each other. He wouldn't lose his brother again, not to something as good as this. It was hard for all of you to go against your ingrained pack dynamics, that a mated omega could and should ever be interested in another alpha. But you kept reaching for Joel anyway, and Tommy watched silently as his brother started to give in, inch by inch, a man who didn't quite understand the ground he was standing on. His brother was scared, he'd come to realize. Maybe afraid of the sin he would be committing by giving into you, maybe afraid of what Tommy would do or think of him. Joel never cared about anything else. Family always came first, brother loyal to brother, a blood bond nothing could change.

And then your next heat came.

It was the moment everything tipped into truth. You'd cried and cried and cried, wailing that you didn't want to hurt Tommy, that you wanted to be with him, but something was changing in you, like your heart was branching off to make room for Joel in this , that you'd needed both. You refused to be split apart, as if being asked to cut off your own limb.

And Tommy…Tommy somehow heard you. Yes, there was the natural jealousy, of wondering what his brother had that he didn't. He felt the wolf in his lungs snarling at the idea of sharing his mate. But there was something else, beneath it all. A pack, a brother, a history. He thought of all the ways he'd lost Joel before, how long it had taken to mend what had been broken. And you were here, bringing them together in an entirely new way, remaking them in flesh and bone and heart.

Nothing had been lost or stolen, it had only grown and changed shape. And so, giving into it all on one cloudless night, Joel had taken that heat, knotted you, bit into your neck and took you. And you'd cried, but not tears of grief but of relief, of something deep and new finally being allowed to exist.

Tommy came to you the next night, his claim alive and steady and unwavering, and the three of you wove together in a way that could no longer be undone. It did not fracture or break any of you, neither brother ripped into one another's throats, but instead, a pack was created. One that should not exist and yet…did. Bound by something that wouldn't be taken or shred.

But Jackson was not as understanding.

The wind carried the smell of the three of you through the streets, layered thick with thrice the scent from that little house now shared by you, a bond braided between two alphas and one omega, saturated and unmistakable. To the town it was wrong, blasphemous, the scent of it making other alphas restless and sharpened with territory, omegas nervous and withdrawn and betas uneasy and alarmed. There was pacing and low snarling whenever any one of you drew too near, as if the very order of things had cracked and some ancient law had been broken in the marrow of the pack.

Arguments began to flare more often, fists flying and shoulders colliding, alphas clashing with teeth bared and voices raised too close to violence. Patrol schedules had to be changed when tempers snapped at the gates from nothing more than the trace of your scent drifting through, men who had worked side by side for years suddenly standing at each other’s throats. People threatened Joel and Tommy openly, first with warning growls and then with rough hands, cornering and spitting and hurling insults, while unmated alphas started circling you in uneasy orbit, unwilling to touch yet unable to understand how an omega could have more than one mate. Bonds everywhere felt more fragile than they ever had, a social structure that had endured for years now straining beneath the proof of you — because if big bad Joel Miller could claim you while you were already claimed by another, then what was stopping anyone else, and why shouldn’t other alphas do the same?

So the three of you left. Or maybe the town made the choice for you, it didn’t matter in the end. Jackson no longer wanted you, and Tommy couldn’t bear to watch the place he helped build turn cruel around you. Joel grew overprotective and violent to anyone who came close, and was happy to get away, to be alone with you and his brother, though Tommy knew better. He knew he missed Ellie. She came to visit when she could, Dina at her side, the two of them carrying their own kind of forbidden bond—alpha with alpha.

You flipped in your sleep suddenly, jostling Tommy from his memories. He thought he might've fallen back asleep, because Joel was out of bed, though he could hear his bare feet padding around the house turning then to a soled scuffles of boots. The house stunk to high hell now, too many scents mixing together in the wake of your beginning heat. Tommy buried his nose into your hair once more to inhale more of your sweet scent. The gland at his neck pulsed, his cock throbbed. He slid his hand down your back and over your ass where you'd flipped around in his arms, and hiked your leg over his hip. He let you grind on him the way he knew you liked.

"Mornin'," he murmured in your ear.

You hummed, chin tilting to lick at the salt of his beard, where his skin was leathery and thick from years of sunlight. You mouthed openly past his ear, finding that succulent little spongy patch of pheromones, and began to lick at it in earnest. Tommy rumbled a deep, pleasured growl in his chest, pulling you even closer, shunting his cock up against your weeping covered cunt, letting you have your way, if only for a little bit.

"What a good little omega," he purred, "but you know we can't do this here, don't you, baby?"

"Don't care," you garbled, moaning again as you dragged your perfect cunt against the thick outline of his cock. If he wasn’t careful, he’d lose control too fast like this, his body ready to tip into rut before you were anywhere near prepared, especially with Joel still in the house.

And as if summoned by the thought, Joel appeared in the doorway, backpack slung over one shoulder, rifle resting against the other, his revolver tucked into its holster at his side.

“I’ll be back,” he said, jaw set tight.

Tommy’s eyes were half-lidded, lost in the way you kept grinding against him, hardly able to make his brain work outside of the thought of your ripeness, “M’kay,” he muttered.

“There’s stew in the kitchen for 'er,” Joel said, gaze lingering on you. “She ought to eat, then she should go nest.”

Tommy glared up at his brother, "Don't you got somewhere to be, Joel?"

Your lips unlatched from Tommy’s neck, your hips pausing. You lifted your head, feverish and dazed, eyes glassy as they blinked open.

“Joel?”

"Yeah, baby?" he said from the door. Tommy's lip was curling, baring his teeth.

“You’re leaving?” you asked meekly, turning your head toward him.

“Yeah, hun." he said, his arms crossed, "I’m gonna check if that deer herd came back by the ridge, let you settle in with Tommy before I come back, alright?”

“Don’t go" you whined, "… not before—you promised you’d always—” You began to fuss in Tommy’s arms, voice shaking, and both brothers looked at one another. Tommy felt his temper spark, while Joel’s eyes warmed with a small, knowing smile.

“I didn’t forget, baby. You just seemed a little preoccupied,” he chuckled, leaning against the frame.

You shook your head, arm slipping from Tommy’s neck as you reached a hand toward Joel.

This was always the worst part, the hardest part—watching you want both.

Joel hesitated, watching his brother for half a moment, and then moved through the room. He carefully approached the bed, a fist dipping to hold his weight against the mattress, almost forcing your body to turn with it, as he bent down and kissed you goodbye.

What was supposed to be a short little peck, however, grew longer and longer, your hand now gripping at the back of Joel's head as you moaned into him. Tommy saw how your tongue dipped out to trace the seal of Joel's mouth, which he opened for you, unable to contain himself.

Tommy let out a thick, blood curdling snarl as your pussy pulsed against his cock.

Joel finally broke the kiss, a thin strand of spit still connecting your mouths. He pressed one last, heavy peck to your parted lips and grumbled, “Bye, sweetheart. Be good.”

You sighed contentedly, letting him go with one little scratch to his ear, and closed your eyes as he pulled away.

Even as Tommy listened for his brother's receding footsteps, waited for the front door to open and close, for the house to settle into quiet once more, his nose was invaded by his brother's scent. You settled back into his arms with another simpering sigh, pressing your warm body up into him.

But Tommy's temper was already short, reacting to another being so close to what was his, his brain losing its wiring for logic already.

The muscles in his jaw were tight as something low and mean rose from deep in his chest. He was never angry at you, but instinct made him ugly telling him to bare his teeth, to reclaim, to crowd every inch of Joel's scent from the room.

You whimpered softly, your glazed eyes watching the shift in him, your body going tight, a faint, small keening slipping from your throat.

You tipped your head back without hesitation, craning, baring yourself to him. Your pulse fluttering beneath your skin with compulsion, submission offered, acceptance sought. You didn’t say a word, you only yielded, soft and obedient in his lap, as if you knew exactly what part of him you were soothing.

For a long moment he hovered there, breathing hard through his nose, fighting against the urge to snap, teeth lowering to your neck to only press there to your gland, not biting or licking, though he was bullish with his breath against you. You opened your legs around him, letting him grind harder into you, and he took that as enough.

He began to give in, not to the jealousy and protective nature, but the instinct him to soothe his omega. He closed his mouth and it found your chin, your jaw, then down to your neck, a firm press just shy of a bite. You gasped and shuddered in his arms, fingers curling into his shirt, your breasts, soft with hardening nipples pressed up into him. He softened as you softened, now fully kissing along your neck, licking and inhaling you until your scent melded with his.

"Okay, okay," he murmured, quieter now, his heads spreading over your back, your rump, pulling you closer, guiding you, "You're alright, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I've got you."

You keened, body going soft and pliant again, a sweet little mewling for him to take and take, but logic was still a part of him, his rut not fully in charge of his brain yet. He would be a good alpha, he would take care of his own before himself now that his brain was back in his control.

"Let's get you fed first, baby," he said, tutting when you began to whine and squirm again, "you need food in you, and we'll get your room set up, you like your nest, don't you?"

His thumb brushed your cheek as he looked at you fully, mouth pressing softly against yours, both of you humming into the warmth.

"Yes, alpha," you said softly, your voice not entirely your own, but still you. You were still there, also not entirely taken by heat.

"Come on then," he said, sitting you up, "heard there's stew."

By the time you’d been fed and watered, Tommy had taken himself outside to busy his hands with the woodpile while you made your nest. The air was colder out there, crisp, easier to count his breaths, each cold lungful after the next, shocking the heat from his system. He told himself that was why he stayed a while, splitting log after log until his shoulders ached.

And yet, he could hear you through the cabin walls, attuned to every move you made.

There was a bit of shuffling, a drag of blankets and movement, thumping of a mattress as you rearranged and tucked and burrowed, no doubt rubbing your smell all over that second bedroom. Every now and then you'd made a soft keening of pain that hit him so hard he nearly drove the axe clean through the stump instead of the log perched on it. His hands tightened around the handle, knuckles white as the snow beneath him, his world narrowing to that sound alone. And after finishing the pile of wood, he stood silent for a minute, waiting, ears straining to hear your next movement. But you'd gone so quiet, so still, there was nothing.

And then there was a hand on his arm.

He jolted at the touch, nearly jumping out of his skin, his ears trained on the cabin behind him, not realizing your footsteps in the snow had crept up silently as a mouse. You were already beside him, already shivering, and he turned to see your face, fevered, glassy-eyed, your cheeks aflame and your hair a mess from all your rubbing and rutting into the pillows.

“Honey, what in the hell are ya—” he started, already reaching for you, hands finding your arms, trying to pull you close. Your whole body was trembling, your skin like burning ice. You looked miserable.

“You’re taking too long,” you whined, fists clenched under your chin, spine bent against the cold, burning and trembling all at one, body blazing under frozen skin. “I’m hurtin’, Tommy. Please.”

He nodded, okay, okay, he was whispering, pulling you in as he unzipped his coat and wrapped you in it, hoisting your legs around his hips like instinct, like he didn’t even need to think. Your arms clung to him, your face buried in the sherpa of his collar, bare toes pressed against his back under the coat. You rubbed up against his belly, slick already soaking through to his shirt.

"You stink," you murmured, petting his gland behind his ear with the one at your wrist. His eyesight blurred, brain scrambling—he needed you in your bed now before he took you right here in the god damn snow. The softness of your skin, the sweet heady scent you invaded him with, it was giving him a full body ache, setting his cock into overdrive, the knot at the base pulsing with need. His gut was churning for it, his mind monopolized by it.

He pushed the door open with his shoulder and stepped into the heat of the cabin, barely noticing the fire, barely noticing the ache in his arms, every sense tuned to the way your slick had started trailing lower, soaking into the waistband of his jeans, sliding against his skin like a brand.

In the bedroom, your nest had been made up of belongings—his old sweater tucked near the pillows, the one you’d stolen to sleep in before, still faint with his scent. Joel’s shirt was there too, and all three pillows from the bed stacked just so. It looked cozy. It looked like you. Like how your mind must’ve worked in that heat-fog, reaching for comfort, for home, for him.

"Aw, this looks real sweet, honey,” he said as he laid you down gently, easing you into the middle, your back against the pillows, your hair splayed wild, "how are ya feelin', hm?"

"Itchy," you said, crossing your arms around your chest, clutching opposite shoulders, your knees knocked together and rubbing for friction, "warm—s'like…" you were dreamier, a little delirious maybe, eyes searching the ceiling as if searching the sky, "it's like summer inside my belly—it's an ember, like I've swallowed the sun and I'm burning and glowing and ohhh, Tommy,” you whined, hands moving to clutch your womb, "I need you, please please please,"

He was already on top of you, your murmured pleading silenced by his lips on yours, both of you moaning. You opened your legs for him without hesitation: submissive, baring yourself, belly up, giving and wanting so badly for him to take you.

"You make me fuckin' crazy," he rasped, brain gone claggy with this vision of you, "pretty little thing with a sweet little pussy, hm? Gonna let me knot you, honey?"

You were nodding before he even finished, making him chuckle as you clutched at him with little kitten paws, beginning to cry out as he palmed at your covered mound.

“Oh, yeah,” he sighed, leaning down to look, dragging his hand gently between your thighs. You hadn’t put your pants back on. Just those soaked-through panties clinging to your cunt like a second skin. “Yeah, she’s almost ready, baby. Can feel it.”

"Ready now," you whined, petulant as ever, kicking your feet uselessly.

He tutted back, "not quite, let me take a look," he said gently.

You nodded, stuffing your fist into your mouth to keep from crying out as he peeled the last of your layers away, stripping you bare, revealing the heat you’d been hiding. Your legs fell open wider than before, pliant and wet, your body desperate to be touched.

Tommy hummed, low in his chest, something like pleasure or gratitude or hunger. He stripped himself quickly all while keeping his eyes on you. His coat, his undershirt, his jeans. His gaze never left you. Your cunt was flushed and puffy, practically begging, not quite swollen to peak, but near enough to drive him out of his mind. He didn’t even try to slow himself down, dropping between your thighs once he was bare, hooking his hands beneath to yank you closer and licked a slow, greedy stripe through the slick you’d made, catching the taste of you on his tongue like it was the only thing he’d ever need again.

Your moans reached him as if from underwater— warped, distant, warbled with need— and when he glanced up, your head had tipped back, your mouth open, your hands fisting the blankets as you rocked against his mouth. But all he could think about was the way your body was preparing for him, giving him everything he’d need to take you, to knot you, to keep you.

He was obsessed.

He devoured you like you were his last chance at breath, licking and sucking and slurping up every ounce of nectar you made. He buried his mouth deeper, until you were thrashing above him, gasping for more, your voice cracking as you begged him again and again—more, more, Tommy, please, not enough, it’s not enough—

He quieted you with two fingers shoved deep inside, fucking them into you hard and steady, scissoring them open to stretch you, curling until he found that spot, the one that made you seize and cry out like you’d been touched by flame. He watched your body clench and pulse around him as he hooked them tighter, yanking your climax that belonged to him.

He had you turned over in an instant, flattened against the bed, belly to the blanket and cheek buried into the pillows you'd so sweetly made your nest in. His weight pressed over you, his teeth to the back of your neck. There was no part of him left that could be called human, his rut taking over his body, flooding his veins with the need to breed his sweet little omega, your scent invading his head. You cried out, but pushed your little cunt against his heavy cock, spreading your slick against it as he pulled his remaining layers away, bare to you as you were bare to him. Mirrors of greed, of this animal instinct rooted so deep in each other's bones that all logic and civilized manner had gone from the room.

He inhaled your molasses-sweet scent as he pushed your knees wider with his own, pulling your ass up to present to him, and pressed his cock into you without preamble. He began to rumble, a soft little noise to soothe your cries until they turned only to sweet sighs of pleasure, seating himself deep to the knot. The head of his cock was pressed to your cervix, as if your womb suckled him in, pulled him all the way home.

"You can take it, baby, it's alright," he rumbled into your neck, kissing your jaw, "tell me how that is, tell your alpha how you're feelin', sugar,"

You couldn’t form the words. Just a breathless cry, a moan that broke open into a sob, your mouth slack with pleasure, lips parted and wet. Spit started to pool at the corner of your mouth, a glossy trail running down your cheek, and he was there immediately, licking into it, tasting you. Your tongue met his, a kiss sloppy and slow and open.

He began to move, thrusting deep inside, grinding harder, pushing forward into your soft, velvet channel with a need so sharp it bordered on pain as his knot began to thicken. The squelch of your pussy taking him was obscene, feeding his rut-drunk head as it swelled with a hunger that had him baring his teeth at you, biting at your shoulder, almost ready to bite your gland.

"Gonna fill you up," he said, tongue thick and panting, "Gonna breed you real good, baby, give it to me, open up, honey, sweet pretty omega,"

His praise did exactly as he intended. You pushed your ass back into him, presenting, yielding, your cunt softening fully around him as his knot swelled to meet you, his cock held tight, gripped like a clutch with you at its center, sealing the two of you together as he sank his teeth into your neck and broke through, pheromones flooding his mouth at the same time his cock spilled into you, filling you with his come.

He was shaking with how good it was, how you tasted, how delirious the bond and the heat and the release made him. His brain went white and quiet with it, the raw thrill of doing what his body had been made to do, of filling his omega, of giving and taking in the same breath. You moaned as you locked together, your body accepting the seal, and when sensation slowly began to thread its way back into him, he reached under you and pressed his fingers to your clit.

“Come on my knot, sweet thing… come on, there you go… come on alpha’s knot, it’ll be so, so good,” he murmured into your neck, voice shaking with pleasure as he coaxed you through it.

It didn’t take long, what with both of you caught in that same bliss‑heavy state, your cunt tightening and fluttering around him as you came, your body pulsing against his knot while his vision swam and his breath stuttered in your hair, the world narrowing to nothing but the lock of the two of you together.

You

Once, when you were only a few years old, your mother had offered you a spoonful of honey to take with your medicine. You’d been wretchedly sick, unable to stomach a single thing, but somehow the honey stayed down. Thick and golden and too sweet, but you let it slide across your tongue and pretended it made you feel better. Your mother always chastised your sweet tooth. Said you'd never survive the world the way it was now if you kept turning your nose at anything that didn’t taste like sugar. Said you'd starve before you learned to be grateful.

You thought of honey now, feeling like you were made of the golden syrup: slow to move, heavy and warm, your thoughts thick and barely dripping. You thought, maybe when you could walk again, when your brain came back to you, you’d write a letter and ask for goat’s cheese. Goat’s cheese and honey. Oh, that would be something.

You could feel Tommy, the press of his chest to your back, the lock of his knot still thick inside you. He was so warm, the weight of his praise like sugar on the tongue, so soft and endless in your ear, calling you good girl, sweet thing, pretty omega, his. His voice soaked through your skin like syrup, made you pliant, quiet, sunk. You didn’t move, you didn't want to. The biological need to just stay, so open and wet, to let your alpha hold you and knot you for as long as he needed had saturated your mind.

You weren't sure how long it had been—you, spread out, rump up for Tommy, your body was so warm and your mind so quiet, blissful. Tommy's voice had started to fade, or maybe he'd stopped speaking, you weren't entirely sure. His words still floated in your head, and you could feel his lips against your neck, suckling, licking, soothing.

But there was a shift beginning.

Tommy was grinding up into the seal of the two of you, harder now, pushing up against a place already full and locked. His weight shifted forward into you, forcing your back to bend further, a roll of his hips like he was trying to push his cock further into you. The knot tightened and clenched against your slicked entrance in a way that made your breath hitch, your face pinch.

He was growling now. Face still close to your neck, and you whimpered, your brain coming back to you, worried you'd upset your alpha somehow. Had you done something in your haze to make him like this? You were trying so hard to be good, to stay melted and open, but the friction of his knot began to hurt a little, enough to bring you to your senses, opening your eyes.

And then you saw why Tommy was acting so.

Joel was in the doorway.

Joel

The hunt had steadied him for a while, the crack of frost beneath his thick soled boots and the clean bite of winter air along with the rhythm of breath, inhaling cold air to scrape the sweetness of his throat from that morning. It had taken everything in him to not bite his own brother's head off, to keep his mind straight when he bent to kiss you. To not kill his own kin when he'd been growled at.

He brought the deer he'd caught hanging in the cold outside the cabin now, where Tommy would take over the rest of the work, cleaning it by the brook nearby that was still running in the dead of winter. It was a system they built for themselves so no one bled into the other's time with you.

He thought it would be soon enough.

But the moment the cabin came into view over the ridge, the smell of you invaded him. It rose up, wrapped its syrupy weight around him, cloying and sweet. And though it was clouded by another alpha’s claiming scent, he could still smell your velvet richness underneath. By the time he crossed the threshold into inside, it was laying on the back of his tongue, making him pant and drool for it. For you. The parts he'd leashed into obedience were thrashing around his ribcage now, his vision narrowing, rough air dragging into his lungs as he heaved in your scent.

He braced himself against the doorway and tried to breathe like a thinking man.

The house was so warm and alive with you, the smell coming from the bedroom door was not something a man could outrun.

He could see the curve of the bed as he opened the bedroom door, the second bedroom, the one meant for fucking and knotting and taking and then he made out the vision of your nest. A tangled spill of blankets, clothes, linen smothered in your scent. You were there at the center of it, body scorching and glistening with sweat and slick. And your eyes…heavy, gaze unfocused and dazed, your breath hitching as he came nearer.

Tommy was laid over you, shoulders wound tight as his eyes found his brother in the doorway. Joel recognized the aggression of a rut, the way he was being threatened with bare teeth and a low growl from the bed. He felt the same thing rise in him like a tide.

But he swallowed against it, hard, though it didn’t go anywhere. It just settled deeper, coiling low inside him, hot and insistent, begging him to step forward, to close the distance, to drag you out of that sound and into his arms, to do something, anything, that would stop that fragile tremor in your voice as you whimpered against Tommy's rough grinding.

Joel's rut hadn't taken him fully yet. But it was there, glinting like a knife edge in the dark, waiting for one wrong breath to tip him over. As he watched your brow pinch as Tommy's weight shifted and the way your fingers curled against the sheets, Joel thought he might break his own brother's neck in half.

"Get out," Tommy snarled, nothing like his usual voice, this one was thick and mean and teeth-baring as he pushed his hips harder against you, making you wince, “Don’t want her smellin’ like you.”

Joel couldn't help the way his lip pulled over his teeth, but he did his best to tame it, only looking at you, your sweet face turning from bliss to grimace, "You okay, sweetheart?" he asked.

You whimpered, and he thought it could've been in the shape of his name.

Tommy's lips went to your ear, shushing you, cooing at you. Everythin's alright, darlin', Tommy's here, your alpha is here, baby.

Joel’s jaw clenched. The room felt too small, the air too thick, heat clawing up his spine. He rubbed the back of his neck like he could work the fever out of his bones, trying to hold on to the last of his reason. "When you're done, get her in the bath, right?" he couldn't bear to look any longer, watching his brother felt like knives to his own chest, "gonna go heat the water,"

Tommy didn’t answer, but Joel knew he’d heard. He stepped out of the room, crossed the main space, and made himself busy.

Before it would be a bloodbath.

It wasn’t long before Joel heard the murmur of voices again — yours light and sweet, brightening at the edges, while Tommy’s came out low and strained, the sound of a man trying to bring himself back down to earth. A few breaths later you appeared in the bathroom doorway, warm and cheeks aflame, Tommy at your back with his hands resting firm at your hips. Joel’s eyes went there first, fixed on the place where his brother held you, and he knew why it caught him, even if he didn’t want to say it to himself.

“I’m gonna go dress the buck,” Tommy muttered, his voice rough around the words. He bent to press his mouth to your neck, lingering there longer than necessary before letting you go.

You turned into Tommy then, looping your arms around his shoulders, kissing him full and soft, as if you didn’t know what that did to the room. Joel had to look away. His brain felt loose and molten, control stretched thin inside him, and another second of watching might have snapped the rubber band of his mind.

“Love you. I'll be back, alright? Go on, now.” Tommy said against your lips, his hand patting your hip one last time before he looked past you at Joel, offering a steady, warning look.

“I’ve got her,” Joel answered, a low sound in his throat as he stood and took you into his arms. You smiled as you were passed from warm hands to warm hands, letting Joel guide you toward the bath.

“You stink too,” you murmured as you folded into his chest once the door had closed and Tommy's footsteps receded. Joel had stripped down to thin cotton boxers before you'd come in, and he knew you'd be like this—pressing your face into the thick hair across his chest. He welcomed it, holding the back of your head as you smothered yourself in his scent.

"You do too," Joel teased, smelling your hair. He could smell the pheromones, the thickness of gun smoke still smothering your velvet vanilla scent.

“No,” you said, almost sulking, “I smell… I smell so good.” You hummed against him as you began to kiss his chest, open mouthed, your arms wrapped around the solid line of his body. “And now I’m gonna smell even better.”

Joel walked you to the bath, a quiet chuckle in his chest as he pulled you away so he could bring his hand to rest over your belly, feeling it protruding a bit, “All full, hm?”

You nodded with a soft, content sound.

“Gonna need to fix that,” he said, voice going low as his tongue felt thick in his mouth. “Get in. Let me clean you.”

You let him ease you into the tub, hissing at the heat before settling down into the water while Joel moved behind you, pulling your hair back and working it into a neat plait that lay down your back. The two of you stayed there in the quiet, your body loosening as the warmth sank in.

Joel knelt at the side of the tub with a bar of soap in his palm and began to wash you, slow and careful. Your arms, the spaces between your fingers, over your breasts and your belly, washing you of his brother's scent. And then between your legs.

You hummed again and let them fall open as his hand abandoned the bar of soap. He pressed his fingers gently around your swollen folds, slick and come already like honey in the sudsy water.

"Oh, this just won't do, sweetheart," he chided.

You opened your eyes, furrowing your brow at him.

“Look at this mess he left in you,” he said, shaking his head while he pushed two fingers inside. He gloried in the way your mouth parted on a gasp, watching the way your face fell and how well you took his thick fingers as he worked them inside you, scooping the spend from your wet heat in slow, measured motions.

His lips pulled back to show his teeth, hungry, he was fucking starved, his gaze fixed on you while your hands wrapped around his bicep and he pressed further into the tight hold of your body, relentless in his need to have you clean and marked by him and only him.

"That's it," he cooed, kissing your open mouth, licking inside, finally, finally tasting you. You crooned, whimpering as his thumb found your clit, a pearl that had swelled with his touch, "you've been a good girl, haven't you? Gonna be a good little baby for me too?"

You nodded, whining, so desperate for him you'd hitched your knees over the sides of the tub, the water sloshing around as you rocked your hips with his fingers. He scooped out the last of his brother's spend he could reach inside of you, and began fucking you with his fingers in earnest, "How's that, baby?"

"Moreeee!" you cried, nubby nails digging into his skin.

"Greedy," he tsk'd.

You stuck your bottom lip out, "Please."

Joel smiled, something that often felt so foreign in his cheeks, but with you— with you, out here, in the middle of nowhere, and his rut finally burning his mind into thick molten lava at the sound of you begging for him so god damn adorably—it was easy.

He kissed you again, harder, growling low against your cries, blood thick with heat, instincts guiding his every move. His mind was gone. His rut had taken over completely. He stuffed a third finger inside, and you wailed his name.

“Alpha — oh Joel — Joel, Joel, Joel—”

A symphony orchestrated for him alone.

You gushed around his fingers, head thrown back on the lip of the tub as he kissed your jaw, nipped at your chin. And as you trembled through the aftershocks, he withdrew his hand from your slick cunt and hauled you from the water, hands under your arms, lifting you to the floor with a towel that barely made it between you. He pawed at you more than dried you, his hands everywhere. You yelped when he pinched your ass, pushing weakly at his chest and out of his hold.

Something sparked in his chest.

Your smile slowly grew, knowing, mischievous.

"Don't even think about it." Joel growled.

You turned and ran.

Joel’s brain snapped into predator-mode instantly. He knew you loved this part, that was the only reason he let you get as far as you did. You bolted through the door, breath quick and high, weaving around the furniture in the living room. At one point, Joel shoved a chair clean across the room, making you freeze with a startled gasp in the corner.

Naked little thing, chest rising and falling, your back pressed to the wall. Your nipples were peaked, hard and eager, adrenaline only fueling your heat, thrusting Joel into his rut. He thought he might lose what little mind he had left, the shadow of himself completely gone at the sight of you like this: cornered, panting, glistening, wanting.

“Don’t be scared now, little omega. This is what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

You shook your head, eyes widening.

He tilted his head at you like a predator watching a rabbit twitch.

"Yes," you admitted, quiet as a mouse, "yes alpha, I did."

"Tell me why."

You were silent, scared, but he knew better.

“Say it,” he breathed. “Tell me who you belong to.”

"You, alpha, I like when you chase me." you whispered as he came closer and closer. He approached slowly, an animal closing in on prey, and then lunged. His arms slammed to either side of you, caging you against the wall, making you cry out.

“S’okay,” he murmured, inhaling deep, catching the clean scent of your freshly bathed body beneath the reawakening haze of your heat. “Don’t be scared now. I’ve got you. Look at me.” He nuzzled into you, nose finding your jaw, your ear, the little pieces of hair that began to fall from your braid.

You turned your sweet little face toward him, eyes glossy and relieved. He kissed down your neck, across your chest, licking and mouthing at your breasts, giving each nipple attention before continuing lower. His tongue dipped into your navel. His hands were rough on your thighs, groping, massaging, stroking your skin like it soothed his own.

"Oh," he breathed, inhaling you at your core. He laid his nose over your mound as he knelt in front of you, taking his fill of ambrosia.

You smelled so fucking incredible, his mouth watering, opening for you without command, only animal now, as he licked and ate at your slick, wanting cunt. Your cries were so pretty for him, he'd stay there forever, worshiping you, eating you, the only place he wanted to be. He ate and ate and ate, licking, inhaling, his brain on a high nothing would compare to. His chin, his nose, his cheeks were covered in your slick, and he was so greedy, open mouthed and taking more.

And then you were coming again, shaking and trembling and barely able to stand on two feet, and he was scooping you into his arms. He kissed you as he walked, both of you slick and hot, his cock aching. He didn’t give a damn that the second bedroom still smelled faintly like his brother anymore. He was going to fuck you there and make it smell like himself instead. He was going to mate you there. You were his omega. You wanted him.

He laid down on the bed, his back to the pillows and sat you on top.

“Come on now,” he said, voice graveled and thick, tongue heavy in his mouth, gums prickling with the urge to bitebitebite, “Be a good little thing and ride me, honey.”

You rocked your hips against his boxers, the fabric soaked through with your nectar and his dribbling pre arousal, the lips of your core so perfectly shaped around the thickness of him. You scrambled to pull them away, letting his cock bob freely, both of you sighing in relief. You were already wrapping your delicate little hand around it, fingers not even able to touch, and positioned him at your center. He brought his hand down to cover yours, helping you, letting you sit yourself on him. He watched, enrapt by the way you breathed heavily, a gushing, beautiful wash of slick shining against your thighs, darkening the hair around the base of him.

And as you notched the head of him, the thick ridge of it inside of you, Joel knew he was done for. He was no longer Joel, but only an alpha with his perfect little omega. His omega that took him in when he was nothing but a lone wolf, belonging nowhere and to no one. And you'd committed a taboo just to have him, to show him how good life could be.

You cried out as he pushed up into you, and his thick hands gripped your hips, guiding you, rocking you. Skin to skin, cock to cunt.

"Joel—you're so…oh god," you sighed, hands flat on his chest, your eyes twisted, brows furrowing. Neither of you moved except for that gentle rocking, and he could just barely see the bulge of himself in your tummy.

“Yeahhh, still so fuckin’ tight, baby,” he growled, pushing his hand down where he saw your belly protruding. “Made for my cock, huh? Can you feel it? Right there? My brother didn’t even fuck you right—couldn’t’ve. You feel too fuckin’ tight. He get in at all? Bet he didn’t. Bet you were savin’ this sweet little cunt for me.”

“Don’t be mean,” you whined, petulant again. He didn’t want to upset you, you just made him so fucking insane.

“I love you both, you’re my—ohhh fuck—” your voice broke as your brain seemed to melt mid sentence, your body jerking when he thrust up hard, hips grinding deeper. You pawed at his chest, nails dragging through the thick, wiry hair there. “Please, please, knot me, Joel. I need it. Need it so bad I’m burning up inside. It's like a galaxy in my tummy and you're—I’m—oh, oh, please—I love you so much, I love you, I love you…”

His heart may have soared if he wasn't so lost to his instincts. His hand flew to the back of your neck, bringing you down onto him, and he wrapped his arms around you so tightly as he began fucking you in earnest.

“I love you too, baby,” he snarled, lips at your ear. “Love bein’ your alpha. Love fuckin’ you. Gonna knock you up, make you all round and swollen with my pups—fuck fuck fuck.”

You were wailing in his ear as he thrusted mercilessly into you, skin slapping skin as you held onto him. You were crushed to him, your breasts pressing into his chest, bellies sliding against one another.

“My favorite girl,” he panted, “Takin’ my cock so good now. What if it took this time, huh? We wouldn’t even know whose the pups were, would we, baby?”

You hiccuped against him, burying your face in his neck, suckling at his mating gland.

He gasped, as if coming up from drowning at the feeling of your lips, his pheromones filling the air. One of his hands came up from its crushing weight against your back to pet at your hair, his hips still thrusting, but slowing, keeping a steady rhythm as you garbled against his neck, your mouth wrapped around his most sensitive gland.

“That's it,” he whispered into your hair, “That's it. Bite down now, baby. Take your alpha. I'm yours. My sweet little omega. The most perfect girl. Prettiest girl. Only goddamn thing I got left in this world. Bite me, honey. That’s it—ohhh…”

Your teeth closed in on his gland, his blood and pheromones filling your mouth so delightfully Joel was only half aware of your moaning as your cunt squeezed around him for your third orgasm. His cock pulsed deep, thick spurts of come filling you, his knot swelling at once, sealing you both with a brutal ache.

Joel growled into your neck, teeth bared, sinking into the soft place he’d been kissing for days, for weeks, maybe forever. He bit down, hard, marking you, bonding you, everything in him breaking apart and knitting back together around this one truth—you were part of him, and he was part of you.

You mouthed at the wound you'd left, suckling instinctively, still panting through the aftershocks. His hands didn’t stop moving, one arm tight across your back, the other petting your head, soothing and possessive all at once as he kept you pressed to him, knotted and full and trembling.

Joel nuzzled you, feeling his mind coming back to himself piece by piece as he breathed warmly into your skin, his beard rasping gently along your cheek. He felt like he was waking from a fever dream, murmuring sweet nothings in your ear as you both lay there together. He thought he'd never have the words, the thoughts, the right way to tell you how much this all meant to him. But you felt the same, whispering your secrets back as you stayed lock together, floating in the sweet, golden haze of after. Of love, of something holy and like nothing else.

You

It was only a few hours later that Tommy returned, the low creak of the front door stirring you from sleep where you lay in Joel's arms, both of you nestled in the bed he'd carried you to in the sleeping room. Your body was spent, marked, sore in the sweetest ways. He had dressed you in your sleep clothes, and he'd put on his own. Your heat had softened to a lull, a temporary hush between storms. You weren't burning for it anymore, though the embers still kindled in your belly, just under the skin. It wasn't over, and you'd be taken again tomorrow when you woke with a fire again.

But this was the time to breathe, to wake and break bread and be together.

Joel stirred behind you, lifting his head like a wolf catching the scent of his brother, but there was no fight in him now. Only the steady, bone deep understanding of what you were—what all three of you were to each other. You reached for Tommy as he stepped into the room, watched the lines of tension ease from his face as his eyes landed on you. He looked tired, like he’d run miles to come back to you. Maybe he had.

You opened your arms and he came.

There were no words at first, just the shifting of bodies finding each other, the quiet breath of relief when you pressed your cheek to his chest and felt Joel’s hand stay at your hip. You held them both. They held you back.

You knew you'd wake with heat in your belly again tomorrow, your cycle something that wasn't tempered in a day. But that would wait for now. It would let you have this.

You wondered if you'd ever make it back to Jackson. If the world could accept you as you were, But here, in this borrowed house at the edge of the world, you had something no one could name or take.

JOEL

Joel, get up.

The last thing Joel remembered was the whistle of something slicing through the air and the crack that followed it, and then, just final blank. He feels like his bone meeting metal and the sound of something ending.

He's die.

He remembered Ellie’s voice tearing itself open above him.

get up, joel---

Get up.

Joel, get the fuck up.

fucking get up.

He remembered wanting to answer her. Trying to get up just for her, and only her. Wanting to say her name back. Get his head up from the damn floor. Wanting to promise something he wasn’t sure he could keep, 'cause he already broke all his promise for her. But, there’s nothing, just a dense, not quite it was a silence for suffocating pressure that erased the edges of himself until there was no border left between thought and dark.

When he came back, it was violent.

It’s like air punched into his lungs and his chest convulsed and make his body jerked against something soft, and feels wrong under him. Too soft. There should have been cold concrete and smell of dust. Blood thick in the back of his throat.

Instead there was light above him. Something too white and flat to his eyes, almost hurt his eyes. also, He caught a faint smell of chemicals, something sharp and sterile, that pulled at an old memory of hospitals from back in the day.

He blinked, and the world did not shift into nightmare. It stayed clean and then he felt it.

Something that warmth. Warm from other person that live, not like fever or pain. But a hand? Like the hand hold his. Feel like live and soft? Wrapped around his own like it had been there for a long time.

His fingers twitched and brushed skin that did not belong to him. He move his finger again, it’s his index. He felt the curve of a cheek resting near his knuckles. A faint, even breath against his wrist.

He lay still, listening to the mechanical beeping near his ear and the hammering of his own heart, trying to reconcile the impossible fact of being alive.

He should not be alive.

He remembered the certainty of it. The way the world had tilted. The way he had accepted the end without ceremony. He had outlived enough people to know when his number had been called.

This did not feel like heaven.

Heaven, he thought, would be softer than this. It would not carry the faint, sterile sting of antiseptic in the air, sharp enough to settle at the back of his throat. It would not be this quiet in a way that felt watched rather than peaceful. And it would not, under any circumstance, feel gentle toward a man like him. He had never known what heaven was supposed to look like, never even tried to imagine it.

So the thought of this being heaven felt strange, almost absurd, like his mind had reached too far for something it didn’t understand. no, if this were heaven, it had made a mistake, but it wasn’t hell either.

Hell would have greeted him properly, maybe. It would have been loud, unbearable, honest in its cruelty. Fire, or something close to it. Pain that didn’t leave room for doubt. In hell, at least, he would understand where he was. There would be no confusion, no slow unraveling of thought.

And he would have accepted it, because that, at least, would make sense to him. He wasn’t a good man, after all.

He had done too much for anything else to fit. Too many faces that never left him, no matter how hard he tried not to remember. Too many moments where the line between survival and something darker blurred until it didn’t matter anymore which side he stood on.

So this? this quiet, more silence with something live behind the door, this almost-kindness, felt wrong in a way he couldn’t name it.

Like standing somewhere he hadn’t earned.

He tried to move but pain hit him fast, sharp enough to knock the air out of his chest before he could brace for it. It tore up his side and settled there, heavy and throbbing, like something inside him had been pulled apart and stitched back wrong. A rough sound slipped out of him, low and broken, before he could swallow it down.

The air smelled clean more like chemicals and something bitter sitting at the back of his throat. His mouth felt dry, tongue thick, like he hadn’t used it in days or months. There was a weight on his chest, or maybe just the feeling of it, pressure that made each breath slow and careful.

Something moved near his hand. Warm.

The weight shifted. A chair scraped lightly against the floor, the sound sharp in the quiet.

Joel’s vision dragged downward, slow and unsteady, like it didn’t want to cooperate. The light hurt his eyes, somehow. Everything looked washed out, edges blurred, shapes not quite holding still. He forced his eyes to focus anyway.

There was someone there.

A figure at his side, close enough that he could see the outline before the details came in. Hair. Shoulders. A face that felt familiar before he could place it.

Ellie?

His throat worked, tried to say her name, tried to push it past the dryness, past the weight sitting in his chest. But nothing came out, just air.

A low hiss escaped him before he could stop it as he tried to lift his arm, wanting nothing more than to brush the hair from your face. The pain flared hot through his chest, pulling a rough groan from deep in his throat. He hadn’t meant to wake you. In that half-second, a quiet sorrow settled over him, heavy and tender; he was sorry to pull you from whatever fragile rest you had found, sorry that even now, broken and useless, he still managed to disturb the one person who had stayed.

You stirred at the sound.

Your body tensed, shoulders lifting as if surfacing from deep water, and your eyes snapped open with the wide, startled clarity of someone who had trained herself to wake at the smallest sign of him. For a breathless moment you simply looked at him, hair tousled and falling loose around your face, the faint crease from the mattress still pressed into your cheek like a secret the night had left behind. The dim light caught in your eyes, turning them soft and luminous, and something in Joel’s chest tightened at the sight of you, impossibly alive in a world that had forgotten how to be gentle.

The slight flush still lingering on your skin. The way your lips parted, trembling just enough to betray the storm behind them. Everything about you felt etched with care, with sleepless hours and he drank it in without a word, letting the feeling settle somewhere deep where words could not reach.

"Joel?” you breathed. oh god, escaped from your lips.

The sound of his name in your voice slid through him like honey, low and trembling, almost fracturing on the second syllable. “J-Joel…”

It tasted fragile on the air between you, sweet and aching. He stared, the fog in his mind thinning slowly, and realized with a deep, visceral pull that you were not Ellie.

He didn’t know who you were.

You moved toward him without hesitation. Your hand rose, and when it found his face, the touch was so unbearably soft it made his chest tighten. Your palm carried the faint roughness of calluses, yet the skin was velvet-warm, alive with the pulse of your blood. Your thumb traced his cheekbone slowly, deliberately, sending small sparks of sensation racing across his jaw and down his neck. He could smell you clearly now, something faintly sweet, like crushed herbs or the inside of your wrist after a long summer night. You leaned in closer. Your breath brushed his lips first, warm and humid, carrying the ghost of water and exhaustion. Then your mouth pressed to his forehead, soft and lingering, the heat of it blooming across his skin like sunlight soaking into dry earth. He felt the gentle pressure of your lips, the faint tremble in them, the way your hair fell forward and tickled his temple.

His eyes closed on instinct. His body remembered everything his mind had not yet reclaimed, the quiet thunder of your heartbeat so close to his. A slow shiver moved through him, deep and involuntary, like the first touch of skin after years of winter.

Joel’s mouth opened, the words already forming somewhere deep in his chest. Who the hell are you? Where’s Ellie? What is this place? but nothing came. His throat was a dry riverbed, cracked and empty, the kind of desert silence that had swallowed whole towns back when the world still made sense.

He pushed again, harder, air scraping uselessly against raw tissue, and his brow pulled tight in that uneasy frown she knew too well, the one that carved lines between his eyes like he was bracing for a fight he couldn’t even start.

he saw that you noticed right away.

“Hey,” you said softly, thumb still moving in slow, steady circles over his knuckles like muscle memory. “It’s okay. The doctor just took the tube out. They said your voice is coming back, it just needs a little time. Just take it easy, okay?”

Tube.

The word hit him sideways. A tube? In his throat? The confusion sharpened, pressing in behind his ribs until it felt like something alive trying to get out. None of this lined up, He stared at you, eyes narrowed, trying to force the questions through the dryness anyway, but his lips only twitched uselessly.

you didn’t wait for him to try again. you reached for the plastic cup on the side table, the condensation cool against your fingers, and slid your other arm behind his shoulders with the careful ease of someone who had done this exact thing more times than she could count. She lifted him just enough, no rush, no fuss, and brought the straw to his lips.

“Here,” she murmured, voice low and close. “Drink some.”

The water touched his tongue, and slid down his throat like forgiveness he hadn’t asked for. He took small sips, eyes never leaving your face, the desert in his mouth easing just a fraction while everything else inside him stayed cracked wide open. you watched him the whole time, patient and steady and a little scared, like you were afraid the next thing he tried to say might break whatever was left of them both.

“where's Ellie?” he rasped. The word scraped out, dry and uncertain, barely more than breath.

Your expression faltered, just a small, exquisite fracture across your face. “She’s fine,” you whispered, the words warm against his skin, heavy with relief and unspoken nights.

The answer didn’t sit right. He doesn't know why? Just the word fine didn’t belong anywhere near the world he remembered.

He frowned, pain tightening behind his eyes, and the idea unsettled him more than the pain.

He closed his eyes for a second, overwhelmed by the quiet intensity of your presence. The warmth of your skin. The steady brush of your thumb over his knuckles. The way your body leaned toward his without calculation.

He hadn’t been touched like that in a long time. Not with softness that wasn’t earned through blood or apology. Not with care that didn’t feel conditional.

your forehead dipped gently against his temple, careful of whatever bandage lay hidden there.

“You scared me,” you whispered. There was no anger in it, just exhaustion. your fingers tightened more securely around his, like you were anchoring him to something solid. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake,” you said, he can hear the way your voice barely holding together. “You can’t do this to me. I… I can’t do it without you.”

He felt like a man standing in a house that used to belong to him, but the furniture had been rearranged and he no longer knew where the doors were. and not knowing what to do.

He opened his eyes this time, when he feel you pull away from him. you were watching him with your doe- alike eyes like he might disappear if you blinked.

Joel studied you. The soft press of your hands lingered on his shoulders as you eased back, just far enough to study him. Your gaze moved over his face with careful, practiced intensity, as though you were reading symptoms written in the lines of his brow and the tension around his mouth.

“Is anything hurt?” you asked, your voice low and steady. “Any pain I can’t see?”

He guessed you were a doctor, but the thought didn’t quite fit. A nurse, maybe? No, that didn’t sit right either. You wore a simple white fitted tee and jeans, nothing clinical about you. Still, there was something in the way you looked at him that made him wonder exactly who you were. He couldn’t put a name or title to it, only that you felt like someone who knew how to look for what wasn’t being said.

"Yeah,” he muttered. “Yeah… there’s pain.” His voice carried the heaviness of someone unused to admitting weakness aloud. Like the confession itself sat wrong in his mouth. He didn’t even know why he was telling you this. Maybe because your hands had stayed still the whole time. Maybe because you looked at him like he was something breakable and not just a man stitched together by old violence and stubbornness.

Or maybe because, somehow, it felt right. Joel swallowed hard, eyes fixed somewhere past your shoulder, toward nothing at all. “Side,” he added after a moment, the word catching slightly in his throat. His hand drifted unconsciously toward his ribs before stopping midway, fingers curling into his palm instead. “Right side… feels like it’s been torn open.”

The room settled around the silence between you. The low hum of the light overhead. The faint smell of antiseptic and rain clinging to his jacket. His breathing had gone uneven now, careful, measured, like every inhale needed permission first. “Head too,” he murmured quieter this time, jaw tightening. “Keeps poundin’.”

And when he finally looked at you, it wasn’t with embarrassment. Not exactly. It was something softer than that. Something almost boyish beneath all the exhaustion. Like he hated that you were seeing him like this.

“okay, okay. You’ll be okay,” you said. “And I’ll tell the doctor after this.” you sound somehow a little too excited for what Joel is about to see.

Joel stared at you for a second too long, and in that second he became suddenly aware of everything at once: the faint crease between your brows whenever you worried, the careful way your fingers hovered near him without forcing contact, the scent of soap and cold air lingering in your sweater. Small things. Forgettable things, maybe. Yet they reached him with startling precision, lodging somewhere beneath the ache in his ribs.

“You said…” His thumb brushed unconsciously against the edge of the blanket draped over him, fingers tense, uncertain. “You’ve been waiting. For me?”

And God, the way he said it, almost hesitant, made the question feel larger than it was. As if he already feared the answer before hearing it. As if some part of him couldn’t quite believe anybody would wait for him at all.

She nodded once, and the small gesture seemed to carry more weight than it should have. Two months, she said, and the number landed in him like a quiet shock, something too large to hold all at once. He looked at her as if the space between them had changed shape, as if her patience had been sitting there in the room all along, waiting with her. Her hand stayed around his, steady and unshowy, but it made him feel suddenly aware of his own pulse, the fragility of being touched with such care. He had the strange sense that he was being looked after in a way he did not know how to ask for, and maybe had never once expected. It unsettled him, and softened him at the same time. He wanted to understand why she had waited, why she had stayed, but all he could do was stand there inside the quiet of it, feeling the tenderness of her concern like something almost unbearable.

He was trying to summon something, a memory of her voice, her face, the way her thumb traced his skin like she had mapped it a thousand times.

“Where… what hospital is this?” he asked.

“You’re at St. David’s Medical Center,” you said

The thought flickered, distant and half-formed. His eyes shifted past you, taking in the room again. the steady light, and quiet, the way everything felt… intact.

“what? no, no, no…” he started, then stopped. its just came out as a disbelife and whisper to himself.

His hand shifted against the sheets, slow, like even that took effort. He looked back at you, really looked this time, like maybe the answer was in your face instead of the room.

“…How?” he asked finally, quieter now. “Is it still in Jackson?”

joel could see it in the way your breath caught, like something fragile inside you had been nudged out of place. your eyes searched his face, not for an answer—but for how much he meant by that.

“No,” you said after a beat, her voice gentler now. “It’s not in Jackson.”

Joel frowned.

The word no didn’t settle right. It only made things worse. His gaze drifted again, slower this time, like he was trying to force the room to make sense if he looked at it long enough.

"Then where the hell am i—” he muttered, the curse fraying at the edges before it could even finish, stolen by the sudden weight of exhaustion that pressed down on him like wet concrete.

He swallowed, the motion pulling a faint wince across his face as fresh pain bloomed raw along his throat. His chest rose and fell unevenly, each inhale a careful negotiation, like his body was still learning the rules of this impossible place.

“you're in Austin, Texas, joel....” you added.

That made him freeze.

This was not the quiet, measured stillness Joel had learned to carry — the kind a man develops after twenty years of surviving, when every decision could mean life or death. No, this was something altogether different. Sharper. Colder. It seized him completely, freezing the blood in his veins as though winter had come from inside his own body.

Austin. Texas.

The words echoed strangely in his mind, hollow and unnatural, like hearing someone speak your childhood language in a dream. Austin no longer existed. Not like this. Not clean and bright and humming with life, with machines that worked and lights that stayed on and warm hands holding his as if love were still a simple thing.

"...are you okay?"

In the world he remembered, Austin had burned. It had died screaming along with everything else — swallowed by infection and fire and the long, merciless collapse of civilization. It had taken his daughter with it. Sarah. To hear that name spoken so easily now, in this bright, impossible room, felt like a kind of blasphemy. As if someone had quietly dug up her grave and expected him to be grateful that the earth had given her back.

His eyes lifted back to yours, sharper now despite the haze still clouding the edges of his vision, the confusion hardening into something edged and dangerous.

“…What do you mean?” he said under his breath, the question low and rough, barely more than gravel dragged across concrete. Then the suspicion broke loose, raw and unfiltered, the old instincts clawing their way up before he could stop them. “Are you fucking kidding me?” His voice cracked on the words, still hoarse from the tube they’d pulled, but the accusation burned through anyway. “Are you a one of FEDRA? Is the girl that shot me one of your people... or your leader?”

The questions hung between you, heavy and trembling, carrying every nightmare he’d lived through: the blue uniforms, the quarantine zones, the cold efficiency of people who called slaughter order. His fingers tightened in your grasp without meaning to, not pulling away but holding on like the contact itself might keep the floor from dropping out beneath him.

“Joel…” Your voice came out small at first, cracked and uncertain. “What… what are you talking about?”

He didn’t answer right away. The anger was already sharpening, turning his jaw to stone. He could feel it in the way his fingers flexed inside yours, but pressing harder, almost accusing.

"just tell me?" his voice getting angrier somehow

Because if this was some new game, if you were part of it, if the clean white room, the way you looked at him like he was yours were all just another way to break him—then he’d rather the club had finished its swing.

Your breath hitched, the sound soft and unsteady. You leaned in closer without thinking, “I’m not with anyone like that. I'm willow, and I’m yours. I’ve been yours for years.” Your voice cracked, confusion and hurt braiding together until it was impossible to tell which was winning. " y-you even give me this ring, remember?" the ring on your finger catching the light like a taunt.

willow

It started low, a slow burn behind his ribs, the kind that had kept him alive for twenty years. He watched the way your shoulders tensed, the way your free hand hovered halfway to his cheek before dropping, trembling. That look, wide-eyed and lost, like he’d just spoken in a language you didn’t understand, only fed the fire. Because if this was real, if you really didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about, then either the world had gone completely insane… or you were lying to him. And the thought that you, of all people, this woman who kissed his forehead like it was a promise, might be lying made something ugly twist tight in his gut.

“Joel, babe. There’s no... there’s no one who shot you. It was a car accident. On the highway. You swerved to avoid a truck and… and you don’t remember any of that?” you went on, words tumbling faster now, laced with a panic that only made his chest burn hotter. Your free hand rose again, hovering near his face like you wanted to touch him and didn’t dare.

A car accident. The words sounded so clean, so ordinary, they made his stomach turn.

He let out a short, bitter breath that scraped raw against his ruined throat. “A car accident,” he echoed, voice low and edged with disbelief. The anger was fully awake now, crawling higher, licking at the base of his throat. “You expect me to believe that? After everything? After the way the world ended? You’re telling me I’ve been lying here two months and the whole damn thing was just some fucking fender-bender in Austin, Texas?”

“what?… please, tell me what’s going on in your head. I don’t understand any of this. We... we can get through this. Us. you, me, the girls—” The plea only stoked the anger higher.

He could see it in your eyes—the genuine bewilderment, the way you looked at him like he was the one breaking something precious—and it made him want to shove the words back at you, make you feel the same fracture splitting open inside him.

“Yeah, well I don’t understand a goddamn thing either,” he rasped, the roughness in his voice turning sharp, ugly. His fingers tightened around yours, not gentle anymore, the grip almost bruising. “One minute I’m on the floor in Jackson with Ellie screaming my name, the next I wake up in some fairy-tale hospital with a woman I’ve never seen before telling me we’ve got daughters and a life in a city that shouldn’t even be standing. So forgive me if I’m having a hard time buying the ‘car accident’ story while you sit there looking at me like I’ve lost my mind and throwing around some bullshit about us—”

You flinched this time, but you didn’t pull away. And that, more than anything, unsettled him.

Are you out of your goddamn mind, kid? he thought. If this body weren’t already half-dead on me, I could put you down easy. But you stayed there anyway, close enough for him to feel the warmth coming off your skin, close enough that your hand still rested against him like you had forgotten it was there. Joel watched the confusion in your eyes shift slowly into hurt, quiet and unguarded, and the sight of it only made something uglier coil tighter inside his chest.

Because part of him had already begun to believe you.

“Joel,” you whispered again, voice trembling now, “I’m not lying to you. I swear I’m not. I don’t know what have you been through to this, or Jackson, or any of it. I just know I’ve been sitting here every day waiting for you to wake up and come back to me. To us.”

The room felt smaller suddenly, the beeping monitors too loud, the space between your faces charged with everything neither of you could quite name. His anger simmered there, hot and restless, while your confusion pressed back like a mirror, reflecting every fracture until it felt like the beginning of an argument neither of you had the strength for—but both of you were already stepping into.

The word us hit him like a gut punch.

His face twisted into something ugly, something mean and disbelieving, the kind of look he used to give raiders right before he pulled the trigger. Who the fuck is us? The thought roared through him, hot and vicious. There is no us between you and me. There never was. He didn’t know you. He didn’t want to know you. This soft, pleading stranger with her ring and her tears and her gentle hands had no right to that word.

“No,” he said suddenly, his voice rough and low. “No. No, that’s not what happened.”

you turned to look at him. Joel’s breathing had grown sharper, the anxiety clawing its way back up his throat. He pushed himself up slightly against the pillows, ignoring the burn in his side.

“Someone… a girl,” he continued, the words tumbling out faster, more urgent. “She shot me in the knee. Point blank. Then she beat the shit out of me. She had this goddamn club and she—” His voice cracked, but he forced the rest out. “She swung it at my head. That’s what happened. I’m not crazy. I didn’t get hurt in some fucking car accident. I know what I felt. I know what I saw.”

The room went completely still.

“Joel… hey, what are you talking about? There was no girl. It was a car crash on I-35. You swerved, hit the guardrail hard. They had to cut you out of the truck.”

Joel shook his head, jaw tight, eyes wild with frustration. “No. You’re wrong. All of it is wrong.” His gaze flicked toward you by the window, then back to you. “I was in Jackson. Ellie was there. She was screaming at me to get up. This wasn’t some accident on a highway that doesn’t even exist anymore. This was real. The blood, the pain, the way my leg gave out .... that was real.”

His chest was heaving now, the panic rising again, hot and suffocating. He looked between the two of you like you were both part of some elaborate lie meant to break him.

“I’m telling you,” he rasped, voice cracking with exhaustion and anger, “a girl beat me half to death with a golf club. She wanted me to suffer. That’s the last thing I remember. Not some fucking truck. Not Austin. Not any of this.”

The silence that followed felt suffocating. you glanced at him helplessly, clearly at a loss.

Joel’s hands were shaking where they gripped the sheets. He didn’t know who to trust anymore. Everything he said sounded insane even to his own ears, but it was the only truth he had left.

You cut him off mid-sentence, voice desperate, trying to reach the man you thought you still knew. “Joel, please—just breathe. tommy, ellie, and sarah are all waiting for you to wake up, okay. all of them is fine, there's no such a things like that, ”

"Sarah." the name landed like a blade between his ribs. "she so worried about ya,"

His eyes snapped to yours, the kind of look that had once made grown men step back. Anger surged through him in a white-hot flood, pure and blinding, drowning everything else. How dare you say her name? How dare you speak it so casually, like it was just another word, like you had any right to it? It felt like mockery. Like you were twisting the knife in the oldest wound he had, the one that had never healed, the one that still bled every time he closed his eyes. Sarah—his Sarah, his little girl, gone in a spray of bullets and screams—was not yours to claim. Not like this.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” he snarled, voice low and trembling with fury, the words scraping out like broken glass. “You don’t get to say her name. You don’t get to stand there and mock me with it. My daughter is dead. She’s been dead for twenty goddamn years. And you’re using her name like—like it’s some fucking game to you?”

You blinked, confusion crashing over your face like cold water, eyes wide and glistening. “Who?" you asks. "Ellie? Sarah?” The names tumbled out of you in helpless bewilderment, soft and uncertain, as if testing them might make any of this real. his eyes snapped at you. “Joel, I—I don’t understand. Sarah’s our-" joel see when you corrected yourself. "....your daughter. she is at school right now with Ellie and Tommy waiting for the doctor to say you're awake. She’s been so scared—”

His eyes snapped again at the second mention of Sarah, harder this time, the rage and raw grief colliding until his vision blurred at the edges. The anger was everywhere now, choking him, making his chest heave with the effort not to shout.

Part of him wanted to tear his hand from yours, wanted to shove you back hard enough to wipe that look from your face, to split the hurt between you so he wouldn’t have to carry it alone. The instinct came fast, ugly, familiar. Like anger was easier to survive than fear ever was.

But the other part of him: the worn-down, splintering part that had been holding itself together by habit alone, couldn’t stop looking at you.

At the tears beginning to gather in your eyes, shining stubbornly even as you tried to blink them away. At the way your voice cracked around his name, soft and trembling, as though it meant something sacred to you. As though he meant something.

It was unbearable.

Not because you were weak. Not because you pitied him.

But because you looked at him like you still believed there was something left in him worth reaching for.

And God, that was crueler than anything. Crueler than the pain in his body.

The room seemed to draw inward around the two of you, walls bending closer with every sharp pulse of the monitors. The sound filled the silence too loudly, too steadily, until even the air between your faces felt alive with it, thin and electric and breaking apart by inches.

Joel kept staring at you with that same ugly look—suspicion tangled with anger, exhaustion sitting underneath it all like something ancient and incurable. His hands trembled inside yours despite himself, not with weakness alone but with the effort of holding everything in. And your expression only undid him further: the confusion there, the hurt slowly opening across your face like light through cracked glass.

You looked at him as though you could not understand how someone already half-destroyed could still keep choosing to wound himself further.

The feeling hit him again before he could outrun it.

Anxiety came down hard and sudden, vicious as a storm breaking through rotten wood. His chest seized violently, breath catching halfway in as though invisible hands had wrapped around his ribs and begun tightening, until even the smallest inhale hurt. A sharp pain bloomed beneath his sternum, hot and blinding, spreading with every frantic beat of his heart.

"you okay?"

For one terrible second, he thought his body might simply split apart from it.

Old grief rose first. Then fear. Then something worse than both.

Because beneath the panic, beneath the confusion and fury and pain, there was the unbearable feeling that he was losing something again before he had even remembered what it was.

And you were still there, holding his shaking hands like they belonged to someone worth saving. but then, “I don’t know who the fuck you are, okay?” The words tore out of him, raw and cruel, each one aimed to wound. “I don’t know you. I don’t remember your face, your voice, that goddamn ring on your finger—none of it. You keep talking about us and daughters and some perfect little life like I’m supposed to just nod and play along. But I don’t feel any of that. You’re a stranger to me. You’re a fucking stranger holding my hand like you own it, saying my dead daughter’s name like it’s nothing, and I can’t—”

He stopped, breath ragged, the anxiety clawing higher, tighter, making his voice shake with something ugly.

“I wake up and everything’s gone. Jackson. Ellie. Tommy. My Sarah. And instead I get you. Some woman I’ve never seen before telling me I’ve got a whole family I don’t remember. How the hell do you think that feels? Like I’m losing my goddamn mind. Or maybe I already lost it and this is the joke.”

The words landed like stones. He saw them hit you — watched the way your shoulders curved inward, the way your lips pressed together to trap whatever sound wanted to escape. He saw the fresh hurt bloom in your eyes, bright and devastating, and still he couldn’t stop the poison spilling out.

“You want me to believe you’re mine? That I chose this? That I gave you that ring and built some goddamn white-picket life in a city that shouldn’t exist anymore?” His laugh was bitter, broken. “I don’t even know if I could love someone like that anymore. Not after everything. Certainly not someone I can’t remember.”

But even as the venom left him, even as the anger tried to keep its grip, something inside his chest fractured wider.

He looked at your eyes: They were the saddest eyes he had ever seen in his life. for one brief second, felt something close to shame crawl beneath his skin.

Not just guilt but the terrible understanding that he was hurting someone who did not deserve to be hurt.

A tear slipped from your eye before you could stop it. Joel watched it trace a slow path down your cheek, catching the pale hospital light as it fell. And then came the flush blooming beneath your skin, delicate and sudden, spreading across your face like your body itself was embarrassed by the honesty of your grief.

You looked away for half a second, as if ashamed to be seen hurting in front of him.

That nearly undid him. Because beneath the exhaustion and the confusion and the anger twisting inside his chest, you suddenly looked unbearably young to him. Young in the way bruised things are open and exposed. Still foolish enough to care. And God, he did not know what to do with that.

Something tightened low in his stomach, sharp and uncomfortable, almost like grief but not quite. The sight of your tears made him feel clumsy inside his own skin, like his hands had become dangerous things without him noticing. Like every hard word he threw at you landed somewhere tender he hadn’t meant to touch. For the first time since waking up, Joel looked at you not like a threat, not like a stranger hovering too close to his bed—

but like someone he might already have ruined.

Joel watched as you lifted your hand and wiped the tear away roughly, almost angrily, like you were punishing yourself for letting it fall in front of him. The motion was jerky, ungraceful, nothing like the gentle way you had touched him earlier. It hurt more than he expected it to.

Then something buzzed in your pocket.

You pulled out a slim, sleek rectangle, a phone? but not like any phone or even radio they usually use, he remembered from before the outbreak. those thick and got keyboard on it. but now It look too thin as the screen glowing bright and alive with color. Just a perfectly functioning piece of the old world, as if the last twenty years had never happened. Joel stared at it, a fresh wave of unease crawling over his skin. Phones didn’t work anymore. Not like that. Seeing it in your hand felt wrong. Unnatural. Like proof that none of this was real.

you glanced at the screen, hesitated, then answered.

“Hey… no need, can you just come here, please” you said, your voice quieter now, trying to steady itself.

You turned slightly away from him, but not enough to hide anything. Joel could still see the shine of tears in your eyes, the way your free hand gripped the edge of the bed until your knuckles paled. “No, he’s awake. He just woke up a little while ago.” someone on other side say something, and you says. "yeah, he talking, i mean we are,"

He watched you the whole time.

His eyes didn’t leave your face, not even for a second. There was a tight, animal caution in his chest, the old instinct still working even though his body felt half-broken. Part of him kept waiting for the shift — for your hand to move suddenly, for something sharp to appear, for the gentleness to crack open and reveal what was really underneath. He wouldn’t have been surprised if you pulled a gun. In his experience, that was how these things usually ended.

While you were still on the phone, he turned his head slowly to the side, jaw clenched against the pain that flared down his neck. Through the gap in the thin curtain, the window showed him the city. They were high up. Very high. Buildings stood straight and whole, lights moving along the streets below, everything clean and ordinary in a way that made his stomach feel hollow. It didn’t look like a world that had ended. It looked like one that had simply kept going without him.

“Okay,” you said into the phone, voice quiet and tired. “Can you tell the doctor on the way here? Yeah… okay.”

You hung up and slipped the phone back into your pocket. For a moment you stood completely still, looking down at the floor like you needed the extra second to collect yourself. Then you lifted your head and met his eyes again.

Joel didn’t say anything. He just watched you. The flush was still on your cheeks, faint now, and your eyes were red at the edges. You had wiped the tear away so roughly it was like you were annoyed at yourself for crying. He noticed the small things how your fingers kept gripping the edge of the bed rail, even after everything he had said, the way your shoulders carried a weight that wasn’t just physical.

“Tommy’s downstairs,” you said quietly, without looking at him. “He’s going to come up in a minute.”

The squeaking sound of the chair cut through the silence like a small wound.

You dragged it back toward the wall with a slow, tired scrape, the rubber legs protesting against the linoleum. Joel tensed instantly, every muscle in his battered body pulling tight. His pulse spiked. For one sharp, instinctive second he was certain you were going to lift it — swing it hard across the room and bring it down on his head, finishing what the world had started. He braced for it, breath shallow, eyes never leaving you.

But you didn’t.

You simply collapsed into the chair, throwing your body down as if all the strength had suddenly left your legs. The movement was heavy, defeated. You curled forward, back rounding like a question mark, elbows digging into your knees, and buried your face in your palms. The posture was so raw, so private, that Joel felt he shouldn’t be watching. For a moment he was sure you were going to cry, really cry! the kind of crying that tore itself out of the chest and refused to be quiet.

He waited for the sound of it.

Instead, you stiffened, as though reminding yourself you were still in the room with him. You straightened your back just enough to look composed, though your shoulders stayed heavy and your head remained low. Your gaze fixed on the floor between your feet. Then, almost absentmindedly, your fingers began to move — tracing the band of the ring on your left hand, turning it slowly, nervously, around and around your finger like it was the only real thing left in the world.

Joel watched the small motion with a strange ache blooming behind his ribs. The way the light caught on the simple silver band as you twisted it. The way your thumb kept brushing over it, again and again, as if checking it was still there. As if checking he was still there.

There was something unbearably intimate about it. Something that made the air feel thick and warm between you, even with all the distance and silence and cruel words he had thrown at you earlier. He could see the exhaustion in every line of your body, the quiet war you were fighting just to keep yourself from falling apart in front of him.

And still, those eyes, when they eventually lifted again, held that same devastating softness.

He didn’t know what to do with any of it. The fear, the suspicion, the strange pull in his chest. So he simply kept watching you, silent and unsettled, as the fluorescent light hummed above you both and the city glowed indifferently beyond the window.

The silence stretched between you for a long moment, heavy and alive.

Then you lifted your head slightly, eyes still fixed somewhere near the floor, and asked in a voice so soft it barely disturbed the air:

“You don’t really remember me at all, do you?”

The question came out small and fragile, almost apologetic for existing. With it, a sad smile touched your lips — weak, trembling at the edges, the kind of smile that wasn’t really a smile at all. It was more like surrender. A small, tired curve that knew it wouldn’t reach your eyes and didn’t even try. It made something inside Joel tighten painfully.

He stared at you, chest still aching from the earlier surge of anxiety, his body heavy against the hospital bed. The question hung there, simple and devastating. He could see the way your fingers kept turning the ring around and around, slower now, as though the motion could steady you.

For a second he didn’t answer. He just looked at that weak, sorrowful smile and felt the strange weight of it settle deep in his stomach. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. You were looking at him like he had once meant everything, while all he could offer back was confusion and suspicion and the cold certainty that he had never seen your face before today.

“No,” he said finally, his voice low and rough, scraped raw from disuse. “I don’t.”

Your sad little smile faltered but didn’t disappear completely. It only became sadder, thinner, as if you had already known the answer but still needed to hear it out loud. Your eyes shimmered again, that unbearable softness returning full force, and Joel felt the now-familiar twist in his chest — guilt and something else he didn’t want to name it.

You nodded once, barely perceptible, still playing with the ring like it was a lifeline.

“okay... ” you whispered, almost to yourself. “at least you didn't forgot your family.”

You simply sat there in the chair, back slightly curved, wearing that small, broken smile like armor, while the city lights glowed quietly beyond the window and the distance between you felt wider than ever.

Joel kept watching you, unable to look away, the image of that weak smile burning itself into him long after you lowered your gaze again.

His eyes were fixed on you as you shook your head, then you let out a small, broken sound, almost like a chuckle in disbelief at what had happened.

“I don’t know what’s worse, Joel. That you don’t remember me… or that some part of me still believes if I just wait long enough, you’ll come back to me anyway. Even though I can see in your eyes that you already left.”

Joel felt the words sink into him like hooks.

Something heavy and painful lodged itself in his throat. He stared at you, at that small, devastated smile still clinging to your lips, at the way your shoulders curved like the weight of loving him was slowly crushing you. The anxiety in his chest tightened again, but this time it was mixed with a guilt so sharp it almost made him flinch.

Jesus Christ, he thought. How do you say something like that to a man who doesn’t even know your name? How do you sit there and bleed like this for someone who looks at you like a threat?

He hated it. He hated how your sadness made him feel small. He hated that some broken part of him wanted to reach out and touch your hand anyway. Most of all, he hated that he had nothing real to give you.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he rasped finally, his voice low and rough, almost angry at how unsteady it sounded. “I can’t lie to you. I look at you and… I feel nothing. Not the way you want me to. There’s just this blank space where you say my life used to be.”

He swallowed hard, eyes dropping to your hands, to that ring you kept touching like a wound.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, the words feeling foreign and insufficient on his tongue. “I’m sorry you’re hurting like this. But I didn’t ask for any of it. I didn’t ask for you to wait two months by my bed. I didn’t ask for daughters I don’t remember. I woke up and everything I know is gone… and you’re looking at me like I’m supposed to fix that. Like I’m supposed to love you when I don’t even know who the hell you are.”

He met your eyes again, his own gaze tired and conflicted.

“I’m not him,” he said quietly, almost gently this time. “Whoever the man was who looked at you like you were his whole world… I ain’t him. Not anymore. Maybe I never will be again.”

Joel looked away toward the window, jaw tight, the city lights blurring slightly in his vision. Inside his chest, the guilt twisted deeper. Because even as he said the words, even as he tried to push you away, a small, terrified part of him wondered if he was making the biggest mistake of his life by letting someone who loved him this much slip through his fingers.

You looked at him for a long moment with those blank eyes, eyes so full of sadness they seemed emptied of everything else. There was no anger left in them, no fight. Just a vast, quiet exhaustion that made the room feel colder.

Then a sudden scoff from you that broke the silence, almost a sneer, like you were disgusted with yourself for still caring.

“i hope you do a little better and put a effort when you see the girls,” you said, your voice low and flat. “They’re your daughters. You’re their only hope right now.”

He stared at you as you said them. There was no longer any plea in them, only a weary resignation that somehow hurt more than any accusation. Joel watched as you pushed yourself up from the chair. Your movements were slow, heavy, like your body had grown too heavy to carry. You walked over to the large window he had been glancing at earlier and pulled the thin curtain open with one sharp tug. afternoon light flooded the room, softer and warmer than the harsh fluorescent glow. The city stretched out beneath you... alive, glowing, impossibly intact.

Joel stared past you at the view, his chest tightening again at the sight of a world that refused to match his memories. You stood there with your back to him, arms wrapped around yourself, silhouetted against the glass. The light caught in your hair and made the ring on your finger glint faintly. You didn’t turn around. You didn’t say anything else. You just stood there, looking out at the city like it might give you answers he couldn’t.

Joel felt something shift uncomfortably inside him. Those blank, sorrow-filled eyes stayed burned into his mind even now that you weren’t facing him. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. The silence between you felt thicker than before — full of everything you hadn’t said, and everything he didn’t know how to feel.

He stayed quiet, watching the gentle rise and fall of your shoulders, wondering how much longer you could keep holding yourself together when he kept breaking you apart.

The door burst open.

Both of you turned at the sound, your body pivoting fully from the window in one fluid, instinctive motion, no longer offering him your back. The golden sunlight that had been outlining your silhouette now spilled across your front, catching in your eyes and illuminating the quiet exhaustion etched into your features. Joel felt the shift like a current passing through the room. Your gaze landed on him first before moving to Tommy.

Tommy came in fast, boots loud against the floor, breathing hard like he had run the whole way from wherever bad news lived in this too-bright city. The rush of air that followed him carried the scent of outside—dust, engine oil, and the faint metallic tang of evening settling over concrete. His hair was disheveled, jacket half-buttoned, eyes wide with that familiar mix of panic and fierce love Joel almost recognized.

“Joel—Jesus Christ, willow said you were awake,” Tommy’s voice cracked as he crossed the room in long strides, stopping short when he saw you standing by the window, rigid and silent. "Jesus, you scared the hell out of us." His gaze flicked between the two of you, reading the thick air, the way your arms hugged your ribs like armor. Something in Tommy’s face softened with understanding, then tightened again with worry.

Tommy obviously knew you. There had been no hesitation in his brother when he looked at you, none of that suspicion Joel had first clung to because suspicion was easier than the alternative. Easier than believing you were exactly what you said you were.

Because if Tommy knew you, really knew you, then you hadn’t lied to him.

Which meant the look on your face earlier had been real too. The silence after his cruel words. The way your mouth parted slightly, as if you had almost said something back before deciding against it. He remembered it now with painful clarity. That quiet kind of hurt people try to hide because they don’t think they’re allowed to feel it in the first place.

And God, he had done that to you.

he’d rather die than speak to you now, knowing he was the one who hurt you.

...

YOU (WILLOW)

You sat in the parking lot with the food balanced on your lap, the paper bag already going translucent with grease. The Coke beside you had started sweating down the cup, dampening the fabric of your coat where it rested against your thigh. You could hear children somewhere outside laughing too loudly, backpacks slamming against lockers, car doors opening and closing in quick succession. Life continuing with this terrible ease.

when the doctor spoke, somehow made it worse.

Like if he had sounded alarmed, or uncertain, or visibly disturbed by any of this, maybe you could have matched his emotion properly. But he spoke in that careful, measured tone doctors used when they had already accepted the situation long before you had.

You sat across from him in the consultation room with your hands clasped so tightly together your knuckles hurt. There was a coffee stain on the sleeve of your sweater from two days ago. Or maybe three. You couldn’t really remember anymore. Time had begun collapsing strangely since the accident. Nights folding into mornings without edges between them.

“He remembers his brother,” you said. “his daughters.”

The doctor nodded once. “Yes.”

You stared at him. The fluorescent light above buzzed softly. Somewhere outside the room a phone rang twice and stopped. “But not me.”

Another pause.

You hated the pauses most. The pauses were where reality entered the room.

“Memory retrieval after brain trauma can be selective,” he explained. “Sometimes emotionally significant memories remain accessible. Sometimes certain relationships become… disconnected temporarily.”

Disconnected. The word made something sharp twist low in your stomach.

“He knew me before,” you said.

“Yes.”

“He loved me.” you murmur.

The doctor lowered his eyes briefly then. Not avoiding the question exactly. Just moving carefully around it, like somebody stepping over broken glass.

“I understand that.”

“No, I don’t think you do.” Your voice sounded strange suddenly. “Because if he remembers Ellie, and Tommy, and Sarah, then why not me?”

The question stayed there between you.

Why not me.

You realized then that you had been thinking it over and over since Joel opened his eyes.

Not: Will he recover?

Not: Will things go back to normal?

Just: Why not me.

The doctor folded his hands together on the desk. “The brain doesn’t organize memory according to fairness,” he said gently.

You almost laughed at that, not because it was funny, because the sentence felt obscene somehow. Fairness. As though this had anything to do with fairness anymore.

“He looked at me,” you said after a moment. “Like I frightened him.”

The doctor didn’t answer immediately. You kept speaking anyway because stopping felt impossible now.

“He kept asking for Ellie. He remembered Sarah immediately. Tommy too. He remembered things that apparently don’t even exist anymore inside his head. But when he looked at me,” your throat tightened suddenly. “Nothing. There was just nothing.”

Your voice cracked slightly on the last word and you looked down immediately, embarrassed by it. The doctor waited. You hated that too. The patience. The gentleness. As though your grief had become medically predictable.

“But he did know me,” you insisted again, quieter this time. “You understand that, right? We've been together like... almost five years. seeing him every single day, and we-we going to married, and-and i don't know have another kid. He used to…” You stopped.

'Used to' is the saddest phrases you could ever say. The phrase hollowed something inside your chest.

The doctor leaned back slightly in his chair.“Miss Grant,” he said carefully, “people often assume memory is purely factual. But autobiographical attachment is extremely complicated. Sometimes after trauma the brain preserves certain identities while suppressing others associated with emotional intensity, stress, or disorientation.”

You blinked at him. Suppressing others. The words sounded almost violent.

“So I’m stressful?” you asked.

“No, that’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

He hesitated.

And again you thought: there it is. That terrible little hesitation before somebody says something that changes your life permanently.

“What I mean,” he said slowly, “is that memory loss is not always random. Sometimes the mind protects itself in ways we don’t fully understand.”

You stared at him for a long moment. Then shook your head immediately. “No.”

He stayed silent.

“No,” you repeated. “Because that makes it sound intentional.”

“I’m not suggesting he chose this.”

“But why me?” you asked again, suddenly unable to stop. “Why am I the missing part? Why does he remember everyone except me?”

Your voice had gone thin now. Almost shaking.

You pressed your palms hard against your eyes for a second, breathing carefully.

“He remembered his daughters,” you whispered. “Do you understand how strange that is? He remembers being a father. Just not being my.....”

The doctor’s expression softened almost imperceptibly.

And somehow that softness finally broke something in you.

“He used to know me better than anyone,” you said quietly. “He used to look at me and…” You swallowed hard. “God. He used to look at me like I was home to him.”

The room stayed silent after that.

Then finally, very softly, the doctor said:

“I know this is painful.”

And the strange thing was, hearing him say painful almost made you angry. Because painful sounded far too small a word for what this actually was.

Painful was a migraine. A broken wrist. Bad news over the phone.

Because if Joel truly felt nothing, this would actually be simpler. Cleaner. You could grieve properly then. People survived rejection every day. Survived divorce. Survived widowhood.

But this was something stranger.

He looked at you like there was something inside him trying unsuccessfully to reach toward you through locked glass.

And maybe that was the cruelest possibility of all. To still exist somewhere inside another person without them being able to find you.

...

You took another bite of the burger because your body needed something, even if your mind rejected the idea of eating entirely. The meat tasted too salty now. Or maybe that was just the tears reaching the corners of your mouth. You wiped your face with the heel of your hand and stared through the windshield at nothing in particular.

It’s strange, you thought. How quickly a person can become lonely inside their own life.

Not even this morning, Joel had still known your name. Maybe not speaking it, because he was unconscious and machines had been breathing for him and the doctors kept using words like pressure and swelling and wait. But somewhere underneath all that, he had still belonged to you in the ordinary way husbands belong to their wives. His toothbrush still sat beside yours at home. His coffee mug still waited in the sink. The flannel he wore most often was still hanging over the chair in your bedroom because you hadn’t washed it yet. It smelled too much like him.

And now suddenly you were somebody standing at the edge of his bed introducing yourself like a stranger.

The thought made your stomach turn violently. You laughed a little under your breath then, though there was nothing funny in it. What are you supposed to do with a relationship after only one person remembers it?

You kept thinking maybe there was a correct way to behave. Some proper version of yourself that would make this easier for him. Less frightening. Maybe if you had not cried. Maybe if you had touched him less. Maybe if you had not looked so devastated every time he stared at you blankly.

But then another thought came immediately after. No, because even if you had done everything perfectly, he still would not remember you.

That was the unbearable thing. You rested your forehead briefly against the steering wheel. You still had to pick up the girls.

Your eyes burned from crying.

You took another bite of the burger and forced yourself to eat half because otherwise Tommy would notice later. Tommy noticed things. Not in the way Joel did, quietly and immediately, but eventually. Like a storm warning arriving a little after the rain had already started.

The burger had gone lukewarm.

You chewed anyway.

People always say grief steals your appetite. This had never been true for you. Grief did not make you less hungry. It simply made eating feel absurd. The body continuing with its ordinary needs while the heart behaved like something mortally wounded.

You chewed slowly.

A girl crossed the parking lot holding hands with her father. She was laughing at something he said, head tilted back completely without caution, the way children laugh when they trust somebody absolutely.

You had loved Joel for years before you realized the frightening part of it wasn’t losing him.

It was building an entire life around somebody until your memories no longer made sense without them inside it.

You thought about the hospital room again. Joel looking at you with suspicion first. Then anger. Then something worse afterward. Guilt.

That part stayed with you.

Because underneath all his fear, he had looked ashamed after making you cry. As though some instinct inside him still recoiled from hurting you even when his mind no longer understood why.

The thought settled into your chest strangely warm and painful at once. Maybe memory lived somewhere deeper than the brain. Somewhere inside the body itself. Or maybe you were becoming pathetic now. The kind of woman who searched for signs of love in tiny meaningless gestures because the larger thing had already disappeared.

You swallowed hard.

You rested your forehead briefly against the steering wheel. Your chest tightened until breathing hurt.

if you hold back on the emotions, if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them, you can never get to being detached. You stay afraid of them.

You wondered if that was true.

Because lately you felt like all you had done was feel.

Fear.

Hope.

Relief.

Then grief.

Then hope again.

Then grief again.

An endless cycle.

The doctor had told you memory loss was complicated. That emotional pathways could survive even when memories disappeared. That Joel might still feel connected to you in ways he couldn't explain.

Might. Such a terrible word and hope lives inside words like might. So does suffering, You took another bite, chewed slowly.

The truth was, you had spent two months preparing yourself for almost every outcome imaginable.

For a second you honestly considered driving somewhere else entirely. Just continuing down the highway without stopping. Leaving the city. Leaving the hospital. Leaving the terrible ache of being looked at by your husband like you were some woman who wandered accidentally into his room.

But the thought vanished almost immediately because there was nowhere you could go where your life would not follow you.

You closed your eyes briefly. For one absurd moment, you think it might be easier to choke on the burger and die right here in the school parking lot. Not because you want to die—you don't. That's the strange thing. You want tomorrow. You want coffee in the morning. You want Sarah yelling from upstairs that she can't find her shoes even though they're exactly where she left them. You want Ellie stealing fries and denying it with complete sincerity. You want Joel. More specifically, you want the version of Joel who knows you. But grief has a way of making death seem less frightening than absence. Because death, at least, is honest. Death closes the door and leaves you outside it. This is different. This is being invited inside and discovering nobody recognizes your face.

You imagine the burger catching in your throat, imagine the panic of it, the desperate search for air, and think how ridiculous it would be for your life to end over fast food and heartbreak. Then again, heartbreak itself feels ridiculous. You spend years building a life with someone. You memorize the way they take their coffee, the shape of their silences, the exact look they get when they're trying not to laugh. They become woven into your days so completely that you stop noticing where they end and you begin. And then one morning they wake up and look at you like a stranger.

You swallow hard and feel the food move painfully down your throat. No, you don't want to die. What you want is far more impossible than that. You want to walk back into that hospital room and have Joel look at you the way he did yesterday. You want him to remember why he loved you. You want, just for five minutes, to stop feeling like you're mourning someone who is still alive.

Then you heard knock on the car window and Ellie’s voice outside the car.

“Willy?”

You looked up too fast, wiping your face immediately with both hands, still chewing the last bite of burger like an idiot. Ellie stood a few feet away outside the passenger window, backpack hanging off one shoulder, staring at you with that sharp, observant expression that always made you feel transparently human.

For one horrible second neither of you said anything. Then Ellie frowned slightly.

“…you okay?”

am i okay?