FLORA

Your eyes blink open slowly. The light that’s filtering into the room is gloomy, accompanied with the sound of rain pattering against the window. The bedroom air is chilly where it hits your bare skin and you burrow deeper under the covers. 

Joel is still asleep, laying on his side turned towards you. His body is warm, calling to you to move closer. 

You marvel at the sight of his handsome face. Relaxed, for once, his brow unfurrowed and his breath going slowly. It’s rare that you see him like this; usually he rises before you do, waking you up with a cup of steaming coffee and a soft kiss to your forehead, a “Good morning” mumbled into your hair. 

You like sleeping over at his place, like the routines that are slowly forming between you two, a feeling of familiarity that makes you feel like you belong. That makes you feel safe. 

You take in his face for a few more moments, a small smile tugging at your lips. Then, you quietly slip out of bed. Goosebumps erupt over your skin and you suppress a shiver before tugging on the flannel that Joel discarded on the chair in the corner last night. His scent clings to the soft fabric, engulfing you with the phantom of him. 

You pad down the stairs to the kitchen and busy yourself with preparing coffee for the both of you, then wander into the living room while it's brewing. Stopping in front of his bookshelf, you run your hand over the figure of an owl carved from wood that you’ve admired several times before. You picture Joel, his large, strong hands, crafting something this delicate, adding all the intricate details, transforming a simple piece of wood to this. The thought makes you smile. 

The smell of coffee, strong in your nose when you fill two cups, brings you a sense of comfort that you revel in. When you carry the cups back to the bedroom, Joel is still asleep. You set one on his nightstand, take a sip from your own coffee and slip back under the sheets to snuggle up to Joel. You nuzzle your face into his bare chest, inhaling his scent and enjoying the warmth that is radiating from his body. Joel grumbles and wraps one arm around you, encompassing you further in his body heat and pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. 

“Morning, sweetheart,” he mutters, his voice still heavy with sleep, the words bleeding together. 

“Hi,” you smile, your eyes tracing over the mess of his hair and the crinkles around his eyes when he smiles back at you. You love seeing him like this, all soft and gentle, not shielded by the rough exterior that he builds up around himself. Stretching up in his arms, you reach his mouth with your lips. The kiss is languid, unhurried, moving slowly but deepening as his grip around your waist tightens. His fingers hit a ticklish spot and you giggle into his mouth, pecking his lips once more before pulling back. 

“I brought you coffee for once.”

Joel’s eyebrows rise, the corners of his lips pulling up when his eyes find the cup on the nightstand. He sits up against the headboard, pulling you with him until your back is leaning against his chest. His arm is slung around your shoulder while he picks up the coffee with his free hand and lets you do the same. 

“Thank you, darling,” he murmurs, leaning down to kiss your forehead again. 

You both sip on your coffees for a few minutes, enjoying the peacefulness of the quiet morning. His fingers draw lazy circles on your arm and shoulder, his eyes falling down to the flannel that's halfway slipped off. 

“Nice shirt,” his low voice floats into your ear and you giggle.

“Thanks, I stole it.” 

He chuckles and tugs you closer as he finishes off his coffee, placing both of your cups on the nightstand. Carefully, he cups your face, tilting your chin up to kiss your mouth. The feeling of his big roughened palm against your cheek, combined with the gentle pressure of his touch and the warmth of it sinking into your skin has butterflies fluttering in your stomach.

Joel deepens the kiss, his tongue dipping out and licking over your bottom lip. You whimper softly and open your mouth for him, meeting his tongue with your own. His mustache scratches against your upper lip and heat starts pooling inside of you. 

“C’mere, darling,” his voice rumbles straight from his mouth into yours and he pulls you on top of him. 

Straddling his thighs, you melt into him as his arms wrap around you, pressing yourself against him. His scent engulfs you as he's running his hands down your sides, leaving a trail of heat over your body. Joel slides the flannel completely off of you and dips his hands under the tank top that you slept in. His touch on your bare skin makes you writhe in his lap, desperate for more, desperate to be closer. Your lips connect again and you mewl into his mouth, your hips grinding down on him and his hold tightens around your waist, pressing you onto his growing hardness.

“Shhh, I got you,” he murmurs as his mouth moves down to your neck, nipping and sucking at the delicate skin there, causing you to shudder and sink your nails into his bare shoulders. He separates his lips from your skin to push the tank top up and off your body, revealing your breasts and your already pebbled nipples. He groans softly and leans forward to suck on your sensitive peaks, your back arching and pushing yourself closer to him.

“Joel, please—” you whine, “I need—”

He leans back, his hands on your sides again, his thumbs brushing the underside of your breasts with a featherlight touch.

“Yeah? What do you need, baby?”

You rock your hips against him, feeling his bulge press against your panties and another whimper falls from your lips.

“Need you, Joel, please—”

It's almost embarrassing, how quickly he gets you to this point, how little effort it takes. but you can't bring yourself to care, not when he's this close, with his hands all over your body and his achingly handsome face right in front of you.

He smiles and pulls you into him again, murmuring, “Need you, too,” before he seals his lips back over yours. Joel kisses you until you're breathless and squirming on top of him before he flips you over, his face hovering above yours. His hand travels down to your panties and dips beneath the fabric, finding you already slick and swollen with need. He circles your clit slowly, making you gasp and buck your hips up against his hand.

“You're so pretty like this. Just ready and waiting for me, aren't you?”

His hand trails down further, one finger dipping into your entrance.

“Yes, need you so badly, please Joel—”

Smirking, he adds a second finger and slowly pumps them into you. Your hips meet his rhythm instantly.

“I know, baby. Don't you worry, I'll take care of you. Being so good for me.”

The praise makes you keen, the fact that this usually so stoically quiet man can't stop running his mouth when you're together like this. All while he's reducing you to an incoherent mess that can barely get any words out.

You eagerly slip your hand into his underwear, wrapping your fingers around him, making him hiss and thrust his fingers particularly hard into you. You grab at his briefs, pulling them down his hips, wanting him as close as possible. He chuckles at your impatience but indulges you, his dark eyes betraying his own impatience and desperation for you.

Joel grabs his hard length and slides it through your folds, his precum mixing with your wetness. He nudges your clit teasingly with the head of his cock, causing you to moan and arch your hips up into his touch. Leaning down to kiss you again, his cock stretching your entrance wide, he whispers, “You want it, sweetheart?”, to which you respond with an eager nod. He tuts, cupping your face in his large hand.

“Words, baby. Tell me. Tell me what you want, how much you need it.”

You whine, your cheeks heating at the thought of putting your desire into words.

“I— I need it so much, Joel. Please?”

You bite your lip and he groans softly, murmuring, “So fucking good,” against your mouth as he pushes into you in one hard thrust, filling you up.

You cry out as your walls clench around him, trying to adjust to the sudden intrusion, to the way he always feels so big inside of you. The exquisite bliss that only Joel can bring you is taking over your body. Your hands grab at his shoulders, your nails digging into the skin and moans of his name falling from your lips as he pounds into you with long, deep movements. His mouth finds your neck again, sucking hard and biting down on your skin, before soothing the sting with his tongue.

His arms wrap around you and he holds you close while he keeps thrusting into you, whispering into your ear.

“Fuck, you're such a dream... So wet. Feels good, yeah? This what you wanted?”

You nod frantically, one of your hands scratching down his back while the other grabs at the curls on his neck as you're barely able to form words.

“S—so good Joel, fuck, 's perfect...”

He hums in smug agreement, his thrusts becoming even deeper and his fingers sliding between your bodies to toy with your clit. The heat inside your body threatens to spill over at his touch and you moan loudly, your earlier inhibitions about voicing your needs wiped from your mind.

“Yes! Just there, please— please don’t stop, oh God...”

He's drawing precise circles on your clit, keeping his gaze on your face as your eyes glaze over, your moans growing even louder.

“That's it. So tight around me, fuck... Show me how pretty you come for me, go on. I know you can.”

Your jaw falls slack and your whole body trembles, your walls clenching rhythmically around him and soaking him in your wetness as your orgasm washes over you. He growls at the feeling of you pulsing around his cock and pounds into you a few more times before he pulls out and spills himself over your stomach.

He stills, his head forward, both of you panting hard and not moving for a few moments. He leans forward to kiss your cheek, smiling at your blissed out expression, before he gets up from the bed and pads to the bathroom. He returns with a washcloth and cleans you up, gently stroking your sides with his fingertips and making you hum happily. Your whole body feels warm, sated, like you’re floating on a cloud. 

When Joel's finished, he collapses back beside you on the bed, a deep grunt in his throat. You turn around, wrapping the both of you up in his blanket and pressing a lingering kiss to his cheek. 

“Good morning indeed,” you grin and he huffs a laugh, pulling you tighter into his embrace.

“You got anything planned today?” he asks after a moment of peaceful silence and you shake your head.

“Nope, I'm all yours.”

“Good,” he smiles, letting your head rest on his chest and pulling the blanket up to your chin, so that you're entirely shielded from the slight chill in the air. Gloomy light filters into the room and you can still hear the rain splattering against the window. Joel kisses your forehead softly.

“Let's just stay in bed, then.”

He’s too proud. Too stubborn. Too efficient. Too fucking good looking when he’s breathing like he just ran ten blocks and his eyes are clouded with that intoxicating blend of lust and possession. 

So you always fold. 

Or, you always let him pull you off his cock and fold you into whatever position he’s been holding himself back for. Maybe he wants to eat it from the back until you’re collapsing in front of him or lay you on your back and fold your knees to your chest so he can see everything while you melt. But you’re determined to watch him fall apart. Not in submission, but in safety. You want him to lean into that feral edge he gets when you’re on your knees and he palms the back of your head. When he almost slips into something raw and selfish. Clint isn’t a selfish man, though. He’s built with devotion and grit. He takes it as his duty to be the kind of lover he thinks you would want to brag about. The kind of lover that focuses on you and your pleasure. 

And in his man flavored brain he hasn’t considered that you might get off on pleasing him. 

So he doesn’t indulge. Doesn’t surrender. Doesn’t luxuriate.

You can practically hear his inner voice. His thoughts and the visceral sensation from his perspective. 

When he nears the edge—testing his resolve—he’s prideful about his self-control. Thinks it makes him a better man to hold off. Never falling too deep into the seduction of your mouth.

Your teasing tongue. The soft, warm slip of your lips, enveloping just the tip. Like a warm bath cascading over every nerve, cushioning every ridge and vein. 

Slipping and sliding, in and out and in and out. He loses his tether to space and time. 

Squeezing, sucking—engulfing him in your mouth, freeing his mind in waves.

Until the abstract starts to take shape. Building and building. 

The pressure. 

Building and building. 

The escape. 

Relief is so close, but the build up is fucking divine. 

And then your eyes. The glassy, faraway gaze you get when you’re so lost to the baser carnality of flesh and sin. The way your lips swell and shine as you work harder, faster. Bobbing up and down. Sucking in your cheeks. Using your hand to coat his shaft in saliva. 

Until you’re hungry. Ravenous. 

Taking more and more. 

Until his dick is nudging the back of your throat, the spongy tip working deeper as your muscles constrict. 

Until something clicks deep inside you, and that low, filthy moan starts rolling out without permission.

Until your groaning vibrates against the head of his cock, and he nestles deeper into your throat. You both feel it—his length throbbing desperately inside of you.

When tears run down your cheeks, and everything is a wet mess, dripping from your chin—

When just the tip grazing the back of your throat is about to turn into shoving his cock mercilessly deeper and deeper? 

That’s when he always stops. 

That’s when he pulls you off of him. His hands holding you back like he’s holding off a demon. Like he has to stop you from devouring him whole. For his survival. 

Your gnashing, vicious glare is quickly softened. But a mess of tears and anguish bubbles instead. Tempting him, like only his body can release you from this torture. 

But you don’t get your way. You’re shushed. 

Dismissed. You argue with teary eyes and a ragged, hoarse voice. Protesting his cruelty. You think that part might clue him in. 

The fact that he’s the one dragging you off of him. 

That you’re crying on your knees for more by your own volition. 

You think, maybe, if he’s so devoted to bringing you pleasure, to coaxing you into waves of bliss—mindless, syrupy, boneless bliss–that just maybe, he’d let you keep going. Let you spend the time you want with your lips wrapped around his thick cock. That he’d give himself to you with trust. 

If he wants to do such a good job pleasing you–then maybe he ought to let you have your way.

Let you twist your soft fist, pumping his cock from base to tip. Filling the room with debased wet noises as the pool of saliva under your tongue drips, thick and shining, over your knuckles and beneath your palm. 

Let you hear him. Unfiltered. No more strangled grunts and throaty groans. You want to hear him call out for you openly, from his heart and from the caveman part of his brain he keeps domesticated most of the time. 

You crave the deep, thrumming moan of satisfaction. His elation reverberating in your bones. 

….

So this morning, before he got out of bed, you made him agree. You drive a sharp, no-nonsense bargain. No outs. All your demands spread on the table—or the sheets—between you. You wanna take your time and you want him to enjoy it. No, there's no ulterior motive and there’s no anniversary he’s forgetting about. “Okay,” he murmurs into your ear before giving you a chaste good morning and good-bye kiss. He hesitates when he catches the hard line between your brows. “You always say that.” “Do I?” “Mhmm. You say ‘okay’ when we start messing around—during the movie I picked and before I know it you’re fucking the daylights outta me and I’m passing out in your ratty old t-shirt again.” “I thought you liked wearing my shirts to bed,” he argues but the soft smile peeking out the corner of his eyes tempers you. “Maybe.” You shift your hips to pull at the aforementioned shirt where it’s twisting and bunched up underneath you. With a soft huff you add, “Just say ‘yes’.” “You got it backwards, babe. Nancy says ‘just say no’.”

“Shut up.” You toss a pillow at him for that. “I’m not offering ‘free’ drugs. Just let me do something for you. You work too hard. Too much dangerous shit.” He gives you a sober look as he pulls his arm through the sleeve of his shirt. “It’s not forever. And I’d do it every day for us, there’s no you owing me anything.” “I know,” you sigh softly. The sun filtering through the dusty blinds is already warm on your skin. Neither of you have a lot. But you have each other. And that fills him with enough pride to fight tooth and nail to get out of the debt he was born into—no matter the job. “Why don’t you consider it doing something for me?” “This shouldn’t even be an argument.” “That’s what I’m saying!” You stretch dramatically before crossing the room, feet padding across the worn carpet. “Don’t trip. I just wanna see my man let go and come down my throat.” He lets you pull him in for another kiss. You can feel the heat of your words dancing on his tongue as he deepens it, palm firm around your jaw, encouraging you to keep going. You pull back with a soft laugh. “We could do it now.” “Baby, you weren’t even listening!” You scoff, giving him a gentle push. “I said I wanted to take my time. I’d miss half my shift.” He relents and you send him off with a stern ‘be safe.’ 

He thinks you’ll forget. But you won’t. You can’t. You told him over and over again that this is all you’ve been able to think about. And despite the fact that he scares the shit out of anyone that looks in your direction, he doesn’t scare you with his attitude. And when you get home from your shift it’s only gotten worse. The insatiable thirst to feel him clear your mind—fucking your mouth like he means to replace every thought with the weight of him. To only have the mental capacity to focus on breathing and relaxing your muscles. It keeps you fired up enough to drag him straight to the bedroom, before you’ve even gotten out of your work clothes.

You warn harshly that if he tries to stop you, you’re going to come up with your own punishment for him. You don’t miss the way his eyes darken and his nostrils flare when you threaten him.

No. Today, your hulking debt collector—with his sour looks, dry humor, and leather jacket—is going to let you take what you want. And you tell him as much in a rant interrupted by a few kisses punctuated with your teeth tugging at his lower lip and clothes being pulled off and tossed to the floor. Stubborn as he is, he knows you’re even worse. So he’s pliant when you push him to sit at the edge of the bed, settling onto the mattress with a knowing gaze. 

Clint is still and quiet as you start. His own head is still full of enough bullshit from the day.

Just watching. Breathing. Nothing else exists when you drop to your knees in front of him. When you look up at him it’s not loaded with faux innocence and the frustration is already dissipating, all that’s left on your face is the joy and a hint of sinister satisfaction. It sparkles in your eyes and has you buzzing. 

He’s yours and you’ve got no mercy now. Just a desire to give. And Clint? He starts to slip so quickly now. Enjoying the way you hum, tongue flat against the underside of his cock, vibrating soft and low. As if you’d been starved, you start with making out with his tip, lathing your tongue along the crown, suckling and swirling it between your lips and letting your saliva and his precome pour from your tongue so you can coat his shaft down to his balls. Messy. Sloppy. Eager.

Wet, obscene sucking sounds mix with his throaty grunts in the warm evening air. He’s beginning to loosen up and you’ve barely gotten started. You pay special attention to the sensitive spot that you know makes his stomach muscles tense and his toes snap. His own groan is cut off with a strained curse. You ease off the intensity, but for every sound he makes you reward him with a more enthusiastic response. Trying to tell him you love to hear him. To keep going. Louder.  

“Fuck, that feels good.” Yes! Like that. You stroke him with your mouth and hand in tandem, hoping to milk another sentence out of him. It’s not that he doesn’t praise you normally or that he doesn’t love to murmur something filthy in your ear in bed—in the checkout line at the grocery store. It’s that you just wanna hear it pouring out of him without a filter. You want to hear him so fucked out—because of you—that he can’t help but spill whatever’s in his head. You want to hear him unravel out loud. He’s getting there. Encouraging you with more soft praise that makes your chest swell and your cunt flutter. 

You pull off his dick with a wet pop, moving to kiss and suck at the base. You continue with your hand, slow, firm, pumping along the smooth skin and twisting your wrist—keeping him revved up, but not overwhelmed. Not a race. “Keep talking.” You meant for it to sound like a seductive purr—but to your surprise it’s edged with something desperate. His cock jumps in response, the muscles in his thighs ripple with tension. “Please, I need to hear you.” Again, you’ve got his number, the kick in his shaft and the clench of his jaw confirm your discovery. “Shit. Yeah, okay.” His chest is already heaving, and his eyes half-hooded. He pushes some loose curls back from your face as you start to take one of his balls into your warm mouth. You play with silky smooth skin on your tongue. “You make me feel so fucking good.” You move to the other. Letting your eyes fall shut for a moment and breathing deep. The musky scent is grounding. It also makes you want to dig your nails into his thighs and take him for a fucking ride.

His hand slides around to your jaw and you pull back, licking your lips. Then his thumb finds your mouth, slow and deliberate, tracing your lower lip before slipping past your teeth, like he’s trying to soothe the riot in his chest. 

You suck on it, eyes locked on his, and something shifts in his expression. A quiet flicker. Awe, maybe. Or disbelief.

“Come here,” he murmurs, voice gone gravel-soft. He guides you back onto his cock, his other hand cradling the back of your head, fingers lacing through your hair as he settles in.

“Just like that,” he breathes. “Goddamn, you look so pretty like this.”

His thumb stays at the edge of your mouth, wiping a smear of spit from your cheek as his hips lift just a little, more instinct than control. “Like you were made for me.”

His words swirl over you, thick and sweet like the smoke from a Black and Mild, curling slow down your spine. The heat flows smooth and slow, flowing down your spine as droplets of sweat threaten to form. 

You work him with precision, knowing his body like an instrument. Conducting an orchestra of one.

His sentences turn to grunted single-syllable words each time you take a little more of his dick. Sweat beads form in constellations on his chest as it rises and falls. 

He’s in deep now. Under your spell. 

Entranced by your bright little moans and the gleam in your eyes as you stare up at him. 

He knows no more words. 

Just heavy, ragged breathing interspersed with choked sounds. You use your tongue to tease, swirling and tracing along every nerve you can locate.

Involuntary moans, frustration and something raw are strangled in his throat and reflected in your own. You’re frenzied, just as fucked out from taking him apart as he is from being deconstructed by your mouth. 

He strains, thighs flexing, as you suck and swallow lewdly. Your tongue could be numb, but you need more. You don’t stop. You can’t stop.  

He swells on your tongue, getting heavier and harder like your mouth is coaxing it out of him. 

Your lips strain around him, stretched just wide enough to ache, your jaw protesting each inch. The head of his cock drags slow against your palate, thick and impossibly hot, filling every inch until your throat has no choice but to yield. 

You breathe through your nose, fighting the instinct to gag. Your whole body tightens like it’s wired straight to your throat. The delicious pressure—dense, unrelenting—makes your throat pulse around him. He’s reduced to something primal. Revealed to be just as debauched at his most raw and unfiltered. He thrusts harshly, finally shoving himself down your throat the way you wanted. Fucking your mouth with abandon, his eyes rolled back and tendons in his forearms rippling as he clenches his fists. You gag, obscene and choking on the force of it. He’s heavy on your tongue, riding the edge of unbearable—until his wide hands force you off. He cradles your jaw between his hands, briefly letting you back off to cough before he supports the weight of your head. You stare up at his face, taking in every detail. The patchy flush scaling up his neck and his mouth drooped in a stupor. Wrecked and euphoric. 

But Clint’s dark eyes are glinting with an alertness you weren’t expecting. He looms over you with something wicked and enticing settling into his features. 

The view sends a rush of hedonistic desire barreling through you. And a deviant grin spreads on your face, before you open your mouth wide, laying your tongue out for more. A dark chuckle shakes Clint’s ribs. “So fucking stubborn,” he growls, his voice rough and dangerous. He releases his grip, watching with an amused smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth when he sees the effort it takes for you to hold your own head up. You squirm under his heady gaze, rubbing your thighs together seeking any relief for your throbbing pussy. Hoping he doesn’t call you out for it. Not right now.  If you were to give in. Fold. Beg him to fuck you now, you know he would. You’d sob, writhe, and wail at just the kiss of his cockhead against your clit. The heat and pressure would have you undone before he could sink it inside of you. Your swollen bundle of nerves pulses with anticipation and frustration. 

You know he’d torture you deliciously. Fuck you slow and heavy, make you feel every inch before giving it to you like you want. Arousal drips from your achingly empty cunt, and your walls clench as if his dick were just out of reach. He grins like he knows exactly what you’re thinking.

“Stubborn and greedy,” Clint adds, before tapping each of your cheeks with his shining, slick shaft. He sits proudly, letting his cock bob in front of your open mouth before repeating the same motion. He tilts his head, studying you with rapt attention as he listens to the sticky slap of skin against skin.

Saliva pools under your tongue as if you weren’t a slippery, spit coated mess already. You can feel the energy between you humming. A switch flips somewhere deep. Heat rushes your veins, thick and sudden, like liquor spreading through your chest and rolling low. Clint grips himself with a tight fist. Big hand. Big dick. You go a little dumb for it, your vision blurring at the edges. He pumps his hand once. Twice. That’s as far as you can count right now. He fucks his fist with a tight grip, hips canting just slightly. A few more strokes, then—“Open.” He taps the blunt tip of his dick on your shining, pink tongue. “This what you want?” he asks with mockery edged with disbelief. “You want it nasty? You wanna suck on it just to make me feel good?” You hum your affirmation as he starts to rock back into your mouth with slow thrusts. It’s not long before he works back up to a brutal pace, holding you steady as he slips past your lips over and over again. His strangled, handsome grunts punctuate every movement, and you moan back in call and response. Lascivious. Depraved. Mindless with ecstasy. “Oh, shit.” His voice is untethered. “You love it.” 

You moan again in agreement and encouragement. He’s getting it. 

“Making a fucking mess, baby.” “Mmm,” you purr, muffled by the wet sounds filling the air.

“Yeah, you always get what you want, don’t you?” Your entire body alight, thrumming with delight and lust. For a moment your eyes flutter shut and you’re lost in the most rudimentary form of existence. Just a body. Not dehumanized like an object—but human. Flesh and blood and bones and nerves. Controlled by gravity and pleasure. 

His.

When you pull back to catch your breath—ragged and gasping—you hold his heavy lidded gaze. Instead of wiping the saliva off your face you smear it down your chin, drawing your hand down to squeeze your tits in a show for him. A thousand remarks silently float on his heavy exhales. Praise and awe and filthy teases he can’t put together. You revel in the weight of the moment but can’t hold back the impish smile that spreads across your face.

You have another silent conversation with his cock. Studying it. The curve, the heft, the thick vein pulsing just beneath the surface. The fat droplet of precome leaking from his slit that joins your saliva catching in streaks and gathering at the base—where it sinks into the soft, dark curls there, slicking the roots and making everything look unbearably erotic.

It’s almost stupid. The way it’s just him. Maybe that’s just biology or a little bit of Freud (which you’d never admit), but the dick is really built just like him. Strong and gorgeous and molded by something greater than you to show his devotion, just like his hands, and his fucking intuition—and most of it’s so alive. You can feel his pulse under your fingers as you spend a little too long enjoying your moment of appreciation, until you trace down, down, down, to massage his balls. Vulnerable. Just for you. In the most twisted romantic sense you could tear up if you thought too long about the way your man is vulnerable just for you. The things he does just to keep you both afloat. The violence he deals in, the hard edges, the determination and gall. And yet—he never chose this. To be born into a world that demanded so much. You pull off with a gasp, breath ragged, and spit slow onto the head of his cock. It drips, glistening, and you drag your tongue through the mess before taking him in again. Slow and deep, like a fucking performance. Your lips seal around him, cheeks hollowing as you sink lower. Clint huffs out a short breath, half groan, half laugh. “Jesus,” he mutters, like he can’t believe how far gone you are. Like he loves it.

You salivate faster than you can swallow. Slick rushes down his shaft, noisy and obscene. Salt and musk coat your tongue—warm, earthy, a little bitter.

You slide your hand up slowly, twisting your palm like a prayer. His breath hitches. He twitches. You chase that with your mouth, leaning into the gravity of it.

You don’t just suck his cock—you kiss it.

Your whole body is pulsing. You can feel your heartbeat in your clit. In your fingertips. In your tongue. 

You lick along the crown, slow and pointed, tracing the soft ridge where the color darkens. He jerks. You chase that movement with your mouth, then your hand, then your whole body leaning forward like it’s gravity pulling you down.

Tongue first. Then lips. Then again and again. Plush kisses. Sloppy kisses. Filthy, noisy, open-mouthed adoration.

You drag your tongue down the underside. Flat and slow. Tasting where he’s softest. You hum, low in your throat, and he shivers like you just said his name.

Clint lets out a sound somewhere between a grunt and a moan. You swear it scrapes up from somewhere he never lets anyone near. His hands find your face again.

“Don’t stop,” he rasps, broken and breathless. “Don’t fucking stop. Baby, please.”

His voice hits that hunger that’s been gnawing at you. This is what you want. His unraveling. His trust. The heavy roll of his hips and the deep, animal sounds in his throat. So raw and desperately close. 

So, you give it to him, tight and perfect, your hand stroking in sync with the rhythm of your throat, never breaking eye contact.

You feel the shift when he’s too far gone to hold back. His thighs tense. His breath cuts off. The curse he mutters is strangled and low—your name folded into it like a prayer.

Then he comes.

Hot and deep in your throat, pulsing with every wave. He tries to pull back but you don’t let him. You hold steady, swallowing around the weight of him, letting him give it all to you. His fingers curl tight in your hair, his hips stuttering as it shakes through him.

When all the fight is finally gone from his body, you lick your lips, smiling unapologetically. Quiet seeps in as he catches his breath. His voice is barely audible when he speaks next, wrecked beyond repair. “You’re gonna kill me,” he whispers.

There’s a beat. A flicker of mischief in your smile.

“How would I do it? I couldn't live without ya.” You murmur in your best Sid Vicious accent, earning you an eye roll and a soft exhale from Clint.  “You and that fucking punk movie.” He scoffs without animosity. “Mhmm,” you hum, letting the relaxation settle into his bones.

You rest your head on his thigh and watch his fat cock soften in front of your nose—the way it twitches, rolls, like everything inside of him is still shifting and settling.

The air is thick. Sweet. Like sex and sweat and reverence.

You’re high on it. On the quiet, wrecked man under your cheek. On the trust. The way he gave in.

It’s not just about giving anymore.

Your pussy is still swollen and wet just from watching him fall apart.

You haven’t come. You’re not even frustrated. Just restless—wired and buzzing.

You still need him in your mouth.

Not hard. Not dominant. 

Just warm and soft and spent. His taste still clinging to your tongue. The scent of skin and salt in your lungs.

You want to feel him twitch back to life against your lips. To savor it slow.

Greedy. Curious. Unhurried.

You’re not sated. You’re still hungry—but not for release. For him.

Just to feel it on your tongue again.

Soft and pliable, still sticky with spit and come.

Still heavy. Still his.

You drag your tongue along the cooling dampness, the velvety, stretchy skin, reverent and insatiable, already craving the weight of him, hot and hard in your mouth.

Clint is still coming down when you move again.

Your head stays on his thigh, lips brushing against the inside of it, inhaling deep like you’re grounding yourself in the scent of him. 

His body is lax, legs spread wide, leaned back on his elbows. 

"You done?" you ask, soft and sweet, like you aren’t already pressing your lips to his hip, nipping gently. 

Clint makes a rough, exhausted sound, falling flat to the mattress and dragging a hand over his face, groaning deep in his chest. 

"Yeah, baby," he mutters. "I’m done."

But you know better.

His cock is still right there, softening but still thick, still kicking with life, still heavy against his thigh. 

Your lips part, hovering just above the swollen tip, breath fanning against him, watching for his reaction. Your breath is warm where it ghosts over the sensitive skin, and his leg jerks beneath your touch. 

"Don’t—" he exhales sharply, fingers twitching like they want to push you away but can’t quite commit. "Too much," he mutters, but his voice is weak, lacking the sharpness of a real command.

Not a real warning. Not convincing. 

Because when you press a kiss to the flushed, glossy tip of his dick, his whole body jerks. It’s slow and reverent. 

His hand spasms where it rests on the bed, like he might reach for you. Like he might pull you away. 

But he doesn’t. But he never does. 

His body is betraying him. 

"You don’t get it," he pants, eyes squeezed shut. "It’s not gonna happen. Not again."

Wrong. 

Because his cock is already yours again. Already swelling before you take it back into your mouth. Heavy and helpless. Thickening against your tongue. 

Clint groans. Low, drawn-out, almost pained. "Oh, fuck—"

But you hum against him, savoring the way he jumps at the sensation and whimpers at the tail end of a wrecked gasp. 

His hands clutch your head, body shaking, legs trembling, no fight left in him.

Offering gentle licks and soft, open-mouthed kisses, worshipping him like he’s a divine being.

The room feels heavier with each passing moment. His body is trembling now, muscles taut beneath your touch. He leans back up to watch you, glued to your mouth. 

You’re meticulous, lavishing every inch of him with attention. Feather-light brushes of your lips along his shaft. The tip of your tongue tracing the sensitive ridge beneath the head. You’re not trying to drive him mad. You’re succeeding.

And when he gets it…he breathes your name. Dazed and destroyed. 

Something in you sings at the sound of it. It’s not just filthy—it’s sacred. He’s falling apart, and you’ve never felt so full. So loved. So in control and completely out of it all at once.

“You. Fucking menace,” he rasps, voice hoarse and raw. A sound you want to hear more of. 

You smirk up at him and Clint groans, tipping his head back, already broken, already yours.

He’s yours now. Completely undone.

So you shift, wrapping your hand around his base, watching his thigh jump beneath your palm like his body’s trying to wrestle itself out of control. His jaw ticks. His brows pull together like he’s fighting to keep his eyes open. But he has to watch you.

He bucks once, involuntarily jerking toward you. The noise that slips out of him is caught somewhere between a gasp and a moan. You just lean in and swirl your tongue slowly around the ruddy, deeply flushed flesh. 

The noises he makes are guttural, unrestrained. The growls in his chest vibrate against your lips when you take him back into your mouth.

His shaft throbs against your tongue, impossibly sensitive, and every movement of your lips sends sharp jolts through his body. He’s panting now, the sound raw and ragged, as you bob your head seeking more.

You’re not just getting off on his sounds. You’re addicted to his surrender. Every breath, every tensing muscle, a confirmation that he’s still letting you have him. 

You can feel him straining to hold on, his body taut with the effort, but he’s unraveling fast.

His chases more unconsciously, rocking toward you and forcing himself deeper into your throat. The pressure is overwhelming, but you don’t stop. You press forward, letting him own the space in your throat as you swallow him whole.

The sounds are pornographic and lewd. Echoing in the air between his gasps and the muffled moans vibrating from your chest. He’s lost now, completely at your mercy, and you’re relentless. You pull back to tease him with just your hand, rubbing along the most sensitive nerves. So concentrated. You hold your tongue out–knowing he’s close again. “Like this?” you ask, already glowing with the high of reading his body so well. He can’t answer. Just squeezing his eyes shut. Fighting the urge to collapse. But he’s determined to watch you. His jaw flexing as he struggles. “Come for me,” the words are soft, like a prayer not a demand. “Again.” “I can’t—shit, baby, you’re too good,” he chokes, like the truth is dragging its nails up his throat. He pants out another curse and, “Gonna—” 

When he comes the second time, it’s not as strong but just as physically and psychologically devastating. 

It lands on your tongue and lips before you swallow and give him one last suck and squeeze, milking every last drop from him—along with an almost pained, broken groan. 

Even as he softens, you don’t stop. You lick at the sensitive head, suckling softly, drawing a sharp hiss from his lips as his hips jerk away instinctively. His body shudders beneath you, his muscles trembling uncontrollably.

When you finally release him and his length slips from your mouth, you can’t stop from pressing one last kiss to the tip. 

He lies back flat, utterly spent, the sheen of sweat on his skin catching the dim light. His eyes closed, his mouth slack as he tries to catch his breath.

You watch him, lips swollen, your whole body humming—sated, smug, and a little in love with how completely he gave in. You’ll never forget this version of him. 

Soft. 

Spent. 

Yours.

You kiss the inside of his thigh, quiet and slow. Then drag your palm along his thigh. Still loose. Still recovering. But he’s watching you now, head tipped forward to keep his eyes on you. 

A smile pulls at the corner of your mouth. 

Clint exhales like it’s half a laugh, half a warning. “Didn’t think you’d go that fucking hard.”

You smile, just a little. “I told you I wanted to take my time.”

“Okay,” he admits. His voice is gravel, stripped bare. “You’re right.”

You don’t say anything to that. You stay there, the ghost of a grin on your spit-slick mouth, cheek pressed to his thigh like it’s holy ground.

You don’t move. Don’t gloat. Just exist with him like this.

Quiet. Sated. And a little exhausted. 

Still his fault, really.

He loves you like a rock. Solid. Unshaken.

And maybe he still doesn’t let you make it all about him. 

But tonight he did.

You gotta worship that when you can.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

thank you for reading pls let me know what you liked or hated or ??? join my tag list here @yxtkiwiyxt my clint babe <3 @lovely-vamp-princess @gothcsz @auteurdelabre @adoreyouusugar @swankyorange @itwasntimethatdidit40 @ivoryandflame  @indiegirlunited @syd-djarin  @miss-oranje-disco-dancer @harriedandharassed @bbyanarchist @94namkooksworld

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other a/n: a long time ago @gothcsz posted the first part of unscripted desire and these two lines:

Javier tuts, walking over to you with his soft cock hanging between his legs and you do your best to not let your eyes drop down to it. He’s got an unlit cigarette hanging from between his lips.

you were such a greedy lil’ thing, one round was never enough. so eager and needy. always wanting more, like you wouldn’t last a day without his cock.

he kept up with you as best as he could for a man his age, making sure to stay in shape so he that maintained his stamina, but it only got him so far.

it was a guilty reminder— he was old. you were young. nothin’ he could change about that. he already ran through the small supply of viagra he was able to get ahold of weeks ago, which left him at your mercy.

even after a long day of patrol he came home and fucked you every night, just like you wanted. what was left of his energy he thrusted deep into your cunt with his seed to prove it, giving you a kiss on the cheek before pulling out and turning onto his back to go to sleep.

it had been a while since you went down on him. he didn’t have much control on when or how often he got hard, so when he was he used those moments inside of you.

except joel didn’t realize how much you missed him in your mouth, so badly that you needed it.

as he rolled off of you to his side of the bed, you noticed how his cock was flushed— coated with your juices and his cum. he was softening but stayed big, thick in girth with graying hairs at the base.

he didn’t have the chance to recover before you had his cock in your hand, sitting on your knees and holding him straight as you licked the shaft.

“baby… what’re y’doin?” he asked timidly, still attempting to control his breaths from cumming just a minute or two prior. you simply responded with a hum, looking up at him through your lashes as you swirled your tongue— tasting yourself on him.

you placed a kiss on his tip, his cock reacting with a throb that pulsed in your grasp. “alright, that’s enough.” he spoke low, a quavering warning for you to stop— but his tone lacked in confidence.

“let me have this, daddy.” as if he had a choice.

you took him into your mouth, lips curling around his cock as you watched his face twist from the sensation.

fucking hell, you were going to be the death of him.

he clenched his jaw, teeth grinding while he tried to hold himself back— hold you back. he pushed at your head, attempting to shove you with what little control he had left, but you didn’t budge. you only went further, inching his cock deeper down your throat. he was forced into submission.

joel was so sensitive that he whined from the mix of pain and pleasure, the line blurring the more you swallowed him. “i don’t have anythin’ left in me, honey... gave y’all of it already.” he told you slow, his voice trembling.

you moaned in defiance, mouth stuffed full of his length. you brought a free hand to his balls, giving them a gentle squeeze which made him nearly whimper. you pull away, spit dribbling from the corners of your lip. “can feel that you still got some in here, just gotta get it out, daddy. it’ll feel so much better.”

he clenched his jaw, teeth grinding together as you continued to suck him— bobbing at a teasing speed while you massaged the rest of his length at the same time. he twitched his hips, his body defying his words.

it felt so good that it was hurting him. your throat was beginning to burn due to lack of recent experience, but you were determined for it.

“just couldn’t wait, huh? so cock drunk that y’had to use your old man like this, knowin’ im vulnerable?” you nodded, that familiar ache in your core returning.

he was thinking of all the ways to punish you once you were done— ready to spank you until you cried, maybe edge you if he was feeling mean. he would find a way to make you pay.

joel was determined to give you one more load since you went through all of this to get it. he couldn’t disappoint his girl.

he was so numb that he couldn’t even feel himself getting ready to cum, his eyes glossy and in a state of haze at the sight of you drooling on his thighs.

the warm, soft flesh of your cheeks hollowing in on him brought him to his release, spilling hot, creamy ropes on the pad of your tongue. whenever you thought he was done it didn’t stop— drops still leaking out after you finished.

“I’m sorry that happened,” you reached and blindly found his cheek, scratching the stubble with your thumb in a gentle gesture.

“I can’t seem to control myself when I feel something might happen to her, you now?" You did know. Joel's hyperprotectiveness over Ellie was the thing that brought you together in the first place. And that was the only time when it didn't cause mass distruction. Almost. "I just get filled with rage and I lose it.” Joel sounded like a beaten dog, you knew exactly how much pain his eyes carried. You wished you could say something that’d take his mind off things. You wished you had a better way with words. But the only thing you felt you could offer was your body, so you press your back harder into his t-shirt clad chest; you pushed your ass a bit out to meet his cock that was still soft in his boxers.

“I can help you with the control thing.” You whispered, your breathing soft and calm.

“Yeah?” There was a tint of humor in his voice, a half-smile creeping up on his face. “Gonna walk me on a leash?”

“No,” you grabbed his hand and brought it up from your belly to your tits. Joel barely squeezed the supple flesh, waking up the sleeping beast that was your need. “Let’s start with something less dramatic.”

“You know full well I’m not able to control myself with you either.” As if proving his words, his hips bucked, teasing your ass with his hardening dick. His voice dropped lower, the honey thick cadence you grew to know very well. Joel’s grown out stubble brushed your ear as he moved his lips closer. “If I can have you, I devour you fully.”

You breath caught in your throat. Whatever this turns out to be, you knew you at least gave him shelter from the dark thoughts for the night. “You can have me, but,” your ass kept grinding on him, bringing Joel’s cock to the full potential, “just the tip.”

He barked a soft laugh, fanning your face with his whiskey breath. “Sounds like you’ll be the one struggling, baby,” his thumb and pointer finger pinched your nipple, already taut with excitement, and you bit your cheek to hide the moan. “Since it’s you who always begs me harder, more, deeper.”

Goosebumps erupted on your skin as Joel started nipping at your neck, dragging his teeth along the tender column. His hands enveloped you in a hot cage, forearms squeezing your boobs as he pressed you even tighter to his chest. You couldn’t move—not that you wanted to—but you didn’t think it’d be great for that exercise in control you wanted to give Joel. He bit in the juncture between your neck and shoulder and you gasped. You were so responsive, it drove Joel mad. His hips kept humping your soft ass, and you knew a wet stain already bloomed on the front of his simple underwear. 

“Come on, Joel, let me help you.” You moan was breathy, and you tried to gather some composure to no avail. Feeling his hard length fit between your asscheeks made your core burn. You desperately wanted to have him stretch your pussy around the veiny shaft, even though that wasn’t what you planned in the beginning. You guessed that both of you could learn something.

His hand let go of your tits, dragging down your body to tug your panties down. You fumbled for a moment, helping him get rid of the damp garment. His own he only shoved down enough to let his hard cock out, the elastic of the band sitting tightly under the heavy ballsack. 

Your wet pussy was sheilded from the cold of the room by the blanket that covered you both, and when Joel’s tip finally kissed the slick lips of your cunt, sweat started gathering on the back of your neck. 

One of Joel’s palms rested on your thigh, his almost fully grey happy trail that lead to the coarse pubic hairs tickled your ass and back. His finger dug into the meat of your leg, dragging it up and over his own hairy thigh, so he had a better access to your weeping pussy.

Joel’s teeth grazed your ear, low voice rumbling through you.

“Sure you don’t want me here?” His hand left your leg, and he pressed into your lower belly, making you shiver. “Don’t you love feeling me in your tummy, baby? See how my cock bulges your little belly?”

You moaned, squeezing your eyes shut. You did love that. Loved seeing how big he was, in every aspect, and how well you could still take him. Seeing how much of his cock was in you when he told you to suck your tummy in. 

“N-no,” your whimper lacked any confidence, and Joel only chuckled darkly. “Just the tip.”

“Whatever you say, darlin’.” 

He moved, grabbing the shaft of his cock that was throbbing with the absence of needed contact. With tortuously slow movements, he teased your slit, making sure to nudge your clit every time. The fat head of his cock spread your lips, mixing your arousal and his precum into one cocktail of need and despair. You felt his spongy tip knock on your hole and it took everything you had in yourself not to push down, taking as much of him as you could in one go.

You shook with desire against his body, and Joel finally allowed you to have some of him. Gently, almost mockingly, he pushed the leaking head of his cock in your tight heat. Even this small fraction of his dick felt overwhelming without proper preparation. When your walls hugged his tip, both of you exhaled sharply.

“Fuck, Joel, good, that’s good.”

“Yeah? Already full?” 

“Mhm.”

“I need you to play with your clit, baby. Want you to squeeze that tight little pussy around me as I fuck you with just the tip.”

Shaking, your right hand found your pulsating clit, but before touching it, you pushed your fingers lower, blindly feeling where the tip of his cock split you apart. You grazed his shaft with the tips of your fingers and immediately heard Joel suck air through his clenched teeth.

“If you don’t want me to turn you over and fuck you into this mattress with my whole dick, better keep your fingers on your clit, baby.”

You’d giggle if only he didn’t choose that exact moment to slip out and immediately punch into you again, this time a bit further, but you kept your mouth shut.

Your fingers expertly danced over your throbbing bud, gathering slick that generously seeped out of you. Joel was uncharacteristically quiet, all of his concentration focused on not thrusting his hips and burying himself to the hilt in your welcoming pussy. Sweat dripped down his temple, thighs screaming, but he kept feeding you just the tip, enjoying your breathy mewls. 

Having so little of him when you knew what the whole deal felt like resembled a punishment that you brought upon yourself. He stretched you good, but he couldn’t reach that magic spot he usually pondered into whenever he sunk his cock inside you. That made you work on your clit harder, already desperate to cum when it’s barely been ten minutes. 

“I can hear how wet you are for me,” Joel nipped at your neck, his tip continuously thrusting in and out of you, teasing. “D'you hear that?”

The sounds were loud, vulgar. You’ve heard the wetness of your cunt welcoming Joel with an obscene smack, like when you pat the surface of still water with your opened palm. The waves of your upcoming orgasm rippled from your core and out, like those same disturbed waters.

“Grippin' me tight, darlin’,” he groaned, you could smell his sweat and it made your mouth salivate. “Grippin' so good I can barely pull out.”

Your hand started faltering, rythm failing and Joel, sensing your trouble, left the tip of his cock inside you while his own hand started working on your clit. The simple touch of his fingertips, rough and gentle at the same time, pushed you tripping over the edge. You kept choking on air, inhaling more and more until your lungs burned and your mouth opened wide in a silent scream. 

Joel felt your little bud throbbing under his fingertips, your pussy squeezing his cock so hard he could barely hold off his own orgasm. He found your hand, bringing your slippery fingers back to your spent pussy.

“Keep touching your clit.”

“I can’t,” you whined back, voice barely audible, “it’s too sensitive, Joel.”

“Keep playing with it or I will,” the thought of his big rough fingertip on your sensitive bud again sent a chill down your spine, though it was far from fear that you felt. “I want your pussy choking and crying around me when I fill you up.”

You tried to steady your breathing, your trembling fingers started to work gentle circles on your pussy again. It felt raw, and every extra touch felt like a shock wave shooting through you. But it did what Joel wanted, every swipe made your pussy clench around him with extra strength and he just kept his tip inside you, stroking his shaft that was covered in your cum with his thumb and two fingers.

“Doing good, baby, keep going.”

“It’s too much.” You whined, almost breaking apart from him, but his hand kept you in place.

“It’s not, you can do it for me, can’t you?”

You could do anything for Joel, he was right there. So your fingers kept torturing your poor pussy, bringing as much pain as pleasure, and you kept squeezing around Joel’s cock, bringing him to his own release.

In one long unexpected thrust, he pushed the rest of his cock in you, growling as he spilled rope after rope of his cum inside you. The sudden movement ripped another orgasm out of you and you wailed, tears of pleasure tickling the corner of your eye.

“Sorry, baby,” he sounded everything but sorry, “had to make sure I don’t spill a drop.”

“Does it mean you’ll leave it in for the night?” There was hope in your voice, and you didn’t try to hide it. Whenever Joel kept himself snug in your pussy for the night, you had the best dreams, and the horniest mornings.

You want to, oh god do you want to, but you were nervous. You’d never taken anyone as big as him and you were scared.

You bite your lip. “I’m not sure if I’m ready…”

Joel smiles sweetly at you. “She sure feels ready,” he says as he lets his index finger slip just inside you, not touching your clit. Just resting inside you. You choke on your breath and your hips squirm in response. “Your body is ready too, I reckon,” he says as he lets your heat pulsate around him.

You look down at Joel, who is looking down at your pussy. He seems mesmerized by it. You take this moment to appreciate his soft, broad body; the strength you can see underneath his skin when his arms are caressing your legs. The grip you feel when he pulls your head close to his, rutting against your leg while kissing you deeply.

“What if I give her a little kiss?” He coos as he bends his face to your pussy, inhaling your arousal. “You want that?”

You moan and nod slowly, your arms still covering your breasts shyly. Joel smiles darkly at you and leans in, kissing your lips sweetly, excruciatingly slow, and letting his tongue slip inside. You gasp and raise your hips; you feel Joel smile against you and his hands skim your fleshy outer thighs. He presses his face harder against you, his thumbs coming up to slowly spread you apart, your pussy glistening in the low light of the bedroom. He pulls back for just a quick look and leans in again to lick a long stripe up to your clit. You let out a guttural grown, which makes Joel swirl his tongue around your hard clit.

“I think she’s ready now,” he murmurs against you; you can feel his hot breath against your desperate cunt.

Joel doesn’t wait for a response. He sits up on his haunches and pulls his hard cock out of his boxer briefs. You’ve seen him before but not like this. Ready, stiff, throbbing at the thought of you. He brings a heavy large hand to his cock and strokes lazily, noticing your eyes fixated on him. “You think you can handle him, baby girl?”

You look up at Joel with nervous eyes. He smiles and leans in to give you a breathtaking kiss - his tongue sweeps across the inside of your mouth, sucking on your tongue like he sucked your clit.

When Joel pulls back from you, he whispers, “let me just put him inside you. Just the tip. You can handle that, can’t you sweet girl?”

Your mind is so foggy and you nod absently, dumbly. Joel smirks; he holds his cock in his hand and lets it sweep up and down your slit teasingly, pulling out an embarrassed moan from your mouth. He then lets the head of his cock slip into you, your wet warmth enveloping his sensitive head and he lets out a throaty moan. Your skin feels on fire, down to the roots of your hair on your scalp.

Joel lets himself just stay inside you, cooing and murmuring softly to you to settle you down. When he feels you relax more, he starts thrusting shallowly, careful to keep just the head in you. He lets out words of praise, telling you you look so pretty, you feel so good, he wants all of you soon. Told you it didn’t hurt so bad, now did it? Will you let him slip all the way inside you, let him show you how much he loves you? He slides the tip of his cock up to your clit, the precum wetly circling your hard bud, getting under your hood, and you hum out the sweetest sigh. Joel, Joel, Joel.

Joel pulls your arms away from your breasts and suckles on your left nipple, letting his hips groove against you. “Prettiest fucking tits I’ve ever seen, don’t hide them from me, sweet girl,” he rambles; he slips his cock head into your tight heat again and you keen so prettily.

“Oh fuck, baby, I’m going to come,” he croaks out and lifts himself up, holding your hip bones tightly in his grasp. “I’m gonna fucking come right now.”

“Not inside Joel, please,” you rasp, watching him through half lidded eyes.

Joel doesn’t respond but keeps thrusting superficially. He brings his thumb to your sweet clit and rubs a haphazard circle in time with his thrusts. “Come first, baby, please, I need to see your face, please,” he begs.

You let yourself succumb to him, your back arching off the bed, crying out until actual tears fall from your face over how fucking good you feel. Over how he feels just inside you. Joel starts to feel his cock leak and sees your eyes widen open at him, silently begging not to come inside you yet. He pulls out just in time to come messily over your pussy, his thick white ropes of cum tangle in your pubic hair.

Joel collapses on you, your chests heaving in tandem. He kisses you wetly and sloppily, humming against your mouth. “See? Not so bad was it?”

You close your eyes and purr quietly.

“Think you can take all of me next time,” Joel says as he buries his face in your neck and you lift your arm to glide your fingertips across his broad back.

“Mmm, yeah, next time,” you agree.

At twenty-five, he could’ve put you through the mattress four times over in one night and barely broken a sweat. At thirty-five, he could’ve bent you like a pretzel and fucked you eight ways to Wednesday twice a week.

Today, at the age he was, Joel Miller couldn’t stand from the sofa without feeling like bones were about to snap.

He wrote grocery lists and had to stop halfway to flex his hand. He pulled up his pants and damn near always felt a strain in his back. He kept a heating pad as a sidekick at work, and sometimes his baby brother teased him for it, then Joel would wag one liver-spotted finger Tommy’s way and say, ‘You’ll be like this, too, just wait.’ The Golden Years had a habit of sneaking up on people. Nobody warned him that one day he’d be waking up feeling fine and the next not able to wiggle his toes without a herculean effort. In short, old age sucked.

The only one who didn’t seem to mind as much was you.

And how could you? Joel always thought of it with some amusement. You hadn’t been alive long enough to know a single wrinkle, much less as many as he had, and your knees never cracked when you kneeled. He’d noticed that when you greeted him first thing that morning.

Mouth wide and eyes wider, you made for the perfect sight to his sleepy gaze when he lifted the comforter at 6 AM. Your tongue withdrew from the tip of his leaky cock.

“Your shift starts at seven, right?” you whispered.

Shit, he’d quit his whole job for one blowjob from you.

Joel nodded instead. He took a fistful of your hair and nodded again—keep lickin’ the tip just like you had it, honey, that’s it. His lids lowered. They nearly shut. Fifteen more seconds of this wet friction from your mouth and he’d be erect in no time. He knew he would.

These days, while his ‘morning wood’ was never quite what it used to be, and on some occasions like these he woke up completely limp, he was almost always able to coax his cock into it. Just took a little extra time and spit.

It wasn’t until your lips had slid up and down his soft shaft at least two dozen times and nothing stirred that Joel started to worry. He peeled the old coverlet back.

From where you lay between his legs, chin poised over his lap, you didn’t seem bothered. In fact, you were smiling. You’d just taken his flushed, bulbous head between your lips, and your tongue laved over the slit. Joel almost tore a hole in his throat at how good that felt—his groan was loud. The soft suckling noises of your mouth were slight in comparison, but they were purposeful and timed exactly right. His balls twitched.

He should’ve been rock-hard by now.

“‘M’sorry, sweetheart,” Joel grunted, watching you swallow down the soft flesh of him over and over again. “Damn thing just don’t wanna…cooperate this mornin’.”

“I don’t mind.”

You’d pulled off just long enough to say it. Then you were back to bobbing your head, eyes locked on his as you did

He didn’t deserve you.

That much was clear from the way you were sucking him dutifully—fucking cheerfully—like his flaccid dick was a three-star Michelin meal and you hadn’t eaten all day.

It was beyond the pale in the best way possible, and Joel felt guiltier and guiltier with every brush of your lips and tongue that followed. You shouldn’t have had to do this.

“Let me eat you out,” he said then. Abruptly. “Flip over.”

And he slid back on the bed, hearing the delicate, wet pop of his still-soft cock out of your mouth. You frowned.

“What the hell, Joel? I was just having fun,” you huffed.

You were what?

Was that not the most humiliating thing you’d ever seen?

“I can’t even keep a semi,” Joel retorted, almost as low. “Ain’t no use wastin’ our time on me ‘fore I gotta leave.”

Then he started to reach for your hips, about to turn you around and have his breakfast in bed, when your hand swatted him off. The other anchored itself on his thigh, and as you sat up, Joel could tell there was something more adamant in that. You regarded him with a scowl.

“If I wanted to make this about me, I would’ve grabbed my vibrator and gone to town already. This is for you.”

Before he could protest, you inched up some more.

You straddled the broad, muscly legs that had once been bracketing your head, and you placed a palm on his chest. You made him lean back against the headboard.

“Honey—” Joel started.

“Zip it, Miller.”

Well, goddamn. For a woman a fraction of his age and size, you commanded him well. He didn’t move a muscle.

He couldn’t deny that it turned him on, too. To think that you wanted him badly enough that you’d suck the sexual equivalent of a wet noodle and then get on top of him for more. Joel had to grit his teeth and steel himself when your hips shifted. You were bare under one of his t-shirts.

And your eyes were alight with rapt intrigue. Like he was something worth salivating over, and not some decrepit old man whose dick wouldn’t work. The smile you wore before had only grown bigger, and your thighs were squeezing his hips. Your heat was sliding up and—

“Fuck,” Joel hissed.

The breath was knocked out of his chest. That was how stunned he was to feel the seam of your cunt align with his length, which rested lazily across his lower stomach. You braced one hand on the headboard behind him, flattened the other palm to his chest, and again, lowered yourself, rubbed yourself, so that the underside of his shaft cut you down the middle. It parted your folds.

Your wetness was spreading down the length of him. Soft as it was, Joel was thankful he was a shower, not a grower, and he hadn’t lost too much of his size by not being hard. You were pressing yourself gently against him now, bracing your knees on the bed on either side of his body, and your gaze was gradually trailing to his face.

Your motions, much to his surprise, were slow. Sensual.

You weren’t in a hurry at all to get his dick hard. You simply followed what felt good: a little gyration of your hips, a press of your heat, gentle thrusts with your knees planted firmly on the bed. You were riding him, except you didn’t have him inside you at all. The expressions that crossed your face could’ve fooled Joel, though.

Brows knit together in a mixture of pleasure and purpose, you peered down at him and let out the smallest whimper. The sound was more like a breath, trapped somewhere in your chest and begging to be let out with each rut of your lower half. It was as if the action was getting you off—not fucking him, but humping him.

“That’s it, daddy…That’s—oh, fuck that feels nice.”

The speed of your motions increased the slightest amount, coating his cock from root to tip, and for a minute, Joel thought he might’ve stopped breathing.

He had stopped, briefly, just to suck in a breath and hold it, and, fuck, he didn’t want to let it out, because what if this was all a dream? What if he was seeing things, and you weren’t really grinding on his cock at all but laughing your ass off and leaving his bed? Heaving a sigh or rolling your eyes at the sight of him still not getting hard at this.

Joel looked down to double-check his traitorous dick.

The second he caught a glimpse of your sex and his sliding against one another, though, he let out a groan.

This had to be a fucking joke.

Go, go, go, go, GO! GROW!!

“You can do it, bud, just…” Joel trailed off, realizing that he was talking to his penis out loud. “Sorry. I’m…sorry.”

And truly, he was. He’d never felt more remorseful or dumb. On top of that, you probably thought he was nuts.

You only giggled in response.

You leaned back, dropped your chin, and directed your attention to Joel’s woefully soft and squishy member.

A fingertip prodded at it gently; he twitched.

“C’mon, you got this!” you cheered him on.

It was lighthearted. Easy. Kind of insane.

Here you both were, egging on his peri-geriatric penis to form an erection, when Joel should’ve been balls deep in you. Should’ve been giving you exactly what you needed, how you needed it, with little to no interference to your pleasure. And now here you were. Talking to it instead.

“I love you,” Joel blurted out.

He’d only said this a handful of times to date—your relationship was still relatively new—but at present, he couldn’t help it. You were making him laugh when just minutes ago he’d felt as humiliated as he’d ever been.

You leaned down to kiss him, and you said it back to him.

“I love you,” Joel murmured again, against your lips.

“I—” You shifted over his lap, so that your lower halves were re-aligned and he could feel you. “I love you, Joel.”

The sound of those words, paired with the soft, warm friction of your bodies moving in tandem, had pleasure pooling through his gut. Driving up his spine. Stirring something dark and familiar in his mind—arousal.

A second after that, something stiffened in his lap.

Just a little bit. ‘Stiff’ was the key word there, not hard—Joel tried not to grow too excited while it seemed that his dick was filling with blood and the flesh was gradually getting firmer than it had been before. Still, he grinned.

He was back to kissing you, and you’d felt it too.

Your fingers wriggled on his chest. You started rocking back and forth, a bit more quickly now, and hummed.

You pulled away to catch your breath.

“Does that…help?” you murmured.

“What?”

“My…when I rub— here?”

You were trying so hard to help. You must’ve had no clue it’d been two utterances of ‘I love you’ from your lips that had stoked the fire within him. The friction helped, no doubt, but it was you and what you felt that made it happen—got him harder. Joel’s grin stretched bigger.

“Sweetheart, it’s—”

“‘Cause we can switch it up a little. I bet variety helps.” Suddenly, you were leaning back and lifting your hips. You gripped the base of him, now almost upright between your body and his, and started stroking him.

That felt good.

That felt really good.

But anything from you was bound to feel like that.

Joel’s smile wavered momentarily as another jolt of pleasure coursed through him. He couldn’t control the reflex; his hips bucked up from the mattress, and in your hold, the head of his cock bumped right against your clit.

You whimpered.

Your slit was all but dripping with heat. Ready for him.

“Goddamn,” Joel grit out, eyes fixed on that spot.

“Jerk your cock against me, daddy.”

His gaze shot up.

“Yeah, baby?”

The man scarcely knew what it was that he was doing in the moment, or how this might please you—all he wanted was to follow what you’d told him to do.

He nodded dumbly. Grabbed the base of his partly-erect dick and guided the tip to your clit again. He rubbed it.

Your head dropped back on a strangled-sounding moan. Joel rubbed harder—faster, to match the rhythm of your hips—and his own lips parted, betraying a look of awe.

You were writhing above him, reveling in the sensation.

Joel blinked, and he completely forgot his predicament. He dismissed from his mind that slight, inconsequential matter of not being able to get himself hard, and he flipped you. Your body fell prone on the bed beneath him.

And, focused on his pleasure as you were, you might’ve protested. Joel was quick to cut it off when he rolled you onto your side and wedged a leg between your knees.

“Open for me,” he murmured beside your ear.

You whined, ‘Jo-el,’ weakly, but obliged.

“Daddy, it’s supposed to be for y—”

Your last words splintered off. Joel was pushing his dick between your thighs—drenched as both the insides of your legs and his length happened to be, it was easy—and he slid it back and forth. He sawed his half-hard cock like he was fucking you from the inside out, and your answering moan was enough to show him that you liked it. Your head tilted back, against his shoulder, and Joel increased the speed of his thrusts. He smirked.

“This is for me, baby,” he assured you quietly.

Then, he notched his tip at your entrance.

“And this…is for you,” he finished.

Just as your moan morphed into a whine once again, he was pushing in—no more than an inch, but in—and his own breath caught. Joel groaned at the warmth and the wetness, the sheer stricture of your cunt that seized his length like a fist. Your walls pulsed at the feeling. You leaked around that one intruding inch and reached behind you to grip Joel’s neck. You cursed softly.

“Shit, daddy. He’s— he’s in me.” Half-disbelief.

“That’s right. Ain’t that where he belongs?”

You didn’t have to answer that. You simply lifted one leg higher and let him rut in deeper. You fisted the hair at the nape of his neck, and you tilted your hips to him. You soaked him in warmth. Though he didn’t have a full view of your expression from behind, Joel could see that your jaw was hanging slack and your lids were heavy—the eyes rolled back at a third stab of his hips. He fucked in.

Joel still wasn’t fully hard. That was just another part of being old, and he was done pretending like he wasn’t the age he was. You didn’t mind the age he was. If the noises bubbling up in your throat, the wet squelch of your cunt every time he drove home, and the grip on his neck, the gentle, ‘Oh, daddy, like that’ wasn’t proof enough of how much you liked it, the tremors in your legs certainly were.

They were slight. Joel knew what they signified, though.

With three inches wedged inside you, he leaned down.

“Is my sweet girl ready to cum?” he pressed gently.

You bit your bottom lip once before whimpering:

“I— I wanna get you hard first, daddy. Please.”

It was like you needed it. That urge to put him first was unyielding, even in a condition like this, and Joel wanted nothing more than to sate the desire. He also wanted to give you the orgasm you deserved, so he ground himself into your ass. He withdrew to the tip, kissed the warm, sensitive spot behind your ear, then plunged back in.

You convulsed around him.

“That’s it,” Joel went on. His mouth was so close to your skin you were no doubt feeling the grit of his stubble with every word he spoke. He hoped you didn’t mind it.

“That’s a good girl. Daddy’s nearly there. Let the sweet feelin’ in, and I promise I’ll be right behind ya, honey.”

“You— you’ll be hard? You’ll get to finish, too?”

“Givin’ ya ropes an’ ropes of the stuff, sweet pea. Enough to flood your tummy with it. Just…gimme one…good…”

“Oh!”

You let out a cry when he drove in deep.

He wasn’t even sure how he did it; his cock just throbbed and pulsed and pushed through your heat like this was right where he needed to be. He pressed in to the hilt, felt his tip kiss somewhere close your cervix, and that was when it happened again. You clawed at his neck.

You raked your nails down harder and shrieked.

“Oh, fuck, Joel, fuck, fuck, fuck—I love you!”

And that was enough for him, too.

In all the decades of life Joel Miller had lived, he couldn’t recall a single time he wasn’t fully hard and able to cum. But here he was. As soon as you finished, he filled you up like it was nothing. It had to have been the intonation of those words, or else your fingers threading through his hair, pulling tight, and gushing your release all over his cock that helped him get there. Every last sign that you were his, that you loved him, pushed him over the edge.

He was mumbling the same into your skin with each hot, pulsing jet of his seed. He buried his face into the crook of your neck and nearly whimpered. He couldn’t help it.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

Like a broken refrain, he kept grunting, thrusting, and pushing his cum as deep into your cunt as your body would allow it, and when he was spent, he kept going.

“I love you, Joel.”

You whispered it again. You hardly could’ve expected the effect it would have as soon as the words left your lips.

Joel wasn’t exactly prepared for it, either.

As tired as he was, as old as he was, he hadn’t thought it was even possible. But for the second time that morning, he found himself proven wrong. He let out a soft groan.

And, buried eight inches deep, drenched to the hilt in his own pleasure and yours, Joel felt it—he was finally hard.

His cock was swollen to full capacity, while his balls had just emptied themselves dry. Your bodies were drained.

Faintly, he caught wind of a laugh.

It rumbled through your ribcage and made its way to his. Joel dropped his head to your shoulder, grinning, because of course he got a boner right then.

“Down to run it back after work, old man?”

Joel chuckled. He glanced at the clock.

Leave in five minutes or you’ll be late.

He shrugged and pulled you closer.

“I think I’d better just call in sick.”

now imagine a follow-up crackfic where joel buys those gas station boner pills for funsies and gets hard as SHIT for fourteen hours and fucks you through every minute of it

You’ve been reading the same sentence over and over in your book for what feels like hours, maybe. Can’t remember the last time you turned a page and at this point, and you can’t remember what’s going on in the story. All you feel is an awful, nagging throb in your skull, pulsing in your fucking ear. It’s like TV fuzz in your brain. 

You get up with a stretch, pausing to sit back down because you stood up too fast, and all that blood rushing back to your brain makes your head pound even worse. At least it’s overcast out, right? God, the thought of sunlight makes you want to puke. You have no clue why you feel so bad right now. You’re not sick. 

When you’re ready, you head to the kitchen and open the cabinet where Joel keeps some odds and ends. A basket full of old, loose bandaids that have long since turned yellow. Petroleum jelly. Allen wrenches and Flintstone vitamins that are all melted together and stuck at the bottom of the bottle. Just shit that should’ve been thrown away long ago, or made its way down from the medicine cabinet upstairs and never returned home. 

Tylenol. It’s right on the top shelf, just out of reach. You stand on your toes to reach it, using your fingertips to nudge it closer to the edge. You try to catch it before it falls, but a larger hand beats you to it. “Nuh-uh,” Joel says, snatching the bottle right up. “You save that for your old man, hm? My back’s thirty goddamn years older’n yours, kid.” 

“So?” 

“So,” Joel drawls, “You leave ‘em be. Them pills are in short supply, too.” And old, and losing potency. Joel idly wonders if they even do anything anymore, if they’re just placebos at this point. Placebo or not, they’re his. “Whatcha even need Tylenol for, honey?” 

“I have a headache,” you answer, mentally cursing yourself as soon as the words slip from your lips. “Fuck.” 

Joel’s eyebrows shoot up at the swear; a simple, wordless warning is all the acknowledgment he gives it. “I know you didn’t just say a headache. What am I gonna tell ya?” 

“I don’t knowwww,” you murmur, avoiding Joel’s gaze. 

“Yes, y’do. What’m I gonna say?”

That you’re probably dehydrated. But you don’t answer Joel. You just slide past him and reach for the knob of a different cabinet door, picking out your favorite glass - it’s decorated in images of a little black cat, the paint faded and scratched and gray. Joel says the cat’s name is Felix. Was a cartoon he used to watch as a kid.

You fill your glass with water and drink it, eyeing Joel the whole time. He stands with his arms crossed, biceps bulging in his t-shirt as he wears his stupid, knowing grin, a grin that you can’t help but smile back at. Joel chuckles fondly at you smiling into the glass. 

You sigh as you set your glass down, refreshed by the cool water. “Attagirl,” Joel praises, then takes a couple of strides across the kitchen and meets you at the sink and fills your glass right back up. “Again.” 

“Again?”

“Mhm.”

You drink the second glass, glaring at him the whole time. Making a little show of it, just to rub his nose in your irritation a little. “Oh, I know. It’s so terrible, havin’ clean water to drink. I torture ya, don’t I?”

“You do, though.”

You take your place back on the couch, opening up your book again. Joel follows you, then gently removes the book from your hands. “Hey–” He finds your bookmark and places it between the pages, remembering when you told him, “I don’t like when you do that.”

“Do what?” he’d asked.

“Fold the pages.”

He hasn’t dog-eared a page of yours since. Joel places the book on the end table, then takes your head between both of his large palms, and tilts it back, back, resting you against the plush upholstery of the couch. And then, oh. Joel’s rubbing your temples with his calloused thumbs, watching as those favorite eyes of his slide shut. “Mmm…” you sigh, melting under his warm hands. 

“That helpin’ a little?”

A lazy nod of your head has Joel chuckling. You’re just like a kitten, happily purring like he’s scratching your fuzzy little chin with those big fingers of his, all curled up and blissed out. 

“What’s got your head achin’, Pumpkin?”

You shrug. Joel looks out the window at the blooming flowers you’ve been watering on his porch, taking very special care of. God, you. Your innocence. Joel’s sweet, tender-hearted girl. It really does drive him fucking nuts that you leave food on the porch, attracting raccoons all sorts of other critters late at night. Chipmunks in the morning, chipmunks you’ve named and fattened up and giggle at. Joel sighs, “Maybe it’s the weather changin’. Or allergies, or somethin’ like that.”

“Yeah,” you agree. “Maybe.”

Hours later, Joel finds you in the hallway, standing just inches away from the big, dusty mirror. You’re pulling the fabric of your shirt taught over your stomach, frowning at the reflected image before lifting the shirt’s hem and poking at yourself experimentally. 

He stands behind you, putting his two, large palms on your shoulders. “Whatcha poutin’ about now, sweetheart?” he asks, rubbing you with his thumbs. He kisses the top of your head to see if you’ll smile, but you don’t. “Thought we fixed that achy head’a yours.” 

“I’m like…bloated or something,” you mumble, pinching and prodding at your soft stomach. You turn to the side and then suck in your gut, and frown harder. 

Joel hates the look on your face. Your brows pinched together, eyes narrowed at your reflection as you visually pick yourself apart, scrutinizing every little detail of yourself that Joel loves. Trying to fix a problem that’s not there. “Hey, knock it off, kiddo. S’enough.” Joel pushes your hand away. “A lil’ tummy never hurt no one. S’okay,” he urges softly, rubbing your arm. What’s going on with you?

“No, Joel. Lookl–” 

“Listen, Pumpkin,” Joel jokes, patting his own stomach, “Your old man ain’t exactly model-thin, either. See?” hoping it’ll make you laugh, but it doesn’t. Instead, you’re ignoring him and onto the next thing, focusing on a tiny little blemish on your chin. He exhales through his nose, “I said, enough, sweetheart. Quit pickin’ at yourself.” 

“But I have a zit.” 

Joel spins you around, looking at the little mark himself. He frowns and furrows his brows, chewing on his lip as he examines your face. “Daddy, please,” you whine, pulling away from him. “Don’t look at me. I look horrible.” 

Joel wonders where a comment like that came from. He’s saddened by it, honestly, and confused. You don’t look horrible. Just the opposite, in fact. 

“M’your daddy, an’ I’ll look at that beautiful face if I wanna.” He holds your chin between his thumb and forefinger as he turns your face slowly to the left and then to the right, admiring every detail on your skin - including that little zit. 

After pausing, Joel clicks his tongue. “Ah, shit. Y’know what, I think you’re right,” he mutters solemnly. “God. This is just terrible, honey.” 

Your face drops, and your eyes go wide at his words. “What?”

“Mhm. Reckon we’re gonna have to amputate.” Joel tsks then, a smile playing at the corner of his lip. “Damn, what a shame. I kinda liked ya, kid. Ooohhhhh welllll…” 

Now that earns him a smile. And an eye roll, of course, and you gently shoving him away. But Joel catches your arm and pulls you in for a hug, kissing the top of your head again. 

“You’re not funny, Daddy.” 

“Eh. Maybe so. Think I’ll live,” Joel shoots back. 

“You don’t get it. I look…I don’t know. It’s like - like–” you stutter, trying to find the words. Everything is wrong. Your face, your body, your hair. Your mood. You. You almost feel claustrophobic, surrounded by your own upset. There’s this constant, nagging storm cloud that follows you around, and it’s raging inside you too. Inescapable.

“Daddy sure as hell ain’t ever won a beauty pageant in his whole life, darlin’. See all these wrinkles? Y’got my ugly mug beat by a landslide, honey.”

“But those are wrinkles,” you argue. “Not a fat fu…” you stop yourself before you swear again, “Zit,” you say.

“What if I told you I had a face full’a zits when I was your age?”

“It wouldn’t matter. That was forever ago.” 

Joel scoffs. Always have an answer for everything, don’t you? “Watch it. Wasn’t forever ago.” Joel’s brows briefly pinch together as he quickly does the mental math - it kind of was forever ago, actually. “‘Sides. There’s always gonna be somethin’ on ya that you don’t like. Gotta learn to live with it, right?”

“I guess,” you mumble.

“Sweetheart, y’look fine,” Joel whispers, holding your cheeks in his palms. “You’re beautiful. Ain’t no two ways about it.” He rubs your soft skin with his thumbs, so profoundly tender and gentle. “What’s gotten ya feelin’ so blue today?” 

“I don’t know,” you tell Joel, initiating a hug on your own. You don’t always do that, and it catches Joel off guard a little. He just hugs you back, watching the two of you in the mirror. Your face buried in his chest, looking so…down. Joel cups the bottom of your skull in his large hand, kisses the top of your head, and then trails his fingers down your spine. 

You’re squirmy on the couch. Constantly shifting as you shove handful after handful of popcorn into your mouth. Joel hasn’t seen you eat so voraciously since he found you all those months ago, and returned to you the second day with a warm thermos of chicken and noodles. Not like he minds, though. Eat him out of house and home, that’s what he’s there for. Joel makes no comment on your appetite. 

“My stomach hurts,” you mumble through a mouthful of popcorn. 

But he does have an inkling of what may be going on. 

“Maybe y’need to go potty,” Joel offers. 

“No,” you shake your head. “Not like that. It’s like…I don’t know.”

It’d make sense, right? You’ve been in his care for months now, healthy again. No longer malnourished, eating proteins and fats and vegetables on the regular. And if he is right, it’d explain the bloating, and the acne - again, not that he gives a shit. And it’d explain your mood, too. Or not. You’ve always been a little testy with him, a little bratty. To be expected. Joel’s given you boundaries, and it’s natural for you to want to push on them. Find out how serious he is. You’ve learned many times, though it never seems to stick. Persistent, persistent girl...

Joel guesses that he’ll see. 

You sit up and peel off your blanket, dropping it on Joel’s lap. “Where are you off to?” Joel asks. 

“I think I’m ready for bed,” you yawn, holding a hand on your lower stomach. 

“Yeah?” Joel stands up, the blanket falls to the floor. “Okay. Well, lemme tuck ya in and kiss ya goodnight, honey.”

You take his hand as you lead Joel up the stairs, dragging him by two of his fingers. His knees pop with every step he takes, god. He’s getting so old. Joel follows you into your bedroom, watches as you lie on the bed, then turn onto your side and clutch your tummy. You’re all curled up, like you’re attempting to hide from the pain. Poor thing. 

The dresser groans as Joel opens the drawer second from the top. He’ll have to grease those wheels inside soon. He picks out a nice pajama set - flowy white shorts and a shirt with little ducks on them. Joel turns around, then hovers over you on your bed. He pulls off your pants and panties with ease, then tosses the garments into your laundry basket and wriggles the pajama shorts up your legs. “Lift up for me,” he says, and you moan as you lift your hips. He takes you by the hand and lifts your torso up next, shushing your cries of discomfort. “Arms up, baby girl. Real quick.”

Joel takes your shirt off and dresses you in the pajama top next, and smoothes out the fabric over your curves with his wide hands. “I always liked these on ya,” Joel murmurs. 

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. They’re my favorite, I think. I like those ducks.” 

Joel smiles warmly. You smile back. You’re not feeling so good, but it’s been a good day with Joel. Tender, easy. You don’t always get to have good days with him. So often, it’s the push and pull; the tide meeting the shore, crashing together and pulling apart. You’re too similar for your own good, and sometimes, too different. But the good days are good. 

Joel kisses you on the forehead, then on the nose, and finally on your lips. Soft, gentle. “G’night, kiddo.” Joel gives your hand a comforting squeeze. “I love ya. M’always thinkin’ of ya,” he rhymes, tucking you in under your covers. With one last kiss, he bids you goodbye, and turns out the overhead light and takes care to turn on your nightlight. He shuts your door, hoping you’ll feel yourself in the morning.

When you wake up hours later, there’s still a dull, pulsing ache in your abdomen. Like a fist is groping at your insides, and then - a long, firm squeeze, or more of a pinch, rather. It’s so extremely painful that it has you squirming and twisting, crying out in agony. 

And there it is - the sticky feeling between your thighs. You’re utterly soaked, inner thighs slick and warm with, with…blood. You turn on your lamp and your eyes widen at the sight in front of you. 

It’s everywhere. Shades of crimson and brown soaking through your sheets, staining those patterned pretty stars all red. The fabric is shiny with your blood, as are your pajamas. It’s all between your thighs and running up your back. Fucking everywhere. 

You forgot all about your period, as it’s been so long since you’ve had one. You knew it’d come back when Joel brought you to his home, but it still takes you by surprise. The bleed is so fucking heavy you can feel it dripping from you, that slippery, awful, visceral feeling. Your face burns as you rip your sheets off of your bed in a panic, swallowing nervously when you see that your mattress is stained, too. 

You drag everything to the bathroom and toss it into the tub, frantically rubbing a bar of soap on the stains as water pours over it. You take off your pajamas too, crying at the image of those blood-stained ducks. Joel’s favorite set. Oh god, he’s gonna be so upset with you. He’ll, he’ll - fuck. You brace yourself for the inevitable, for the rage.

Joel wakes up to the noise of the tub, the loud stream of water drumming against the sheets. There’s rattling and commotion coming from the bathroom, quiet sniffling and crying. He’s all but completely sure he knows what’s wrong as he gets out of bed and takes heavy steps towards the hall and - his intuition was correct. Drops of blood on the floor, a large stain on your mattress. Joel sighs deeply and taps his knuckles against the door, its frame outlined in the warm, yellow light coming from inside. 

“Open up, Pumpkin.” 

“Fuck,” you curse, eyes blurry with tears. “Joel - I can’t, Daddy.” Your voice is thick with tears. Joel’s heart aches at the way you choke on your own sobs. 

“Yes, y’can. Open this door,” Joel repeats, and his voice is measured, patient. 

“I really - I can’t,” you tell him, hands on either side of your head as you panic. The blood isn’t washing out much, and you - fuck. You’re covered in it yourself. As is the bathroom. 

“M’not gonna be mad at ya, kiddo. Whatever it is.” 

Joel listens to you take a couple of deep, shuddering breaths. “P-promise?”

“On my life.”

There’s a couple of footsteps, and then the door opens about an inch. Joel’s brows furrow as he takes in what he can of you - eyes stained by tears, blood dripping between your thighs. You nudge the door open just a little more, then fit your hand through the crack and offer Joel your pinkie. Joel raises his own hand, loops his pinkie around yours, and kisses your knuckles. He raises his eyebrows, silently asking again that you let him in. Those dark eyes are soft and patient. Warm. 

You open the door the rest of the way, allowing Joel to take it all in. The mess in the bathtub and on the floor, and you standing before him, dripping a vermillion mess. “Oh, Pumpkin.” 

Joel pulls you into a tight hug, hushing your sobs as you tell him over and over, you’re so sorry. You’re so sorry, Daddy. 

“What the hell are you sorry for, sweet girl?”

“F-for the sheets, and for ruining the mattress. And m-my-m–”

“Deep breaths, hon.”

“--My pajamas,” you continue, without stopping to breathe. 

Joel nods, understanding. “Nothin’ t’be sorry about. It’s a natural part’a life, right?”

“Y-yeah, but–”

“But nothin’. It ain’t your fault, sweetheart.”

“Please don’t be angry,” you whimper. “I really tried.”

Joel feels a pressure building behind his own eyes. He’s getting so soft as he ages, and he knows what he’s done to you. The fear he’s instilled. The guilt eats him alive, sometimes. 

“Ohhh, I’m not mad at you a bit, sweet girl. Not a bit.” Joel gently pushes you an inch back, pinching at your hair that’s stuck to your sticky cheeks. He clicks his tongue as more tears fall, wiping them away with his rough fingertips. It hurts a little, the skin under your eyes so sensitive and raw and puffy right now. “Let’s get this mess cleaned up, huh?” You nod. “Go wash your face in the sink,” Joel tells you, crouching by the tub. 

He grabs the sheets and chuckles as he squeezes the water out of them. “Well, ya can’t use warm water, knucklehead. Stain ain’t gonna budge an inch f’ya do that.” 

Joel’s eyes widen as you let out a sob at the comment, crying hard once again. Jesus, your emotions are all over the place. Poor girl. “Heeey, enough. Enough with the waterworks, alright? I’m gonna take care of it.” 

“B-”

Joel bunches up the wet sheets and stands up, holding your chin between the fingers of his free hand. “I need you to calm down, kiddo. It’s okay. Y’understand me? It’s all gonna be okay.”

“Okay,” you sniffle. “Okay.” 

Joel leaves the water on. “Gonna clean this up and see if I can’t find ya somethin’ for your monthly,” he says. “You get in the tub and rinse yourself off a little, alright? An’ the water’ll feel good on your achin’ tummy, too,” he advises.

Joel’s right. You sit in the tub and put the rubber stopper in the drain, letting the water fill up and soothe your cramps as Joel takes care of everything else. He scrubs your mattress and the sheets with peroxide, watching the bloodstains bubble up in shades of red and orange. It’s not perfect, but nothing is. It’ll do.

He tosses the sheets in a laundry bag, and will probably end up dropping it off at the laundromat tomorrow morning. He checks his supply closet for some old tampons or pads or something, but there’s nothing. Unless he wanted to get creative with some washrags, but…

…In truth, Joel’s been waiting for this. Maybe even planned it. He knew one day or another you’d get your period, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t make his cock twitch to think about it. Sinking inside that warm, wet, bleeding cunt…

Joel comes back into the bathroom, running a hand through his graying hair as he checks behind the mirror and under the sink. “Got bad news for ya, kiddo,” he sighs, shutting the cabinets. “I’m empty.”

“So I just have to sit here until it’s over?”

“Nah, ‘course not. Gimme a minute and I’ll show ya what’m gonna do with ya.” Joel bends over and touches your scalp, then presses a kiss against your forehead. “Empty the tub an’ dry off. Come to my room when you’re done.” 

Joel leaves you and leaves the bathroom door open. You listen to him grab a couple of things from the closet, and the sound of rustling fabric and blankets coming from his bedroom. The drain gurgles as you let the water out and dry yourself off, cringing at the blood staining the towel, too. You tiptoe to Joel’s room.

His bed is made neatly with layers of old blankets and towels, and he has you sit on them. You squirm, uncomfortable with the idea of bleeding freely. “But I’m gonna ruin these, too.”

“Nah, don’t fuss over it. They’ve all seen better days,” Joel laughs. “Get comfy. Lie down.” 

You lie on the bed, shivering as Joel joins you. He removes his clothes and his cock is standing at half attention already, bouncing between his thighs as he adjusts his pillows. “You’re bleedin’ too heavy to go bare,” Joel explains, pumping his cock with his fist. 

“Okay…”

“So,” Joel continues, wrapping his arm around your side and pulling you against his bare torso, “Daddy’s gonna stuff ya full and slow the bleed. That way you’re not soakin’ through the mattress all night. S’that make sense, Pumpkin?”

It does. You turn your head and nod, but Joel can see in your eyes how nervous you are with the idea. That, coupled with your bleed. Of course you’re anxious, insecure. 

“We’ll go slow,” he promises. “An’ in the morning I’ll fetch ya some supplies when I drop your sheets off. Sound good?”

“Okay, Daddy.” 

Joel kisses you on the lips, then adjusts the way you lay on his bed, pulling you onto your back. “M’gonna give ya my fingers first, alright? Get ya ready for it.” He parts your legs, smiling as you take your place. You bury your head into his neck, same as you always do. The eye contact is hard for you sometimes, not that Joel minds. He finds it endearing how bashful you get. 

He licks his fingers - force of habit - and drags them up and down the seam of your wet, bleeding center, smiling at your sigh of relief. Poor thing, you’re all pent up, too. And your cunt aches, and simply needs a loving touch. 

Joel circles your clit, waiting for your body to relax into him. It’ll take a minute, sure. He whispers to you how beautiful you are, how much he loves to make you feel like this. How special that is, sweetheart. It’s Daddy’s favorite thing. 

He’s quiet as he dips one thick finger inside you, then two. Slipping them slowly inside, palm pressed against your mound. Joel pumps them in and out of you, acclimating you to the intrusion. And then, he curls them. Curls them, pulses them rhythmically up towards that special, spongy spot deep inside you. Joel feels your body warm as he fucks you on his fingers, listens to the quiet, breathy whimpers of your pleasure. 

Joel pulls his fingers from you, and notices the frown on your face as you see your own mess on his hands. “Don’t look,” he tells you, and wipes them on a towel. Blood remains caked around his fingernails, though. “Eyes on me.” 

You nod, and Joel turns you so your back is faced to him. He pushes your legs apart, then poises his cock at your entrance. “I’m goin’ easy on ya,” he promises. “Nice an’ slow.” 

“Yeah,” you murmur, reaching for his forearm as he presses against you. 

“An’ I know it ain’t - fuck - ideal,” Joel grunts, notching his tip inside your aching, bleeding cunt, hushing your cries of pain as his length starts to fill you. “But we gotta make do. Just can’t have ya bleedin’ everywhere, honey.” 

“I - I know, but it hurts, Daddy,” you warn, squirming at the intrusion. “It’s - yeah. It’s hurting.” 

“Oh, I know it hurts, pumpkin.” Joel licks his fingers and reaches between your legs for your clit, rubbing the sensitive part of you as he eases his way inside. “You’re bein’ a real trooper. Deep breath,” he instructs, “Do it with me. In–” and sucks in a breath, motioning for you to follow. “And out.” 

On your exhale, Joel pushes all the way in, bottoming out with a grunt, and a whimper follows from your own lips. “There it is. Piece’a cake,” he pants through a grin, throbbing inside of you. 

You squeeze your eyes shut at the painful pinch, focusing instead on the way Joel rubs your sore, cramping abdomen with his warm palm. “M’so sorry you’re not feelin’ good. But you’re bein’ so good f’me,” he coos, his cock twitching. “My sweet fuckin’ girl.” 

Joel holds you against him as he reaches for his lamp, then pulls the chain and shuts the light off. He drops against you, sighing deeply as you squirm on his cock. 

The pain of the stretch dissipates as the minutes pass, and Joel’s breathing steadies. The ache is replaced by a different pain, a squeezing, aching cramp that overtakes your whole body. You groan in discomfort, clenching tightly around Joel, and it makes his breath catch in his throat. 

“It’s - it’s hurting, still,” you grimace. 

“What hurts, Pumpkin? Where?”

“It’s not you,” you answer. “My - fuck, I’m sorry. My cramps.” 

Joel rubs your belly harder, though it doesn’t do so much to soothe your pain. You whimper as another particularly bad cramp washes over you, balling your hands into fists around Joel’s fingers. “Oh, honey. M’so sorry,” he whispers. “Aint’ fair what you girls gotta go through.” 

Joel thinks for a minute, considering your pain and his own discomfort. Fuck, you are tight. And every horrible cramp that plagues your body only serves to pleasure him, what with the way you squeeze and pulse around him through the pain. “M’gonna try somethin’, sweetheart,” he whispers, shifting on the bed. 

Joel pulls out of you slowly, then thrusts back inside. Not hard, not fast. Gentle and steady, nice and slow. He does it again, conscious to rub that sweet place inside you, and not to bruise your cervix with his head. 

“S’that better or worse?” he asks softly. 

Joel does it again. A slow draw out, that gradual push back in. The cramping fades into the background as that special, satisfying feeling takes over instead. 

“Hurtin’ or helpin’?”

“Y– Oh, Daddy,” you coo, your grip softening around his fingers. 

Joel smiles, satisfied. “Ohh, s’helpin’, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s helping.” 

Joel keeps fucking you slowly, dropping your hand to reach for your clit. He noses your ear and presses kisses against your neck, feeling your heartbeat pulse under his lips. The way he rolls his hips against you has you biting your lip and moaning his name, though it all comes out in little half-syllables. “Daddy’s here,” Joel whispers. “I gotcha.” 

He builds the speed a little, focusing only on your pleasure at the moment. The head of his cock rubs exactly where you need it to as he massages your clit with practiced circles that have you sighing in pleasure, inching closer and closer to your release. “Go ‘head and cum for me,” Joel rasps, “Let go, Pumpkin.” 

It’s not immediate, but it’s close enough. Just one, two, three more strokes and you’re cumming hard on Joel’s length, pulsing and clenching around him in non-rhythm. Joel fucks you through your climax until your quiet moaning subsides, and all that’s left is heavy breathing. 

…But the groans of pain return. Such a sour ending to something so sweet. It’s how it always seems to go with you, though.

Joel winces, sucking in a breath through his teeth. “Goddamn, kid. Cramps still ain’t lettin’ up, are they?”

“Guess not,” you murmur. 

“Want me to whoop ‘em?”

You laugh, and the motion of your body on his cock has Joel humming. “M’serious. Let me give ya one more, baby. You need’a get your rest.” 

Joel fucks you again, just as he did before. He’s a patient, patient man. Achingly hard and focused on your pleasure, focused on easing your hurt. When you cum again, when Joel’s drawn out every bit of pleasure from you that he could, he waits with bated breath for your whine of pain to follow - and it never does. 

What he does hear, however, is your gentle snoring. Joel exhales in relief, and begins fucking you for the third time. This time, for himself. 

He does so slowly but still at his own pace, focusing on his pleasure. Just a steady rocking of his hips, a consistent drawing in and out of your wet, bleeding pussy. Joel holds you tightly against his chest, breathing in that comforting, familiar scent of the top of your head. He savors the specific heat coming off of your body - you’re a little warmer than usual - and the feeling of his bare skin against yours. 

Joel’s so hard and rigid, and there’s a pressure quickly building in his balls and deep in his gut. He pulls you flush against his chest as he cums with a deep, guttural groan that escapes through his teeth, moaning while he paints your insides, all those muscles tensing and relaxing. 

He relaxes against you, kissing your ear as he settles into the soft mattress, cock going soft inside your body, still pulsing with every beat of his heart. 

Joel loves you so much. He tells you this as he drifts off to sleep, as that pretty, pinkish mixture of his spend and your blood drips down, down your thighs, seeping into the old towel underneath you. 

-

More dark daddy!joel here

Aaaaand kitty pics, cuz it’s been a while. If you enjoyed, please reblog with something sweet and horny or hop in my inbox and dirty talk me there :) your kind words keep me so motivated to write.

Early 2004

The sun was setting, casting the ruins of the crumbled building and broken glass in a golden hue. The shattered remains of an explosion that had taken place not long ago. The ground still trembled in the aftermath. The sun danced upon the glass and created an illusion of twinkling crystal. Something beautiful from something so horrid.

That’s when you saw him for the first time. Blood soaked and bruised. Broken. It was a sight that you would never forget. The man had stumbled into your poor excuse of home. He looked like he had gone through hell and crawled through the mud and muck to fight his way back to this world.

The man fell to his knees as the door clicked shut behind him, a deep grunt escaped his lips as the broken floorboards creaked under his weight. He hadn't noticed you, huddled in the shadows of the corner. Your eyes wide with fear as you held your breath, silently praying that he wouldn't notice you, even as dread filled your stomach.

His eyes closed and his head tilted back as he took a long, ragged breath of relief. The wind howled through the holes in the shattered walls, bringing soot and ash through the wreckage as it sent chills through the air. The hair not plastered to his face with blood, fluttered in the wind, dancing around him before it settled once more against his head.

As if sensing your presence, his head slowly turned in your direction. Brown eyes met yours. Instead of the anger and malice that you had expected, his gaze softened. His expression was almost tender as he took in the sight of you, trembling and pressed against the wall.

"This ain't no place for you," he muttered. His voice strained and hoarse as he winced. His hand flexed on the floor beside him, leaving smears of blood across the cracked floorboards. His expression was weary, but there was a hint of concern in his eyes as his gaze flicked between you and the shattered surroundings. 

Your mind raced, trying to form words but your throat suffocated them. You stared at him, eyes wide. You wanted to say something, anything, but the words refused to form. Your throat still ached after the hours spent screaming as the bombs landed and fire tore through the town.

"Someone else here?" He asked, his voice rough and gravelly as he grunted in pain, struggling to his feet. His jaw was clenched tight, his movements slow and labored. Every step a battle against the injuries that wracked his body. He could barely stand and yet he pushed himself to stay upright.

Your gaze darted towards the door that had been closed for the past two days. The man followed your glance and nodded in understanding. With a grimace, he pulled a gun from his waistband and left smears of blood against the dust caked wall as he stumbled, using the support of the wall to keep himself semi-upright.

He pushed open the door, gun raised and ready. But as he saw the sight before him, his body froze. Eyes locked on the horror he had discovered. For a moment, he stood there. Gun lowered, staring at the gruesome scene that was forever etched in your memory. After a few moments, he slowly turned his gaze back at you, giving a slow, solemn nod before stepping out and closing the door behind him, shutting out the nightmarish sight.

He took a deep, ragged breath, but it did little to quell the churning nausea in his stomach. With a sharp grunt, he doubled over and retched, coughing and sputtering as he expelled whatever contents he had in his stomach. You didn't blame him; you had reacted the same way.

He slowly made his way over to where you sat, sinking down against the wall with a heavy sigh. He leaned his head back and rested it against the wall, wincing as the rough surface scraped against his bruised skin.

He looked down at you, his gaze steady despite the blood trickling down from a mix of fresh and old cuts on his face. His face was a canvas of bruises and cuts, but his eyes held a sharp intensity as he studied you carefully. “You bit?”

Your body trembled slightly as you shook your head, your eyes locked on his. For a moment, he stared at you. His expression unreadable. And then, slowly, almost reluctantly, he nodded.

Your gaze flicked away from him, your focus shifted to the tattered shirt beside you. It once belonged to your father, now used as a makeshift pillow. The fabric stained with the dirt and sweat of his last days. As you reached out to grab it, your knuckles ached as you clenched them around the fabric.

You brought the shirt to his face and the man's hand shot out and wrapped around your wrist. His grip not enough to stop you, but enough to warn you. You ignored it and pressed the shirt against the gash on his forehead. He tensed at the contact, a grimace of pain crossed his face, but he didn't stop you.

“You’re hurt.” You whispered. 

His eyes flicked down to the torn clothing and ashes that covered your body. Scrapes and cuts that littered your body. His eyebrow rose, as if to say, so are you.

“’M fine.”

“Bullshit.”

He grunted in as he reached up and pushed your hand away, his jaw clenched in pain at the slightest movement.

You sighed and placed the shirt on his lap.

"Why the hell are you still here?" he muttered, his voice low and strained. "You should've packed up and left to a damn camp or quarantine zone by now." The words came out in a pained hiss as he leaned his head back against the wall, his eyes fluttering shut.

“We tried a few times, didn’t make it very far. My dad was sick.”

He grunted again.

The room fell into heavy silence, broken only by the buzz of the flies feasting on the bodies of your parents next door and the faint echo of bombs dropped on another town in the distance.

You waited until the moon rose high in the sky, casting a silver glow through the broken windows, before you spoke. Your voice was low and quiet, carefully measured to not wake the man beside you who appeared to have finally fallen asleep. "We're going to die here, aren't we?" The words lingered in the air, the inescapable truth that had lingered at the edge of your consciousness now voiced aloud.

A soft gasp escaped your lips as you felt his rough, bloodied hand intertwine with your own ash covered hand, his touch firm yet gentle. The touch of his hand sent a shiver down your spine, but it also filled you with a sense of comfort. As he squeezed your hand, his voice was soft and earnest. "Neither of us are dying tonight," he promised.

“Maybe not tonight, but you’ll leave by morning.”

 His hand flexed, his breath hitched.

“And you’ll come with me.”

“I will?”

He hummed.

“Headed to the next safe zone. It’ll be safe there.”

You turned your head, your eyes straining to make out his face in the dim light of the room. Despite the darkness, you could just make out the sight of his face, smeared with patches of blood and dirt. His eyes met yours, the pain and exhaustion written across his features, yet they also held a gentle softness, like that of a puppy, full of unspoken promises.

You huffed, a trace of something close to a smile tugged at your lips as you realized the irony of the moment. "I don't even know your name."

“Joel.”

You reply with your own name.

When the morning sun streamed through the shattered windows once more, bathing the room in golden light, it felt different than it had the day before. The same dance of sunlight across the shattered glass, but today there was a sense of hope, a glimmer of possibility. Despite the broken world around you, the sun seemed to offer a promise of life.

You looked down on the porch, a flower grew through the crack. You bent down and dusted the ash that had collected on the petal and smiled at the purple surrounded by the blood splatters that Joel had tracked in last night.

“You coming?” Joel huffed from down the stairs, a raised eyebrow and hand on hip.

You looked up at Joel, your eyes met his weary gaze. Despite being covered in blood and the stench of death that clung to him, there was a fire in his eyes that seemed to radiate life. He stood out against the desolated world around him. He was a living, breathing being in a world so consumed by death. A small smile tugged at your lips as he caught your gaze, his eyes softened slightly.

You realized then, that Joel was like the lone flower. Struggling to survive, growing in the crack of a broken concrete path. The blood that drips from the petals, a stark contrast to the surrounding grey and bleak debris. A ray of sunlight, filtering through the window, illuminating a once dark and ruined landscape, bringing a bit of hope to the bleak reality.

He lifted his hand, reaching toward you as you stood up. Without hesitation, you took his hand in yours, feeling the strength in his grip as he helped you to your feet. Together, the two of you left the broken home behind, stepping out into the wreckage that remained of the world around you.

For the first time since the world ended, you felt safe.

Turning over in bed, a dim light had you stirring from your slumber. Your eyes blinked open just enough to survey the room, noticing that the stream of light on your face was caused by a crack in the bathroom door. 

You buried your head deeper into your pillow; your frustration dissipating into ease at the realization that Joel was home safe and sound.

He always tried to sneak in when he got home from his patrol shift. It was so late he never wanted to wake you, and normally he didn’t, but tonight— tonight he’d left the door open haphazardly, and you could hear him rustling around in the bathroom. The squeak of the medicine cabinet opening was unmistakable, and your stomach instantly turned. The medicine cabinet was reserved for one thing: a very unorganized and mostly expired assortment of first aid supplies. 

Despite the temptation of sleep, you sat up, brushing the covers from your body as your feet padded toward the bathroom door. You pushed it open to find Joel leaning over the sink watching himself in the mirror as he attempted to clean a wound just below his collarbone. 

“Joel.” You whispered, sleep still staining your voice as you stepped closer to him.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.” His head turned in your direction, a wince evident on his face as his eyebrows pulled together from the pain of his injury.

“You should’ve woken me up Joel. Jesus that looks bad.” 

The worry in your voice was all too familiar. Your concern for Joel’s well-being was second nature, a constant theme in the narrative of your relationship.

“Let me see.” You were placing a hand on his back, signaling him to turn your direction so you could assess the cut just below his shoulder.

He didn’t even try to protest, shocking you with his obedience. Usually, the two of you would go back and forth while he tried to convince you it was “just a scratch that needs time to heal” brushing off your persistent hands. But this time he surrendered, turning around to face you; his unclothed torso marked with blood.

“What the hell happened.” You were questioning in a hushed tone as your fingers carefully ran over his body. 

“Had to take care of some raiders at the wall. Got a little too close for comfort.” 

It was rare for something like this to happen, but it did. And every time Joel somehow managed to be in the middle of it. 

You didn’t respond, instead you took your time looking at the wound stretching from his chest to his shoulder. It was deep, far deeper than time and bandages would heal, and you both knew it.

“Sit.” You were motioning to the toilet beside him. It was the only spot in the cramped space for Joel to take a seat, and you needed the florescent lighting of the bathroom to fix him up properly. 

He knew better than to argue with you, sitting down without a word, the porcelain lid of the toilet slightly clanking under his weight. 

“Gonna have to stitch it up, it’s deep.” The words were a mumble as you searched the medicine cabinet above his head, fishing out the collection of first aid materials and setting the box down on the counter.

You were rummaging through it, looking for the needle and thread you kept for moments like this. They’d only been used a handful of times in the last few years; and almost every occasion it was Joel who sat on the other end of your amateur sowing job. 

“I’m sure it’ll be-.” He began trying to make an excuse until you cut him off.

“Joel.” His name was all you said as you continued riffling through bandages and bottles of medication. 

Joel was a tough man. He could handle getting injured all day long, but he hated sutures. You remembered how hard it was to hold back your laugh the first time you had to give him three stitches in his hand. He was writhing away from your touch and almost begging you to stop. His childish trepidation would’ve been cute, had you not been lacing a needle through his skin. 

“Well if ya can’t find it we’ll have to just-“ He was grumbling from his spot next to you.

“Ah-ha! Found it.” You were pulling the thread from the box with a victorious grin on your face.

You looked over to Joel and your smile immediately faded upon seeing his apprehensive expression. 

“I’ll be fast I promise.” You offered him a small smile as you nudged his knees apart, positioning yourself between them.

He was sat with his legs spread, you standing in front of him. He watched you prepare to fix his wound, and even covered in blood with his body aching in pain, Joel couldn’t help but appreciate your compassion. It was sweet really, how you always took such good care of him. He liked having someone to come home to and although he’d never admit it; he enjoyed the way you tended to him like this. You were always so attentive— a true nurturing soul.  

He watched as you used whatever antiseptic solution was left from your stash and a washcloth to clean the area surrounding his clavicle. Your face was contorted in concentration as you took in the wound, mentally preparing yourself for the next step. 

“Ready?” The question was rhetorical as it left your lips, your hands swapping the washcloth for the thread and needle as you leaned in closer to Joel.

“As I’ll ever be.” He was answering in a mumble as he closed his eyes, working himself up for the inevitable sting. 

You began, and the sharp hiss that escaped him made your chest feel heavy. You followed through with your word, your movements quick and precise as you worked to close the wound on his chest, in and out in a continuous pattern as you tried not to let Joel’s shaky exhales interrupt your concentration. 

“You’re doing so good.” You whispered down to him as your hands continued to work.

Your compliment was delivered with pure intentions. You knew Joel’s eyes were screwed shut in pain and you felt like he could use a little bit of encouragement.  What you didn’t know, was the way your softly spoken words had Joel’s entire body heating up. 

The pain at his chest instantly faded into warmth as he let your praise sink into his body like honey— sweet and sticky.

His eyes peeled open to look at you, gazing upwards and watching as your brows furrowed in deliberation at the thread moving through his skin. He was suddenly becoming aware of your soft body pressed up against his crotch as you leaned into him. The only clothing covering you was a t-shirt and your underwear, the bare skin of your thighs rubbing against the thick denim of his jeans. 

You were so fixated on following the pattern of your movements that you hadn’t even noticed Joel staring at you. In fact, you were almost finished when you felt the familiar push of his erection against your uncovered thigh. 

You looked down between sutures ready to make a joke about him getting turned on right now until you were met with his big brown eyes on yours. He was looking up at you with undeniable defenselessness, tempting you with his vulnerability. The out of character switch in power dynamics had a calculated smirk forming on your lips.

“Such a good boy for me.” You made sure your voice was low and persuasive as you spoke down to him. 

Your words sent an undisclosed craving throughout his body and his hands found the back of your thighs, grabbing gently, careful not to disrupt your intricate work on his shoulder. 

He wanted to pull you down onto him; to put his hands all over your body and show you he was in charge. He didn’t want to let you get away with making him feel inferior, but he couldn’t move— not while you were stitching him up like this.

You thought Joel might playfully tell you to shut up or be quiet, but he didn’t. He just kept his eyes trained on yours, careful and compliant. 

This was not your usual dynamic. Not in your relationship and definitely not in the bedroom. 

Joel was always the one in control. 

It quickly became an unspoken agreement between you that he called the shots and made the decisions. You figured it was from a place of fear— of wanting to protect you. But now with him sat beneath you all bruised and battered, you got to be the one protecting him. It felt like you were stepping into new territory standing between his legs in the middle of your little bathroom at this ungodly hour. 

You finished in silence, setting your tools back on the countertop. Joel’s hands stayed on your thighs, his fingers splayed over your skin and his grip a little tighter than before. 

You brought your hands up to run over his chest, your fingertips tracing around his tended wound, admiring your work. 

“Not so bad huh?” You were sing-songing sweetly as you peered down at the man beneath you. It wasn’t often that you got to see Joel like this; docile and preening under your touch.

“No, not bad.” The words were fumbling from his mouth as he gazed at you.

“Think you deserve a reward for doing so good.” You were trailing your hands further up, fingertips finding the nape of his neck, your voice quiet and innocent.

“What do you think? Need a little something for being such a good boy?” one of your hands intertwined in his hair, grabbing gently and pulling so that his head tilted up to meet your gaze.

You caught the way his head moved in a subtle nod at your words. 

You smiled at him and the look exchanged between you was eager before you sank to the floor hitting the cool tile as you kneeled before him. 

The two of you worked simultaneously to pull his jeans down just enough to free his erection from the restraining denim. You were desperate to get him in your mouth, only letting his jeans make it halfway down his thighs before stopping him and leaning forward. 

You hadn’t even touched him yet and he was already excruciatingly hard, his member resting against his belly as he sat patiently waiting to feel you on him. 

He was expecting to feel your hand wrap around the base of his cock, or maybe your tongue licking a long stripe up his length; but what he wasn’t anticipating, was the warmth of your lips against the sensitive space sitting underneath his aching member. You placed a gentle kiss on his balls and his head instinctually fell back, a raspy groan melting from his lips as you gently kissed and licked.

“Fuck.” It was a breathless groan— long and drawn-out pouring from his throat as you sloppily worked at the underside of his cock. You hummed at the satisfaction of having him at your disposal, sat in front of you and pathetically whimpering from just a few simple kisses. 

The vibration of your hum purring against him had his hands finding your hair, fingers cautiously digging into your scalp.

You drew your tongue up his length stopping once you reached the head and placing a gentle kiss there before taking just the tip of him between your lips. 

His hold on your hair tightened, causing you to swirl your tongue around him as you took your time sucking and listening to the muffled moans fighting against his lips.

You deepened your movement, dipping your head lower as you let him fill you even further, the warmth of your mouth enveloping him almost completely. The pitiful noises seeping from him had one of your hands sprawling up his thigh until your fingertips were ghosting his balls.

You were caressing the delicate weight between his legs, gently toying with them in your hand while your mouth continued welcoming him deeper toward your throat. 

“Shit Darlin’.” 

His words were a hushed sigh of relief as your eyes fluttered up to meet his. 

His sinful gaze sent your thighs clenching together as you continued bobbing your head.

You brought a hand to the base of his cock, using it in tandem with your mouth to illicit more of those sweet sounds form his throat. His groans and grunts were sinking down to meet your ears causing your own arousal to pool between your legs. 

You continued your actions, setting a steady pace, knowing it wouldn’t be long until you tasted his sweet release on your tongue. 

“Baby, baby, baby.” He was chanting down to you— a breathless warning cry.

You hummed in response, prepared to take everything he could give you as he reached his climax. Only, he was using his hold in your hair to pull your mouth from him, caressing your cheek while he caught his breath, watching as you kneeled before him with watery eyes and puffy lips. 

Joel had one hand on your face the other loosely grabbing a handful of your hair as he leaned down to meet your line of sight. 

“Wanna cum in here.” 

He was bringing the fingers at your cheek down between your legs. Parting them slightly with his touch and cupping your heat in the palm of his hand. 

“That okay honey?” 

The warmth of his palm through the thin material of your panties had you nodding pathetically at his words. 

His fand flew back to your face as he captured your lips in a lazy kiss.

You knew the embrace of his lips well. The familiar dance of his mouth on yours ensued as he stood, bringing you with him and pushing your body against the bathroom sink. 

His hands trailed down to your waist, grabbing hold and beginning to lift until you stopped him, pushing his hold away from your body. You knew if he picked you up it would strain the stitches in his shoulder. 

“Nuh-uh Joel you have to be careful. I don’t want you breaking your stitches open.” You were breaking the kiss with a gasp of breath, motioning to the extensive wound spanning from his chest to shoulder. 

“Okay baby, I’ll be real gentle.” His southern drawl was undeniable as he murmured the words to you with a condescending smile. 

You lifted yourself up to sit on the cool surface of the bathroom counter as Joel moved himself between your legs, pressing his lips on yours once again. His kiss trailed down your jaw as he pulled your thighs apart. Both of his hands running up the inside of your legs, causing goosebumps to raise on your skin. He reached your underwear, his motions stopping once he felt the way the wet cotton clung to your core.

“Love when you get this worked up just from suckin’ me off.” He was groaning into your neck as he ran a single digit up and down your slit through your ruined panties. 

“Missed you today.” More mumbles into your skin as he slowly rubbed circles over your covered clit.

“I missed you too.” The words were a moan as you wrapped your arms around him, hands spread over his back as you pulled him closer. 

“Thought about you a lot.” His tone was casual as he kept the conversation going; and while you loved the man, you needed him to get on with it. You needed him bad.

Leave it to Joel to start swapping stories about your day with his dick dangerously hard and inches away from pushing into you.  

“Thought about the other day when you were talkin’ bout babies.” He brought his face back just enough to gage your expression as he spoke.

You weren’t expecting this to come up now.

Days ago Joel caught you watching the young family that lived across the street. They just had a baby and it was impossible to miss the way you ogled at them when they sat on their front porch rocking their newest addition. 

He brought the obvious gawking to your attention, partly as a joke, but it lit something in him as soon as he saw the way you got all fidgety and flustered about it. 

You were quick to defend your increased interest in your neighbors, “They’re just a sweet couple that’s all. And their baby is just so damn cute.”  

“Yeah, he is pretty cute isn’t he.” You were both staring out the window, his hand finding the small of your waist as he stood behind you. 

“Most newborn babies are ugly but that’s a good one.” Joel was cracking a joke that had you shoving your elbow back into his torso.

“Oh, shut up.” You were trying to hide the giggle in your words as you kept your eyes trained on the little family across the street. Shamelessly wondering what it would be like to have that with Joel.

“I happen to have a soft spot for babies.” You were muttering as you gazed out the window.

“That right?” Joel’s voice was tender and low as you turned to look at him. Your eyes locking in a moment of pure interest and understanding before you eventually broke the stare, choosing to start dinner and leave the conversation frozen in time.

But now he was bringing it up, in the middle of the night with fresh stitches adorning his chest and his body wedged between your legs. 

“See the way you look at them.” He was referring to your neighbors, his voice quiet and kind.

“You want that?” His gaze was affectionate as he kept his eyes on yours, watching carefully. His finger still circling the bundle of nerves at your center; his crude movements a complete juxtaposition to the way he was sweetly looking at you.

“Want a baby? A little family?” There was a slight smile on his lips as he mumbled the words.

“Yeah, I’ve thought about it.” Your response was simple, his eyes still watching as you answered. 

“With you.” 

One of his eyebrows innocently cocked at your follow up statement.

“I want that with you Joel.” You meant it.

Although you’d be lying if you said the words weren’t also fueled by the way his pointer finger was slowly and deliberately stroking your clit through your panties. 

“Do you ever think about it?” Your eyes were peering at him naively, your bottom lip caught in your teeth as you bit down trying to keep yourself from moaning in pleasure at his soft touch. 

“Having a baby with me?” 

The words were a sweet murmur on your tongue and Joel had to keep himself from groaning at your question. 

Of course he wanted it. He thought about it every time he caught you staring out the window at the kid across the street. 

He couldn’t shake the constant reminder ringing in his head that he was older than you, and a man his age shouldn’t be starting a family. He knew people would have a lot to say about it and he didn’t want you to be the topic of town gossip. But hearing you say the words to him right now— telling him how much you wanted to have his baby. It was maddening.

Every last insecurity was shoved to the side as he looked into your eyes so precious and kind, full of longing and anticipation. 

“All the time sweetheart.” He let the truth flood the space between your lips and the way your face lit up was all he needed to keep confessing.

“Nothin’ I want more than a family with you.” 

A squeak of a moan pushed past your lips both from his declaration and the increased pressure he was applying to your clit as he continued his lazy circles on your panties. 

“Then what’s stopping us?” 

You were bucking your hips into his hand and your soft smile was replaced by a convincing grin. 

His facial expression quickly matched yours as he hooked his fingers into the waistband of your underwear, pulling them down your thighs with his eyes still on yours.

“Gonna give me a baby Miller?”

He was pulling you closer to the edge of the countertop, angling himself at your entrance.

While he would normally stretch you out with a few strokes of his fingers before pushing his cock into you, tonight he was impatient and greedy. He knew you were already ready for him from your ruined panties that were now somewhere on the floor. 

“That what you want huh? Wanna be a mama?” The tone behind his questioning was sadistic as he let his tip nudge into you.

“Take such good care of me sweetheart, know you’d be so good with our babies.”

He leaned in, his forehead finding yours as he watched your eyelids flutter with each inch he pushed into you. 

“Joel…” Your mind was beginning to go blank, and his name was the only thing you could get out in an attempt to ask for more. 

“Gonna fill you up real good darlin’, give you a baby.” He was trying his best to keep his composure, but Joel’s words were filled with the threat of a moan as he bottomed out inside you. 

“God yes- Please Joel.” You didn’t even attempt to hide the sigh of relief that flew from your mouth at the feeling of him filling you.

He moved slowly at first, wanting to give in to the intimacy of your exchanged words. Then he felt you desperately clenching around him, rendering him powerless against his most primal desires.

His hips began snapping into yours; hands gripping the flesh of your thighs pulling them even further apart in his grasp. With each thrust he challenged you to take him deeper, rubbing the sweetest spot along your walls as your fingers dug into the muscles of his back.

You were a muddle of whines and whimpers as Joel continued to drive into you, paying close attention to the spongey place deep inside that had your whole body tensing up. 

“Want it so bad, don’t ya baby?” His question held a certain level of arrogance, but you didn’t even notice it with the way his hips were grinding against yours every time he drove into you. 

You simply nodded, your head bumping against his.

“Know ya do.” He watched as pitiable little noises fell from your parted lips.

“Can feel it.” He was groaning as he felt your walls squeezing around him signifying your inevitable release. 

You couldn’t remember a time when you came this fast; but the way he was speaking mixed with the thrill of a new desire being shared between you had your abdomen straining and your head buzzing. 

“Fuck I’m gonna-“

“I know sweetheart let it out.” 

His reassurance was coupled with heavy thrusts that sent moans spilling from the deepest part of your chest.  

Your fingernails were sure to leave marks as you gripped his back. The pressure in your core bursting as your release washed over you.

The pleasure was nearly blinding as your body heaved underneath Joel’s movements. It didn’t stop. The overwhelming feeling of relief continued to course through your veins as Joel kept a steady pace thrusting in and out of you. 

“Tell me how bad you want it.” His voice was breathless as it fanned over your face. 

His grip on your thighs had migrated up to your face as he held your jaw in his hands, keeping your forehead pressed against his. 

“Need it Joel.” You were mewling between gasps, as he plunged into you. 

“Need your cum.” 

His hold on your face forced your eyes to meet his and while you could barely keep them open; you were mesmerized by the way he was staring at you, his jaw slack and his eyes dark and focused.

“Wanna feel you.”

With each of your words, you could feel his thrusts growing eager and sloppy. 

“Want you to give me a baby Joel.”

The whining in your voice had Joel’s hips stuttering and his body going rigid as he pushed into you with one final thrust. 

You felt his warmth spitting and spreading through you; your walls soft and swollen, inviting every last drop. 

His groans were guttural as his forehead pushed against yours, his eyes squeezing shut in pure bliss.

Joel’s breath was heavy and elongated as he let himself melt into your touch. Giving himself just a few seconds to regain his self-control.

Wordlessly, he pulled away to take in the features of your face. Looking intently for any sign of regret or sudden realization but instead, he was just met with your comforting smile. 

“My sweet girl.” His voice was a gentle whisper as he kept his dick buried deep inside of you.

“Gonna look so pretty all pregnant with our baby.”

His hands were at your belly tracing delicate little patterns in your warm skin. 

He slowly began to pull out of you, both of your heads falling to watch the way he dripped out from between your legs. 

You expected him to grab a towel, taking his time to clean you up like he normally did after making a mess of you; but this time he veered from his usual aftercare habit. The towel hanging next to you stayed in its place as you watched Joel trail two fingers down your abdomen until he was gathering his spend leaking from your core and pushing it back into you. 

You were whining his name in protest, already overstimulated and messy from him fucking you through your orgasm.  

“C’mon honey, can’t let it go to waste.” His eyes bore into yours with a serious intensity as his fingers hooked into you, knuckles deep.

His name was falling like a chant from your lips. You were already pulsing around his digits, the feeling of his warm slicked fingers sending your body into overdrive.   

“Thought you wanted a baby?” 

You nodded and whispered a pathetic “I do” at his words. His hand pulled out from between your legs just enough for him to watch his cum coated fingers dip back into you again.

“Gotta take all of it then sweetheart.”

You kept nodding, the repetition of your head bobbing up and down making a victorious grin spread across Joel’s face. 

“Good job baby.” His praise was coupled by the obscenely wet sounds of his fingers fucking into you, curling with each thrust. 

“Joel-“ You choked out his name as he used his fingers to expertly bring you to your release. You were so close you could taste it. 

“Gonna make such a pretty baby sweetheart.” He was in a trance as he looked down between your bodies, you were so messy, sucking him in with each push of his fingers. 

Profanities twirled off your tongue as you felt another wave of pleasure chase through your body. 

Joel worked you through it, his fingers moving continually as you writhed under his touch.

The culmination of wetness at your core a sloppy mess of devotion and passion. Your body trembled as you came down from your high and Joel’s fingers carefully retreated, finding a place to rest on your bare thigh. 

Neither of you moved. The two of you staying in one place soaking in each other’s warmth.

You brought a hand up to trace his collarbone, surveying his wound that was thankfully still in tact. 

“Think it worked?” You were wondering aloud, referring to your spontaneous decision to make a baby on your bathroom counter.

“Eh, we can always keep tryin’.” Joel was toying with your hair, his body pressed against yours as he stood between your legs. 

“You know… for good measure.” He smiled through his words at the idea of getting to do that over and over again. 

The old, crotchety man who’s called the cops on the house five times within the first month of moving in.

You and your small group of friends, three other girls, decided to rent the place out for the second half of your college semester. Better commute, spacier than the cheap accommodation dorm rooms.

And this was the first weekend you’ve actually been able to settle, the inevitable party streak seeming to wane as classes ramped up and work seemed endless.

Joel works weird hours, too—so you’ve noticed. 

Like, there isn’t a sturdy schedule to his job, coming and going as he pleases.

But now, you’re face to face with the gap between your houses holding the tension, spotting the man responsible for you having to charm the town sheriff every weekend. You’ve got it down, obviously. You’re touchy and sweet and laying it on thick before he’s forgetting what the call was even for. 

It never worked, but he still did it.

You’re halfway through pulling your shirt over your head, cloth tight against your chest with your arms through their designated hole when he turns his head, thinking it was a trick of the light—no, it was just him.

You flip him off boldly and refuse to wait for a reaction, swiping the curtain closed before you’re tugging the shirt over your head the rest of the way.

It seemed your luck that you would end up sharing a window with him—praying that the sight of him would be few and far between.

—

As your luck would have it, you saw him again.

And again, until your animosity had melted to a simple acknowledgement, still full of disdain—he’s always freshly showered when you see him, spotting the wet mop of hair even from a distance. 

You try to ignore how his eyes start to linger.

He knows you can’t be that naive, but you don’t offer any signs, curtains often parted as you changed in the comfort and privacy of your own room.

Joel knows it's wrong, but he’s growing curious.

You weren’t like the other girls; not accompanying them on their rowdy nights out or stumbling up to the front door after a late homecoming and not passing out on his front lawn either. 

Though, you are kind enough to wake your friend up the following morning with a disgruntled expression and a slowly cooling cup of coffee in your grip. Patience wearing thin as you attempt to lead them back in the house.

You liked to party and you liked to have fun, but you had a limit—a hard one that you didn’t break, refusing to let distractions steer you in the wrong direction.

But, the reality was that Joel couldn’t stand any of you.

Maybe it was the gap in age, growing up in different times, spending your twenties in a much different manner than he would have. 

Regardless, he could eat shit.

You’re so hopeful of avoiding him for the handful of months you had left on your lease that you swear you’re dreaming when you hear his voice carry up the house from your front door, raised and rather crass for such an early morning after a long night of dealing with rowdy twenty-something year olds with less sense than you.

The birds weren’t even fucking chirping yet.

“Why the hell are we arguing this early in the morning?” You crease, rubbing at tired eyes as you blindly step down the stairs, turning the corner to see your roommate nearly nose to nose, always combative and never one to stop and think.

You loved her, but fuck.

“One of you little shits fucked up my truck,” He griped, thumb jutting angrily over his back, “I need the information for my insurance and this one’s decided violence is easier than cooperatin’—better yet, I’ll just call the damn cops.”

“Woah—wait,” You interject, yawning as you gently pull your friend away from Joel before giving her a look of pathetic plea, hoping she’d scamper off.

Fortunately, she does.

“God—what is it with you and cops, dude?”

Dude? Joel hadn’t heard that one yet.

“Who’s car is it?” He presses, arms crossing over his chest in an authoritative manner that shouldnt intimidate you, but it does, “It’s the one at the end of the drive with the dent on the bumper,”

You peer over his shoulder with a sudden disbelief, eventually reaching out to shove him aside because there is no way…

“Those bitches,” You hiss, “they took my car?”

He knows you’re not asking for an answer, your thoughts becoming audible at the sheer disbelief.

They seemed to take the mantra of sharing everything to a literal sense, forgoing even asking if you were alright with it after you had turned in earlier than the rest of them.

You knew what would come, pitiful excuses masked with fake apologies—it never failed.

We didn’t want to wake you.

It was an accident, swear.

I’ll cover the cost, don’t worry.

“Trouble in paradise?” Joel tries to tease at your expense of misery, running your fingers through sleep-tousled hair before you mirror his position, arms crossed over your chest as you scowl, doing the mental math over the cost.

“Fuck you,” You bite, “I’ll bring the shit you need over later, but for now, I’m going back to sleep.”

“Hey, that ain’t how this works, I need it n—“

“I’m good for it,” You cut him off, not allowing him a word in edgewise before you’re gone, door slamming in his face.

It’s only minutes after you’re gone and Joel is reluctantly turning back toward his house that he realizes you had bested him, forcing him to walk away empty-handed.

And frankly, Joel didn’t like that.

–

He liked it even less when you showed up five hours later looking like hell, the beginnings of spring prickling the air with the sun beating down in the cul-de-sac but the cool breeze satiating the heat. He looked you over, silent judgment in his gaze that made you want to slap him.

He’d probably press charges.

“Slept good, huh?” he drawled.

“Haha. Very funny. Here.” You shoved the folded piece of paper, all information required for his stupid insurance claim, glaring begrudgingly,. “This wasn’t my fault.”

“Was your friend's fault, though—maybe you should keep a better eye on ‘em,” Joel reprimands, “A house full of ya and you aren’t keeping tabs on who’s comin’ and goin’ in your car?”

“I was asleep—and you—mmm, you know what, no—” You laugh to yourself, holding your hand up defensively before you shake your head, “I gave you the info, file your little claim and fuck off. Also, calling the cops isn’t working. So, maybe…I don’t know? Give it a rest?”

There’s a pause where Joel sizes you up, a smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth, as if he’s savoring the way he can needle you.

“We’re one call away from me offering to fuck officer friendly and accuse you of harassment,” you snap at him, hating how smug he looks, “Is it the noise or are you just so old and miserable you can’t allow anyone else to enjoy anything? No one else is calling the cops.”

To be fair, you kept things at a respectable volume inside–however, the capacity in the house occasionally overflowed and you could only contain so much, the responsibility and leadership always defaulting to you.

“Yes, because I’m a miserable old man,” Joel says flatly, “That’s why.”

He crosses his arms and leans against the sturdy frame of his front door, not at all moved by your outburst, letting the silence stretch until you’re squirming beneath his gaze.

“Jesus, you’re such a prick,” you mutter.

You roll your eyes and start stomping towards your house, and even with your back turned, you can feel the weight of his stare burning into you. You flip him off for good measure, aware of Mrs. Madison across the street curious as she waters her petunias, a look of distaste at your sudden outburst.

That’s when you see the new detail: the side mirror on his truck is held together with duct tape. 

You almost feel bad—you didn’t see that much damage after the mess of last night; whoever was responsible did a number backing into it. But, as quickly as the guilt consumes you, it dissipates. 

Joel could stay in his disdain as long as he wished even as the sway of your hips burned themselves into his memory, tongue filling his cheek before he slipped back into his house.

Both of your reprieves come as school busies your days and work occupies his own, in and out of the house without much of a word or glance, the rowdiness now few and far between, but not the visits—occasionally it was the same boy, a few times before another one inserts himself into the mix, and a few girls. 

At first he assumes you may have downgraded your house parties to smaller get-togethers in hopes that Joel wouldn’t call the cops anymore—which truthfully, he does stop. Only as his workload has increased, his mind occupied and less time spent at home—he finally catches sight of you after two weeks of near silence, it’s through the window of his bedroom into yours.

Joel’s breath catches when he realizes you’re not alone. There's a guy, unrecognizable, only his arms visible as you’re nearly naked and strewn out on your sheets, your bra clad against your breasts but your legs bare and parted, hands curled around your thighs and a head working furiously under the guide of your hand.

He watches you throw your head back and laugh, a pure elation. 

He rubs his eyes, certain the late hours must be playing tricks on him.

You’re in his goddamn head, he thinks.

But, what really grabs his attention is your slightly opened window, the sound from your room filtering into his own, through the screen, the shadow of the curtains and his dark room keeping him hidden but he can hear you. See you.

An itch tangles deep in his chest, something raw and consuming trying to claw its way out.

The moans and giggles tangle in his mind like vines, wrapping tighter with every glance. The days pass in this strange voyeuristic rhythm; more nights than not, Joel finds himself watching, captive to your parade of lovers, growing jealous of the returning faces.

He tries to tell himself there isn’t anything wrong with what he’s doing—it was you leaving the window open, you keeping the lights on for him, curtains parted for him, but the build-up eventually makes him cave and the stress from work leads him to palming his cock on a night when you’re climbing on top of your chosen suitor, breasts on full display and bouncing with a delicious rhythm, and Joel’s hardly hidden now, resting back in his desk chair with his jeans pushed down just enough to tuck his briefs underneath his balls, drawn tight as he fisted his cock.

His hand is rough and calloused, opposite to the way he imagines yours might be if you’d ever stoop to touching him this way. The thought is absurd. Dirty. 

He needs your soft hands on him.

It only makes him buck harder into his palm, sweat pouring down his chest and every muscle strung tight with need. Your moans slip through the open window, finding him in the dark of night like a searchlight.

He pretends you know he’s there—wants him to hear, wants him to see—imagines your eyes on his cock as he grinds his palm over the head, his thumb slipping over the slit and suddenly he’s spilling over his hand with a pathetic grunt, breathing out shakily.

It really has become his routine.

When he gets home late at night, it’s the first thing he checks for: the light in your window.

Sometimes it’s on and you’re alone, studying on your bed with a face of focus, brow drawn in tight as you tapped away on your laptop, but the release you crave is never far away. If Joel watches long enough, eventually you succumb to your own insatiable need, pulling out the small, handheld toy from your dresser and locking your door, afraid your friends might interrupt the precious time but not giving half a shit about your open window or the man watching carefully from across the way.

Then it’s just you and the feeble little toy, and Joel can’t look away.

He can’t do anything other than wish he could give you what it does—what it never seems to: the satisfaction his big, experienced hands would. He watches you edge yourself repeatedly, almost to the point of pain, whining and gasping as you work yourself up, on the brink of the release that only a real cock could give. His.

You drive him mad this way.

He fucks his palm until he sees stars some nights, every part of him feeling feral and raw with need, but it’s never quite enough.

You have to know—with him easing up on calls and complaints, rarely heard or seen, giving you the peace you craved as you settled back into your schedule with school and focused on the necessary parts of your life.

It’s his secret, he’d die with it. With as much sin as he’s committed in his lifetime, there wasn’t guilt so much as shame, but you were just so goddamn tempting.

-

The next conversation you have with him is tense, a culmination of events rising to a nasty head of anger and frustration, all the while unfoundedly attracted to the way he asserts himself. 

It’s pathetic, really.

But, you couldn’t help it—it was kinda hot.

Joel likes to smoke on his porch at night occasionally, with summer in full swing and his yard giving him the perfect view of the nightly neighborhood entertainment, he seems to examine the scene critically, that permanent scowl on his face.

Truthfully, you’re thankful the partying has died down and often found the house emptier than normal as your roommate had started to find fun outside of the comfort of home, often leaving you alone—that is, relatively speaking.

Joel’s come to memorize a few names, the one that stands out most is Dean.

He’s a confident little shit, all suave and little empathy, he’s seen him treat you roughly in a few ways but more importantly, he’s an asshole. He’s the same kid he’s caught kissing another one of your roommates behind your back—a classic dick move, but breaking your heart?

Well, Joel wasn’t going to stand for that.

He had to protect his girl—even if you had no idea what that meant to him and his nightly meet-ups with his bedroom window. Joel waits until Dean is alone and your front door is slammed shut after a tense exchange of words and the inevitable fuck you—that you’ve mastered throwing at Joel plenty of times—slips out.

Joel emerges from the shadow of the porch with an air of defiance, cigarette dangling from his lips, eyes full of skepticism and Dean is on the defense almost instantly. He’s seen Joel before, always perturbed by his presence.

Dean spins around as he approaches his own car parked at the end of your driveway, face already sour. “You got a problem, old man?”

“I don’t wanna catch you back over here,” Joel explains, approaching with a slow reverence, the hand not occupying the cigarette stuffed into the front pocket of his jeans, “that clear?”

“You think you’re some big protector, huh? She doesn’t need you to fight her battles. She’s fine.” Dean retorts, a forced bravado floats from his chest to his mouth, dismissive of how poorly he had treated you about five minutes prior—how easily the words selfish bitch had flowed from his mouth.

“You leave and don’t come back—I see you around here again and I’ll snap your ass like a twig, got it?” Joel threatens, tapping out the ash over the cement, his face unnaturally relaxed.

“Whatever,” he scoffs, shaking his head, “she isn’t worth this shit, anyways.”

With Dean, you weren’t all that upset.

He ghosted you completely, but he was already on his way out.

Then, there’s a small illness that spreads on campus, leading to a week off strictly online classes that comes as a welcomed break, spending extra time outside as you lounge in gaudy furniture your landlord had left behind, a thick chair that reclines and swivels, curled up in the seat as you work your way through an assignment as Joel’s truck roars up the street and into his driveway, toolbox clutched in his hand as he fished for his keys at his front door.

It wasn’t that Joel had been kind to you as of late, but rather less…frustrated?

He smiled on occasion, filtered through misdelivered mail and stuffed it into your mailbox instead of approaching your front door with annoyance, hell—he even apparently offered to clean up the front lawn last weekend while he mowed his own, knowing that none of your girls even owned a lawn mower.

There had to be a catch.

When he catches you looking, he raises a hand in a half-wave, and you feel an unexpected flutter.

What the fuck was that?

It happens a couple more times, no words, just a simple exchange.

Your roommate, Julia, catches it one morning.

“How’s your boyfriend?” she teases as she passes by, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

She’d yet to have a run-in with Joel, unbothered by his presence and rather clueless.

“Please,” you snort, “he’s like fifty.” But there’s no denying the strange gravitational pull you feel, like the man has some secret to him that you want to discover—curious to what has changed.

Days slide by, punctuated by Joel’s presence.

You’d spent the last few days waiting for it—the favor he’d ask for in return or some comment about how you’d better not let the weeds get out of control again, letting the overgrown grass put a bad mark on the neighbors' normally well-kept lawns. But there’s nothing. 

Absolutely nothing.

Friday afternoon, Joel was back on his porch, quietly watching your house while pretending to tinker with something wrapped in a blue tarp in the back of his truck. You pretended not to notice at first, keeping your head bent over your laptop like it was giving you the meaning of life instead of a LATE warning on your English assignment. 

What did this guy want?

Later that evening, you watch him sand down a piece of wood against a table on his porch, lost in his work. You and your roommates had already enjoyed dinner for the night and cleaned up, the rest of them retired to their rooms but here you were, approaching Joel.

The sun bakes the street, turning everything into a mirage of heat waves and distant hums of cicadas. An impulse catches you; before it fully registers, you’re already at his driveway with a couple cold beers clutched in hand, one already open and half-empty.

“Hey,” you called. Joel squinted up at you like he wasn’t sure who he was looking at for a second before his eyes landed on the beer, even more confused, “—it’s a peace offering.”

“Alright,” he responds slowly, unsure as he reaches for the bottle and twists the cap off with a natural strength, “what’s the catch?”

You shrug and Joel hides his instinct to let his eyes fall upon your breasts as he takes a sip and tilts his head back, wanting to reprimand you for wearing such a revealing top despite the sweltering heat, almost like you were begging him to look, sweat clinging to your chest.

“No—no catch, just…never got to thank you for the lawn,” You tell him, spotting the newly replaced mirror on his truck, “Oh, finally got it fixed?”

Joel turns back over his shoulder and nods, eyes squinting as he spotted the still very visible dent to your car, “Can’t say the same for you—some friends you got,”

“We’re college students—we’re broke,” You reply with ease, “It’s just a dent, anyways. It still drives and—”

“I can try and fix it,” Joel offers, “Next weekend, if you’re around,”

“Aren’t I always?” you tease, testing the waters, a flirtatious smile forcing its way onto your face but you catch it at the last second, reprimanding yourself over it.

What were you even doing?

“Seems that way,” Joel decides, taking another long swig of the beer and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand—he’d know.

Well, it was decided.

 And it seemed after a month of tense interaction, things were finally settling. Joel was less tense, you were less combative. It was great.

Curiosity wins, though. It always does.

Joel doesn’t mean to interfere. Really, he doesn’t. 

But when he’s heading out to his truck Saturday morning, grabbing the tools to approach your front door and start working on your car, a familiar guy slips out your front door, tall and lanky—hair mussed, shirt wrinkled, looking a little too smug for Joel’s liking—he can’t resist.

It’s the same spiel that Dean got, though slightly more effective, filling the younger boy with fear.

It’s only when he glances back toward the house and at the living room window—he sees your narrowed eyes watching him through the glass—that he realizes you saw the whole thing, filling you with a rage you’ve never felt before.

And even moreso, there’s no smile this time—just a quiet challenge in his gaze that makes your pulse skip. Joel knew exactly what he was doing.

“Asshole,” you mutter, slipping on your shoes before bursting out the front door. Joel’s at the curb, hands stuffed in his pockets, like he’s waiting for you to come storming over, the remnants of your friendship dissipating as the car speeds away.

“What was that?” you demand, crossing your arms tight.

He shrugs, a maddening little smirk pulling at his lips. “Who was that?”

You nearly choke on your response. He doesn’t deserve an explanation. 

Instead, you jab a finger in his direction, eyes narrowing as you move into his space, his head turning to squint off into the distance before you let the urge take over and unfurl your hand to smack his across the jaw, the sickening crack catching Joel off-guard.

 “How long have you been doing that? Fucking with my friends?”

Joel looks amused. “The fuck are you talkin’ about?”

Friends—alright, sure, he thinks.

Joel catches sight of your wrist as it winds back again, his fingers wrapping around it with ease and tight, a silent warning, you ask through clenched teeth “Do you do this with everyone? Is it some kind of hobby? Being a shitty neighbor? Or are you obsessed with me?”

“Obsessed? Oh, kiddo,” Joel laughs, a low rumble that you feel in your bones. “You think pretty highly of yourself.”

Your stomach flips, and not in the way that you want it to. “Says the guy who can’t keep his nose out of my business. I don’t need your help.”

“You should stay outta trouble,” Joel suggests

"He’s not trouble," you shoot back. "And I don’t need you to play watchdog for me."

“Are you sure about that?” Joel flicks an eyebrow, the challenge in his voice making your skin prickle.

“Is that a threat?” you ask tensely, attempting to wretch your hand away and failing.

"Wasn’t a threat," Joel says, voice dropping lower. "Just know you like to push buttons. Seem real fond of keepin’ your curtains wide open at night." His head tilts slightly, "Almost like you want someone watchin'."

The connection clicks in your mind after a moment, turning to catch the open panels of your bedroom window in the space between your houses before your eyes lock on him, the realization hitting you like a ton of bricks.

“You’ve been watching me?”

Joel chuckles, his grip easing enough to let you pull free. “Not like you’re makin’ it hard.”

“You’re sick,” you spit at him, heat rising in your cheeks.

“Maybe you’re the one who needs help,” Joel counters, taking a step back. “Or, maybe it’s attention.”

The words sting, and it takes everything not to lunge for him again. “You’re disgusting.”

“I’m just being honest.” He shrugs, and it infuriates you how little he seems to care.

Your mouth works around a reply that won’t come out right; all that escapes is an angry huff. 

Joel can see it simmering underneath, the realization that he might be right.

“Lemme show you somethin’,” Joel suggests, nodding toward his house.

“You’re out of your fucking mind,” you say, but there’s hesitation in it, a crack that Joel doesn’t miss.

“And you’re curious,” He’s already heading toward his door, leaving you to decide if you’ll follow.

You know you shouldn’t. 

You know this is the worst idea.

But you can already feel the pull—of him—and it’s stronger than anything else.

You trail after him, every step a little betrayal of your better judgment.

Quietly, you follow him into his dark living room and up the stairs, met with a half-open bedroom door that he spears wide with his fingers, footsteps following quietly behind as he leads you to the inevitable window in his room that peers right into your own.

“There’s something wrong with you.” It comes out weaker than you intend, unable to meet his eyes as your fingers wrap over the edge of the windowsill, his presence lingering behind.

Joel just steps aside, gesturing toward the view. “Then I guess there’s somethin’ wrong with both of us.”

You stare through the window into yours and your breath catches. An unmistakable pang hits you when you see it—how clear the sight is in your own room, how well he must have seen everything. Heard everything. You couldn’t remember the last time you actually closed it, annoyed with the constant stuffiness.

“Seems like you want me watchin’,” Joel says, there’s a taunting edge to his voice, but it’s laced with something else you can’t decipher

“Or maybe you’re just lonely,” you suggest, turning to him.

“Maybe,” Joel responds cooly.

“So just like that? You spy on me?” you accuse, but there’s less bite in it than before.

Joel’s grin is slow, infuriatingly confident. “Just lookin’,” he says. “Didn’t think you’d mind much—’round here when we want privacy, we’re intentional about, we don’t leave our windows open while we’re naked and moaning for half the neighborhood to hear,”

The embarrassment hits you quick, palms sweating at the mention as you look away and back out the window, feeling Joel move closer.

“I didn’t think—”

“Yeah, you didn’t think.” he cuts in, but he’s not angry. 

There’s a hint of laughter in it, and it makes you tense, but not in a fight or flight type of way, rather, anticipating his next move, expecting it.

“So, what?” you challenge, “What happens now?”

“Depends on you,” Joel says, his voice low now. Dangerous, almost. “You gonna close it?”

“What if I don’t?”

There it was.

Joel’s eyes darken with interest. 

“Then, I guess you’ll know I’m watchin’ you,” he admits, the words sending a shiver down your spine, his hand soothing the shock as it spreads over the small of your back and down, curving over your jeans as he squeezed your ass between the heel of his palm and fingers, “that alright with you?”

Your heart hammers in your chest as you turn to hold his gaze, feeling the heat of him so close. 

It’s a game—a risky one—and he’s playing it well. You’re hooked, unable to challenge him.

Now that he’s presented you with his reasoning, his motives, you’re entranced. 

He’s always had a rugged way about him, devastatingly attractive despite his age—not that had any affect anyways, but you found yourself intimidated because of it, admiring from a distance before he showed how much of an asshole he could be.

Still, you weren’t blind. 

If he was lonely, it was by choice. Not by lack of interest.

You’re aware of his wandering hands as they slide around your hips to unbutton your shorts, the zipper following quietly before the warmth of his hand is pressing against your mound as his fingers slide into the front of your underwear, simmering with the same heat as his middle finger slides through your obvious slick, a laugh catching in his throat as he crowds you against the open window, his chin hooking over your shoulder as your lips part in a gasp.

“Guess I got my answer,” he teases, voice thick with satisfaction.

You feel exposed and alive, heat pooling low and your fingers clutch at his arm, needing an anchor as your knees threaten to give way.

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?” you breathe, but the tremor in your voice betrays you.

“Yeah?” His middle finger slides up, circles slow and deliberate, “feels good, don’t it?”

His words are like a spark; you tilt your hips into him, a silent plea for more.

Joel obliges with a low chuckle, teasing you with expert precision. 

“How are they?” Joel asks curiously, unsurprisingly calm as he quietly shifts your shorts down until they fall, pooling at your ankles while he unoccupied hand squeezes at the inside of your thigh, “Do they touch you this good?”

“Good enough, they can make me come,” You admit, eyes falling shut at his practiced movements, the hand squeezing at your thigh sliding up to press inside of you, two thick fingers spreading you open while his other works over your swollen clit, rubbing in furious rhythm with his fingers

“Are you good enough, Joel?” You ask tauntingly, a small waver in your voice, “Or is that why you live alone?”

“I am, kiddo,” Joel reassures, “And I do because s’better for me that way.”

“Or you can’t make a girl come, can’t keep them around so you watch me through your window,” you explain to him, momentarily pausing as his finger rubs over your clit harshly, no circles or practiced motion, just pressure—delicious fucking pressure, “Do the neighbors know you like to be a creep?”

“I think you don’t know shit about me,” he bites, his hand moves with a kind of confident hunger, your breath hitches as you feel it building, raw and electric.

“You’re so full of yourself,” you manage, voice shaking.

“Am I?” Joel’s lips skim the side of your neck, a hot whisper against your skin as his finger presses rough and insistent. “Seems like you wanted me to see just how needy you were. Somethin’ about those boys ain’t satisfying or you wouldn’t fuckin’ be here lettin’ me touch you like this,”

He’s good—fuck, he’s good.

You can’t find the words to deny it, not when he’s curling inside you in perfect tandem with the dizzying friction on your clit. The heat is coiling tight in your belly, pulling you closer to the edge.

“Admit it,” he pushes, “let me hear what those pretty little cries sound like up close as you come around my fingers,”

You’re panting now, thighs trembling under his relentless pace.

“I—fuck—” The admission is lost in a choked moan, grabbing blindly for his wrist as your orgasm crashes into you, eyes squeezed shut as you gasp, hips moving insistently into the motion of his hands as he guides you through intensity of it, almost like he’s rocking you in place, soothing you.

“Good enough?” Joel murmurs, the cockiness in his voice matches the satisfaction flooding through you.

His fingers slide out slowly, leaving you empty but tingling with sharp aftershocks. 

He shifts beside you, smirking like the self-assured asshole he is.

“Admit it,” Joel encourages, “only time I’ve ever seen you come like that is when you’re playin’ with that cheap little toy, alone in your room.”

“Just stop meddling, alright?” you plead with him, quietly adjusting your shorts back over your hips with a small modicum of shame, but the look on Joel’s face reads as insatiable.

“I’ll keep scarin’ ‘em off,” Joel admits, “‘til you realise you don’t deserve to be treated the way they’re treatin’ you—yellin’ and sneaking around behind your back. I see everything, kiddo.”

“Well, stop,” you reply without much bite, “just—go back to being insufferable—”

Joel smirks at the small revelation on your behalf, “I thought you were aimin’ for a peace offering the other day, I’m keepin’ the peace. For you and for me,”

The back and forth was pointless, you begin to realize.

Joel was a natural protector, whether you needed it or not.

–

He does keep his word, though.

It takes a week for you to face him again, but eventually you’re wandering back to his front door and accepting defeat, hushed on the fact your bedroom window has stayed closed since the day in his bedroom and not a single person for Joel to run off.

He answers the door shirtless, thin shorts hung low on his waist and the scowl you return to his own is too natural, trying desperately to stuff down your ego. He must have been sleeping, hair mused and his eyes blinking rapidly as he rubbed at his thick facial hair, scratching at his cheek.

“Whaddya need, kiddo?”

You roll your eyes and turn your head impishly over your shoulder.

Joel chuckles lightly, though tired.

You don’t even have to ask.

“Let me eat dinner and I’ll be over,” he tells you, “no plans tonight?”

“We’re all studying for some big tests coming up so no, I just—I don’t wanna look at it anymore.”

“Gotcha,” he replies easily, “go on—I’ll come knockin’ later.”

He throws the orders around with such ease, ones that you follow without argument.

Joel shows up later that night, hand rapping at the door at the same time you pull it open.

You follow him outside, listen to him explain, and then you’re turning on your heels and half a second from escaping the torture of having to be around him any longer before he speaks up and the inevitable comes out.

“Oh, you’re helpin’,” Joel explains, “get your ass back here—teach you a thing or two this way.”

“Uh huh,” you reply tersely and while it is excruciating to sit through, Joel gets the dent out and fixes your dimming taillight free of charge, that is, for the moment. He’s well-versed with cars and his hands work quickly, and frankly, the way he moves is distracting.

Annoyingly.

You can’t help staring at the expanse of his back and the taut muscle underneath, only able to imagine it and clearing your throat awkwardly as he has to repeat himself a couple times before you realize he’s talking to you again.

“Pop your trunk,” he repeats, following the order quietly before he’s stuffing a few tools in the back that has you eyeing him skeptically, “just a few things, in case you end up with a flat or something, you won’t be completely helpless,”

“O-kay,” you reply with hesitance, watching his fingers curl around the trunk as he shoves it closed, “is that all?”

“A thank you’d be nice,” Joel admits, lowering his tone as he murmurs, “fuckin’ kids these days,”

Your tongue pokes at the inside of your cheek as you approach him again, hand mirroring his as it curls around your trunk and you invade his space, nearly chest to chest as you retort, “Oh, boo-hoo,” there’s a faux frown forming, “do I need to remind you of your behavior? I think this is payment for being a total dick to me for the past couple months.”

You catch the glimpse of his hand flexing as you stand your ground, mouth opening in another sharp sting of words before his hand is squeezing at your cheeks, the curve between his thumb and pointer finger curling around your chin as he forces it up.

“I’ll scream,” you threaten, fingers twisting into his shirt as you attempt to shove him back but he’s completely unmoving, “let—me—go,”

“Do it,” he challenges, “or—I deal with that little problem you got goin’ on,”

He knows it—how unsatisfied you felt, even without having to voice it.

Your silence is the answer, slumping slightly in defeat as you wait him out.

“Let me see your hand,” he asks, surprisingly softer, his palm extending in wait.

As you offer your hand, his fingers curl around it, guiding it to the front of his cotton shorts and you can feel the heat of his cock underneath, hard against the fabric and tucked up to avoid showing the obvious arousal he was dealing with—you weren’t sure how long he’s been sporting it, but the rigidness of it has your breath catch, intimidatingly large even by the feel as your eyes flicker down slightly,

“It’s a shame,” Joel says, “how disrespectful you’re being—seems like you need to learn manners, kiddo.”

“Stop. Calling me that—” you struggle to say, the words half-daring and half-pleading. He slides his thumb down, brushing your bottom lip as his eyes flash with something dark and dangerous.

“What?” he teases, watching you squirm as he keeps your hand pinned to his shorts, “you don’t like that?”

“I’m not a kid,” you insist, trying for defiance but it comes out breathless.

He grins, and you’re startled by how it transforms his face—softening all those hard edges you’ve come to know. For a moment, there’s a flicker of sweetness before he leans in close enough for you to feel the heat of his breath, whispering low.

“Then quit actin’ like one.”

His mouth is over yours before you can find more words, catching on the gasp that slips out as instinct takes over. His kiss is rough but not forceful; it’s got a bruising sort of gentleness that makes your knees weak and you wobble slightly, his hand removing from your face as they wrap under your elbows, keeping you upright.

You’re not surprised by how quickly you melt into him. Your hand never leaves the front of his shorts despite his own hands now elsewhere, one creeping around your waist, pulling you tighter and tighter until there’s nowhere left to go.

His body is a wall, hot and solid, against yours.

Your fingers twitch where they’re trapped against him, squeezing at his shaft as your finger grazes the clothed head, weeping under the fabric, and he makes a noise in his throat that surprises you—a low, gravelly sound that sends a shiver down your spine. 

You feel that dark edge of satisfaction from him, knowing how affected you are.

 How predictable.

“Ain’t got much to say now,” he murmurs against your mouth,

His grip changes, dragging your hand up under his shirt until it’s pressed against the bare skin of his stomach. You can feel him breathing, deep and steady.

It’s not fair how calm he is while you're barely hanging on.

Suddenly, his tongue traces your lower lip and a whimper escapes you, muffled against his mouth. Joel groans, pulling back just enough to let you breathe, “Lift your dress up,” he directs, quietly guiding your chest flush with the trunk as he shuffles with the fabric of his shorts under the darkened sky, thankful the streetlights in the cul-de-sac needed a fresh set, barely buzzing.

“You’re makin’ a mess,” Joel mutters, voice low and rough. It sends you reeling, your face hot as he slides the fabric aside, parting you with his fingers, testing your resistance as you welcome the gentle press as the digits slip inside, your hand squeezing desperately at his cock, a silent plea, “we’re gonna rectify that, alright?” 

You nod dumbly, filled with an undeniable lust for him, even if you couldn’t admit it out loud.

“Ain’t got protection, do ya?” He asks, suspects, “Damn shame you’re lettin’ them fuck you like that, sweetheart,”

“It’s none—none of your business, just because I don’t doesn’t mean—”

“You lettin’ them fuck you raw?” he asks curiously, noting the way your thighs spread to accommodate another finger, you shake your head weakly.

“S’good,” he decides, “but you’re gonna let me aren’t you?”

Your nod is too quick, proudly pathetic.

“That’s right—no need worryin’ about me, right? “Cause, I’ll take care of ya,”

“I just—don’t—dunno if it will fit, Joel,” you admit and Joel chuckles, a subtle noise of agreement before he soothes your worries.

“It’s fine,” he assures, eyes locked on yours as you turn to look at him, voice both commanding and reassuring, trading his fingers for the head of his cock as he pushes you forward and forces your ass on display, pushing the thickness of himself through your folds, coating it with your slick, “You can—fuck—you can handle it.”

There’s something reckless in the way he moves—only Joel could get this from you. Only him.

He eases into you slowly, each inch coaxed through the tight resistance until he’s seated, until you’re stuffed full and squirming. His breath hitches, a low groan vibrating through his chest as he holds there for a moment, letting you adjust to the heavy stretch.

“Look at that,” he murmurs, almost to himself, a hint of pride in the words as he draws back slightly, hand bunched in your dress to enjoy the view as he rocks forward again, “Takin’ it so damn well—it’s like you were made for me.”

He builds a rhythm with each of his ragged exhales, using the weight of his body to keep you pinned beneath him, to bury himself deeper than you’ve ever felt. 

“You like this,” he decides, “no fuckin’ denyin’ it—your friends could look at those windows, open that door, and they’d catch you like this, cryin’ over gettin’ fucked just like you deserve—”

“Joel, please,” you’re not sure what you’re even begging about, but you are, gasping with each rapid thrust he makes, his fingers working in tandem over your clit like he’s done this a million times over, knowing your body better than you do,

“Could be watchin’ right now, but I know you,” he taunts, “You like being watched, don’tcha?”

You nod again, absentminded as he moves against you. There’s nothing gentle about the way he fucks you toward oblivion; it’s intense and raw, overwhelming in a way you’ve never experienced before. He’s got you teetering the line, your orgasm begging for release.

“There it is,” he says in a low rasp, feeling you clench tightly around him, “she’s beggin’ for it, you need me to fill ‘er up, sweetheart? She need to be stuffed full ‘f me?”

“Y—huh, yesyes, please,” you ramble, your eyes falling shut as your climax washes over, his finger insistent on your clit as he pumps his hips lazily, his warm seed spreading inside of you.

“I’ll take that as thank you,” Joel decides with a lazy tone, pulling out of you without warning and adjusting your panties and dress back over your body, “though—still would be nice to hear it.”

“Thank you,” you reply breathlessly, unable to meet his eye, “thank you—for…yeah, thank you.”

“You know where to find me,” Joel tells you with an amused smirk.

And unfortunately, that was often.

–

It's a bad habit—coming to Joel when you need things.

But, he just fixes the problem so easily.

Sprinklers broken, Joel’s got a tool to replace it.

Squeaky hinges? Joel’s got just the fix to quiet the insistent noise.

A hole in your bathroom wall after a fight that wasn’t your fault at all, but ultimately ended up being your responsibility to fix—well, that was a bigger ask.

And your roommates' jaws can’t even begin to remain shut as he walks through the front door on a free weekend, all of them lounging on the couch with admiration in their eyes.

There was a similar sentiment of disdain for Joel, but they could all agree he was attractive.

You tried your best to ignore the strew of late assignments that have become more and more apparent as Joel invaded your life—moments when you would try to slip away and Joel would beg for a little bit more, coerce you into staying over for the night when your mind was battling with the idea.

He was good like that, convincing you of making the bad choices you normally wouldn’t.

“Ignore them,” you tell him over your shoulder as he offers a kind wave, guiding him toward the bathroom and showing him the sizable hole in the drywall.

He whistles low, rubbing the back of his neck, "Hell of a punch."

You shrug, "You can fix it, right?"

Of course, your roommates weren’t oblivious to your growing absence over the following weeks into now, eager to ask questions but knowing you weren’t the type of person to share. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out and ultimately, they couldn’t even blame you.

It was your education and social life that had taken the hit, but for Joel, you couldn’t complain.

Given the opportunity, they would have jumped his bones just as quick, though, you’re not sure if Joel had eyes for anyone but you, always watchful even from a distance.

He still met you at his window on occasion, but you’re more purposeful with your performance.

As is he, watching as he fists his cock to your fingers spreading down the seam of your cunt, pressing the brightly colored toy inside of you wish it was him filling you out.

You always moan a little louder than necessary, letting him know just what he does to you even from afar. He’s perfect in his window—broad shoulders and strong arms flexing as he strokes himself, pumping in time with the rhythm you set. His free hand grips the frame, knuckles white like he needs the support.

The anticipation builds slowly and sweetly. You drag it out for him, teasing your clit with languid circles, hips lifting off the bed. He swears again, and you can almost taste the frustration rolling off him.

“More,” you mouth, knowing it’ll drive him wild.

He doesn’t disappoint you. 

His pace quickens, and you can see every detail—the veins in his forearm tensing, thumb swiping over the head of his cock. Your cunt clenches around the toy at the sight of his impatience.

It always ends the same way, though. Not nearly as satisfying as the real thing.

When you girlfriends catch you sneaking in late on occasion, it’s matched with a smirk that you brush off with a fond insult, an endearment you’ve all come to use out of love.

“Bitch, I swear,” you warn, “not a fucking word. I’m serious.”

“No judgement,” She shrugs, “The dick must be good if you’re leaving the house for it.”

You snort, “Fuck you.”

He’s nearly got the whole patched when you peek your head through the closed bathroom door, house empty for the evening and a curious look on your face as he peers over his shoulder, shirt stripped from his body as he wipes the sweat from his face.

You’ve got that look, one he’s come to read well.

“Can’t even wait until I’m finished?” Joel asks.

“You’re almost done,” you shrug, “finish up after.”

“Bet they’d die if they knew you were sneakin’ around for old man dick,” he taunts, settling you back on the counter as you push your spandex shorts down, spreading your legs out as he moves between them and kneels, already mouthing at the inside of your thigh, “Payin’ for my labor with this,” his fingers spread through your folds, exposing yourself to the cool air as he licks at you teasingly, “delectable little thing.”

“Bet you’d die if I stopped,” you shoot back, breathless but defiant, “fuckin’ heart attack, aneurysm, take your pick—fuck!”

His teeth nip at your clit in warning, eyes flickering up to you as they crinkled around the edges in amusement, “Quiet, unless I speak to you,”

You nod shakily, giving over to his dominance fully like you have plenty of times now.

He’s relentless, holding you right there as you twist and writhe against his mouth, hands gripping his hair to try and guide him, but he pins your hips with a low growl that almost undoes you on the spot.

“Tight little pussy,” Joel pants, thumb circling your clit while he watches intently for the next crack in your composure. It doesn’t take long before you’re clutching at his shoulders, incoherent curses spilling from mouth.

“Of course,,” Joel drawls, “can’t keep that damn mouth shut for nothin’.”

You pull him towards you, needy, as he rises to his feet, fingers hooked into his waistband as you fumble with the button of his jeans, eagerly pulling his cock from the confines, his mouth opening with another witty retort that never comes.

“Shut up,” you mutter, “just—”

He presses inside of you in one harsh thrust, your gasp cutting off the rest of your response and echoing through the house. He grins down at you, smug and rough and exactly what you wanted, your hand slamming against the mirror as you wince, his hand immediately coming up to soothe the ache.

“Shit, babygirl,” He groans, for a few reasons, “you okay?”

“Better, if you’d shut up and fuck me,” you retort, “take a lesson out of your own damn book,”

“Got it,” he agrees tauntingly, before his pace changes on a dime, relentlessly pounding into you, “not a fuckin’ word.”

And it continues like that, his gaze intense on your face and quiet aside from his occasional strained grunt, his eyes staring you down like he’s trying to challenge you, determined to win a battle you weren’t trying to fight—either way, he always seemed to win.

Because, as much as you tried to fight the urge to stay away from him.

You always ended up like this.

“She needs a job,” Tommy tells him, “Rules, Joel. Everyone pulls their weight—how this works.”

“You act like I don’t know that,” Joel gripes, “but what are you expecting her to do? She don’t talk, she refuses to go anywhere without me. She sure as hell ain’t gonna be much use workin’ the stables or fixin’ fences when she’s so goddamn skittish.”

Tommy shrugs, “Patrol, then.”

Joel’s eyes narrow, “Like hell,”

Another silent standoff you were more than happy to stay out of, the nylon of your coat scratching against itself as you take a couple steps back in the fear of an impending blow up.

“Give me another option then,” Tommy argues, “You just said she won’t leave your side—”

“She ain’t ready for that,” Joel says rather defensively, your brow furrowing at his disdain over the idea, ignoring the fact you were on the run for several weeks, surviving on your own—this was different.

Admittedly, you had clung to Joel.

He was safe, comfortable, and had become a strange sense of home in an unfamiliar place.

As much as he tried to act like it didn’t affect him, he’s grown used to your presence. Though, he’s set a hard boundary with you—no touching, keep your distance, and always make yourself known. You were always quiet, eerily so, and Joel hated that.

Tommy attempts to decipher Joel, staring at his brother, “You don’t think she can do it,”

“Both,” Joel admits, both of their eyes flickering toward you briefly, expressions unreadable.

“I think she’ll surprise you,” Tommy admits.

Joel shakes his head in a lazy disbelief, not believing an ounce of what Tommy is trying to convince him of, “We’ll see—but she’s with me, no one else. Not even Ellie.”

“Figured that,” Tommy retorts, “You’re goin’ out pretty far, we haven’t hit the lodge in a couple weeks. That alright?”

Your body tenses at the mention of it, but neither of them notice. Joel’s hand curls into a fist and flexes open, a nervous tic you’ve noticed about him when he was trying to steady himself, he nods silently in response.

When you both arrive back to the Miller home, Joel begins packing his bag up, already half-stuffed and switching out a few things. He tosses you a tattered bag, old and well-loved before he’s pointing toward the basement.

“A couple pairs of clothes, extra pair of shoes, nothing that ain’t a necessity—I’ll stock your pack with the other stuff come mornin’ before we head out,”

You had a night then.

There was only one lodge near Jackson that you could remember. It was the last time you saw them.

The men in tailored gear, embroidered with a gold patch that designated their status amongst the group. 

Trackers, seekers—they handled the recruiting, though often forced. They were glorified kidnappers, taking young men and women against their will if they were unfortunate enough to cross their path, but they also managed the hunting.

If someone escaped, they never came back in one piece.

Whether that was a shattered mind or a missing limb, it was never good.

The lodge was empty when you found it, just at the crest of winter when you had snuck in, fitting yourself into a sizable gap in the flooring covered by a wooden panel.

The men had been on your tail for days, tracking you through the miles of forests behind you and into the town.

Luckily, they were unsuspecting at that moment.

Your misfortune came later, but the lodge was a warning.

They were near, always near—you had no idea if they were still searching, even after a few weeks of settling in.

It was the unknown, the looming presence, that terrified you. 

They had an obligation to follow demands but most of them did it for sport.

It was never anything but a game.

—

Sleep is fickle that night, scratching at the rusted metal of your bed frame until it was caked under your nails, the soft hum of electricity above as it moved through Joel’s house, his soft footsteps as he woke, gentle as he strolled barefoot, eventually trading it for heavy footfall as his boots went on—it was early dawn when the tap came to your door, feigning sleep as you hid under the sheets.

Joel gives you a few minutes, pacing beyond the threshold.

His patience reminds you of the kind you used to wish for back when everything was different, back when you were nothing but a prisoner—you were pushing it, though. Even Joel’s patience would wear thin, making your best attempt to delay the patrol before he’s opening the door with a click, the key shoved into the mechanism before the door creaks open.

“Get up,” he barks, “we’re already late and holding up the rest of ‘em,”

You moan tiredly, barely audible, shuffling under the sheets, only for them to be ripped back in an instant.

“You’ve got about five seconds,” he warns, snatching your pack off the floor as he stands over you, daring to pry your eyes open to take a peek at him, “or I’m rippin’ you out of that bed,”

He catches your eyes as they open and his brow is cocked authoritatively, making your body move despite your apprehensiveness for the entire situation and Joel eyes you skeptically, stepping around you as you move with little enthusiasm.

“If you changed your mind, I can talk to Tommy,” Joel says with a tone that makes your chest tighten with fear—both of abandonment and helplessness, “I’m sure he’ll find somethin’ for you to do here while I go and—”

You stop in your tracks at his words, coat on and shoes barely slipped over your heel as you’re approaching him with immediate worry, shaking your head furiously as you grip onto his bicep, eyes pleading.

He’s always direct with you now, making sure your eyes connect with his. He’s learned to read you through facial expression and emotion, settling with the fact you weren’t going to speak to him, whether capable or not.

“Alright,” he sighs, and you shrug slightly but not enough to break your hold, “then hurry up.”

His voice carries the weight of a thousand other mornings like this, where silence and glances fill the space between you. He’s grown comfortable, surprisingly. He didn’t like how normal your presence had become or how you seemed to settle into his life easily.

“Probably make a few stops along the way,” Joel explains, “I took myself off patrol duty for this,” he means you, this, the burden of your situation and disruption, “the lodge is far but usually out there we aren’t dealin’ with much, less infected in the cold and all.”

But not people, you think.

He sees you tense at the mention, coat shrugging over your shoulders.

Last ditch effort. Anything.

Just change his mind.

You reach for his palm as he extends it face up, examining you carefully.

You tap your pointer finger into the center of his palm before pointing it at the floor, the hand holding his wrist tugging insistently.

Stay. A finger into his palm.

Here. A finger to the floor.

You repeat it a few times until he seems to understand through the silent communication.

“Stay..stay,” he begins, deciphering your message, “we’re not—no we’re not stayin’ here.”

Your face falls, instincts turning to drastic measures as you drop his hand, invading his space in a way he’s been careful to avoid, hands curling around the side of his face and the soft brush of his beard itching your palm before you’re leaning forward to press your lips against his own, eagerly pulling him toward you.

Joel’s quick, though. He rips your hands away, fingers tightening around your bicep harshly.

“Don’t try that shit again,” he growls, “ain’t no fuckin’ choice in you stayin’ here.”

You try to yank away from him but it was pointless.

“Are you gonna listen or do I need to drag you out?”

Your jaw tightens and you slackening under his grip and while he could let you go, he doesn’t.

You stumble behind as he pulls you with him, up the stairs, around the hall and into the living room until you’re standing at the door and he’s releasing you to jab a finger in your face, flinching with every flick as it grows closer, making you go nearly cross eyed. 

“You give me even the slightest amount of trouble while we’re out and I won’t hesitate to leave you behind,” Joel threatens, that sinking feeling of regret swirling in his gut the moment your expression softens.

She fucking trusts you, he reminds himself.

As slippery as that slope could be, he’s got a responsibility. 

You nod shakily and the tightness of his grip pierces your soul, immediately submitting to his hold as he jerks you to face forward and reaches around to grab the knob, chest pressed against your back as you step outside.

A swirling wind greets you, whistling its own kind of warning as Joel drags you through the brittle, dried grass. Your boots crunch against the frosty ground, doing your best to keep pace with him, breath puffing out in frantic clouds. Cold air bites your skin and the crunch of your boots, now on gravel, fills the silence between you. It’s tense. 

You follow him to the stable as he releases his grip on you, to the weapon compound, close at his side as he steers the horse to the front gate, looking rather apologetic to his brother who seems to sense the situation between you and Joel and quickly averts the watchful eyes of others with his voice, calling off the list of locations and names like a roll call.

“Get on,” he orders, softer now but still edged and you oblige, feeling a hovering touch of his hand over your thigh as you climb onto the horse and lean back, making room for him to climb on.

Joel’s arms snake behind him to wrap yours around his jacket before he grabs the reins and clicks his tongue. The horse hesitates, feeling your combined weight, then lurches forward. You cling to the saddle as Joel steadies you with a firm grip, holding you close as Jackson fades from view.

The solace you’ve come to appreciate slipping through your fingers, even if temporary, made the pit in your stomach grow rapidly.

The landscape stretches out in muted colors. Bare trees reach like fingers, tendrils to the gray sky and frost clings to their branches. Joel’s silence feels like a wall between you, and you bite your lip to fight the chill that’s creeping into your bones, shrugging the hood of your coat over your head as you bury your face in between his shoulder blades, eyes peeking over.

It’s a strange kind of comfort for Joel the way you settle into him, close and warm. 

As much as he tried to keep his distance, there was always a loophole.

“You gonna explain what that was back there?” Joel asks, knowing his questioning is pointless, the roar of the wind and the bumpy ride making it nearly impossible for any type of silent communication, “I don’t want you doin’ that anymore, thinkin’ you need to act that way to…I don’t know—do whatever you’re wanting to do,”

The landscape rolls by like a somber, black and white film strip; broken fences and abandoned cars sprouting from the ground, dead infected and rotting animals, houses abandoned. It wasn’t as normal now, living in a lively place with such a dichotomy only a ride away, reminding you just how temporary your life was in this world.

“Were you scared to leave Jackson?” he asks curiously, trying to decipher what he could.

You hesitate, unsure how to answer. It was a yes and no question—safe was anywhere with Joel, but you were still weary. You don’t answer immediately, so Joel assumed that wasn’t the problem.

“Is it the weather? Don’t like the snow?” you shake your head almost immediately, uncaring for the elements, finding that dying from frostbite or heatstroke were both equally miserable.

“The lodge?” he asks after a long, drawn out silence—the ride was still long, more difficult as the snow began to pick up, falling in thick sheets, “Is there somethin’ out here you ain’t told us?”

You shift slightly, the leather of Joel’s jacket creaking beneath your cheek. The question hangs heavy, like the snow. It’s too much to explain, the knot of reasons tangled inside you. You press your face into his back again, wishing you could dissolve into him and stay there. You feel his sigh before you hear it, learning the way his body works through touch and sound. It’s not disappointment—it’s understanding. 

But, that frightens you too.

Joel makes a few short stops along the way, simple checks on smaller lookouts that don't even require you to get off the horse, keeping watch as he was in and out within a couple of minutes, eyes always on you no matter where he moved.

You can sense the way his anger lingers in his face and the stiffness of his shoulders but his instinct to protect is stronger, shoving the sturdy emotion aside to traverse through the heavy storm until, hours later, the lodge comes into view, your heart hammering in your chest.

Your fingers tighten around the lapels of his jacket and he looks down, watching the way you strangle the fabric under your grip, shifting slightly on the saddle as he slows to a stop just inside the lodge before Joel helps you off the horse and ties him, leaving you for a moment that feels nothing short of a century, frozen in your spot as you hold your bag close to your chest.

“At some point you gotta start talkin’,” his voice startles you as it comes from the shadows, jacket stripped as he kneeled down at the fire pit near the center of the room, working quickly to warm the place up, “it ain’t about inconvenience either, it could get you killed.”

You move silently and sit nearby, eyes downturned and lips pulled tight.

It’s impossible to explain, the way your throat constricts at any attempt to speak, like a knee jerk reaction as you anticipate the strike of a hand or foot, a lash at your back or the hot prick of a cigarette into your skin. 

You still felt it occasionally, the phantom pain.

Your bottom lip trembles as they part, desperately wanting to make the attempt but knowing your body won’t let you out of self-preservation. Joel doesn’t see the struggle, but he can see your fingers fidgeting, restlessness laying in wait. 

“Did you bring your paper and pen with you?” Joel asks, sounding fatherly in a way that hints of a life lived and lost, “You can’t just ask the way you did this morning for no reason, I want answers,”

You nod obediently, riffling through your bag for the items.

Joel waits until they're in your hand and the fire crackles to life before he asks his first question.

“Is it the lodge? Is that why you wanted to stay in Jackson?” he asks, watching you scribble down a swift answer.

Yes. But, more.

He leans forward on his knees and into your space to read the scribbled note, sighing tiredly.

It isn’t what he wanted, obvious in the roll of his eyes.

“Explain,” He says tensely, “Stop bein’ so damn cryptic, I don’t like that shit,”

They followed me here. I hid. 

Joel’s face contorts in confusion.

“They followed you that far?”

It was their job. Bad men, all of them. They enjoy it. I hid and they didn’t find me. That time. I was worried they might find me again. They didn’t that time.

Joel examines the concentration on your phase as you write out the words, taking the notebook as you gently shove it into his palm, large fingers wrapping around the notepad.

“Who is they?” Joel asks, “You keep writin’ they,” his fingernail scratches over the word, leaving an indent in the paper, “We’re tight about patrols out here, we woulda saw ‘em. You sure it wasn’t someone else? Maybe just some random raider? They stroll through from time to time lookin’ for shelter.”

No. Not random. They wore emblems, gold and threaded to look like an anchor. There are men we serve, higher-ups. Then ones that follow a code, like an army. The men after me were hunters. Trackers. Do you understand? Not for animals.

“Sick fucks,” Joel says mostly to himself as he reads over your writing,

Don’t leave me. Please. I will do anything.

His earlier words echo in your head, seeming to cross his own mind at the same time.

You shove the notepad at him hastily, hands trembling slightly,

“Don’t get worked up," Joel says, voice a little gruff, "I’m not leavin’.”

Safe. He writes it out underneath your own words. 

Thick. Heavy. 

He nods.

Suddenly, as Joel feels around in his pocket as he stands, he comes across an object Tommy had handed him before he left, careful as he approaches you and reaches for your hand, pressing the solid weight of the object into it.

It was your knife, cleaned up and sharpened to a dangerous point.

Joel makes a noise of warning, fingers tight around your wrist.

“This ain’t yours to keep,” Joel explains, “jus’ while we’re out here, in case you come across an animal or something, it comes right back to me when we leave, understood?”

Begrudgingly, you nod.

“Put it away,” he instructed, watching as you closed the knife and stuffed it into your pocket.

You couldn’t explain it, but the frustration in him still simmered, unsure if it was because of you or not. Joel was a sorrowful man, carrying enough guilt for a thousand men—it could be that he was just having a day, desperate for a moment to himself.

It comes a while later after you’ve both settled in and the place was filled with warmth, “Keep watch, don’t wander—I’ll sleep for a couple hours then take over, got it?”

You nod quickly, perched on the wide, open window as you watch the snowfall. 

Something about it was oddly therapeutic, looking over to watch the scowl on Joel’s face soften as he fell into a deep slumber, leaning half reclined against a wall with his jacket balled up by his head to double as a pillow.

Hours pass without incident, thankfully. Joel said two, but it was already four and he was still sleeping, snoring now as he’s slumped down into a more horizontal position, growing slightly restless as the storm had calmed and the sun was shining overhead, desperate for a few moments of fresh air now that you were here, feeling comfortable enough in the quiet and with Joel’s presence that you could step out for a moment and breathe, putting on your shoes and coat quickly as you slipped out the back door of the lodge and watched a pair of birds on a branch as they hopped beside each other, chirping quietly.

You can’t remember the last time you’ve felt this calm or relaxed, glancing over at Joel sheepishly despite his obliviousness. 

You inhale deeply, letting the crisp, post-storm air fill your lungs. 

The lodge is silent behind you, save for the faint sound of Joel’s snoring. The fresh air feels like a relief, a moment of stillness that you hadn’t realized you needed. That you deserved.

Your eyes follow the pair of birds a moment longer, chirping softly to each other.

It’s peaceful—almost too peaceful. 

A small prickle of unease creeps up your spine, but you shake it off.

It’s just quiet. 

Nothing’s wrong.

Then—

You feel your throat swell.

The snap of a twig.

You freeze. The birds flutter away, startled. Your breath catches.

You don’t have time to turn before an arm locks around your chest, a rough hand clamping over your mouth. You couldn’t scream even if you wanted to.

“Oh, easy, ea-sy,” the stranger coos with a sickening softness, “don’t wanna wake him up, do ya?”

The faceless attacker holds you tight, something sharp and jagged at your back as he guides you backwards, further away from Joel.

Your pulse pounds in your ears as you struggle, but he’s strong. 

He reeks of sweat and damp clothes, his grip unyielding.

"You people think you’re so damn careful… but you’re just easy pickings if you ain’t watchin’,” he sounds so smug and amused, greedy as he dragged you further and further away, feet stumbling out beneath you as you fell into the snow against him, a grunt shooting from his chest but ultimately it was followed by a spine-chilling chuckle, a hand slipping underneath the material of your shirt and over your abdomen, “been camped out here all day watchin’ you both, thought you were a dime, though–couldn’t pass up the opportunity,”

You twist sharply, managing to get free, clawing at his arm as you shove it away. He grunts in irritation but grabs at your ankle, yanking you back down as you fall to your ass, silently groaning at the pain.

"Feisty," he mutters. "I like it. Ain’t much fun otherwise."

You’ve fought for your life plenty of times and this was no different.

It shouldn’t surprise you that misfortune met you at every turn, allowing yourself to fall into a false confidence only to be disappointed once more as the man looms over you, a shadow of menace. You kick wildly, connecting with his shin. A low snarl escapes him.

“Little bitch,” he hisses, shaking his leg as if to brush off the sting. 

But, it gives you a moment to scramble backward on your hands and heels, snow biting at your palms as you shoved your hand into your pocket to find your knife, watching as he stalked toward you in a pure rage, opening your mouth in a scream you know will never come, but then he’s tripping, scrambling to catch his bearings over you.

The tip of the blade slices through his guts like butter, feeling the bile rise in your throat at the sensation and the warm spread of blood over your hand, desperately trying to force his weight off of you, but his hands finds your face, thumbs reaching for your eyes in any attempt to injure you but then there’s a shot ringing out, startling the both of you.

Simultaneously, the man jerks violently, his hands going slack around your face as he falls with a gurgling choke. Blood flows down his neck and onto you, drenching your clothes in a way that makes you want to crawl out of your skin.

You scramble to your knees, backing away without looking toward the gunman as you panic, wiping the blood from your skin and into the snow, desperate to rid yourself of the thick fluid before Joel’s invading your space, fingers tightening into your coat to yank you upright as he shoves you back against a tree, blinded with pure rage.

He had saved you. He was angry, sure. But, he saved your life. Again.

“Are you fucking stupid, girl?!” he asks, his tone tight and harsh, met with a meek nod.

“Wrong answer,” He snaps, “I said two hours, then you wake me. I said not to wander and you did—so answer me again, are you—fucking stu—”

He doesn’t register that sting of your teeth in his bottom lip until your hand curls around the back of his neck, tongue spearing into his mouth as his mouth parts in surprise, your fingers tangling into his hair as you pull him into the kiss. 

Thank you, it breathes.

His grip slackens for the briefest moment before turning to steel again, fingers knotted in your clothes, twisting and pulling you closer. The violence of him feels like a lifeline, like something sure and solid in this brutal world. He’s safe. 

Safe.

He shoves you harder against the tree, rough bark biting through your coat as his teeth gnash against yours, tangled breaths turning to steam in the cold.

Your head spins, heart shuddering up into your throat, and you lose yourself in the way he feels, like fury itself. His hand moves from your clothes to splay over your belly, warm and forceful where the knife was just seconds before on your attacker who lay lifeless on the snowy ground.

You can’t stop thinking. 

The coppery taste of blood lingers everywhere: on your clothes, on the dead man, on Joel’s mouth now. The snow around you is red-stained as his hands roam over you, your own hands mirroring his unspoken neediness as you tear into the belt of his jeans, feeling him undo your own in tandem, unable to look one another directly in the eye at that moment, desperate for connection by other means.

He shouldn’t be allowing this, but the urge to consume your gratitude is stronger.

His thumb fumbles with the button of your jeans, and you’re practically writhing to get them off, burning up despite the chill. You sigh internally as he manages to get them free, yanking them far enough down your thighs before he’s turning you against the tree.

The world fades around you; it’s just him, just you, each breath mingling as he frees himself from his pants. You feel his heat press against you, insistent, frenzied, somehow apologetic as it fits between your thighs.

You feel his fingers fit between your legs and spread between your folds like instinct but you’re shaking your head, hand clawing at back of his neck as you arch your ass into him, a silent plea for him to just fuck you instead, needy as you bring his mouth to yours with a distinct hunger, swallowing up his ragged breaths as he rubs his thumb and pointer finger over the head of his cock and through your slick before he’s stretching you open with little grace, mouth open in a silent gasp as your free hand grabs at his hip.

“Fuck,” he breathes into your mouth, words dissolving into a groan as he sets an unrelenting pace. The tree bark is rough against your skin, but you don’t care, the rawness of it only adds to the frenzy growing between you. Hastily undressed and filthy, the kiss-smudged blood across his face smearing into yours.

He’s practically holding you up like this, his grip slipping over your hips as his mouth finds your neck, biting down just enough to bruise or draw blood of your own, not entirely sure.

His thrusts breath raw desperation, nails clawing at bare skin as he hisses into your neck.

There’s nothing soft about it, no measured rhythm, just a brutal need for each other. 

Joel is acutely aware of the way your body is responding to him, silent sobs racking your chest as you pull him impossibly closer, “I gotcha,” he says, “I feel you, you’re gonna give it to me, aren’t ya? S’right there, I feel it,”

And he wants it more than he was comfortable admitting to himself, the satisfaction of filling the insatiable need you had craved from him.

His hand snakes over your mouth, smothering sounds that would never surface, but the gesture is heady, biting at the skin of his palm until you knew it would sting.

Desperation blurs into pleasure, and you feel it shuddering through you like an electric current and the world comes rushing in again all at once: the cold air nipping at sweat-slick skin, branches clawing at your chest like a bitter, jealous lover. It’s hard to tell, the way you both are clawing at this for dear life, but you think this is maybe as close as the two of you have ever been, filthy and frantic and burning up together as you come, feeling Joel pull out in enough time to spill into his fist, low and drawn-out grunts that had you cunt pulsing, resting dissociatively against the tree.

It was the most human you’ve felt in years.

“Get inside,” Joel says suddenly, pulling you back to reality—surprisingly, his voice is calmer.

And for once, you don’t argue.

–

Joel watches you change, trading the bloodied clothes for fresh ones and wiping you down in between, a silent but intimate gesture that neither of you outwardly address, eyes scanning his face carefully as he taps at your chin so he can wipe underneath your neck.

And you don’t speak about it.

Joel doesn’t even acknowledge it.

He takes care of the body, stays on watch despite your quiet persistence to help

But, as your hand trembles at your side as you approach him beside the fire pit, his fingers thread into your own, a heavy weight holding you down until it stops shaking. You can feel the small tremor on his own, harbored for different reasons. But, it calms him too.

You felt like there was finally equal ground to stand on.

–

When you arrive back in Jackson a couple days later, Joel relays information about the raider with some omissions, only suggesting that there be more frequent checks, but as you and Joel settle into a routine, things become almost…too easy.

He’s always expectant of your knife the moment you approach the gates, handing it over without problem, but just as easily sliding it into your own as you settle into your patrol spot for whatever rotation you both ended up on, still increasingly weary around others that weren’t Joel, you find a similar protection with Tommy, though not entirely comparable. 

Tommy only took you out so far as to teach you how to shoot and clear out infected that were a safe enough distance they couldn’t do any real harm, only swarms passing through.

Joel still hasn’t initiated any touch with you since that day, but his actions are increasingly more intimate despite his body language around you—though, that doesn’t mean he stops you.

Maybe it was how he justified his own righteousness, that he was absolving himself of the guilt that he had knowingly allowed you to attach yourself to him, almost selfishly.

With Ellie’s growing independence becoming more and more obvious, Joel leans toward your odd connection and the ease it brings to his routine.

You’re shivering over a cup of coffee one morning despite your layers and blanket wrapped around your shoulders, the chill making your bones ache.

“You can sleep up here, you know,” Joel tells you, “the couch is comfortable, s’close to the fire, too.”

You shrug nonchalantly, sipping softly at the strong brew.

“Sleep up here,” he tries again, a command, your hesitation curling around the steaming cup as your eyes connect, nodding hesitantly.

His mug scuffs the counter as his fingers curl around the ceramic, his hip settling into the edge as he leans into the surface and you meet him with an honest gaze.

“Are you only agreeing because I’m tellin’ you to?”

Sheepishly, you nod.

Joel doesn’t harp on it, though. It was a small battle won, less worry of you catching frostbite or a cold down in the basement, your presence more apparent as you move into the neutral living space, there when he wakes and when he retires for the night, quiet and somber.

Then, there was an instance with the shower that became routine. 

Your skin caked with dirt and re-opened cuts crusted with days old blood, a particularly rough run-in with a group of infected that Joel had dealt with mostly, you trailing close behind and taking out the few stragglers.

Joel always opted for privacy anymore—save the moment at the lodge when you had shed your blood stained clothes and Joel had to make sure none of it was your own, but your body was exhausted as was your mind, losing your footing as you stumbled into the sink and made a soft noise that Joel’s never heard before.

He’s never heard anything from you, really. 

Only your breathing, heavier in moments of anxiety or despair, but soft as you slept.

You were hunched over the tub and half-dressed, your head pounding as the blood rushed there, eyes squeezing shut as you bit at the inside of your cheek and Joel’s presence is there, but far, hovering near the door as he just needed eyes on you to confirm you weren’t hurt.

As the door closes and you’re pushing back to your feet, you yank it back with a similar strength and Joel watches your hand reach for him, curling in the fabric of his shirt as you silently plead for him to come closer.

Help me, your eyes plead.

Quietly, you guide the shirt over his head and his mind finally catches up, reaching behind you as he turns the water on until the bathroom was smothered with steam, his eyes wondering anywhere but you as you both stepped in naked under the stream, guided by Joel to turn away as he washed you in silence, careful and methodical, leaning into his touch as his fingers curl around the back of your neck to wash your hair.

It happens once or twice again, based around the frequency of patrols and whenever the house was empty and though Joel is hesitant to your touch, eventually he gives in, eyes usually closed as you face him, hands tugging through his dirtied hair and over his chest, a low rumble as your fingers curl a little too low, grazing over the curve of his ass before his fingers catch your wrist and his eyes pry open, shaking his head.

Eventually, his resolve fades.

He tries, but your persistence is steadfast, growing needful to his proximity in every facet of your life and the kisses are shy at first, gentle presses to his shoulder or arm, occasionally over his chest or neck, his hands hovering but never touching without necessity. 

He doesn’t like to talk, either. But, he became familiar with the scar on your lower abdomen, just above your pelvis and thick, the skin clearly marred but not like the others on your body.

You always guide his hand away out of discomfort, unsure how to explain without using words.

Though, given what you’ve told him and the behaviors you’ve exhibited, Joel can make a guess.

He blurts it out one night as you shower until the water grows cold.

“They take something from you?” he asks, already knowing the answer.

You nod slightly, hands curving over his shoulders to dig into the muscle and knead, his eyes downturned and dark, intimidating as always.

The doctors performed a salpingectomy on many, including you, unsafe and at risk of death given the environment and lack of understanding, there was no telling what kind of damage they had done, but the most important part was that reproduction was null, some sick and twisted belief to keep women obedient and available. 

You don’t remember much, but it was years ago.

Your face heats as you mimic a pregnant belly, ignoring how his hand guides over your breast with the soapy rag as you lock eyes with him, shaking your head.

His face twitches emotionlessly, nostrils flaring, “I’m sorry,” and he means it.

Joel remembers the harsh accusation he’d thrown at you, assuming your motives without understanding or knowing, but this—it gives him perspective. 

–

A few hours later, you wake from a night terror.

It was dark, pitch black and quiet, but you couldn’t move.

Your mouth opens to scream but nothing comes out, thrashing against invisible bindings until you come to, Joel’s hands locked around your shoulders to keep you still, shaking you back to reality.

“Hey, hey,” his voice is an instant drug that soothes, eyes ripping open and searching frantically until they land on his face, “breathe, kid—you’re here, not there,”

Joel knew—of course he did.

He stays until you calm, pushing up on your hands to sit up and reaching for his arm as he stands, repeating the same gesture in his palm that he’s come to understand, crystal clear.

Stay, you gesture.

“Okay,” he agrees quietly, but you’re pulling him closer, fingers curling against his sides and Joel shakes his head, giving you some resistance, “nono—ain’t enough room for that, alright?”

Your grip tightens, begging.

Joel exhales through his nose in defeat, his hands twitching slightly where they still hold you. 

He doesn’t even need to ask, your footsteps following closely behind his own as he turns, padding back toward his room down the hall, slipping into his bed and under the sheets without a word, the weight of him next to you enough to settle your anxiety.

The second time you crawl into his bed, it’s after another nightmare. 

He doesn’t say anything—just lets out a tired sigh and shifts over, leaving space for you. You don’t touch him, not at first. Just tuck yourself into the blankets, facing away, the tension in your body easing just enough for sleep to take hold.

Then, it happens again. And again.

Every night, the same thing. 

You slip in, quiet as ever, and Joel tells himself it’s fine. That he can keep his distance.

But, you always end up entangled by the time you wake.

Your cheek pressed into his chest. His arm curled protectively around your waist. 

His breath in your hair.

Him, around you.

Joel knows he should stop this. 

He should tell you to stay in your own damn bed.

That it ain't right.

That he can’t be what you need him to be.

One night, he’s not asleep when you slip into his bed.

He feels the mattress dip, the hesitant pause before you settle in beside him, close but not touching. Joel keeps his eyes shut, breath steady, pretending he doesn’t notice.

But, then your fingers ghost over his wrist, then around his waist, your knee shifting between his thighs as you curl into him and nuzzle against his neck, lips pressing into his pulse point.

He stiffens. Feels you hesitate, then try again, pressing a kiss into the sensitive skin of his neck.

"Kid," he mutters, voice low, warning.

He can feel the neediness in your touch, eyes flicking up shyly to look at him as he bows his head to look down at you.

"You do everything I tell you to," he murmurs, and he’s right—voice rough with sleep. "If I told you to go back to your own bed, would you listen?"

Silence.

Then, your fingers tighten slightly where they’re wrapped around him. A slow shake of your head to answer his question and a sigh from him that follows, it shakes the room.

It’s defeat.

Your lips brush against his jaw first, tentative, testing. When he doesn’t stop you, you press again, slower this time. Then lower, over the rough stubble of his throat.

Joel lets out a slow, shuddering breath. His hand finds your waist, fingers curling tight before forcing himself to loosen his grip.

His fingers twitch against your waist, the calloused pads pressing firm into the soft give of your skin. His breath is heavy, slow, controlled—because he has to be.

“Shouldn’t be doin’ this,” he says, but it’s weak, “can’t be.”

A hollow protest. 

You don’t say anything, just tilt your head, lips tracing along his pulse, feeling it thrum beneath your mouth, slow and steady. He’s always so calm, a constant beat that never skipped or faltered.

He exhales sharply, his grip tightening. “Christ,” he breathes, head tipping forward until his forehead brushes against yours. “You don’t listen worth a damn, do you?”

You shake your head again, more deliberate this time.

His eyes flick to yours, dark and searching, like he’s looking for something—one last excuse to push you away. 

But there’s nothing—he’s guilty for the need of this too.

And then you’re pulling him down, lips pressing against his, soft but insistent, and any last restraint he had left crumbles in an instant.

Joel groans against your mouth, deep and wrecked, his hands still hesitant to touch, only allowing it as you initiate, dragging his hand to your waist and down, under your thigh until he’s hiking your leg over his hip.

His lips part, teeth grazing your bottom lip before he kisses you again, harder, deeper, like he needs this just as much as you do. Like he’s just as desperate for it.

He is.

Joel pulls you closer, his hands gripping at your waist. His lips are slow at first, searching, but when you whimper against his mouth, something inside him snaps. It’s a sound he hasn’t heard, the first he’s ever heard, surprising yourself as the sound slips out, throat immediately collapsing on itself in fear, awaiting the hands that wrap tight around your throat and suffocate.

Instead, his hand fists in the fabric of your shorts, curling around your hip as your core drags over his groin, his quickly hardening cock pressing against the inside of your thigh.

"You don’t even think twice, do you?" he rasps against your lips, his breath warm and unsteady. "Just do whatever the hell I tell you without arguing?”

You nod, fingers threading into his hair, tugging just enough to make him groan. You nod, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. With your muteness, it meant Joel’s eyes had to be on you, constantly waiting and searching for communication.

It made you feel special, the way he was attentive to you at all times.

Your thumb drags over his lip as you pause for a moment, letting the weight of his words sink in.

His eyes darken, something unreadable flickers across his face, and his hands still for a moment too, resting heavy on the bare skin of your leg.

“That ain’t always a good thing,” he tell you, but he’s already leaning back in, following the push into his shoulder as you raise your leg over his abdomen to straddle him, pressing him into the mattress as you grind down into him.

Somehow you know he’ll follow, that he won’t resist. 

He’s guilty, too—doesn’t ever think twice when it comes to you. That’s what eats at him the most—how easily you give in to each other. How willingly.

Your hands skim down his chest, nails scratching lightly over the thick hair there, down to his stomach, lower—until he catches your wrist, shaking his head.

"Slow down," he murmurs, voice strained, rough around the edges as your hips moving at a leisurely pace, glancing down to admire the thickness of his shaft as the fabric hugged around him, leaving no part of him to imagination, the thick trail of hair that disappeared beyond his waistband, "You don't gotta—"

You shake your head, mouth hung open in silence as your eyes fall shut.

A groan rumbles low in his chest as he lets go of you, hands falling to his side as lets you use him, slowly realizing what this moment was for you.

A reclamation of your own pleasure and autonomy, using his body for release that did nothing to benefit him outside of the wonder that bloomed into his features as you move more frantic, fabric bunching up higher at your hips as you chase your high, working toward the crest of your orgasm that you just couldn’t reach, face scrunching up in annoyance as you start to hit as his chest with soft blows, seemingly frustrated.

Joel knows what you need, skin against skin, flush connection.

You look up at him with a pout that pleads, screaming out.

And this time, he doesn’t stop you as you shift, a fury of limbs as you remove your shorts with impatience, tossing them to the floor as you tug at his sweats, his cock bobbing heavy and free, just far enough down his thighs that you can see how his balls tighten at your touch, taking a moment to admire him this way, his face contorted into something unreadable as your thumb slides over his slit, leaking with precum and his tip a blushed red.

Joel lets out a strangled breath, his head tilting back against the pillow as your fingers wrap around him, slow and deliberate, dragging over the length of him with just enough pressure to make his stomach tense.

He breathes slowly, his hands twitching at his sides, like he’s resisting the urge to touch you. 

To guide you. Teach you.

But he won’t—he lets you take what you need, lets you move at your own pace. 

You shift upwards, lining yourself up with him, the heat of your slick cunt teasing against his length, dragging up and down as you shudder at the feeling, the head of his cock sliding against your clit, the shlick of your bodies as they move against each other.

His jaw clenches, muscles taut as he watches.

Your fingers curl against his skin, nails pressing into him as you take all of him, inch by inch.

He finds himself waiting for a sound, silently begging for it, curious if you would sound as wrecked as he did, grunting when you’re seated fully, the burn mixing with pleasure so intense it makes your head fall forward. 

Joel’s breath stutters. His hands find your waist with your guidance, squeezing tight, like this was your attempt in trying to get him to ground himself too. He doesn’t move, doesn’t thrust up into you—just lets you adjust, lets you take him however you want. 

“Fuck,” he grunts, voice wrecked. “You feel that?” You nod, biting your lip, rolling your hips experimentally. A pleasurable ache growing in your gut. He groans, low and guttural, his fingers digging into your flesh. “That’s it,” he breathes. “Take what you need.” 

And you do.

You start slow, your hands braced against his chest, feeling the taut muscle beneath your palms as you roll your hips, testing, searching for something you’re not sure of. The stretch is deep, almost too much, but it’s what you want—what you need.

Joel’s hands grip your waist, like he’s holding himself back, like if he lets go, he’ll take over. 

But he doesn’t. He just watches, dark eyes hooded, jaw tight as you find your rhythm.

He exhales through gritted teeth, watching the way you move, the way your body trembles every time you take him deeper, your breasts shifting under your shirt as you bounce, finding himself speaking before the words filter, like his pleasure has a mind of its own.

"You always listen so well, don’t you?"

Your breath hitches at the praise, the smallest whimper slipping from your lips, and Joel's fingers tighten on your hips, not guiding you, but steadying you, anchoring you to him. You’ve never made sounds like this before, not even by accident.

With him, the fear of retaliation has begun to ease. Each noise that slips isn’t met with anger or rage, but astonishment, eyes widening in wonder.

“You like that?” he asks, voice rough, like it’s been dragged down a gravel road, "Doin’ what you’re told?"

You nod frantically, grinding down harder, desperate for more.

For him, you think. Only for him.

Give me safety. I’ll give you everything.

He curses under his breath, his restraint fraying at the edges. "Fuck—look at you," he groans, his fingers digging into your flesh now, a warning, his own control slipping. "Takin’ me so fuckin’ good."

A shudder runs through you at his words, your walls fluttering around him, making him hiss.

"Keep goin'," he murmurs, lifting up slightly as he settles on an elbow, the thumb of his free hand stroking your skin, the tension in his body betraying how much effort it takes to stay still, “I feel ya, how bad you need it,”

Your fingers reach for him, prying his grip from your waist and guiding his hands up, over your body, pressing them against your breasts, your stomach, anywhere you can, until he gets it—until he stops holding back. He rises to meet you, arms wrapping around your waist similar to how you had cornered him on the couch in the basement, but the implication is different.

A deep, guttural groan escapes him, and then his hands are moving on their own, sliding down to grip your ass, to spread you wider as he thrusts up into you, slow but deep, pushing a broken moan from your throat.

"Yeah?" he rasps in surprise, voice strained. "Is that what you wanted?"

You nod helplessly, nails scraping over his chest as you try to keep up with his pace, but Joel doesn’t let you. He takes over now, fucking up into you with long, deliberate strokes, each one dragging a whimper from your lips.

More sounds, he needed more sounds.

"You gotta tell me," he pleads, his grip almost bruising now. "I need to hear it."

You open your mouth, but all that comes out is a breathy gasp, your head falling forward against his shoulder, and Joel growls, wrapping the arm around your back tight to keep you pressed against him.

"Say it," he demands, voice thick with need as he looks up at you, "Tell me what you need. I know you can—you’re doin’ so good," It was such a stark contrast, the praise.

Your lips part, voice shaky, barely above a whisper and broken, your voice foreign to your ears as it leaves your mouth

"You."

Joel freezes beneath you, stilling for half a second, something unreadable flickering across his face before it’s gone, replaced with something darker, something deeper.

He wants to fucking ruin you and build you back up watching as the tears form in your eyes, knowing what the action meant, the energy and bravery it took, he doesn’t push it aside.

His chest rises sharply against yours, breath stalling like he’s not sure he heard right. His fingers twitch against your skin, gripping tighter, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.

You feel the weight of it, the shift in the air. 

His pulse hammers against your palm where you press against his throat, his body locked beneath you like the words had cut him deeper than any knife ever could.

Your voice.

You’ve never spoken before.

Not to him. Not to anyone.

And now, with your body wrapped around him, shaking, desperate, it’s him you ask for. 

Him you need.

His name is on the tip of your tongue, but you don’t say it. 

You just press closer, urging him with slow rolls of your hips, hoping he understands, hoping he doesn’t make you say it again—because you don’t think you can.

And then, Joel moves.

Slowly. Carefully.

His hands roam, sweeping over your back, your waist, fingertips ghosting over the curve of your ribs like he’s memorizing you, feeling you breathe. His touch is softer now, reverent, as if the moment itself has changed, evolved into something neither of you expected.

You nod to an unasked question, pressing your lips against his cheek, his jaw, anywhere you can reach, trying to coax him back, trying to keep the moment from slipping away.

His hips snap up, slow but deep, dragging a soft, broken moan from your throat that makes his grip tighten. A noise barely audible.

"That’s it," he breathes, his voice thick with something you can’t explain. His hands guide you now, steady but unrelenting, moving you with him, driving deeper, harder, every roll of your hips pulling another sound from your lips, another shudder from your body.

He drinks in every noise, every gasp, every trembling sigh like it’s the most precious thing in the world. Collecting them all and committing them to memory.

"Keep talkin’ to me," he mutters, voice ragged, desperate. "Let me hear you."

But, you can’t.

The pleasure is too much, coiling tight, pulling you under, and all you can do is cling to him, gasping against his throat as your body starts to shake through your orgasm. The energy it takes to speak, the courage bleeding you dry. You’d lost your voice again.

Joel feels it—your unraveling, your breaking, the way your walls flutter around him—and it undoes him completely. Your hands cradle your face, tilting his head back so you can see him, his dark eyes burning into yours as he thrusts up hard as he spills inside of you, not entirely thinking as he does it.

"That’s it, baby," he praises, “Keep squeezin’ me, I’m right here,”

And for a long moment, neither of you move. 

The only sound is his ragged breaths, the pounding of your heart.

His lips brush your collarbone, his breath warm against your skin.

"You," he murmurs to you, soft, like it means something to him too.

Maybe it does, you weren’t sure.

–

He reaches you this way, through connection and touch.

Sex or something similar, the intensity of the moment clouding your thoughts and relaxing your worry, and his too.

It was a give and take with each other, distracting Joel from his constant stream of troubling thoughts and worries, still never approaching you—it was always under your guidance.

Maybe it’s selfish. Maybe it’s wrong. But every time your hands find him, every time you press yourself into his space, silently asking for comfort, for connection, he gives in.

The moment you touch him, the constant, gnawing dread in his mind quiets.

Just for a little while. And selfishly, he needs it.

Your fingers trail up his chest, light, uncertain, tracing the scars like a map. Joel watches, his breath slow and steady, his muscles tense beneath your touch—but he doesn’t stop you.

He never does.

You cornered him in the kitchen this particular night, his hands curled over the edge of the sink with his head hung, chest heaving like he had just woken up from his own nightmare, sneaking out of bed but not quite enough that you wouldn’t notice.

When you press your lips against his skin, soft and searching, he exhales like he’s been holding it in for too long. 

Like you were the answer.

"You sure?" he asks, his voice rough, low, but there’s no demand in it. 

No expectation. 

Only restraint. 

He’s not sure how much longer he can hold back, between the constant time spent together and the nights spent inside of you, allowing your greediness to take hold.

He pushed his own aside, stuffed until it was boiling over.

You nod, and that’s all it takes.

His hands find your waist, pulling you against him, guiding you the way you he needs, the way he knows you need too, his grip firm, like he’s holding something fragile—something breakable.

That's what this was, after all.

A delicate balance. A silent understanding.

You give each other this, and in return, he gives you himself, as do you—fully, completely, no barriers, no walls.

When he moves it is slow and deliberate, when his mouth finds your throat and his fingers grip your neck, guiding you against and up on the counter, fingers spreading underneath your top before it’s torn over your head, it was all the same. His palms curve around your neck, pulling you toward him as his lips capture yours in a surprisingly tender kiss, lips parting immediately as his tongue licks along your own, mirroring his touch as you spread your legs to make room for him. 

You don’t need anything else but this.

Only this.

Only him.

Only you.

But, there’s that gnawing in Joel’s chest that makes him out to be the monster he knows he can be, taking advantage of your trauma and pushing your limits, using you like you’ve been used before.

He’s no better, he thinks.

Or when your predicament stopped feeling like a punishment and more like freedom. An escape from a life before, one hardly remembered, that brought nothing but pain, and struggle, and loneliness.

God, you were so lonely.

“I know. I know, baby. It’s so much.”

Even when you had it all, you had no one. Surrounded by those you called kin, meant to uphold you, protect you. But when it came down to it, you were just another pawn in the game. An asset. Something to be borrowed and bartered for the right price, or out of sheer, pathetic desperation.

They never cared for you, did they? Not really.

But he does. He wants you. He protects you. And at what cost? Pleasure that, once discovered, you couldn’t give up for the world. You would be lying if you said that, for some time, the obsession didn’t frighten you. Now, it only solidifies that freeing truth: he will never be like them. He will never let you go. You belong to him, and once you accepted it and all the privileges that came with it, you set your soul to rest.

Your brain is numb, nothing but white noise, and you tingle all over. It’s soothing. As is the weight of him—all of him, broad, and sturdy, and smothering—draped over your back and pinning you into the mattress. He’s shoved a pillow under your tummy, the perfect little angle for him to pound the tip of his cock against the deep spot that makes you see stars. His left hand pins one of yours beside your ear, threaded through the knuckles, and the other is wrapped securely around your throat, keeping your chin propped up enough that you don’t suffocate your face into the pillows.

You can’t see anything, anyways. Eyes glazed over, the luxury of air seemingly less important than the impending buildup in your belly.

You aren’t sure how many times you’ve come now—three, four? How many different ways he’s dragged your body across the too-stiff mattress, and folded it whatever way he pleases to see you squirm and leak all over him.

But this one is your favorite, you think. The heat and breadth of him, warm and everywhere all at once, the heavy sack of his balls tapping your swollen clit with every thrust. The one that makes you mindless, the one that makes you remember why this life, this new life, is so special.

“C’mon, little girl,” his gruff voice, a distant echo, finally breaks its way through the surface. It’s accompanied by a firm squeeze to your carotids, sending your eyes rolling back into your skull. “Talk to me. Tell me how you feel.”

You open your lips, but all that comes is a pool of drool and an indiscernible moan. Your thighs are shaking, and you can feel the mixture of slick, sweat, and come burning friction between your bodies.

You try once more. Long lost is the shame of how brittle or broken you sound; Clint accepts it all, and he never judges you for it.

“S-so g—ahh—f-full. M’so, so full, sir.”

His lips press into the back of your neck, and you swear you can feel them spread into a smile.

“Yeah?” he says, and it’s a little condescending. A little mean, but you don’t mind. Despite his nefarious ways and demanding job, Clint has placed you on a pedestal at the center of his universe. The way he plays you is just a reminder that there won’t be, can’t be, anyone else.

“Feel so fuckin’ full of this cock, huh, princess? Can’t even think straight.”

And you’re nodding, because he’s right. All else has lost its importance. All but the shape of him inside of you.

It hits you suddenly, a slight shift of his hips, and you’re gasping, babbling as if your life depends on it: “I’m g-gonna, I’m gonna come again. Please, p-please sir, can I-can I come?”

He places a wet, searing kiss against your jugular and loosens his grip on your neck to bury his hand in your hair. He yanks up, and your back arches off the mattress, adjusts his thighs so they’re cradling your ass and resumes his ceaseless pace.

Your feet kick desperately against the mattress, tears brimming your eyes and fingers digging into the sheets as you try to starve off an orgasm you know you’ll only see through upon his command, his permission.

“Hold on now, baby. Hold it,” he demands sternly, reaching his other hand around to palm at your tits, a squeal of ecstasy coming off your lips when he pinches one of the hardened nipples. “Just a little longer for me.”

You dig your teeth into your bottom lip until you taste iron, trying to focus on anything other than the tightly wound wire in your gut and the beast of a man behind you. You can’t help it, the way your slick walls start to flutter around him, dripping down to the base of his cock, and you hear him growl behind you until you’re being smothered again. He knocks the wind out of you, the entire weight of him pinning you down until the legs of the bed frame start to squeak and the headboard hits the wall.

He doesn’t hold you up, this time. Now, your noises are muffled into the pillows, and he drapes one of his calloused paws across the crown of your head, and presses his lips to your ear.

“So good, baby. Shit, you’re so fuckin’ tight. Perfect fuckin’ pussy,” he grumbles, his words slurred and heavy. “Gonna fill you up again, yeah? As many times as it takes, right?”

It’s the same spiel every time, only now, instead of panic, the prospect of it makes your heart thrum in your chest. Your belly stir with butterflies. Something like hope, delight.

And you’re nodding again, garbling yes, sir, yes sir, into the pillows, repeating the mantra to yourself—as many times as it takes.

Until your belly swells, and you’re full of him, a piece of him.

“That’s right, that’s it, sweetheart,” he’ll tell you. “Gonna keep you nice and full of me till it takes. Keep you both forever.”

Forever. Forever. Forever. It doesn’t sound so bad now, when you weigh it in an empty head run on nothing but the scent of him. You would want for nothing. You, and whatever this piece of him would come to be, protected, loved even, by a man you are supposed to despise.

“Now,” you suddenly hear him command, and your body does the rest of the work for you. Releasing the flood of euphoria and drenching your trembling limbs in it.

He’s grunting in your ear, cock swelling, and spilling inside of you with a roar. Even when he’s finished, he’s still thrusting into you—slower now, carefully fucking every last drop of his seed inside of you.

Every last drop is precious, he’d tell you those first few times, back when you would scream and thrash in a feeble attempt to get him out of you. As if you could ever conquer a man like him, an unmovable force, austere in his pursuit of anything and everything. He always gets what he wants, and what he wants now—

“Easy. Easy, there, sweetheart.” He’s petting the side of your head, turning it for you so that your cheek is pressed into the pillow and you can gulp down mouthfuls of air. “That’s right, deep breaths. Just gonna stay like this for a little while,” he coos, and you hardly notice the stretch of him, plugged all the way up inside of you, until he wiggles his hips a bit and a residual spurt of come leaks into you. You both groan in unison.

Your eyelids grow heavy as your breaths even out; even with the overwhelming sensation of him still all around you, inside of you, you feel an odd sense of peace. Every muscle in your body was pulled taut, now utterly relaxed, satiated. He must feel you settled, because he begins to trail open-mouth kisses across your shoulder, your neck, the base of your sweaty scalp.

“Have a good feeling about this one,” he whispers, and you shudder when one of his hands squeezes between your body and the mattress, and splays firmly over your belly. “Be all swollen before you know it, princess.”

He nibbles at your earlobe, and you whimper. He chuckles rather darkly in response.

“Yeah, you like picturin’ it, don’t you?”

Maybe it’s conditioned, or self-preservation.

“Yes…. yes, sir,” you sigh.

But you can almost hear it yourself. That semblance of truth come to the surface.

You trail a shaky hand under you, finding his, and laying it atop. If you try hard enough, you can feel the phantom outline of a different body, bigger, accommodating new life.

A new life is all you’ve ever wanted.

You feel yourself slip past the threshold of slumber before you can dwell on it any longer, but for a fleeting moment, you acknowledge that truth once more.

It feels strange.