made an account just to post tlou fanfiction because this show has me in a chokehold and also Joel Miller made me discover that i have daddy issues (Finch, 23 - any pronouns)
hello! :3 welcome 2 my blog <3 all of my works are about Joel Miller from The Last of Us (HBO)!
here is some info about my fics: (doing multi parts mainly most recently!!)
f! = she/her pronouns, v! = vaginal sex ; the most physical description given in any fic is having hair ; majority of fics do not use y/n ; all smut is 18+ ; every fic has detailed warnings
if any labels are incorrect please let me know!
(listed in order of when posted, most recently at top)
FICS (>1kwords)
Home fluff, smut, f!, v!
Tender fluff, non-gendered
Pheromones smut, fluff, f!, v!
Bond fluff, f!
Safe angst, fluff, non-gendered
Harshness and Tenderness Stand Side by Side angst, fluff, non-gendered
Breaking glass angst, fluff, smut, v!
Finally angst, fluff, smut, v!
Wise Fools angst, fluff, smut, v!
What is Thicker Than Water angst, fluff, f!
Let Go angst, fluff, non–gendered
Just Come With Me angst, non–gendered
The Day the Music Died fluff, f!
BLURBS (<1k words)
Puppy fluff, non–gendered
Self Preservation angst, fluff, non–gendered
You Keep Going for Family angst, fluff, non–gendered
Bask fluff, non–gendered
It’s Gonna Have To Be Enough fluff, angst, non–gendered
Unload and Reload smut, non–gendered
Animal Control angst, fluff, f!
Drink Up and Look at the Stars fluff, non–gendered
Don’t Let Me Go fluff, angst, non–gendered
At the End of a Long Day smut, v!
Melt fluff, angst, f!
REQUESTS
Joel angst angst, fluff, f!
Boston QZ Joel smut, fluff, f!, v!
“Clingy” reader fluff, angst, f!
Love languages fluff, non–gendered
Jealous reader angst, fluff, non–gendered
Pregnant reader angst, fluff, f!
Insecure!Joel angst, fluff, non-gendered
MULTI PARTS
Baby Blue angst, fluff, smut, f! v! Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7
Stranger angst, fluff, smut, f! v! Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7
Cleardune fluff, smut, angst, f! v! Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
Filth fluff, smut, f!, v! Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Battery fluff, angst, smut f! v! Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Summary: Joel wrestles with the push and pull, but as always, finds himself back at the diner Saturday night. Despite his terror of your reaction, he finally opens up about his past, revealing all the dirtiest parts of himself.
Word Count: ~5.9k
Warnings: Talk of: child abuse, violence, abuse in adulthood, very heavy drinking, very brief mention of drug dealing, very brief mention of parental death (mother) and spousal abuse. Pet names (sweetheart, honey, sweet girl, baby girl)
A/n: Three cheers for a tragic backstory
link to previous chapter
—
Joel pays the howling dogs of his halfplex neighbors no mind as he unlocks his front door and steps into the darkness, using the moonlight granted by the gaps in the blinds to find his way through the house. He leaves his boots where he takes them off, throws his jacket onto the back of a chair, and tosses his keys on the dining room table, which halt at a half full styrofoam takeout box that he’d forgotten to throw out.
The walls are mostly bare, furniture sparse. Cheap, and only what’s necessary. A few keepsakes are shoved in his closet, only for him, though he never looks at them anymore anyway.
In his room, Joel strips and throws it all on the heap of laundry spilling out of a basket in the corner. He opens the drawer of his nightstand, reaching past the gun and emergency switchblade to pull out a bottle of high strength acetaminophen. He dry-swallows a couple, pulls on sweatpants, and throws himself into bed.
With a sigh, he shuts his eyes. Thinks of you, in your house, in your own bed. Are you asleep already? Dreaming? Maybe you’re showering. Maybe you take long ones. Brushing your teeth, maybe. Or just lying there, awake with your eyes closed, just like him. Thinking of him. Wishing he had stayed.
“Fuck.” He mumbles through his teeth, turning on his side as if affronted by the bed itself. Shut up. Go to sleep. You asshole. Shut up. It was the right thing, too attached already. You made her sad, you fucking asshole. Joel shoots up, blowing out a breath as if he’d been unintentionally holding it, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
The window he faces has an ashtray and half full pack of smokes on the sill.
A striked match lights up his face, then is whipped out and tossed in the ashtray. He leans against the frame of the window, peering out through the crack he has the smoke escaping out from.
He usually loses sleep after he leaves you.
—
It’s Monday. Joel almost threw a wrench at the new kid this morning. But he didn’t. Good boy.
He knows this will pass—the irritability and general discontent, the impossible guilt of so many names like mud sucking his boots down into the ground.
No matter how sure he is that it’s wrong, he just keeps walking right back to you, but still, never to stay. He talks himself into leaving, talks himself into staying away, talks himself into coming back, talks himself into staying longer, talks himself into leaving again. Is this really what being in love is like? How do you make it stop?
Things have gotten shakier since he lost himself in the diner. The line he walks has gotten thinner, feet now balancing right along the razor’s edge. Something is starting to scream at him that this is the beginning of his one, true, final undoing. But your heart and what of it you give to him seems to be fucking irresistible, and Joel, finding himself deplorably helpless, is convinced that he will walk right into that end with his arms spread and mouth open.
This is the effect of Y/n—no matter how strong he begs his will to be, you tear it all down, and defeat him. This is what it’s been like since the night he met you: an agonizingly willful defeat.
‘No harm done,’ yeah, right.
“Hey, uh, Joel,” utters a nervous, teenage voice above the angry clicks of Joel’s torque wrench, “what do you do about a um—“
“Fuckin’ Christ.” Joel mumbles to himself, dislodging himself from the uncomfortable crouch securing the lug nuts on a wheel, “Show me, I’ll fix it.”
—
Friday morning, Joel’s hand hangs out of the rolled down window of his truck, smoke running from the end of a cigarette as he drives. Fingers tapping on the wheel, he mouths absently along to The Miracle’s You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me flowing from the radio, and thinks of you, wishing today was tomorrow.
His heart has finally quit its griping, back like clockwork to longing for your sweetness like a leaf to the sun—a certain kind of need that doesn’t have to ask, just knows what it needs will be there.
Despite the hope and happy that shivers in his chest when he thinks of seeing you tomorrow night, there is a pinch of nerves right beside it, because maybe you just needed to sit on it for a few days to realize that you were wrong and he is right: Joel is a piece of shit.
His knuckles are scabbed over now, barely a touch of pain when he grips the stickshift to change gears and You’ll Lose a Good Thing starts bleeding from the speakers.
Regardless of it all, he knows he’ll be pulling into that parking lot tomorrow night, be drawn into the heavenly fluorescent lights just for the relief of the sight of you.
—
It’s Saturday, a full moon shedding plenty of light over the nearly empty parking lot, muted fluorescent buzzing canopying Joel as his boots scuff to a stop just outside of the diner. Taking one more hit off his cigarette, he searches for you on the other side of the glass. You’re smoothing your hands over the skirt of your uniform, lips pursed while you study the sugar caddies set before you as if looking for imperfections. With a quiet chuckle to himself, Joel tosses his cigarette into the pebbly ash urn, and reaches for the door handle.
The bell above the door sings, and you smile, grabbing a mug and filling it with coffee without even looking up to make sure it’s him.
“Long time no see. You still remember me, baby blue?” Joel smirks, taking his seat and a five out of his pocket, tapping it on the counter once before sliding it forward.
“You’re quite unforgettable.” You reply, taking the five and then laying your arms over the top of the cash register between you, setting your chin on top of them, and smile like you’re trying not to all out grin.
Lowly, he whistles. “Look at that smile—” he murmurs, smirk pulling further, “all for me?” You shrug, raising your eyebrows, and Joel hums. “Well, how lucky am I.”
“Thought I told you last week, none of it’s luck, you’ve earned it.”
Joel psh’s, dropping his head and shaking it. He raises it with a sigh, eyeing you, then juts his chin out, “Go on, finish up so we can get outta here.”
Still smiling, you rock your feet back, then turn to get back to flitting around on the other side of the counter.
“Did you think of me again today?” You ask, like it’s nothing, as you empty the last bits of cold, bitter coffee from the decanter into the sink, then set it in the expo window to be grabbed and ran through the dishwasher. Joel looks down, absently tapping a finger against his mug.
He had thought about you at least a little every day this week, from tearing his hair out to having his hand down his pants. “Yeah, I did.” He replies, clearing his throat. “It was funny, actually, uh…” he scratches at his beard, a nervous tic, “this guy came into the shop with this Alfa Arna—this shitty European car, real pain in the ass to work with, but the guy was in love with it. Anyway, it was this pretty blue color, and he called it his ‘blue baby’. So, it reminded me of you—” he explains, voice low and gruff, nodding to your uniform, “baby blue.”
A blush growing on your cheeks, you don’t say anything, just smile as you continue your closing dance while he quietly watches.
“How’s your hand?” You eventually speak again, glancing at him. “Oh,” Joel mumbles, flexing his fingers, having forgotten about it, “fine.” He holds it out for you to see, knowing you’d step right up to examine it. You hold his fingers to inspect the couple scabs on his first two knuckles. “Looks good,” you murmur, “does it still hurt?” Watching the way you hold his hand, Joel gives a light shake of his head. “You worry too much, sweetheart.” He gruffs.
“I worry just enough,” you reply, squeezing his fingers once before you turn away to grab the clean returned decanter and set it in its place in the machine. “You just don’t like it when I do.”
“You’re right about that.” He gruffs, taking a sip of coffee.
“Well that's just too bad.” You tell him, throwing a smile over your shoulder. He hums. It sure is. The whole thing is just too damn bad.
“Slow again today?” He asks after another sip of bitter coffee, changing the subject.
“Pretty busy, actually.” You reply, flicking the coffee machine off. “Dinner rush tired me out.”
“Not too tired I hope.” Joel returns, then buries his face in his mug, as if he’d just told you exactly what he’d like to do when you get home, screamed it, over the din of a full restaurant.
You smile, taking the rag out of your back pocket to wipe the sink and machine down. “No,” you murmur, and, if he didn’t know any better, he’d call your tone coy, “not too tired.”
Still deep in his coffee, Joel hums, swallows, and pulls a cigarette out of his pack, the flip of the zippo and following sizzle loud in the quiet restaurant. You seem completely unfazed from last week, and he knows you’re a bad actress; should he be relieved, or worried? He is both, and add confusion on top of that. A million questions fumble at the tip of his tongue, each fighting for their right: Are you sure you still want to see me? What the fuck are you thinking? Why? Is this love? How can you love me? Statements shoulder them as well: You’re too forgiving. You’re insane. I love you and it scares me. I really don’t want you to leave me. I really want to go home with you. I love you so much it makes me want to—
“I’m almost finished up. Just have to do money.”
Staring at his coffee, Joel nods. “Okay.” He mumbles, taking a long drag and tapping ash into the mug. “Take your time, I’ll be here.”
Joel keeps his gaze down for a few long moments, listening to the quick sifting of money in your hands as you count the drawer, the last thing left for you to do before you climb into his car and he climbs into you.
Suddenly, a strange feeling overcomes him—he really does love you. Every inch, every piece, he adores. There’s all his shit, the clamor and strain, all the grime built up for so long that it ends up blocking his vision, but in the heart of it all, he just really fucking loves you.
Joel looks up, watching your quiet concentration as he sucks down smoke and nicotine, then swallows hard. He wants to tell you, he wants to say it, he wants to finally just fucking admit it, blurt it out, quit all the pussy footing. But he's still got some screws left to keep his head on his shoulders, though, there to remind him that that would open a whole other can of worms that he won’t be able to handle. So, as usual, he says nothing.
“Alright,” you announce, closing the drawer and taking Joel’s useless mug of coffee, placing it in the expo window before you slide around the edge of the counter. Joel stands, cigarette hanging from his fingers as he follows you out into the parking lot.
“So, I was thinking about something,” you say from his side, shoes tapping against asphalt, “and I figured you’d be a good person to ask about it.” He glances at you, running a hand over your lower back and keeping it there. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“Getting a car. I have you to take me home from work on the weekend, which is really nice, but I’m tired of taking the bus around. Going to the grocery store’s kind of a bitch—hauling all those bags onto a bus, taking up two seats with all of it. I’ve been saving up, but I really don’t know much about cars or anything…”
“Well, how much do you have saved?”
“About two grand.”
Joel hums around his cigarette, not liking that answer. ‘About two grand’ won’t get you much—it would have to be a used car, at least five years old, no power steering, and air conditioning is out of the question. It might just end up as one of those cars that needs so much work done on it you might as well sell it right back, for way less than you’d spent on it. He can’t have that, can’t have you driving around in some ugly, death trap beater, not his girl, not you. “I’ll talk to a couple people, get you hooked up with something.” He nods, fully intending on using his own money to get you something good. You would refuse, which is why you don’t need to know.
“Really?” You smile at him.
He almost gives you a look. No shit, I'll make it happen, he wants to say, but just rubs his hand over your back again, guiding you to his truck. “‘Course, sweetheart. You know I got you.”
“Thanks.” You murmur, leaning into him for a moment before you get to the car and climb in.
“Are you sure?” You ask as you buckle in, brow drawn up, “About the car stuff, I mean. I don’t want to be a burden, or—”
“Don’t even say that word.” Joel, shaking his head, cuts you off as he shifts into gear and starts pulling out of the lot. “It’s not a problem, sweet girl, not a problem at all. I’m glad you asked, dealerships like to fuck people over, especially women, the sexists fucks. I wanna help you, alright honey? I like helping you. I wanna take care of you.” There’s a beat of silence, and Joel takes a long drag, wondering if that sounded as desperate as he fears it did. When you lean over and press a kiss to his cheek, he can feel your smile. “Thank you.” You say, running your hand once through his hair.
“Told you, no worries.” He mumbles over the wind wooshing from the open window.
“You do take care of me, y’know,” you murmur back, and he can see you looking at him out of the corner of his eye. To turn down your street, Joel is able to look away. He does the bare minimum, and still ends up fucking up, do you not see that? A terrible thought crosses his mind, that maybe your standards really are just that low. He swallows.
“You deserve a lot better than me, baby girl.” He says, flicking ash so hard the cherry falls out.
“Joel,” you gently scold him, combing your fingers through his hair a couple more times as you try to reaffirm, “you’re good. You’re great. You’re good to me.”
“I—” he cuts himself off, tossing his cigarette onto the street. He runs his tongue over his teeth. “I’m tryin’.” He eventually finds, quiet, nodded.
“You don’t just try, you are.” You tell him, voice soft as you rub his hand set on the stick shift. Joel jaw clenches, not answering, your words doing the opposite of what you mean for them to.
Those feelings again, squabbling and writhing, water and oil. He wants it, he wants it, he wants it, but there’s no way for it to be true. He must be unknowingly manipulating you, hiding himself so well that you really do believe he is just another sheep. No matter what he does, no matter what he wants, he’ll always be sharp teeth and claws, a predator, a killer, always below you, scum, masquerading as something worth a damn.
You’re too good to him, forgiving things that shouldn’t be forgiven, and you don’t even know the half of it. Another predicament of his is the intense fear of if you ever were to find out, as well as the sickening guilt of letting you walk around with him, not knowing that you should stay away. There are no good options, and, because he’s weak, he’s been letting it go on like this, keeping you in the dark so he can see you every week, touch your skin, have you touch his.
And now he’s in your driveway, trying to act like he isn’t tearing up his own insides like an angry child.
“Come on,” you’re telling him quietly, tugging lightly at his seatbelt, the gentlest of pleads, “come inside.”
He doesn’t look at you, can’t bear to, cause if he does he’s afraid it’ll all come spewing out, and it’ll be the end of things, and he’s not ready for that. With a quick, small nod, Joel unbuckles his seat belt, and trails behind you, because he’s weak.
Once the front door is shut behind you, you, unusually, turn right to him, taking both of his hands, murmuring, “Come here,” and pulling him deeper into your house. You’re looking up at him with those incapacitating eyes, the ends of your lips curled so sweetly, and any thoughts of refusing or retreating are just dirty footprints left behind on your floorboards. “Too sweet,” he mumbles, almost too soft for he to hear himself, words trailing off as the thick soles of his shoes transition onto the carpet of your bedroom.
He’s fucked you in your bed… once. It’s always on the couch, maybe against a wall, on the floor if he really loses himself, but he doesn’t go into your bedroom. It feels too intimate, your sheets make him feel dirtier, leaving sooty stains where you sleep, and his smell right there in your pillow for you to miss.
Your hands pull his body close, then snake into his hair as you bring your lips to his. “Sweetheart–” he manages to mumble before his feeble complaint is buried in the inexorable call of your taste.
Automatically, his hands are on you, slipping into your hair and around your waist, holding you in place to pull it all in, working his mouth on yours. It never takes long for thoughts to thin when he has you like this—when you have him like this.
“I love how you kiss me,” you murmur after a moment of it with your intoxicating voice, and Joel draws in a breath, stroking the skin at the back of your neck. “I love kissing you.” He whispers back, pulling you back in for more. He wants more, more and more and more, wants more than he can handle, more than he should, more than he deserves.
Joel’s head suddenly drops, breaking the kiss.
You try to pull him back, but he shifts out of your grasp. Eyes closed, he turns his back. Your hand trails down his arm, hooking a finger around his, but he lets it drop to flick on your bedside lamp.
“Joel?” You murmur, “What’s wrong?”
“I just…” his voice is tight, eyes shut. “I can’t do this anymore. I mean—not, not us, that’s not what I meant, just—” running his hands over his face, he huffs a sigh, heart starting to burn and drum. “There’s just… there’s stuff. Stuff that you don’t know. That you should–that you should know. About me.”
He doesn’t turn to look at you yet, standing there with his hands on his hips, staring at the carpet, internally screaming and kicking the shit out of himself, but he can’t back out now.
“Joel…”
“Just uh,” he squeezes his eyes tighter, swallowing. He’s not ready for this all to end yet, but he can’t stand to look at you again, have you kiss him, so ignorant of it all, so trusting of this wolf. Slowly, he drags his feet over to the bed, and sits down.
Staring at his hands in his lap, thumb rubbing long and hard against the scabs on his knuckles, he feels you sit down next to him.
“You can talk to me.” You say, petal soft, sounding completely unafraid.
“It’s ugly stuff.” He says, watching how his skin turns white when he presses hard enough to bother the nerves. “I… I don’t wanna tell you, sweetheart, because I don’t want for you t—I just, I don’t wanna scare you off, but,”
“You won’t.”
Joel shakes his head, closing his eyes again. “You don’t… you don’t know, Y/n,” he replies, quiet voice colored by a horrible pleading.
“Stop doing that.” You whisper, “You don’t have to be so careful. I’m not clueless, you know.”
“No,” he grimaces, “I know you’re not, honey,”
“No, I’m not. I just haven’t asked you yet. I hope you know by now that I care about you.”
“I know, I do, but I—”
“I see you so much differently than you see yourself, Joel.” You tell him, quick to cut off his self loathing ramblings, keeping your soft tone. “And it’s not so black and white.”
“Nothing’s black and white, I know that, trust me—”
“You act like this is, though, like I can’t… like my feelings are just gonna turn on a dime. And that you’re some terrible guy when you’ve never done anything to make me think that, and, can you just… believe me? Let me feel how I feel?”
Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Joel stays quiet for a moment, suddenly seeing how self absorbed he’s been, assigning thoughts to you without actually letting you decide them yourself. Though he’s still pretty goddamn sure he’s right about how this conversation will end, he knows he owes it to you, double, now.
“Okay.” He finally murmurs. “Yeah. I can. I'm sorry, honey.”
“It's okay,” you murmur back, running your hand over his thigh, “just talk to me.”
With a deep sigh, he nods again, raising his head to stare instead at the wall. He searches it for a moment, gathering himself, sitting right on the edge of the before and after of this and allowing himself to stay there for a moment. He studies the posted pictures and hung art on the wall, lets his eyes skip over what you keep on your nightstand, the way your lampshade casts the light, locking it in his head, his last chance to get to see any of it. He places his hands on the bed, running his fingertips over the fabric of your comforter, feels the give of it.
Finally, he rips off the bandaid.
“I grew up poor, way down south.” He begins his dreaded monologue, “Never really stood a chance. One brother, younger—his name’s Tommy. Always a good kid. Deserved a hell of a lot more. Anyways… mom died when we were pretty young, she was shot. My dad got angrier after that, alcoholism got worse—I know grief, y’know, grief’s a bitch, but he was always a piece of shit. Now that my mom wasn’t there to beat, it was just me and Tommy, so that got worse. He was the type to make your lip bleed and tell you he was better than his father ever was to him, so you should be grateful. Real piece of fuckin’ work.
“I was in the game by thirteen, fourteen,” he continues, “on the street corner, y’know; we were dirt fuckin’ poor, dad spent all his money on the drink, so I had Tommy to look after. Dealin’ drugs, fightin’ for money—I could take a beating, and I always just imagined it was my dad I was beating on. And then uh…” Joel swallows hard. “When I was eighteen, my dad… broke my brother’s arm. Just… his screams,” Joel shakes his head, brow furrowing, “I’ll never forget the sound of it, just fuckin’ wailing, and then my dad… pushed him against the wall and put his hand over his mouth to shut him up, told him to stop his cryin’, and I just… lost it. I was bigger than him by then, much stronger, I mean I was fit, and he was a chronic alcoholic, y’know, so it wasn’t hard to… put him in the hospital. I was so fuckin’ close to having enough to get Tommy and I outta there, too, and I was eighteen, so I had this whole plan to get custody over him. Instead, I got five years in prison. Aggravated assault. Judge didn’t give a fuck that he beat us, that he broke a thirteen year old’s fuckin’ arm, that I was the one payin’ for everything, nah, none of that mattered. They didn’t care. Didn’t feel like anyone really gave a fuck.
“Anyway. In prison, I got better at what I was already doin’, fightin’ and all that. Learned how to work all that shit with people, y’know, really learned how to play the game. By the time I got out, my brother had joined the marines, and my dad had been dead for a few years, mixing painkillers with the drink after he got out of the hospital. I had nothing when I got out, not my fuckin’ wallet, no one to write me one of those rehabilitation letters to get me into the army, not a snowballs fuckin’ chance in hell of getting into college or anything like that, and it’s hard to find work when you got a record like mine. But, I needed to make money.”
Joel closes his eyes, sighing deep through his nose as it all comes flooding back, remembering how he felt back then, how fucking hard life was, how lonely it was, all the anger and despair, and then the numbness. God, the numbness, broken only by outbursts of grief, hatred, more despair.
He stays quiet for a moment, trying to calm himself. Your hand has been on his for a while, and though he can’t bear to hold it, the feel of it helps. Somehow, it’s not as hard to tell you all this as he thought it would be, it just sort of spills out—nice to have someone to tell it all to, he supposes.
“Got into security.” He resumes. “Not like at a club or somethin’ official and… proper, like that—a ‘for hire’ kinda thing, though I did have a boss. Drug deals, arms deals, big timers, stuff like that. I was the muscle, like a body guard. There were other gigs too, debt collecting sometimes, sometimes he just wanted me to… rough people up, y’know, people that crossed him, did something they weren’t supposed to, or that he thought were gonna do something they weren’t supposed to do. I was… it was… twisted. It was like I was… his dog, or somethin’. But I got paid.” Joel nods to himself, swallows. His voice comes out quieter, low and rough. “I… hurt a lot of people. Forgot my own strength more than once. Scared the shit out of myself, just like I scared other people. I never liked it,” he turns his head to you to emphasize, but looks away just as fast. “I never wanted to hurt people. I wanted to protect people, but even in the beginning it was never anyone really worth protecting, and in the end it was just… I just…” Joel blinks, searching the wall again for something he never quite figured out. “I let things change, I guess, just… watched them change. Didn’t feel like I had any real control over anything. And I was used to it, y’know, my life was always violence. But I just… got so… fuckin’ miserable, I mean, just miserable. I hated myself. Really fuckin’ hated myself. It all just made me so fuckin’ sick.
“I started drinking, which was its own thing in my head, with my dad and all, y’know. But I just, wanted to be able to just stop fucking thinking sometimes, y’know? Wanted to be able to fuckin’ sleep. I saw what drug addiction looks like, how fucked you are, how much of a fucking slave people become, wanted no fuckin’ part of that, so I drank heavy. And with all the stress, plus the alcohol, started getting stomach ulcers, and these headaches, these really terrible headaches; I couldn’t stay asleep, all the nightmares, and I just, I felt like I was dyin’, I dunno. The drinking was gonna kill me if I kept at it like that, and I was not gonna fucking go out like that. And I was just fucking, sick of it. Fucking, all of it.
“So… I quit drinkin’, started trying to find a way out of the business I was in. But it’s not like quitting any other job, you can’t just put your two weeks in, y’know? They want to keep you sucked down in all of it, doing all their dirty work, and I was… I was good at it, they liked me. But I was fucking, done. I didn’t want my life to just be violence, I didn’t want to be that, and I was sick and fucking tired of being someone’s fucking dog.” Sighing, Joel rubs his hands over his face, setting them on his knees as he looks at the floor. “...I had a good enough standing that they let me go eventually,” he nods, “let me try and get a fresh start. So I moved here, found the auto shop, figured I’d try to fix things instead of breakin’ ‘em. Good at that, now, workin’ on cars. It’s been a few years. Left all that shit behind. Tried to, at least. Trying. I’m trying.”
There’s a long moment of silence, the air, to Joel, feeling thick. Finally, he turns to look at you. “That’s what happened.” He says quietly, regret and a feeling of imppending doom like a boulder in his chest. He lets his eyes wander your face, observing a shocking tenderness, sympathy and care, and what appears to be sorrow. Joel swallows, waiting for it to change, for it to switch into revulsion and disdain and for you to mock him for even thinking someone like him could be looked at with anything but.
But it doesn’t change.
“I’m sorry.” You whisper, and he tenses, waiting for it.
“Why?” He swallows. Here it comes.
“That all that happened to you.”
Brow pinching, Joel blinks.
“That’s terrible.” You shake your head lightly, looking all but brokenhearted, “I’m so sorry you had to live through all of that. That’s awful.” Your hand reaches up to run it over his cheek, cupping his jaw. He doesn’t move, can’t move. What? “You’re so strong, Joel, I don’t think I could make it through that.” And then you’re moving closer, wrapping your arms around him and setting your head on his shoulder, whispering again, “I’m so sorry, Joel.”
Joel, stupified, sits there like an idiot. He had not planned for this, not once did it cross his mind that you might be… sympathetic, that you’d call him strong rather than a monster. Trying to make it all work in his head, he blinks a few more times, but it’s no use, brain twirling around itself in a daze. His hand comes to set itself on your lower back, his touch light and hesitant.
“I can go,” he murmurs, staring at the wall, “I’ll leave, I won’t hurt you if you tell me to, I swear, I’ll just go, and you won’t ever see me again, I promise.”
“No,” you whisper into his neck, wrapping him up tighter, “I don’t want you to go, Joel. Don’t go. Please stay.”
He’s frozen for another moment, short circuiting. His free hand pinches his thigh, hard. Then, he closes his eyes, and wraps you up right back, nuzzling into the crook of your neck, and inhales.
“You’re not scared?” He whispers, muffled against your skin, “You’re not disgusted?”
“No, Joel, no, no.” You whisper back, stroking his hair as your other hand runs slowly up and down his back, and it’s so warm and tender and soothing that finds himself having to fend off tears. “You’re still the same Joel I know. Just makes me understand more. Thank you for telling me. I want to know you, Joel. Ugly stuff, too.”
“Most of it’s ugly.” He rasps back.
“Not you, though.”
“Are you calling me pretty right now?” He huffs into your skin, eyes on the ceiling as he begs his tear ducts to behave themselves.
With a soft chuckle, you pet his hair once, leaving your hand there. “Well, you are very pretty, but I meant the stuff inside, too. Your heart is good. Some part of you has to know that much.”
Joel’s chest tightens, lip wobbling, just a little.
He wants to be good. He wants it more than anything. He knows his intentions are good, the problem is that he seems doomed to blow it all up the second he lifts a finger. Sometimes it all makes him feel like a child—everything becomes very simple, and he just feels very sad, like he’s watching the house of cards he’d just spent hours perfecting collapse, like someone’s just kicked down his sandcastle.
Joel just wants to be good.
“I want to be.” His voice has gone thick, not noticing his hand gripping the fabric on your back. “I’m trying to be. To be good. I really am trying, Y/n.”
“I know you are,” you slide your hands from around him, taking his face in your hands to meet his eyes, brow upturned and eyes shiny, “I know you are, and you are good, my Joel is so good.”
Joel’s chest is tight and hot, clenching his jaw as he feels another wave of tears threatening him. You must be able to see it, because something breaks in your face, and with one more whisper of his name, you pull him closer, pressing your forehead against his before finding his lips with yours.
Joel’s hands raise to cradle your face, eyes squeezed tight. It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense… the longer you kiss him, the less he cares. Joel’s fingers card through your hair, pressing kisses to the corner of your lip, I love you, your chin, your cheeks, one along the edge of your jaw, I love you so much I don’t know what to do with it, behind your ear, your temple, your forehead, then back to your lips, I love so much.
“Joel, Joel, Joel,” you whisper as he goes, fingertips skimming down the side of his neck, over the veins in his hand, then slide into his hair as you dip down to meet his lips again.
Strong arms wrap around your waist, tugging you against him, and your ribcages locked together, your breaths pressing into his, Joel is overcome with the love.
In a moment, you’re straddling him, fingers splayed over his jaw as you kiss, mouths chasing the others, as if asserting again and again that neither of you are leaving.
“Spend the night,” you suddenly break the kiss to ask, breathless and pleading, and this time, unable to help himself, Joel nods, running both hands over your hair before he holds your face in them as he whispers, “Okay.” He presses his forehead against yours, “Okay, I’ll stay.” You surge into another kiss, then pepper them down his neck as he whispers, “I’ll stay, baby girl, I’ll stay.”
Insomnia fueled snip of Like God Needs the Devil to put those who remain unconvinced that I have not killed Joel at ease as I finish up the final bit of this fic.
Evidence: Ellie having a hard time facing Joel post killing spree.
See, he breathes. Even if he is now missing some parts. They were non-vital, it's fine.
Summary: Back at your house, Joel feels out of place, guilty about his behavior at the diner. You try to soothe his worries, though it still doesn’t make sense to him. Unavoidably, things get hot and heavy, but when the heat has subsided, Joel is back to the same old guilt, shame, and self hatred that has him pushing himself away from you.
Word Count: ~6.7k
Warnings: Smut (PiV riding, creampie (always use protection kids I just think its really fucking hot), light spanking, big peener, dirty talk, you spit in his mouth, hella pet names (sweetheart, honey, sweet girl, pretty girl, baby, pretty baby, baby girl)), cigarette smoking, Joel hates himself
A/n: hello 🫶 welcome to part 2! part 3 is like ⅓ of the way done and all the rest are pretty muscular skeletons so far. been working on this like constantly so shouldn’t be too long :) also, want to be clear real quick that when i say ‘small’ in reference to the reader it’s strictly metaphorical!! i mean for my x readers to be as accessible to people's appearances as possible, and fr if there is some reader description aspect i should omit or adjust lmk! anyways hope you all enjoy!!!
link to part one
—
While your keys jangle in the lock, Joel averts his gaze. He should refuse the beer, because a beer is gonna lead to something else, and can he be any more selfish? He should leave, he should leave and never come back, but you open the door and your place smells like you and it’s like the song of a fucking siren.
Shrugging off your jacket and toeing off your shoes, you tell Joel over your shoulder, “I’m gonna go change, I’ll just be a minute,” then adding as you pad down the hall, “make yourself at home.”
He’s never told you how much he hates when you say that—as if a place like this could ever be home for someone like him; how much he wishes it could be. God damn it, get a hold of yourself, Miller, stop with all this weird pussy shit and be fuckin’ normal for her.
Glancing around familiar surroundings, Joel does concede, pulling off his own jacket and hanging it next to yours on the coatrack, sitting down on the couch to untie his boots and set them to the side.
He runs his hands over his knees, because despite the dozen times he’s been here, tonight feels different; he’s even more out of place within the personal decorations, the photos on the walls and distinctive touches. Because there is blood drying on his knuckles. Because he could have killed that guy. And he kind of wishes he had. Why did you invite him in?
Before he can truly ponder, you’ve returned, stopping by the kitchen around the corner from the living room he’d entered into in your t-shirt and sleep shorts, the sound of two bottles being popped open before you find him on the couch. You look so small. Shit.
He takes the bottle you hand him and watches with hidden rapt as you assume your spot curled up in the crook of his automatically outstretched arm, watches how the fabric creases where your thigh meets your hip and how your hair sits as you grab the remote and turn on the TV that will soon be forgotten—a buffer, noise to make out to, noise that won’t stand a chance against the ones that he’ll be pulling from you soon enough.
As you channel surf, Joel takes a hefty swig of his beer and tries to tamp down the flutter in his chest and groin from your idle touch along his bicep. Fuck.
With fingertips much rougher but no less light, he returns it, slowly passing them along the seam of your stomach. And here comes the soft, absentminded sound of your relaxation, and you snuggle closer, and, if for just a moment, everything else is lost to him.
Then, you pass him the remote and murmur, soft and smooshed against his chest, “You pick.”
As if he really gives a fuck, Joel takes it along with another gulp of cold beer. Then, squeezing you a little closer, he clears his throat and flicks around until he lands on a comforting old western. A black and white, with good guys and bad guys and horses racing down open roads—what he used to watch when he believed in stuff like a clear right and wrong, justice, the option of escape, a fresh start. It’s nice to remember what it felt like to believe, he supposes.
“How’s this?” He murmurs, and you allow it with a hum. He can never tell what you really think when he chooses one of these—if you like it, or if it just matters as little as it does to him compared to the inevitable events of the night ahead.
Once he sets the remote aside, his attention turns back to you, hiding it in a swig of beer he then holds against the side of his chest you’re not currently occupying. You take a sip of yours before setting the bottle on your coffee table, and he knows you know what you’re doing when you place that hand over his trap muscle, palm on his collarbone and thumb sitting on the smaller veins of his neck.
Shit.
Like a call to attention, he sets his own beer beside yours, and wraps both arms around you, stretching out his legs, one basically between yours while yours is bent over his knees. And now he is decidedly fucked.
Even more fucked is he when you shift your cheek, looking up to at him with those fucking eyes and that fucking voice asking him, “Are you okay?”
His is much gruffer than yours, but quiet in the privacy of your home. “Yeah, ‘m fine, sweetheart.”
Then, you turn yourself to lay belly to belly, not quite straddling him, but the implications of that certain nearness is soon pushed from his focus when you reach up to run tender touches across his face, thumbs making delicate little crescents under his eyes. He stills.
“What’re you doin’?” He gruffs, trying desperately not to blush.
“Nothing.” You reply.
“Feels like somethin’.”
“Just touchin’ you.”
“Why?” He asks, voice raspy with quietness.
“Why not?” You murmur back, the pad of your thumb still smoothing under his eye, the other reaching up to run your index just as delicately over the bridge of his nose. Joel sighs softly, gaze flicking around your face, observing sweetness, tenderness. His jaw twitches, teeth briefly clenching.
“Feels different.” He responds in a near whisper.
You chuckle. “You don’t like it?”
Joel struggles for a moment, torn. Hands smoothing up and down your sides, he finally mumbles, “Didn’t say that.”
Something’s pulling at his sleeve, though—the everpresent contrast between you and him. The sound of flesh pounding flesh flicks like a channel in his head, the feeling of bone under his knuckles, the sort of quiet that happens with that kind of rageful concentration. And then the drip of the faucet as you dabbed at the fresh, bright blood on his skin. The softness of your palm over his. The simple, caring focus that dappled your features.
Joel’s been in more fights than he can count. And sure, he’s had people fix him up, bandage him, throw bags of freezer peas at him to press over a fresh shiner, even women that have looked at him with a lustful, faux kind of pity seeing the bruises and scars while in bed with him. He's had people give a shit when he's hurt and want him to get better. But that was all different. All transactional, empty, a show, or just to get him good enough to be shoved back into the ring. But with you, it’s genuine, it’s natural, selfless. It’s real; just you, caring about him.
His brain still can’t figure out where to put it. Shoved down somewhere deep is a terrible, aching yen to be cared for, to be able to let go, stand down and just have someone do something for him, to not be the caretaker, provider, shield, just for a moment or two. To be able to set it all down for a minute. And now, you’ve unknowingly awakened a biting craving to have you look at him like that, react immediately to help him, like its instinct to take care of him. It’s powerful, nearly overwhelming, it stops him in his tracks, makes him lose himself.
Then there’s the same old black hole of self loathing, knowing how wrong it is. Seeing the blood caking his fists and then you and your ignorance of the man that he is, what he’s done, what he’s built from, what he’s truly capable of. The wrongs, the sins, the misdeeds. You shouldn’t be touching him with such kind intention. He is the lion and you are the lamb, cleaning blood from his canines. How can you watch him grab a guy and crack his teeth, break his nose and let the blood spray all over the fucking diner you work in, and just… pull him to the back, put fucking Neosporin on his knuckles and ask him if the bandage is too tight, how can you want him in your home, touching you and picking the TV channel like nothing fucking happened? You’re not stupid, and he knows it’s not a kink, so what in the name of God is going on in your head?
“After tonight, at the diner,” Joel finally speaks, then pauses, watching your face, voice quiet and guarded in a way, “...you don’t seem scared, of me.”
“No,” he replies, tone husky, quiet, quick and sure. “I wouldn’t. But… you didn’t deserve to… see that. All that.. blood, n’ me, like that. Violence like that.”
With a light shake of your head, you reply, almost whispering, “I don’t see it like that.”
Joel huffs, then goes quiet, trying to find some way to piece this together in his head. Another fight starts to rumble in him, pained groans and sharp nails. What are you thinking? You should be scared. You should keep him at arms length, at the absolute least, especially after tonight. But God he wants you to see that he was just trying to protect you, wants you to see the good in him—he just wants to be good for you. He wants you to know that he’s trying to be different, trying to be better.
Violence is something he’s tried to leave behind, and letting anyone close enough to elicit the kind of reaction that he had tonight is something he’s been carefully avoiding for years. And for good reason, because no matter how hard he tries, it always ends up with a bull and a china shop.
Undeserving of it, he craves justification for this, for you, to earn it, to make it make sense, make it fair. Fuck, he wants to be good for once in his vile fucking life. But can he? Is that possible? Is there anything he can’t ruin? He wants it to be you, this, this, please, I want to do it right this time.
Feeling like a child, he quietly begs the sky, swearing that he’ll never ask for anything again if he can just be good for you.
Reality is a twinge from his knuckles when he flexes his hand, though, and in the scars on the others, in the red arc on his eye socket, in every fucking nerve in his body, in the blood on a table you had just wiped clean, in the satisfaction at the sound of beating that blonde fuck’s face in.
He can try. He can beg. But he knows that he will never be anything more than a brute.
Swallowing thickly, his voice is quiet when he finally responds. “I’m not a good man, Y/n.”
“I don’t think that’s true.” You’re whispering now, hands cradling his face in a way that would make him cry if he was a weaker man. “I don’t know how that could be true after what you did for me. How you are to me, how you’ve always been with me.”
He shakes his head faintly, voice quieter. “Honey, you don’t know me.”
“Not well,” you softly concede, “but I know enough. Sure, you were… intense, back there, but you were defending me. And I don’t need to know your story, how you learned how to fight like that, or where your scars are from to know that you’re kind to me.”
Joel closes his eyes, blinking deeply. It sounds so simple for you, so easy to deem him as good, like it’s some universal fact—the sky is blue, the sun rises in the east, you are kind to me.
“You’ve got no reason to think so highly of me.” He tells you, voice still quiet but rougher now.
“I have no reason not you.” You reply softly, and he opens his eyes again to meet an earnestness in yours, such fucking sincerity, no hesitation, no doubt. His expression flickers, and then he scoffs, “You say it like it’s that simple.”
“It is.”
Joel averts his gaze, jaw clenching as he fights to find any kind of clear line of thought within the impossible tangle created by your sure, uncomplicated faith in him. “How do you do that?” He murmurs.
Sounding so innocent, you reply, “Do what?”
He gives another faint shake of his head. “How do you… just… trust me, like that?” It comes out tight and rough, laced with an irritation towards himself.
“You’ve earned it.” You reply with a light shrug.
Soft. Simple. He aches, chest heating up like the mechanics of his damaged heart are working overtime trying to chew on everything you’re trying to convince him of and how you’re still cradling his face so gently with your body so relaxed on top of his. It does not make sense, it does not compute, it doesn’t apply, it’s absurd, it is illogical.
All he can manage in reply is a weak, “How?”
In your pause, your features soften further, and he watches the smallest, gentlest smile grace your lips.
“Joel,” you start, tone matching the insane way you’re looking at him, thumbs smoothing once, slow and steady along his cheeks; “you’ve always been gentle with me, and kind. You’ve never looked at me like I’m… a piece of meat, or a toy, or anything like that. You make me feel like… I’m… seen, as a person, as me. And you make me feel safe, Joel. Those guys—you were there, jumped in without a second of hesitation, defended me. No one has ever done something like that for me. You make me feel valuable, like I’m really worth protecting. And then I said your name and grabbed your arm and you just, stopped, and… I dunno, as soon as you looked at me I saw something… switch. And you weren’t angry at me, your voice was calm when you were talking to me afterward. I’ve never once been scared that you might hurt me. You’ve never given me any reason not to trust you, not to want to hold your hand and bandage it when your knuckles bleed.”
Joel blinks and swallows, his breathing picking up as you speak. It’s what he longs for you to feel and is terrified of you believing at the same time, a hopeless paradox that has him far more discomposed than he’s used to, let alone comfortable with.
Voice thick when he finally gets it to work, Joel is unable to find anything to say but the plain, modest truth, “Don’t know what to say to that.”
He knows he must look a mess, and he hates to look vulnerable like this, he can’t control his face, can’t control his heart. He hasn’t felt this lost in years. But this time is different, because it's you. He’s not a fist in a knife fight, he’s not stranded somewhere he knows he’s predoomed to be stranded in—he’s not in danger, it’s just you, and that gentle look on your face and your feathery voice replying, “You don’t have to.”
He blinks again. Then, slowly, he inhales through his nose, gaze flicking between your eyes, taking in the easy sincerity in them, then down to the whisper of curls at the ends of your adored lips. He takes a moment to notice everything, soaking up all of you for a moment of silent pause.
Eventually, he finds his voice again, not so tight and forced now, “You’ve got a habit of throwing me off, y’know that?”
Your lips curl further, that smile that always makes him soften like butter in a pan. “Sorry.” You mumble, but at your apology, he huffs out a breath. “Don’t be.”
Finally able to move again, he pulls his hands up from where they were resting a hold on your sides, brushing a hand through your hair while the other rubs lightly over your back. With his fingers on your scalp, Joel watches your eyes drift closed, shifting into his touch. “You’re so beautiful it makes angels look like ogres.” He mumbles—maybe a bit of deflection, but it’s true—and your following laugh loosens some of the knots in his chest. He loves doing that: dropping a compliment that gets a laugh out of you. Sometimes, he’ll think of one over the week and store it in his brain to deliver the next time he sees you.
After your laugh, you don’t reply, just bring your lips to his, keeping his face held in your hands. Joel can feel your smile, and he kisses you with an eagerness he can barely manage to suppress. It’s been a week, a whole seven days, since he has kissed you. Not that he’ll admit it, but he counts down the days, wishes Tuesday was Wednesday and Friday was Saturday, will stop and sighs at the memory of your lips. If he could, he’d have a flask of your spit, just to take the edge off.
The taste of it hits, and Joel inhales deeply, shifting to sit like a man awakened, nestling his hands into the hair at the base of your skull, the obnoxious twinge in his knuckles when he flexes them barely touching him. Your affect on him is unmatched, from setting fires in his head to ones in his gut, some fantastic, terrifying force that throws him onto his knees, over and over again.
You shift with him, sliding the impalpable heat of your pelvis over where he’s already hard. Yes, he’s a dog, a sap for you, but fuck if he cares about anything other than how you feel right now, being able to taste you, touch you, have you, have you enough times to know how to do it.
A soft moan from your lips, breathed into his mouth, your pants are undone, and his shirt is already halfway off from your hands slid up his chest.
There's something about breathing. His eyes are closed, and he can feel your hands, and your thighs, but all he can focus on is your breathing. Your inhales are quiet, but he can feel your exhales, some fanning out from your nose, but he likes the ones from your mouth best, when he can feel it over his lips a little wet from your kiss, when he can inhale it, the sensation like a taste in its own. You don’t need to be moaning, speaking, making any noise, even touching him, for him to know what he’s doing to you, all he needs are your lungs to tell him. And his hands aren’t even down your pants yet.
“C’mere, baby girl,” he whispers, bringing your mouth back against his, the tips of your tongues teasing each other. He licks your bottom lip gently, then takes it lightly between his teeth, pulling it back, before turning his head to properly kiss you, taste you, feel the soft slide of your tongue with his.
“Your spit tastes so good,” Joel pulls back just slightly to whisper, not much more than its own breath, and then there is your exhale, that taste again.
“Do you remember,” you whisper, a small breath, “that time you asked me to… do that thing?”
Joel’s mouth rolls open, then shuts, an extra rush of blood flowing promptly south. He opens his eyes, forgetting to speak for a moment as he gazes at the blessing of a sight that might be offering to spit in his mouth again.
Slowly, he nods.
“Do you want me to do it again?”
Joel’s hands loosen from your hair, curving around your face, one to hug the side of your neck, the other smoothing his thumb delicately over your wet bottom lip. His cock twitches in his jeans. “Fuck yeah I do.”
Oh so slowly, you straighten up, now perfectly perched, and use your hold on his face to tip it back. Obediently, Joel opens up his mouth, hands falling down to rest in the crease of your hips. Every second has him harder—watching the muscles of your cheeks, lips, jaw, move to work it up for him, your face from above, looking down at him, moving closer, the pucker of your lips as the tethered drip draws a line to his tongue. He pulls it back into his mouth, spreading the taste like he’s trying to bleed it into his tastebuds, now instinctively grinding up against you.
“Tastes so good, sweetheart,” he whispers, one hand back in the roots of your hair to pull you back down to him, whispering at your lips before kissing you again, deep and unabashedly lustful, “so good.”
He slides one hand down to your lower back, drawing your hips further down on his, an unmistakable gesture as he teethes at your bottom lip. And, fuck, your press your hips right back, and soon enough, a grind has commenced, like a shoreline, sand and sea begging for each other over and over. With an exhale against your lips, both of Joel’s hands settle on your hips again, guiding you, the heat that you elicit sparking to a burn, and he slips his fingers past the hem of your shirt. You pass a breath, the kind that encourages his hands traveling up your ribs until he finds your breasts, an inadvertent sound of appreciation rumbling into your mouth as he feels you up. “Such a pretty girl on top of me.” He murmurs, an inch away from your lips. “Like when I touch you like this?”
“Yeah,”
“Like feeling how hard I get from you? Sittin’ up there like a pretty bird? Ready to sing to me?”
“Mm—mmhm,” you nod, eyes falling shut.
“That’s it,” he drags a hand down to torso to slip past your undone jeans, feeling just over your underwear for now, and you raise right up for him, all but grinding into his hand, chirping and singing all the way. “Yeah, honey, there you go. Sweet girl sounds so sweet when I’ve got my hands on her like this. Use it, baby.” Like a good girl, you follow through, planting a hand on his shoulder and the other on his chest to help keep you steady as you roll little grinds against his fingers, wetness seeping through the fabric and birthing a soft moan from Joel. “Priests would sin for you, baby, I swear. Fuck, that’s it.” His world has narrowed down to this, his eyes designed to this dream in front of him, and he’s so hard it’s starting to hurt. “Wanna use this dick too, pretty girl?” He asks, both hands still sliding and pressing and holding, “Want me to fuck you til you cum on it?”
With a soft, chirped moan, you nod, a quiet little “Yeah,” but the heat of your tone is loud in his ears, as is the sound of his belt, button, and zipper taken apart by your hands.
“Fuck, so good to me,” he nearly slurs as he watches, straining against your hand before you pull his cock out of his boxers and push the fabric of those and his jeans down.
Then, you step off of the couch, and he can’t help but stroke himself as you pull down your pants and underwear, your shirt off, then plant yourself right back on top of him, all sultry eyes and parted lips. “Take this off,” you whisper, breathy as you loop your thumbs under his shirt. He's quick to comply, throwing it behind him, and then his hands are in your hair again as you guide him to your wet, needy entrance.
“Take your time, sweetheart.” Joel reminds you in a whisper as you ease the tip of his heavy cock inside, his eyes half lidded and drunk, “We got all the time in the world.” You hum with a little nod, lips parting for a soft exhale as you begin the process of relaxing, letting yourself adjust to each new inch. “Thats it,” he encourages softly, having to let out his own steadying breath, running his hands up and down your sides to calm himself as he twitches inside of you.
Finally, you widen your legs to sit snugly on top of him, taking him to the hilt with a quiet gasp, brow crinkled and gaze hazy. Hands nestled securely in your hair, Joel’s eyes shut, a low moan rumbling up his throat, but it stays behind closed lips, opening only slightly to let a breath seep out from between his teeth, senses fixed solely on the experience of your body in his lap with his cock wrapped up in the heat of you. “Fuck.” He whispers. “That’s it—that good, honey? Okay?” A little sigh of your own trickles from barely parted lips, and he’s soothed by your nod when he opens his eyes again. “Yeah?” Joel purrs, hands leaving your hair to run down your body—softly down your arms, up your sides, a light squeeze of your tits, down your stomach, around to cradle the curve of your ass. “Feels good when I’m inside you?” He gives a measured, gentle press up into you, watching through hooded eyes as your lips part further.
“Yeah,”
“Yeah? You want more, pretty girl? Want me to fuck you? Make you feel good—ain’t that right, baby? Just have you focus on feelin’ good. Nothin’ else but this.” Joel’s voice is soft, almost just as quiet as the sound of his hands sliding over your skin. His hips continue soft grinds, each impact reaching a little deeper inside you causing little reactions in your face and your breathing that have him throbbing.
“Please,”
No matter how many times he hears it, that one uttered word does him in every time.
“Don’t need to beg, sweet girl,” he whispers, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you close to keep you right where you are as he shifts on the couch, feet planted on the floor and legs spread for a better angle, better control. “It’s all for you.” Once he lets go, he settles his hands on the meat of your love handles, looking up at you with pussy drunk, puppy dog eyes. “You alright, honey?” He asks, making himself wait, “Feels good?”
“Yeah, yes,” you reply in that tone you get when you’ve got his cock inside you, nodding and rolling your hips, hands raking through his hair, “more, Joel, I want it… fuck me,” The look on your face was enough on its own, but those movements, that voice, those fucking words, make him moan like a teenager.
“Oh, baby girl, listen t’ you, look at you.” He whispers, hands sliding to your ass again, starting to use it to guide him in and out—easy at first, only a couple inches at a time. “Love watching you while you ride me, baby. You do it so well, you know that? Such a good girl.”
Your next breath is a moan, your hips twitching, both hands still knit into his hair. Joel keeps one hand on your asscheek while the other fits into your waist, helping you start to rhythm on him, bouncing in his lap. “Shit,” he whispers, feeling warmth start to flood his blood vessels, “that’s it.” He keeps watching your face, your parted lips, eyes looking down at him with hooded lids, the way they flutter with each stroke in. A low moan rumbles out of his throat, eyes darkening, breaths deeper as his body revels in each meeting of your hips. “God, baby,” he exhales, letting himself lean back on the couch, “could look at you all day, bouncin’ on my cock. Shit, ride me like that,”
When he leans back, so do you, straightening up, hands on his wrists as you use his guidance to ride him faster. Your breathing is quicker, jumping out, cut with soft moans. “Feels so good,” you moan, head tilting back. The hand on your ass moves up to your chest, cupping the underside of your breast, watching how they move as you do. As if on impulse, as he moans, Joel lands a smack to your ass, bumping another moan out of you.
“Fuck, yeah? You like my hands on you?” He murmurs.
“Yes,”
“Like how I fuck this pussy, pretty baby?”
“Mm, mhm, yeah,”
“Love how deep this pretty pussy can take it. You like that big dick, sweet thing?”
“Yes, God, feels so good,” you whisper amatively, both hands taking a hold of his hair again, arching your back and pressing closer, and now, he can hear your panting more clearly, feel it on the skin of his neck. Joel moans and smacks your ass again, guiding you harder, rougher. “God damn,” he pants, right back into the crook of your neck, “so fuckin’ good to me, baby, so good to me. Love this cock, huh? Like getting fucked deep—just like that, feels so good, that’s it, good girl, shit.”
You hum and moan and mewl and pant, pulling his hair and digging your fingertips in deep lines along the muscles of his back. Eyes squeezed shut and mouth open to moan, Joel starts thrusting up into you, meeting your downward motions halfway, the sound of damp skin on damp skin adding to the song you sing for him. One strong arm wraps around your waist, just above the curve of your ass, holding you against him he starts to fuck up into you at a stronger pace. His other hand is back in your hair, keeping his mouth at your ear as he purrs, breathless and heady with lust, “Such a tight fuckin’ pussy. Love fuckin’ you, baby, sweet girl takes it so good. That's my good girl, huh? She takes this cock and loves every second of it, lets her man make her feel so fucking good.”
“Don’t stop,” you moan, soft but long and desperate, just as lost in it as he is.
“Nah, not until you cum, baby girl, not until you cum on it.” He murmurs back into your ear, hand crawling deeper into your hair to take it into a firm hold, keeping you there as gently as he can manage, as the other grips your ass tighter, fucking you harder. “Ah, shit, god damn—fuck. God you’re so good t’ me, fuck, baby, just like that. Such a perfect pussy. Take it just like that, just like that, baby girl.”
“Joel,” you mewl, breaths quick, close to little gasps, “please, right there, please—yes, oh, fuck like that like that like that,” wrapping your arms securely around his shoulders, you moan into his neck. Little yes’s pour out of you as you reach a hand into his hair again, and Joel knows he’s hit the jackpot. His breathing is heavy and uneven, small moans escaping his open mouth with each stroke as he fucks you just how you want. “Right there? Right there, baby?” He murmurs breathlessly in your ear, “Is my sweet girl gonna cum for me? Squeeze my cock with her pretty pussy?”
“Yes, oh-ho fuck,” you sing with tight pleasure, the muscles of your stomach and sides starting to clench.
“Yeah she is, good girl. Cum on my cock, Y/n, make a mess on me, god I wanna make you cum. Let me feel it, that’s it. That’s it, good girl.” He can feel it, knows what your body does when you’re close, knows how you sound when you’re right on the edge. He gives your ass a quick smack, gripping it again, his hum deep and lewd, mixed with the sound of your louder moan. “That's right, y’ sound so pretty, Y/n. I want it—God, gimmie that pussy baby I wanna make you cum on my cock, god, fuck. That's it. That's it, lemme make you cum, baby girl.” He encourages, voice getting louder against the sound of your moans and whimpers and cries as you shiver and clench and dig your nails into the thick muscles of his shoulders. Joel’s stomach starts to clench, lifting his hips higher, smacking against your pelvis, driving into you fast, hard, deep, his eyes squeezing shut as his mouth falls open.
More than anything else, this is what gets him off—getting you off. There have been times he's been between your legs, not even touching himself, but your hands are pulling his hair with your thighs clasped around his head and he’s came in his jeans while the taste of yours explodes on his tongue.
“Fuck, baby girl, cum on me, yes, fuck—I’m close, sweetheart, you’re gonna make me cum.” He's mumbling now, slurring in a deep voice as he huffs his breaths and feels your pussy close in around him. “Thats it, Y/n, that’s it, baby, let me make you cum. Yeah, yes, yes, good girl, keep goin’, keep cumming on my cock, please oh fuck. Oh fuck.” Joel sucks in a breath, his pacing becoming quick and uneven, holding you down tight as you moan and curse long and loud, your hips jerking and gyrating to ride it out on his cock. Joel can only moan, louder, breathless and drunk on it as he drives up into you in quick, short bursts, his orgasms coming on like a tidal wave, strong and overwhelming. “Baby—” is the only word he has left, his needy tone one that belongs exclusively to the moments before you make him cum.
With labored gasps and moans, Joel erupts inside you, grip strong and tight, holding you down on his lap as he grinds his cum as deep as he can inside you, muscles straining and shuddering. You pop out a high moan at the sensation, gripping his biceps and leaning back in his arms. With a strong shiver, you chirp a last few little moans, while he chokes on his breaths, squeezing and pressing for one more drawn out drain inside you.
Eventually, slowly, you both start to relax, left stuck together, twitching and panting as you float back down to earth.
You’re the first to move, loosening your hold to press gentle kisses along his neck. Sighing, Joel lets his head tilt back, releasing one hand to let it run over your hair. “Fuck.” He breathes out, forgetting why he would ever be so hesitant to fuck you.
But then, unfortunately, he remembers, because now that the heat is gone, his knuckles are angry from the neglectful way he had been clenching his hand around your body. Out of your sight, he grimaces, then lets out another breath. With his undamaged hand, he gives your ass a little rub and pat, signaling for you to get up. Reluctantly, you do, climbing off and throwing him a little glance as you bend to retrieve your clothes. Joel, sighing, stands, pulling himself back together, putting himself back into his jeans and doing them up. Once you’re clothed, Joel takes a step to you, running his hand up and down your side in a fleeting touch with a short, soft kiss to your lips, and then turns away.
This is the part of the night that neither of you like. The part where the world reveals itself again, and every moment of intimacy and vulnerability that Joel had let show feels like a betrayal to both you and him. A mistake, a disservice. Why can’t he ever hold himself back? Why does he always have to follow you inside? He’s weak. And dirty. Tainting you, leading you on, causing himself future pain, because at some point, this is going to end, you’ll realize how worthless and corrupt and disgusting he is and that you don’t want him around at all, that you never should have in the first place.
He knows you’re standing there behind him, looking so small in those thin little shorts and that soft t-shirt, knows how weak it makes him, and he knows what you’re about to break the silence with, which is why he’s facing the door as he buckles up his belt.
“You could stay.”
The same sentiment, reworded a little each time, as if you’re trying to find the perfect sequence, sure you’ll get it right one of these days.
“Got work in the morning.” A lame excuse, he knows. It’s like you’re speaking in your own dismal code, every time. Joel takes his shirt from the arm of the couch and his jacket from the hook, pulls them on, and has his foot in one of his shoes before you speak next. “Well can I have a cigarette with you before you go? On the porch?”
You hate smoking. This is you dragging it out, a last ditch effort to get him to change his mind. Joel’s jaw ticks, glancing back at you, but that one look at you is all it takes to be convinced. Fuck. He shoves his other foot in his boot, then leans down to tie them.
“You never smoke.”
“That’s not true.”
“You barely ever smoke.” He corrects himself, pulling open your front door to let you go out first, handing you your jacket on the way. “You’re gonna freeze out there.”
“I feel like smoking,” you shrug, pulling on your jacket and looking back at him, “and I’ll be fine, it's not that cold out.” Joel purses his lips in disapproval, but follows you out.
Sitting beside you on the wooden steps, Joel pulls two cigarettes out of his pack, and, like he always does, places one between your lips, holding the flame to it before sticking the other one between his lips and lighting up. After your first drag, you try to subdue a grimace. Raising his eyebrows at you, Joel reminds you, “You don’t like these.”
“I do,” you say, visibly lying, “it’s just… been a while.”
“Mmm-hm. Right.” He huffs a quiet chuckle and shakes his head, hopelessly endeared. “Ever smoked a cigar?” He asks after his first long, soothing drag. You shake your head. “Good, don’t. Bet they’d make you puke. Plus they look dumb as hell.”
“I believe you,” you chuckle, trying in vain to remain composed as you struggle through another hit, half wheezing and fully grimacing through your next question, “How long have you been smoking, anyway?”
Joel hums around his cigarette, letting the smoke puff from his nostrils as he replies. “Long time. Started when I was 11, I think.” He flicks his ash with his thumb. “I tried to quit once, made it about six months, but I hated it—not smokin’. Figured what’s the point, went and bought a pack, never looked back.
“That’s a long time,” you say, abandoning your cigarette as you set your hands down on the step, leaving it to bleed smoke from between your fingers. “I was lying, I don’t like cigarettes, but I like the way they smell.”
Joel hums. “Seems like people either love it or hate it.”
“Sometimes, I’ll smell people smoking and think of you.” At that, Joel takes another long drag, some sort of undefined snag yanking at his heartstrings. He can’t figure out anything to say in response, so he just watches the smoke his lips send to dance in the night air. “Sometimes the smell sticks to my couch after you’re gone.
“That and sweat—” he agrees, flicking more ash, “can’t be a good combination.”
“I like it.”
Joel snorts, glancing at you, “Nasty girl. Sweet one, but nasty too.” He stands, hand on your head as he does, mussing it lightly. “It’s late, I gotta go.”
“Alright.” You reply quietly, taking your time to extinguish your cigarette and get up while he steps down off your porch.
“Keep yourself outta trouble while I’m gone, alright?” He says with his back to you, purposefully wording it in a way that would be a half-decent farewell in case he finally gets the guts to skip town and free your life of him.
Skipping down a step after him, you reach out to take his hand like a halfhearted attempt to pull him back inside. Joel turns, raises your hand to his lips, and presses a kiss to your knuckles. “Sweet dreams.” He speaks into it.
“You too,” you murmur, doing your best to hide your disappointment, but he sees it, and that’s when he lets you go and walks to his car without looking back.
I haven't seen this being talked about much but when faced with other people, Joel is so determined to prove that he's been able to be a good protector, provider, and father figure for Ellie, no matter what he says otherwise.
Like, everything he does, whether it's making sure Ellie never has to use her gun, never has to take watch at night, never has to see him kill a kid, all of it is him trying his best to do what he believes any good father does.
And here, he looks so dejected when Ellie tells Tommy they have been doing worse. He's been trying his best doing a decent enough job of being Ellie's guardian and then hearing her say that confirmed his fears, that he is failing her.
I'm just now realizing how episode 6 is just a long barrage of Joel's failures being thrown back at him again and again: getting lost in the forest and needing to ask for directions, waking up to Ellie guarding him because he fell asleep in the middle of his watch, helplessly fearing for Ellie's life as a dog sniffs her for infection, Tommy living a life he could never have given him, Tommy becoming a father, Tommy asking about Tess, Joel seeing a woman and mistaking her for Sarah, realizing he could have been a grandfather by now (he looked so hopeful for one second during that scene, it's heartbreaking).
And it all culminates when he finally gets to admit it out loud to Tommy. He's been failing her again and again. And when he says her it isn't just Ellie, it's Tess and Sarah too. He can't bear to think about the consequences if he failed again. Which is why his emotions break the surface when he begs Tommy to take Ellie to the fireflies. Because at least Tommy is still able, Tommy is still young, Tommy hasn't failed anyone yet. Unlike him.
hi! I'm working on baby blue again, like hardcore working on it. I want to have it finished, or near finished, before I put it all out so it's not such a hefty wait between chapters. for anyone who cares, I'm sorry about that :( life swiped my feet out from under me lol, was super busy and stressed plus my meds stopped being as effective so i had to go to the psych ward yada yada, but I'm getting back into reading now which is getting me back into writing (plus unfortunately unemployable for a second cause brain is sick, which, silver lining, is great for writing lol). my only real holdup is the smut LOL I hate writing it but like it is part of the story. so anyway, having a lot of fun with this one, I really like it, hope you all do too :) still not ready yet but relatively soon!!
Hi <3 it’s been a minute since I last posted and I know I already said expect slow updates but I want to be transparent as well that the last like 3 weeks I’ve had like 4 major bad life things happen so I haven’t had the time or energy or headspace to be able to write baby blue, plus I have smut next that I don’t usually have motivation to write anyway. So I gotta apologize I’m not like those ao3 writers that write while in a hospital bed after being hit by a mack truck lol, it’s gonna be a minute, thank u and I’m sorry if anyone’s really looking forward to the next chapter soon :( <3
