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[buckyinluv]

BUCKYINLUV CINEMATIC UNIVERSE

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[callittrueblue]

about us - joel miller

Summary: Joel Miller remembers dying. He remembers the swing, the sound of bone breaking, and Ellie screaming his name as everything went dark. So waking up in a clean hospital room makes no sense, especially when the world outside looks normal, Sarah is alive, Ellie is his daughter, and a woman is holding his hand like she belongs to him. Everyone says he was in a car accident and asleep for nearly two months. Joel knows that isn’t true. Because he lived twenty years somewhere else. Now he has to face a life he doesn’t remember building, a family that remembers him completely, and a woman who loves him… while he looks at her like a stranger. he's not her Joel, and maybe her boyfriend, the other Joel is died and Joel taking his body and his damn life.

Warnings ⚠️ : another life, age-gap (joel in his mid/late 40s, reader somewhere in lates/mid 20s), tons of angst incoming btw, post-TLOU2 Joel consciousness in modern AU, i named the reader (willow), memory loss / identity confusion, alternate reality disorientation, hurt/comfort (heavy hurt first), panic attacks & PTSD responses, canon-typical violence memories (non-graphic), emotional angst, family dynamics & grief, unintentional heartbreak, “you don’t remember loving me” trope, a few of flashback, slow emotional recovery….. there’s eventually smut and stuff but I’ll make it slow burn.

little note (pls read me!): why do I hate writing first chapters so much 😭 I keep thinking abt what’s next and imagining future scenes before I even finish the current one. I think this chapter might be a bit too angsty tho… so maybe next chapter there’ll be something cute w Willow or Joel getting softer and more comfortable around her.

leave the taglist here: @pleurspetal [ If anyone wants to be on my taglist too, just lemme know, okay? Luv ya❤️]

chapter I:

JOEL

Joel, get up.

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

He's die.

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

get up, joel---

Get up.

Joel, get the fuck up.

fucking get up.

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

When he came back, it was violent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He should not be alive.

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

This did not feel like heaven.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like standing somewhere he hadn’t earned.

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

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

Something moved near his hand. Warm.

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

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

There was someone there.

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

Ellie?

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

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

You stirred at the sound.

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

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

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

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

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

He didn’t know who you were.

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

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

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

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

he saw that you noticed right away.

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

Tube.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joel frowned.

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

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

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

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

That made him freeze.

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

Austin. Texas.

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

"...are you okay?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"just tell me?" his voice getting angrier somehow

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

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

willow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because part of him had already begun to believe you.

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

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

The word us hit him like a gut punch.

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

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

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

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

The room went completely still.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was unbearable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The feeling hit him again before he could outrun it.

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

"you okay?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

but like someone he might already have ruined.

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

Then something buzzed in your pocket.

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

you glanced at the screen, hesitated, then answered.

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

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

He watched you the whole time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But you didn’t.

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

He waited for the sound of it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joel felt the words sink into him like hooks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The door burst open.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And God, he had done that to you.

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

...

YOU (WILLOW)

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

when the doctor spoke, somehow made it worse.

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

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

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

The doctor nodded once. “Yes.”

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

Another pause.

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

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

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

“He knew me before,” you said.

“Yes.”

“He loved me.” you murmur.

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

“I understand that.”

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

The question stayed there between you.

Why not me.

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

Not: Will he recover?

Not: Will things go back to normal?

Just: Why not me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So I’m stressful?” you asked.

“No, that’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

He hesitated.

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

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

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

He stayed silent.

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

“I’m not suggesting he chose this.”

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

Your voice had gone thin now. Almost shaking.

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

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

The doctor’s expression softened almost imperceptibly.

And somehow that softness finally broke something in you.

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

The room stayed silent after that.

Then finally, very softly, the doctor said:

“I know this is painful.”

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

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

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

But this was something stranger.

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your eyes burned from crying.

You took another bite of the burger and forced yourself to eat half because otherwise Tommy would notice later. Tommy noticed things. Not in the way Joel did, quietly and immediately, but eventually. Like a storm warning arriving a little after the rain had already started.

The burger had gone lukewarm.

You chewed anyway.

People always say grief steals your appetite. This had never been true for you. Grief did not make you less hungry. It simply made eating feel absurd. The body continuing with its ordinary needs while the heart behaved like something mortally wounded.

You chewed slowly.

A girl crossed the parking lot holding hands with her father. She was laughing at something he said, head tilted back completely without caution, the way children laugh when they trust somebody absolutely.

You had loved Joel for years before you realized the frightening part of it wasn’t losing him.

It was building an entire life around somebody until your memories no longer made sense without them inside it.

You thought about the hospital room again. Joel looking at you with suspicion first. Then anger. Then something worse afterward. Guilt.

That part stayed with you.

Because underneath all his fear, he had looked ashamed after making you cry. As though some instinct inside him still recoiled from hurting you even when his mind no longer understood why.

The thought settled into your chest strangely warm and painful at once. Maybe memory lived somewhere deeper than the brain. Somewhere inside the body itself. Or maybe you were becoming pathetic now. The kind of woman who searched for signs of love in tiny meaningless gestures because the larger thing had already disappeared.

You swallowed hard.

You rested your forehead briefly against the steering wheel. Your chest tightened until breathing hurt.

if you hold back on the emotions, if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them, you can never get to being detached. You stay afraid of them.

You wondered if that was true.

Because lately you felt like all you had done was feel.

Fear.

Hope.

Relief.

Then grief.

Then hope again.

Then grief again.

An endless cycle.

The doctor had told you memory loss was complicated. That emotional pathways could survive even when memories disappeared. That Joel might still feel connected to you in ways he couldn't explain.

Might. Such a terrible word and hope lives inside words like might. So does suffering, You took another bite, chewed slowly.

The truth was, you had spent two months preparing yourself for almost every outcome imaginable.

For a second you honestly considered driving somewhere else entirely. Just continuing down the highway without stopping. Leaving the city. Leaving the hospital. Leaving the terrible ache of being looked at by your husband like you were some woman who wandered accidentally into his room.

But the thought vanished almost immediately because there was nowhere you could go where your life would not follow you.

You closed your eyes briefly. For one absurd moment, you think it might be easier to choke on the burger and die right here in the school parking lot. Not because you want to die—you don't. That's the strange thing. You want tomorrow. You want coffee in the morning. You want Sarah yelling from upstairs that she can't find her shoes even though they're exactly where she left them. You want Ellie stealing fries and denying it with complete sincerity. You want Joel. More specifically, you want the version of Joel who knows you. But grief has a way of making death seem less frightening than absence. Because death, at least, is honest. Death closes the door and leaves you outside it. This is different. This is being invited inside and discovering nobody recognizes your face.

You imagine the burger catching in your throat, imagine the panic of it, the desperate search for air, and think how ridiculous it would be for your life to end over fast food and heartbreak. Then again, heartbreak itself feels ridiculous. You spend years building a life with someone. You memorize the way they take their coffee, the shape of their silences, the exact look they get when they're trying not to laugh. They become woven into your days so completely that you stop noticing where they end and you begin. And then one morning they wake up and look at you like a stranger.

You swallow hard and feel the food move painfully down your throat. No, you don't want to die. What you want is far more impossible than that. You want to walk back into that hospital room and have Joel look at you the way he did yesterday. You want him to remember why he loved you. You want, just for five minutes, to stop feeling like you're mourning someone who is still alive.

Then you heard knock on the car window and Ellie’s voice outside the car.

“Willy?”

You looked up too fast, wiping your face immediately with both hands, still chewing the last bite of burger like an idiot. Ellie stood a few feet away outside the passenger window, backpack hanging off one shoulder, staring at you with that sharp, observant expression that always made you feel transparently human.

For one horrible second neither of you said anything. Then Ellie frowned slightly.

“…you okay?”

am i okay?

next chapter 🏹 (still working on it… coming soon I promise)

[buckyinluv]

WHATTHEFFUUUIIIIIIUUUUCK

[vintagevenus1111]

Bride to be...

pairing: !joel miller x f!reader wc: 12k (i dont think ill ever be able to write a oneshot under 10k...)

summary: you were supposed to marry someone else today... until joel miller showed up...

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tags: modern AU (no outbreak), age gap(reader age not explicitly stated but is younger than joel), no smut (srryyy it just didnt fit), heavy angst, mutual pining, emotional infidelity, hurt/comfort, second chance romance, exes to lovers, right person wrong time, happy ending♡

୨୧・┈・୨୧・┈・୨୧・┈・୨୧・┈・୨୧・┈・୨୧・┈・୨୧・┈・୨୧

a/n: buckle up for some angst!

You always knew it was Joel.

Even now, standing on the edge of forever with someone else, that truth sat heavy in your chest like a second heartbeat you could never quite silence.  Joel Miller had carved himself into your soul in a way no one else ever had, or ever would. Right person, wrong time – the cruelest kind of love story.

The breakup had been mutual in the end, but you were the one who initiated it.

It happened on a rainy Tuesday night almost five years ago. You were both exhausted and drained —  from work, from life, from each other. You sat on your couch, knees pulled to your chest, and finally said the words that had been weighing on you for months: you weren’t ready. Work was swallowing you whole back then. You were climbing the corporate ladder fast—you had little time for anything else and you were terrified of slowing down or committing to anything serious before you even knew who you were on your own. You needed space to figure yourself out.

Joel had listed quietly, jaw tight and eyes tired. He didn’t fight you. He was struggling too – emotionally unavailable in ways he didn’t know how to fix, always keeping a piece of himself locked away. And the age gap had started to wear on him more than he let on; he could never fully shake the feeling that he was holding you back from the life you deserved, that someone your age should be with a man who didn’t already feel a decade older in every way. On top of that, his work schedule kept him busy too, it was extremely demanding and kept him gone for long stretches, leaving him distant even when he was physically there.

So you ended it together.

Both of you cried. Both of you held each other like the damn world was ending.  And when the storm outside finally quieted, you made a promise through shaky voices and broken cries that you’d stay friends. Because the love you had for each other was still there—it would always be—it just wasn’t the right time for it to live inside a relationship.

That promise lasted a little less than a year.

Late-night phone calls turned into “I miss you” texts, which turned into “What if we tried again?” texts. But the timing was never right. When you were finally ready to dive back in, Joel was seeing someone—someone his age probably. Someone who probably had a lot more to offer than you did. And when Joel was ready, you had just stared something casual with another guy. The window kept closing before either of you could step through it.

Even after that, you both tried really hard to stay in each others lives. You kept texting more than you probably should have – good morning messages, late-night phone calls, sharing songs or silly things that reminded you of each other. You met for coffee a few times, even had a couple of long dinners that felt dangerously close to dates.

And your new partners hated it.

They could feel the unfinished history between you, the lingering pull, the way both of you would drop everything to help the other. Your boyfriends could never understand why you were still so caught up on a man old enough to be your father. They couldn’t figure out what hold he had on you, and it made them insecure, resentful. Joel’s girlfriends especially despised the idea of him staying close with his much younger ex who clearly still had his heart.  The jealousy turned into arguments, ultimatums and guilt trips. Slowly, painfully, the contact faded. The texts and late-night phone calls became rarer, then stopped completely.

Almost five years of complete silence.

You told yourself it was for the best. You moved on. You met Alex.

You’d met him at a charity gala – one of those stiff, upscale events your company forced you to attend. He was there representing his finance firm, charming donors with effortless confidence. He spilled a drink on you by accident, then spent the next twenty minutes making you laugh so hard you forgot to be annoyed at the fact that your favorite dress was ruined.

From that night on, Alex was your person. He had a steady corporate job, a bright smile that reached his eyes, and a way of making your ordinary days feel extraordinary. He planned thoughtful dates, remembered your coffee order, and never made you guess how he felt. He didn’t carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. He didn’t consume you until the love felt like both oxygen and drowning all at once. He didn’t look at you like he’d burn everything down just to keep you warm—like Joel did—and that was okay. He simply loved you – quietly, consistently, without drama or his own walls getting in the way.

Around a year ago, he got down on one knee with a ring that costs more than your car in front of a view that you only ever dreamed about, and asked you to marry him — and you said yes, because you loved him. It was real. It was comfortable.

But it had never once felt like Joel.

And yet— you still invited him to the wedding.

The idea had lingered in the back of your mind for moths, even as you picked out flowers and tasted wedding cake samples with Alex. You and Joel had made a silly, half-drunken promise some months after the breakup, during one of those long, late dinners you kept having while you were trying (and failing) to stay friends.

You were a little tipsy on cheap red wine, Joel was one too many whiskeys deep, sitting across from each other in a small corner booth at your favorite Italian place in the city. The conversation turned bittersweet and nostalgic, as it often did. You traced the rim of your glass with your fingertip, smiling despite the ache in your chest, and finally said, “Even if we never figure this out...” you said through a shaky laugh. “I’m still showing up to your wedding one day. I need to see who finally manages to lock you down.”

Joel had stared at you for a long moment, his eyes warm and fond in the low candlelight. Then he reached across the table, took your hand, and spoke in that soft, gravelly voice that always made your chest ache.

“Maybe one day we’ll actually get it right,” he said softly, a quiet note of hope in his tone. “But if we don’t... deal.” His thumb brushed gently over your knuckles. “I’ll be at yours too, darlin’. Wouldn’t miss seeing the man lucky enough to marry you. Just hope he knows how special you are.”

It was sweet. Almost too sweet for two people who had just broken each other’s hearts only a few months ago. But the promise stuck with you.

So even after the years of silence, you mailed him an invitation. They were way fancier than anything you would’ve picked out on your own. Thick cream cardstock with real gold foil lettering, yours and Alex’s names embossed at the top like it belonged in a magazine. The date, venue, and all the extra fancy details written out in beautiful script below, with a little RSVP card tucked inside that had two checkboxes: one for “Yes” and one for “No." And Joel’s name on the envelope in your prettiest handwriting.

Three weeks later, a thick envelope showed up in your mailbox and inside was the little RSVP card tucked in it. He had checked the box for “Yes” and added a small handwritten note on the card in that messy, familiar scrawl:

Wouldn’t miss it.

Your stomach did a full flip and you stood there in your kitchen like an idiot, running your thumb over the dried ink for way too long, like you could still feel him through the paper.

———

The engagement party was ridiculous.

Because Alex came from money—serious money – he insisted on making the night huge. “We should make the engagement party insane,” he’d said with that charming smile of his. “Just all our friends, no family – so everyone can actually let loose and celebrate without any of that formal stuff.”  You hadn’t really cared either way – if Alex wanted a big blowout with all his friends, you were fine with it. So he did it—and ended up inviting half the wedding list to the engagement party.

He went all out on his side – basically every friend he’d ever had. His old college buddies, his finance team, the guys he played golf with, plus a ton of his work colleagues and their partners.

Your own list was much smaller in comparison. Honestly, most of the people coming to the wedding were from Alex’s side anyway, so you invited just about all of your friends – your closest girlfriends, a handful of coworkers you actually liked, and a couple of family friends that weren’t technically family. You weren’t used to weddings or engagement parties this massive. It still felt a little overwhelming.

And then there was Joel.

At first, you weren’t even going to invite him. Alex still had no idea who Joel was, and you figured it probably wasn’t smart to introduce your ex at your own engagement party. But the thought of seeing him for the first time on your actual wedding day felt worse. You told yourself the engagement party would be less awkward – you’d be busy playing hostess, surrounded by people, exchanging casualties, so you probably wouldn’t even talk to him much anyway. So you slipped his name onto your list and mailed it before you could talk yourself out of it.

In the end, Alex’s huge circle of friends completely overshadowed your much, much smaller one, packing the rooftop of the city’s most expensive hotel full.

String lights draped from every beam, champagne towers shimmering under the lights, and a live jazz band playing soft, casual music that mixed with the sound of laughter and clinking glasses. There were easily two hundred plus people here, all dressed to impress, and the whole thing felt like the actual wedding rather than an engagement party.

And you were in the middle of it all, playing the part of the happy fiancée perfectly. You’d just finished thanking what felt like the hundredth group of Alex’s colleagues for coming when one of them cracked a stupid joke about marriage. You forced out a polite little laugh, took a sip of your champagne to cover it, and casually let your eyes drift across the rooftop while you swallowed.

You spotted a few of your girlfriends laughing near the bar, and you waved at them with a small smile and a sarcastic eye roll. Alex was a little further away, deep in conversation with some of his buddies, gesturing animatedly.  A couple of your coworkers were posing for photos by the string lights. Everything looked perfect, manicured—exactly how Alex wanted it.

You were just about to join back into the conversation when you spotted him.

Joel.

He was standing just to the side of the entrance, hands adjusting the last button of his collard shirt, sleeves rolled up to those strong forearms you used to trace with your fingertips, and his favorite worn jeans that somehow still fit him perfectly. His once-dark-brown hair had faded into salt-and-pepper and was a touch longer than you remembered, paired with that familiar scruff along his jaw. He looked exactly like the man you’d fallen in love with—only better—and you didn’t even think that was possible. Exactly like the one you’d tried so hard to forget.

For a second, it felt like the entire rooftop disappeared. The cheesy music, the lights, the two hundred guests – everything, gone.  Your heart slammed against your chest so hard you actually pressed a hand there like it might calm it down. Heat rushed up your neck and your entire mouth went dry like you had stuffed it full of cotton.

He spotted you at the exact same moment. His big brown eyes locked onto yours across the crowd, and the corner of his mouth ticked up into that small, crooked smile you still dreamed about sometimes. You didn’t even think before you started moving. You murmured a quick “excuse me” to the group you’d been talking to and started toward him. Your heels clicked across the rooftop floors, silk dress swaying around your legs, and Joel moved to meet you like gravity was pulling you both together.

You stopped just a foot away from him. For a long second, neither of you said anything. You just stared at each other like you were the only people in the room. Then his arms opened, and you stepped right into them without hesitation.

You audibly exhaled the second you reached up on your tiptoes and wrapped your arms around his neck.

You meant to hug him politely—like a friend— you did, but instead, your arms wrapped around his neck like they still belonged there. You pressed your face into the crook of his neck, breathing him in – cedar, soap, a hint of bourbon, and that unmistakable Joel scent that still—embarrassingly, felt like home. He held you so tight, one hand slowly rubbing up and down your spine while the other stayed at the small of your back. The hug went on way longer than it should have for two people who were supposed to be old friends. But you didn’t care – not right now – not when you were finally getting to wrap your arms around the man you’d shamelessly missed so damn much.

“Hey, darlin’,” he murmured into your hair, that familiar drawl sending a shiver straight down your back.

“Joel...” you whisper, hugging him a little tighter.

When you finally pulled back, his eyes were softer, searching your face like he was memorizing every tiny change. His hands lingered on your waist a little longer, drawing small strokes up and down with his thumb.

“I didn’t know if you’d actually show up,” you admitted, trying to smile.

His thumb brushed over your hip one last time before he pulled his hand away. “Told you I wouldn’t miss it.” That crooked smile deepened. “Couldn’t miss meetin’ the man who finally won your heart.”

You let out a soft, shaky laugh and swatted at his arm. “Shut up.”

He laughed quietly, almost to himself, before he took a step back and let his eyes drag slowly down your body – taking in the way the silky fabric hugged your waist and hips, the way it shimmered under the string lights. When his gaze finally met yours again, his eyebrows had lifted a little, and those big brown eyes were a little softer than before.

“Wow...” he chuckles, shaking his head. His eyes dance across the length of you again before they came back up. “You look absolutely beautiful, darlin’.” He takes a small half-step closer, his voice dropping a little. “And you just had to wear my favorite color, didn’t you?”

Your cheeks flush hot. You smile shyly and glance down at the emerald silk, smoothing your hands over the fabric self-consciously.

You’d actually been torn between two dresses as you were getting ready earlier. One was an elegant champagne-colored gown Alex had absolutely loved. He’d told you it made you look refined and classy, like the perfect future wife who belonged on his arm at galas and fancy dinners – sophisticated and “appropriate.”

The other was this deep emerald green silk that hugged your curves and made your eyes pop and skin glow. You knew Joel had always loved you in green. It did something to him – brought out this hungry, almost possessive look in his eyes. Every single time you’d worn that color back when you were together, his hands couldn’t stay off you. He’d get this look in his eyes like he wanted to devour you right there.

Similar to the one he has now.

You told yourself you picked the green because it made you feel confident. Because it was your favorite too. Not because there was a chance Joel might show up at your party tonight. Definitely not because of Joel.

“It looks even better on you than I remember,” he adds, smiling to himself.

 You let out a soft, teasing laugh and shake your head. “Joel...” you say, his name laced with playful disbelief.

He chuckles quietly, eyes full of warmth. “I mean it. Seein’ you like this tonight... you look incredible.”

You feel your cheeks redden again and you bring a hand up to tuck a stray piece of hair behind your ear and meet his eyes. “Thank you, Joel.”

You lift your head, nodding at him.  “You look really good too. I like your hair longer like this... and the gray. It suits you.” You tilt your head, a teasing smile tugging at your lips. “I always told you to grow it out and let the gray show, remember? Took you long enough to finally listen to me.”

He lets out a chuckle and runs a hand through his hair, pushing the longer strands back as an almost bashful smile crosses his face. “Yeah... you always did know what looked best on me,” he says, laughing. “Still a little stubborn, I guess.”

You smile, a little flutter in your chest at the sight of him looking so unexpectedly shy. “I’m just glad you finally took my advice,” you tease gently. “It really does look good.”

Your fingers twitch at your side. You used to run your hands through his hair without thinking – it was something you did all the time, playing with the strands, tugging them gently when you kissed him, brushing it back like he’d just done. The urge hit you so strongly for a second that you had to physically stop yourself, curling your fingers into your palm. You aren’t allowed to do that anymore.

Joel smiled for another second, then it faded some. He looked at you for a long second, something heavier in his eyes.

“Guess a lot of things are takin’ me longer than they should these days.”

Your smile fades and your face drops slightly as a wave of sadness washes over you, the playful spark you had just seconds ago fading into something sadder, more vulnerable – because you know exactly what he means. But it’s too late now. Everything is too late.

“Joel...” you whisper, his name breaking a little as it leaves your lips. You open your mouth to say something else – anything – but before you can find the words,

“Hey!” One of your girlfriends calls your name from across the balcony, waving you over with a bright smile. “We need you for pictures! Hurry!”

You turn toward your friend for a second before turning back to Joel. Your eyes are soft and full of quiet regret as you meet his.

“I’m sorry,” you say gently. “I’ll come find you later, okay? Don’t go far.”

Joel gives you a small nod. “Ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

You manage a small, sad smile, one that doesn’t quite reach your eyes, then turn and walk back towards your friends. Your heart growing heavier with each step.

The next half hour passes in a blur of forced smiles and constant motion. Your girlfriends pull you into a big group photo, then another... after that, you stop counting. You laugh at their jokes and pose like you’re having the time of your life, but your mind keeps drifting, drifting back to Joel.

After the pictures, Alex finds you and keeps you close, introducing you to more of his colleagues and their partners. You shake hands, accept congratulations, and make small talk about the wedding while Alex’s arm stays wrapped around your waist.

You float around the party like you’re expected to – smiling, thanking people, sipping champagne that tastes like nothing. Every few minutes, your eyes scan the crowd, searching.

You spot Joel at the bar. He’s leaning against the counter with a glass of whiskey in his hand, talking to some guy you don’t recognize. He looks calm, but you notice the way his shoulders are a little tense. He laughs at something the man says, but you can tell it isn’t a real one.

Then, a little while after that, you catch him in a conversation with two of Alex’s golf buddies. He’s being polite, nodding along, but you can tell from the set of his jaw that he couldn’t care less about what they’re talking about. He glances up, and your eyes meet across the rooftop for a brief second that feels like forever and the look he gives you is sad, full of everything he didn’t get to say earlier.

You get pulled into yet another conversation with Alex’s friends, forced to laugh at a story about their last trip to Europe, all while your chest feels tight. Every time you try to slip away, someone else calls your name, or Alex wraps his arm around your waist and steers you toward a new group.

All the while, Joel stays on the edge of things. Present, but never fully part of the celebration. But you can’t blame him. How could you?

You finally slip away when the party hits a natural lull – most people are gathered near the bar for another round of drinks or crowding around Alex as he tells another one of his loud work stories. Your girlfriends are deep in conversation and laughing; everyone too occupied with themselves to notice you disappear.

You murmur something about needing the restroom and disappear into the crowd before anyone can follow you.

It doesn’t take you long to find him.

He’s tucked away in a quiet, dimly lit corner of the rooftop terrace, partially hidden behind a tall planter overcrowding with flowers. He’s leaning against the railing with a glass of barely-touched whiskey in his hand, looking out over the city like the rest of the noisy party doesn’t exist.

You walk up slowly, a small smile tugging at your lips.

“Wow,” you say teasingly, stopping a few feet away. “ Look at you... sulking in the corner like you’re too cool for the rest of us. Very mysterious, Mr. Miller.”

He turns his head, and the moment his eyes land on you, that familiar crooked smile returns. He lets out a small laugh and shakes his head.

“Yeah, well…” he drawls, teasing you right back, “someone’s gotta keep the wall company. Figured I’d give the rest of these fancy people some space.” He takes a slow sip of his whiskey, eyes never leaving yours. “Besides... I was waitin’ for you to escape.”

The tension that had been sitting heavy in your chest eases the second he says it. Just like that, the years melt away. The rhythm between you clicks back into place like no time has passed at all.

You step closer and lean against the railing beside him, close enough that your arm brushes his. “I’m glad you’re here,” you say quietly. “It means a lot.”

He turns his head to look at you fully, his half-smile deepening, eyes gentle in the low light.

“Yeah?” he murmurs. “Good. ‘Cause I’m glad I'm here too.”

He takes another swig of his drink, then turns around and leans his back against the railing, facing the lively party behind you. He gestures loosely with his glass toward the string lights, the champagne towers, the crowd laughing and mingling.

“This is some engagement party,” he says, a hint of amusement in his voice. “Y’all really went all out, huh?”

You let out a small laugh and turn around too, leaning back against the railing beside him, close enough you can smell him again.

“This wasn’t my idea. Trust me,” you say, shaking your head. “Alex is...” You hesitate for a second, searching for the right words. “He likes big gestures. This is actually pretty tame compared to what he wanted to do.”

Joel raises an eyebrow, waiting.

You continue with a small, slightly embarrassed smile, lifting your hand to cover your face for a second. “He originally wanted to rent a yacht for the night... full party on the water,” you admit, peeking through your fingers. “I barely talked him down to this rooftop thing.”

You feel a little flush of embarrassment because this kind of extravagance still feels foreign to you. Alex is so materialistic – he loves big, flashy gestures and showing off what he can afford. You and Joel were never like that. The two of you used to make fun of people exactly like Alex, rolling your eyes at over-the-top displays of wealth while splitting cheap takeout on his couch. Now here you are, throwing the kind of party you both would’ve mocked years ago.

Joel lets out a low huff of a laugh, almost under his breath. He glances out at the glittering party for a moment before looking back at you, his expression somewhere between amused and knowing.

"A yacht, huh?" His voice is warm but dry. “That’s a hell of a step up from late nights in my old truck.”

You let out another soft, slightly embarrassed laugh and shake your head, leaning a little more against the railing beside him.

“Yeah... tell me about it,” you say, voice quiet. “It still feels weird sometimes. All of this.” You gesture vaguely toward the lights and crowd.

You look down for a second, a soft laugh slipping out as you shake your head at yourself. Then you lift your eyes back to his, a gentle, nostalgic smile on your face.

“God, remember that one time I was craving pancakes at like one in the morning?” you ask, fond with the memory. “I wouldn’t stop talking about that little diner I loved – the one with the ridiculous syrup selection. You had work the next morning, but you still grabbed your keys and drove two hours with me anyway.”

Your cheeks warm, smiling as the memory plays out in your head.

Joel laughs low and fond, shaking his head. “Oh, I remember,” he says, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I also remember you swearin’ you wouldn’t fall asleep on the way there... and then passin’ out ten minutes in.”

You let out a noisy laugh and nudge his arm with your elbow. “Okay, that’s not fair. I stayed awake for at least twenty minutes! And I only fell asleep because your truck was so comfortable and you always played that soft country music. It was basically a sedative.”

Joel laughs too, a real, warm sound that makes your chest feel lighter. “Yeah,” he says, still grinning, “and then you woke up and ordered more pancakes than you could even eat.”

You laugh again, dropping your head. “I was hungry! And I was so sure I could finish them all,” you say, shaking your head at your past self.

The two of you laugh together for a moment, the sound comfortable between you. Then your smile softens. You look down for a second before lifting your eyes back to him.

“And you still let me have the last bite of yours,” you say softly. “Even though you wanted it.”

He watches you for a long moment, his eyes soft and full of that quiet affection you remember so well. The crooked smile on his face turns gentle, almost tender.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, almost like he’s confessing something. “I never could say no to you. Couldn’t help it. Seein’ that happy little look on your face was always better than anythin’ I wanted for myself.”

He pauses, his eyes never leaving yours. “Still is.”

You feel your heart squeeze tight in your chest, a warm, aching pull that makes it hard to breathe for a second.

God, why does he still look at you like that? Like you’re still his, like he’s not at your fucking engagement party?

You bite the inside of your cheek, trying not to let the smile on your face get too soft, too telling, but it’s useless. A quiet breath slips out while your fingers nervously twist at the silk of your dress.

This is so unfair. How can almost five years of silence vanish the second you’re standing next to him? How can he still make you feel this way – like the rest of the world and your damn fiancé and this whole fancy party don’t even exist?

Joel notices the change. Of course he does. His expression changes, softening into understanding as he watches your fingers fidget with your dress. He clears his throat gently and changes the subject, voice casual but kind.

“So... tell me about work,” he says, tilting his head a little. “You mentioned that promotion last time we talked. How’s that goin’? Gotta be some progress in five years,” he laughs kindly.

You smile and latch onto the safer topic like a lifeline. For the next half hour, the rest of the party basically ceases to exist. The conversation flows easily between you, natural and effortless, just like it used to.

You tell him about your promotion, the bigger team you're managing now, and how the new responsibilities have been both exciting and exhausting. You mention the new place you and Alex moved into downtown, how life has somehow gotten... steady. Comfortable. He listens like he always does – really listens – nodding along, asking questions, chuckling at your stories about your nightmare coworker who sends passive-aggressive emails at two in the morning.

He tells you about the latest contracting projects that have been keeping him busy, the old house he finally finished restoring with his own two hands, and how Tommy is still giving him endless shit but is doing okay. You laugh when he describes Tommy showing up unannounced and “helping” with the plumbing, nearly flooding the place.

But slowly, comfortably, the conversation drifts into more familiar territory.

You end up moving over to a seated area tucked against the side of the rooftop – a small couch partially hidden by more plants. You sit side by side, closer than you probably should. The talk turns sweeter. Riskier.

You laugh about the ridiculous fights you used to have that always ended in laughter not even ten minutes later. He teases you about the mornings he’d cook breakfast shirtless just to watch you get distracted. You smile at the memory of how he used to pull you into his chest from behind while you were brushing your teeth, kissing your shoulder and making silly faces at you in the mirror – which always made you laugh so hard you’d end up spitting toothpaste everywhere.

The conversation stays sweet and nostalgic as you both drift through old memories. You laugh about the time he surprised you by learning your favorite song on guitar just so he could play it for you on a random Monday night. He chuckles as he recalls how you used to steal his work T-shirts and wear them around the house, and how he’d pretend to be annoyed but secretly loved seeing you in them.

You reminisce about the night he carried you piggyback your whole way home because your feet hurt from your new shoes, and how he refused to put you down even when you laughed and told him you could walk. Another time you dragged him to a flower market and he let you buy way too many bouquets, then spent the rest of the day helping you arrange them all over his house just because it made you happy.

The stories keep flowing, soft and easy, full of those little everyday moments that made you fall in love with him. You’re both smiling more than you have all night, completely lost in each other as the rest of the party fades into background noise.

At some point, his hand finds your knee. You let it stay there. His thumb tracing slow, lazy circles on the inside of your knee – hidden under the edge of the table, innocent to anyone who might glance over, but enough to make heat bloom low in your belly. You don’t stop him. You didn’t want to.

You were so wrapped up in Joel, you didn’t even see Alex approaching until he was right beside you, his over-the-top cologne hitting you before his presence did.

“There you are, babe,” Alex says, his voice bright but carrying a sharp edge underneath. His eyes dance between you and Joel, noticing how close you’re sitting.

You jolt like you’ve been caught doing something wrong, heart slamming in your chest. You quickly slide out from the table, smoothing your hands down your dress in a flustered rush.

“Sorry,” you say through an awkward laugh, the words tumbling out a little too fast. “Got a little caught up.”

Alex slides his arm around your waist and pulls you in close. His hand drifts lower, settling just above your ass in an almost too possessive way. You catch the way Joel’s jaw tightens, his shoulders going stiff as he stands. His eyes darken for just a second before he schools it back to neutral.

Alex scans Joel for a second then gives your ass a small, quick pat, then looks at you with a smile that doesn’t really reach his eyes.

“You gonna introduce me, babe?”

You startle again, heat rushing up your neck. “Oh—yeah, of course. Alex, this is Joel. He’s... and an old friend.”

Joel extends his hand. “Nice to meet you. Congratulations on the engagement.”

Alex shakes it, his grip a little firmer than his usual. “Thanks,” He pulls his hand back and stuffs it back into the pocket of his pants before he turns his head toward you. “I didn’t  know you had any old friends I hadn’t met yet.”

You pause, unsure of what to say as heat crawls up the back of your neck. The silence drags for half a second too long before Joel saves the day.

“I lived out of state for a while. Just moved back. We lost touch for a bit.”

Not a complete lie.

Alex nods, but his eyes are still suspicious, flicking between the two of you like he’s trying to read something he can’t quite put his finger on. He forces a polite smile anyway. “Well, we should probably get back. Think they’re about to start toasts.” He turns to you. “Come on, babe.”

You give Joel one last look and he just nods, calm and unreadable.

Alex’s arm stays tight around your waist as he steers you away. You follow beside him for a few seconds but you can’t help it – you glance back over your shoulder. Joel is still watching you. You mouth a small “sorry” and a sad smile before Alex pulls you back into the crowd.

And the rest of the night passes in a dreamy, distant blur.

You smiled when you were supposed to, laughed at the right jokes, showed off your ring when asked, and clinked glasses during the long string of toasts. Alex kept you close, his arm tight around your waist like he was anchoring you to him—making sure you didn’t disappear again—as he introduced you to even more friends and colleagues, all of them gushing about how perfect the two of you looked together. You nodded along, said all the right things, and let him kiss your temple for the cameras... but your eyes kept drifting.

Every few minutes, you’d scan the rooftop, hoping for a glimpse of those broad shoulders or that salt and pepper hair. You looked for him by the bar, by the dessert table, along the balcony railing where you’d left him. But he was nowhere to be found. The longer the night dragged, the more your stomach twisted with disappointment.

He left. You realized somewhere between the third toast and the fourth round of photos. He hadn’t even said goodbye.

The thought made your chest ache – a sharp, twisting kind of hurt right behind your ribs that felt a little too much like heartbreak.

What if he doesn’t come to the wedding now? What if tonight was the last time you’d see him and you didn’t even get to say goodbye?

The worry sat like a stone in your stomach, making the lights seem a little harsher, the laughter around you a little too loud, and the whole beautiful night feel completely hollow.

By the time the party started winding down and the last guests were saying their goodbyes, you were exhausted – and not just from the champagne and small talk.

In the back of the town car on the way home, the silence was palpable.

But you barely noticed.

Your mind was still stuck on Joel – replaying every little detail like a film on loop. The way his hair was a little longer now, those silver strands catching the string lights and looking unfairly good. The scruff on his face was a little thicker than you remembered, and there were a couple more lines around his eyes when he smiled. But so many things were exactly the same, the same Texas drawl that flowed through you like butter, the way his eyes still softened when he looked at you—even after all these years—the familiar warmth of his hand on your knee, the way he listened like the rest of the world didn’t exist.

You’d missed that. You’d missed him.

A small, secret smile tugged at your lips as you looked out the window.

“What’s going on with you?”

Alex’s voice cut through your thoughts. You blink and turn to face him. “Huh?”

He sighs, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “You’ve been weird all night... Ever since I pulled you away from that guy... Joel, right?” His tone changes, not unkind but firm. “You two clearly have some kind of history.”

Your stomach drops and you feel your cheeks starting to flush again.

Alex lets out a short, disbelieving laugh. “God, please tell me you didn’t like... sleep with your college professor or your old boss or something.”

You stare at him, eyes wide with confusion and a bit of hurt. Your mouth actually falls open a little.

He keeps going, gesturing with his hands like he always does. “Was he there to confess his love to you or something?” he asks. “I mean, he definitely looked like he was into you. Was he making you uncomfortable? How’d he even get invited? You should’ve come and found me. I—”

“Alex,” you cut him off, shaking your head. “No. Stop.”

He goes quiet.

You take a breath and try to slow your breathing and heartbeat. “He’s an old friend. That’s it. I didn’t sleep with my boss or my professor or whoever else you're imagining,” you say, a bit of irritation in your voice. “I can’t believe you’d even think I’d do something like that.”

His face drops a little, the frustration melting into something closer to regret.

You keep going, softer now. “I just—we just... hadn’t seen each other in a really long time. We got caught up talking about old memories and I just lost track of time. The nights been long, I got overwhelmed and distracted. And I’m tired,” you say, sighing. “That’s all.”

You hate lying to him. And the guilt twists tight in your chest every second. But how are you supposed to say, “Yeah, Alex, we do have history. He’s my ex – the I thought I was over, the one I told myself I only had friendly love left for... except now... now I don’t know anymore.”

Alex’s jaw clenches, his mouth pressing into a thin line as the frustration on his face slowly melts away, into something guiltier. His eyebrows pull together, and he looks away for a second, like he knows he went too far. He scoots closer on the seat, his hand sliding onto your thigh with a gentle squeeze, his thumb moving back and forth like he’s trying to pull you back to him.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I’m overwhelmed too. The wedding planning, the party, all the pressure... I didn’t mean to snap like that.” He pauses, like he’s searching for the words. “I was just making up excuses in my head.”

You stay quiet, watching him carefully.

He lets out a heavy breath and glances at you, then away again, looking almost embarrassed. “I was just... I don’t know, intimidated I guess.” His voice drops. “Dude’s fucking huge, built like a tank or something, and the way he was looking at you... shit, I don’t even know how to explain it.” He trails off, shaking his head.

“Anyway. I’m sorry, babe. I shouldn’t have gone there. That was shitty of me.”

Your heart stutters a little.

You really thought you were making it up in your head – that soft, lingering way Joel looked at you tonight. The way his hand found your leg like he still got to touch you every day. You thought for sure after all this time – but if Alex noticed... it wasn’t just in your head. Joel really had been looking at you like nothings changed.

You swallow hard, forcing yourself to sound as casual as possible.

You let out a small laugh and try to sound only mildly interested. “What do you mean?” you ask, letting out another fake little laugh. “How was he... how was he looking at me?”

Alex glances at you, one eyebrow raised like he’s confused about why you care about the way “this guy” was looking at you.

“I don’t know...” he says, dragging out the words. “It was just... it wasn’t normal. Like he was hung up on you or something. Like he had no business looking at my fiancé like that.”

He shakes his head and lets out a short, uncomfortable laugh. “It pissed me off, honestly. Made me feel like I was walking in on something.”

Your cheeks burn hot. Your fingers tighten on the fabric of your dress, and you shift in your seat, suddenly hyper aware of how warm the car feels. Your pulse thuds loudly in your ears.

Alex watches you for a second, but it doesn’t last long. He’s completely oblivious, unaware of the way your knee is bouncing up and down in front of him. Because he just shakes his head and squeezes your thigh.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not important.” He reaches over, grabs your legs and swings them across his lap, pulling you closer with a playful tug. His hand slides up your calf, thumb moving back and forth as he gives you a crooked, flirty little smirk.

“Come here,” he whispers. “I’m sorry I got all weird about it. I didn’t mean to ruin the night.” He leans in a little, brushing a kiss against your temple. “Let me make it up to you, yeah?”

You know this move.

This is what Alex does. Every single time there’s even a hint of tension or he says something he probably shouldn’t have, he skips the hard part – the talking, the digging deeper – and goes straight for this. A quick, meaningless apology, some sweet words, hands on your skin, and suddenly everything is “fixed”. And usually? You let him. You’re okay with the short, easy version. Quick makeup sex and everything is back to normal.

But tonight... tonight you wish he’d tried a little harder.

You wish he would ask more. Wish he would notice how your heart is still racing, how just saying Joel’s name made your face hot. Wish he would care enough to wonder why one “old friend” managed to pull your attention away at your own engagement party. Because maybe if he did, it’d make you feel a little more guilty for feeling the way you do.

But he doesn’t. His hand is already sliding up your dress, fingertips brushing the sensitive skin of your inner thigh like the conversation’s already over.

So you give in.

You smile, soft and practiced, and lean in to kiss him back. Your fingers loop around the back of his neck, you touch him the way he likes, you make all the right little sounds. You try – you really try – to be here, to lose yourself in the way his mouth moves with yours and the way his hands feel on you.

But your mind is somewhere else entirely.

On Joel.

Every time Alex moans against your neck, you hear Joel’s Texas drawl. Every time his hand squeezes your thigh, you feel Joel’s thumb tracing those lazy, slow circles instead. Every kiss, every touch, every breath... it all fades into the memory of that quiet corner on the rooftop and the man who never stopped looking at you like you were the only person in the world.

─────

After the engagement party, everything has been full steam ahead. A whirlwind of final fittings, vendor confirmations, seating chart adjustments, and endless meetings with your planner. Flower arrangements were approved, the final cake tastings were scheduled and rescheduled, the band confirmed their setlist, and you spent an entire grueling afternoon approving the calligraphy on the escort card. Everything moved at full speed, like a train that refused to slow down. Alex was in his element – handling logistics, charming everyone on the phone, and coming home each night with that proud, excited smile that made you feel guilty for not being just as thrilled.

You hadn’t heard a single word from Joel.

Not a text. Not a call. “Not even a polite “thanks for the invite, but I can’t make it anymore.” And you told yourself that was normal. You hadn’t spoken in five years before the party – why would that change just because he hugged you like he never wanted to let go and looked at you like you were still the center of his universe? Just because his thumb traced slow circles on your thigh like muscle memory... it didn’t mean anything. Of course it didn’t. He wasn’t going to show up at your doorstep in the pouring rain and confess his love to you. That only happened in the movies.

Still, every time the mail came, your heart jumped. You half-expected a handwritten note from him saying he couldn’t come after all, maybe with some generic coffeemaker as a wedding gift and a “congratulations” that really felt like a goodbye. Or worse – that he simply wouldn’t show up at all. That he’d decided staying away was kinder, easier.

Either way, silence.

And tomorrow, you were getting married.

You’re lying in bed next to Alex now, the room dark except for the faint glow of the city’s lights through the curtains. He’s been asleep for hours now, breathing even and calm beside you. And you’ve been staring at the ceiling for the past three hours, wide awake, heart heavy.

You love Alex. You do.

He makes you laugh on the hard days. He knows your favorite flower and makes sure to bring you a bouquet of them at least once a week. He’s stable and kind and ambitious in a way that feels comfortable. He’s built a life with you that looks perfect on paper – the beautiful apartment, the future plans, the way he acts like you’re the best decisions he’s ever made. Before Joel showed up at the engagement party, you’d barely thought about him since you last spoke. You had Alex. You were happy.

...Or at least, you thought you were.

Maybe Joel had always been there, tucked away in the quiet corners of your mind. Maybe he never really left.

But it’s too late now.

If Joel wanted to stop this, he would’ve done it already. He would’ve found you after the party – pulled you aside before you even left with Alex, taken your hand, and told you not to go through with it. That you were making the biggest mistake of your life. But he didn’t. He hasn’t.

So tomorrow you’re getting married.

Even if he did show up... you’d say no, right? You love Alex. You’re choosing the life you built. You have to.

You turn onto your side, staring at the back of Alex’s head, and try to ignore the way your chest feels like it’s cracking open.

─────

The wedding venue is stunning – exactly the kind of place that belongs in the centerfold of a bridal magazine. It’s a sprawling estate with manicured gardens, a grand ballroom filled with crystal chandeliers, and a beautiful outdoor ceremony space overlooking an almost too-perfect landscaped lawn. Everything’s polished, luxurious, and very meticulously planned. Most of it was Alex and the wedding planner’s vision – the towering floral arches, the custom monogrammed linens, a string quartet playing soft classical music as guests arrive.

You would’ve picked something smaller, more intimate, though – maybe a cozy garden with just your closest people, cheap fairy lights, and a simple wooden arch. But this... this is gorgeous. Its perfect on paper. Any bride would be lucky to have a wedding like this.

You shouldn’t be picking it apart like this. This is supposed to be one of the happiest days of your life. Except it’s more of pure chaos wrapped in tulle and fresh flowers.

The bridal suite is buzzing – your maid of honor, Lily, is directing traffic like a general, makeup artists and hairstylists are working on three people at once, and there’s a constant stream of people popping in and out with questions about bouquets, timelines, and whether the groomsmen’s boutonnières match the exact shade of the bridesmaids’ dresses.

The room itself is beautiful—of course—all soft natural light, elegant but blinding white furniture, and massive vases of white roses and eucalyptus that fill the air with a sweet, calming scent. It really does look like it belongs in a magazine. It should feel magical.

But mostly you feel... numb. And guilty for feeling that way.

You barely slept – maybe two hours total – staring at the ceiling while Alex slept peacefully beside you. You’ve been up since before dawn, pacing the kitchen in the dark, making pointless cups of tea you didn’t even drink, and checking your phone every few minutes like you were waiting for a message you knew would never come. Your body feels heavy and wired at the same time, your mind racing in circles, your stomach in knots from the lack of rest.

You told yourself over and over that this is normal. Just wedding jitters. Everyone gets cold feet. It has nothing to do with Joel. Nothing at all.

You haven’t seen Alex since earlier this morning. He came by the suite, kissed your forehead, and gave you the sweetest words – told you how lucky he is, how excited he is to marry you, how he can’t wait to spend the rest of his life with you. Then went off to do what he does best: manage, direct, make sure every detail is perfect. Part of you is relieved you haven’t seen him since. You don’t know if you could look him in the eyes right now without your face giving everything away.

You can’t tell him you haven’t stopped thinking about Joel since the engagement party. That you’ve been shamefully, secretly waiting for him to show up and whisk you away. That you can’t walk down the aisle with him because you’ll be wondering if the man you love is somewhere in the crowd watching you marry someone else.

And you’ve been quietly looking for him all morning. Peeking out the window of the bridal suite whenever there weren’t a million hands in your hair just to get a look at the guests coming in. Your heart racing at the sight of any tall, brooding figure in the distance, secretly hoping you’d spot someone who looked like he might be here to stop the love of his life from walking down the aisle. You’ve made up excuse after excuse to go to the bathroom just so you could check the guest sign-in list for his name. Nothing. No Joel.

Now it’s one hour before the ceremony and the last of the guests shuffled in about thirty minutes ago. And still, no Joel. Lily is putting the finishing touches on your makeup, dabbing at your lipstick with a tissue, and your leg hasn’t stopped bouncing under the vanity since you sat down an hour ago.

You’re sure, you tell yourself firmly, if Joel hadn’t shown up at your engagement party, if he had just checked “no” on the RSVP and sent back a polite gift, you’d be absolutely thrilled right now. You’d be bouncing with excitement, not nerves. You’d have no doubt in your mind that you were making the right decision.

 But he had shown up. Looking exactly like the man you fell in love with and nothing like the one you tried so hard to forget – that same quiet intensity in his eyes, the same protective way he carried himself, the same rough, gentle voice that still made your stomach flip. He just had to walk into your engagement party and make you feel things you hadn’t felt in five years.

Your leg bounces faster.

Lily notices, her eyes dropping to your knee then to your reflection in the mirror and shoots you a concerned look.

“Hey... you okay?” she asks softly. “You’ve been really quiet this morning. And your leg is going a mile a minute.”

You force a small laugh, trying to play it off. “Just wedding jitters, I guess. Normal, right?”

Lily sets the brush down and turns your chair so you’re facing her properly. She gives you that best friend look – the one that says she knows you too well to buy the casual act.

“Normal jitters don’t usually make you look like you’re about to throw up,” she says gently, reaching up to gently adjust the veil and smooth a few strands of hair. “Talk to me. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

You hesitate, biting your lip. The words feel dangerous to say out loud, but Lily’s been your person for years. You trust her.

“I just...” You hesitate, shaking your head. “I can’t stop thinking about Joel,” you admit finally, voice barely above a whisper. “He showed up at the engagement party and it’s like everything came rushing back. I thought I was over him. I was over him. But now...” you sigh. “I just can’t stop wondering if I’m making the wrong choice here. If maybe Joel was always supposed to be the one.”

Lily takes your hands in hers and squeezes them, her expression soft but firm.

“Oh honey,” she says, sighing a little. “Seeing an ex after that long is always going to mess with your head. It’s normal. You two had a lot of history.”

You shake your head again, eyes dropping to your lap. “I know... but it feels like more than that.”

Lily nods and squeezes your hands again, her thumbs moving in gentle circles. “I get it. It’s stirring up old feelings. Those memories can hit hard, especially on a day like today. But that doesn’t mean Alex isn’t the right one now.”

Your stomach twists uncomfortably as you open your mouth to speak. “I know, but what if—”

She cuts you off gently, but firmly, eyebrows furrowed. “You love him, right? Alex?”

You nod, almost too quickly. “Yeah. I do.”

She tilts her head, studying you for a second. “And he makes you happy?”

You nod again, your shoulders dropping a little as you let out a small breath, your fingers flexing just a little in hers. “Yes.”

She smiles softly, still holding your hands as she exhales a relieving breath. “Then that’s what matters. Don’t let one blast from the past mess with your head on your wedding day, okay? Joel is an ex for a reason. You’ve got a good man waiting for you out there.”

She’s right. You know she is. No matter what your heart is feeling. The timing back then was never on your side, and no matter how much seeing Joel stirred everything up, it doesn’t erase the life you’ve built with Alex. You love him. You chose him. This is the future you’re supposed to have now. You can’t let one night of nostalgia and old feelings derail everything. He is your ex for a reason. Alex is out there waiting for you and today is about starting your life with him.

You nod slowly, letting out a long breath as the knot in your chest loosens just a little. Your shoulders drop and you manage a small, genuine smile. “You’re right. Thanks, Lily. I needed to hear that.”

She smiles and presses a kiss to your forehead. “You’ve got this. You’re going to walk down that aisle and marry the man you chose. And it’s gonna be amazing. Okay?”

You nod again. “Yeah. I’ve got this.”

You both lean in for a hug, and Lily wraps her arms around you, her chin resting on your shoulder for a second as she holds you close. You squeeze her back just as hard, the familiar scent of her vanilla perfume and the softness of her dress bringing you back down to reality for a second.

She pulls back and turns you back to the vanity, making a few final touches — gently adjusting the veil so it falls perfectly against your hair, dabbing at your lips one last time and smoothing another hair back. She steps back and tilts her head as she looks at your reflection in the mirror with a proud, teary-eyed smile.

“You look stunning,” she says, smiling. “Really, you’re glowing.”

You stand, smooth your dress back down, and turn towards her. “Thank you. For everything.”

She reaches out and rubs the back of your arm gently. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Perfect.”

She gives you one last warm look, her hand lingering on your arm for a second. “I’ll give you a few minutes before we head out. Take a breath. I won’t be far if you need me.”

She slips out the door and closes it quietly behind her, leaving you alone in silence except for the faint hum of activity outside — muffled voices, the distant sound of the string quartet warming up, the soft sounds of people moving around outside the door.

You stand there in front of the tall mirror, running your palms down the front of your dress. And you’re in awe. It’s gorgeous — strapless, fitted corset body covered in delicate white lace and pretty floral patterns that hug your waist so perfectly. And the skirt — it’s huge but not too huge— it’s full of soft layers and tulle with cascading ruffles that swish and move every time you turn.

You slowly spin from side to side, watching how the fabric and little beads catch and sparkle in the morning light. This really is your dream dress. It’s one of the few things you actually cared was perfect. You’d dreamed about this dress since you were little, dancing around in your mom’s heels and cheap red lipstick, playing princess, just praying one day you’d get to marry your prince charming.

And you are, you have to remind yourself.

You’ve got this.

The words loop over and over in your head like a quiet mantra. This is your day. You love Alex. He’s good and kind and he makes you feel safe. He remembers the little things. He’s building a life with you that feels real. You chose him. This is the right choice. It has to be.

You smooth your hands over the ruffled skirt again, the cool fabric soothing your nerves just a little. You tilt your head, studying your reflection – the soft waves in your hair, the veil cascading down your back, the way your makeup makes your eyes look brighter. You look like a bride. You look like the bride.

Joel is your past, you remind yourself firmly. He showed up, he stirred everything up, but he didn’t stop you. He didn’t fight for you. The Joel you knew five years ago would’ve. And that means something. Because no matter what you feel for Joel, it’s obviously not mutual. And that’s okay, you tell yourself. Because you have Alex, and he’s out there waiting for you, and today is about your future with him. Not old memories. Not what-ifs. Just this.

You let out one more slow breath, rolling your shoulder back and lifting your chin a little. The nerves are still there, buzzing under your skin, but you push them down as best you can. You turn away from the mirror, the train of your dress whispering across the floor as you take a few steps, practicing the way you’ll walk down the aisle.

Before you even realize it, you’re pacing

Your fingers twist anxiously at the engagement ring on your left hand, spinning the diamond around and around your finger. The stone reflecting the light with every nervous rotation, bright and heavy and impossible to ignore. You don’t know how long you’ve been moving back and forth in here – three minutes? Five? – but the realization hits you suddenly. You cant hide in here forever. People will start wondering. Lily will come looking. Alex might even come himself.

You need to go.

You step back in front of the mirror one last time and gather the voluminous skirt in both your hands, lifting it a few inches before letting it drop again. You do it once, twice, three times, watching the layers of tulle and lace settle beautifully around your legs. It looks perfect. Everything looks so fucking perfect.

A soft knock echoes through the room.

Your head lifts. Lily, you think immediately. Probably here to tell you it’s time to go.

“Coming!” you call out, trying to force all the nerves out of your throat.

You turn back to the mirror and lean in a little closer, quickly smoothing your fingertips over the top of your hair to settle any last flyaways, patting under your eyes with your ring finger to refresh the makeup under your eyes. You tilt your head, checking every angle.

“You’ve got this,” you mumble under your breath, the words barely audible. “You’ve got this.”

Another knock, firmer this time.

You roll your eyes with a huff, already turning the door as you speak. “Geez, Lily, I was just—”

You pull the door open mid-sentence, and the rest of the words die in your throat.

And suddenly, your lungs forget how to work. The skirt of your wedding dress suddenly feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, and the lace corset feels like it’s suffocating you. Joel’s stood in the doorway like he stepped straight out of every half-remembered dream you’ve had for the last few years. Charcoal suit stretched across those broad shoulders, white shirt open at the collar like he couldn’t stand the formality of it all, salt-and-pepper hair slicked at the side but just messy enough to look like he’d been dragging his hands through it all day.

And his eyes – those big, brown eyes are wide and shattered as they rake over you. The veil. The dress. The diamond on your finger that isn’t is.

He looks like a man who just lost everything and still can’t stop staring.

And all either of you can do is stare at each other, no words, no movements, just wide eyes and parted lips.

You’re about to speak, force something—anything out—but he beats you to it.

“...Darlin’.”

You grip the door so hard your knuckles ache. “Joel... what are you—”

He steps inside without waiting for permission, closing the door behind him with a soft click, never taking his eyes off you. The scent of him — cedar, soap, and a faint trace of cologne — floods the space between you and feels like a punch to the gut.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathes, voice thick as ever. His gaze drags over every inch of you like he’s memorizing a goodbye. “Look at you…”

Your throat closes and tears prickle hot behind your eyes, threatening the perfect makeup Lily spent an hour perfecting. “You shouldn’t be here, Joel.”

“I know.” He takes one small step closer, then another, like he’s scared you might bolt. “Told myself that the whole damn drive here. Told myself it a hundred times since that party.” His hand lifts like he wants to touch you, then drops. “But I can’t let you do this. Not without you knowin’.”

You shake your head, letting your eyes flutter closed. “Knowing what, Joel?” Your voice cracks as your fingers twist at the engagement ring that suddenly feels like it’s cutting off circulation.

“That I still love you,” he breathes, shaking his head. “Never stopped. Not for one goddamn day.”

Tears start to blur your vision again and your face flushes with a rush of heat that spreads down your neck and all over your body. You look down, unable to look at him any longer, and give a small, helpless shake of your head. “Joel...” you whisper.

Joel takes another step forward as his jaw works, eyes shining and glossy. “I tried to move on. God knows I did. Dated women my own age, kept my head down, threw myself into work until I was too tired to think... but it didn’t matter. You were always there, in the back of my mind.” He swallows hard. “I was scared. Scared I was holdin’ you back, scared I was too broken, too old, too stuck in my ways. Thought I was doin’ right by lettin’ you go.”

A tear slips down your cheek. You don’t bother wiping it away.

“But watchin’ you at that party with him...” His voice drops, thick with pain. “Seein’ you in that green dress, laughin’ the way you used to laugh with me... it damn near killed me. And knowin’ today was comin’? I couldn’t stay away. Couldn’t let you walk down that aisle without hearin’ it from me.”

He’s close now. Close enough that you can see the faint tremble in his hands, the way his chest is rising and falling way too fast. You should tell him to leave. You should scream for Lily. You should do a lot of things.

Instead, you whisper, “Joel... I’m getting married.”

“I know.” His hand finally rises slowly, brushing a tear from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. His touch is so gentle it hurts. “And if you look me in the eye right now and tell me you love him more than you ever loved me — that this is what you want — I’ll walk out that door. Won’t even stay for the rest of the weddin’. I’ll let you go for good this time.”

His other hand comes up to cradle your face, thumbs stroking along your jaw like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.

“But if even a small part of you still feels what I feel...” He steps even closer, big brown eyes locked on yours. “Don’t do it, baby. Don’t marry him.”

A soft sob breaks out of you before you can stop it.

Joel cradles your face with so much tenderness, it sends more tears falling. “Hey... hey, darlin’, it’s okay.” He whispers, his voice so soft and soothing. “I’ve got you. Just breathe. I’m right here.” His thumbs wipe away the tears that won’t seem to stop pouring down your cheeks.

Your heart aches with a devastating mix of relief and crushing guilt all at once. This is exactly what you’d been secretly hoping for — deep down, you wanted Joel to show up here. To stop you, to say everything you’ve been too terrified to admit yourself. But Alex... sweet, loving Alex doesn’t deserve this. He’s a good guy who’s never hurt you. And yet your heart keeps screaming the truth you can’t ignore anymore. It’s Joel. It’s always been Joel.

He pulls back just enough to search your puffy, wet eyes with his own — wide and scared, like he’s terrified you’ll push him away. Your faces are so close now, lips only inches apart, your shaky breaths mingling with each other’s and your soft sniffles filling the quiet air.

He leans in first, pausing for a heartbeat right in front of your lips, giving you a chance to pull away—but you don’t. Can’t.

So he closes the distance, his soft lips touching yours for the first time in years making you gasp into his mouth, the familiar feeling hitting you like a wave.

It’s not gentle or careful; it’s five years of silence and longing and regret crashing together. He kisses you like a man drowning, one hand sliding into your pinned hair, the other gripping your waist like he’ll never let go again. You taste salt —your tears, maybe his — and the faint bite of alcohol. Your fingers fist into the lapels of his suit jacket, pulling him closer, closer, like you can merge the mix of years apart into nothing.

He groans into your mouth when your lips part for him, tongue sliding against yours with a hunger that makes you weak at the knees. The veil shifts, the heavy skirt tangling around your legs as he backs you against the vanity. Something clatters to the floor. Neither of you cares.

He pulls back a little, gasping, lips swollen and eyes wild.

“Tell me to leave,” he rasps into your mouth. “Say the words. Tell me you don’t want this.”

You can’t. You cant say it.

Instead, you pull him back in, kissing him slower this time, pouring everything you can into it — the lonely nights, the what-if’s, the way Alex’s love always felt like a beautiful room with no windows while Joel’s felt like the entire fucking sky.

A sharp knock makes the both of you freeze.

“Five minutes!” Lily calls through the door, bright and completely oblivious. “You ready?”

Your heart hammers against your ribs. Joel doesn’t pull away. His eyes stay on you, searching your face like he’s scared of what you’ll say next.

Your voice is barely above a whisper.

“...Stay.”

Joel’s eyes flutter closed for a second, relief washing over his face like a dam breaking. When they open again, they’re blazing.

“Yeah?”

You nod, tears slipping down your cheeks. “Yeah. I... I can’t do it. I can’t marry him.”

The words feel like both salvation and sin the moment they leave your lips.

Joel lets out a shaky exhale and nods a few times. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay, darlin’. We’ll figure it out. But right now, you gotta tell me what you need. You want me to walk out there with you? You want me to wait here? You want me to get you the hell outta here?” His eyes dance across your face. “Just tell me what you need, baby.”

Your mind is spinning and your heart is racing. The string quartet is playing louder outside. You can hear the low murmur of guests, the occasional burst of laughter. In five minutes — maybe less — Lily is going to walk through that door and expect a glowing bride.

A new wave of panic hits you.

“I don’t know,” you admit, voice trembling. “I don’t know what to do. Everyone’s out there. Alex is out there...”

Joel’s hands slide down to hold yours, thumbs stroking over your knuckles, bringing you back down to earth for a second. “You don’t gotta decide everythin’ right this second,” he says gently but urgently. “But you do gotta decide one thing right now: do you wanna walk down that aisle, or do you wanna leave?”

You stare at him — at the man you never really got over — and the answer feels like it’s been carved in your bones for years.

“I want to leave,” you whisper. “With you.”

He doesn’t hesitate. He nods once, jaw set. “Then we’re leavin’. Right now.”

He glances back at the door, then back at you. “You got shoes you can move in? That dress is gonna be a problem, but we’ll make it work.”

You shake your head, half-laughing, half-crying. “I can’t exactly run in this.”

“I’ll carry you if I have to,” he says, completely serious. The corner of his mouth twitches — that familiar crooked smile breaking through the tension. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

There’s another knock on the door — louder this time.

“Two minutes!” Lily calls. “I’m coming in!”

The doorknob rattles.

“Shit,” Joel curses, but the corner of his mouth twitches — that old, familiar half-smile breaking through. “Let’s get outta here.”

He grabs your hand and pulls you toward the far side of the suite, where a set of tall glass doors open onto a small private terrace overlooking the gardens. You bunch up the ridiculous mountain of tulle and lace, half-running, half-tripping after him. The dress fights with you every step, catching on furniture and nearly sending you stumbling.

“This thing is a damn hazard,” Joel grumbles, but there’s a breathless laugh in his voice as he pushes the doors open.

The warm sunlight hits you both the second you step outside. Your heart is pounding — part terror, part absolute joy. The guilt sits heavy in your stomach; Alex waiting at the altar, all the guests, the life you’re blowing up, but being with Joel, choosing Joel, feels like the first real breath you’ve taken in years.

Joel glances back at you, wrestling with the skirt and shakes his head, grinning despite everything. “C’mere.”

He scoops you up without warning, like you weight nothing, one arm under your knees, the other around your back. And you let out a surprised laugh that turns into a half-sob as you wrap your arms around his neck.

“You’re gonna break your back,” you laugh, even as you hold on tighter.

“Worth it,” he whispers. He carries you down the stone steps and cuts through the garden, staying behind the tall hedges. The veil keeps whipping across his face and your skirt keeps snagging on branches. Every time it does, Joel curses under his breath and adjusts his grip, muttering, “Goddamn wedding dress weighs more than me, I swear...”

You stifle a watery giggle against his shoulder.

The distant sound of the quarter and murmuring guests floats across the lawn, making your chest tighten with guilt again.

“Joel...” you whisper, voice cracking.

“I know.” His hold on you tightens. “I know it’s messy. But you’re safe. I’ve got you.”

He ducks behind a tall stone near the edge of the property, finally setting you down gently on your feet but keeping one hand on your waist. His free hand comes up to cup your face, thumb wiping away fresh tears.

“You sure about this?” he asks, searching your puffy eyes, giving you one last out, even now. “We can still turn back. I’ll walk you back if that’s what you really want.”

Part of you knows you should. Alex is waiting. Everyone is waiting. You’re about to shatter a good man’s heart and blow up both of your lives... but the thought of walking away from Joel again feels impossible. You can’t go back. Not now.

You shake your head, fresh tears falling, fingers curling into his suit jacket. “I don’t wanna go back.”

His face softens with what looks like relief — the hard lines around his eyes soften and his brows pull apart and that crooked smile trembles a little, equal parts relief and disbelief. His whole face lights up.

He leans down and kisses you again — quick but full of joy instead of desperation. When he pulls back, his hand slides to the back of your neck, thumb stroking along your hairline as he holds you close.

“Good,” he murmurs. “’Cause I’m not lettin’ you go again.”

He glances behind you at the massive white dress billowing around you and lets out a short, breathless laugh. “That thing’s gonna get us caught,” he mutters, but there’s no real worry in his voice, just wild, reckless energy.

He grabs your hand, lacing your fingers tightly together, and the two of you take off — half-jogging, half-sneaking the rest of the way toward the road. Your skirt keeps catching on the grass and ballooning out dramatically with every step, but you don’t care. You're both giggling like idiots every time it happens, Joel muttering curses under his breath as he tugs you along faster.

By the time you reach his truck, you’re both a little flushed and winded. Joel opens the passenger door with a dramatic flourish.

“Your getaway car, darlin’.”

You climb in, laughing through tears as you try to stuff the endless layers of tulle inside. He shuts the door, rounds the truck, and slides behind the wheel. The engine rumbles to life — that familiar, comforting sound.

He looks over at you, one hand reaching for yours, thumb stroking over your knuckles. The smile on his face is soft, but his eyes are serious.

“You ready?” he asks quietly, giving you one final chance to change your mind.

You squeeze his hand, the messy storm of guilt, relief, and terrifying joy still turning inside your chest.

“No,” you whisper through a shaky laugh. “But I’m doing it anyway.”

The corner of Joel’s mouth lifts as he brings your hand to his lips and pulls away from the venue. The estate disappears behind you as the truck rolls down the winding road, windows down, your veil still fluttering in the wind like a messy white flag.

It’s messy. It’s gonna hurt like hell tomorrow.

But right now, sitting beside Joel with his hand laced with yours, the guilt feels distant — and all you can feel is freedom.

[bubbarnes]

🎉 My favorite Bucky Barnes' looks

for my 29th birthday 🎉

[endgamezouis]

drink water. listen to bad bunny. remember where you came from. love your people. fuck ice. fuck the usa. free palestine

[mcthsman]

*DOG YEARS: a joel miller x reader story.

After your father disappears, his old smuggling partner takes on the task of keeping you safe inside the Boston QZ— Until he, too, goes missing after accepting the mission of delivering a young girl to a group of Fireflies.

read it on archiveofourown. / click here for my main masterlist.

warnings: qz!joel, age gap (reader is late 20s joel is mid 50s), reader is afab and goes by she/her, tess is an ass but she's got a point, kind of dad's friend!joel, they were more business partners than friends but joel knew reader as a kid, parental abuse (physical and verbal but it happens off age), drugs/alcohol use, smut (daddy kink, fingering f receiving, unprotected piv, 'just the tip', little bit of edging, dirty talk, pussy pronouns, pussy/tit slapping, creampie.) financial instability/money struggles, codependency, no use of y/n, some religious stuff, canon-typical violence, brief mention of possible sa, joel has ptsd, brief mention of misogyny, romanticizing the shit out of a toxic relationship, the dynamic between them is too trad wife-y to be healthy in my opinion, pre-canon, vomiting, death of minor characters, joel calls reader kid/little girl, unplanned pregnancy, talks of abortion, so many daddy issues for the both of them it borders on fauxcest????, seriously freud would have a field day with this one, kind of open ending, hopeful ending.

rating: 18+.

word count: 8.2k.

fox says: hi friends, thank you for reading! the idea for this started as a series, but i already have too many series going on at the same time and i felt like the vibe fit well for a one shot! (i could totes write a sequel at some point, though....) this was super inspired by dog years by halsey, that song just gives me mad joel vibesssss. as always, the pics are for aesthetics only & there is no description of reader!! the writing style is a little different from what i usually do but i just wanted to play around with something new so pls let me know if we like it because i had fun but i'm not super sure about it. also it gets super filthy halfway through and i'm so sorry i'm not sure i ever wrote something this nasty? lol

'Cause I'm not old, but I am tired / I'm not strong, I'm very weak / I'm not old, but I am tired / I'm not here, I'm somewhere else / I'm one hundred ninety-six in dog years / I have seen enough / I've seen it all — Halsey, Dog Years.

You haven't lived in the Boston QZ for your entire life, but it certainly feels like it— Your parents came in when you were eight years old, about a year after Outbreak Day, when the Quarantine Zone was still fresh, with FEDRA just starting to take over the country and people still willing to trust their government to keep them safe. It is the only life you know and, while it is not perfect, it's certainly better than facing the dangers outside FEDRA's protection: You grew up hearing stories of raiders and slavers and how the infected outnumbered people at an alarming rate, how it was utterly impossible to survive without the watchful eye of FEDRA and its harsh laws.

Things are comfortable, even though they're not good, and that's more than most people have. You mother died just before your tenth birthday, an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire between FEDRA soldiers and the freedom fighters. Your father, a violent smuggler with a penchant for booze and pills, spends more time outside the QZ's walls than inside the tiny one-bedroom apartment the two of you share.

You're used to being alone by now, working triple shifts at the speakeasy and having to sneak your way back home just as the sun is starting to come up, risking your life for a couple of ration cards — more if you're in pigtails, even more if your shirt is low cut — that barely cover the amount you have to pay to keep a roof over both of your heads.

Everything changes when, for the first time since your mother died, your father is gone for longer than a couple of weeks. Usually his smuggle runs last a week or two at most before he comes home, drinks himself to a stupor over the weekend and then leaves again by Monday morning. This time, when the two weeks are up and he doesn't come back, there's a small part of you that is happy for it. The bruises he's given you are just starting to fade, the cut above your eyebrow finally closing up when the doubt creeps in and you begin to wonder whether or not this is the time your father will not come back home at all.

By the end of the first month he's gone, you know something happened. You're not sure if he simply left you behind or if he's dead or injured somewhere, but you know this isn't normal. So, one early morning, you make your way to the northern district of the QZ, where you know Abe lives— He's the only one with a long-distance radio and no affiliations to FEDRA or the Fireflies, the man your father once said he'd contact if he ever needs to speak to you while he's gone. In over a decade of smuggling your father hasn't tried to reach out to you once, but he also has never been late, and you figure maybe Abe would be able to give you a proper answer.

You stay in line for five and a half hours, a handful of ratios stuffed inside your bra, but your meeting with Abe only lasts a couple of minutes: He eyes you with suspicion, scowling the moment you say your father's name, and then tells that he would require ten ration cards to tell you if there's a message, and then another fifteen to read said message if it does exists— With no refund of the initial ten in case your father hasn't contacted you at all. You know extortion when you see it, has faced it plenty of times — Most men are always eager to take advantage of a young woman with no one to back her up —, and twenty-five ration cards is simply not something you can afford without going hungry or risking loosing your apartment.

For the first time in your life, you're truly alone. There's no one to run to, no one to help you or save you in this situation and that is somehow worse than all of the beatings and offensive words your father has thrown at you for the past two decades, the financial weight of having to provide for yourself in a world that is rigged against your survival brings you the sort of desperation you have never felt before.

It is that desperation that brings you to Joel Miller.

Joel has always been a constant in your life; he had worked alongside your father when you were little, always a solid shadow at the edge of your childhood memories, but they had a rough falling out after your father double crossed him sometime during your teenagehood and had, since then, become competitors inside the QZ. Now he is mostly a looming threat, some dark nefarious figure that might take away your father's livelihood at any moment.

He is not the sort of man you ever want to mess with, especially because you're not sure whether he's the vindictive type— He may as well hold your father's wrongdoings against you and refuse to help or worse: he could rat you out to FEDRA, use the opportunity to usurp the loyal clientele your father has or use his absence to wipe him out entirely. But you hear from Joan that hears from Elizabeth that hears from Eric that Joel Miller is friends with Abe and you figure that, maybe, Joel would be decent enough to bargain with the man for you. So, with an offering of bathtub moonshine you steal from work and tears in your eyes, Joel makes the deal; the bottle is probably worth a lot less than what he could've charged you but he doesn't bargain, instead choosing to grunt, take the bottle and slam his apartment's door in your face. He shows up at your place two days later, just as you start to panic thinking that maybe he's conned you out of some liquor, with a blank face and bad news: There has been no message, and although Joel promises to check in with the radio guy periodically, your father doesn't try to contact you at all in the days after that.

After that, Joel becomes a constant fixture in your life: He walks you home from the speakeasy after your shifts, and he fixes your shower or reinforces your front door or drops by with new shoes or food after a successful run. You find ration cards in your coat pockets or slipped under your door whenever you start working the triple shifts again, though he has never admitted to being the one putting them there: Every act of care comes with stony silence or a scowl, but Joel is always there, solid and within reach whenever you need him. So, you do the stupidest thing you could possibly do: You repay him with stolen alcohol. It starts with the small bottle that you use to bribe him that first time, but you become bolder and bolter as the months crawl on, swiping bigger and more expensive bottles whenever you can.

The owner, a mean-looking man named Bryan, catches you red-handed on a snow-heavy night in December. The beating itself isn't the worst you've ever gotten — someone robbed you when you were fourteen, taking a whole's week worth of rations and your father had always blamed you for that, his punishment even more painful than the shiner the thief had given you — but it's close enough and, as you stumble home through the snow-covered streets in the skimpy clothes you wear for better tips, all you can do is think that you got luck: Bryan could've cut off your fingers, or raped you or killed you or a thousand other horrible things that would wield a lot more damage than what he did and most people wouldn't have batted an eye; Hell, half the people you know probably would've thought you deserved it.

You're halfway home when panic truly sets in, outweighing the pain and the cold as you start to do the math— You're fresh out of a job, with rent looming within the next couple of days and you still don't have enough cards to cover it, let alone all of the other expenses you have; the pantry is almost empty, a single loaf of stale bread that you've been rationing for a few days while you waited for payday, and you still need to pay your neighbor for the winter socks she's knitted for you.

You're so terrified at the knowledge that you'll be homeless within the next week that you don't even notice Joel approach until it's too late, his cracked hands grabbing your shoulders and pushing you away from the main street just in time to miss the FEDRA soldier patrolling the area.

You shriek, your brain taking longer than it usually would to understand what is happening. Joel pins your back to his chest, one hand wrapped around your middle while the other slams over your mouth— The rough touch to your tender face has you whimpering, pain blossoming all over.

"It's me. Calm down." He whispers, holding the position for a moment longer while the soldier walks past the alleyway the two of you are in before he lets you go. You try to keep your head down so your hair fall over the bruises that are already forming but your face is so covered in blood that you can see the red liquid has stained Joel's palm. He looks at it for a second as if he can't comprehend what happened before he's crowding you against the wall, his surprisingly gentle hands tugging your chin towards him.

"I'm fine." You say in the silence that follows, though that's very much not true. Joel takes in a deep breath, his entire face scrunched.

"Who did this to you?"

"Joel, it's—"

"Who?"

You bring a hand up, your fingers wrapping around his wrist; the touch is meant to stop him, your intentions on fully pulling his hand away but you find it grounding instead, as if simply feeling Joel's rapidly beating pulse point beneath your fingertips is enough to melt the anguish away.

"Bryan." You relent, because you know he won't let go otherwise. "I had it coming."

"He'll pay. He ain't got no right to—"

"I stole from him." The admission is small, the words barely coming out of your lips; you didn't mean to tell him, the last thing you want is for him to connect the dots and realize you had been stealing for him. "I'm lucky he didn't do worse."

Joel goes entirely still, his hand still gripping your chin, his dark eyes staring you down so intensely it makes you squirm. A beat, and then another, and you watch in real time as realization washes over him.

Joel drops your chin like you've burned him. "Goddamn it, kid. Are you really that fuckin' stupid? Don't cha think that—"

"Joel, please." You whine, your eyes welling up with tears. "I don't need this right now. I'm cold, and everything hurts, and I'm out of a job. Just… Just don't lecture me right now, okay? I don't need it."

For a second, you think he'll ignore and go on his tirade— He looks like he wants to, but then his jaw locks and his nostrils flare and that's it. Joel swallows his emotions down in such an efficient manner it awes you and you barely have time to register the blankness of his face before he's wrapping his own jacket around you.

"Let's get you home and cleaned up."

Home, as it turns out, is Joel's place. You don't have the energy to argue despite the fact that the only thing you want to do is to crawl under your blanket and cry until you pass out, and you sit by the kitchen table as he cleans your face and neck with a wet rag. The apartment is cold even though Joel does his best to insulate the windows, and you shiver in your wet clothes— both from the remnants of snow that seem ingrained inside your bones and the heatwave that followed from Joel's touch, your body burning up from inside out at every careful touch of his hands. Once you seem clean enough, he brings you a chilled bottle out of the freezer, the clear liquid sloshing inside and you're sure it's probably either moonshine or vodka; Most likely moonshine, illegally made by some of the people brave enough to cook up such a thing within the city's walls.

"Put it over your eye, or it's goin' to swell shut."

You do as he says, but your heart races inside your chest as Joel kneels in front of you, carefully unlacing your boots.

"Joel, what—"

"Need to get'cha out of these wet clothes." He mumbles, not looking at you. Joel helps you out of your shoes and socks, and then turns his back at you and busies himself on the stove while you change from your work clothes to his— boxer shorts, wool socks and a thick sweatshirt that you're sure must've costed him a small fortune. You're still cold by the time Joel sets a steaming mug of tea on the table, but you're more comfortable than you've been in months.

Something changes between the two of you that night, tangled together in Joel's bed, his heartbeat steady under your cheek and his hand in your hair as you cry yourself to sleep. You go back to your apartment the next morning but just to pick up your personal belongings, Joel as a bodyguard as you collect what you can inside his backpack; you don't have much anyway, and you donate all of your father's belongings to the family two apartments down— More out of spite than anything else, you keep his favorite pair of boots as a gift to Joel. He takes the boots with an expression that seems to know exactly what you're doing, presses a kiss to the top of your head as if he's done it a million times, and clears out a drawer for you in his wardrobe.

Bryan goes missing three days after you move into Joel's place, and then they find his body five days after that, his face beaten almost beyond recognition, every single one of his fingers broken. His son takes over the speakeasy and invites you back, probably because he doesn't know what you did— Joel doesn't let you go back, claiming he doesn't trust the son and that you deserve better than being harassed by drunk men all night. You take odd jobs here and there, wanting to contribute with your share of rations but eventually Joel convinces you to quit altogether: Between the smuggling and the temporary jobs he takes from FEDRA he's certain he can provide enough for the two of you, and that you shouldn't be risking and exhausting yourself over nothing. You try to pull your weight around the house then, keeping it cleaner than he ever did, stitching up his socks and jackets and trying to make a meal out of the crappy food FEDRA distributes.

Housewife is the word that Tess uses for you. She says it with a sneer, scoffing whenever Joel tries to deny it; he says you're just a kid, that you're too young to be on your own and that you need him. She says that you're too old to need a daddy, and Joel slams his fist down on the table and they don't see each other for a few weeks. By the time Tess is back, it's as if nothing ever happened— She doesn't apologize and neither does he, or maybe they've exchanged apologies somewhere you weren't privy to, but Tess doesn't quit with the insults. Kept girl, plaything, pet— All names she uses whenever Joel isn't around, and then ignores you completely whenever he is.

Truth is, you find that you don't mind the nicknames. Joel calls you kid, kiddo, sweet girl— Also only when the two of you are alone, using your name whenever there is anyone listening and you've come to understand that there is a lot about Joel that he doesn't show to the world: He's feared inside the QZ, most people crossing the street whenever he's around, doing whatever they could to stay out of his way and only coming to him whenever they needed something no one else could bring but with you he's the sweetest man you've ever dealt with, quiet yet caring in a way that you haven't seen from anyone else.

The first time the two of you kiss, it feels like you've been doing it for all of your life; Joel had been gone for a couple of days, a pill run beyond the QZ's walls that made you sleepless. Tess hadn't gone with him this time around, which only made everything worse— For all the woman hated you, you knew she'd give her life to protect his. He comes home so late it's almost morning, his clothes soaked in blood that isn't his and his knuckles scraped raw.

You're not sure which one of you moves first: He's crowding you the second the door closes, and then his lips are pressing against yours, hungry and desperate. He kisses you until you the both of you are breathless, the still wet blood from his shirt soaking into yours: A bond that no soap or water can wash away even after the proof of your bodies mending together is discarded.

Joel tells you about Sarah in the middle of the night, when his nightmare wakes the both of you and he can't hide the tears. He doesn't tell you exactly how she died, just that it happened on Outbreak Day, and you request stories of happy memories to get his mind off of it. He tells you about the soccer practices and early Saturday matches, about the hikes they used to go on with Tommy and about the time she begged him to paint her room pink and then had him repaint it with purple a couple of weeks later, when she decided she hated pink. Joel talks more than you've ever seen him do, long fully formed sentences rather than the short words and grunts you're used to and it's like you're seeing yet a new side of him— Something soft and sacred that he's been hiding from the entire world, even from those closest to him.

"She would hate the man I became." He says eventually, after a short lull between tales of Sarah's first day in kindergarten. "The monster I became."

You're not certain how to deal with the self-loathing in his voice, especially because you know it's true— Joel's a terrible man, broken and violent and capable of unspeakable things, and you doubt the little girl from his memories would be proud of him for it. You press a kiss to the top of his head much like he seems to enjoy doing to you.

"There's always time." You whisper. "As long as you're alive, you still have time to make her proud."

He leaves before you wake the next morning but greets you with a kiss when he comes home in the evening, his breath smelling of whiskey and pupils dilated from the pills he swears he isn't taking anymore.

The afternoon you run into Robert's goons beating the ever living fuck out of Tess, there is a brief second in which you consider walking away— She's been nothing but horrible to you even when you were at your most vulnerable, and you doubt she'd intervene in your favor if it was the other way around. But your feet move before you can second guess yourself, plucking a large plank of wood from a rubbish pile close to you and hitting the bigger of the men as hard as you can in the back of the head: You miss a little, hitting him in the back of the neck but he falls like a sack of bricks anyway, his skull cracking against the pavement. Tess is on the smaller guy before he can jump you, her knee pressing to his neck until he stops thrashing.

Tess doesn't thank you, but you can tell she looks at you differently after that, staring you in silence for long periods of time. When she calls you by your name rather than an insulting nickname for the first time, you're so stunned that she scoffs and walks away in the few seconds it takes you to respond.

"You should leave him." She tells you once, her eyes glued to the radio as she waits for the message from Frank. Joel's nowhere to be found, but you still feel his presence in the cramped apartment anyway as if his very essence loomed over your shoulder. "This is not healthy for either you."

"I would die without him." You mean it literally, too— Joel is your saving grace, the only person to offer you a hand and keep you warm and fed in this horrifying world.

"That's exactly why you should go." She says. "No man should own your soul like that."

You wonder if she's speaking from experience, and you wonder if it has anything to do with Joel but How Can You Mend a Broken Heart by the Bee Gees starts playing on the radio and then Tess is shuffling through the song book like a madwoman.

"80s?" You ask, worrying your bottom lip. You have yet to meet Bill and Frank, but you know how much they mean to Joel— Even if he would rather die than admit to it.

Tess shakes her head in denial, and the relief in face is clear as day. "1971. They got new supplies coming in."

"Do you think they'll have any yarn? Joel needs new socks."

"You deserve better than this." Disappointment washes over her face. "Better than a man that is using you to replace his dead daughter."

She's wrong and you know it; Joel doesn't treat you like your father ever did, there's nothing paternal about his touches and there is no replacing Sarah. But you'd be lying if you said you never envied her for having Joel as a father, even if she is dead now; the guilt you feel must show on your face because Tess' nose wrinkles.

"Or maybe you do. Maybe the two of you deserve each other."

The tone she uses is somehow more offensive than any petname she's ever used before. But the idea of belonging so deeply to Joel that even Tess can see it warms your inside so comfortably you can't find it in yourself to be offended by the implications of her words.

The first and only time Joel comes inside of you, you've been living with him for well over a year. It's been five months since the two of you shared your first kiss, and while you've both been using your mouths and hands on each other ever since, Joel's been hesitant to be inside of you— Pulling out is risky, and condoms expired for over two decades are probably even worse, so he pushes the idea away, making you come three or four times with his mouth until you're so exhausted you stop begging him to fuck you properly.

You're already two orgasms in, sprawled nude and sweaty on the bed while Joel fucks you slowly with his fingers. He bites and sucks at your neck, a collection of bruises of varying degrees of healing peppered all over your skin. Joel pulls his fingers away from you, rubbing his cock against your cunt.

"I'm going to put just the tip." He says, his voice just a little stern as if he's scolding you before you can even misbehave.

"Yes, daddy." You nod and, although you want to beg him to just fuck you already, you're afraid he might change his mind if you seem too eager.

Joel pulls back, leaning on his haunches, pushing your knee to the side. Your legs fall open and you push yourself on your elbow, wanting to see just exactly what he's going to do— Joel is a sight to behold, his chest flush and his breathing deep, his heavy cock gripped tight in his hand. You'd been intimidated by it at first, long and impossibly thick, but Joel has fucked your mouth so many times by now that you are certain you'd be able to take him anywhere he wanted. He presses the head of his cock against your clit and you moan as it slides to the side, coated in your slick.

"She's always cryin' for her daddy." He chuckles and you clench around nothing, his rough voice hitting you deep inside. "Winkin' at me like that, begging for my cock."

"Just for you." You say, so wet you can feel it sliding down to your ass. "Want you so bad it hurts."

Joel brushes his cock against your entrance, teasing, not yet pushing inside. " 'S okay, babygirl. 'M gon' make the pain go away."

The first stretch as he pushes the fat head inside is almost too painful, your head falling back as you mewl but Joel doesn't let you go very far, the hand not holding himself steady flying to your hair, pulling you up just enough so you can see where he disappears inside of you.

"Look at ya." He commands, thighs shaking from the effort of staying still. "Stretchin' so pretty around daddy's cock."

Joel rolls his hips, pushing just another inch inside before he pulls out, a string of your slick connecting the tip of his cock to your entrance. You clench, fingers digging into the mattress to stop yourself from seeking his hips with yours. He's just as wrecked as you feel, breathing deeply before he pushes inside of you again, just a little bit further this time, but still not nearly enough. You keen and give in, planting your feet on the bed to rock against him— His cock slides halfway in before his hand pushes you back on the bed by the hip. The two of you groan in unison, both from the touch and then the abrupt lack of it. His hand comes down onto your clit, slapping it so hard you almost scream, eyes rolling to the back of its sockets.

"Oh, you like that, naughty girl?" Joel asks, and then he gives your cunt another slap. He hums when you wail, sounding almost curious about this new thing the both of you have just discovered. "If you try that again, we're done for tonight, y'hear me? You'll take what I give you or nothin' at all."

You nod, eager, wanting nothing more than for him to be inside of you again. Joel gives your clit yet another slap and the sting makes your skin warm all over.

"Yes, daddy. I'll be good." You say as he rubs soothing circles to your sensitive clit. Joel brings his cock back to you, sliding in much easier than before; he fucks you slowly, no more than just a couple of inches— Just enough to drive you crazy, your entire body set aflame at the touch that is oh-so-pleasurable but still not enough. You hold your body taut, biting down on your bottom lip to keep yourself from pushing back against him.

"Fuck, she's stranglin' me, babygirl. Never seen a pussy so tight—" Joel grunts, his body flushed red from his thick neck down to his navel, sweat dampening the hairs on his chest. "She's just suckin' me right in, isn't she?"

"She needs you." You bring a hand to your mouth, shoving two fingers between your lips and wetting them before you slide your spit-slicked fingers to your chest, rolling your nipples between them. Joel groans at the sight, loosing control of his hips just long enough to push a third of his cock inside of you. "Please daddy, it's not enough. I need to feel you deep inside of me."

You can see the moment his resolve cracks. He hikes your legs closer to his hips and then slams his entire length inside of you— It makes you wail, your mouth falling open and your back arching. Joel topples over your, pushing his index and middle finger inside of your open mouth much like you'd done just moments before. You wrap your lips around his thick fingers, humming as he shoves them as far as he can; you've learned how to control your gag reflex in the past couple of months, Joel's cock big enough to slide down your throat with a single thrust, but the way his fingers push down onto your tongue make your throat close tight.

"Suck on 'em." He orders, hips pulling back until his cock is almost entirely out before plunging back in. "I wanna see you choke on your daddy's fingers while his big cock fucks you open."

You do as he says, mainly because there isn't much else you can do other than take his commands, giving his digits the same treatment as you would his cock, licking and sucking and taking them as deep as you can. Joel's cock hits the same spot inside of you again and again and you can feel him everywhere; you moan around his fingers until he seems to take pity on you, pulling his hand away from your mouth. He shifts positions, kneeling in front of you and hiking your hips on his thighs; you only miss the weight of his body on top of yours for a second, because then Joel is pushing your knees up to your chest and the new position make you even tighter, the pressure making it seem as if his cock has doubled in size. Joel also changes the pace of his thrusts, going slower now and yet somehow even deeper, making you feel every inch of him.

"I'm gonna come." You say, the pressure building fast.

"No you won't." You blink at him, disoriented by his words. Joel pulls back, slapping your clit just as he plunges back inside. "You're goin' to be my good girl and you won't come until I let ya."

"I can't—" You say, the words cut off by the power of his thrusts. "I don't know how—"

"Yes you do." Joel hums, and he sounds almost mean as he slaps your cunt again. "Fuck, she chokes down my cock when I do that. Sweetest. Fuckin'. Pussy."

The last three words are punctuated by slap after slap, the moans falling out of your mouth becoming more and more desperate; you weren't lying, you don't know how to stop yourself from coming but you do the best you can, trying to focus on the mold spots on the ceiling or the chipped paint near the window or anything that isn't Joel's cock pushing time and time again against that perfect spot inside of you.

"Please let me come." You beg, tears pooling on the corner of your eyes and trickling down to your temples. "I can't hold it in, daddy, please. Please please please, I can't—"

Joel pinches your overstimulated clit and you gush around him, body locking up as you come against your will. It makes you black out for a second, black spots dancing in front of your eyes but Joel isn't done. He slaps your tit this time, the flesh jiggling both from the slap and the power of his thrusts.

"Such a bad girl." He grits out, slapping your breast again but he doesn't sound angry at all. "Should punish you for that. Ground you 'n' everythin'. Gotta learn to listen to your daddy."

"I'll take it." You say, gasping for air. You blink at him, the tears still blurring your eyesight. "Whatever it is, daddy, I'll take it. Anything for you."

"Maybe I'll fuck that pretty lil' ass of yours next." Joel threatens, and you clench around him. "Or maybe I'll spank you so raw you won't be able to sit. Use a belt to make sure your not comin' from my slappin' you. Naughty lil' thing, bet'cha like that, huh?"

Your heart jumps to your throat at the mention of the belt, a thousand different memories — bad, terrifying memories — of your own father and his leather belt jump to mind and your eyes well with real, uncontrollable tears.

"Anything for you." You parrot yourself, your eyes locking with the place where Joel clutched to your thighs as if you were his lifeline. "I'm yours, daddy. Anything you want, I'll take it. I'm yours, I'm yours, I'm—"

Joel's thrusts become more erratic, fast and deep and not calculated as they'd been before. He comes deep inside of you, toppling to moan against the crook of your neck, his thighs flush with your ass. It's never ending, his sloppy thrusts slowing down but not stopping as he comes and comes and comes until you feel so full to pushes into your bladder.

"Mine." He says, his voice full of wonder as his aquiline nose traces your jawline. "My precious lil' girl."

It's not an 'I love you', but you're fairly certain it's the closest you'll ever get to one.

You've been nauseated for about three weeks straight by the time Robert steals Joel and Tess' battery. Joel's been toying with the idea of leaving the QZ for good for several months now, quietly planning your escape in the late nights were sleep evades him, trading the pills and the alcohol for something ever more addictive: Hope.

You're sitting cross legged on the bed, a worn copy of a James Patterson book on your lap as Joel cleans the injuries on Tess' face. You'd been jealous of their relationship at first, unsure if they were just smuggling partners or something more but Joel never looked at Tess the way he did you, never touched her with the tenderness he did you. You forget all about the adventure Alex Cross is going through on the pages in front of you as you watch them plan their — your — escape route, the dangerous plan of going after Robert and taking back what is rightfully theirs.

"We'll be back before sundown." Joel tells you, and then he waits for Tess to leave the apartment before he leans in for a kiss. "Get our bags ready, we leave tonight."

You nod, already missing his touch by the time he crosses the threshold after his partner.

It's pouring rain outside by the time they come back, and you've spent most of the day pacing around the cramped apartment. Your backpacks are ready to go, everything of value stuffed inside of it, but you keep checking and rechecking all of the nooks and crannies of the apartment, making sure you've taken everything out of every secret compartment that Joel has hidden around the place. You had been scared the first time Joel brought up the idea of crossing the country after his brother, terrified really, but you'd rather face the monsters — both human and not — outside of the QZ than stay behind without him.

In the months after that, the idea has grown on you, and now you can't wait to see what it is outside; you've seen the top of skyscrapers from the roof of some of the taller buildings inside the walls, and you've heard all of the tales, but seeing it with your own eyes seems like the most exciting thing to ever happen in your sad life.

Joel looks exhausted by the time he comes back, wet from the rain with Tess and a young girl in tow. You frown at her, and she reciprocates the gesture.

"Who are you?" You ask.

"Who are you?" She retorts, dropping her sopping backpack on the ground.

"Joel's wife." You don't even hesitate, the words you've been mulling inside of your head for weeks now falling naturally from your lips. Out of the corner of your eye you see Joel freeze, and Tess' head snaps towards you so harshly you think she might break her neck.

The girl squints. "Aren't you a little yo—"

"We had a change of plans." Joel interrupts the girl, dropping down heavily onto the couch. "Robert fucked us over, his battery was no good. Tess and I are takin' the girl to the Fireflies, and then we'll come back to get you."

"You don't smuggle people." You say, your heart dropping down to your stomach. Joel's able to get in and out of the QZ with relative ease because of the goods he brings for the soldiers, but smuggling a person — a child — out of the zone isn't something the soldier will easily turn a blind eye to.

"We do now." Tess is the one that replies. She exchanges a heavy look with Joel before sneaking out of the apartment, the door slamming in her wake.

"Joel." You say, sitting next to him. You see the girl look at you wearily before she starts roaming around the room, her fingers touching every little thing she could. "This isn't right. What do the Fireflies want with a child?"

"She's some bigwig's daughter or somethin'. Marlene is desperate, she's givin' us all we need to get to Wyoming."

"What's in Wyoming?" The girl asks.

"None of your business." Joel grits out, though his face remains turned to you. "It's too dangerous to take you with me but if Marlene does good on her promise, we're set, baby."

"And if she doesn't?"

"Then I'll come back home and we'll try again." He promises. "The girl is just another cargo, this is the same run I always do. The payout's just a hundred times' better."

You bite the corner of your thumb. This feels too reminiscent of your father's last smuggle run, a goodbye that doesn't seem final but feels like it— Like there's more, like Joel isn't telling you everything or perhaps making things seem less dangerous than they are. You nod, eventually, stomach still in knots.

Joel looks like he wants to reach for you, but one look at the girl makes him retreat; she's not even pretending not to stare, curled on the reclining chair and looking intently at the two of you.

"I'll talk to Abe. He knows how to contact Tommy— If I'm not back in ten days you're goin' to head to Abe's and tell him I sent ya. Hey, kid— Listen to me, this is important."

You nod, trying to focus on what he's saying. He watches you for a moment, making sure he has all of your attention before continuing: "If I'm not back in ten days, you're going to send a message to Tommy and tell him to meet you in Lincoln."

"Joel, how the fuck am I supposed to get to Lincoln on my own?"

"You're goin' to play an 80s song on the radio, and then you'll leave it playin' as you leave. Bill is goin' to meet you halfway there but you need to get out of the city first." He pulls your chin towards him, holding your face so he can look you in the eyes. "You have to get out of the city as fast as you can, y'hear me? You're goin' to follow the path on the map I'ma leave with you, and you're goin' to meet up with Bill. He's gon' keep you until Tommy gets there."

"You've never walked me through a contingency plan like this before, Joel." You try to blink the tears away. "If this is just like any other run, then I don't need this."

"Well, you never called yourself m'wife before, now have you?" Despite the call out, Joel has a small grin on his lips. You feel your face heat up with embarrassment, and you shrug.

"Tess calls me your housewife all the time."

Joel drops his hand, his eyes darting towards the young girl in the room as if he's just recalled her presence. "This is all hypothetical. This run is more dangerous than others, but I've survived worst. I been meanin' to tell you all'a this for a while now. Ain't gon' leave you on your own like your dad did."

Joel leaves an annotated map on the kitchen table— The same one he's been doodling over ever since he heard Tommy was in Wyoming, with escape routes from Boston and the safest and quickest ways to get to Tommy, the margins filled with extensive notes about the unsafe routes and places to avoid in the city; things are numbered and signed and there's a whole paragraph of symbols and codes Joel's come up with, the sort of detailed attention that means he's been working on this for far longer than you've noticed.

"How do I sneak out of the QZ?" You ask, staring at the map as if it's a bomb.

"James."

"The Jesus freak?" You frown. James lives a few doors down from you, a creepy-looking blond man that often has a bible in his hands and a superiority complex that makes you want to barf.

"He's cheap, and he knows his way 'round the place. There are two guns underneath the fourth floorboard by the wardrobe, you'll trade him one and keep one to yourself."

"Hypothetically."

"Yes, darlin'. Hypothetically. Only if I don't come back."

"You'll be here in ten days, won't you?"

"I will. Maybe even sooner than that." Joel promises again, holding your gaze steady. Still, you don't believe him. "I'll be here with a truckload of supplies, and then we'll skip town together."

They leave not long after that, a few hours short of sun up by the time Tess comes back with her pack and a clear exit for the three of them. Joel doesn't give you a prolonged goodbye, simply squeezing your waist and kissing the top of your head like he always does, but the terrible gut feeling that this run is unlike the others doesn't leave with him— If anything, it only seems to worsen in the dark, empty apartment.

You cry yourself to sleep and, distracted by your own anguish and the loud sound of your sobbing, you don't hear the song coming from Tess' radio.

The ten days are an absolute nightmare. You're sick most of the time, sleeping when you're not puking and crying when you're not sleeping or puking— It is Amelia, the young woman that manages the food bank closes to your apartment that brings up the possibility of you being pregnant; she catches you retching one morning outside of her food stall after a particularly strong waft of freshly baked bread, connecting the dots even before you can properly explain your symptoms; you have no proper way of confirming her hypothesis, not unless you want to go to a FEDRA-appointed doctor and alert them to your condition, so Amelia takes you into the backroom of her stall and offers you two different options: A ginger root for morning sickness, or a mugwort and pennyroyal concoction to make your problem go away.

You take the ginger root with shaking fingers, and Amelia simply holds you in silence while you cry.

When the ten days come and go with no sign of Joel, the dread settles so heavy it keeps you awake all night, and not even the bone-deep tiredness you've been feeling can make you get a wink of sleep. You give him some wiggle room, however, deciding to wait just a little longer before you contact Tommy— Joel is coming home any day, you're certain of it, and you'd feel silly to make a fuss just for him to walk through the door safe and sound. So you cry, and you vomit and you don't sleep and you wait.

For all of the despair you felt when you father went missing, you discover now that you never worried much about his safety— You worried that if he wasn't safe you wouldn't be as well, but it takes Joel leaving for you to understand the difference between worrying about someone to worrying about what will happen to you now that they're gone. A thousand different scenarios play through your head, from raiders to slavers to infected hoards to the fact that, maybe, he had simply left you behind: You're not certain which one hurts more, the idea of him being dead somewhere or the idea of him being alive without you.

You hold out hope for as long as you can but, by the fifteenth day, you know you can't pretend nothing happened anymore. You go to Abe early one morning, when the line is just starting to form and tells him exactly as you were instructed to: That you are Joel Miller's wife — which raises eyebrows from everyone in the room — and that you need his help. You give the codeword for Bill and Frank's home, and your estimated arrival there and, by the time Abe is done scribbling all of it down, you feel a little better about yourself; it's scary, and dangerous, but you've lived through scary and dangerous your entire life— And perhaps you haven't faced the outside before, but you've lived in a free-for-all war zone ever since you were a kid.

James isn't an easy man to find, but eventually you manage to track him down to an old building that is being used as a chapel— It's an old coffee shop that's been cleared out at some point, a few mismatching chairs stacked neatly in small rows. James gives you a warm smile when you walk in, your backpack clutched tightly to your chest, but it's visible that he doesn't recognize you.

"Joel sent me." You tell him. "Miller."

The smile slides off of James' face, and he takes a moment to regain his bearings; and despite being used to bad reactions when it comes to dropping Joel's name, the clear dislike on the man's face only increases your worries. James takes you to a backroom behind the church that he's assembled into something that might pass for an office, arms crossed over his chest— He's tall and lanky, non-threatening for most people but there's something about him that keeps you on your toes.

"I need out of the QZ." You explain, plucking the handgun from your backpack before offering it to him. "Joel said you'd help me in exchange of this."

The man squints, but eventually takes the weapon from you, carefully examining it before he puts it on top of the worn Bible on his desk. "Where are you headed?"

"Wyoming." The word slips out, and you wince, unsure if you're supposed to tell him or not— Joel certainly wouldn't have shared anything more than strictly necessary. "That's none of your concern, though. I just need your help to get past the soldiers."

"I got family on the Wyoming border, I've been meaning to head there. What part of Wyoming are you going?"

"I don't have anything else to pay you for chaperoning me. I can get there on my own, I just—"

"I just said I'm headed there anyways." James smiles, his fingers interlaced in front of him. "Do you know how to shoot? It's a rough path, I could use someone to help me."

You hesitate for a long moment, but James doesn't seem to be in any rush. You don't trust him, not one bit, but your mind goes back to the life you might be carrying, to the fact that you had no guarantee that either Tommy or Bill would get your message or even believe you at all; you had someone else to think about now, the fragile little thing you had growing inside of you— You still had no proof you were pregnant, but you knew it to be true. Could feel it deep in your soul, as if your body had been warning you about it before your brain caught up to the possibility of it.

You pluck Joel's map from your backpack, pointing it to the general area Tommy is. "I need to go here. Somewhere."

James hums, and nods. "My community is in Colorado, but it's close enough to that area. A couple of weeks on foot, less if we can get a car."

"Why are you so far away from home?"

He taps two fingers on the Bible. "Spreading the Lord's words."

You have to bite your tongue to keep yourself from snorting. "I don't believe you when you say you don't want anything from me. Nobody does anything without payment."

"The Lord teaches us to be selfless, and help those in need. A young woman like you, crossing the country by yourself? You'll die before you cross state lines."

"Your community. Where is it?"

"Here." James points to the map. "It is close enough to the place you're going, Joel might even be at Silver Lake rather than Wyoming by this point. We're a very welcoming bunch."

You open your mouth to say you're not after Joel, but decide against it; James doesn't need to know why you're going and, maybe if he's scared enough of Joel, he might think twice before bringing you any sort of harm.

"Alright." You say, shoving the map back into your backpack. "Take me to Silver Lake, then."

taglist: @itsafullmoon @time-for-my-weekly-spanking @hopecomesbacktolife @amourflores

[buckyinluv]

OBSESSED WITH THEM

[buckyinluv]

well that was something

[buckyinluv]

i kinda liked the ending btw :D

[buckyinluv]

waiting for steve’s fics like

[nostarfights]

steve harrington is alive and well

[levanswrites]

none of these four were acting by the way

[buckyinluv]

well that was something

[superbassbuck]

I ♥ MY BOYFRIEND!

pairing: beefy!bucky barnes x girlfriend!reader

warnings: 18+ MDNI, sexual tension and sex, dirty talk, tooth-rotting fluff, arguments and detachment, after care, praise, jealousy, age gap (obvi, but it's evident here), grumpy!bucky, soft!bucky, cat dad barnes, size difference (he's so beefy), sunshine and grumpy. pet names: "doll" "sweetheart" "baby"

word count: 4.7k masterlist

a/n: totally not a self indulgent fic of what dating beefy bucky barnes would be like, so no real plot.

synopsis: Bucky Barnes never imagined he’d be ready for a relationship. Maybe he still isn't fully, but being with you has shown him just how much his world can change for the better through soft, vulnerable moments.

Bucky Barnes never expected to find himself in a relationship—not anytime soon, and perhaps not even in this lifetime. That is, until he met you, and then he fell in love without even understanding the true meaning of it.

Every day for Bucky before you was a life he didn’t truly live. He walked every day following the same routine, spoke consistently to the same few people (Sam and the old man who worked as the grocery clerk), and some days, he would go by without uttering a single word.

He thought he was fine with this life. But after meeting you, he didn’t want to live his life any other way.

You were his complete opposite, in every good way possible.

You filled his quiet moments with long, rambling strings of words.

Bucky lay sprawled out on the couch, the size of his body swallowing the damn space. He picked up a book that he had intended to actually read, but the moment he settled on the couch and you tugged lightly at his sleeve, guiding his head into your lap, all intentions dissolved.

He wasn’t reading.

Your fingers slipped into his hair, threading through the soft, long strands that you love. Bucky let out a slow breath, the quiet exhales that only ever came out when he was around you. His eyes fluttered shut, taking in your presence and touch as he felt his whole body sink deeper into the cushions—into you.

Meanwhile, you were on your third tangent of the day.

“… and honestly, the basil looked fine, but the woman at the store kept telling me that it was spoiled—which, by the way, I don’t think it was—and besides, if it was spoiled, why the hell would they keep it in the stores?”

He turned the page of his book, eyes unfocused and not absorbing a single word printed on it. The only thing he absorbed was the sound of your voice—warm, animated, and very familiar.

He loved this. He loved you like this. The way your thoughts raced, the way your hands idly played with the ends of his hair. The way you never expected him to fill the silence—the way you let him simply exist.

Most people talked at him—always staring at him weirdly if he took a second too long to respond. But you talked to him. Around him. With him. Like you wanted him there, even if he stayed quiet the whole time.

“—and then I realized the reason the oven wasn’t heating was because I never actually turned it on, which is kind of embarrassing, because I was starting to get pissed off. I wanted dinner to be ready by the time you got home—”

A quiet hum escaped him, low in his chest, not mocking but acknowledging. Encouraging you to keep going, to keep rambling, to keep being you.

Your fingers paused for a brief second. “Are you even listening?”

Bucky tilted his head slightly, turning his cheek against your thigh, the stubble grazing against your leg and making it tickle, just so he could look up at you. His eyes were half-lidded, so soft that it melted you.

You loved this. You loved seeing your boyfriend—usually gruff and grumpy—so soft and smitten with you. His body lying defenseless and lazily over yours in his soft cotton pajamas, his long dark hair sprawled messily over your thighs.

And what you loved especially, was that he was only this soft with you.

“I’m listening,” he murmured tiredly. “I like hearing you talk.”

You couldn’t help but smile, looking down at him. “You do?” you teased.

“Mm.” He hummed, closing his eyes again, letting your hand resume its gentle strokes.

“Then why do you still have that book in your hands?”

You pulled him out of his comfort zone by taking him to a dive bar.

He never expected to find himself in places like that. Bars meant loud noises and suspicious crowds. He would never go there himself—at least, not willingly.

When you told him you wanted him to meet some of your friends, he stiffened almost immediately—an involuntary pull back into himself. His shoulders tensed, his jaw clenching, and that same bitter, glaring look he always had that he was too bad at hiding.

“Baby,” he had muttered. “Bars aren’t really my thing.”

And you had smiled, soft and warm, as if you already knew he would say that, and he truly had no way out. “I know. But this one’s small and low-key. These people mean a lot to me, and I want them to meet the person who means the most to me.”

And just like that, he was doomed.

He’d go anywhere if you looked at him like that.

So now, here he was, standing outside the weather-worn door of a dingy dive, a neon sign flickering above him. He was just about ready to grab your hand and drag you back home himself.

But the minute he stepped inside, he hovered at the entrance, taking everything in.

It wasn’t as loud as he expected it to be; just a comfortable sound of conversation. The place smelled like wood polish, cigarettes, and good beer. A jukebox in the corner played—he didn’t recognize the song, but he liked the beat of it.

The wooden floors creaked under his boots—and when he heard people laugh, he stiffened up.

Were they laughing at him?

But as always, as if you read his thoughts, you wrapped an arm around his bicep, giving it a light squeeze through his leather jacket, batting your lashes at him cutely as you offered your comforting words.

“You’ll be okay,” you reassured softly. “I’m right here.”

When you introduced him to your friends—he expected weird glances and stares, and he was fully prepared to back out. But instead, they just… talked to him. They didn’t tiptoe around him like he was fragile glass or a ticking bomb. They didn’t question him about his past. They didn’t stare at the metal peeking through the sleeve his jacket.

They just accepted him.

A couple of guys at the bar even pulled him into a conversation about simple stuff. Work. Music. A new pool table the owner blew half his savings on.

“You shoot?” one of them asked.

Bucky hesitated only for a second before shrugging. “Not really.”

But they pulled him in and started playing anyway. And to your surprise—he played well. One of the guys whistled with a beer in hand. “Hot damn, boy. You hustling us?”

Bucky shook his head, leaning against the table. “Nah,” he said. “Just lucky.”

You watched from the side, chin resting on your hand, absolutely smitten with him. He pretended he didn’t notice—though he very much did. If going to a bar and being half-decent at billiards was enough to impress you and make you stare at him like that, then he wouldn’t mind being here every week.

For the first time in a long time, Bucky let himself enjoy something that wasn’t quiet or predictable. He liked the low lights, he liked the music, and he liked the sound of your laughter mixing with everyone else’s.

But then, of course, something had to go sideways.

You were just stepping away from the booth to grab a drink when someone slid in your path. Some young guy—too confident and way too damn handsy—leaned in a little too close, an unflattering grin stretching wide. No charisma, no charm, just straight up creepy.

“Hey there,” the guy said. “Didn’t think someone as pretty as you belonged in a place like this.”

You stiffened. “I’m just getting a drink.”

“Yeah? You want one on me?”

“No, thanks—”

Before you could take another step, a sharp crack sliced clean through the room. It was loud enough to silence a few nearby conversations.

Half the bar turned toward the pool table, and Bucky stood there—completely stone cold still, holding one half of the billiards cue he’d just snapped clean in half, staring down at you and the man who dared to approach you.

“Hey,” the bartender spoke up. “You need to pay for that.”

But his words were left unanswered. Bucky dropped the broken cue on the table, then he started walking towards you.

You turned to face the man with a wary look. “You should go—”

The poor man barely had time to register your warning before a big, familiar broody shadow swallowed the space beside you.

Bucky stepped between you, his expression unreadable with a slight crease between his brow. His presence alone was enough to make the guy stumble one step back slightly.

“What’s your problem, man?” the guy scoffed, though the wobble in his voice betrayed him.

Bucky didn’t react. With the height difference, he had to lean down—and spoke quietly yet sternly. “She told you no.”

The guy swallowed hard, suddenly unable to maintain eye contact with the brooding ex-soldier in front of him. No one in the bar spoke, and your friends gave each other worried glances as they watched from a distance.

Bucky tilted his head slightly, his posture creepily still. “You hear me?”

“Hey, man, I wasn’t— I wasn’t trying anything,” the guy stammered.

“You’re gonna walk away,” Bucky murmured. “Right now. And you’re never gonna talk to her again. Understand?”

The man bobbed his head quickly. “Yeah—yeah, okay.” He practically tripped over his own feet trying to get away, pushing through the small crowd that formed near the exit. Only when he disappeared out the doors did Bucky's shoulders loosen.

He turned to you finally, his eyes scanning you up and down, checking for anything wrong—even though nothing had happened. His voice dropped, soft and worried.

“You alright, sweetheart?” he raised a hand, gently caressing your cheek.

You nodded, still trying to bite back a grin from the sudden shift. “Yeah. I’m okay. I could’ve handled that, you know?”

A crooked smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—smug and sarcastic, his signature look.

“Sure you could’ve,” he teased. His thumb brushed over your cheekbone one last time before he dropped his hand and laced his fingers with yours. “Come on.”

He tugged you gently towards the pool table, the tension in the room still robust. Half the bar was still staring—either impressed, terrified, or trying very hard to pretend they hadn’t witnessed the casual destruction of bar property.

Bucky, of course, was completely oblivious.

“Play billiards with me,” he said, grabbing a new cue off the wall like he hadn’t just snapped the last one in half. “I’m starting to get the hang of this thing.”

You snorted, following behind him. “Oh, are you?”

“Mhm,” he chalked the cue with that same smug little grin. “A couple more games and I might be a regular here.”

You raised a brow, gesturing subtly around the room—the wide eyes, the whispering, and the bartender glaring him down for breaking his cue.

“Well,” you drawled. “That is… if you don’t get kicked out.”

You started to take over his silent days with music. Good, loud music.

Back in the forties, Glenn Miller was everywhere. Doris Day was everyone's favorite. The soft, and “vintage” sounds brought him comfort. Sam would suggest listening to other songs—Marvin Gaye. He was fond of that. But he’d always return to the comfort and familiarity of swing music.

That is, until you were showering and blasting songs from the speaker, and he found himself nodding his head to the beat.

When you got out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around your body and the mirrors fogged over, he opened the bathroom door without knocking.

“What was that song you were playing?” he asked bluntly.

You raised your brow, facing the mirror as you squeezed toothpaste onto your toothbrush. “Which one?”

He shrugged. “All of them.”

“Oh, um—” you paused. “Green Day. Alice in Chains. Foo Fighters. Creed.” You waved your hand, gesturing vaguely. Then you turned to face him with a small grin. “You like that kind of music?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “They played music like this at the bar we went to. It’s nice.” He said this casually, as if it didn't matter all that much. But to you, it mattered a lot. In the time you’d been dating Bucky, you knew he only stuck with what he knew and what he was comfortable with—very rarely stepping outside of his comfort zone.

So to hear him get enthusiastic over something as small as music, it made you happy.

“Cool. I’ll send you my playlist, then.”

Later that evening, he was playing your playlist on the speaker, even finding new songs to add. When you came home from work, he was already in the living room, vacuuming the large rug.

You smiled sweetly at him, taking your jacket off. “Growing fond of Dad rock, I see.”

He paused the vacuum, lifting his head to look at you with a confused expression. “Dad rock?”

You snorted, dropping your bag by the door as you walked toward him. “Yeah, Dad rock. Y’know—old man music? Classic rock. Stuff middle-aged guys would listen to.”

Bucky blinked, turning the vacuum off. “Wait. Old man?”

You bit back a laugh. “Dad rock is, like… nostalgic, gritty, kind of aggressive but in a lovable way. Basically, music made for men who complain about their backs and say things like, ‘They don't make ‘em like they used to.’”

He made a face. “I don't say that.”

“No,” you chuckled, resting your hand on his strong chest. “But you do complain about your back.”

He considered it for a moment, pressing his lips together. “I guess,” then he ran a hand down the stubble on his chin. “But can we circle back to the ‘old man’ part?” He hesitated for a second. “Do I… give off the energy of someone who’s old?”

You pulled away slightly to meet his eyes, your brow raised. “What are you getting at, Buck?”

“I guess what I’m trying to ask is—do I… seem old?” He ran a hand through his long hair, pushing it back as if trying to make himself look more presentable. “And do… I look old?”

You blinked at him, thrown off guard by his question. It’s not often that your boyfriend expresses his insecurity—and when he does, he does it in subtle ways like this. And every single time, you’re there to reassure him. Your face softened, and your teasing evaporated as you cupped his jaw, feeling the rough scratch of his stubble beneath your palm.

“Bucky,” you said quietly, tilting his face towards yours. “Look at me.”

His blue eyes flickered to yours, eyes narrowed yet his gaze was soft and gentle, and that look alone was enough to make your body feel warm.

“You don’t look old,” you started, letting your thumb graze the corner of his mouth. “You look… distinguished.”

His brows furrowed, and the nicely-aged, grumpy crease between them only made the warmth between your legs flutter and pulse.

“That’s what people say when someone looks old,” he grumbled.

“Okay,” you corrected, sliding your hand down the column of his throat, to his collarbones, fingers tracing the firm lines of muscle. “Then let me try again.”

You tugged slightly on the collar of his henley, pulling him closer until your bodies brushed, until your chest was pressed up against his firm, solid one. “You look strong… and big,” you murmured. “Handsome.” Your hand traveled lower, fingertips brushing teasingly down against his shirt, and down to the edge of his belt. “And incredibly unfairly attractive for someone who’s spending too much time worried about being old.”

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“And I know for a fact—” you added, your fingers slipping into the hair at the nape of his neck, giving it a gentle tug that made his breath hitch, “—you don’t fuck like an old man.”

He grunted, a rumbling sound that vibrated from his throat. “No?”

And with that, he would remind you just how strong and big he really was. His rough hands would find your waist—one hand warm and calloused, the other cold and hard—the contrast only making your body shiver in anticipation every time he held you.

He would hold you tight against his hard body and drive into you toward the closest flat surface possible. Whether it was the couch, the floor, the kitchen table, the bed, or against a wall—it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the feel of your warm cunt wrapped tight around his cock, your pussy jerking him off until he filled it with his cum.

And he was big—so big that it was almost painful. As much as he wanted to slam all the way in, he knew how important it was to ease into it. He would push in slowly at first, the stretch burning deliciously as he offered you encouraging words to take him deeper. “That's it,” he would coo. “Good girl—just like that. Gonna go a little deeper, okay? You can take it. You always do.”

His hands roamed eagerly all over your body, pulling, kneading, spanking, and pinching—anything to feel your warmth and to elicit a sound out of you. He was always sloppy with his mouth, pressing soft kisses all over your neck and chest, licking and lapping at your nipples until you were left a sensitive, writhing mess beneath him.

He rarely spoke—he mainly grunted and moaned above you, “Fuck, baby,” or “My God—fuck,” curses slipping under his breath every time he drove deep and hit a spot just right. But the times he got too into it—to the point where he’d start rutting into you uncontrollably like an animal—he wouldn’t hold back with his words.

A litany of filthy, disgusting words left his mouth as he hiked your legs over his shoulder, his hips rocking and the bed frame creaking as your wet, warm pussy hugged his pulsing shaft.

“Come on, sweetheart. Take my fucking cock—you can take it,” he groaned, his hands tight around your waist. “Goddamn, shit, gonna have to…” he’d thrust hard, “fill this… oh fuck, fill you up with cum—fuck, baby.”

And then he would do exactly that. He would fill you to the brim, keeping you stuffed full until you were trembling and panting in his arms, coming down from your high.

But the time after sex was the best part. Bucky would hold you tight against his bare chest, kissing your sweaty temple softly with a bunch of muttered and sleepy “I love yous” as his hands gently grazed your back.

He was always so warm and so big, and there was no better feeling than lying right beside him, your eyes fluttering shut as you took in his warmth, the stubble on his chin grazing against your temple, and the masculine scent of him.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he’d always ask you right after sex.

“Never.”

You taught him how to be patient and understanding.

You were already wincing when the front door of the house opened. Not because you’d done anything wrong, exactly—but because the tiny white fluffball currently curled in your lap was now residing in your shared home.

Without Bucky's permission.

He stepped inside, shrugging off his jacket. “Hey, doll. Sorry I’m late, traffic was—” he paused, kicking off his boots and taking a deep inhale. “What’s that... smell?”

You froze, and just as you were about to reply, the kitten chose this moment, of course, to poke her little head out, blue eyes blinking innocently.

Bucky stared back at her, and you offered the most awkward smile. “… surprise?”

He opened his mouth, shut it, pointed a finger, then opened his mouth again. “What is that?”

“A cat,” you said, frowning slightly.

“I can see that,” he replied, his expression stoic and his voice stern. “Why is it here?”

“She needed a home,” you corrected, your hand coming up to softly pet her head. “I was running some errands and I stopped by the shelter—for, um, no reason in particular. The shelter was full, and she looked so sad and lonely, and I thought—”

“—so you brought her here,” he finished, giving you a displeased look as if he were a disappointed father. “Without telling me.”

“She’s small,” you tried. “Barely takes up space. Like—like a sock.”

The white cat yawned, tiny and squeaky. Bucky’s eye twitched as if he were annoyed.

You gently lifted her out of your lap and held her up. “Just look at her.”

“I don’t do well with animals. You know that,” he said, crossing his arms. Grumpy. Very grumpy. “I’m not taking care of her,” he warned. “I’m not feeding her, or walking her, or—”

“She’s a cat, Buck. You don’t walk cats.”

Instead of rolling his eyes like he normally would, he exhaled sharply—that disappointed, discontented sigh that he rarely makes, but when he does, you can’t help but feel small and fragile. He dragged a hand through his hair, as if you were only adding more stress to his day.

“Still,” he muttered, his voice tight. “You can’t just—just decide these things and not tell me. I come home and there’s… there’s a whole animal in the house.”

He gestured vaguely at the cat, who blinked up at him, delighted by the small movement.

Your smile faltered just slightly. “Bucky, I… I didn’t think you’d be this upset. I thought you might be surprised, but—”

“It’s not—” he cut himself off, jaw clenching hard. He looked exhausted, trying to find the right words to say. “I had a long day. A really long day. And now there’s this…” his eyes flickered to the cat then back to you, “… thing that I could potentially fuck up.”

“Bucky—”

“I can barely keep myself together some days,” he muttered. “And now I’m supposed to be okay with having something small and breakable running around?”

“She’s my responsibility, Bucky,” you said gently. “I brought her in not expecting you to help out—”

“That’s also what I don’t like,” his voice grew slightly louder, making you shrink back on the couch. “We’re a team, aren’t we? That’s what you always say—then you bring home this cat and suddenly she’s your responsibility and your responsibility only. I don’t like that.”

You sat up straighter, heart beating anxiously. “Bucky… that’s not what I meant. I just didn’t want to put pressure on you, that’s all—”

He shook his head. “No. Stop. I just… I just need a minute,” he said quietly—not angry, just worn out. “I’m going to the other room.”

You bit your bottom lip, frowning as you looked down at the cat with pitiful eyes. “Sorry, baby,” you cooed. “He just needs some time.”

Later that week, Bucky hadn’t been interacting with you or the cat much, and your mind was circling in all the wrong places.

Every time he got upset, he’d always distance himself. He distanced himself to the point it became worrisome—always needing time for himself, not finding the right words to say to make it worse. And every time, you were left alone, waiting for him to come back when he was ready.

But eventually, over the course of the past few days, you would hear Bucky interacting with the cat—but not in ways that you expected.

“Stop biting my shoelaces.”

“You scratched me!”

“Stop meowing at me. I don’t know what you want.”

“Can it, cat. This food isn’t for you.”

You’d thought about bringing the kitten to a new shelter, but every time you looked at her soft little face, you were determined to make it work—with or without Bucky’s approval. You’d been trying to find names for the new cat—Snowball, Luna, Frost—but none of them worked.

You were passing the living room with a basket of laundry when you heard low, soft, and almost playful murmurs. Curious, you took a peek around the corner.

Bucky was on the floor, legs crossed, his metal hand held up like a perch. The cat was balancing delicately on his knee, batting a paw at one of his fingers while he moved it slowly, letting her catch it every time.

And he was smiling.

Not a big, overly excited smile—just that small, rare curve you only ever caught during intimate, slow moments or when he was looking at you when you thought he didn’t notice.

“There you go,” he murmured. “Get it, little Alpine.”

Your heart skipped a beat, and you nearly dropped the laundry basket altogether. Suddenly, the tension from the mishap that happened earlier in the week evaporated, and the only thing you could pay attention to right now was the cat chirping triumphantly and pouncing onto his metal wrist. Bucky let out a soft huff of genuine and warm laughter.

You leaned against the doorway. “Alpine, huh?”

Bucky froze, but the cat kept pouncing on his hand. Slowly, he looked over his shoulder at you, his ears turning pink. “I—uh, I was just…” He cleared his throat. “She was all by herself in the room and—I don’t know. Do you like it?”

You pushed off the doorframe and walked closer, setting the laundry basket down softly. The kitten momentarily stopped batting her paw just to watch you approach.

“I love it,” you whispered, your voice suddenly shaky with emotion. You knelt beside him, gently running your finger down the white fur on the kitten's back. “It’s perfect, Bucky.” You smiled, keeping your eyes down on Alpine.

Bucky didn’t say for a moment. You could feel his eyes on you, but you kept your focus on Alpine's tiny frame, half-curled against him like she was always meant to be there, with him. When you finally looked up, he was already looking back at you.

His gaze softened, and his smile faltered slightly—hesitant and fragile. You looked away again, keeping your eyes down at Alpine—because by keeping eye contact, it would only pressure him to say things he might not know what or how to say.

“Hey,” he murmured gently. “Look at me for a second.”

You hesitated, but then you looked up.

He pressed his lips together, the gears in his head turning as he tried to figure out what to say. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “For the other night. For… everything I said—or didn’t say. I wasn’t mad at you… I was just…” He let out a shaky breath that was almost a laugh. “I was scared and tired—but mostly scared.” He frowned. “I’ve never taken care of an animal before. This is all new to me. I don’t like new things.”

You leaned in a little closer, your knee brushing against his.

“It’s okay. You’re doing fine,” you whispered. “More than fine.” He didn’t argue, but he didn’t quite believe you either—you could see it in the way his shoulders stayed tense, like he was just waiting to mess up.

You reached out, letting your fingers lightly brush against his thigh. “Bucky… you don’t have to know everything right away. Taking care of something—or someone—it’s not about being perfect. It’s about being patient.”

You nodded towards the little animal balancing on his other leg. “Look at her. She already trusts you. She’s not waiting for you to be perfect.”

He stared down at Alpine, who stretched against his hand like she had no doubt who would protect her—because that was the energy Bucky gave off. He wasn’t great with words, he was never good at expressing himself—and even that was okay. Because without a doubt, he loved you. He loved hard, and he showed it in more ways than one.

This was one of them.

He looked at you through his lashes. “Do you… like the name?” he asked again quietly, as if he might take the name back if you hesitated even a second. Your heart warmed at the vulnerability woven into those five little words—the way he asked like he genuinely hoped you did, like your approval meant more to him than he could ever fully say.

“I love it, Bucky,” you whispered. “That means we get to keep her?”

His fingers stroked Alpine’s fur with an instinctive gentleness, the same way he would caress your back or hair. “Yeah,” he said, almost bashful. “She’s ours.”

“Good,” you sighed softly. “Because I had no plans of putting her back in the shelter.”

He chuckled quietly, and you leaned your head against his hard shoulder, letting the vulnerable moment envelop the three of you like a comfy warm blanket. Alpine purred quietly between you, a tiny ball of white soft fluff curled comfortably and safely in Bucky’s hands.

Because that’s what dating Bucky Barnes always felt like.

And to Bucky, that’s what dating you felt like.

Comfortable, soft, and safe.

thank you for reading <3

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[doomedl-ove]

"are you normal about-" no I'm an insane pervert

[rosie-tyler]

Frankenstein (2025) dir. Guillermo del Toro

Tarzan (1999) dir. Kevin Lima, Chris Buck

[venusianarmour]

need to write a thesis on this. i lovee erotism.

[buckyinluv]

long live erotism

[mirrormauve]

lubbock, texas

pairing: trucker!joel miller x f!reader

wc: 10k

summary: Joel knows you. He is also sure he’s never set eyes on you before. Something isn’t as if seems.

chapter 1 of somewhere in west texas - masterlist

warnings: joel pov, unspecified age difference, smut (piv, handjob, hand fucking which is different okay, joel has a huge cock and r is into that, extreme horniness and yearning), alcohol consumption, references to domestic abuse, references to cheating, loneliness, grief, kind of a soulmate/we find each other in every universe trope (this will make sense eventually), memory loss-ish, author's loose understanding of tarot cards, a creeping sense of dread

a/n: thanks for reading! I’m excited to go on a new journey with yall <3 if things seem weird there is a point and all will be resolved <3

The first time Joel sees you, you are wearing a wedding dress. 

The moment you enter the bar is an inflection point. All attention is pulled to you in the doorway, the center of the dive bar’s singular focus. All low lighting, glass lamps, and dark wood. He glances up from the scratched surface of the bar, the visions of all the unending miles of road he’d put behind him that day, all the unspooling, desolate road ahead of him, vanishing in an instant.

A pretty bride still in her finery spills through the door with a laugh, head bent against the wind, and everything changes. When you lift your head, Joel sees your face clearly for the first time. The slope of your nose, the angle of your jaw, the shape of your smile, are so familiar he feels like the breath has been knocked out of him. 

You are more than a familiar face.

He knows you. 

He is certain he’s never laid eyes on you. 

Grinning ear to ear, you duck inside the bar in a swirl of hot air. The bell above the door tinkles as it slams shut with a heavy wooden thud. The sparkling heels strapped over your feet are covered in a thin layer of dust; the long lines of your legs are revealed through slits on either side of your gown that extend nearly to your hip bones. He expects to see a groom following close on your heels, hand in hand with you, fawning gaze following your every move.  

But the door doesn't open again and you cross the smoky bar alone. Soft yellow light bleeds over your body, gliding over the dips and curves like unseen, phantom hands. Heads turn, watching you pass in a cloud of silk and satin, pearls and lace, flashes of skin beneath ivory white. 

There’s a tiny veil pinned back over your head, fluttering in your wake, an emerald ribbon looped around your throat. The ties of the ribbon spill over your collarbone, descend to the low neckline of your dress, dip between your breasts. 

You’re still smiling, giggling deliriously, almost hysterically, manically, when you slot yourself between Joel and another man at the bar. Whatever you're laughing about, he doubts it's funny in the least.

A cloud of sage and lavender follows you, seems to cloud thick and warm in the air.

The dress settles around your legs, high slits closing like curtains drawn, and your shimmering skin disappears from view. 

Joel watches you from the corner of his eye, curious and wary at once. You are at odds with the rest of the bar, gruff trucker types in worn baseball caps and flannels. Curious eyes hooked into you like a rare, jeweled fish.

The barman seems to know you, says your name with a question mark tagged onto the end. “You all right? Thought you was supposed to be gettin’ married today, girl?” 

“Oh, Tom, I’m doing just wonderful,” you croon, in a voice like honey and gold. Joel is sure he’s heard it before, just as he’s sure he’s seen your face. Everything about you is familiar, like a song he’d once known how to play, or heard over a bad radio connection before it was cut short. “I’d like a drink, if you don’t much mind.”

He raises a brow. “Anything in particular?”

“Strongest thing you’ve got,” you request, leaning on your elbows against the bar with crossed arms. Your wrists are looped with jangling bracelets. Your hands are encrusted with rings, silver and gold dappled in light, though your left ring finger remains pointedly unadorned, not even an engagement ring. Joel suddenly suspects a husband won’t be ducking through the door anytime soon. “Don’t be shy.” 

Tom lifts a brow and turns away, pouring a double shot into a heavy bottomed glass. He slides it across the wood with a gentle push. The whiskey sloshes against the rim but doesn’t tip out. “Need the courage or somethin’?” There’s a gleam in his eye, amused, taking you for a nervous bride and not an angry one. You’re too busy knocking the drink back, tapping the counter for another pour, to notice his tone, to answer. “Where’s—”

“Oh.” Your laugh is pitched upwards, cutting and self-deprecating. You sway briefly into Joel’s shoulder. Electricity suddenly, near painfully, snaps between you, biting and sharp, like summer heat lightning. You glance over at him, frowning, just for a moment. When your gaze meets his with a tilt of your head, your brows furrow, your breath hitches. “Not a clue,” you continue sharply when you look away from him. “He left me at the fucking altar.” 

The energy of the room shifts, eavesdropping ears tilting closer, hungry wolves licking blood wet maws. Desperate, lonely woman.

The second drink goes down as smooth as the first. The glass thumps down solidly onto the counter. The bartender both looks surprised and doesn’t. “Well, shit. Sorry to hear that. He always was a jackass.”

“You haven’t seen him, have you?” 

“A couple weeks back maybe.” 

You shrug, nonchalance feigned, the barest trembling of your bottom lip before you smile again. “So I’m drowning the hurt,” you say delicately.

“Well, I reckon you’re in good company for drownin’ sorrows, darlin’.” 

Joel nurses his drink, watches the pathetic swill of amber trace the bottom of his glass. He tries not to pay you any mind, the commotion you’re attracting to the bar, drawing in all the lonely, suddenly sympathetic men that have been scattered around the room for the better part of the evening. It's near impossible, that lightning feeling lingering, like a divining rod wrought golden thread between you, impossible to cut away.

The bar is suddenly very busy with men who need new drinks, replacements for the warm beer they’ve been nursing for the better part of the evening, taking their time about it too, watching you.

The group that coalesces around you good-naturedly, and self-servingly, offers to cover your tab, buy you another drink. It invites you to share just what the bastard did, assures you that you did not deserve it. 

Joel keeps an eye on you. He’s not a jealous man, never has been, especially over someone he doesn't know, but there’s something about the wolf hungry eyes on you that he does not like. Your back is turned to him, a smooth expanse of bare flesh, cut off at the base of your back where satin sits flush with your skin, buttons the color of pale cream tailored to the curve of your body end near the bottom of your spine. He wants to tuck his fingers beneath it.

Your arm brushes his, the weight of it warm against his own, even through the layer of flannel and cotton between you. 

A couple of the guys invite you to the corner of the bar they’d been occupying before you arrived, so you don’t have to keep standing in those heels. You seem to know a couple of the men that pass by to give their apologies, greeting them by name, but most of them you don’t. He waits for the bar tender to tell them to fuck off as he's like to do, but he's distracted.

One man tells you that you remind him of his daughter. His voice is oily, and your shoulders tighten in response. 

The word daughter echoes, roots beneath his skin, but Joel doesn’t know why. Something more than your discomfort weighs on him, the heel of a hand beneath a fragile jaw pushing upward, shoving his face away from peering too closely at that feeling, that word. 

“C’mon, playin’ cards with a few old fellers might take your mind off it.” 

You decline, laughing and self-deprecating about it. “I don’t think I’d be very good company.” 

“Well, you don’t gotta be.” 

Your hip bumps against his knee, slowly but surely backing yourself into a corner. 

“Y'all leave her be,” he cuts in, voice soft, not glancing up from the glass in his hand, the last dregs of the whiskey reflecting the red-gold lamplight. An old box TV above the bar drones static next to a flickering neon sign of a jumping rabbit. Down the Rabbit Hole, it says. Lubbock, Texas, beneath.

He can feel their gazes shift to him but he doesn’t look back. “Sorry boys,” you interject, smiling sadly, “I’m really not much company to keep.”  

The patrons of the bar retreat reluctantly, only half grumbling about it. 

Joel can hardly blame them. 

This life is empty, lonely. Company is almost always welcome. Though he isn’t sure he’s ever sought it out, but certainly not like that.

The bar settles back into its natural rhythm for the moment, though your presence is a beacon, a light to shore they’re all keeping a carefully trained eye on. Just in case you changed your mind about their company, their unadorned sympathy. 

And him now, too. 

The longer he sits there next to you, the more he feels as though he’s seen you before, that he knows you from somewhere. 

Your gaze shifts to his, warm and soft with the alcohol blooming beneath your ribs. Your head tilts again. “Well,” you say, the taste of familiarity so thick on your tongue that for a moment he thinks he does know you and he’s about to make an ass of himself. “Thanks are in order. Though I had it handled.” 

“They shouldn’t need handlin’,” he grouses. 

The pretty, curved, corner of your mouth twitches. “They mean well, even if it’s for their own benefit. It wouldn't have killed me to play cards.”

He laughs dryly and reaches down to pull out the stool beneath you, helps you hitch yourself into the seat. The bare skin of your back sears hot against his palm. “That’s one way of puttin’ it, I reckon. They don't need anyone making excuses.” 

Your smile wavers, but only for a moment.

“Do I know you?” You lean closer, peering at his face. “You look so familiar. I know a lot of these guys, but I don’t think I know you.” You press a hand to your chest and glance away, “Oh, God, please say no. After you just defended my honor and all.” 

He chuckles, breathes out. It isn’t just him. “No, I — I was just thinkin’ the same thing.” 

“Really?” 

He grunts in agreement and downs the last bit of whiskey in his glass, feels it pool warm and heavy in his stomach. 

“But you don’t know me?” 

“Don’t think so.” 

“Me either.” 

He gestures at your dress. “Sorry about the. . .”

“Yeah,” you straighten and smooth your hands over the ivory material. The supple fabric moves over you like water, the soft inverted bow of your waist, the swell of your chest against the low neckline. “Right? What a waste of a good dress.”

Joel chuckles. “You seem to be takin’ it well, considering.” 

“My spirits are likely to come crashing down the second I stop to think about it. But for now, drinking ‘til I’m sick’ll do. Maybe it’s the alcohol, but all I can think is that it’s his damn loss.” 

“Seems like it probably is.” 

That makes you smile, shift happily in your seat. 

Whatever your answer is, is interrupted by the man on your other side. He tries to buy you another drink, but you decline with a wave of your hand, so pretty about it that it almost doesn’t sting. “Thank you but I may topple right out of my heels if I keep this up.” You turn immediately back to Joel, the swell of jealous stares almost palpable at your back, that your emotionally compromised attention has been so thoroughly, accidentally, captured. 

That his own fascination is mirrored back at him is maybe the best fortune he’s had in awhile.  

You lean in conspiratorially, and Joel sees double for a moment, your image splitting off like a divided cell before you come back together. You and not you, like a glimpse of you from another life. Like the echo of a memory he lost along some deserted highway long ago. 

Jesus, whatever had been in his glass was stronger than he thought, or, maybe you are that radiant, like heat shimmering off the earth in summer air. Maybe he just wants it to be true, has become that pathetically lonely. Something in his chest aches, an empty place he can't name.

“Did you see how much he poured for me? Tom’s always had a heavy hand. How many shots would you say that was?”

He studies your empty glass, still clasped between your hands. “At least five, I’d reckon. Between the two he poured ya.” 

You laugh; the sound is like a siren call, beckoning him closer to a rocky shore. You’re still peering at him curiously, something feline in the tilt of your head, the weight of your gaze. It settles warmer than the whiskey, burns brighter going down his throat. 

“Sorry,” you murmur, your breath ghosting over his lips with how close you lean, willing his features to match someone in your memory. He knows that’s what you’re doing because he’s attempting the same. He feels like he’s supposed to know you, that he does. He’s just forgotten. “I’m being rude,” you blink and shake your head, straightening in your seat again, breaking the spell just a little. “I didn’t catch your name.” 

“Didn’t catch yours neither.” 

You offer your ring adorned hand, nails that could scratch out eyes, tiny tattoos on three of your fingers that extend onto your wrist. He takes your hand, palm engulfing yours. Your skin is smooth and warm against his rough hand. Your name is like the toll of a gently rung bell, placed delicately against his ear, calling him toward prayer, devotion, home. 

“Joel,” he answers. 

You hum, a caress in the back of your throat. “Are you sure we don’t know each other?” 

“Think I’d remember you.” 

You smile. “And why’s that?” Mirth glitters deep in your eyes. You aren’t as flippant, or as drunk, as you might seem. 

He doesn’t answer, fiddling with his glass instead, the center of his palm like ice where your skin met his. “I think I’d remember you too,” you admit. “Just for the record. I feel like I do. Joel.” 

His name slips off your tongue separate from the rest of your words, a statement unto itself, tucked in your cheek like a pearl for safekeeping. 

“Joel,” you say again, testing the stretch of his name, hands fluttering like anxious birds, like you could cup the letters in your palms, bring them to your mouth, swallow them down. “I like that. It fits.” 

The shimmering golden cord stretching like silk between you pulls taut, coiling around his throat until he feels like he might choke.

“Joel,” you say again, weighing the sound with a sigh, though he can’t begin to guess what measure you’re taking of it, him. He’s heard it before, he thinks, his name spoken so sweetly on your tongue. You tilt into his side, head tipping down toward his shoulder like it’s too heavy for you to keep holding up. “Seems I’m very popular. A sad girl is a good lay, after all.”

He clears his throat, shifts just a little on the stool. You laugh, and seem to take pleasure in his discomfort, examining him from beneath your lashes when you lift your head, metallic clung fingers cupped around your empty glass.

“So, where are you heading, Joel?” 

“How do you know I’m not from here?” 

“You could be.” You shrug, “But Tom is the only real permanent fixture around here.” 

“Seems like you might be one too.” 

You smile and fidget with the glass, running your nail from the base to the rim and back again, a soft tinkling sound following in its wake. He can’t help but think of your hand somewhere else, tracing those nails from root to tip. He shakes his head to dispel the thought.

It isn’t like him, none of this is. 

“I am. . .permanently impermanent. Follow seasonal work, I guess. I can’t seem to settle down anywhere,” you say to the bar top, the warm, humid air. “But when I pass through here, I always stop.” 

“West Texas,” he muses, “Not the kind of place people usually stop.” You hum softly in agreement. “Seems a mighty lonely place to get married, anyway. You got family here or somethin’?” 

You shake your head. “I’m lonely either way,” you warble, like the beginning of a song. “We were supposed to get married in Vegas a couple months ago. But—” Your mouth snaps shut like a steel trap around whatever you had been about to say. Your shoulders heave with a sigh, the swell of your breasts straining at the low line of your dress. Your whole body moves with the weight of that sigh. “We were in this pretty little town couple hours west of here, and thought, why not here, y’know? After it all happened,” you spread your hands, bracelets clanging together faintly. “I just. . .got in my car and drove. Told myself it was over for good—” you snarl the word, venomous. “Ended up here.”

Your eyes shift to his again. “A place to sleep, drinks,” you slap your hand against the scarred bar, “and a gas station. What else do I need? And Tom always takes good care of me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well usually. He was distracted but that’s why you got thrown into my path today. Things always work out that way. They didn’t mean anything anyway.” You tilt your head at him. “So where are you heading next? Distract me.”

The air ripples, like something thick and viscous layering over his vision, blurring it, tunneling it. The road behind him is murky, all the same, one truck stop after another, miles and miles and miles of endless highway. It all blends together, and maybe that’s why he’s got no fucking clue where he picked up the last load. Or, where he’s supposed to be hauling it to. 

He pushes the thoughts away. He’s tired, that’s all. The endless visions of roads without end play on every long haul trucker’s mind. 

Of never getting home. Home, which is—

“East,” he answers vaguely. 

Joel blinks and the hazy film disappears. East doesn’t really seem right either. Maybe he’s drunker than he feels. 

Your head is tilted again, inquisitive in your watchfulness. A smile slips into place on your face. The radiance returns. It’s like looking into the goddamn sun. He blinks and the uncertainty recedes, water pulling back from a terrible, teeth-lined shore. “I was thinking west,” you muse. “After this. Maybe north.” 

“Back the way you came?” 

You nod, looking wistful, contemplative.

Joel glances away from your profile, the slow rise and fall of your lungs, the vast expanse of your skin. You shift forward on your seat, toes brushing the ground as you stand, fishing out a wad of cash from somewhere to smack down onto the bar top. 

An odd anxiety squeezes at his chest. The feeling isn’t necessarily unfamiliar, but the cause is. It just isn’t like him to feel so intensely about a stranger. He tightens his hand around the glass so as not to reach out and grab your hand, beg you to keep him company a little while longer. He thinks you both could use it. 

“Hey,” you say, pressing a hand to his forearm. “Could I read your fortune?” 

He turns to meet your penetrating gaze. Your lashes cast shadows across your cheekbones, like feathers falling across your face. “My fortune.” 

You produce a pack of cards, spirited from the same place the money came from, he thinks, until he follows your hands down and glimpses a triangle of green poking out from the side of your dress, stuck against the glimmering skin between your breasts. 

Jesus. 

There’s something about you, and he is only a man. 

You fan the cards out on the bar and then flick them back together. They aren’t cards he’s familiar with. “Tarot,” you say. “If you sit at a table with me. And if you’re interested, of course.” 

“Why?” 

You tilt your head, eyes darkening when you meet his. “I’m curious.” 

Joel stands and offers you his arm before he realizes what he’s doing. All he knows is that he doesn’t want to think about the road he doesn’t remember or where he’s headed next, and, that he would like to keep you company, that he doesn’t want the warm stretch of golden thread between you to snap. 

He ushers you to a booth in the corner.

You seat yourself gracefully on the sunken, worn red leather seat. He takes the seat across from you. The glass green lamp above the table is tilted slightly toward you, ringing you in a fractured golden light, luminous, like a brightly colored bird. 

Straight-backed and elegant in this dive bar in the middle of nowhere, you flick the cards in your hands quickly before glancing up at him again. “Joel,” you say, breaking his name in half, over enunciating. Like a snake oil salesman buying her own product. A little bit of a liar. “If you have a question or a problem in your life, hold it in your mind,” you say, still flicking the cards between your fingers, showing off a little.

Blank, empty, unspooling highways like knitted silk stitched into the earth. It seems like there’s never been anything before this bar, that there won’t be anything after it either. 

“Do you have it?” 

“Sure,” he answers, but there’s nothing there, nothing but blank spaces and empty roads to fill his mind. 

Your foot touches his beneath the table, the side of your bare calf against denim. If you notice, you don’t show it. The warmth of you seeps into him. And maybe he should pull away, but it feels too good, like the aching stretch of sore muscle. He tucks his ankle behind yours. 

He’s watching your face, would swear that your mouth twitches. 

“Liar.” 

“What?” 

“You don’t have a question.” 

“Suppose I don’t.” 

You shuffle the cards restlessly, flicking and flipping with a practiced finesse. Hooded, watchful eyes flash at him from the backs of the thick card stock, your ringed hands winking in the low light. 

The movement stops all at once, his gaze pulled to your face as you smack the deck down. “Joel,” you chastise gently, reaching up to unpin the little veil from your hair instead. The smooth arch of your arms above your head is hypnotic; the taut glowing flesh like a calling card. Your breasts lift with the movement, the ribbon quivers at your throat. 

His cock twitches, and he shifts uneasily, glancing away. It’s unlike him, this desperation, connection, maybe connection born of desperation.

Joel has never been infatuated by anyone. He doesn’t know you and the feelings lurching to the forefront of his mind are always ones that have taken months to cultivate, fingers of desire dredged up by character. 

He doesn’t much care for the feeling; like that of a lecherous man waiting for your guard to drop. 

The veil flutters as you lie it on the table, stroking your nails against the delicate material, reminding him that you were meant to become someone’s wife today. Now nothing more than a marionette bride with her strings cut. 

“Take your time. It’s not going to work otherwise.” 

He sighs through his nose and leans back against the seat. 

“It doesn’t have to be a question, exactly,” you explain. “Just focus your thoughts somewhere, on something.”

“All right.” 

Your mouth quirks. “You got something this time?” You ask, taking up the cards again, shuffling them slowly now, without any showmanship. 

He thinks of long winding roads, a horizon that never seems any closer, and you. The mystery phantom connection to you. 

“Got it,” he answers softly. 

Your leg presses more firmly into his. “This is just a basic spread,” you explain, still shuffling the cards. “Past, present, future.” 

He nods and your fingers freeze around the cards, doling out three in a line. 

You set your deck aside and examine them closely, inclining your head over them so a shadow obscures them. He wouldn’t know what the pictures on them mean anyway. 

“You don’t have children do you?” 

“No,” he answers.

Children. 

“No,” he repeats, louder this time. “Don’t think I’d do any kid much good, anyway.” 

You glance at him, that bird-like expression, hands fluttering like the guttering of a candle. “Why?” 

A blank fills whatever his answer is supposed to be, dark, voided. “Ain’t ever home, am I?” He settles on.

“Hm,” you glance down at the cards again, touching the corners of them each in turn, adjusting them slightly so they’re perfectly straight, a neat little line. The cards, he notices when he peels his eyes away from your face, are beautiful. Hand painted, meticulously rendered, painstakingly detailed art. You pick up the deck and flip out three more, layering them over the first set of cards, covering his past, present, future with a new one. 

You glance up at him and point to each card without looking. “You suffered a great loss recently that you aren’t sure how to move on from. You feel stuck and hopeless, like you’re living in a terrible feedback loop.” Your palm hovers over the future cards before you lower your hand and split them apart with pointer and middle fingers. “The future is murky. You have two paths ahead of you.”

He shakes his head, “Bunch of mumbo jumbo.” 

Seemingly in spite of yourself, a laugh shakes your shoulders, presses in your mouth into a smile, your eyes into a squint. “The cards don’t lie, Joel,” you admonish. “They are being very clear.” 

“Bullshit,” he chuckles. “Pretty convenient the future is the only one with two paths.” 

You bite the inside of your cheek. “Well, nothing is set in stone. I could do another reading tomorrow and you might have something completely different. Your past might change too, depending on how you view it.” 

Joel rolls his eyes. “Cards are pretty, anyhow.” 

“Thank you,” you beam so brightly it blinds him. The earnestness in your voice is swollen and sweet, like you’ve never heard a compliment before. You half the deck and pluck up a card to pass to him, very carefully not disturbing the spread before you. “I painted them myself.” 

“Shit, well, color me impressed.” The card is sturdy, tactile with mounds of thick paint beneath his fingers, intricately detailed. Two golden cups, dotted with green jewels, delicate, impossibly soft looking pink silk wrapped around them. 

You hum. “Interesting.” 

He glances up from the card to find you leaning across the table, slowly blinking down at his card. He’s shocked by your presence again. Your lips part gently and he glimpses your teeth, the pink press of your tongue. “What?” 

Your eyes move to his, a shy, embarrassed look tracing over your features. “Just funny. I pulled the two of cups for you.” 

“What’s it mean?”

“Thought you didn’t believe in my cards?” 

“Humor me.” 

You side step his question. “You know, I usually make people pay for the privilege of a reading.” 

“This the seasonal work you mentioned?” 

Your eyes shimmer. “Something like that.” You’re taking his teasing as it is, good natured, but he can see you believe in those cards, the way your attention cuts to them worriedly before fixing back on him again. 

“What do I owe you, sweetheart?” He asks softly. “I pay for good work.” 

You laugh. “You don’t even believe in this good work.” 

“No,” he agrees. “Don’t mean you didn’t do somethin’ for me.”

You shift happily. “That’s good enough for me, actually, Joel.”

“So, what do I owe ya?” 

“Another drink?” 

He’s already standing, fishing for his wallet in his back pocket. You could have asked for a star from the sky and he would have found some way to catch one for you just then.  

.

.

.

Time slips away like it was never there to begin with. The night feels impossibly long and frustratingly short at once. The bar is like it’s own little world, painfully intimate and warm, like a hazy memory re-watched on that grainy old box television flickering above the bar. 

It doesn’t help that familiar feeling in his gut, like you’re an old flame he’s seeing again after so many years apart, intensifies as the night wears on. 

He's got an early day, dusty, lonely miles that need covered, but because you keep drinking, Joel does too. He holds his liquor better than you do, but figures that’s all right, if only for this one night. If anyone deserves to get lost in a bottle, it’s you. 

You read his fortune again and again and claim that it’s always the same. 

Smoke loops above your head in lazy rings from someone’s cigarette, softening your features in the already low lighting. “I don’t know what to tell you, Joel,” you shake your head, staring down at the reshuffled cards, three in a line for the umpteenth time that evening. You sway a little in your seat, eyes glassy. “They just don’t lie.” 

The two of cups card still lies by his elbow; he picks it up and holds out his hand for the deck you’re reshuffling. 

You hand them over without question, cup your face in your hands and watch him shuffle your deck, flick through the miniature paintings one by one carefully. “I reimagined some of them,” you explain. “Not that you could know the difference,” you add teasingly. 

A tower on fire, a moon surrounded by fish chasing their tails, the downy silence of a cloaked woman with a lantern on a snowy plain. On the reverse of each, that hooded, lined all-seeing eye. 

“I reckon yours are better by any measure,” he answers. “Why don’t you let me read your fortune?” 

When you don’t immediately answer, he glances up to find you peering at him, something wanting faintly distressed in your eyes. “That’s sweet of you to say,” you murmur, your bottom lip trembling very slightly again, twisting the loose ends of the emerald ribbon around your throat through your fingers. 

Joel nods. “You all right?” 

“I am. . .” you start, looking away, dropping the green strip of cloth. It flutters against your chest, the tail of it disappearing between your breasts. 

You cross your arms over your stomach, like you could hold yourself together by force alone. “I can’t believe this is what it took for me to realize.” Anger clouds your face for a moment, brows knitted, teeth bared. “What he did to me. All the shit he put me through—” Like before, you stop yourself, lips pressing tightly together, swallowing back acid, censoring something.  

He wonders where you’re keeping that anger, why you’re forcing it back down your throat when you have every right to let it loose. You don’t have the air of a scorned woman left at the altar so much as a relieved one. 

You gather yourself and straighten primly. “My. . .well, my nothing now, I guess. He never liked my art. And he certainly never let me read his fortune.” 

A bitter seed grows in your throat, choking your voice. Broken promises aside, it seems like he wasn’t that good to you. Joel isn’t aware he moved until his hand is closed around yours. “His damn loss.” 

For a long minute, you assess each other, eyes held in other’s kind gaze, the folds of your hands bound together, gold thread wrapping around your wrists. 

You cover the knot of your tangled hands with your free one.

It’s the alcohol running warm through his blood; it’s just the loneliness that plagues the life of a long haul trucker like a wraith. Lonelier than he realized, apparently. How long has he been on the road now? It feels like forever, always.

Eventually, you blink away, slide your palms from beneath his.

Joel pulls back too, shuffles the cards a final time and then lies three of them in a row, just as you had for him. The last card gives him pause, feels like an omen. 

“Six of cups,” you murmur, looking at the cards, pointing to each one as you say its name, “wheel of fortune, death.” 

“Jesus.” 

“It doesn’t mean death literally,” you explain. “It’s more metaphorical.” 

Something loosens in his chest. “All right, well, what’s it mean?” 

Your gaze is a complicated tangle of emotion as you run your nail over the cards, skewing them from their places. “It means I break the cycle or I’m an idiot.” 

Before he has a chance to ask you what cycle you should be breaking, you’re peeling yourself up from your seat. “Now I owe you a drink, Joel. Beer again?” 

He nods. “That’s fine, sweetheart.” 

You teeter in your heels a little, laughing as you trip away. The long slashes up the sides of your dress part, revealing a long, sleek line of leg that he’d like to touch, rub his knuckles against, to run his tongue along—

He shakes himself, watches the sway of your body instead, the slope of your waist and hips, graceful and graceless at once. 

He watches you at the bar, laughing and talking with a couple that drifted in a couple hours ago, with Tom, the long length of your spine a knotted, elegant ridge.

You return to the table with a beer in one hand and a glass of something orange in the other that you had clearly cajoled the bartender into making for you, at odds with the swill of whiskey and beer usually on order. 

“Last call,” you inform him as you half trip into the booth next to him, instead of across the table, settle right against his arm along the back of the booth, like you’ve always been there. “Good thing, probably. I’m really drunk.” 

He laughs, then wonders how bad off he’ll be when he stands up again. “How long we got?” 

“Hour.” 

You turn to him, crossing your legs beneath the table, that pretty sheaf of fabric falls between your legs, shows miles of skin. “You got a way home?” 

“Do you?” 

“I’ll sleep in the truck.” 

“I’m in a motel down the road.” 

“How you plan on gettin’ there?” 

You roll your eyes. “It’s not like it’s your problem, you know.” 

“Call it my problem.” 

Something like amusement dances in your eyes, makes you glance away from him. “You know,” you say, “I think you’re more concerned about me than husband-to-be ever was.”

“Then he probably wasn’t worth marryin’ in the first place.” 

“No,” you agree softly, eyes flickering over his face, “Probably not. I’m gonna walk it.”

“Walk?” 

You nod and suddenly gulp down that violent orange color in your glass before standing, leaning over the table to clumsily collect your tarot cards and the veil you’d abandoned early in the night. The cards are wrapped lovingly within the lace. “Yep, so I better get going.” 

“I'm gonna walk you."  

“What?” 

“You’re gonna get murdered walkin’ along a highway at night like that.” 

“Like what?” 

Like a woman alone in the middle of nowhere in a wedding dress. Like a homing signal for unwanted attention and trouble. You seem to know that, though. Like you were hoping to take a gamble. “Like a missing bride,” he grumbles instead. 

“Then people will probably just think I’m some lady in white haunting every trucker’s dreams.”

“You’re startin’ to haunt mine,” he complains. 

You giggle.

Joel stands with some effort, the room tilting around him as he straightens. You catch your arms around him, only kind of helping keep him upright considering the weight of you tipped pleasantly back against his side. “Doesn’t look like you’d be much help anyway.” 

“Jesus,” he mutters. He hasn’t drank like this since he was in high school, since before—

What? A blank, empty, space in his memory. 

“What the hell did I drink?” 

“About a whole bottle of whiskey, I think. And some beer. You hold it well, considering.” 

Your hands are still on him, palms against his back and chest, warm, startlingly familiar. A feeling he never wants to loose, he knows suddenly and with clarity. The night is drawing to a close, like a door tipping shut in his face. If you slip away, he'll never see you again. "C'mon, let's get a move on."

“Are you insisting?” 

“I am.” 

“Then we better hold onto each other.” 

.

.

.

A full moon hangs low in a dusky purple sky, palest white, cream around the edges, like a poor imitation of your wedding dress. The June air is warm and dry, faint and careful, like a held breath.  The world looks vast in the blue of the night, all wheeling stars and flattened miles, Indian grass and coneflowers gathered in little coronas on the shoulder of the road.

You walk barefoot beside him, cradling your shoes and tarot cards. He’s worried about your feet but this must be the cleanest stretch of two lane highway in the country because there’s nothing in your path to mind. Not glass, not cigarette butts, not strewn trash, like something knew your feet would be coming this way and swept it away just for you.

The motel is a desolate little thing that appears out of the night. He’s passed it before, the blinking neon pink vacancy sign a marker of a halfway point to somewhere. Down the Rabbit Hold Motel. Never noticed it was the same name as the bar.

“Are you from Texas, Joel?” You ask, balancing on the white line that demarcates the edge of the road. 

“Yeah, not Lubbock, though.”

“Where?” 

“Arlington. Austin.” 

“Both?” 

“One then the other,” he answers. 

“You sound like Texas.” 

“And that’s how I know you ain’t from here.”

It earns him a laugh but not an answer; just the loop and lean of your shoulder into his. 

Things look further away than they are, when the world goes this flat, but all at once you’re in the parking lot of the motel, painted in alternating pink and flashing purple. “I guess,” you start, coming to a halt at a set of stairs, a soft breeze swirling around you. The smell of chlorine hangs heavily in the air, the undulating blue-green of a swimming pool down the tunnel created by walkways between buildings. “I don’t really like to be from anywhere.”

“Why?” 

“Gives you too much to lose, I guess.” You shrug, eyes and thoughts far away, drifting. “But it doesn’t give other people much to hang onto either.” 

“Yeah.”  

“I should let you go. Sure you’ve got a long drive in the morning.” You glance over your shoulder, taking one step up the staircase behind you. Joel has to tilt his head up, to keep his gaze on yours. “I promise not to become a wandering ghost bride, okay? Thanks for humoring me and taking care of me. I think. . .I got really lucky tonight. With you.” 

“Sure.” 

The reality that he will likely never see you again pinches inward, nudges some other loss forward in his chest that he can’t name, can’t match a memory to. You both keep standing there, breathing in that hot air, waiting for the other to break that fragile bone, let the unkept marrow spill into the dirt. 

“You could sleep it off,” you offer. “Here. Don’t want you becoming a ghost either.” 

He should not want to stay; he should not care about you at all. 

He’s reaching for you before you’ve even extended your hand. 

.

.

.

The door snaps closed behind you, leaving you stranded in complete darkness. 

There is only the warmth of your body close to his, the feeling of your breath against his mouth. The sage and lavender scent of you wraps around you both, undercut with the smoky smell of the bar, the faint salty sweat of your skin.

For a moment, neither of you move or speak. The two of you cocooned together in dark that makes up the whole world. “Are you sure we don’t know each other?” You ask, chest rising and falling against his in the narrow, short entryway of the room. Your voice is a whisper, breathy and catching, like it’s a secret you aren’t supposed to tell. 

“Been wonderin’ that all night.” 

“At least I’m not alone then.” 

Your shoes clatter out of your hands; he isn’t sure what became of those cards that spelled truths.

You wobble into him in the dark with a soft grunt and laugh. Joel catches you and reaches under your arm to grope at the wall for a light switch. His fingers brush your ribs, the delicate satin and lace stitched there, and feels the shaky inhale of your lungs against his fingertips, the wanting arch of you.

He’s almost disappointed when he finds the switch. You squint at him through the harsh overhead light, ringing you in floating dust motes and tempered butter yellow light. The length of your body is still pressed against his, supple as a branch of willow. Your lashes are long against your cheekbones, casting shadows across your skin, your parted lips. 

It’s the alcohol, he thinks, desperately, for how far outside himself he feels, unearned attachment to a woman he only met a couple of hours ago, like a sticky, sweet web being knitted between his ribs. Growing a cocoon to keep you close, safe. 

A trembling breath passes your lips before you step back, shaking your head, and move further into the room, disappearing in its dimness. “Sorry.” 

Joel feels bereft, empty and alone, though you’re right there. He clears his throat and nods. “Yeah.”

He toes off his boots, kicks them next to your abandoned heels tipped on their sides, the needle thin points scuffed.

The room flashes pink from the vacancy sign outside, a pulse of heady light that makes his head ache. Joel yanks the curtains closed, plunges the room into soft gray, the green glow of an alarm clock on the bedside table. 

“Thanks,” you say from the bathroom, voice echoing strangely within. “Sorry for. . . would you mind helping me with this?"

The bathroom door is open, more gray light leaking from within, trembling on the air. 

Your back is turned, eyes meeting his in the mirror that occupies the entire wall above the counter, one arm bent behind your back, fruitlessly scrabbling at the buttons practically stitched to your skin. 

He brushes your hand away and works the little cream buttons out of their loops. It feels forbidden, unearned. You were supposed to become someone else's wife today.

“How the hell did you get this on?”

“One of the housekeepers took pity on me. At the other place I was staying.”

When he glances up from the buttons that descend worryingly low on your spine, you're watching him, eyes shadowed and far away.

He pushes the last button through its eyelet and steps back, tempted to push his hands inside the fabric, feel your breath, still pulsating nervously in your lungs, the tension laced through the static air like a knife against a tightrope.

To his surprise, you don't wait for him to leave.

You let the dress fall from your frame, wriggling a little to get it past the curve of your ass before it pools at your feet in a heap of silk. He follows the long line of your legs to your hips and ribs, the lacy, white underwear that sit high on your hips, a garter looped around the top of one thigh, the vast expanse of your back, a ribboning of another tattoo on your ribs.

"Pathetic, right?" You say.

That is probably the last word in the world he'd use to describe what he's looking at, shamelessly, another man's almost-wife. His bride at the very least.

He glances into the mirror, watches your hands slide over the curves of your body, shocked by his own appearance in the glass. He looks unkept, especially next to you, graying hair curling wildly behind his ears, beard in desperate need of a trim, the bags beneath his eyes so purple and thick they seem to carry their own shadow. Rumpled flannel, dark jeans. You aren't the one he'd call pathetic.

He looks wolfish beside you in the mirror, so pretty and prim and swathed in so much lace. He wants to bend you over the counter, push into you slowly, peel away these final layers of fabric and chase away any notion of a dark thought from your mind. Blot out the memory of any other man, any other person, you'd ever been with. He wants to hear your shuttering breaths repeat his name, on a loop, desperate and untamed.

The wold feels small again, like if he walked away right now, he'd find nothing but an endless black void outside this motel room.

"It's not like I'm a virgin or anything," you say with a scoff. "But it would have been our first time seeing each other married, y'know?" Your hands travel over your waist, dotted, Joel finally notices, pulled from the haze of his own lust, bruises. Along the passageways of your ribs, the swell of your hips, the upper, outer skin of your thighs.

He inhales sharply, but you don't seem to notice.

"Pathetic," you murmur again, voice only a little slurred now, thicker with emotion than alcohol. Sobriety is slowly encroaching on you both. "To try so hard with a man that didn't care at all."

"It ain't you that's pathetic, darlin', trust me on that." He tries to smooth out the hard edge in his voice, water over a stone, like a caress poached in steel.

Joel isn't sure if he should mention it, like broaching the subject might make it real for you.

You're nodding at yourself in the mirror, fidgeting with the emerald ribbon around your throat, the long, velvet threads pasted against your clavicle, the sloping inward curve of your breasts. Your gaze slips from your body to his eyes; you finally see what he does, hands flattening against your skin like you could hide it.

"Darlin'—"

"You think I'm stupid."

"No."

"To let him do it."

"You didn't let him do anything."

"I did, though," you answer, desperate, shaking your head. "I did."

Joel frowns, opens his mouth to ask what you mean, when you trip out of your dress, a sad heap of wishes on the tile floor. He catches you in his arms, supple and warm. "It's my fault, when he. . ." you trail off. "It's my fault."

He rubs your back. "It ain't. You're all right."

Joel expects you to pull away but when you tilt your face up to his, you let out that same shaky breath. "God," you murmur, lifting a hand to his face. Your fingers are like ice. "Why does it feel like this? Why do you feel so familiar?"

"Hell if I know."

Your chest hitches. "I feel like I'm cheating," you admit. "I was supposed to become a wife today."

To an abuser, he thinks. To someone that would lay hands on your precious skin. That hurt you in so many other ways, if what you hinted at was just the beginning of it.

Even if you were cheating, Joel thinks, he wouldn't give a damn. He fits his hands against your ribs, the bruised peach flesh, feels you tense and then relax. "No," he coos. "You ain't doin' anything wrong." Self-serving, but true, he walks backward with you in his arms.

He shouldn't have sex with you, not the way you are right now, but that door is closing, the night is ending, the rabbit hole he jumped into did have a bottom and your both plummeting toward it, back to driving endless seas of blacktop. Of gas stations and truck stops and bars and motels, of bridges and highways and diners and ferries and toll plazas, of route after route of lonely road, truck after truck delivered to empty grocery stores, dying malls, the end of the Earth itself. Nothing beyond cheap cups of coffee, nights spent alone without somewhere to eventually crawl back to at the end of it all.

There's nothing else, just him and the road.

He's never going to see you again; can see the same thought reflected in your eyes, the terrible, ferocious want.

Joel turns and backs you toward the bed, until the backs of your knees hit the mattress. You push a hand against his chest and sit delicately, fingers drifting down as you do, until they hook in his belt.

"Show you mine if you show me yours?" You tease, hands shaking a little.

Despite it all, Joel chuckles. "Sounds like a fair deal."

You release his belt and lean back on your palms to watch him.

He remembers the monstrous thing in the mirror, the state of him, but if you notice, or mind, you don't show it. When he pulls off the flannel and then t-shirt, he only smells his soap and deodorant, the salt scent of skin and day old cologne. Your eyes follow every movement, something reaching deep in your irises, like you want to jump him, break open something precious with your teeth and drink it down.

Your attention feels raw, tender, wanton and slick. The buckle clinks as he pulls his belt through the loops of his jeans.

He's half hard when he untucks himself, strokes his length, eyes on your face.

"What?" He says. "Your boyfriend have a small dick?"

"You have a big cock." Your tongue pushes pink against your bottom lip, eyes not leaving him.

"Uh-huh."

You glance up then, pressing your hands to his thighs, trailing them up to his belly and back. "Oh, c'mon, Joel," you laugh, "you have to know."

He clears his throat, face warm like he's some horny teenager.

Whatever he's going to say is lost forever in the folds of that moment, because you lean forward and lick the head slowly, like you're taste testing a sweet. He jerks at the feeling of your tongue, belly lurching with it. "Christ."

You look up at him, before leaning in to spit on him, on the palm of your hand. The tight ring of your fist squelches around him. "Someone has definitely told you that you have a huge cock."

If they have, he can't remember it at that precise moment, distracted as it were. You cup his balls in your other hand, massaging and then squeezing just tight enough to make him grunt. You lean forward and kiss his stomach, along the line of his waist.

He covers your hand, forces your pace to slow, then stop. You cup both hands around him and let him thrust into your still palms. You watch, looking dazed, lips parted. "Fuck," you whisper. "Oh, fuck."

And Joel hasn't even touched you yet.

He pulls away, pushes you gently back on the bed, fumbling with the fastening of your bra behind your back until it unsnaps. "Doin' good, honey. So good."

You preen, bloom like a flower seeing the sun. "I want you to fuck me."

"'Course you do," he agrees, nodding as he runs his hands over your ribs, those dark clouds on your skin. "I'll give it to you, baby."

When he tugs your bra up your arms and tosses it to the side, his cock twitches against your thigh. Beautiful seems a meek, watery kind of word for what you are. Ethereal, otherworldly. You have silver bars pierced through your nipples. "Look at you," he coos, lowers his head to suck on pebbled nipple into his mouth. You taste like salt and iron, as tangy as blood, the scent of sage and lavender drifting up from your throat, the space between your breasts.

You moan, a loud, rapturous sound that goes right to his dick. He thrusts against your covered pussy, the lace dragging against the sensitive head. You bury your hands in his hair, tugging, pushing your chest up into his mouth like you'd like to be swallowed whole. Joel rolls your other nipple between his fingers before turning his mouth there, sliding his tongue down your stomach to your navel.

A gasp like your first breath of air when he licks over your drenched underwear, the inside of your thigh.

"Hold on," you mumble. "Wait."

He pulls back, watches the twist of your muscle as you reach for something on the bedside table. "Let me."

Joel sits back on his knees, let's you roll on the condom with a touch so tender he isn't sure he's ever been touched at all.

You lay back and Joel tugs your underwear off, soaked so bad they're nearly translucent. "Ain't she pretty," he says of your glistening pussy, dripping onto the bed. "Anybody ever tell you how pretty?"

"No."

"C'mon," he mocks softly. "Somebody musta told you before how pretty she is."

"Oh ha ha," you gasp and spread your cunt open with two fingers. Your hole convulses, pulses, and he finds some measure of pride at making you so desperate and hungry, needy and empty. "Please fuck me, Joel. I promise I'll never tell you again how you have a huge fucking cock."

He chuckles but any levity is drained from between you when he notches himself at your entrance. You are unbearably tight and hot, instinct begging him to split you in two, bury himself so deeply inside you, that you can't be pulled apart.

Instead, he works himself inside slowly, in increments, watching your face for discomfort, bottoming out quick when naked bliss parts your face. He's not going to last inside the wet, dark, heat of your body, your pulsing cunt.

He pulls back and slams into you, watching you tits bounce with each desperate thrust of his hips flush against yours, knees anchored on his hips.

Your head lolls back, a moan choked tight in your throat. The green ribbon is askew now, trailing midway down your belly.

When he pulls on one end and the tie goes slack, he almost expects your throat to split open, your head to tilt horribly, like a folktale he once new. He groans at the sight of your bare neck, pulls away to lift one of your legs, ankle pressed to his shoulder so he can sink that much deeper, fingers rubbing messily against your swollen little clit.

"Come for me, sweetheart, let me feel it."

Your throat strains and Joel grunts, feeling the curl of his own pleasure tracing along his spine, teasing and pressing.

Your cunt contracts like a vise, a violent shutter wrenching your body up from the bed in an arch, a cry bursting from your mouth like a trapped moth.

He comes hard inside you, vision going black with the hot fingers of pleasure spreading outwards through his body, thrusting inside you until you loosen and go slack. "You okay?" He asks, breathing hard as he lowers your leg from his shoulder.

"Yes," you breathe.

"Gonna pull out now."

"M'kay." Sleepy, warm voice, tucked against his collarbone.

He laughs a little and slides out of you, the feeling akin to walking into a blizzard after being sheathed in the heat of your body. "Good girl." He pats your thigh and stands on legs like a newborn deer, peeling the condom off to trash, rummaging in the bathroom until he finds a washcloth to wet and bring to you.

.

.

.

Joel grunts when you cup him in your hand beneath the sheet, squeezing his balls, lazily rubbing your hand along his softening length. Curiously, carefully. It's so intimately familiar, like you're a couple and not new lovers. He doesn't mind it.

Your skin is tacky against his where you press into his side, and he likes the tacky, kind of painful pull of it. You pull your hand away and watch him in the dark, the gray muteness of the room beginning to lighten. "Can I tell you a secret?" You whisper when he turns on his side to face you.

"You tell me anything you want."

You swallow, the sound of it loud and anxious in the still room. "He didn't leave me at the altar."

He cups your cheek in his hand. "I figured."

"I couldn't go through with it. He's been better since Vegas but last night he got, he, um. . .anyway, I got ready and drove to meet him at the courthouse and just kept driving and driving." You smile at him softly, self-hating, but your eyes are hard, daring him to judge you, though the veneer is thin, cracked.

You bottom lip trembles then, your face squeezing closed, eyes shut. "The very worst part of it? How I know he's right about me?” You ask with a bitter laugh, blindly pressing your thumb hard against one of the bruises. “I know I’ll go back to him. He’ll call in a couple weeks, and I’ll believe him when he says he’ll never do it again. That he’s so sorry.” You open your eyes, the full force of your gaze suddenly locking onto his. “What does that say about me? Not the fact that I’ll go back, but that I know I will? That I know I’ll believe him?” 

Joel doesn't have an answer for a long time, just holds you, strokes your cheek.

“Maybe,” he says eventually, still stroking your cheek, “try to think of right now. When he calls. You know better right now that he ain't gonna change."

"That's good advice."

"You gonna listen to it?"

"I really hope so, Joel."

He says your name softly, as tenderly as you said his, and leans in to kiss you.

Your mouth opens against his, tongue carefully slipping into his mouth to slide against his. You taste like that bitter orange drink, sweet at first with a bite beneath.

He's pretty sure you fall asleep this way, kissing until your mouths are swollen, aching with it like so much sour candy.

But when he wakes, you're gone. The duffel bag and pointed heels and pressed pooled like wishes. His flannel is gone too, but he's glad you took it, imagines you wrapped in his scent driving with all the windows down.

The bottom of the rabbit hole is bitter and the walk back to his truck, the truck stop near the bar, behind fucking schedule now, seems much, much longer than it appeared last night, with stars wheeling above, you balancing on the white beam at the edge of the road.

He goes through the routine of getting the rig ready like a man in a dream, everything seems hazy and far off and unreal. With you, he was alive, now, he's slipping back into some complacent, ever ending, numb nightmare.

Joel tries not to dwell on it, but when he climbs up into the cab, finally ready to set off, lukewarm travel cup of coffee in hand, he finds your veil hanging down from the sun visor. When he pulls it down to press against his nose, though the truck is brimming with your scent, something falls with it.

One of the tarot cards.

He doesn't wonder if he'll see you again, just when.

And what this card, a beautiful woman looking up at a sky full of stars, could mean to you.

Or is supposed to mean to him.

[buckyinluv]

obsessed with them and with the way you write!!!!

[mcpayne]

"But the reviews said-" "But rotten tomatoes says-" "but twitter and tik tok said-"

WHO CARES WATCH IT FOR YOURSELF!!