Welcome to my Masterlist! This is an updated version (9/January/22) so all my writing up to this point is included. A lot of my writing features mature themes and thus my profile is 18+ and I ask that minors do not interact. If I catch you I will block you. All individual posts have warnings particular to each piece. Always remember, likes are nice but reblogs/feedback encourage me to continue writing!
It was dark when Ilya stepped in through the back door of the Rozanov household. It wasn't all that surprising. He had skated long after practice had ended and waited until the rink owners kicked him out.
Grigori was supposed to pick him up but from the looks of things he hadn't come home yet either. So Ilya had made the walk, muttering the whole hour home about how useless his father was.
When he was rich he was going to buy himself and his Mama a big house with so many windows and sunshine. There wouldn't be any dark wood or velvet curtains and there would be laughter.
Alexei who was probably out drinking with his friends wouldn't be invited. Grigori with his harsh words and harsher fists wouldn't be invited. No. It would just be Ilya and his Mama.
His beautiful Mama who slept all day and haunted the house like a ghost at night. She had been so vibrant once. Ilya had seen the tapes. She had been one of Russia's finest figure skaters.
Until Grigori came along. He snatched up this beautiful young woman from the ice and then never let her near it again. He took everything that gave her joy and poisoned it.
She lived for her boys and already Alexei was no better than Grigori. But Ilya would be. Ilya would be his Mama's best friend. He would care for her and comb her hair when she wasn't able. He would remind her to wash her body and brush her teeth.
He could pay a chef to make them food rather than the measly sandwiches Ilya scrounged up. He hurriedly ate one over the sink and then arranged one with a glass of water on a tray for his Mama.
Ilya ran through his plans for the evening in his mind. It was Tuesday which meant he would have to rouse his Mama from her bed and convince her to shower.
He could fit in his history homework while she did that. When she reappeared from the bathroom he would comb and braid her hair, humming the same lullabies she had once sung to him. Back when she thought her voice was worth using.
He paused at the door to his parents bedroom. Irina only found drive to leave the room in the hours Grigori slept in it. She haunted the rest of the home at night floating through rooms like a ghost or an apparition. Sometimes Ilya woke up to find her sitting in his room, crying quietly.
He shuffled the tray to one hand and used the other to push down the door handle, backing into the room. He took a deep breath and plastered on a smile for his Mama. His angel.
She was laying in bed still. Just as she had been when he left her. He placed the tray on the dresser and reached over to turn on a small lamp. His mother was watching him, eyes open wide. He perched on the edge of the bed and combed his fingers through her hair.
"Пора вставать, мама." (It's time to get up, Mama.) He urged quietly, running a thumb across the delicate skin of her cheek. She had been so very gorgeous once. Before the sadness got her.
She was still beautiful now. But she did not glow with joy anymore. Not like she had in the old tapes Ilya watched of her. Not like she had before Grigori.
Irina rose from the bed and made her way into the bathroom with minimal complaint. Ilya rooted through her closet and organized her clothes, folding them on a stool by the bathroom door for her to retrieve.
He hurried to his room and back to grab his school books and was sprawled across his parents bed when the door reopens. Ilya didn't stupid questions. He didn't ask his mother if she was okay. He didn't ask her how her day was. Instead he tidied up his school work while she settled at her dressing table.
Ilya remembers being very small once. Looking up at his Mama as she did her make up and applied her jewelry. He had begged to go with her that night but she had only laughed him away. She told him to enjoy being young and stop rushing to grow up.
Ilya wished he was a grown up. He would be a famous hockey player and he could spend all his money making his Mama better. They could live somewhere better than Moscow. Like New York or Florida.
Florida would be good. His Mama would like the sun and the fast paced life. It would give her purpose again. He would buy her new skates and new costumes and she would be a famous figure skater again and he would be a famous hockey player and together they would be Irina and her boy.
One day. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Ilya was only twelve now. He would need five more years of hard work before he could get drafted to the NHL.
Ilya could do this for five years more. He would do it for twenty five more years if he needed to. He would do whatever it took to help her and give her back all she gave up so that he would exist.
"Я заплету тебе косу?" (Shall I braid your hair?) He asked and she nodded. When he reached for the hair brush she paused him, taking his wrist in her hand and pulling it up to her mouth so she could press a kiss to the palm of his hand.
"Ты так мил со мной, мой золотой мальчик." (You are so sweet to me. My golden boy.) She whispered and he smiled, gathering his mother up in a tight hug before releasing her. She allowed him to comb and dry her hair then. He even twisted it into a delicate plait for her. She ran her hand down the length of it with a ghost of a smile.
When he left her she had been picking at the sandwich and urging him to go do his homework before his father got home. Ilya paused in the doorway as he left and blew his mother a kiss. "Я люблю тебя, мама." (I love you, Mama.)
She smiled at him, almost that old smile and caught the kiss. Pressing it over her heart and holding it tight. "Я сохраню это навсегда." (I'll keep it forever.)
"Не нужно. Завтра дам ещё один." (No need. I'll give you another tomorrow.)
Tomorrow never came for Irina. Deep down Ilya knew she hadn't intended for him to find her. It was supposed to be Grigori. Even in death he couldn't give her what she wanted.
Ilya had finished all his homework late. He hadn't heard either Alexei or Grigori home yet and so he went in search of his sweet Mama.
She had returned to bed, curled up tight in her sleep. Ilya had left the lamp on from earlier and pulled at the blanket to cover up his mother where she had fallen asleep on the covers. "Вот так вы замерзнете." (You will get cold like this.)
Ilya paused when he found his mothers face. Her eyes were open and he was too late. She was already cold. She had one hand clutched to her chest as if she had really been holding on to the kiss.
"Mama?" He whispered carefully. "Проснись, мама. Тебе становится холоднее. Тебе нужно встать. Пожалуйста, не оставляй меня с ними." (Wake up, Mama. You are getting colder. You have to get up. Please, don't leave me with them.)
Irina Rozanov died on a Tuesday night. Grigori found both Irina and Ilya in the room when he retuned. Ilya was keeping a vigil, taking care for his mother as well as he could. He was sobbing and for this he received a slap on the ear.
Grigori Rozanov did not raise a cry baby. Especially not over such an accident. With his large he hands he swept away the pill bottle and his sons accusations. It was an accident, she had gotten confused, took an extra dose.
Ilya didn't speak for several days after his mothers death. He didn't eat unless he was sitting across from his father who wasn't against shoving the food down his throat. He went back to school. He went back to the rink. He went back to hockey.
Ilya would never again give anyone the power to hurt his heart the way his mother had. She didn't do it out of cruelty. Ilya knew that for some people this life was just too hard. There wasn't always an out for them. Irina had tried her very best and she had been so strong.
Ilya would never give his heart to someone for the to do what Grigori did to Irina. He would never give up the things he wanted for something as silly as love.
Marriage was a transaction. Buying and selling. He didn't want that. He didn't want to sacrifice everyone for someone to get nothing in return. He wanted to play hockey.
///
Ilya had a home in Ottawa. A home where his neighbors cheered him on with signs and chants. A home where his dog roamed freely and his friends were welcomed. During the day the light shone in the windows in the living room. Floor to ceiling. No curtains.
Ilya had a lover, yes lover, no not disgusting. He loved Shane Hollander with everything he had. He would give up being part of a dynasty in Boston for Shane. Sell his home. Move away to a new country and start everything all over again.
If Shane asked he would give up hockey.
Ilya didn't know what to think that he was in the living room long after midnight. Shane slept soundly in the room upstairs but Ilya just could not bring himself to go back upstairs.
He felt like a ghost. Or an apparition. Like Irina Rozanov had been.
Ilya could feel it happening. The slip slide into depression. It was a slide. There wasn't no steps back out. He would have to struggle and slip little by little to get out of this pit. And that? That was exhausting.
Ilya remembered promising his twelve year old self that he would never be his mother. Yet here he was, giving up the world for the man he loved.
Like a fool. Like his mother.
Ilya sighed to himself, shifting a little off the sofa so he could scratch behind Anya's ears where she rested on the floor next to him. Anya never left him alone when he was like this, scratching on doors and whining until he got out of bed for her or had eaten something proper, sharing tiny morsels with her.
She was a good puppy. Just as good of a son as he had been. Ilya had been mad once at his mother but as he aged he had learned. She had been so sad.
Ilya was sad too.
"Come back to bed." Ilya started at the sound of his lovers voice. He turned to look at Shane who was on the bottom step, blanket wrapped around his frame and rubbing a closed fist against one eye.
"Soon." Ilya's voice croaked with disuse. He turned back to look out the window and waited for Shane's retreating steps. Instead he found himself leaning back on the sofa, a lap full of Shane Hollander and a blanket wrapped around the both.
Shane pressed his face into the space where Ilya's neck met his shoulder and hummed quietly. "Not the same without you. Wake me when you're ready to go back."
Ilya held Shane tightly as he drifted off again and watched the clouds move over the moon outside. He spent as much of his childhood avoiding his father as he could. He spent a lot of that time trying to spend as much time with his mother as he could.
Grigori had never searched for Irina at night. He had never joined her in her haunting or held her when she was sad. He didn't acknowledge her unless he was playing the part of perfect husband.
No one was watching Shane now. No one was keeping him in check ensuring he was doing what he had to. In fact Shane was currently king of the closet so barely anyone even knew they were together.
He didn't have to do this. He dint need to provide a reminder of the steady love he carried for Ilya. Ilya wouldn't ever leave Shane. Even if he ended up just like Irina had with Grigori, losing everything.
Because Ilya loved Shane how Irina had once loved Grigori. The difference? Shane loved Ilya in a way Grigori had never loved anyone. Not Irina, not Ilya and Alexei. Not even his new wife.
Ilya wasn't going to end up like his mother. He wasn't going to fall down the slide of depression and land at the bottom, alone.
No. Shane, his Shane, would pull him back up. Would help him thread the water when he couldn't swim. Shane loved him more than anything, even hockey. Ilya knew that now. He knew was this quiet moment meant to him now.
He would not end up like his Mama. He opened his phone, careful not to let the light shine on Shane's face. His text thread to Galina was sparse. Usually they called but at 3:47am, he assumed that would be rude.
Emergency session? As early as possible.
Ily hefted his lover up in his arms, carrying him as he mumbled sleepily into Ilya's shoulder. He laid Shane down gently and found a chuckle deep in his chest when Shane held on like a koala. Instead of shuffling around the bed ily allowed himself to collapse on top of Shane. Shuffling them both until they were wrapped up tight.
"Gimme a kiss, Hollander." Ilya muttered and Shane kissed his forehead without opening his eyes. "Just the one?"
"Mm just one. That's all you're getting." Shane replied, adjusting his position so he could hold Ilya tightly.
"I'll keep it forever." Ilya promised. His heart ached with the words and he blinked as tears gathered on his waterline.
"Mm, no need. I'll give you another tomorrow." Ilya could help the wet laugh, burrowing his face into Shane's chest and sniffling. "I'll give you one every tomorrow for the rest of our lives."
Shane kept his promise. Ilya never went a day from the point on without many, many kisses.
fuuuuck i just realized that the future idealized version of myself cant exist without current me being the catalyst for change and doing hard things. has anybody heard about this
learning the backstories of any of your female relatives always amounts to taking 500 points of psychological damage and wondering if the world is irredeemably evil
The LGBTQ community has seen controversy regarding acceptance of different groups (bisexual and transgender individuals have sometimes been marginalized by the larger community), but the term LGBT has been a positive symbol of inclusion and reflects the embrace of different identities and that we’re stronger together and need each other. While there are differences, we all face many of the same challenges from broader society.
In the 1960′s, in wider society the meaning of the word gay transitioned from ‘happy’ or ‘carefree’ to predominantly mean ‘homosexual’ as they adopted the word as was used by homosexual men, except that society also used it as an umbrella term that meant anyone who wasn’t cisgender or heterosexual. The wider queer community embraced the word ‘gay’ as a mark of pride.
The modern fight for queer rights is considered to have begun with The Stonewall Riots in 1969 and was called the Gay Liberation Movement and the Gay Rights Movement.
The acronym GLB surfaced around this time to also include Lesbian and Bisexual people who felt “gay” wasn’t inclusive of their identities.
Early in the gay rights movement, gay men were largely the ones running the show and there was a focus on men’s issues. Lesbians were unhappy that gay men dominated the leadership and ignored their needs and the feminist fight. As a result, lesbians tended to focus their attention on the Women’s Rights Movement which was happening at the same time. This dominance by gay men was seen as yet one more example of patriarchy and sexism.
In the 1970′s, sexism and homophobia existed in more virulent forms and those biases against lesbians also made it hard for them to find their voices within women’s liberation movements. Betty Friedan, the founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW), commented that lesbians were a “lavender menace” that threatened the political efficacy of the organization and of feminism and many women felt including lesbians was a detriment.
In the 80s and 90s, a huge portion of gay men were suffering from AIDS while the lesbian community was largely unaffected. Lesbians helped gay men with medical care and were a massive part of the activism surrounding the gay community and AIDS. This willingness to support gay men in their time of need sparked a closer, more supportive relationship between both groups, and the gay community became more receptive to feminist ideals and goals.
Approaching the 1990′s it was clear that GLB referred to sexual identity and wasn’t inclusive of gender identity and T should be added, especially since trans activist have long been at the forefront of the community’s fight for rights and acceptance, from Stonewall onward. Some argued that T should not be added, but many gay, lesbian and bisexual people pointed out that they also transgress established gender norms and therefore the GLB acronym should include gender identities and they pushed to include T in the acronym.
GLBT became LGBT as a way to honor the tremendous work the lesbian community did during the AIDS crisis.
Towards the end of the 1990s and into the 2000s, movements took place to add additional letters to the acronym to recognize Intersex, Asexual, Aromantic, Agender, and others. As the acronym grew to LGBTIQ, LGBTQIA, LGBTQIAA, many complained this was becoming unwieldy and started using a ‘+’ to show LGBT aren’t the only identities in the community and this became more common, whether as LGBT+ or LGBTQ+.
In the 2010′s, the process of reclaiming the word “queer” that began in the 1980′s was largely accomplished. In the 2020′s the LGBTQ+ acronym is used less often as Queer is becoming the more common term to represent the community.
Coriolanus Snow is thought to have married Julia Pompey. She is thought to have died from Snow's use of poison. Here is what happened between those two events.
Julia knew her husband had always been a genius in his own way. He had saved his name and regained the honour of his family. But sometimes, just sometimes, she wondered how much of this was owed to others. How many times he heard something and claimed it as his own when a lightbulb went off above his head.
Julia had accidentally provided her husband with some of his worst ideas. She hadn't meant to do it. An errant comment thrown into conversation, late night discussions with a man who could never have truly loved her.
He hadn't always had the power to act on his ideas, his own inflated self of importance years ahead of how others thought of him. But he had saved them somewhere in the recess of his brain for later use.
Watching the young girl face her audience, watching the grim determination overcome her features as she attempted not to cry. Well it was all just a little bit too much for Julia. She excused herself from the viewing room and locked the bathroom door with shaking hands.
She would die, that little girl. She would die and no one would remember her in a year. No one ever remembered the losers. That was the point. She understood it all. Or at least she had once. She had sat at dinner parties and laughed about it all, like it was trivial. But it wasn't. Those children died.
Julia thought of her own children, her grandchildren. Her babies. Grown as they may be, they would always be her babies. She couldn't imagine the pain that went through the mother's hearts as they watched their children reaped, year in and year out.
Her heart weeped while she attempted to her dry her eyes. He would know she had been crying. He always knew. She suspected he probably had cameras here in this very bathroom. In every room. In every house. District and Capitol alike.
By the time Julia had composed herself and taken her seat the readings had moved on and she watched with an aching heart and a disinterested smile on her lips and children sobbed and volunteered and accepted their faith.
But her mind was stuck on young Katniss Everdeen. Of the blonde haired sister, Primrose, who had been reaped. Of how every slip in the glass bowl had held the same name. Hundreds of times over and they didn't even know it.
An offhand comment, a young girl flaunting the rules, hunting in the woods, selling to peacekeepers. Providing for her starving family. She had no idea what she had been risking. She had no idea how heavily watched those woods had been. No idea about how her father had been killed in an accident that had never been an accident and now her sister's reaping, a freak statistic given she had only been entered once.
"She's protecting her family. Her sister." The beginning of a second hand idea. An off hand comment about the girls derision for the rules made by Julia had accidentally ruined that young girls life.
"She'd break the law to protect her sister. I wonder what else she would do?"
///
Julia had met her husband in a hospital. Not very grandeur or romantic. Just a hospital room with beeping machines, weeping cousins and rattled breathing from an old lady. Coriolanus hadn't cried. Tigris had done enough for the both of them.
Julia had been a medic in training. Assigned the slower cases, the elderly and the terminal. She didn't do much besides record heart rates and administer Morphling. Mrs. Snow had been her patient. She had spent her dying days in the hospital and consequently, Julia had met a young Coriolanus Snow.
She almost hadn't realised his attempt to romance her, as subtle as it was. Romance would be the wrong word. He had a perfunctory plans with which she fit into. She was educated, of reasonable old money, and most importantly, she was pretty.
While Julia had never asked Snow of his past, she had known a substantial amount. She had known of Lucy Gray Baird, the disappearing victor. Snow had loved her. In the only way he knew how. He had, in his own head, owned her.
Julia was young enough to believe that Coriolanus' desire to possess her was love. He was a handsome man with prospects that varied as wide as the imagination. His charm led Julia to believe he could do anything. His vanity led him to believe, and achieve, the same.
They had married quickly as Coriolanus rose in the ranks of game makers, his ideas allowing him to stand out. The renovations of the arena, the victor parades, the primping and beautifying of tributes.
Every suggestion he made was received with praise and rejoicing at the new age of the Hunger Games. By the time the last of their three children had been born, Coriolanus was directly involved with the Quarter Quell. His studies were almost completed and his ideas revered. Every year something bigger and better came from him.
For the Quarter Quell it had to be special. It had to be massive. It had to be his very best idea.
"I just don't think the academy mentors can relate to those children." Tigris had said at tea one day.
And thus the Victors were dragged back to the Capitol kicking and screaming to try and keep those children alive. To fail, over and over in the wider districts because any living mentor from those districts were once offs, lucky escapes and the most fortunate of unfortunate circumstances.
///
By the time their first grandchild arrived on the scene Coriolanus was Head Gamemaker. The second ever Quarter Quell was fast approaching and trouble had been rising in the districts again. It had been making those in the Capitol uneasy and it hadn't gone unnoticed that certain things had become limited such as coal and fruit.
"You can't go back and punish them harder. You can't just make it worse. Is losing twenty four children not enough?" Julia had asked.
The announcement that the victors would be doubled should not have surprised her. It should not have made her gasp. Nothing should have after thirty five years of knowing Coriolanus.
She had learned over and over that truly nothing was below him. She hadn't known everything of course. Not from the beginning or else she was sure she would never have married him. She could've been free. She could've gotten away before she had been dragged under.
She had thought about it once. Leaving. Times had been rough, her marriage on tenuous grounds as her husband's evil began to shine through without shame. He had been a servant, the man who had taught her what love actually felt like.
Her second child had been born only weeks before and Julia associated those weeks and months that followed with a deep sadness. Alarbus had taken notice of her, cared for her when he found her crying. He had tasted the salt on her lips the first time he had kissed her.
Avox's had just began to become common punishment in the Capitol, traitors who lost the use of their voice and had their tongues removed.
Alarbus found out the hard way that it was not a painless procedure. His tongue had been presented in a gift box while Julia had been nursing her daughter. She had almost dropped the baby in shock. Alarbus, who had presented his own tongue under his master's orders, had caught her.
He disappeared the next day, something Julia presumed had to do with the bloody razor left in her bathroom. She didn't know which of her lovers had left it to her, which would hurt more.
///
President Coriolanus Snow. It had been terrifying as his enemies dropped in the months following his Inauguration. No one could argue with him now. Least of all his lowly wife who spent hours avoiding her husband and his greed for more power.
His dinner parties with victors whom he had chosen to be his special pet projects. The young boy with the winning smile, the golden haired siblings, the genius engineer, the razor toothed beauty. All his to keep and show off. Rewards and bribes for powerful men and women.
He ruined everyone he touched. His own cousin had cast herself out, ruining her beauty just to remove association to this monster of a man. A monster she had tried to shelter from the darkness, not knowing it lived within him.
He had brought this darkness onto himself. He had followed his ideas to the end, his weapon had become a double edged sword. Punishing Katniss Everdeen for trying to keep her family alive had brought an end to his reign. The Capitol looked just as it had when Julia was eight and bombs and gunfire were the sounds she associated with daily life.
A full circle had been formed. They had returned to the dark days, all because of her husband's obsessive watch of the District 12 fence. Hoping that one day his song bird would climb it and return. Hoping one day he would get his chance to own everything he had ever wanted.
Instead he had taken her free spirit and accidentally set it alight with the districts.
The last straw had been the song.
Something ticked in Coriolanus' jaw. A muscle, a nerve. Julia didn't know. What she did know was that the end was near. The Hanging Tree echoed beautifully around the empty viewing room. A wine glass sat to Julia's left. A glass that was always within reach but she had never drank from.
Her husband had gotten drunk and loose lipped once. He had told her of Lucy Gray Baird and Sejanus Plinth. So now Julia laughed because she knew Lucy Gray Baird would have. She knew Sejanus Plinth would have. She knew the rebels would.
She lifted the glass while she laughed, looked her husband in the eye and drank deeply.
Summary: Joel Miller has a crush for the first time in thirty years, and he isn't sure what the hell to do about it.
Pairing: Joel Miller x f!Reader
Word count: ~3.5k
Warnings: flirting, fluff, Ellie and Tommy bonding by playing matchmaker and annoying Joel, assumed unrequited affection, mentions of violence, menace status Ellie and Tommy, Joel might be ooc but I can't tell, Joel has a lil bit of a voice kink lmao if you squint
A/N: This fic came to me like a premonition. Joel is so weird because he doesn't know how to deal with having a crush and I think its very cute. Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy!
Joel ain’t quite sure how it happens.
One day, you’re just one out of the many in Jackson. The next, Tommy’s teasing him over having a crush.
Crush.
Like what? He’d asked. Like a damn kid?
Exactly like a damn kid, Tommy had answered. Just like a damn kid. Ain’t ever seen you like this, big brother.
It’s horrifying, because it's true. He's enamored, smitten. He has a fuckin' crush.
It becomes worse when Ellie notices.
“She got something stuck to her backside or something? Why are you looking at her so much?” Ellie openly squints across the room at you.
The question is loud, posed in the middle of the lunch rush in the canteen. Joel’s heart nearly leaps out of his chest. “Would you — Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Ellie. Keep it down.”
Luckily the chatter drowned out her voice, and only Joel seems to have heard her. You laugh and put a hand on the forearm of your friend, clutching at her, your other hand clenched on the brim of your stetson.
“So,” Ellie prompts. “Does she?”
“No,” he grumbles, drawing his eyes away from you. He glances at Ellie briefly who is smiling at him, before he refocuses on the bowl in front of him. “I ain’t lookin’ either. Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ellie just laughs and shovels another bite of food into her mouth. “You so are, man. Tommy’s right, you’ve got it bad.” She drags out the word bad, stretching it until Joel tells her to shut up.
He manages to keep his gaze off you for all of six seconds before furtively searching for you again as Ellie chatters on about something else.
You aren’t in line anymore but sitting at a table. You’re listening to someone talk, a pencil tucked behind your ear. There’s a smile playing around your lips, your eyes crinkle at the corners.
Joel’s never seen anyone look so effortlessly beautiful, just sitting still—
“Dude!”
“What?” He snaps, head whipping back to Ellie.
She rolls her eyes, “You’re just proving my point. Have you even fuckin’ talked to her?”
“Of course I have.”
And he had.
Exactly once.
Tommy had fallen ill and you’d volunteered for the patrol shift he would be missing.
Something about you left him a little tongue tied, though he isn’t sure you’d noticed. He has a reputation for being quiet anyhow, and you’d filled the silence with so many words he hadn’t needed to say anything.
The tight shape of your ass in your jeans as you rode ahead of him only distracted him a little. Sure, you had a voice he could listen to forever, and yeah, maybe you looked like some kind of goddess riding through the autumn light, red and yellow leaves swirling down around you—but that didn’t mean a damn thing about what he was feeling. That choking, stuttering, warm feeling fluttering around inside him.
“When?” Ellie demands. “I’ve only ever seen you look at her.”
Joel rolls his eyes, and scrapes the remaining bit of chili from his bowl. “Patrol.”
“That was weeks ago!”
And ever since then, he can’t seem to stop seeing you, he can’t seem to stop looking at you and for you, listening for you, the sweet lilt of your voice. But he hasn’t approached you.
But that's a fuckin’ pipe dream.
He’s sure you have a bad impression of him after your one and only patrol together.
Joel stands, “I ain’t had much cause to cross paths with her again. Now finish eatin’ and leave it alone. I don’t got a crush.”
Ellie grumbles under her breath as Joel returns his dishes and leaves the canteen. Outside the autumn sunshine is warm. The sky is clear and perfectly blue. He breathes out and shakes himself.
His brother and his kid might be right.
He might have a damn crush.
If only you weren’t so goddamned pretty. When Tommy told him he was changing shifts with someone, he’d expected someone like himself, like Tommy. Someone who would just get the job done, quiet and gruff.
Most are.
But you’re sunny as sunny can be. Cheerful.
He’d assumed you’d lived most of your life in Jackson, coddled and protected from the harsher realities of the world. But you were new to Jackson, had only been there a couple of years.
When he asked Tommy about it, he’d just shrugged. Always been like that, ever since she got here. She’s been through shit, but she’s just like that.
“Hey,” a voice calls from behind him now as he crosses through the center of Jackson. It’s your pretty voice. Christ, he could listen to you read a phonebook. Footsteps pound along the pavement. “Joel.”
The sound of his name in your mouth sends something rolling up from his gut to nest down in his lungs, a burning kind of pain that’s half pleasurable.
Jesus, your voice. He wants to hear you sing, he bets you sound so good. He wants to hear your voice in other ways too, panting, with his name on your lips.
He turns to find you, in all your shimmering, pretty glory, catching up to him. Something seizes him by the throat. His tongue is too big for his mouth, his breath caught in his throat. When was the last time he felt like this?
Years. Decades. Maybe when he first met Sarah’s mother, before things got complicated and everything fell apart between them.
You come to a stop in front of him and smile.
It’s a beaming, radiant smile.
It makes him feel like he’s having a heart attack.
Jesus. He needs to get a grip.
“Hey, darlin’,” he manages, clearing his throat. “You need somethin’?”
You blow out a breath, your cheeks puffing out. You rock back on your heels and stuff your hands in your pockets. “Well, maybe it's a bit forward of me,” you start, making Joel’s heart lurch in a way that he swears physically hurts him. He’s too old for this. Too old for crushes, too damn old for heart palpitations.
“My usual patrol partner isn’t gonna be able to make my next rotation,” you continue. “And I thought we got on pretty well that time I filled in for Tommy. You think you’d wanna come along with me this time?”
The corner of your mouth lifts in a little smile.
He swallows, tracing the bottom curve of your lip with his eyes. You have your stetson on now, and even though the brim of the hat shields your eyes from the sun, you still squint at him, those little crinkles appearing by your eyes.
“You can say no,” you say when he just looks and doesn’t say a damn thing, laughter in your voice. “I won’t hold it against you.”
Joel shakes himself. “No—I, of course. ‘Course I will.”
“Really?” You sound surprised.
He lifts a brow, “Is that surprising?”
You smile again. “Despite what I said before it did seem like I was a little much for your taste last time.” The twist of your lips turns self deprecating.
Joel doesn’t mean to ask why you’d think that, but the words fall out anyhow. “How do you mean?”
“Ah, c’mon, now,” you roll your eyes. “I know how I come across, and I know what it makes people think of me.” Before he can get a chance to respond to that, you’re continuing on. “So you’ll really be my partner?”
“Sure,” he agrees again, like it doesn’t make him sick with nerves. Being alone with you for hours on end. “Just lemme know when.”
You beam and flick your hat back with your forefinger to get a better look at him. “Great, thanks!” You give him the day and time of your rotation, but all he can focus on is how you still have that pencil tucked behind your ear, the curve of your cheek, the column of your throat.
Seemingly without warning, or maybe he just hadn’t heard you, you spin away and make your way back to the canteen.
“So you’ll actually have a conversation with her this time?”
“Ellie—”
“I’m just sayin’, man. You gotta snap that one up. You see how everyone looks at her.”
Embarrassment like he’s never known it blooms in his chest. “Ellie,” he sighs again. “Go back to the damn house.”
She relaxes further into the pile of hay she’s lying on, a comic book Joel had found for her held up in front of her nose. “No way, I gotta see this.”
“Good morning!” Your sunny, sugared voice echoes from the entrance to the stables.
Ellie peeks at him over the edge of the comic book, clearly waiting for him to make a fool of himself. He tightens his grip on the reins of the horse he’d been saddling and glances around the edge of the stall. “Hey, sweetheart, good mornin’.”
“Ready to go—Oh, Ellie, good morning, honey, what are you doing out here?”
Ellie gets slowly to her feet, making a show of dusting her jeans off, hay feathering down as she does. “Just seeing the old man off,” she quips. “Didn’t want him to get lost on the way over.”
You smile and laugh. “Hey if you meet us when we come back, I’ll get you those colored pencils like I promised.”
Joel nearly strains his neck when his head snaps to look at Ellie. She’s just smiling, the little shit. “Oh, yeah, I’ll definitely meet you when you come back.”
You tilt your head at her tone, still grinning.
Ellie wacks Joel on the arm with the comic as she walks by. “Don’t be weird,” she hisses under her breath.
You don’t seem to have heard, busy saddling your horse. “How are we on time?” You ask.
“We got plenty. You and Ellie—”
He’s cut off by the laugh that slips past your lips.
Joel watches the lift of your shirt, the thin line of exposed flesh between the edge of your t-shirt and your jeans. “Ellie is really good at attaching herself like a burr to certain people,” you confide. “She saw me drawing once in the market. Hasn’t left me alone since.”
Ellie’s room flashes through his mind. The pad of paper she’d started carrying around, drawn pictures of people around Jackson, wildlife, the town, improving with each crack she took at it. She’s been drawing for months.
She’s known you for months.
That little shit.
“She get that sketchbook from you?” He asks, just to confirm as he swings up into the saddle.
“Yep,” you smile over your shoulder and then hook your foot into the stirrup. “Ready to go?”
He nods, the knot in his chest a little looser at the ease between you. He can do this. He can converse with you, get to know you.
Joel feels like he’s never had to talk to anyone in his life when he’s around you. He can’t remember what it's like to have a conversation.
But you more than make up for it.
The way you chatter, he knows you’ve never met a stranger. He does his best to respond in kind, but his mouth and brain don’t seem to be on the same frequency. You don’t seem to mind his short answers, not bothered by his reluctance to say much of anything.
Patrol is quiet aside from a few infected that you both quickly dispatch. You have a wicked aim, more than competent with the rifle you carry.
He had tried not to doubt that you could handle yourself. He doesn’t think you would have been put on patrol had you not been able to. But seeing the determination settle into your features, the stern cut of your jaw as the smile disappeared from your lips, had reminded him that you weren’t the sheltered thing you seemed to be.
You’d known something hard, before. You’d clearly known loss, with the hollowness that pulled at your eyes after the encounter.
By the time you get back to Jackson, you’re smiling again, and Ellie is waiting as promised. You barely have your back turned before Ellie is nudging at Joel’s ribs with her elbow and lifting her brows.
He shakes her off with a grunt, only for Ellie to offer you a place with them for dinner. “Tommy and Maria usually sit with us too,” she informs and you smile.
“I’d like that.” Your eyes briefly flick to Joel and then away. He can’t read the twitch of your lips, the way you duck your head. “Wanna come along for the colored pencils?”
“Yep, c’mon Joel.”
He doesn’t protest, knows it's no use.
The warm, rocky feeling in his gut swims into his lungs when your fingers brush his as you walk along together. Ellie on one side, you on the other. Electric shoots through his veins.
It’s only a matter of damn time before you really do give him a heart attack.
At your place, he sees your drawings. There are portraits of Ellie, Tommy, Maria, other folks around town. A couple of girls on horseback. All of your art is of Jackson, capturing life there. There’s no way you know every single one of those people personally.
And yet, not a single one is of him.
“She’s lookin’ at you.”
Joel huffs and lifts his beer to his mouth. The community hall smells like popcorn, like butter and salt. “She ain’t,” Joel says, keeps his eyes focused on film being projected onto the wall.
“She is,” Tommy insists. “Just look over there.”
Ever since you had dinner with him and his, Tommy and Ellie had decided to appoint themselves matchmakers. Maria rolled her eyes, but let it happen because it so clearly annoyed Joel.
It reminds him of how Tommy and Sarah used to rib him, so he can’t be too irritated with them.
He’s spent most of any of his free time with you over the last few months. He’s better at talking to you now, finds ease in your presence even when he feels warmth settling between his bones like something cancerous. You’re growing inside him, slow moving, choking off all other thoughts.
Joel spends a lot of his time watching you draw anyone but him as you talk his ear off. It’s pleasant. He’ll never get tired of it.
Despite Joel’s words, he can’t keep his eyes from wandering, from seeking you out.
You’re sitting alone at the back of the room and you definitely aren’t looking at him, as he’d suspected. He rolls his eyes at Tommy’s dramatics but doesn’t look away from you. You set aside the glass in your hand and then begin to fidget with your fingers when your eyes suddenly flick up.
You smile as soon as your gaze meets his, your whole face brightening. He swallows, and returns your wave when you raise a hand to him.
“You always were bad with girls.”
He groans. “Tommy would you jus’ let it go?”
“No,” he answers. “Just go on over and sit next to her. What’s the harm in that?”
Joel grits his teeth. “Ain’t no harm unless she don’t want anythin’ to do with me.”
Tommy whistles lowly. “Ain’t never seen confidence so low before—”
“Jesus, alright, fine,” he slams the bottle down on the bar and works his towards you, going the long way around so he doesn’t block anyone’s view of the movie as Tommy’s laugh follows him.
You glance up when he stops by your side. “Evenin’,” he greets, his voice waspish to his own ears.
Great.
“Why hello, Joel Miller,” you respond with mirth in your voice, the melody of it melting into his skin.
“Seat taken, sweetheart?” He asks gruffly.
When you shake your head, he settles himself in the seat next to you stiffly. You stare at him and then glance around. The motion of it is so dramatic and put on that he has to ask—“What?”
“Oh, nothing, I’m just looking for the snipers that must be trained on you,” you joke. “To make you so clearly sit next to me against your will.”
He’s not sure what makes him do it, but he reaches over and cups your chin in his hand to direct your gaze to Tommy. “Right there he is,” he says, releasing your face. “My idiot brother.”
“Ah, so you don’t wanna be sitting next to me.”
“Never said that.”
You grin. “Well I was hoping you’d come over, so color me flattered you aren’t being held at gunpoint.”
He chuckles, his irritation easing. “It’s an honor, darlin’. My brother was just testin’ my patience.”
“Siblings will do that,” you say with a nod. “I think he means well though. Him and Ellie both actually.”
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, c’mon, Joel, neither of them are very subtle are they?” You nudge your knee into his. “Ellie asked me if I thought you were handsome just a few days ago. She looked kind of disgusted about it.”
Joel swipes a hand down his face, sweat beading on his forehead. His stomach tightens with nerves. Leave it to those two to ruin something without even trying. He knew they were playing matchmaker, but he didn’t think you knew it too.
“Jesus. I—I’m sorry if either of ‘em has made you uncomfortable.”
You blink at him. “Well, Joel, don’t you wanna know my answer?”
He winces. This is it, you’re putting him, all three of them, in their place. “Not so sure I do.”
You tilt your head and lie one hand against his forearm. “Well, okay. I won’t tell you how I said I think you’re the prettiest person I’ve ever laid eyes on. And I won’t tell you how that made Ellie gag and say she doesn’t need those kinds of details.”
A laugh startles out of him, heat blooming in his neck and cheeks. He’s blushing like a damn teenager.
He doesn’t dare to hope.
Not yet.
“Look,” you continue. “I knew what they were trying to do these last few months. And I think, maybe, neither of us are very good at this. I’m—I’m certainly not good at this kinda thing. I’ve never needed to be but,” you pull away from him and shuffle through your pockets. “This is what I was drawing that first time I met Ellie. She’s got a keen eye, noticed right away.”
He takes the paper you pull from your pocket, folded into a creased, neat square. When he unfolds it, he finds he’s staring at himself rendered in pencil and charcoal. “Here’s where I embarrass myself and admit that I’ve had a—well, I guess it's a crush. For a while.”
In the drawing, he’s standing with Tommy outside the stables. It’s clearly spring time, flowers budding on the nearby trees. “Was this last spring?”
“Yep. So I jumped when Tommy needed someone to fill in.” You squirm, your hand hovering over the paper like you’re stopping yourself from snatching the drawing away from his fingers. “And then I didn’t shut up that whole time on patrol and you were so annoyed. I thought I messed it up.”
Joel finally glances away from the paper and into your eyes. “Messed it up? Darlin’ I was—Jesus, I still am—struck by you. My tongue was twisted.”
You blink. “Really? So I’m not making a fool of myself?”
It's only then that he realizes how embarrassed you look, that you’re waiting for him to shoot you down, and that he hasn’t said anything to you, not really. “No, no, I’m—”
Joel catches Tommy smirking from across the room in the corner of his vision, and when he looks around Ellie is laughing too, from where she sits with a group of her friends. No one else is paying you any mind, turned toward the flicker of the movie. “So damn obvious about it too,” he rolls his eyes. “Ain’t very good, are they?”
You laugh. “They seemed to be having fun. Bonding over it, really. And there was no harm in it, anyway, so I left them to it. Besides, y’know, maybe getting my feelings hurt a little.” You duck your head, a smile playing around your lips.
“Well, I guess there wasn’t any harm,” he acknowledges. “Sorry, sweetheart but they, uh, they were right. I’m just about as stubborn as a bull.”
You nod. “Got that impression of you.”
Joel swallows, all the words tied up inside his mouth finally coming together, “I might be stubborn. But I ain’t above seeing when I’m wrong.”
“And what are you wrong in?”
“Waitin’ so damn long,” he says.
The room is dark and no one is paying you any mind. When Joel cups your face in his hands, you lean into his touch and the tight fist around his lungs loosens.
You taste like the sparkle of the drink you had been sipping on before he came over. Your mouth is as soft as your laugh, as smooth as the flutter of your voice.
All the I told you so’s he’s about to be in for, are worth it.
