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@ishestillapunk
౨ৎ here you will find my works and some info about me.
! like ! paramore, bts, southamerican literature, character study, outlast, joel miller.
! info ! desireé. 21 years old. she/her. slow. latina/arg. spanish/english. writer.
essays, dissections, review:
! DNI ! minors, xenophobes, racists, transphobes, zionists, pro shippers, pedro haters, pedro stalkers or weirdos.
find me in twitter
౨ৎ 'Everybody Wants a Piece of Pedro Pascal'. (VF interview)
౨ৎ 'Crashing on the rocks' jackson!joel
౨ৎ 'The right side of my neck' jackson!joel
౨ৎ 'Cain's Curse' jackson!joel
౨ৎ 'Strange dynamic' Joel Miller x f!reader
౨ৎ 'I Know' Joel Miller x f!reader
౨ৎ 'Midnight Crib' Joel Miller x f!reader
౨ৎ 'Ecstasy' Joel Miller x f!reader
౨ৎ 'Curls' Joel Miller x f!reader
౨ৎ 'We have to talk about Ted García' Ted García x f!reader
౨ৎ ' Long, long time' Joel Miller x f!reader
౨ৎ 'Bite me to the marrow' Joel Miller x f!reader
౨ৎ One 'Nook'
౨ৎ Two 'Drunk text' (one shot: Long, long time.)
౨ৎ Three 'Sounds'
౨ৎ Four 'First time'
where are you?? 🥲
studying bajtin and saussure
(I'll be back i promise 💜)
playlist; cain's curse 🫧🪽
My process of writing is usually very slow since I try to take care of every tiny little detail for the story to be not only focused in the main couple but the world building and a good rhythm.
For that, I like to make playlists for each fanfic or one shot I write. I didn't do this with Crashing on the Rocks but I do want to do it with Cain's Curse.
I will link some of the main songs that reminds me and kind of makes me dive deep into the feeling of Cain's Curse. If you'd like to, I would love to read any song recommendation you have for this playlist.
🪽;; playlist cain's curse:
Those are some of the ones i listen to while writing for Cain's Curse. My favorite and that instantly locks me inside its world, is 'Ecstasy'.
I hope I upload the next one soon! 🤍
taglist: @babielli @cinnxmxngxrl @cowboylikelil @steadybasiliskemissary @pedropascalsbbg @youdontknowe @glitterspark @madmelz
Cain's Curse
series masterlist
chapter seven, humans.
pairing: jackson!(dbf?)joel x f!reader
summary: Everyone is a human in their own complex way. But is being a human a reason enough to be redeemed?
tags: SLOW BURN, breastfeeding, age gap (30-50), description of phisycal violence, childhood trauma, murder, emotional distress, anxiety, flashbacks, self deprecation, PTSD, (blood/gore), parental abuse, mental health struggles, homophobia, mention of alcohol, gun, grief
explicit trigger warning: infant/baby death
w/c: 8,9k
a/n: updates are slow! this takes a lot of time!
a/n 2: again, i'm so sorry for taking such a long time to update this fic. i really didn't think there were people actually reading and looking for an update, the messages i've received during this time helped me a lot to keep writing for cain's curse. thanks <3
After what felt like an eternity, the baby finally let go of you. She turned her head around, staring in silence at the barely illuminated room, watching the shadows that nervously tried to hold her world. Her big eyes found Joel, who was still in front of you, shifting his weight on his feet. He took a step forward and opened his hands, stretching his fingers while still holding the bottle in his other hand.
You fixed your blouse, shaky fingers trying to pretend calmness as you placed the baby gently between his arms.
When he turned away, feeding the nipple into the baby’s mouth, the sound of her rapid gulping–breathing shallow between suckles–made you feel something painful but subtle right in your sternum. An acid rising from your stomach, bile.
“Y’okay… Y’fine…” Joel shushed. Sat on the chair near the crib, holding the bottle, staring at the heavy eyes of the baby that started to shut down, like cascades of heavy rain against the window pane.
Everything started coming down before it even ended. Standing there, cracking your knuckles. Joel saw your eyes on the baby, the way you would bite down onto your lip, the way your throat would bob. It was written all over your face how this started to eat you.
“Sit down. You ain’t doin’ much standin’ there.” Silence. “Y’neither gon’ do much fidgeting.”
“I’m not fidgeting.” You murmured, part to yourself. Sinking your hands in your backpockets. “Please, don’t—”
“Why would I.”
He finds your gaze before you even look his way.
“What?”
“Why would I tell anyone ‘bout this?” Joel’s eyes went back to the baby, who chugs the last drops of the milk. “Were y’gonna say that?”
“Yeah…” You look back at wherever his form isn’t filling the space. “I know that what I did was wrong, but—”
“Y’did what you thought was mighty.” Silence. His hands placed the baby against his chest, patting her small back with slow and firm claps. The little burp filled the silence and it was met with a satisfied grunt from his part.
The chair creaked when he stood up. Some soft swings, rocking the small bundle until she gave up between his arms. Safe. Tummy full with warm milk. Finally, he eased her in the crib, caressing her small chest.
“Wrong or right… it comes after.” Joel straightened his stance, not moving his eyes too far from the crib. His hands low on his hips, above the belt. He turned his head to look at you.
Your lips were tight in a permanent and barely noticeable tremor. “Is she okay?”
“Why wouldn’t she be?”
“I’m afraid I might’ve hurt her…”
Joel frowned lightly, looking at the baby while trying to scan for injuries or something out of the ordinary. “She’s fine.”
You felt ridiculous, out of line.
“So…” Joel turned around. A big breath heaving his chest below the flannel. “Why don’t we jus’... sit down?”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure…” You stopped fighting it. The weakness in your knees finally gave out and you landed on the edge of the bed while Joel took the chair across from you. After some eternal silence, the words started falling like a cascade from your mouth, unstoppable..
“I read it.” Your voice was something similar to a person giving back something stolen. Something painfully similar to shame. “After… After you left, I went to Rosemary’s. I took some books from the MED section and then I read everything at home.” You scratched your throat, looking around the room. It was a lie, you didn’t read, you devoured, like a famishing animal, every inch of ink. “Well, not everything, but most of it. I… came to some conclusions and—”
“Why are y’telling me this?” Joel had his hands folded over the buckle of his belt, his gaze was on the crib. Both of you were avoiding each other like stray dogs in a new shelter.
“I wasn’t planning on hurting her.”
Joel drifted his eyes across the room, looking at you. He seemed lost for a fragment of a second. Somewhere between the girl you were twenty years ago and the scared woman that now sits across from him. He searched the exact point where you thought of yourself being able to consciously hurt someone.
If he only knew you’d always been like this.
“The last thing I thought y’wanted to do was hurtin’ her.”
You sank further into your seat, feeling a damp cold blanket over your shoulders, all your bones started hurting and the feeling of him staring at you made that sensation worse.
For the length the silence stretched, neither of you said a thing further. What you did was still settling in the air like a layer of reality you can’t yet wrap your head around, feeling as if if you don’t accept it, it meant it didn’t happen. Your skin started to cry for pain, pain it deserved. Nails that dug into your palms, body that curled around itself, trying to break itself like a coiled wire about to give out.
What would Maverick say? His eyes, would his eyes forgive you? He would, right? He’s forgiveness, he’s love. He’s everything you desire and yearn for, purity, kindness, a body free of sins.
Joel was staring at you.
“Thelma told me about the birthdays…” Joel took his words like a knife and ripped the wall of silence you built in front of yourself. Breaking that opaque wall, tired of watching the shadow of your punishment. “She told me what happened with Madeleine.”
Madeleine. The darkness that stands tall like a veil over your head. It’s the name that made your skin hurt as if it was tightening over your muscles, drying and burning. The negative, the cruelty, slamming a door and running away. Your head jerked up, flew to his face like a dart.
“And… what does this have to do with that?” You babbled.
A dry chuckle escaped Joel. Twisted lips in a half smile that was far from amusement, his eyes moved to the crib again, thoughtful.
“Everythin’.” His head came back to you. “You wrong for lookin’ for a damn solution but she’s not by denying kids a fuckin’ birthday party?” He leaned forward, his arm slumping over his thigh. “Or worse. Denying the babies their god forsaken right to live.”
Then, the water bucket landed. Cold water dripping over your spine.
Your shoulders went slump, and all the tension became tiredness, a heaviness in the middle of your chest. “It… It was a waste of time. It was clueless from us to even ask.”
Silence.
“We’re doin’ it anyway.” Joel said gravelly, below his whiskers.
You almost got whiplash from jerking your head so fast again. Was he joking? Maybe it was his way to ease the tension. A joke. But the way his eyes were staring, calm and also, expectant, told you that this was far from being one of those attempts.
“A small party. A time for t’children to just be… hell, children.” His fingers scratched his jaw while he stared somewhere near you. “Then, we get ‘em back to the orphanage”
“Ok, you’re even more clueless than I thought I was.” You said through your teeth, tight. Joel huffed and placed his hands back over his thighs, sliding them up over the buckle of his belt.
Your eyes followed the motion.
“Thelma gets the kids to school.” Clears his throat. “I asked her to… drop the kiddos with some of their friends at my place.”
Silence.
“We get a cake, Ellie loves ‘em,” Joel kissed his teeth, something similar to warmth in his expression. “Kid learnt to bake some months ago. She has… quite a hand for sweet stuff.” His eyes moved back to you. “And we can ask Eloise to… I dunno, prepare activities to let ‘em have fun for some hours.”
This felt illegal. It was.
“And if she finds out?” The name hangs in the air. Her.
“She won’t.” Joel murmured. “I know some teachers at school, they owe me a favour or two.” He made a light pause while scratching his stubble. “I’ll just ask them to fill the record as usual. No absents.” Then, Joel let the silence hang, staring at the crib. When you were about to say something, he grunted while standing up and gave a single, firm nod to himself, shaking hands with the idea.
Then he looked at you. He hasn't shared silence like this with you since the morning after your first night with the baby. You looked distressed, and he asked himself if you ever felt something else than that.
“Hey.” Joel approached, standing in front of you.
His hand lifted, a moment away from finding your cheek, but he flexed his fingers and dropped it on your shoulder, giving a light squeeze. “There’s… always a way.”
“Why are you doing this?” You asked, looking up. Sliding your eyes up his frame. Joel stared down at you.
He took his time to answer, pupils tracing your face.
“‘Cause I have to.”
Running in snow was like trying to walk in a sea of honey. Your steps were everything but stable and the pain in your body was the cold eating every nerve alive in your sentient being.
You whimpered a wet choked gasp, with pain and disbelief as you tried to run. Blood. There was blood all over your body. You smelled of iron and sorrow, of a situation that surpassed all human thought, but you were no longer human, nothing in you qualified for the empathy or simple reason and morality of a human being.
You were running away. From the moment, from the situation, from the monster, but it was useless. It would find you, it would pounce on you, and it would make you feel every last ounce of pain you had ever inflicted upon it, like an endless, inescapable exchange.
There was nothing after this moment, after dawn.
Directions. The wide white field in front of you. Trees, pines. Green, black, mountains. Going back, going somewhere new. Taking the knife and just end with everything, jump off a fucking cliff.
You tripped with a metal bar and landed dry on the snow, burning your face and every inch of visible skin. As you sat up, scrambling backwards, whipping your head around looking for threats, you saw a man. Pale, lean, with the face of a scared ram, holding a rifle.
“Easy… Easy…” He ushered. Then, from behind, another man approached with his hands reaching you.
Quickly, you tried to reach for the knife in your boot but the man was fast, and his hand curled around your wrist like an iron handcuff.
“Let go of me, motherfucker!”
You got suddenly snatched, sharply, out of the snow from the back of your jacket, like a scaredy cat. Your body was being dragged over the cold right after one of them put a bag on your head, covering your sight. You started kicking the air, hopefully landing your boot hardly into someone’s crotch.
“Grab her ankles! She’s kickin’ me!”
“I’m gonna rip your eyes out of your fucking skull!”
“Shut yer damn mouth before I shut it for ya.”
“C’mon. We don’t have time.”
They dragged you up onto your feet and wrapped a rope around your wrists, behind your back.
“Did she see your face?”
“I don’t think so. I took her from behind.”
“Fuck! Once I get my hands on you!” You jerked your head forward, harshly.
“She bit me through the bag!”
“Grab the armpits!”
“Just knock her out!”
…
“You’re safe” the woman said as soon as her eyes opened fully. “In a community. Jackson, Wyoming.” She saw your shallow breath spread through your body on the stretcher. When your hands flew up, trying to reach for her face, you noticed your wrists were handcuffed to the metal bars at each side of you.
“I’m María.” She didn’t mention the wildness that seemed to kick in your chest. Your eyes attached to her brown ones, widened but calm. Gave you the sensation that her eyes were too big.
“Take this off me or I will fucking kill you.”
“How?”
Your nostrils flared, however, the fire that was about to burn through every piece of furniture in the room, was met with her calm water.
“I want to apologize.” María crossed her legs, sitting beside you on the armchair. “We started with the wrong foot.” “The hell you have.” You snarled. “Your petty little men almost asphyxiate me.”
María blinked a few times, calmly. Took a slow breath, gathering her words for a woman in such a situation like yours. But she looked like the type to be used to people who carry horrors from the outside.
“You were armed and seemingly distressed. Also, you were covered in blood.” She tilted her head, sighing. “We’re careful.”
Blood.
“Why the fuck am I here?” “You were hurt, in our territory,” María crossed her legs and placed her hands over her upper knee. “We wanted to make sure you weren’t an infected or worse, a raider.”
“Territory.” You repeated, looking away, slumping your head back on the pillow.
“We never let people out of our community.” You heard the springs of the armchair whine lightly, then, with a few steps she was in front of you again. “We hand out shelter and the ones who want it, stay. We know how it feels to be stranded and alone.”
Silence.
“Were you alone?”
Your eyes drifted to the window behind her. The sun was kind here, glowing with a kind gold dust, bathing the roofs. It was strange to hear the hubbub outside. It reminded you of the school hallway, or the girl’s bathroom, hearing their gossip while eating lunch sitting alone in the toilet cubicle.
Society.
“Where’s my stuff?” You asked, breathing slow and controlled through your nose, staring at María. She nodded, looked to the white door of the room and answered.
“We have a place for you.” Her answer made you sigh sharply, clutching the blanket over you. “It’s a small condominium near Moose Street. Most of the newcomers start there, having something of their own until they prove themselves of really wanting to be part of the community.” You bristled. “Where is my stuff?”
“There, in your condominium.”
Silence.
“Care to tell me how you got to Wyoming? We found a map in your backpack. You come from very, very far.”
“Did you steal my map?” You jolted forward, which made María startle for a second. The metal clicking against the metal bars made her shoulders ease.
“No. It’s at the, how I just said, condominium.” Calm. Collected. “Can you at least answer one of my questions? I’ve been answering yours.”
Negotiation.
“I was alone.” “And the blood?”
Silence.
“There was also a knife in your socks. And we found someone at the shore some miles away. He had a clean—”
“Shut up” Your eyes shut tightly. A buzzing sound in your ear, something being born in the back of your mind, wailing and scratching the walls of your skull. “Shut the fuck up!” You tried to reach her neck, hands spreading. But the chains rattled. The heavy puffs coming out of your nose made María look to the ground for a moment, thinking.
The silence stretched. You needed it to. Gave you time to cradle the creature in your arms, the invisible pain and guilt. It has blood, smeared, it has its eyes wide open.
And it has your face.
“Did you know him?”
Your eyes moved to the white and beige furniture. You still can hear the sound of his flesh, of his bones, of his life leaving his body.
“You don’t want me in this town.” You murmured, without looking at her. “I’m not like you. Like all of you.”
“All of us? What are we?”
Silence.
“Humans.”
In the end, Joel was the one who stayed with the baby and you went back home, with a bittersweet taste in your mouth, and your throat squeezing around a ball of nothing. When the morning arrived, it found you still awake, barely getting any shutseye. Still, you got up. You walked in circles in the bedroom, thinking about the baby, the birthday, the breastfeeding, Joel and everything. Your fingertips were red since you had nothing else to bite down on, and you could feel your sternum stiff every time you tried to take a deep breath.
“Violet…” The front door opened slowly. No one in Jackson usually locks their doors, and you weren’t the exception. When Thelma entered your bedroom and found you still in pajamas–a worn shirt and something you called pants–she raised a brow. “What’s with the face?”
“What face. I just got up.” You blurted out. Thelma dipped her chin and walked to the window that looks out to the street, opening the curtains. Your eyelids shrinked and as you grunted, Thelma took you by the arm.
“Get dressed. We have a birthday to organize.”
You frowned, following her with your gaze as she walked to the kitchenette.
“We’re doing it today?”
“Of course we are. The kids don’t deserve to be waiting for some fun.” She said as she opened the cupboard. Then the pantry. The cabinet. Alcohol. Everywhere.
She jerked back when you snapped the cabinet closed. Her eyes locked with yours as your nostrils flared with a long exhale.
“Wait outside.”
It wasn’t usual for you to be around and about in town, less this early, but Thelma wanted to grab the first cups of coffee of the morning before heading to the orphanage. Since you were around, she didn’t ask but took you by the sleeve and dragged you out of your condominium.
The diner was empty. Barely. There were a few patrollers around about to run a loop and some other townsfolks who had the same idea as Thelma.
After she got two cups of coffee with cream, both of you took a seat in one of the booths in the back. Thelma said something about having to polish the plan well, and all the anxiety came back after a whole night of trying to ignore the sting of it.
“I take the little ones to Miller’s, we make them have a little fun, and we take them back right after the usual hour. It doesn't have to be hard, right?” Thelma licks the cream off the corner of her lips while writing something on her memopad. “He told me he could prepare some chocolate milk and that Ellie will be baking something sweet for the kids with Eloise’s help.”
“Sounds good…” You nodded, murmuring while watching her profile. It looked like something usual—talking to him, a daily basis, someone who’s always on the other end. It made your stomach tighten strangely.
You felt itchy, your nails scratching your neck softly. “You two seem to handle logistics very… well.”
“With Miller? Yeah.” Thelma writes the orphanage’s menu for the day without dragging her hand away. Her handwriting was pretty, clean. Confident. “He thanked me after I sent you to take care of him. Gave me some flour and eggs. You did a good job.”
“Oh.” You scratched behind your ear, looking at your untouched coffee mug. Thelma looked at you and noticed the light rash on your skin; she frowned softly.
“Why’d you ask?” “Oh. Nothing, just…” You shrug, unable to even explain yourself.
“He runs the patrol team. I run the violets wing.” She places her hands against her chest over the blue sweater. “He’s good at solutions…” Silence. Thelma crosses her arms over the table while you aren’t meeting her gaze and then, she shrugs a bit with a small curl on her lips. “He saw you talking with Maverick at the courtyard and said you looked disappointed.”
“You told him about this because he saw me? Why?”
Another shrug.
“Seems like he would move the sun when it comes to you.”
The density of the air getting through your nostrils made you cough as you looked away. Your mug rattled on the small plate when you placed it down. “Move the sun?” Your eyes snapped back to Thelma, your frown deepening. “You mean–”
“Yeah, I mean. He’s always around, eyes on you. Like at Maria’s birthday or the night of the code purple.” She gives you a sidelong smile, placing her chin on her palm. “You haven’t noticed? I think he has a soft spot, that’s why I sent you to take care of–”
“Ok. Stop.” You lifted a hand and closed your eyes. Shaking your hand, waving a hand as if to clear smoke from your sight.“You’re delusional.”
“You mean? I think you have him eating from your hand.” She chuckles while closing her notepad and takes her mug. “I’d never seen him in the orphanage ‘til this year. He was more of doing favors if asked but never accepted a wristband.”
“Well, maybe he’s just trying new stuff. I don’t know.”
“Mhm, surely he is.” Thelma closed her memopad and turned. “You’re the new stuff?”
Your eyes moved away from Thelma, right back to your cup of coffee. Silence.
“Do you hate him?”
“What?” You looked back at Thelma.
“Did he ever do something to you?” Her expression was calm, she wasn’t interrogating you, but she was making a question she expected you to finally answer, with the truth.
“No. He did not. I don’t know him.”
“That’s growing old, violet.” Her head made a light tilt to the side. “You know you don’t fool anyone, right? You two act with such a… I don’t know, I’ve never seen someone talk to Miller like that.”
Silence. More silence.
“Neither have I seen Miller speak to someone else like he speaks to you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“This town has eyes everywhere, violet…” Thelma said with a light chuckle. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Don’t Jesus me, girl.”
“No, Thelma, look.” You pointed outside and Thelma gasped. Both of you bolted out the door where Ellie was beating a boy on the edge of the sidewalk. “Hey! Enough!”
You snatched Ellie by her hoodie and Thelma crouched beside the boy who surely got a broken nose. The boy screamed when Thelma touched the bridge of his nose, she turned over her shoulder, looking at you with a wince.
Ellie tried to throw herself at the boy again, your hands clutched her arms again.
“Hey, calm down! I’m sure he understood...” You whirled Ellie around. Her eyes were injected in rage, her cheeks and her teeth clenched like fangs ready to sink into someone’s skin. “What the hell happened? Why did you do that?”
Ellie avoided your eyes, breathing harshly through her teeth. She was still deep into the adrenaline shock and you could see it by the quiver in her hands. Around you, a very few people began to gather and whisper while pointing at the girl. A cold lightning hit you, taking her by the wrist.
By the boy, Thelma followed you with her eyes while you took Ellie inside the diner to a booth at the back. You crouched in front of her, taking her hands in yours and scanning her reddened skin with open flesh on the knuckles.
“You wanna tell me what happened…?”
Ellie kept avoiding your gaze. Looking to an empty spot on the formica table. From your bag, you took a water bottle and some napkins from the table holder. Her lips frowned lightly by the sting, the dry napkin scratching on her sensitive flesh.
“Dyke.”
Your eyes lifted at her ragged murmur.
“He called me a dyke.”
Your stomach made a weird twist, one that knew about the past. You’ve heard variants of the words, a very long time ago, in another place. For a moment, the world felt like the old one, when words were knives and they would draw shame and fear.
The words swirled in your mouth, tasting like copper. You noticed you were biting your cheek, drawing blood. Swallowing heavily, you stopped moving the napkin, squeezing it in your hand as you stood up.
One of the women at the diner approached with two mugs. Tea. Then, she left a piece of cake with white frosting in front of Ellie. When the woman left, you noticed Ellie biting down on her lip, the small glimmer in her eyes, the reddened water lines.
“He’s an asshole.” You said, sitting across her, hugging the mug with your hands. It was stupid, short, awkward. But you couldn’t vomit everything you were thinking to a fifteen year old girl. You wanted to let Ellie go and destroy that boy to pieces, maybe help her.
But you just couldn’t do that.
“He was telling the truth, though.” Ellie said, looking to the side, out the glass of the diner. You followed her gaze, watching how a patroller was taking the boy on his horse to the health center. Thelma entered the place again but as she flapped her memo pad against her fingers, glancing at you, she moved to another booth, waiting.
“Ellie. He had no right to call you such a thing, but you weren’t right on jumping him…” You tilted your head, wrinkling your nose. “When things like that happen, you must tell someone, an adult.”
The girl jerked her head up, sucking her breath.
“And let everyone know I fucking like girls?” Her whole face reddened as she stammered, gesturing the street. “Let Joel know I like girls?” For her, it was an impossible situation. Ellie placed her elbows over the table and covered her face, sighing.
Joel. Right. Joel, Ellie.
“Ellie…” Your hand slid over the table until you touched her arm. “I don’t think your parents would get mad at you for liking a girl.”
Ellie slammed her hands down on the table, making you snatch your hand back. “He’s not my dad!” She spat with her eyes closed. Some heads turned around, then got back to their business. Ellie covered her face again. “And… there’s no mom…”
Oh.
You could hear the heaviness of her breathing, the way she would emanate distress.
“Still. I don't think Joel would care if you like girls or boys. Because there’s nothing wrong with liking someone, Ellie, in spite of their gender.”
“Yeah, right.” She peeked through her fingers. “Seems like everyone who’s been calling me names hasn't got the memo.” She sputtered. “And you don’t know Joel.” Said, with a hiss.
You don’t.
“I know there’s assholes everywhere, but I know he’s not one…” You placed your hand below your chin. “You tell me. Are you hurting someone by liking a girl?” Your head leaned forward, raising a brow.
Ellie lifted her eyes, looking wary at you. “...no.”
“So?”
Ellie finally uncovered her face, dropping her hands—with injured knuckles—over the table and looked down at her tea. “Then why don't they understand it?”
“Because…” Sigh. You looked around, searching answers for a teen in the air. “Teens are… complex, Ellie. They don’t understand stuff and they get mad at what they don’t understand. They make fun of what they don’t understand. They hurt what they don’t understand. And not only teens, everyone.” You gave her a small shrug. “Sometimes because they never saw something similar, or because they’ve been taught to hate stuff. It is not your fault.”
“And you?” She asked, now with a slight embarrassment, residue from yelling. “When you were a… a teen. Would you get mad at people like me?” Ellie took the small spoon between her fingers, rolling it around, fidgeting.
You felt something melt inside your chest. Her eyes were expectant. You’ve been called enough names to know how it feels to be on the other side of the court.
“There’s nothing wrong with loving someone, Ellie…” You said, taking your mug and lifting it to your lips. Ellie frowned her lips in a small smile. She took her spoon and ate the cake in silence white you took sips from your mug.
“Please. Don’t tell Joel about this.” Ellie asked with a hushed murmur, cracking her knuckles. “I will… think about how to tell him this.”
“Wha’ happened to you, kid?”
Tommy.
“Oh, hey.” You locked eyes with Tommy, who was holding a mug on his hand and fixing his bag strap over his shoulder. “You've been long around?”
“I came for my coffee before the loops.” He moved his gaze back to Ellie. “What happened to your hands, Ellie? Been hitting walls again?” Tommy left his cup on the table and tried to reach for the girl’s hands. She snatched her hands away and ran past Tommy.
Both of you stared at the door which slammed closed with a hard sound.
“Wha’happend?” Tommy turned. Forehead tight in a furrowed brow.
“Nothing. She just fell.” You stood up, avoiding Tommy’s eyes. He studied your expression and your shoulders felt like they had an ice block over them.
“Yeah. Okay.” Tommy took a sip from his cup.
“Joel?”
“Joel? Oh. Last thing I knew, he was sleeping like a mule at his house. He got home late as hell for what I’ve noticed. S’been passing too much time around that church, hasn’t he?”
“I’ve seen him a few times.”
“I bet you did.”
Frown.
“He talks about you. Says you’re smart. Quick to anger, but smart.” Tommy said, eyes hovering over the way you would bite your cheek, watching the street through the window. Then, he sighed. “Well, the day isn’t getting any longer, so I better get goin’”
“Yeah, sure.” You answered, nodding, looking at the table and then at him. “Careful out there.”
Tommy smiled with his eyes. “I’ll be.”
Thelma approached once Tommy walked out the diner, and placed her hand on your back. “Okay, the clock is ticking.”
The tension came back when you two crossed the church’s courtyard. Thelma was relaxed, like another day on the field. Waving hands at other violets, moving around like you weren’t about to do something that was explicitly forbidden.
You felt dirty. After yesterday’s actions and the ones you were about to make in a few hours. You were pushing your luck and you knew it. You were asking for it, deliberately planning, getting other people into it.
The feeling was spreading, slowly. Dirt, sweat sticking, bad odor.
“Violet.”
“Yeah?”
“Someone’s looking for you.” Thelma pointed to the end of the hall. María.
You took a quick jog towards her. “Hey. Is everything alright?” You asked her, looking at a fuzzy Benji on her chest. María smiled lightly.
“Just checking in. Maverick told me you’ve been struggling a bit.”
“Oh. Sweet.” You murmured, looking away for a moment. María nudged your arm.
“Hey, he cares. You can’t blame him, it’s in his nature.” María placed her hand back on Benji’s back, caressing in circles while her body would rock, automatic, gently. “Said something about not being happy with Madeleine’s decisions. Something about a birthday.”
You rolled your eyes, lightly. “Yeah, ‘cuz I believe no one is happy with the decision she’s taking. I mean, María she’s about to kill ch–”
“Please.” She raised one hand in between you and closed her eyes. Seemingly not expecting you to bring up the subject. “I know. I know, I…” Sigh. “Everyone is telling me the same thing, and again, I can’t–”
“Do anything because this place is hers.” You finished, nodding your head with closed eyes. “That’s bullshit.”
Her brows rose. You gulped.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She smiled, slightly. “I know you’re worried. I'm trying to talk this out with the council, we’re doing what we can. But it can take time, there’s… Territory rules and… members benefit stuff.” María shrugs, and that small comment about this being talked about, makes you feel at least a ray of relief.
“Members benefit?” You frowned. “Can’t be this… I don’t know, prosecuted?” You lowered your voice. “We could maybe take this to the council with a collective report.
“I’m sure that will not be possible.” María sighed her answer with a slight disappointment. “Yes, many members like you are disgusted with the actions Madeleine is taking and with every decision she made in the past. But there’s a reason no one ever said a thing.”
Silence.
“Many women, on the orphanage side, depend on this.” María started walking while looking at you and lowering her voice. You followed. “Benefits, like I said. Yes, it’s a volunteer group but the orphanage has its own… Economy. Members receive their monthly exchange in species.”
Her hands adjusted the baby which was pulling her sweater and sucking his fist. “Whether it be food for their kids, clothes, and a hand lended anytime they need it.”
It made sense. Everyone in Jackson has to work, even elders do what they can to receive their slice of bread, and most of the time, single mothers, disabled women and elders, or those whose family members are sick, have to find a way.
“If they speak, they lose.” You murmured, looking away, a thought in the air. María frowned her lips.
“And not only in the economy.”
Her steps came to a halt when both of you reached the church. The air around became more silent, held in a sacred way, a way that would echo your words and María’s. A way that would make the paintings feel like disguised witnesses.
“Madeleine has been here longer than all of us.” María locked eyes with you. “And she keeps… Records. Of everyone. Things she has been told, things she witnessed, horrors some of the violets have made in order to survive.” María frowned her lips, looking at the tall tinted windows of the church and sighed before continuing.
“Madeleine’s silence… is bought. With work. With loyalty. With the fear that if anyone steps out of line, their past becomes public. And in a town like Jackson…” She shook her head. “a past like that can be a death sentence. Not by the council. By the people.” She shrugged lightly.
“We’re talking about death sentences so early in the morning?” Maverick walked up behind you and María smiled softly when he spoke. “Good morning, violets. How’s the morning treating you two?”
“Oh, just catching up a bit. This town and motherhood doesn’t really give you time to hang out with friends at all” María locked eyes with you and as you held her gaze at the word “friends” she winked with warmth.
“Well, while I hate to be the party killer, I’ve got a call for you.” Maverick placed his hands over his buttoned flannel, in that stance he always has. Calm. “Madeleine wants to have a word with you.”
“Well,” María sighed. “ I know better than to keep her waiting.” She smiled at both of you. “I’ll see you guys later.”
As María made her way out of the church, what she said kept sinking in. Jackson was taking depth in the idea you had of it in your mind. The past being used as a weapon made your chest tighten and your heart started thumping like a coward running in circles.
“You alright?”
“Yeah. I…” You took a heavy breath that wasn’t enough as you felt your lungs overworked. “I need to sit down.” You walked past him, taking a seat on one of the pews. Maverick took a seat next to you.
“It didn't look like an easy conversation.”
“Well, it wasn’t.” You murmured, looking at your hands, nails digging into your knees over the fabric of your pants. Maverick tilted his head lightly.
“You wanna talk about it?”
You gave Maverick a sidelong glance and he raised his brows.
“What?”
“Doesn’t look like you know how to keep a secret.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. What we talked about in the courtyards was private.” You finally faced him, turning your head towards him. He looked at you with patience. “And now it happened that María came to me like a high school therapist.”
He kept silent for a moment.
“I’m truly sorry, violet. I just… I wanted to help since you seemed really touched by the kids birthday’s and–”
“Forget it. It’s stupid.” You shook your head, looking forward again. Your eyes dropped to the wood in front of you, placing your hands over it and laying your forehead on your knuckles.
“I thought that maybe talking with another woman about it would help.” Maverick added after a few seconds of silence. You looked at him, without lifting your head and he was looking down at his hands folded over his lap.
Something moved, tender, inside your chest.
“It’s…” You sat back again. “It’s resolved.”
“The birthdays?”
“Yeah. But…” Your hand lifted lightly, hovering over his arm as your voice dropped to a whisper. “I need you to not tell anyone.”
His brows perked up and he tilted forward, lightly. “Tell me.”
Your skin felt his breath as he moved forward. Tea. Chamomile. After a moment that stretched long as you analyzed if telling him about this was a good idea, you decided to do it, because his eyes would tell you to.
“We’re gonna do a small birthday party for the little ones” Your eyes roamed Maverick’s expression as you spoke. “My… A friend of Thelma is gonna help us.”
“Really? How?” Maverick frowned softly.
“We pretend we take the kids to school but we take them to the party, then right after school, we take the kids back to the orphanage.” You bit down onto your lip, shrugging. “Just to let them have some fun and feel… appreciated.”
Maverick stared at you for a moment, then, his face softened as he let out a small smile. His hand reached for yours gently. “Am I invited? I love birthdays.”
That got a smile from you, and after you nodded, Eloise crossed the threshold. “Oh, there you are.” She jogged towards you two. “Hey, father.” She smiled at him and then looked at you. “You ready? We have stuff to do.”
“He knows, he’s coming with us.”
“Really, father?” Eloise jerked her head so fast to look at Maverick that made the man smile. He nodded and Eloise took her hands to her lips, smiling beneath “Oh, that would be so sweet, the kids love you.” “And I love a good birthday party.” He got up, still hand in hand with you. “I’m all yours today for help.” Eloise attached her gaze to the scene of your hand folded around his. She blushed and looked at the door.
“Uhm. I’ll tell Thelma to get going. The kids are waiting in the courtyard.” And Eloise bolted out of your sight. Maverick, still holding your hand, looked at you.
“Shall we?”
“Yes.” Your hand slid off his slowly, as if it didn’t want to be alone again.
When the kids left the orphanage and Maverick came back from picking his coat, you both departed after, leaving a gap of time that wouldn’t raise suspicions. Maverick walked by your side while rubbing his hands and then sliding them inside his pockets.
“You’re nervous?” He asked after a while.
“A bit. Madeleine would get so mad if she found out. I don’t know what she would do to us.”
“Oh, god. You paint her as a villain.” Maverick let go a chuckle and you looked at his profile as he would laugh, frowning your brows lightly, confused.
“I mean, she’s a villain enough. No need for me to paint her as nothing.”
He briefly looked at you, with a small smirk.
“What?”
“Nothing. You’re cute.”
That caught you off guard like a sudden blow on your nape. More confused, you looked at him, and by your face, he started chuckling. “I meant it’s cute, how you worry about everything so much.”
He came back to take you by the arm since you stopped walking after he called you cute. “Come on. Relax, get a smile on that face, we’re heading to a party.”
And he was right. For a moment, you could pretend to leave everything at the orphanage. The babygirl, Madeleine, the protocol.
Your father.
And that image of you leaving that bag there, made your flesh feel light, your bones slime, your feet feathers. And when Maverick’s hand slid down your arm to take your hand, your heart felt like a furnace.
Was this… happiness?
“Miller’s?” Maverick said when you let go of his hand and opened the little garden gate of Joel Miller’s property. You frowned your mouth, looking over your shoulder at his direction. “Why?”
“Long story.”
“Then make it short.” Maverick closed the gate behind him. You stared at him for a moment while you walked towards the poche and he followed behind, holding your gaze. You just looked forward, feeling a strange shiver running down your sternum, a bit acidic.
“Come in, they’re all in the backyard” Eloise said as soon she opened the door. You expected Joel, but he wasn’t even around every corner you looked at. The backyard door was open, some kids running around, chasing each other, a few paper garlands hanging from the ceiling and crossing the backyard.
It was simple and lovely.
The scent of baking and sweet cinnamon scented cookies coming from the kitchen made you follow the thread like a hungry puppy. In the kitchen, Ellie was mixing something in a bowl with Dina trying to stain her cheeks with flour and chuckling as she turned around, swerving her hands. Her eyes, as soon she noticed you, widened with surprise.
“Hey!” The bowl was forgotten over the counter and she approached you with Dina following. “He thought you wouldn’t show up.” She looked back, locking eyes with Dina and gestured to your direction. Something you understood but didn’t point out.
He?
“I had to. I’ve been whining over this.” You answered, taking off your coat.
“Oh, shut up.” Thelma entered the kitchen with a tray, empty with some cookie crumbs. “You were part of this to make it possible.” She caressed your shoulders and Maverick walked straight to the backyard. A collective father! chorus came from the backyard when the kids noticed him.
“So… where is Joel?” You asked, glancing very briefly at Thelma who was already biting back a smile.
“He’s upstairs. He said he was gonna be back in a minute but that was like an hour ago already.” Ellie looked at the wall, watching the clock ticking a whisper. Thelma gasped a bit, and her fingers tightened over your shoulder, tilting you to her.
“Why don’t you go and look for him, violet? We’ll be finishing the sweets with the girls.” Her palm patted over your back and the smile was all. Devilishly innocent. You were about to to say something, an excuse.
“Yeah! Tell that old fart we need him here to help.” Ellie said and Dina elbowed her lightly, making her chuckle and scrunch her nose.
Those eyes. Those shiny dovey eyes. You smiled a little when Ellie locked eyes back with you and when she saw your small nod, she blushed and ran away with Dina following.
Your eyes glanced at Thelma who was already walking away and just decided to get over it and be an adult. “Yeah. I’ll go for him. Upstairs, right?
Ellie nodded and pushed Dina back to the kitchen. Walking past the hallway, you had a moment to look outside at the backyard, noticing Maverick and Eloise playing with the few children outside. There were five or six, apart of Brian, Keila and Sylvia. The laughs were unstoppable, and Maverick was doing a great job with Eloise. When Maverick noticed you, you just stepped back and walked upstairs.
You had that sensation again. The same you felt while walking up these stairs before. It was like an army stomping inside your stomach, trying to crawl up your esophagus.
When you got upstairs, the sound of the party got muffled by the distance, still audible but calmer. The bedroom was empty when you knocked on the wooden doorway and peeked inside, the bed was made and the windows were open, letting the bedroom receive that grayish light of a winter afternoon.
Your eyes moved to the small bureau near a wall, a few pictures, a box, some papers. The portrayed pictures caught your attention, the one of Joel with Sarah, after a football tournament, her big smile, her shiny curls, his proud expression. Another polaroid of them, of the past. You realized you had almost forgot her face a bit, and watching the picture, you suddenly found yourself getting your eyes watery.
You remember that day. You were sitting at the grades, because the students were obligated to attend just to make up the numbers, and to be honest, every place was better than being at home. Joel was a few grades away following a running Sarah in the field with his eyes, with Tommy sitting beside him yelling stuff and being shushed by other moms.
Your eyes turned to his back the whole time. The slight line of sweat on his gray tshirt, crawling down his spine, his temples shiny with sweat beads, a cola can in his hand, looking small like that day by the river. You were squeezed between the other students that were doing everything but paying attention to the tournament. And, in the end, you weren’t paying attention to it either.
You heard a shower muffled in a nearby room. Water running and something being dropped softly on the floor. Your attention drew back to the bureau. There were other pictures. One of him with Ellie, feeding a horse. Another of Ellie holding up a dead rabbit with a big smile. You scrunched your nose and placed the frame back in place, then, you slid your fingers to the box, lifting the lid lightly.
A gun.
Your saliva turned coppery, thick. You felt the weight in your hand, lifting it a bit, sliding your fingertip over the dentures of the barrel. Iron. Some dusty feeling. Below the gun, there was a folded paper, so you took it out, placing the gun back in place. When you started unfolding it, you heard a door cracking open, whining with movement, so—quickly—you closed the box and shoved the paper inside your jeans, below the sweater. The heavy steps were near, so you turned around smoothing your sweater. “Ellie sent me to look for—”
Oh.
Bare.
Towel.
Hips.
God.
Damnit.
“I’m sorry, I thought you… Would… Uhm…” Your hand raised to slide down your mouth as your eyes processed what you were watching. He was naked. Well, not naked. But half half. The towel was… Hanging low on his hips, and he was… Frozen in place.
“I… Guess I should've dressed in the bathroom.” Joel mumbled low, holding the front of the towel tight against his lower stomach, where the dark trail below his navel would disappear, trickling down.
“No, it was… My fault… I should have said… Made… Uhm.”
And you both were standing there, like fools. His hair was damp, drops falling on his shoulders and chest, beard trimmed in a way he expects no one to really notice, just to look presentable. And he finally spoke.
“I’m gonna…” Said, pointing back at the bathroom.
“No. No, I’ll get downstairs.”
“No, ‘s fine. Stay there.”
And he just bolted inside the bathroom.
The sight that left your lungs was long and heated, nervous and shaky. The image was already imprinted in your head, doing things to your imagination. Things you were strongly trying to avoid.
Then, another pair of steps coming up the stairs, and when Maverick appeared, you made yourself get over it, again.
“I was looking for you. You’re gonna help us with the games? The kids will be really tired once they get back but it’ll be worth it.” Maverick approached, sliding his hand over the bannister. You nodded.
“Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute. Ellie sent me to look for—”
“What are y’doin’ here?”
Joel walked out of the bathroom rolling up his sleeves and crossing his arms over his chest. Maverick tightened his jaw and raised his hands lightly. “Helping with the kids. She invited me, told me it was fine.”
“Did she?” Joel turned his gaze to you. You frowned.
“He’s just lending a hand, Joel.”
“No, it’s okay. I will… I think my job is done here. I’ve done plenty with the kids” Maverick shook his head softly. “Instead of… hiding upstairs.”
“You smart?” Joel gave a step forward.
“I like to think that.”
“Okay, okay. What the hell?” You frowned, stopping the both grown men from throwing a tantrum. “Maverick, thanks. I think you can go back.”
Maverick looked down at you for a second, unreadable. Then, he turned around saying That’ll do. When Maverick left, you looked back at Joel. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I don’t want that man in my house.” Joel stated, holding your gaze. “And since ‘s my house, I think I have the right to decide who the hell I let in my place. You ought’a asked me.”
Silence.
“Ellie wants you downstairs.”
You turned around, walking away. But Joel, faster, gave two steps forward and grabbed you by the arm. “I know that man better than you think y’do.”
“Oh, you always know better than everyone, don’t you? Always the same speech, it’s growing old and is tiring the fuck out of me.” You yanked your arm off his grasp, and his fist clenched on his side. “Grow the fuck up instead of fighting every person that you run into.”
After you got back downstairs, before anyone saw the piece of art your face was, you hid in the bathroom. Pacing the small space, you took the paper still folded beneath the hem of your jeans. As you spreaded it over the sink, your eyes slowly widened at the sigh and your heart, which was running after Joel’s small tantrum, it felt like it was trying to dig out of your skin.
A map.
Circled in places, with annotations, some spots scribbled with red, covering danger zones. And many, many routes. There were clinics, warehouses, police stations, a gold fountain in your hands.
“Violet, you there? Cake’s ready and the kids want to sing happy birthday.” Eloise said from the other side of the door. “You’re alright.”
“Yeah. Just needed to relieve my needs.” You said, opening the door and fixing your sweater. Eloise smiled softly, but then, frowned her brows lightly, looking behind her.
“Maverick just left. I tried to make him stay for the cake but he just… Seemed bothered.” She looks back at you. “You know if something happened? It’s not usual to see him so upset, you know?”
“Oh, that’s strange. Maybe he’s just not used to kids that much. Maybe he got overwhelmed.”
Eloise chuckles. “Men.” After sighing, she gestures to the kitchen with her head. “Let’s go.”
In the kitchen, Ellie was dragging Joel out to the backyard while he was putting on a jacket and groaning about the kid being too impatient. Thelma was carrying the tray with the cake, with Dina following behind with plastic plates for the children and the small candles in her other hand. Eloise had her arm curled around yours, taking you outside.
“Cake! Cake!” One of the kids hollered and the others quickly circled the makeshift table in the backyard, giggling and staring up at the cake decorated by Dina and Ellie.
“Okay, okay! If we calm down, we’re gonna sing happy birthday to Brian, Keila and Sylvia. Alright?” Thelma set the cake down and the children stared at the cream and candy beads with sparkling eyes, curling their fingers around nothing but excitement.
The three kids found a place one beside the other, smiling and staring at Thelma light the candles. Their little voices in an innocent chorus, clapping without a sense of rhythm but joy, the birthday kids staring at their friends, friends that celebrate them, their existence.
That they’re here. Still.
While clapping, your eyes found Joel, standing behind Ellie and Dina, clapping too but also staring at you. You rolled your eyes slightly, looking back at the kids. Then everything unfolded calmly. The kids sat wherever they found a place, eating a slice of cake coursing the last steps of that short but warm birthday.
“You want a piece? It’s freaking delicious, I swear.” Eloise approached you, licking her fingertip, smearing the leftover frosting on her plate. You smiled, shaking your head.
“I’m okay.” Your hands took her empty plate, glancing at Joel on the other side of the backyard, taking a plate that Ellie hands him with a fork. “I think I’ll start cleaning up, we’ve got to be back in an hour or so.”
“That’s a good idea. I’ll get the other plates for you.”
As you parted ways, Eloise to the plates on the table and you to the kitchen, being away from the kid’s hubbub let you think for a moment, in peace. As you washed the cutlery that was used to make the cake and cookies, your gaze was set on the kids getting up to play again, running in the backyard, jumping over the old truck covered with snow, getting barked at by Joel. Your hand moved to your sweater for a moment, feeling the folded paper beneath.
Your eyes fell to the running water. The soap running down the drain. Your damp hands.
Blood.
A sharp gasp escaped your lungs when you jolted back and stared at your hands after blinking a few times, harshly.
“y’alright?” Joel entered the kitchen, setting the pile of plates over the kitchen island and placed a hand on your shoulder, staring at your hands. “Did y’ cut your hand?”
“No… No, I… I thought I did.” You shook your head, taking a rag from the counter, drying your hands. He stared at you and his hands found a place low on his hips. “It’s fine.”
“I… reckon I was an asshole earlier.” He mutters, looking at the sink. When he felt your eyes on his profile, his jaw tightened a bit, feeling too exposed. “I never really got along with… him.”
“You never got along with anyone.”
Joel scoffed with what seemed to be something. Too weak for a smile, too relaxed for annoyance. It made you feel lighter, and your shoulders stopped curling around themselves so hard.
“Maverick’s a good person.” You said, taking the plates and placing them inside the sink. “But that’s very you. You like those who aren’t good.”
Joel huffed a breath and looked up at the ceiling.
“Can we not?” He murmured. “It’s something mine against Maverick. That’s it. Since way before you even got to Jackson.”
That got you back to when he called you selfish, and you remembered that he maybe still had that image of you. You had to stop making it about you.
“So? What is it?”
“What is it what?” “What did Maverick did to you?”
Silence.
“Thelma says it’s time to go!” Ellie entered the kitchen, hollering.
“Ellie.”
“‘m sorry. Thelma said it’s time to go” She said now, quieter and smiling. Joel shook his head, staring at her. The same way he would stare at Sarah.
The way back was quiet. Now that Maverick was gone, you walked alone behind the line of children that got longer as more kids joined after passing by school. Eloise and Thelma were heading the line, telling the younger ones not to say a word about the birthday party, and the little ones shushed at each other, giggling.
The church felt immense when you crossed the threshold, and somehow, the air felt eerie. Like when you do something your parents told you clearly you shouldn’t do, and in the end, it was like that. And how can you keep a lie to yourself in the eyes of God?
You were in charge of getting the girls to their room, so Thelma and Eloise went to the other side with the boys. Walking past the tulips rooms, you stared at the ajar door, getting a sight of Caroline rocking the babygirl gently, and everything came back to you, like picking up the backpack you left before leaving.
When you crossed the arch, the air felt weighed with a different kind of hubbub, it caught your attention the amount of people waiting outside the nursery corridor. There were volunteers but also people from outside the church and even some doctors from the medical center walking inside and out of the nursery. What got you restless was the anxiety etched on everyone’s faces, there was an indelible sense of urgency and threat in the air. Tangible.
The cold feeling started freezing your shoulders. Tightening them up again.
When you approached Thelma, she barely wanted to meet your eye, and Eloise coming out with tears in her eyes made everyone—who were seemingly waiting for an update of what was happening inside—let out a crowded and painful wail.
Eloise buried herself into Thelma’s arms and sobbed against her shoulder, grasping her sweater while her whole body would tremble with pain. Thelma just placed her hand over her nape while staring at the nursery door with a stone cold face. You didn’t want to even begin to think what happened inside, and a part of you knew, very well, what happened. Your gaze drifted to the violets that parted ways, walking in different directions, unable to hold the weight of this new reality that was hitting the orphanage to its core.
“Poor thing, oh no…” Belle turned around, walking away while wiping her eyes. Following her with your eyes, you noticed Madeleine standing beside the cloister’s exit. Hands over the curve of her wooden cane, eyes on you.
She was there, standing alone, watching. Because she has eyes. Here, there, everywhere. Because she is everywhere even when she isn’t. And this, came along with her name, with making the babies comfortable, with her cruelty that she tried to slide as pragmatic, as normal. When her fingers tapped the top of her cane, once, twice, she turned around and left.
Tic, tac.
“What happened?” You asked, grabbing Thelma by the arm. Thelma tightened her jaw and took a deep breath, snatching her arm off your grasp. She took her time, because saying it out loud was, in the end, joining this horror to the reality of the orphanage.
“One of… One of the babies. Her kidneys…” Thelma slowly shook her head and struggled to gulp down what everyone was letting out around you.
The nursery door opened and one of the doctors walked out with a bundle wrapped in a white blanket, holding him against his chest. They left with some volunteers and nurses. Eloise and Thelma went somewhere in the nursery, leaving you alone in the middle of the cloister. This was happening. This was a point on her tally. This was one step closer to make them comfortable.
This was your clock, ticking.
taglist: @babielli @cinnxmxngxrl @cowboylikelil @steadybasiliskemissary @pedropascalsbbg @youdontknowe @glitterspark
(if you desire to be added to this taglist, just let me know in the comments!)
I love this story so much, the world you built, characters, the way reader is, the way Joel is, it feels true to the game but also entirely yours at the same time.
And the plot is so gripping and intense and written so beautifully.
Flashbacks always leave me with so much anger and I feel so sorry for her, for the dad she had, for what she had to endure, and still she always tries so hard to do things right and make life better for those kids.
The breastfeeding scene was heartbreaking, how she interacted with Ellie was so sweet and omg the birthday and when they met in Joel's room fjkjgògsgjg 🤭I'm yearning so badly for this Joel 🫠
I'm also damn curious to find out what beef Joel had with Maverick hehe
And the ending...It's already terrible enough, I really hope it's not that little girl. 😭
I'll cross my fingers until next chapter!
thanks for sharing your beautiful writing with us ❤️
I loooooooove to read your reactions. Thank you thank you thank you!!!! 💜💜💜💜💜 my little writer heart just kicks happily📝🧚
Cain's Curse
series masterlist
chapter seven, humans.
pairing: jackson!(dbf?)joel x f!reader
summary: Everyone is a human in their own complex way. But is being a human a reason enough to be redeemed?
tags: SLOW BURN, breastfeeding, age gap (30-50), description of phisycal violence, childhood trauma, murder, emotional distress, anxiety, flashbacks, self deprecation, PTSD, (blood/gore), parental abuse, mental health struggles, homophobia, mention of alcohol, gun, grief
explicit trigger warning: infant/baby death
w/c: 8,9k
a/n: updates are slow! this takes a lot of time!
a/n 2: again, i'm so sorry for taking such a long time to update this fic. i really didn't think there were people actually reading and looking for an update, the messages i've received during this time helped me a lot to keep writing for cain's curse. thanks <3
After what felt like an eternity, the baby finally let go of you. She turned her head around, staring in silence at the barely illuminated room, watching the shadows that nervously tried to hold her world. Her big eyes found Joel, who was still in front of you, shifting his weight on his feet. He took a step forward and opened his hands, stretching his fingers while still holding the bottle in his other hand.
You fixed your blouse, shaky fingers trying to pretend calmness as you placed the baby gently between his arms.
When he turned away, feeding the nipple into the baby’s mouth, the sound of her rapid gulping–breathing shallow between suckles–made you feel something painful but subtle right in your sternum. An acid rising from your stomach, bile.
“Y’okay… Y’fine…” Joel shushed. Sat on the chair near the crib, holding the bottle, staring at the heavy eyes of the baby that started to shut down, like cascades of heavy rain against the window pane.
Everything started coming down before it even ended. Standing there, cracking your knuckles. Joel saw your eyes on the baby, the way you would bite down onto your lip, the way your throat would bob. It was written all over your face how this started to eat you.
“Sit down. You ain’t doin’ much standin’ there.” Silence. “Y’neither gon’ do much fidgeting.”
“I’m not fidgeting.” You murmured, part to yourself. Sinking your hands in your backpockets. “Please, don’t—”
“Why would I.”
He finds your gaze before you even look his way.
“What?”
“Why would I tell anyone ‘bout this?” Joel’s eyes went back to the baby, who chugs the last drops of the milk. “Were y’gonna say that?”
“Yeah…” You look back at wherever his form isn’t filling the space. “I know that what I did was wrong, but—”
“Y’did what you thought was mighty.” Silence. His hands placed the baby against his chest, patting her small back with slow and firm claps. The little burp filled the silence and it was met with a satisfied grunt from his part.
The chair creaked when he stood up. Some soft swings, rocking the small bundle until she gave up between his arms. Safe. Tummy full with warm milk. Finally, he eased her in the crib, caressing her small chest.
“Wrong or right… it comes after.” Joel straightened his stance, not moving his eyes too far from the crib. His hands low on his hips, above the belt. He turned his head to look at you.
Your lips were tight in a permanent and barely noticeable tremor. “Is she okay?”
“Why wouldn’t she be?”
“I’m afraid I might’ve hurt her…”
Joel frowned lightly, looking at the baby while trying to scan for injuries or something out of the ordinary. “She’s fine.”
You felt ridiculous, out of line.
“So…” Joel turned around. A big breath heaving his chest below the flannel. “Why don’t we jus’... sit down?”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure…” You stopped fighting it. The weakness in your knees finally gave out and you landed on the edge of the bed while Joel took the chair across from you. After some eternal silence, the words started falling like a cascade from your mouth, unstoppable..
“I read it.” Your voice was something similar to a person giving back something stolen. Something painfully similar to shame. “After… After you left, I went to Rosemary’s. I took some books from the MED section and then I read everything at home."
You scratched your throat, looking around the room. It was a lie, you didn’t read, you devoured, like a famishing animal, every inch of ink. “Well, not everything, but most of it. I… came to some conclusions and—”
“Why are y’telling me this?” Joel had his hands folded over the buckle of his belt, his gaze was on the crib. Both of you were avoiding each other like stray dogs in a new shelter.
“I wasn’t planning on hurting her.”
Joel drifted his eyes across the room, looking at you. He seemed lost for a fragment of a second. Somewhere between the girl you were twenty years ago and the scared woman that now sits across from him. He searched the exact point where you thought of yourself being able to consciously hurt someone.
If he only knew you’d always been like this.
“The last thing I thought y’wanted to do was hurtin’ her.”
You sank further into your seat, feeling a damp cold blanket over your shoulders, all your bones started hurting and the feeling of him staring at you made that sensation worse.
For the length the silence stretched, neither of you said a thing further. What you did was still settling in the air like a layer of reality you can’t yet wrap your head around, feeling as if if you don’t accept it, it meant it didn’t happen. Your skin started to cry for pain, pain it deserved. Nails that dug into your palms, body that curled around itself, trying to break itself like a coiled wire about to give out.
What would Maverick say? His eyes, would his eyes forgive you? He would, right? He’s forgiveness, he’s love. He’s everything you desire and yearn for, purity, kindness, a body free of sins.
Joel was staring at you.
“Thelma told me about the birthdays…” Joel took his words like a knife and ripped the wall of silence you built in front of yourself. Breaking that opaque wall, tired of watching the shadow of your punishment. “She told me what happened with Madeleine.”
Madeleine. The darkness that stands tall like a veil over your head. It’s the name that made your skin hurt as if it was tightening over your muscles, drying and burning. The negative, the cruelty, slamming a door and running away. Your head jerked up, flew to his face like a dart.
“And… what does this have to do with that?” You babbled.
A dry chuckle escaped Joel. Twisted lips in a half smile that was far from amusement, his eyes moved to the crib again, thoughtful.
“Everythin’.” His head came back to you. “You wrong for lookin’ for a damn solution but she’s not by denying kids a fuckin’ birthday party?” He leaned forward, his arm slumping over his thigh. “Or worse. Denying the babies their god forsaken right to live.”
Then, the water bucket landed. Cold water dripping over your spine.
Your shoulders went slump, and all the tension became tiredness, a heaviness in the middle of your chest. “It… It was a waste of time. It was clueless from us to even ask.”
Silence.
“We’re doin’ it anyway.” Joel said gravelly, below his whiskers.
You almost got whiplash from jerking your head so fast again. Was he joking? Maybe it was his way to ease the tension. A joke. But the way his eyes were staring, calm and also, expectant, told you that this was far from being one of those attempts.
“A small party. A time for t’children to just be… hell, children.” His fingers scratched his jaw while he stared somewhere near you. “Then, we get ‘em back to the orphanage”
“Ok, you’re even more clueless than I thought I was.” You said through your teeth, tight. Joel huffed and placed his hands back over his thighs, sliding them up over the buckle of his belt.
Your eyes followed the motion.
“Thelma gets the kids to school.” Clears his throat. “I asked her to… drop the kiddos with some of their friends at my place.”
Silence.
“We get a cake, Ellie loves ‘em,” Joel kissed his teeth, something similar to warmth in his expression. “Kid learnt to bake some months ago. She has… quite a hand for sweet stuff.” His eyes moved back to you. “And we can ask Eloise to… I dunno, prepare activities to let ‘em have fun for some hours.”
This felt illegal. It was.
“And if she finds out?” The name hangs in the air. Her.
“She won’t.” Joel murmured. “I know some teachers at school, they owe me a favour or two.” He made a light pause while scratching his stubble. “I’ll just ask them to fill the record as usual. No absents.” Then, Joel let the silence hang, staring at the crib. When you were about to say something, he grunted while standing up and gave a single, firm nod to himself, shaking hands with the idea.
Then he looked at you. He hasn't shared silence like this with you since the morning after your first night with the baby. You looked distressed, and he asked himself if you ever felt something else than that.
“Hey.” Joel approached, standing in front of you.
His hand lifted, a moment away from finding your cheek, but he flexed his fingers and dropped it on your shoulder, giving a light squeeze. “There’s… always a way.”
“Why are you doing this?” You asked, looking up. Sliding your eyes up his frame. Joel stared down at you.
He took his time to answer, pupils tracing your face.
“‘Cause I have to.”
Running in snow was like trying to walk in a sea of honey. Your steps were everything but stable and the pain in your body was the cold eating every nerve alive in your sentient being.
You whimpered a wet choked gasp, with pain and disbelief as you tried to run. Blood. There was blood all over your body. You smelled of iron and sorrow, of a situation that surpassed all human thought, but you were no longer human, nothing in you qualified for the empathy or simple reason and morality of a human being.
You were running away. From the moment, from the situation, from the monster, but it was useless. It would find you, it would pounce on you, and it would make you feel every last ounce of pain you had ever inflicted upon it, like an endless, inescapable exchange.
There was nothing after this moment, after dawn.
Directions. The wide white field in front of you. Trees, pines. Green, black, mountains. Going back, going somewhere new. Taking the knife and just end with everything, jump off a fucking cliff.
You tripped with a metal bar and landed dry on the snow, burning your face and every inch of visible skin. As you sat up, scrambling backwards, whipping your head around looking for threats, you saw a man. Pale, lean, with the face of a scared ram, holding a rifle.
“Easy… Easy…” He ushered. Then, from behind, another man approached with his hands reaching you.
Quickly, you tried to reach for the knife in your boot but the man was fast, and his hand curled around your wrist like an iron handcuff.
“Let go of me, motherfucker!”
You got suddenly snatched, sharply, out of the snow from the back of your jacket, like a scaredy cat. Your body was being dragged over the cold right after one of them put a bag on your head, covering your sight. You started kicking the air, hopefully landing your boot hardly into someone’s crotch.
“Grab her ankles! She’s kickin’ me!”
“I’m gonna rip your eyes out of your fucking skull!”
“Shut yer damn mouth before I shut it for ya.”
“C’mon. We don’t have time.”
They dragged you up onto your feet and wrapped a rope around your wrists, behind your back.
“Did she see your face?”
“I don’t think so. I took her from behind.”
“Fuck! Once I get my hands on you!” You jerked your head forward, harshly.
“She bit me through the bag!”
“Grab the armpits!”
“Just knock her out!”
…
“You’re safe” the woman said as soon as her eyes opened fully. “In a community. Jackson, Wyoming.” She saw your shallow breath spread through your body on the stretcher. When your hands flew up, trying to reach for her face, you noticed your wrists were handcuffed to the metal bars at each side of you.
“I’m María.” She didn’t mention the wildness that seemed to kick in your chest. Your eyes attached to her brown ones, widened but calm. Gave you the sensation that her eyes were too big.
“Take this off me or I will fucking kill you.”
“How?”
Your nostrils flared, however, the fire that was about to burn through every piece of furniture in the room, was met with her calm water.
“I want to apologize.” María crossed her legs, sitting beside you on the armchair. “We started with the wrong foot.”
“The hell you have.” You snarled. “Your petty little men almost asphyxiate me.”
María blinked a few times, calmly. Took a slow breath, gathering her words for a woman in such a situation like yours. But she looked like the type to be used to people who carry horrors from the outside.
“You were armed and seemingly distressed. Also, you were covered in blood.” She tilted her head, sighing. “We’re careful.”
Blood.
“Why the fuck am I here?”
“You were hurt, in our territory,” María crossed her legs and placed her hands over her upper knee. “We wanted to make sure you weren’t an infected or worse, a raider.”
“Territory.” You repeated, looking away, slumping your head back on the pillow.
“We never let people out of our community.” You heard the springs of the armchair whine lightly, then, with a few steps she was in front of you again. “We hand out shelter and the ones who want it, stay. We know how it feels to be stranded and alone.”
Silence.
“Were you alone?”
Your eyes drifted to the window behind her. The sun was kind here, glowing with a kind gold dust, bathing the roofs. It was strange to hear the hubbub outside. It reminded you of the school hallway, or the girl’s bathroom, hearing their gossip while eating lunch sitting alone in the toilet cubicle.
Society.
“Where’s my stuff?” You asked, breathing slow and controlled through your nose, staring at María. She nodded, looked to the white door of the room and answered.
“We have a place for you.” Her answer made you sigh sharply, clutching the blanket over you. “It’s a small condominium near Moose Street. Most of the newcomers start there, having something of their own until they prove themselves of really wanting to be part of the community.”
You bristled. “Where is my stuff?”
“There, in your condominium.”
Silence.
“Care to tell me how you got to Wyoming? We found a map in your backpack. You come from very, very far.”
“Did you steal my map?” You jolted forward, which made María startle for a second. The metal clicking against the metal bars made her shoulders ease.
“No. It’s at the, how I just said, condominium.” Calm. Collected. “Can you at least answer one of my questions? I’ve been answering yours.”
Negotiation.
“I was alone.”
“And the blood?”
Silence.
“There was also a knife in your socks. And we found someone at the shore some miles away. He had a clean—”
“Shut up” Your eyes shut tightly. A buzzing sound in your ear, something being born in the back of your mind, wailing and scratching the walls of your skull. “Shut the fuck up!” You tried to reach her neck, hands spreading. But the chains rattled. The heavy puffs coming out of your nose made María look to the ground for a moment, thinking.
The silence stretched. You needed it to. Gave you time to cradle the creature in your arms, the invisible pain and guilt. It has blood, smeared, it has its eyes wide open.
And it has your face.
“Did you know him?”
Your eyes moved to the white and beige furniture. You still can hear the sound of his flesh, of his bones, of his life leaving his body.
“You don’t want me in this town.” You murmured, without looking at her. “I’m not like you. Like all of you.”
“All of us? What are we?”
Silence.
“Humans.”
In the end, Joel was the one who stayed with the baby and you went back home, with a bittersweet taste in your mouth, and your throat squeezing around a ball of nothing. When the morning arrived, it found you still awake, barely getting any shutseye. Still, you got up. You walked in circles in the bedroom, thinking about the baby, the birthday, the breastfeeding, Joel and everything. Your fingertips were red since you had nothing else to bite down on, and you could feel your sternum stiff every time you tried to take a deep breath.
“Violet…” The front door opened slowly. No one in Jackson usually locks their doors, and you weren’t the exception. When Thelma entered your bedroom and found you still in pajamas–a worn shirt and something you called pants–she raised a brow. “What’s with the face?”
“What face. I just got up.” You blurted out. Thelma dipped her chin and walked to the window that looks out to the street, opening the curtains. Your eyelids shrinked and as you grunted, Thelma took you by the arm.
“Get dressed. We have a birthday to organize.”
You frowned, following her with your gaze as she walked to the kitchenette.
“We’re doing it today?”
“Of course we are. The kids don’t deserve to be waiting for some fun.” She said as she opened the cupboard. Then the pantry. The cabinet. Alcohol. Everywhere.
She jerked back when you snapped the cabinet closed. Her eyes locked with yours as your nostrils flared with a long exhale.
“Wait outside.”
It wasn’t usual for you to be around and about in town, less this early, but Thelma wanted to grab the first cups of coffee of the morning before heading to the orphanage. Since you were around, she didn’t ask but took you by the sleeve and dragged you out of your condominium.
The diner was empty. Barely. There were a few patrollers around about to run a loop and some other townsfolks who had the same idea as Thelma.
After she got two cups of coffee with cream, both of you took a seat in one of the booths in the back. Thelma said something about having to polish the plan well, and all the anxiety came back after a whole night of trying to ignore the sting of it.
“I take the little ones to Miller’s, we make them have a little fun, and we take them back right after the usual hour. It doesn't have to be hard, right?” Thelma licks the cream off the corner of her lips while writing something on her memopad. “He told me he could prepare some chocolate milk and that Ellie will be baking something sweet for the kids with Eloise’s help.”
“Sounds good…” You nodded, murmuring while watching her profile. It looked like something usual—talking to him, a daily basis, someone who’s always on the other end. It made your stomach tighten strangely.
You felt itchy, your nails scratching your neck softly. “You two seem to handle logistics very… well.”
“With Miller? Yeah.” Thelma writes the orphanage’s menu for the day without dragging her hand away. Her handwriting was pretty, clean. Confident. “He thanked me after I sent you to take care of him. Gave me some flour and eggs. You did a good job.”
“Oh.” You scratched behind your ear, looking at your untouched coffee mug. Thelma looked at you and noticed the light rash on your skin; she frowned softly.
“Why’d you ask?”
“Oh. Nothing, just…” You shrug, unable to even explain yourself.
“He runs the patrol team. I run the violets wing.” She places her hands against her chest over the blue sweater. “He’s good at solutions…” Silence. Thelma crosses her arms over the table while you aren’t meeting her gaze and then, she shrugs a bit with a small curl on her lips. “He saw you talking with Maverick at the courtyard and said you looked disappointed.”
“You told him about this because he saw me? Why?”
Another shrug.
“Seems like he would move the sun when it comes to you.”
The density of the air getting through your nostrils made you cough as you looked away. Your mug rattled on the small plate when you placed it down. “Move the sun?” Your eyes snapped back to Thelma, your frown deepening. “You mean–”
“Yeah, I mean. He’s always around, eyes on you. Like at Maria’s birthday or the night of the code purple.” She gives you a sidelong smile, placing her chin on her palm. “You haven’t noticed? I think he has a soft spot, that’s why I sent you to take care of–”
“Ok. Stop.” You lifted a hand and closed your eyes. Shaking your hand, waving a hand as if to clear smoke from your sight.“You’re delusional.”
“You mean? I think you have him eating from your hand.” She chuckles while closing her notepad and takes her mug. “I’d never seen him in the orphanage ‘til this year. He was more of doing favors if asked but never accepted a wristband.”
“Well, maybe he’s just trying new stuff. I don’t know.”
“Mhm, surely he is.” Thelma closed her memopad and turned. “You’re the new stuff?”
Your eyes moved away from Thelma, right back to your cup of coffee. Silence.
“Do you hate him?”
“What?” You looked back at Thelma.
“Did he ever do something to you?” Her expression was calm, she wasn’t interrogating you, but she was making a question she expected you to finally answer, with the truth.
“No. He did not. I don’t know him.”
“That’s growing old, violet.” Her head made a light tilt to the side. “You know you don’t fool anyone, right? You two act with such a… I don’t know, I’ve never seen someone talk to Miller like that.”
Silence. More silence.
“Neither have I seen Miller speak to someone else like he speaks to you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“This town has eyes everywhere, violet…” Thelma said with a light chuckle. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Don’t Jesus me, girl.”
“No, Thelma, look.” You pointed outside and Thelma gasped. Both of you bolted out the door where Ellie was beating a boy on the edge of the sidewalk. “Hey! Enough!”
You snatched Ellie by her hoodie and Thelma crouched beside the boy who surely got a broken nose. The boy screamed when Thelma touched the bridge of his nose, she turned over her shoulder, looking at you with a wince.
Ellie tried to throw herself at the boy again, your hands clutched her arms again.
“Hey, calm down! I’m sure he understood...” You whirled Ellie around. Her eyes were injected in rage, her cheeks and her teeth clenched like fangs ready to sink into someone’s skin. “What the hell happened? Why did you do that?”
Ellie avoided your eyes, breathing harshly through her teeth. She was still deep into the adrenaline shock and you could see it by the quiver in her hands. Around you, a very few people began to gather and whisper while pointing at the girl. A cold lightning hit you, taking her by the wrist.
By the boy, Thelma followed you with her eyes while you took Ellie inside the diner to a booth at the back. You crouched in front of her, taking her hands in yours and scanning her reddened skin with open flesh on the knuckles.
“You wanna tell me what happened…?”
Ellie kept avoiding your gaze. Looking to an empty spot on the formica table. From your bag, you took a water bottle and some napkins from the table holder. Her lips frowned lightly by the sting, the dry napkin scratching on her sensitive flesh.
“Dyke.”
Your eyes lifted at her ragged murmur.
“He called me a dyke.”
Your stomach made a weird twist, one that knew about the past. You’ve heard variants of the words, a very long time ago, in another place. For a moment, the world felt like the old one, when words were knives and they would draw shame and fear.
The words swirled in your mouth, tasting like copper. You noticed you were biting your cheek, drawing blood. Swallowing heavily, you stopped moving the napkin, squeezing it in your hand as you stood up.
One of the women at the diner approached with two mugs. Tea. Then, she left a piece of cake with white frosting in front of Ellie. When the woman left, you noticed Ellie biting down on her lip, the small glimmer in her eyes, the reddened water lines.
“He’s an asshole.” You said, sitting across her, hugging the mug with your hands. It was stupid, short, awkward. But you couldn’t vomit everything you were thinking to a fifteen year old girl. You wanted to let Ellie go and destroy that boy to pieces, maybe help her.
But you just couldn’t do that.
“He was telling the truth, though.” Ellie said, looking to the side, out the glass of the diner. You followed her gaze, watching how a patroller was taking the boy on his horse to the health center. Thelma entered the place again but as she flapped her memo pad against her fingers, glancing at you, she moved to another booth, waiting.
“Ellie. He had no right to call you such a thing, but you weren’t right on jumping him…” You tilted your head, wrinkling your nose. “When things like that happen, you must tell someone, an adult.”
The girl jerked her head up, sucking her breath.
“And let everyone know I fucking like girls?” Her whole face reddened as she stammered, gesturing the street. “Let Joel know I like girls?” For her, it was an impossible situation. Ellie placed her elbows over the table and covered her face, sighing.
Joel. Right. Joel, Ellie.
“Ellie…” Your hand slid over the table until you touched her arm. “I don’t think your parents would get mad at you for liking a girl.”
Ellie slammed her hands down on the table, making you snatch your hand back. “He’s not my dad!” She spat with her eyes closed. Some heads turned around, then got back to their business. Ellie covered her face again. “And… there’s no mom…”
Oh.
You could hear the heaviness of her breathing, the way she would emanate distress.
“Still. I don't think Joel would care if you like girls or boys. Because there’s nothing wrong with liking someone, Ellie, in spite of their gender.”
“Yeah, right.” She peeked through her fingers. “Seems like everyone who’s been calling me names hasn't got the memo.” She sputtered. “And you don’t know Joel.” Said, with a hiss.
You don’t.
“I know there’s assholes everywhere, but I know he’s not one…” You placed your hand below your chin. “You tell me. Are you hurting someone by liking a girl?” Your head leaned forward, raising a brow.
Ellie lifted her eyes, looking wary at you. “...no.”
“So?”
Ellie finally uncovered her face, dropping her hands—with injured knuckles—over the table and looked down at her tea. “Then why don't they understand it?”
“Because…” Sigh. You looked around, searching answers for a teen in the air. “Teens are… complex, Ellie. They don’t understand stuff and they get mad at what they don’t understand. They make fun of what they don’t understand. They hurt what they don’t understand. And not only teens, everyone.” You gave her a small shrug. “Sometimes because they never saw something similar, or because they’ve been taught to hate stuff. It is not your fault.”
“And you?” She asked, now with a slight embarrassment, residue from yelling. “When you were a… a teen. Would you get mad at people like me?” Ellie took the small spoon between her fingers, rolling it around, fidgeting.
You felt something melt inside your chest. Her eyes were expectant. You’ve been called enough names to know how it feels to be on the other side of the court.
“There’s nothing wrong with loving someone, Ellie…” You said, taking your mug and lifting it to your lips. Ellie frowned her lips in a small smile. She took her spoon and ate the cake in silence white you took sips from your mug.
“Please. Don’t tell Joel about this.” Ellie asked with a hushed murmur, cracking her knuckles. “I will… think about how to tell him this.”
“Wha’ happened to you, kid?”
Tommy.
“Oh, hey.” You locked eyes with Tommy, who was holding a mug on his hand and fixing his bag strap over his shoulder. “You've been long around?”
“I came for my coffee before the loops.” He moved his gaze back to Ellie. “What happened to your hands, Ellie? Been hitting walls again?” Tommy left his cup on the table and tried to reach for the girl’s hands. She snatched her hands away and ran past Tommy.
Both of you stared at the door which slammed closed with a hard sound.
“Wha’happend?” Tommy turned. Forehead tight in a furrowed brow.
“Nothing. She just fell.” You stood up, avoiding Tommy’s eyes. He studied your expression and your shoulders felt like they had an ice block over them.
“Yeah. Okay.” Tommy took a sip from his cup.
“Joel?”
“Joel? Oh. Last thing I knew, he was sleeping like a mule at his house. He got home late as hell for what I’ve noticed. S’been passing too much time around that church, hasn’t he?”
“I’ve seen him a few times.”
“I bet you did.”
Frown.
“He talks about you. Says you’re smart. Quick to anger, but smart.” Tommy said, eyes hovering over the way you would bite your cheek, watching the street through the window. Then, he sighed. “Well, the day isn’t getting any longer, so I better get goin’”
“Yeah, sure.” You answered, nodding, looking at the table and then at him. “Careful out there.”
Tommy smiled with his eyes. “I’ll be.”
Thelma approached once Tommy walked out the diner, and placed her hand on your back. “Okay, the clock is ticking.”
The tension came back when you two crossed the church’s courtyard. Thelma was relaxed, like another day on the field. Waving hands at other violets, moving around like you weren’t about to do something that was explicitly forbidden.
You felt dirty. After yesterday’s actions and the ones you were about to make in a few hours. You were pushing your luck and you knew it. You were asking for it, deliberately planning, getting other people into it.
The feeling was spreading, slowly. Dirt, sweat sticking, bad odor.
“Violet.”
“Yeah?”
“Someone’s looking for you.” Thelma pointed to the end of the hall. María.
You took a quick jog towards her. “Hey. Is everything alright?” You asked her, looking at a fuzzy Benji on her chest. María smiled lightly.
“Just checking in. Maverick told me you’ve been struggling a bit.”
“Oh. Sweet.” You murmured, looking away for a moment. María nudged your arm.
“Hey, he cares. You can’t blame him, it’s in his nature.” María placed her hand back on Benji’s back, caressing in circles while her body would rock, automatic, gently. “Said something about not being happy with Madeleine’s decisions. Something about a birthday.”
You rolled your eyes, lightly. “Yeah, ‘cuz I believe no one is happy with the decision she’s taking. I mean, María she’s about to kill ch–”
“Please.” She raised one hand in between you and closed her eyes. Seemingly not expecting you to bring up the subject. “I know. I know, I…” Sigh. “Everyone is telling me the same thing, and again, I can’t–”
“Do anything because this place is hers.” You finished, nodding your head with closed eyes. “That’s bullshit.”
Her brows rose. You gulped.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She smiled, slightly. “I know you’re worried. I'm trying to talk this out with the council, we’re doing what we can. But it can take time, there’s… Territory rules and… members benefit stuff.” María shrugs, and that small comment about this being talked about, makes you feel at least a ray of relief.
“Members benefit?” You frowned. “Can’t be this… I don’t know, prosecuted?” You lowered your voice. “We could maybe take this to the council with a collective report.
“I’m sure that will not be possible.” María sighed her answer with a slight disappointment. “Yes, many members like you are disgusted with the actions Madeleine is taking and with every decision she made in the past. But there’s a reason no one ever said a thing.”
Silence.
“Many women, on the orphanage side, depend on this.” María started walking while looking at you and lowering her voice. You followed. “Benefits, like I said. Yes, it’s a volunteer group but the orphanage has its own… Economy. Members receive their monthly exchange in species.”
Her hands adjusted the baby which was pulling her sweater and sucking his fist. “Whether it be food for their kids, clothes, and a hand lended anytime they need it.”
It made sense. Everyone in Jackson has to work, even elders do what they can to receive their slice of bread, and most of the time, single mothers, disabled women and elders, or those whose family members are sick, have to find a way.
“If they speak, they lose.” You murmured, looking away, a thought in the air. María frowned her lips.
“And not only in the economy.”
Her steps came to a halt when both of you reached the church. The air around became more silent, held in a sacred way, a way that would echo your words and María’s. A way that would make the paintings feel like disguised witnesses.
“Madeleine has been here longer than all of us.” María locked eyes with you. “And she keeps… Records. Of everyone. Things she has been told, things she witnessed, horrors some of the violets have made in order to survive.” María frowned her lips, looking at the tall tinted windows of the church and sighed before continuing.
“Madeleine’s silence… is bought. With work. With loyalty. With the fear that if anyone steps out of line, their past becomes public. And in a town like Jackson…” She shook her head. “a past like that can be a death sentence. Not by the council. By the people.” She shrugged lightly.
“We’re talking about death sentences so early in the morning?” Maverick walked up behind you and María smiled softly when he spoke. “Good morning, violets. How’s the morning treating you two?”
“Oh, just catching up a bit. This town and motherhood doesn’t really give you time to hang out with friends at all” María locked eyes with you and as you held her gaze at the word “friends” she winked with warmth.
“Well, while I hate to be the party killer, I’ve got a call for you.” Maverick placed his hands over his buttoned flannel, in that stance he always has. Calm. “Madeleine wants to have a word with you.”
“Well,” María sighed. “ I know better than to keep her waiting.” She smiled at both of you. “I’ll see you guys later.”
As María made her way out of the church, what she said kept sinking in. Jackson was taking depth in the idea you had of it in your mind. The past being used as a weapon made your chest tighten and your heart started thumping like a coward running in circles.
“You alright?”
“Yeah. I…” You took a heavy breath that wasn’t enough as you felt your lungs overworked. “I need to sit down.” You walked past him, taking a seat on one of the pews. Maverick took a seat next to you.
“It didn't look like an easy conversation.”
“Well, it wasn’t.” You murmured, looking at your hands, nails digging into your knees over the fabric of your pants. Maverick tilted his head lightly.
“You wanna talk about it?”
You gave Maverick a sidelong glance and he raised his brows.
“What?”
“Doesn’t look like you know how to keep a secret.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. What we talked about in the courtyards was private.” You finally faced him, turning your head towards him. He looked at you with patience. “And now it happened that María came to me like a high school therapist.”
He kept silent for a moment.
“I’m truly sorry, violet. I just… I wanted to help since you seemed really touched by the kids birthday’s and–”
“Forget it. It’s stupid.” You shook your head, looking forward again. Your eyes dropped to the wood in front of you, placing your hands over it and laying your forehead on your knuckles.
“I thought that maybe talking with another woman about it would help.” Maverick added after a few seconds of silence. You looked at him, without lifting your head and he was looking down at his hands folded over his lap.
Something moved, tender, inside your chest.
“It’s…” You sat back again. “It’s resolved.”
“The birthdays?”
“Yeah. But…” Your hand lifted lightly, hovering over his arm as your voice dropped to a whisper. “I need you to not tell anyone.”
His brows perked up and he tilted forward, lightly. “Tell me.”
Your skin felt his breath as he moved forward. Tea. Chamomile. After a moment that stretched long as you analyzed if telling him about this was a good idea, you decided to do it, because his eyes would tell you to.
“We’re gonna do a small birthday party for the little ones” Your eyes roamed Maverick’s expression as you spoke. “My… A friend of Thelma is gonna help us.”
“Really? How?” Maverick frowned softly.
“We pretend we take the kids to school but we take them to the party, then right after school, we take the kids back to the orphanage.” You bit down onto your lip, shrugging. “Just to let them have some fun and feel… appreciated.”
Maverick stared at you for a moment, then, his face softened as he let out a small smile. His hand reached for yours gently. “Am I invited? I love birthdays.”
That got a smile from you, and after you nodded, Eloise crossed the threshold. “Oh, there you are.” She jogged towards you two. “Hey, father.” She smiled at him and then looked at you. “You ready? We have stuff to do.”
“He knows, he’s coming with us.”
“Really, father?” Eloise jerked her head so fast to look at Maverick that made the man smile. He nodded and Eloise took her hands to her lips, smiling beneath “Oh, that would be so sweet, the kids love you.”
“And I love a good birthday party.” He got up, still hand in hand with you. “I’m all yours today for help.” Eloise attached her gaze to the scene of your hand folded around his. She blushed and looked at the door.
“Uhm. I’ll tell Thelma to get going. The kids are waiting in the courtyard.” And Eloise bolted out of your sight. Maverick, still holding your hand, looked at you.
“Shall we?”
“Yes.” Your hand slid off his slowly, as if it didn’t want to be alone again.
When the kids left the orphanage and Maverick came back from picking his coat, you both departed after, leaving a gap of time that wouldn’t raise suspicions. Maverick walked by your side while rubbing his hands and then sliding them inside his pockets.
“You’re nervous?” He asked after a while.
“A bit. Madeleine would get so mad if she found out. I don’t know what she would do to us.”
“Oh, god. You paint her as a villain.” Maverick let go a chuckle and you looked at his profile as he would laugh, frowning your brows lightly, confused.
“I mean, she’s a villain enough. No need for me to paint her as nothing.”
He briefly looked at you, with a small smirk.
“What?”
“Nothing. You’re cute.”
That caught you off guard like a sudden blow on your nape. More confused, you looked at him, and by your face, he started chuckling. “I meant it’s cute, how you worry about everything so much.”
He came back to take you by the arm since you stopped walking after he called you cute. “Come on. Relax, get a smile on that face, we’re heading to a party.”
And he was right. For a moment, you could pretend to leave everything at the orphanage. The babygirl, Madeleine, the protocol.
Your father.
And that image of you leaving that bag there, made your flesh feel light, your bones slime, your feet feathers. And when Maverick’s hand slid down your arm to take your hand, your heart felt like a furnace.
Was this… happiness?
“Miller’s?” Maverick said when you let go of his hand and opened the little garden gate of Joel Miller’s property. You frowned your mouth, looking over your shoulder at his direction. “Why?”
“Long story.”
“Then make it short.” Maverick closed the gate behind him. You stared at him for a moment while you walked towards the poche and he followed behind, holding your gaze. You just looked forward, feeling a strange shiver running down your sternum, a bit acidic.
“Come in, they’re all in the backyard” Eloise said as soon she opened the door. You expected Joel, but he wasn’t even around every corner you looked at. The backyard door was open, some kids running around, chasing each other, a few paper garlands hanging from the ceiling and crossing the backyard.
It was simple and lovely.
The scent of baking and sweet cinnamon scented cookies coming from the kitchen made you follow the thread like a hungry puppy. In the kitchen, Ellie was mixing something in a bowl with Dina trying to stain her cheeks with flour and chuckling as she turned around, swerving her hands. Her eyes, as soon she noticed you, widened with surprise.
“Hey!” The bowl was forgotten over the counter and she approached you with Dina following. “He thought you wouldn’t show up.” She looked back, locking eyes with Dina and gestured to your direction. Something you understood but didn’t point out.
He?
“I had to. I’ve been whining over this.” You answered, taking off your coat.
“Oh, shut up.” Thelma entered the kitchen with a tray, empty with some cookie crumbs. “You were part of this to make it possible.” She caressed your shoulders and Maverick walked straight to the backyard. A collective father! chorus came from the backyard when the kids noticed him.
“So… where is Joel?” You asked, glancing very briefly at Thelma who was already biting back a smile.
“He’s upstairs. He said he was gonna be back in a minute but that was like an hour ago already.” Ellie looked at the wall, watching the clock ticking a whisper. Thelma gasped a bit, and her fingers tightened over your shoulder, tilting you to her.
“Why don’t you go and look for him, violet? We’ll be finishing the sweets with the girls.” Her palm patted over your back and the smile was all. Devilishly innocent. You were about to to say something, an excuse.
“Yeah! Tell that old fart we need him here to help.” Ellie said and Dina elbowed her lightly, making her chuckle and scrunch her nose.
Those eyes. Those shiny dovey eyes. You smiled a little when Ellie locked eyes back with you and when she saw your small nod, she blushed and ran away with Dina following.
Your eyes glanced at Thelma who was already walking away and just decided to get over it and be an adult. “Yeah. I’ll go for him. Upstairs, right?
Ellie nodded and pushed Dina back to the kitchen. Walking past the hallway, you had a moment to look outside at the backyard, noticing Maverick and Eloise playing with the few children outside. There were five or six, apart of Brian, Keila and Sylvia. The laughs were unstoppable, and Maverick was doing a great job with Eloise. When Maverick noticed you, you just stepped back and walked upstairs.
You had that sensation again. The same you felt while walking up these stairs before. It was like an army stomping inside your stomach, trying to crawl up your esophagus.
When you got upstairs, the sound of the party got muffled by the distance, still audible but calmer. The bedroom was empty when you knocked on the wooden doorway and peeked inside, the bed was made and the windows were open, letting the bedroom receive that grayish light of a winter afternoon.
Your eyes moved to the small bureau near a wall, a few pictures, a box, some papers. The portrayed pictures caught your attention, the one of Joel with Sarah, after a football tournament, her big smile, her shiny curls, his proud expression. Another polaroid of them, of the past. You realized you had almost forgot her face a bit, and watching the picture, you suddenly found yourself getting your eyes watery.
You remember that day. You were sitting at the grades, because the students were obligated to attend just to make up the numbers, and to be honest, every place was better than being at home. Joel was a few grades away following a running Sarah in the field with his eyes, with Tommy sitting beside him yelling stuff and being shushed by other moms.
Your eyes turned to his back the whole time. The slight line of sweat on his gray tshirt, crawling down his spine, his temples shiny with sweat beads, a cola can in his hand, looking small like that day by the river. You were squeezed between the other students that were doing everything but paying attention to the tournament. And, in the end, you weren’t paying attention to it either.
You heard a shower muffled in a nearby room. Water running and something being dropped softly on the floor. Your attention drew back to the bureau. There were other pictures. One of him with Ellie, feeding a horse. Another of Ellie holding up a dead rabbit with a big smile. You scrunched your nose and placed the frame back in place, then, you slid your fingers to the box, lifting the lid lightly.
A gun.
Your saliva turned coppery, thick. You felt the weight in your hand, lifting it a bit, sliding your fingertip over the dentures of the barrel. Iron. Some dusty feeling. Below the gun, there was a folded paper, so you took it out, placing the gun back in place. When you started unfolding it, you heard a door cracking open, whining with movement, so—quickly—you closed the box and shoved the paper inside your jeans, below the sweater. The heavy steps were near, so you turned around smoothing your sweater. “Ellie sent me to look for—”
Oh.
Bare.
Towel.
Hips.
God.
Damnit.
“I’m sorry, I thought you… Would… Uhm…” Your hand raised to slide down your mouth as your eyes processed what you were watching. He was naked. Well, not naked. But half half. The towel was… Hanging low on his hips, and he was… Frozen in place.
“I… Guess I should've dressed in the bathroom.” Joel mumbled low, holding the front of the towel tight against his lower stomach, where the dark trail below his navel would disappear, trickling down.
“No, it was… My fault… I should have said… Made… Uhm.”
And you both were standing there, like fools. His hair was damp, drops falling on his shoulders and chest, beard trimmed in a way he expects no one to really notice, just to look presentable. And he finally spoke.
“I’m gonna…” Said, pointing back at the bathroom.
“No. No, I’ll get downstairs.”
“No, ‘s fine. Stay there.”
And he just bolted inside the bathroom.
The sight that left your lungs was long and heated, nervous and shaky. The image was already imprinted in your head, doing things to your imagination. Things you were strongly trying to avoid.
Then, another pair of steps coming up the stairs, and when Maverick appeared, you made yourself get over it, again.
“I was looking for you. You’re gonna help us with the games? The kids will be really tired once they get back but it’ll be worth it.” Maverick approached, sliding his hand over the bannister. You nodded.
“Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute. Ellie sent me to look for—”
“What are y’doin’ here?”
Joel walked out of the bathroom rolling up his sleeves and crossing his arms over his chest. Maverick tightened his jaw and raised his hands lightly. “Helping with the kids. She invited me, told me it was fine.”
“Did she?” Joel turned his gaze to you. You frowned.
“He’s just lending a hand, Joel.”
“No, it’s okay. I will… I think my job is done here. I’ve done plenty with the kids” Maverick shook his head softly. “Instead of… hiding upstairs.”
“You smart?” Joel gave a step forward.
“I like to think that.”
“Okay, okay. What the hell?” You frowned, stopping the both grown men from throwing a tantrum. “Maverick, thanks. I think you can go back.”
Maverick looked down at you for a second, unreadable. Then, he turned around saying That’ll do. When Maverick left, you looked back at Joel. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I don’t want that man in my house.” Joel stated, holding your gaze. “And since ‘s my house, I think I have the right to decide who the hell I let in my place. You ought’a asked me.”
Silence.
“Ellie wants you downstairs.”
You turned around, walking away. But Joel, faster, gave two steps forward and grabbed you by the arm. “I know that man better than you think y’do.”
“Oh, you always know better than everyone, don’t you? Always the same speech, it’s growing old and is tiring the fuck out of me.” You yanked your arm off his grasp, and his fist clenched on his side. “Grow the fuck up instead of fighting every person that you run into.”
After you got back downstairs, before anyone saw the piece of art your face was, you hid in the bathroom. Pacing the small space, you took the paper still folded beneath the hem of your jeans. As you spreaded it over the sink, your eyes slowly widened at the sigh and your heart, which was running after Joel’s small tantrum, it felt like it was trying to dig out of your skin.
A map.
Circled in places, with annotations, some spots scribbled with red, covering danger zones. And many, many routes. There were clinics, warehouses, police stations, a gold fountain in your hands.
“Violet, you there? Cake’s ready and the kids want to sing happy birthday.” Eloise said from the other side of the door. “You’re alright.”
“Yeah. Just needed to relieve my needs.” You said, opening the door and fixing your sweater. Eloise smiled softly, but then, frowned her brows lightly, looking behind her.
“Maverick just left. I tried to make him stay for the cake but he just… Seemed bothered.” She looks back at you. “You know if something happened? It’s not usual to see him so upset, you know?”
“Oh, that’s strange. Maybe he’s just not used to kids that much. Maybe he got overwhelmed.”
Eloise chuckles. “Men.” After sighing, she gestures to the kitchen with her head. “Let’s go.”
In the kitchen, Ellie was dragging Joel out to the backyard while he was putting on a jacket and groaning about the kid being too impatient. Thelma was carrying the tray with the cake, with Dina following behind with plastic plates for the children and the small candles in her other hand. Eloise had her arm curled around yours, taking you outside.
“Cake! Cake!” One of the kids hollered and the others quickly circled the makeshift table in the backyard, giggling and staring up at the cake decorated by Dina and Ellie.
“Okay, okay! If we calm down, we’re gonna sing happy birthday to Brian, Keila and Sylvia. Alright?” Thelma set the cake down and the children stared at the cream and candy beads with sparkling eyes, curling their fingers around nothing but excitement.
The three kids found a place one beside the other, smiling and staring at Thelma light the candles. Their little voices in an innocent chorus, clapping without a sense of rhythm but joy, the birthday kids staring at their friends, friends that celebrate them, their existence.
That they’re here. Still.
While clapping, your eyes found Joel, standing behind Ellie and Dina, clapping too but also staring at you. You rolled your eyes slightly, looking back at the kids. Then everything unfolded calmly. The kids sat wherever they found a place, eating a slice of cake coursing the last steps of that short but warm birthday.
“You want a piece? It’s freaking delicious, I swear.” Eloise approached you, licking her fingertip, smearing the leftover frosting on her plate. You smiled, shaking your head.
“I’m okay.” Your hands took her empty plate, glancing at Joel on the other side of the backyard, taking a plate that Ellie hands him with a fork. “I think I’ll start cleaning up, we’ve got to be back in an hour or so.”
“That’s a good idea. I’ll get the other plates for you.”
As you parted ways, Eloise to the plates on the table and you to the kitchen, being away from the kid’s hubbub let you think for a moment, in peace. As you washed the cutlery that was used to make the cake and cookies, your gaze was set on the kids getting up to play again, running in the backyard, jumping over the old truck covered with snow, getting barked at by Joel. Your hand moved to your sweater for a moment, feeling the folded paper beneath.
Your eyes fell to the running water. The soap running down the drain. Your damp hands.
Blood.
A sharp gasp escaped your lungs when you jolted back and stared at your hands after blinking a few times, harshly.
“y’alright?” Joel entered the kitchen, setting the pile of plates over the kitchen island and placed a hand on your shoulder, staring at your hands. “Did y’ cut your hand?”
“No… No, I… I thought I did.” You shook your head, taking a rag from the counter, drying your hands. He stared at you and his hands found a place low on his hips. “It’s fine.”
“I… reckon I was an asshole earlier.” He mutters, looking at the sink. When he felt your eyes on his profile, his jaw tightened a bit, feeling too exposed. “I never really got along with… him.”
“You never got along with anyone.”
Joel scoffed with what seemed to be something. Too weak for a smile, too relaxed for annoyance. It made you feel lighter, and your shoulders stopped curling around themselves so hard.
“Maverick’s a good person.” You said, taking the plates and placing them inside the sink. “But that’s very you. You like those who aren’t good.”
Joel huffed a breath and looked up at the ceiling.
“Can we not?” He murmured. “It’s something mine against Maverick. That’s it. Since way before you even got to Jackson.”
That got you back to when he called you selfish, and you remembered that he maybe still had that image of you. You had to stop making it about you.
“So? What is it?”
“What is it what?”
“What did Maverick did to you?”
Silence.
“Thelma says it’s time to go!” Ellie entered the kitchen, hollering.
“Ellie.”
“‘m sorry. Thelma said it’s time to go” She said now, quieter and smiling. Joel shook his head, staring at her. The same way he would stare at Sarah.
The way back was quiet. Now that Maverick was gone, you walked alone behind the line of children that got longer as more kids joined after passing by school. Eloise and Thelma were heading the line, telling the younger ones not to say a word about the birthday party, and the little ones shushed at each other, giggling.
The church felt immense when you crossed the threshold, and somehow, the air felt eerie. Like when you do something your parents told you clearly you shouldn’t do, and in the end, it was like that. And how can you keep a lie to yourself in the eyes of God?
You were in charge of getting the girls to their room, so Thelma and Eloise went to the other side with the boys. Walking past the tulips rooms, you stared at the ajar door, getting a sight of Caroline rocking the babygirl gently, and everything came back to you, like picking up the backpack you left before leaving.
When you crossed the arch, the air felt weighed with a different kind of hubbub, it caught your attention the amount of people waiting outside the nursery corridor. There were volunteers but also people from outside the church and even some doctors from the medical center walking inside and out of the nursery. What got you restless was the anxiety etched on everyone’s faces, there was an indelible sense of urgency and threat in the air. Tangible.
The cold feeling started freezing your shoulders. Tightening them up again.
When you approached Thelma, she barely wanted to meet your eye, and Eloise coming out with tears in her eyes made everyone—who were seemingly waiting for an update of what was happening inside—let out a crowded and painful wail.
Eloise buried herself into Thelma’s arms and sobbed against her shoulder, grasping her sweater while her whole body would tremble with pain. Thelma just placed her hand over her nape while staring at the nursery door with a stone cold face. You didn’t want to even begin to think what happened inside, and a part of you knew, very well, what happened. Your gaze drifted to the violets that parted ways, walking in different directions, unable to hold the weight of this new reality that was hitting the orphanage to its core.
“Poor thing, oh no…” Belle turned around, walking away while wiping her eyes. Following her with your eyes, you noticed Madeleine standing beside the cloister’s exit. Hands over the curve of her wooden cane, eyes on you.
She was there, standing alone, watching. Because she has eyes. Here, there, everywhere. Because she is everywhere even when she isn’t. And this, came along with her name, with making the babies comfortable, with her cruelty that she tried to slide as pragmatic, as normal. When her fingers tapped the top of her cane, once, twice, she turned around and left.
Tic, tac.
“What happened?” You asked, grabbing Thelma by the arm. Thelma tightened her jaw and took a deep breath, snatching her arm off your grasp. She took her time, because saying it out loud was, in the end, joining this horror to the reality of the orphanage.
“One of… One of the babies. Her kidneys…” Thelma slowly shook her head and struggled to gulp down what everyone was letting out around you.
The nursery door opened and one of the doctors walked out with a bundle wrapped in a white blanket, holding him against his chest. They left with some volunteers and nurses. Eloise and Thelma went somewhere in the nursery, leaving you alone in the middle of the cloister. This was happening. This was a point on her tally. This was one step closer to make them comfortable.
This was your clock, ticking.
taglist: @babielli @cinnxmxngxrl @cowboylikelil @steadybasiliskemissary @pedropascalsbbg @youdontknowe @glitterspark
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hope everyrhings going well in your life:) just wanted to let you know that i constantly reread everything your write and i cant wait for the next chapter of cains curse💕💕youre my favorite author
hello 🩷
this is such a beautiful message, thanks for taking your time to write this, it really helps me through the tough times I'm going through.
I'm indeed writing! slow, but I'm still writing for this beautiful fanfic that keeps me awake and with a sense of belonging.
I'm taking a lot of time because I really really want to take care of every aspect of the world I'm building and its characters. I promise big things are coming, I'm learning a lot in the process.
again, thanks for this. 🤍
i need to peg joel miller
an infinity
pairing: trans man!Joel x transmasc!Reader word count: 1.5k summary: You and Joel cross paths. He hasn't been touched in a long time. content/warnings: middle aged Joel, reader is the softest of soft doms, fingering, oral sex, Joel is so so touch starved, age gap, we make that old man squirt, tenderness, reader can be read as stone top, genitals referred to as cock, cunt & hole. This is for my trans siblings, but you don't need to be trans to read, you just need to be horny 😘 a/n: Being a person is so hard and writers block is kicking my ass. I started this months ago, intended for @wannab-urs's DMAMC. I'm a month and a half late, and it's not as dommy as intended, but this is a short love letter to our trans elders. In a horny way. Can be read as this Joel. Shoutout to @ozarkthedog @sp00kymulderr, and @ems-chaos-corner for being wonderful humans. Disclaimer: My experiences of transness are my own. There is no one way to be trans 🩷
It's a fluke of the universe that you stumble together. Time and space and circumstance all should have kept you apart.
Instead, you collide. You and Joel Miller, the man you never saw coming.
Streetlights from the cul-de-sac flood through your window, the only light illuminating the room. He's striped with the glow, shadows of horizontal blinds cutting negative space into the flood of gold and grey across him. Your starving hands tear at his cotton undershirt, peeling it from sticky-sweat skin. It stinks of him and you can't help but breathe it in.
Joel groans up at the display, driven wild. You like him like this. You could eat him up.
"It's, uh-" he coughs, "It's been a while for me."
"Really?" you ask. His eyelids flutter as you trace your hands up his sides, feeling his skin goose-pimple beneath your touch. "Handsome guy like you?"
It takes some effort for him to focus. "Yeah, just-- It's been easier this way. Not dating."
There's more that he could say. You can both feel it.
But that's not what's important right now. You need to taste him. To feel him under you, rut against you--
You shrug. "Makes no difference to me, cowboy."
He laughs, a sound of relief. Then, he hisses, as you let your fingernails drag down his sides.
"That--" he hums," That feels really good."
"Yeah?" you tease, "And how about this?"
You trace your fingertips along the opalescent scars at the underside of his pecs. They’re long since healed now, and you can see the glint of a smirk on Joel’s lips as you trace your hand across his chest. You both know what the smirk means. It means ‘I chose this’. It means 'This is me.' It means 'I'm still here.' It’s strange, the parts of him that feel like looking at a mirror to the future, in contrast with the parts of him that are so uniquely his own.
He hums in response as you kiss along the scars–oh so pretty–and trail your lips down further. You trace down along his tummy, licking and nibbling at his happy trail, mouthing against the fabric of his jeans.
He makes quick work of the buckle, and slips the button deftly through the denim. You unzip his fly, and you laugh as he rocks his hips a little and a rolled up pair of socks rolls from out of his jeans.
Joel turns a little pink at the ears, but grins, shaking his head. "Sweetheart, I've been packing since before you were born. A pair of socks works every time, and I will stand by it every time."
“Sure, sure, old man,” you snort.
"Oh, hush up," he rolls his eyes, blush deepening.
He follows your lead as you back him up towards the sofa, making him topple backwards as his knees buckle.
The way he looks up at you makes you insane. Brown eyes, brows knit, pretty lips parted just the littlest bit.
You put your thumb between his lips, and he opens up without a second thought. His lips would look perfect stretched around your strap.
"Lift your hips," you command, and he does. He helps you shimmy his jeans off, and now he's bare beneath you. Clothed only in cotton boxers, you slip your hand gently from his navel, to the dark wet spot between his legs, where his cunt is soaking through the fabric beneath.
Your touch is gentle, but the moment your fingertips roll over his cock, you know you're done for.
Because sure; he's older than you. Old enough to be your father. But that didn't matter to you before, and it sure as fuck doesn't matter now.
All because Joel fucking Miller moans like a whore when you touch him, and you need more more more–
When he's totally bare, you take a moment to look at him. Your eyes go wide.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ, Miller. You keep a sock in your pants when you're packin' that? Oh, honey, you don't need to."
"Old habits," he shrugs, barely disguising his grin, "But I gotta say, T has been good for me."
"No kidding," you huff, inspecting him. "You got a big dick, baby. Honestly, I think I'm jealous."
"You sure got a dirty mouth for such a young thing."
"Do you like that I'm young?"
He scrunches his face. "It’s not that. I like that you're you. You're..."
"I'm?"
"You're fun. You remind me of me when I was your age. But, maybe less of a mess."
You're both silent for a moment. You shrug.
“Well, maybe equally messy, just different.” Joel concedes. "You… you keep looking at me.”
Looking is admittedly something of an understatement. If you’re honest, you’re swallowing him whole with just your gaze. Freezing him with your stare, Medusa made manifest.
You have him right where you want him. He’s laying on his back, legs spread, dripping from his slit. His thighs are all glossy and slick, and you can see his dick twitch.
You stroke your fingers through his folds, holding him down as he squirms. The sounds he’s making are soft but desperate, pathetically stifled. Instead, though, the only sounds to pass his lips are measured breaths and soft moans.
"I like looking at you."
He scrunches his face. “Ain’t much to look at.”
“I disagree.”
“Hmmph.” He snorts. Then redirects. "You planning to get top surgery yourself?"
You smile. "I'm on the waitlist."
Joel breaks into a grin. "That's huge! Congratulations."
"Thank you," you beam.
He’s too sweet.
You love the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. The silver in his salt and pepper hair. The age and the life evident from his skin, from his scars, from the freckles on his shoulders and the smattering of hair along his belly and thighs and–
You move your fingers again, slipping amongst his wetness.
"Joel, do you like penetration?"
His eyebrows raise, but he nods. "Yes I do."
"Where?"
"Dealer's choice," he smiles, "But if we don't have lube, let's go front."
You snort, but smile back. He watches you as you let your fingers trail back down to the drooling slit between his thighs.
All of a sudden he's not looking at you anymore.
He's looking at your hand, where your fingers breach his entrance.
It's shocking, how wet he is. One finger slips in easily, and Joel is writhing as you slip a second into his soaked hole. You crook them just so. With your other hand, you wrap your fingers around his cock. His cunt's been dripping so much, your grip on his cock is slippery and loose, but you're still able to provide stimulation, and it seems that's really what he needs.
"Fuck, honey, fuck--" he groans, his thighs glistening with slick as you pump your fingers deeper and deeper.
"Takin' me so well," you tell him, "Do you need another finger?"
His response is half choked, but he nods with such vehemence there's no chance of misinterpretation.
You press a third finger into him and you feel how his cunt lets you in and then tightens, just the littlest bit. You can feel how he's getting worked up, inching closer to his peak, bit by bit by bit–
Lost in his haze, he doesn't see the way you adjust and lean over. Before he can process what's happening, your hot mouth closes over his cock, tongue laving at his opening before slipping back, dragging along its length. He's whining beneath you, panting and moaning as you continue the rough pump of your fingers, ignoring the exhaustion in your forearm.
It starts to build, far too fast and far too much for Joel to handle.
Through strangled breaths, Joel cries out-- "Please, wait-- I'm gonna make a mess, fuck, you've gotta stop or else--"
You pull off, just long enough to reassure him. "Make a mess on me, daddy. It's okay. You can let go."
His protests cease immediately, replaced by ragged moans. His slick is dripping down your wrist now, and you can feel the twitch of his cock against your tongue.
He comes in an explosion. You keep your face buried in his cunt, licking every drop of him until he makes the prettiest moan and pulls you away by your hair, his release splattering in spurts across your face.
With a whine, he finishes. Through half-obscured eyelashes, you watch as he twitches in pulses, the last of his aftershocks surging through him.
You lay together, bodies close but not touching. The room is silent as your skin cools.
Joel's breathing slows and becomes deep, peaceful.
For a moment you worry he fell asleep, but at your slightest movement, he clears his throat.
"I can honestly say, I have not been fucked like that in a long, long time."
You roll over to face him, giggling. "That good huh?"
"Forgot it could be that good," he admits.
He places his hand in yours, calloused fingertips brushing against your own.
Just for this one infinite moment, this is home.
bite me to the marrow
masterlist
pairing: joel miller x f!reader
summary: the apocalypse doesn't come alone.
tags: character study, explicit, blood, limbs, dddne?, strong and graphic language, psychological intensity, power dynamics, obsessive behavior, metaphorical cannibalism, raw descriptions, seeeeeex, trauma, no proofread.
w/c: i don't know i wrote it in the car, in my phone, i want to sleep
enjoy! 🫀🩸
★
He's old. He has been, for a long time.
He had seen much, been through a lot. Nothing really surprised him a lot these days, and is not like he was easy to throw off the hook at all.
He remembers every now and then, a hooker in the old world. Marnie. Or Marie. Brunette, bright brown eyes, an amazing mouth. He remembers it as the dirtiest fuck he ever had.
But nothing else.
But there was something, with you. In you.
Maybe because you weren't exactly what he had expected. You weren't a delicate piece of glass and he knew, but you were... different.
You didn't try to conquer him, didn't try to seduce neither. You we're a natural. Or maybe he got so silently obsessed with you that every little thing you would do, would make him close his eyes and count to ten to not let his thoughts wander.
Wander.
Wander where?
Far. Far in a corner of his mind where he keeps those thoughts he would never say out loud. The ones that came with the horror, with splitting heads open, with twisting knives inside of someone's guts. The ones that came in order to deal with all that.
And you were a vessel.
Your naked skin. Your heavy sighs. Your humidity.
Your stickiness.
Hot. Hard to get rid of. Feeling it even after hours.
Like blood.
All of it was intense. Out of nowhere, but also after a long time of electricity and silent yearning from his part. The sporadic nights were... something he would wait awake for.
You were smart. You didn't hesitate when it came to differ with him or his ideas, you didn't flinch whenever he would bark, neither would step back whenever he would give you those killer eyes that seemed to make everyone stumble back.
Not because you thought you were capable to fight him.
But because you knew that there wasn't anything in him that you haven't seen before in a man.
He wasn't special. And in fact, he sometimes seemed pathetic to you when he tried to pull the bad dog card on you. And he seemed strangely... challenged by that.
Joel wasn't the way to prove things to people, but he wanted to show you he could make you feel something, more than you could make him feel. He wanted to do it.
And he did.
He had wished long for those legs trembling on his sides. For that skin crawling deliciously for him. For those nails to dig on his shoulders. For your mouth letting out a sound for him. For your wetness making that sweet clapping sound every time he would meet you.
"There... Fuck, there... Yea.."
"Joel... Slow... Please, slow, I don't want to cum yet... Ah!"
He had to shook his head and slide his hand down his beard, scratching his jaw. You were messing him up. His ideas. His days.
But he was addicted to replay those moments.
"Oh... Mgh..." Your hands drowning into his grayish strands, messing his hair while he would slowly drink your heat, with his eyes closed and a slow desperation. Then leaving your place with his hair tousled and thirsty for another.
There was something in you. Inside of you that he wanted to reach. With his fingers, his tongue, his cock. He was in a heated fight with your body, trying to see what was inside of you that would get him like this, this visceral, this close to the most primitive part of his humanity.
"Mhg... Let me hear that again, sweet thing..." Joel would growl against your neck, pining you down against the mattress while slowly sliding his cock inside and dragging outside your delicious soppy entrance. He'd close his eyes tightly, gasping through his teeth against your shoulder, feeling your walls moulding around him.
He needed your gasps. The way you would get more and more wet, even when he thought it was impossible. And looking down at you while going through it, it was the best gift.
Your eyes, shiny. Hooded. As if life was leaving your body. You were a fucking sight. You were a vulgar piece of art. A masterpiece he wanted to tear apart by the seams and rearrange to start all over again.
He needed to drink all the sweat between your breasts and the drops that would slide from behind your knees. He needed to make you gasp into his mouth to receive your oxygen and make it his.
He wanted to fuck your ideas. Your beliefs. Your thoughts and complaints. He wanted to be used like an insult by you. He wanted to make you demand him more of anything you wanted. He wanted to make you see you were the only one able to get him like this, crazy over a single drop of you.
He wanted you to ask him to stop.
He wanted you to ask him to disappear.
He wanted you to ask him to make you disappear.
"Let it go, darlin'... That's it, baby, I feel ya..." He said, as his hands ran down your waist and settled on your hips. Fingers curling and tilting your hips up, slightly, to press that sweet spot that was making you pulse around him.
He could feel it. Oh, it was delicious. A rhythmical beat around his cock, contracting around his flesh, sucking him way more inside until his pelvic bone pressed against your clit.
"Mhg... Ah.." Your hands landed flat, softly, over his lower belly, which was already wet by you. Sticky.
Blood.
"You want me t'stop, baby?" Joel asked, ragged, about to start thrusting again. The sweat from his neck falling over your breasts.
And you shook your head, breathing open-mouthed.
"Again..."
★
it has been in drafts toooo loooong. 💋
his face when you finally cum yay!
Favourite fics in 2025 🏆
I had a rollercoaster of a year. In April 2025 I was looking for something to watch while I adjusted to some new circumstances, and I chose a silly zombie show, not yet knowing I'd hyperfixate on it to the point of coming back to ao3 and tumblr 🤭
I read an ungodly amount of fics this year, so here are my favourites (mostly Joel x Reader):
multi-chapter fics:
Take on Me by CtrlAltThea
my comfort story! beautiful retelling of tlou with a gorgeous addition of one of my favourite OCs. beautifully written and lets you relive tlou with the same high stakes and drama, but less death and more fluff and smut lol
Mercy for those Seeking by @metaphoricgibberish
some fics have beautiful writing, some have hot smut, some have a beautiful love story. this one has everything, as well as one of my favourite OCs ever (who I identified with so much it led to an existential crisis at 3 a.m.). it feels like a book and not tlou fanfic! also made my cry lol
Stray by Tiredsith
my absolute roman empire, I read it 10 times already and you should too. probably my most revisited bookmark on ao3!
What Dads Do by MissyMegs
this is very different from what I normally read (not romance) but it's so good. I have it on my phone and my kindle and I'll read my favourite chapters whenever I feel down and it got me through some really bad days. unfortunately it's unfinished, but still very much worth reading!
Family Matters by @millermouth
one of my first tlou fics I've read! it's unhinged and you should read it too. it got me absolutely hooked and it's probably the reason this fandom got such a chokehold on me!
Crashing on the Rocks by @ishestillapunk
a beautiful collection of scenes from a marriage and i love it so much because Joel is his relationship with reader is far from perfect and it feels so realistic! I loved it.
Healed by @whocaresstillthelouvre
a very comforting story! i love Jackson Joel, and he gets the life he deserves in this one.
Waiting Game by @gutsby
Absolutely unhinged dbf plot with some top-shelf writing
The Devil's Smile by @isabellaboo2025
the most interesting plot i've seen lately and such a promising dynamic between reader and Joel. beautiful and I can't wait for more.
Feral by @mcthsman
for lovers of absolutely toxic dynamics and a taste for violence lol beautifully written too, and made me audibly gasp at some scenes!
one-shots:
the Fisherman's wife by @joelmama
the writer showed up, wrote this beautiful thing, and disappeared 2 years ago. it's like discovering some ancient text and forever wondering about the beautiful human who wrote it...
little by little by @mirrormauve
kind of in the same realm, but very different and very beautiful and absolutely worth a read (or 3)! part 2 of this is also amazing.
la petite mort by @bergamote-catsandbooks
this is Frankie x Reader and mostly pwp but also such a good depiction of depression! I keep coming back to it.
Baby Come Back to Me by @followyourfleart
really touching love story about a beautiful reunion!
Sticky by @pearlessance
this is Tommy x Reader so not my usual thing, but omg how good was that?
Daddy!Joel by @cinnxmxngxrl
🫣 enjoy
my work
Gifted Kid Burnout
it seems silly to congratulate myself on writing, but I'm really proud of myself for actually writing and posting my first multi-chapter fic. It feels surreal that I created something people read and interact with 🫶🏻
of course there are hundreds of other fics I enjoyed and writers I love and can't wait to keep reading in 2026 💕
Thanks for loving crashing on the rocks so much <3
i need this man taking off my pants and eating me out as if he haven't had pussy in five hundred years
again. happy christmas 🎄
Cain's Curse
series masterlist
chapter six, baby powder.
pairing: jackson!(dbf?)joel x f!reader
summary: Sometimes, there is no other option left than the wrong option.
tags: SLOW BURN, SLOW LIKE A DAMN SNAIL, age gap (30-50), description of induced lactation, breastfeeding, manhandling, arguing, religion, description of physical violence against children and babies, childhood trauma, death, murder, emotional distress, anxiety, flashbacks, self deprecation, PTSD, (blood/gore), parental abuse, mental health struggles.
w/c: 8,1k
a/n: updates are slow! this takes a lot of time!
a/n 2: thanks for waiting <3
At some point of our messy history, civilization was reduced to 1,000 human beings over the surface of our earth. An equivalent to a slightly big theater, or a school baseball field.
Imagine that. Many, many years ago. Men covered with pieces of leather, who barely knew how to communicate. Women that killed species twice as big as them. All the future, everything, was in their hands.
But way before that moment, we didn’t even exist. Or we maybe did, but in another shape, between other kinds of places. Below, deep in the water, with tentacles, or as small as an ant. We were microbes, fishes, strange lizards, dinosaurs. We died a hundred times.
Natural selection.
Then, we became this. People. Human beings who knew that they had one thing as a priority. Survival. We made an economy. Social classes. Religion.
And it all led us to war.
But this is what we know. And how we know it. We have always been in love with what would bring us an inch closer to death—and beyond. What we think and hope is above the clouds, because if hell is real, we have always been in it, and life is nothing else than a step before our eternal last stage.
Humans don’t know anything other than being self destructive. We push away what cares for us, we keep at arm’s length what brightens our soul.
Because, what if it suddenly ends?
What are we supposed to live with after it stops?
The painful memory of what we had?
The ghost of love that hurts more than a physical stab. A ghost that lives in everything, everywhere, in a different person, in a color, in a similar room, in another state, in the rain.
In scars.
The civilization hung from a thread. Once, twice. A hundred times.
“I need more sense of urgency, girls. C’mon.”
The orphanage is a small microcosm. Its own civilization.
“Can somebody help me here?”
A natural selection at a micro–scale.
“I need ears at the 14-16 boys room. Ethan needs someone to talk to.”
The violets become nurses, babysitters, therapists, friends, sisters.
“Take this tray to the 9-12 girls room. Kayla, Merida and Lia need their vitamins, Mia, Leila and Vanessa have to drink these antibiotics.”
Mothers.
They adapt. Like humans have always did.
But in the end, what is it all for?
“Earth calling…” Thelma looks at your trance state, your eyes staring a hole into the kitchen's wall. “Is the wall that entertaining?.”
“No. It is not. I’m sorry.” You shook your head and got back on kneading the bread dough. “I’m worried.”
“About?”
“The protocol. Am I right?” Eloise chirps from the corner, sitting on an old wood box while drinking a glass of juice.
“Oh. That.” Thelma raises her brows briefly, her hands pressing knuckles onto the dough, rolling it over itself and spreading again.
“Why are you spreading it? Ain’t you gonna make bread?”
“It’s my damn dough.”
Eloise raised her hands in the air and lifted her brows. Thelma shook her head, chuckling below her breath as she came back on kneading. Eloise elbows her waist lightly and Thelma scrunch her nose.
“You girls think we should ask women in town if they ever breastfeed before having babies?” You ask while scratching the back of your head, looking at the two women who are bickering and nudging each other. Thelma looks at you and frowns her lips.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Why?” Eloise stares at Thelma. “It’s a good idea, we could recruit them as wet nurses. Right?” Eloise looks at you, getting a nod from your part.
“It can be a bit… Nosy.” Thelma shrugs and gets back to kneading.
“You’d take it as nosy if someone asked you something like that?” You squint lightly.
“Maybe.”
“Even if you know it’s… with good intentions?”
“Yeah.” Thelma lifts her chin and shrugs.
Eloise darts her eyes between you and Thelma. She takes a breath and claps her hands.
“Wow. Thank you.” You answer, dry. Thelma just dropped her eyes back to the countertop, her hands resuming their task.
“Okay. You and me we’ll go finish our stuff at the archives, and you stay here doing your bread with identity issues” Eloise pushes you by the back and exits the kitchen with you.
“I feel like everyone is backing out of this.” You murmur, cracking your knuckles while walking side to side with Eloise. “I don’t know how to make a protocol, seldom how old the baby girl is…”
“First of all, no one is even in. You don’t even have an idea of how the protocol is gonna be tackled.” Eloise pats your back while walking up the stairs. “You need to start, at least, a draft. I don’t know, get a book from MED at Rosemary’s. Do your own research.”
“I need? What about you? You won’t help me?”
“Look. If you don’t know how to make a protocol, least I do.” Eloise enters the archives room. “And about the baby… We can talk with Ethan. He came here with her and the other children. That would be something.”
“Yeah, maybe...” You shake your head while kneeling on the floor and taking folders out. “At least we’re halfway through with this”
“Oh, about that. There’s something I wanted to show you.” She takes a folder with the current year stamped on the cover. “The dates. It’s Tomorrow.” Eloise adds.
Brian.
Keila.
Sylvia.
The three of them.
“Should we make them a birthday party?” Eloise stares at your profile. Your brows are pinched, lightly. “It would be a good idea, right? To get them out of the routine. We’ve never done something similar now that I think about it.”
“Yeah, I don’t see why not.” Your voice comes out with a hint of hope, and a slight drop of tenderness by the idea of cherishing these little ones' lives.
Make them feel appreciated.
Your eyes lock with Eloise’s. Then—
“No.”
“What? Why?”
Madeleine sat back on her chair, her expression was a bullseye you were dying to land a hit on. Her hands resting over her lap, on her black long skirt. “Is not necessary."
“Uhm, actually, it is.” Eloise lifts one finger while she takes a step closer to the desk, with a small and friendly smile. “It was proved by a study in the old world that celebrating children in ways like birthday parties or treats, makes them feel—”
“Well, not here.” Madeleine licks her teeth and places her elbows over the desk, folding her hands below her chin. “That’s for kids with a family, that’s something parents do.” She shrugs. “Not us. We’re an orphanage.”
“In the meantime, we are their family.” You add. Madeleine does that expression she makes every time you speak. The small sigh with her closed eyes. Then, she turns to your direction.
“Lately, you speak too much, don’t you think?” Madeleine tilts her head to the side, a small and fake ass hell chuckle makes her shoulders bounce ever so slightly. “You done playing the poor little rat?”
Your throat feels constricted, and for a fragment of a second, you ask yourself if she has a kind of superpower and she’s throttling you with her mind. All the things you think about firing back, are suddenly extinguished.
“It would be a small party. One hour, nothing more.” Thelma, for the first time in all the hour that the three of you have been there, speaks. “Or just letting them blow the candles in a small pie. Would that be better?”
Madeleine shakes her head with her eyes closed and stands up, arms crossed. The three of you take a step back, unconsciously.
“Birthdays make children feel special, that is a true fact.” The white-haired woman stands beside the window, leaning back on the window sill. “But, it makes–also–children feel jealous of those kids that are being cherished. The kids don’t understand that is not their moment, and they take it as if they aren’t being appreciated.”
The calmness on her face remains untouched as she continues. “And children don’t know how to regulate their emotions. Jealous children throw tantrums, can even do dangerous stuff only for attention.”
You frown slowly as she speaks.
“With no children being “cherished”, there’s no jealousy. No jealousy, no dangerous acts and tantrums on every corner.” Madeleine shrugs while looking at the three of you, standing there with faces out of a drama movie. "Are you two done already with the archives?"
You couldn’t stand anything about her anymore, so you turned around and escaped the office without saying a word. Not even waiting for Thelma and Eloise. You felt like when you were young. It’s a ball rotting in your stomach that wouldn’t leave even if you dug your fingers into your throat and made yourself gag.
Outside, Maverick is sitting below the old and tall crooked tree in the middle of the courtyard. A book in hand while he reads cross–legged. You approach, welcomed by the energy of his warmth when he sets his eyes on you.
“Upset,” He says, noticing.
“Much.”
The book claps softly, closing it. He leaves it below one of his thighs, turning to give you all his loving attention.
“What happened?”
“Madeleine. She happens all the time, and it makes me sick.”
His small smile is a mix between tenderness and understanding.
“She’s not everyone’s cup of tea.”
“Is she someone’s cup of tea at all? She’s evil, a bad person. I don’t understand why María even let her run the orphanage at all.” Your knuckles pop when you fist your hand. His hand moves over one of yours, taking it over his knee.
“Because this orphanage has been Madeleine’s since way long before everything happened. Even before María was even born, I can say.” He chuckles while his thumb traces small circles over your index knuckle, going up the phalanx and coming back down.
“Life is full of things we don’t like. I see stuff I don’t like all the time, everyday, but I just don’t waste my patience on accepting it and I try to do it in another way.” His eyes trail up your neck to your profile.
“How can I celebrate a birthday party for the kids when Madeleine doesn’t allow it?” You raise a brow, knowing well he won’t give you an answer.
“Well, maybe just playing with the kids at playtime and sharing a moment” He shrugs lightly. Then, Maverick squinted his eyes a bit, smiling while looking to the side. “I even wonder if these kids know it’s their birthday at all…”
You take your hand off Maverick’s, softly.
He sighs.
“I’ll tell you something. If you don’t have the right answer now, maybe you’ll have it later.” Maverick looks at you with the gaze that your monster likes. He doesn’t see blood on you but purity.
And you desire madly to give him all your purity.
If there is at all.
“So, how are you, Ethan?” Eloise takes one of the small purple stools and sits on it while you stand behind, in silence. Ethan, the kid, picks at the dirt below his fingernails while staring out the window. “How was school today?”
“I didn’t want to go.” He murmurs.
“Okay.” Eloise nods, caressing the soft wood of the table fitted into the wall beside her. “It’s okay. School is not everything, right?”
“I don’t understand why this place has a school at all.” Ethan shakes his head, still staring out the window. His fingers trace the archive you left over the table.
“Yeah, many of the kids ask themselves the same.” Eloise answers, with calm and patience, which flares a hint of envy in you, for just a moment until you swallow it down again. “But it’s important to know about how the world works, and what happened in its history. Not just the outbreak and the horror we all know about, but everything.”
God gave her something good, natural. Sweetness, patience. And you just can witness, because even if you try to mock her, pretend to be her, have her skin, her gummy smile, her silk tone. It would be fake. And what’s fake, it’s bad.
Like you.
“And why would I even care about who John F. Kennedy was or what a dollar was?” Ethan shoots a glare at Eloise. She just smiles lightly.
“Well, why does Jackson have rules?” Eloise retorted with a small smile.
Ethan rolled his eyes. “Because it would be just the same as the outside without them.”
“Exactly. The dollar was just an economic rule. It was a piece of paper but everyone knew that it had value, because it was given by a practical idea which was balance.” She draws a balance with her both hands, swinging them up and down.
“And Kennedy was a leader, the one who regulated and balanced rules at that time by managing and administrating the different branches of his government. We study them to learn what makes a community work or collapse.” Eloise explains with calmness, and Ethan, slowly, leaves his annoyed facade aside.
Ethan frowned his lips, finally turning to face Eloise and you.
“We want to ask you a few things, Ethan.” Your voice cut the small silence that grew in between you, dragging another stool to sit beside Eloise. “It would be a big help if you could tell us about the baby you brought when the patrollers rescued you and the other kids.”
“Okay…” He nods lightly. Eloise looks at you, nodding, encouraging.
“Can you tell us about how you all ended up in that situation that day?” You ask, holding Ethan’s wounded gaze. The kind of spark in his eyes that tells you about horror.
“I… It was my sister’s idea. We were part of a group of adoration.” His eyes dropped to the floor, unable to stare at you or Eloise. “We… In that group… they…” Ethan sighs shakily.
“It’s okay. Take your time. I will bring you some water.” Eloise pats your shoulder, leaving you alone with Ethan.
The kid stares out the window again. The laughter from children playing outside is muffled by the slightly frosted crystal. Chasing each other with snowballs, bellies warm with milk and bread, burning energies for a good night of sleep. Ethan was one of the new kids that still had a hard time making friends. Probably asking himself how he can get to feel like that?
“This is their favorite part of the day…” You stare outside with him. Ethan’s shoulders tense slightly. “...Where they can care about nothing.”
“How can they act so… Childish?” Ethan murmurs.
Your eyes trace his profile. The veil of anguish so deeply chiseled in him, like a new molar or freckle that stands out more than the others. The sorrow. And even if you understand where he comes from—and more than once you’ve thought just the same—, he needs comfort.
“Because they’re children, Ethan.”
Lines etched deep between his brows. “Children? Maybe in age, but we all went through fucking hell out there.” He spat. “It’s damn impossible to try and be a child again when we keep remembering all the shit we witnessed.” The kid turned his head and said with a snarl. “You have no idea what we witnessed.”
You shut your mouth and looked forward, feeling the bile rise up your throat.
Swallow.
“I was barely an adult when the outbreak happened.” You said. “I was with… my father. But most of the time, it was as if he wasn’t there at all, at least like a father.” Ethan cracks his knuckles while he listens. “The outbreak is not what makes me understand you, but the things I’ve experienced before it.”
“Like what?”
Silence.
“My parents weren’t… Perfect. My dad was… an alcoholic. My mom, she wasn’t supposed to be… a mom, so she would disappear every two weeks, leaving me alone with my father.” You glanced at Ethan. The defensiveness was fading. “For everyone, they were… Normal. But it was as if I was the only one able to see what they actually were. And it was even worse during the time we spent together in this nightmare.”
“What would he do to you?”
You lock eyes with Ethan, shaking your head lightly.
“Stuff. Bad stuff.” Ethan frowns his lips and nods. Understanding. More than he should. “I felt alone. All the time. And every time I would look at other kids, I would think why me? Why not them? But as time passed, I also understood that everyone goes through their—”
“Own shit.”
You smile lightly and nod.
“Yeah, you can call it like that.” You say, and Ethan smiles too, amused. “You like to curse, huh?”
“Yeah, it feels liberating.”
“Yeah…” You nod and look at the window again. “By this I’m not saying that what you went through is less important. At all. But I want you to know that you’re not… on your own.” It feels weird, to say what you always wanted to hear yourself, and somehow, it feels like a part of your soul has been relieved.
And you see in Ethan’s eyes. You helped.
You’re useful.
“You don’t have to go into details for me to understand or believe you, Ethan. Whatever you can tell me, it’ll be helpful.”
Ethan picks his cuticles while nibbling his lower lip.
“There weren't many in this group I told you. We were wanderers. The leaders would take people we would find in the way and make them part of the group by an initiation ritual.” Ethan gulps heavily and shakes his head. “The thing is that, with my sister, we took all the kids one night and ran away with no… place to go. We just didn’t want what awaited us in the group.”
Your eyes drifted to the door for a moment. Eloise was standing by the door with a glass of water.
And Joel standing behind her.
You took a deep breath, feeling a strong silent shiver running up your spine. His presence makes your stomach churn, the idea of him hearing.
“We found places to stay along the way. My sister would leave for some hours to get us all something to eat, coming back late at night with fruit or cans she would find if we were lucky enough. But the luck lasted only two or four weeks…” His eyes suddenly overflowed with tears, his nose went red. “One day, Carla never came back, and I couldn’t leave the kids alone for too long, less the baby. We stayed in that cabin until the patrollers appeared.”
His fists brush against his eyes, furiously wiping his tears. “I didn’t want to leave. Not without Carla. She always found the way back, she always finds the way”
Eloise finally steps inside the room and hands him the glass of water. “It’s normal to get lost in winter. And if she always finds the way, then she’s surely fine.” Eloise caresses his shoulders, patting lightly. “The patrollers keep sweeping the perimeter.”
Your eyes lift to Eloise.
It’s a lie.
So in the end, it was all useless.
When Ethan leaves with Eloise, you doubt on going straight towards Joel, but he’s standing there, waiting. Thumbs hooked on his belt, gaze tranquil. Your feet shift weight a few times, hesitating.
You still held a grudge over how he called you in his house a few days ago. Selfish. Does he really believe that? And also, you found yourself quivering ever so slightly at the minimum feeling of his eyes on you after last morning.
He was looking at the locket.
He was looking at the locket.
But if you’re so sure about it, why do you still get so—
Wet?
“Own shit…” He repeats, a slightly hushed drawl. As if he were still decoding the convo. “You’re good with teens.” Joel murmurs, once you finally approach.
“He doesn’t want to be treated like one.” You look back to the empty chairs near the window. “I think I barely treated him like a kid.”
“They like that.” Joel looks to the side, licking his teeth. “Makes them feel part, grown.”
“Yeah, but they shouldn’t need to be adults to be part of or be treated with respect.” Your eyes turned to him, your tone had quite the edge, so he stared at you. A slight frown on his mouth, below his beard.
“I ain’t mentioned anythin’ ‘bout respect.” Joel crosses his arms. “Do I give off the urge to argue?” He adds, squinting.
It’s like a slap across the face that pushes you back into your box. Where did that come out from? “I’m not arguing.” Your tone lowers. Aware. “I was just saying.”
“I thought we we’re a’ight.”
Your eyes drag up his frame. The brief moment where he shows a slight sliver of hope.
Alright? How? When you both are a memory of what each other has lost. You can see him trying to figure out the gears turning and twisting behind your pupils. But it’s impossible. You’re impossible.
Because you’re hurt.
“Was it some kind of interrogatory?” Joel diverted the direction of the growing tension in the air, his hand brushed over the folder on the table, but he didn't open it. “Kid seemed scared.”
“He’s scared.” You affirmed. Your eyes follow the path his hand does. Thick fingers that press against the wood when he leans his weight onto his hand, making the fingertips turn slightly white. The veins are subtle. The scars are dry on the knuckles.
You blinked back to the moment. “We needed to know how many months old the babygirl is. By what he told us, we can say no more than five months old.”
“Five months…” Joel repeats in a dragged murmur. “And how is it going?”
“The protocol?” You raise a brow.
His eyes move around the place for a moment, fingers brush over his chin. The sound is dry as his fingertips rub over the stubble. “I saw your notebook.”
Your jaw clenched, lightly. He notices and waves his hand in between you.
“It was open over the desk, in the tulips room. I took a’look.” A deep breath expanded his chest below the flannel for a moment, as he leaned his weight onto one of the columns of the room. Joel notices your expression. Hundred emotions that in equivalent showed a blank stare set on him. “It was open, can’t blame me.”
“Doesn’t give you the right.” You retorted. Joel tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. You think I’m done, so you walk past him.
“You’re stuck.”
“I’m not.” You answered on your way out, clipped.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He quotes, nodding his head on every fuck that comes out way too gravel. “I reckon you ain’t sure how to even start, huh.” When you turn around, halfway to the door, he’s crossing his arms again.
For a moment, the air settles as the battle between your glares fires off. You can just keep walking away, but the need to prove something, to shut his mouth is way stronger.
“What did you come here for?” You tilt your chin.
“I wanna help.”
“You’re not helping me by making fun of me.”
“I ain’t making fun a’you.” Joel shoots his head, again squinting his eyes. “But making doodles over the blank page and zoning out every three seconds won't take you anywhere, woman.” Joel set his hands on his hips and took a step. His finger pointed at you. “Are y’done being so fucking defensive?”
Your heart is thumping, kicking your ribcage. Going fight or flight. Defensive. Are you?
“Oh, you care so much about the babies lately.” You frown, his attitude like a finger deep inside a fresh wound. “You wanna play the fucking savior now? The orphanage has been here for years and you want to do something now?” Your words are a snarl, a dry smile on your lips.
A monster. Which takes over. Who does all the talking for you.
His hand drops slowly back into place. His face shows everything written on his eyes, but you suddenly can’t read. And you keep shooting your bullets.
“You find pretty wearing the purple wristband and saving children? You take it as a hobby while you keep messing my days by fucking showing up?” Your head leaned forward as you bared your teeth. And he just looked at you in silence.
“I froze a long time ago” He murmured. A slight wounded tone below the gruffness. “I ain’t doin’ it again.”
The monster whines. Uncomfortable with your shame that rises up your throat now. Joel doesn’t move, even if you expect him to walk out and leave you simmering in your own thoughts. He sighs, one hand tugs his own purple wristband that got stuck into his watch.
“I ain’t gonna pick a fight every time I see ya.” Joel rose his gaze, now a more exhausted than hurt tone. His hands drop on his sides. “Jus’ lemme help.”
You stare at him, shame etched on your face by what you just did. You shake your head, avoiding his eyes, his presence. “Ask Madeleine which task is available, not me.”
You took the folder and walked out to the hall, leaving Joel standing alone in the empty classroom area.
There were majestic riverbanks in Austin. In summer, the best family outing for a weekend was grilling some meat beside the river, with the birds chirping on the branches and the sun seeping through the leaves. Both trucks were parked below the shade, the plastic chairs in a circle around a small picnic table. Near the grill, that sizzled low while being tended by William, you were sitting on the ground, with your towel spread below you over the grass.
This was only hell with a different breeze. Less cramped.
In the distance, you could see Sarah tying back her curls before jumping from the rock on the shore straight into the calm river. Part of you wanted to join her, to keep an eye out, since you knew the river could be a bit treacherous. But after last night, after the messy argument you had with your father, your energy was all over the floor.
He had that kind of power. Draining you to ashes and mud, unable to say a word against his fallacies. He kind of enjoyed that, never said it out loud, but you could notice the glimmer in his eyes every time you suddenly went quiet in the middle of an argument. Meaning you were exhausted.
“Stay where I can see ya, kiddo.” Joel pulls out a cooler from his truck bed. His long legs scissored their way across to the grill, the dark green bermuda shorts brushing his knees. “I got ‘em.” He muttered, leaving the cooler over the small table, opening it and handing William a beer.
“Oh, splendid.” William grunt with smirk, grabbing the beer can. His eyes flew to your direction, then he opened his mouth. “You want one?”
Joel looked at you, then back at William. “The hell you mean.”
“It’s just a joke” He started laughing, clapping Joel on the back. “It’s a joke! Ah, you two are the real downers, huh.” William shakes his head. He instantly gets mad. “It’s only a joke when you make it?” Your dad places his hands low on his hips, staring at you.
Open the top. Shove his head. Hear the sound of his flesh grilling over the ringing sting of his wailing, smell the scent of a burning man being served for lunch. Feast on his flesh. The flesh that took so much from you. Recover that part of yourself.
You blinked.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“William. The meat.” Joel stares at William’s profile.
“But I know what you’re thinking.” He retorted, ignoring Joel. Like a tantrum. Like a boy that got his candy stolen. “You’re probably thinking I’m ridiculous, right? Like all kids your age do, ain’t you?” William started taking steps towards you. You stood up, taking your towel and walked away, heading to the shore. “The hell are you going?”
“For a walk.”
You walked along the rocky breakwater, heading to the other side of the riverbank. The soft sound of the water didn’t do much to muffle their voices, you could even hear Sarah’s laugh above everything, and your father’s complaint.
“...She’s just like her mom… All I do is work and work. Day in, day out… She’s ungrateful, lazy…” And a lot of other things. Things that made you feel humiliated, because you were—for the world—only an image presented by your father.
This is my daughter. She’s useless.
Look at this poor man. He works his ass off while this girl is complaining over and over, being an ungrateful lazy and stupid piece of shit.
The tears started flowing, with no consent. These were hot, heavy, and felt like acid as they made their way down your face. Salty when they touched your lips. Like the ocean water, but you weren’t in front of the ocean. You were in front of the river. River deep enough to swallow your thoughts, to silence the degradation that has piled up inside you, to the point of your brain being nothing else than a nonstop radio station of your father’s voice.
And if I step…
In?
“Brought you this”
You turned around, dragging your eyes over the rocky shore. Joel was standing behind, some feet away. Holding a Coca Cola. Small in his hand, or maybe his hands were too thick. His fingers were. And the veins, they would run all the way up his arm, hiding below the rolled sleeve as if they were climbing him up, yearning to reach his heart.
Then you came back to you. He was offering you a soda.
“Uhm. Thanks, but I’m okay.”
“Ain’t one to cry when I’m alright” Joel tilted his head, a fraction. His eyes swirl over the landscape behind you, nevertheless, never really set on you. “Wouldn’t mind him much. You know how he is when he’s with a few in ‘im… ”
“I’m very much aware, thank you.” Your arms cross in front of you, looking at Joel with something similar to exhaustion.
“Yeah, I reckon you do.” He murmured, brushing his free hand down his mouth. Scratching his beard. “Listen. We're riding with Sarah for ice cream.” His eyes lingered on your feet. Bare over the rocks of the shore, stinging onto your soles, hurting.
“And.” You said, the pause he made was being too long. Joel raised his brows and cleared his throat.
“Wanna… come with? I’ll drive ya after.” He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his trunks, his lips frowned in the attempt of a smile. “William’ll let you.”
You wanted to ask. Or even better, scream.
Why?
Do you feel pity?
Or useless. Weaponless in a war that unveils in front of your eyes?
Your limbs trembled, and he noticed. He surely thought you were anxious, or even scared. But you were angry. You were mad with everything. The sun that shines after a whole night where you stared at the pills in the bathroom, thinking. The families near, enjoying the river and quality time you seemed to not deserve. Your mom. You hated your mom. Because she takes the leap and escapes every time she has the opportunity.
“Oh, sweet Jesus.” Joel’s body jolted forward an inch but he stopped himself, hesitating. Because he always hesitates.
His eyes were drilling into your foot, which was pumping blood over the small rocks, staining the forms and different colours with red. You look down, a piece of glass shoving into your sole. You looked at him.
“You done with your pity party? The meat’s ready.” William's voice cut through the trees. The grill tongs click loudly.
“I’ll think about it.” You said, curtly, walking past Joel, digging the glass further into your flesh. He reached, carefully wrapping his fingers around your elbow, making your steps halt.
“The hell ya think you're doin’?” He sounded confused. His voice, now raspy with low helplessness. Because he knows how to do a lot of things but with you, he feels useless.
“Let go.”
“That he’s yer dad doesn’t mean he get’a free pass being a piece of–” He clenched his jaw. “Being rude.” Joel tightened his grip around your arm. He doesn't want to hurt you, he wants you to listen. “You can… You have…”
The blood doesn't let him finish his words. And you haven't even complained about it. Your eyes dropped to his hand, then slowly crept up his form. The tears dried quickly, leaving a salty path on your cheeks. You were far from the ocean. You had it inside. Roaring. Overflowing, slowly. And your voice, low, an inch away from being venomous.
Mean.
“And the fact that you never raised a hand to Sarah, doesn’t mean all parents are the same.”
You snatched your arm off his hold and walked away, limping.
While going through the pages of the orphanage’s folder, you made your way to the town’s library. In one of the last pages of the archive, you notice her. The baby. Her name was hollow and black stamped asterisks. Her eyes looked somewhere behind the camera, scrunching her button–like nose.
No birth date.
Eloise told you about the MED section at Mrs. Rosemary’s. You needed something related to lactation, babies, motherhood. And the idea of silence after everything that happened, felt more than tempting.
On your way, a kid with a green beanie and white yarn gloves approached you with a big smile, handing you a paper. After you grabbed it, he went to another person, handing more of what seemed to be an invitation.
Walking through the stream of people, as you opened the folded paper, you saw the crayon–made drawing and the messy writing. Winter Fair | Food stands, music and more! Your eyes went back to the kid. He was far away now, but you noticed Blair, who was handing the Christmas lights to a man, or more likely a patroller, climbing a ladder.
There was a tension between the violets and patrollers that was tangible even by watching the small interaction unfolding in the middle of the street. Snatching, rolling eyes, huffing and puffing.
You turned on a corner, just a few blocks away from the library. Your steps came to a halt when you saw a group of patrollers against the wall, their gazes following the townsfolk while they chattered about something. Between them, you saw the grayish curls peeking out between two patrollers, and the unmistakable drawl.
Joel.
You pushed yourself back, scrambling back behind the wall.
“Don’t tell me. You have one, old man.”
“Ah. Jus’… Nothin’ important.”
Nothing important.
“Then?”
“Yeah, why’d you want to be around that place at all?” Laughs. “I’ve seen you. Arguing with that live spark some days ago.”
Your mouth dried.
“Don’t call her that.”
The patrollers started laughing, clapping his back.
“You better hide that, man. You’ll be a total clown if you go run a loop with it.”
You peeked from behind the wall. His tug on his sleeve was sharp, hiding the bracelet as he shook his head. One of the men chuckled and pointed at Blair’s way, arguing with the other patroller about how to hang the lights.
“Are they all nuts?”
“It seems. No one stays sane while working twenty–four–seven with children.”
And Joel said nothing. He just stared forward at the interaction unfolding on the other side of the street. Laughs. You frowned, looking at the men. Your nails digging into the wall you were hiding behind. Was he embarrassed? Ashamed?
When you looked back at Joel, his head was turned, eyes fixed on the part of your head peeking from the corner.
“Oh, fuck. Amazing.” You whispered to yourself, pulling yourself back and taking the alley towards the library. You shoved your hands into your pockets and started walking faster when you heard another pair of boots stepping over the snow.
“Now ya keep tabs on me?”
“I’m not following you.” You answer, still walking. “You just come to be everywhere.”
“Why we’re ya hidin’, then?” Joel falls on step with you, matching pace. You glance briefly at him.
“‘Cause that bunch of idiots make fun of violets every chance they get. And no one does anything about it.” Yes, you were intending to stroke a nerve by his lukewarm attitude. But he just clenched his jaw.
“Y’really hav’ high hopes on me when you've been sayin’ otherwise all this time.”
You whirl around, pushing him sharply.
“Hey!” He shouted and his hands landed on your shoulders. “That for?!” Joel frowned, confused at your sudden explosion.
“You just keep doing it, Joel” You stare up at him, getting a step closer. “You keep being a fucking pussy. No matter what, you’ll always be a fucking pussy.”
Joel widened his eyes, “Y’jumpin’ ‘cause I didn’t stop assholes from being assholes?”A short, humorless scoff escaped his lips. “Y’got a real sharp eye for what I don’t do, like always. That’s something y’never changed.” It felt like an idea he’s been keeping captive for a long time, and it finally had slipped through the bars of his mind.
And it landed hard.
Which dragged a heavy puff out of you. “And you expect me to believe your tiny little act of the regretful old bag of shit you’ve been since you showed up?” You snarled, digging your fingertip into his brown jacket. “You’re still the same, Joel, still the fucking same.”
Joel’s hand wrapped around your arm, holding it, not letting you go. “For fuck’s sake. Y’ain’t gonna let it go?” His breath hit your face. Hot. Barely containing the anger that would grow slowly by your words, by the resentment that just lives between you like a third party, and somewhere deep. Angry at himself.
“Let it go? You’ll always be a fucking coward, Joel!”
He–suddenly–shook you hard by the shoulders, which tugged a sharp gasp out of you as all the words in your mouth ran away from him. “The day I start correctin’ every idiot’s mouth in this godforsaken town” His voice, gravel, dropped to a whisper as people passed by the end of the alley. “Is the day I ain’t focusin’ on what actually matters.”
“This is not only by what those idiots said and you know it.” You narrowed your eyes, and his hands were tight around your shoulders. They slid an inch down to your forearms. You gulped. “I’m talking about how you will always…” Joel stared at you, breathing heavy puffs. “Always…” He narrowed his eyes. “Be on the wrong side.”
His hand landed over your mouth. It wasn’t aggressive. His palm slid over your lips, and he just left it there, holding your gaze. His jaw clenched, tightly, his nostrils flared. His eyes closed, squeezing his eyelids tightly, keeping something in—holding the moment.
You weren’t scared. Just confused. The warm sensation of his hand, holding your mouth to keep insults from overflowing like a broken sink, made your stomach turn upside down. But it wasn’t to silence you, and you could see it in his pained expression, as if twenty years were running through his being in that exact same moment like a wire driving electricity.
Joel’s jaw unclenched, his eyes lost heat and became somber. He shoved you, strong enough to make you hold from the wall, then he dragged one hand down his face, having a hard time breathing. His eyes slid to a blank point in the air, following a ghost flowing in the frost falling from the sky. One of his hands rose to his chest, splaying over, then his throat bobbed. And you knew those eyes.
Grief.
“You ain’t tellin’ me somethin’ I ain’t aware of…” All the snow around you felt like melting on your bare back. Joel noticed the change in your expression, the blood draining from your entire being. No tangible wound, just past and guilt. “But I can tell y’somethin’.”
You started shaking.
Joel kissed his teeth, dropping his eyes to the ground. He nodded lightly, like shaking hands with an idea he didn’t want to pursue, even if it was the only one running around his mind.
“You’ll understand it when you’re face to face with it.”
Joel exited the alley.
And you felt the blood in your hands dyeing the snow.
At night, you sat staring forward at the wall behind your desk.
You understood what he meant. You were aware of what he meant.
The wrong side. The wrong decision. The wrong life. You feel like you’ve been walking on it all this time, like a doom you couldn’t escape.
The books you picked up from the library were opened and piling up on your desk. Pages highlighted and some scribbled annotations.
Breastfeeding a baby.
Constant suction.
The body knows.
You don’t know how much time you spent reading those pages, searching for something that would tell you how. You thought about your mother, about the mothers you knew, about how to reach them, about how to make the right decision.
Your eyes hurt. Burning. Reading, reading and reading.
‘A significant amount of women report that being able to breastfeed their adopted children makes them feel more accomplished as women and mothers.’
‘Most women who came to the clinic for induced lactation had never been pregnant or experienced unsuccessful pregnancy before. After many years of trying to conceive without success, they adopted a child. Their breasts are categorized as ‘mammary glands of mature virgins’.’
You blinked looking at the picture in the textbook. The women carrying babies in a waiting room. Their eyes bright as they stare at the small bundles. Mature virgins.
Your eyes dropped to your chest. The locket nestled in your valley.
The reading continued for a long hour. Hormones. Prolactin. Estrogen. Pills. Breast preparation, breast stimulation, milk production.
Breast stimulation.
Your fingers slid to the next page and the picture of a woman cradling a baby while breastfeeding, made you snap the book closed suddenly, making you gasp. A reflex.
It was enough for the night.
Before bed, you found yourself staring at your alcohol bottles in the corner of the kitchen counter. The idea of letting your veins pump a higher percent of alcohol than blood was tempting and felt right, but when you poured yourself a glass of whisky, you puked at the scent.
It was weird.
The cup was left on the counter. You slid beneath the covers, stared up at the ceiling and felt the mattress sink below your form. It was waiting, expecting your words, but a sudden jolt of your body made you sit up.
“No… No…” Your hands slapped the mattress, your head whipping around.
She fell.
You dragged yourself to the edge of the bed and stared at the floor, your hands landed flat on the floor, palpating for a small form. Then, you snapped back to the moment. Your head tilted upwards and your eyes rolled around your room.
You were at home. You remember? You’re home. Not at the orphanage.
Remember?
“Fuck…” You dragged your hands down your face. Starting to feel uncomfortable by this constant alert state your body got in with the baby, how you unconsciously needed to feel her all the time. With the protocol, you felt even more guilty when it came to her.
You sat up suddenly, again, on your bed.
Her.
You jogged your way to the orphanage, clutching your bag and trying not to skid away on the corners, and when the door opened, you expected the image of one of the violets hushing softly at the baby and a quick change of duty. But of course, your luck is as bad as your fate.
“I need to be with her.” The words came out raw. Almost pleading.
You closed the door behind you, softly clicking in the controlled silence of the tulips room. Joel, who was sitting on the bed while rocking the baby gently as she sucked her fist, looked at the baby girl and then at you.
“Shift’s covered.”
“We can exchange. I got nothing, you would get the night off.” A step in.
Joel looks down at the baby. He looks back at you, and then, he shakes his head.
“Joel, please.”
His eyes, which haven’t lost their ability on making you hide on yourself, looked at you. Another light. That tone, he never heard it. Less with his name.
Then, the baby got fuzzy. Her small hands wiggling around, her mouth opening and letting out small sobs. Her flail made Joel stand up, taking her against his chest and softly patting her back while shushing. The baby didn’t calm down at all, and she started crying, her face was getting red.
“She’s hungry. Get a bottle.” Joel said, turning away from you, getting near the space heather in a corner.
“Joel, give me the baby.”
Joel looked at you over his shoulder and then sighed while mumbling some thread of curses you didn’t quite got. He passed you the small fuzzy bundle and for a moment, he stood in front of you two, staring at the way the baby would nuzzle your bosom.
“I’ll get tha’bottle..” Joel placed his hands on his hips and moved his gaze from the baby, to you. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
After Joel left, you heard the clock ticking in your head. This was wrong, too wrong. It was obvious this was out of desperation, and it was obvious you would be automatically suspended if someone would just hear a rumour of what you were about to do.
‘The person who is going through the treatment can be easily shaken from negative comments from their family or friends.’
You closed your eyes tightly.
‘The patient needs to have a clear conviction.
The patient needs to be sure about this leap—of faith’
“I’m not gonna hurt her… I’m not gon’ hurt her… I’m not…” You whisper, fixing the baby between your arms and facing the wall. Your breathing was erratic, a mess. Thousands of shivers, the whole electricity of Jackson’s houses were running down your spine, and a wave of anguish mixed with a memory made you halt.
Blood.
His blood.
Your fault.
Gulp.
Step… in.
Silence.
Suckle, suckle, suckle.
You didn’t even try to look down. It felt like a small sequence of stings, then, just as if something changed. There was no liquid, no feeding. But she calmed down. You popped one eye open, watching. Her small hand was fisting around the collar of your blouse, and her eyes were groggy, blinking slowly.
“I got the—”
You were about to put your breast back below your blouse, but the baby… She was looking up. At you. Her cheeks were full—surely of air—and the eyelids were getting heavier. You couldn’t.
You couldn’t take this away from her.
So, against every part of your mind and soul. You turned around.
Joel stood with a bottle of milk in hand, his eyes on the baby, a hand holding the door open, which he then closed behind him. His eyes slid up your chest, your locket, and then, your face. Your tears.
“I’m sorry…” You whispered. “This…” You tried to say something. But words weren’t enough at that moment. Joel shook his head as he reached, his hand crossing the air. His expression was maybe just as surprised and confused as yours, but he seemed like he understood, in a deep part of himself, he could understand.
Making a decision,
Out of love and desperation.
"Ain't a thing to be sorry for, darlin'..." Joel approached with slow steps, the boots making the floor tiles moan lightly below his weight. You could see the pressure in his expression, but that constant need of him of looking calm and collected all the time. "'s okay..."
His hand cradled the baby's small head, drawing soft circles over the short and soft hair with a tranquility that made the baby get even more sleepier. Joel, finally, locked eyes with you. His lips frowned below his whiskers in what seemed to be an attempt of a smile.
It felt wrong to smile, but it also felt wrong to cry when she, in the end, was so calm and in peace while attached to you. Joel finally, broke the dense silence.
"Lemme help... Y'don't gotta do this on your own."
I'm so sorry for the amount of time this took. I'm really satisfied on the rhythm this is moving with, it's slow, i know, but i love it heheheh. thanks for reading!
taglist: @babielli @cinnxmxngxrl @cowboylikelil @steadybasiliskemissary @pedropascalsbbg @youdontknowe @glitterspark
(if you desire to be added to this taglist, just let me know in the comments!)
Chapter 3: Steps
Pairing: Jackson Joel Miller x Doctor Female Reader Chapter Rating: T. Chapter Summary: You've been preparing him for this moment for weeks. The exercises you help him through, strengthening his legs, rebuilding his muscles that had begun to weaken during his bedridden days. He’s been determined to regain what was taken from him, no matter how much it hurts. Chapter Warnings: HEAVY SPOILERS FOR S2E2, FIX IT FIC, pov switching, joel survives abby's encounter, injuries, healing, domesticity in the apocalypse, joel teaches you wood carving, first steps, maria seeing things before everyone else, beard trimming, so much pining and yearning (promise it pays off next chapter) Words: 4,030
Healed Masterlist | Healed Playlist | Healed, The Video Edit | AO3
Masterlist
Previous Chapter
—-
He wonders how it happened. Why he survived. Why he was saved.
How, out of all the people in the apocalypse, you were the one fate chose to pull him back from the dead.
How you’ve become more than just his doctor.
How the lines between caretaker and something else have begun to blur beyond recognition.
The questions circle endlessly through his mind. Questions too large for him to hold.
He settles himself the only way he knows how to now. By looking at you.
You’re sleeping in the recliner, the same chair he used to rock alone in and wonder just how silent his life could stay, once Ellie moved to the garage. He tries to look away from you, but you look too peaceful to ignore. Your breaths come out in small puffs between your slightly parted lips, your features softened as you’re unburdened now by the weight of keeping him alive.
He thinks he’s only here because of you.
Because you never gave up.
Because you heal him every day, piece by piece.
—-
Everything feels more alive as Joel’s health improves. The days seem brighter, the sunlight shining in through the windows stretches farther across the floors, as if the beams are following his progress.
You’re learning more about him every day, as he gets better. He’s a contradiction. His gruff, sometimes intimidating exterior is a shell that holds in his gentle ways.
There’s been a constant low thrum of tenseness since the bathing incident, neither of you have mentioned it—but there is a new kind of awareness between you.
There’s now a familiar sound of Joel’s wheelchair gliding across the hardwood as he masters navigating his home with it.
As expected, there are hiccups.
You’re in the kitchen, peeling potatoes for dinner, when a loud crash of ceramic shattering across the floor makes you jump.
“God damnit,” Joel growls from the living room.
He’s there, gritting his teeth and shaking his head as he surveys the broken lamp on the floor.
You immediately spring into action, doing what you’ve been doing for the last few months, fixing his problems. The broken lamp is quickly swept up as you reassure Joel it’s not a big deal, things like this are going to happen.
He gives you a look of understanding and acceptance, before telling you “thank you” in a low voice that sends goosebumps across your body.
Soon, Joel spends all evening in the dining room where Tommy has set up a small workshop for him to pass the time. Tiny animal figures line the tabletop, some as small as a few inches.
He sits in his wheelchair at the table, leaning forward and focused, holding a small knife, his large hands guiding the blade over a piece of pine. Wood shavings pile on the tabletop. His brows are furrowed in concentration, eyes narrowed and focused behind his reading glasses as he turns the small block of wood.
You've been watching him from your chair in the living room, too fascinated by this side of him to look away. You find yourself watching him a lot, not just to make sure he’s doing okay, but because you can’t help yourself. There’s something that mesmerizes you… The way his calloused hands move with such confidence and precision despite their size.
"What are you making?" you finally ask, getting up and moving closer to see the small sculpture taking shape in his hands.
Joel looks up his glasses perched on the end of his nose, as he turns the wood over in his palm, examining it.
"Bear," he rumbles.
“He’s so tiny. You’re really good at that.”
Joel shrugs, thumbing away a splinter. "Used to do it a lot. Before..." He doesn't finish the sentence. He doesn't need to. Before. Before the attack. Before you saved his life. Before everything changed.
"Can I watch?" you ask.
He nods, gesturing to the chair beside him. You pull it closer, sitting close enough to feel the heat radiating off of his body, to smell the scent of pine and cinnamon, and something distinctly Joel.
You lean even closer and watch as Joel's hands move, the knife peeling away thin layers of wood to reveal the features of the bear.
His eyes flick up to yours, then back to his work. His knife pauses mid-stroke. "Want to try?"
The offer catches you off guard. Joel Miller, who bristles at help, who growls at vulnerability, is offering to teach you something.
"Sure.”
He pulls out another piece of wood and a small knife from a storage box next to him. Tommy must have brought his entire collection down from upstairs. Joel places them on the table, sliding them toward you.
"Here. Start with something simple. Maybe a duck."
“Oookay,” you sigh, turning the wood in your hand, unsure where to begin.
"Think of the shape, and just start. Like this," Joel instructs, demonstrating on his bear. "Always cut with the grain and keep your fingers clear of the blade."
Your blade catches the wood on your first cut. You try again, cutting against the grain, your knife skidding across the wood.
Joel watches, letting you try and fail a few times before he sets his bear down. "Here," he says, leaning a bit closer. "Let me show you."
His hand covers yours. He’s so warm. You can feel the strength in his fingers as he positions your hands on the knife.
"Hold it like this," he says. He’s so close you can feel his breath against your ear. "Thumb here, against the handle for control."
You have to tell yourself to breathe as Joel adjusts your grip. His other hand covers yours on the wood, angling it for you.
“Be gentle," he guides your hand, helping you make a smooth cut along the block of wood. "See? Let the knife do the work."
You nod, finding it difficult to speak. His hand guides yours in a slow, smooth motion, and a curl of wood peels away.
"Good," he praises when you make a particularly nice cut. "You're getting it."
He doesn't pull away. He leans in closer, watching you work. Your whole body is heating under his attention and closeness, but you focus on carving, holding the wood tight with as steady of hands as you can muster.
“Now,” he rumbles next to you, removing his hands from yours. “Try on your own.”
Curled and thin wood shavings gather on the table. Joel leans back, watching you with the almost-smile of his you’ve been seeing more often.
Soon, a shape resembling a duck begins to take shape thanks to Joel's occasional instructions.
He hums an approving noise. "Took me months to get cuts that clean. You're good with your hands.”
“I’d hope so,” you reply, without looking up from your duck. “I have to be. I'm a surgeon, remember?"
The sound that comes from Joel startles you—a chuckle. It’s the first time you’ve actually heard him laugh.
"Keep going," he says softly, nodding toward your carving. "You're doing good."
A comfortable silence settles between you and Joel as you both work together. Occasionally, he glances over, giving you a nod of approval. When you’re all done, something resembling a duck sits on the table amongst his lineup of carved animals.
"Not bad for your first try,” he admires.
You snort, trying to keep your smile at bay. “You don’t have to be so nice.”
“No, really,” he says. “Pretty good for your first try.”
“I guess I owe you, I’ll have to teach you knitting now.”
He turns and looks at you, his brown eyes staring into yours. “You’ve already done enough for me.”
Not nearly enough you think to yourself, as you feel the tension settle heavily between you.
—-
As the cherry blossom tree outside trades its petals for leaves, Joel’s ready to walk again.
You've been preparing him for this moment for weeks. The exercises you help him through, strengthening his legs, rebuilding his muscles that had begun to weaken during his bedridden days. He’s been determined to regain what was taken from him, no matter how much it hurts.
All for these first real steps.
"Remember," you say, handing him the cane. "We're not rushing this. If it’s too much, we stop and try again tomorrow."
To hell with that.
He’s tired of not being able to help, of not being able to shoulder some of the burden of his injuries.
He’s ready.
Now, he sits on the edge of his recliner, knuckles white around the handle of the cane.
Joel grips the cane tightly. Too tightly. He lifts himself from the chair, fighting a rough sound tearing from his throat, his body trembling as he balances on his good leg.
He hates this. Hates the struggle, hates the slow progress, hates the way you hover in case he falls. Most of all, he hates the weakness. But you, he looks at you, your eyes wide, a proud smile lifting your lips. He wants to make you proud. He wants all of your efforts to be worth it. He wants to be worthy of your pride.
He takes a deep breath, his chest rising with the effort of it, then forces his left foot to move. It barely moves, but it’s just enough to send a spike of pain through his leg. His whole body protests. His knees almost buckle under the stress, making him stumble.
You’re there instantly, reaching out and helping him stabilize himself before he falls. He’s grateful for your help, but the embarrassment and frustration escape before he can stop it.
“Don’t need help,” he grunts.
You ignore him, like you always do.
"Again," he says, shrugging off your hands as soon as he's stable.
"Maybe rest a minute—"
"Again," he repeats, more firmly this time. "I've had months of rest."
His second attempt goes better. He manages three steps before needing to rest. You stay beside him, hands hovering just inches from his back, ready to support but not interfere.
"Good," you encourage. "That's it."
He’s going to make you proud, he’s going to prove to you that all of your care and dedication have paid off. It’s what gets him halfway across the room before his strength dissipates. When his balance begins to falter again, he reaches for you on his own this time, his hand gripping your forearm as he steadies himself.
“I got you,” you comfort. He doesn’t know why his heart is racing, if it’s from moving so much for the first time in months, or the way your hand runs up and down his back soothing him.
And then, he pushes off and moves again, all the way across the living room, your voice cooing soft words of encouragement to him, giving him the strength he needs.
With only five steps, he can be at the kitchen table. He pauses, breathing heavily. He’s exhausted and sweaty, but his eyes remain fixed on his destination. With a final surge of determination, he covers the remaining distance.
His free hand grips the back of a kitchen chair. Made it.
He sways slightly, catching his breath before collapsing into the chair with a deep exhale.
“Joel,” you say, a huge grin lighting your face, "you did amazing.”
He knows now why his heart is shattering against his chest… it’s all because of you. He’s made you proud, he wants to make you prouder.
"Tomorrow,” he says. “We go further.”
—-
Joel keeps his word, and he goes further every day. He moves, then rests. Moves, then rests. And so it goes.
With each new day, he adds a few more steps to his count. Always, you’re there with him, ready to help if he stumbles, yet still allowing him the dignity of trying on his own.
He struggles some days, breathing hard, stopping and resting his weight against the wall or a chair. Sometimes you notice him glancing towards you, taking in your reaction, his breathing evening whenever he sees your encouraging smile.
You fall into a familiar routine.
In the morning, you stretch his tired limbs, helping him build his muscles.
During the day, he moves as much as he can before it’s too much for him to stand. You help him settle into his bed, rubbing salve all over his aching limbs, trying hard to ignore the sound of his soft grunts before he takes a nap, letting his body and mind recover.
Lonesome Dove sits unfinished on the table next to the recliner you sleep in. Now, your evenings are spent together differently, both of you in the dining room at the table across from each other as you knit and he whittles.
You look forward to it. The companionship. Sometimes you talk, other times it’s silent, save for the sound of his knife against the wood and your needles clicking against one another.
It’s all so domestic, so comforting.
It’s all beginning to feel like Joel’s more than just your patient.
—-
“So,” Maria begins, combing through Joel’s hair with gentle fingers, “how are things going with you and your doctor?”
He shifts uncomfortably in the dining chair she’s placed in the center of the living room. A towel drapes his shoulders, snippets of his hair falling onto it with each clip of her scissors.
“Hm?” he grunts, trying to calm his racing heart at the thought of you being called his.
“Tommy says you’re getting stronger every day. My guess is she can move out soon.”
He tries to hide the tenseness that overcomes him.
"Move out?" The words come out sharper than he intended.
Maria's hands pause in his hair. "I mean, she's been here for months. I figured once you're mobile enough..."
Joel swallows, his throat suddenly dry. "Right."
He hadn't considered it. Hadn't let himself think about what happens after he heals. About an empty house again. About waking up without the sound of your soft humming from the kitchen, or evenings without you sitting across the table from him.
Maria resumes cutting, her voice careful. "Unless you want her to stay?"
He doesn't answer; his silence says enough.
“Joel,” she sighs. “You’re allowed to want things. To have things.”
Before he can even respond, the front door swings open, you’re lit by the bright afternoon light shining in, holding a small tote with a wide smile across your face.
“I traded a scarf for a steak!” you exclaim proudly as you make your way to the kitchen. “Biscuits and steak for dinner tonight?”
A scarf. You created something, and here you are trading it for a steak—something he can’t remember having in ages. All just for him. He wants to tell you that you didn’t have to do that, but he knows the look you’d give him. He knows you’d insist, because that’s the type of person you are.
Joel nods. “That sounds great,” his voice cracks at the end, torn between gratitude and guilt.
“Good,” you pause. “I’ll go tell Ellie, and we’ll celebrate you getting all cleaned up. Leave the chair there, I’ll trim your beard once I get the biscuit dough made.”
The smile you send him makes his heart race even faster.
He can feel Maria’s shrewd, knowing eyes flicking between him and you before she goes back to cutting his hair.
“Or she can just stay here with you,” she murmurs just loud enough for him to hear.
—-
"Comfortable?" you ask, draping the towel around Joel’s shoulders.
He nods, his brown eyes following you as you pick up the scissors. Maria’s haircut has already done wonders for him, his dark, salt and peppered waves now sit just above the collar of his cream colored button up.
“Ready?”
Joel nods. His long, scraggly beard with wiry white hairs has become unruly. Despite your combing and applying oil, it's grown into too much of a tangled mess during his recovery.
"Going to trim it first. Then shave. How do you want it?"
"Used to keep it trimmed. Not this wild."
"Like in Ellie's drawing?” you ask, tilting your head towards the fireplace.
His face softens when he looks over at the paper propped up on the mantle. "Yeah. Like that."
You nod and step closer, positioning yourself between his spread knees. All of a sudden, the living room feels too small and intimate, as you quickly realize just how close you are to Joel. You've been this close to him countless times during his recovery—changing bandages, helping him bathe, supporting him as he gained his strength—but this time it feels different. More deliberate.
"Tilt your head back.” Your fingers gently tilt his chin, positioning his head before you make your first cut.
Dark brown and silver clippings fall onto the towel and floor as you work the scissors around his face, slowly revealing his handsome face beneath the tangled wilderness of his beard.
Soon, his beard is trimmed to just a few inches long. You step back, trying not to let Joel see the way your breath catches as you take in just how handsome he is beneath all that hair.
“How’s it look?” he asks.
"G-good,” you say so low it’s almost to yourself. “I mean, a lot better. I can actually see you now.”
His brown eyes darken as they stare into yours. You clear your throat and reach for the small bowl of shaving soap you made earlier.
“I made this soap to help your skin,” you say, trying to focus on anything else besides the intensity of his gaze. “It’s made from aloe and yarrow.”
“You didn’t have to do that, I don’t need anything fancy like that.” “Your skin does,” you counter, dipping your fingers into the soap. “It’s been through enough.”
You try to hide your trembling fingers as you begin to lather the soap over his face.
Alive and vital. His pulse beats steadily against your fingertips as they glide across his warm skin. It still amazes you after seeing him so close to death.
Joel's eyes flutter closed as your fingers move through what’s left of his beard, massaging the soap against his skin.
“Feel good?” you ask.
"Hmm," is his only response, a low rumble you feel more than hear.
You rub the soap into his skin slowly, stretching out your time to be able to touch him so freely while also letting Joel melt under your touch.
“I’m going to shave you now, okay?” you say quietly as you wipe your hands on the towel.
"Hmm," he hums again, fluttering his eyes open and sitting up straighter.
You reach for the straight razor Tommy sharpened for you on the side table.
“You’re going to need to hold very still for me,” you say, your voice soft. “I don’t want to nick you.”
“Right.”
You work carefully, gently pulling the skin taut with one hand while the other guides the blade in short strokes.
You’re so focused on the razor scraping through the soap and hair, that you don’t notice how close you’re leaning in. You don’t notice the way Joel’s openly watching you, studying you, and the way you’re biting your lip as you concentrate.
The sharp line of his jaw is slowly revealed to you. God, he’s handsome.
As you work, Joel remains perfectly still, following every instruction you lowly tell him to do.
"Almost done," you tell him, wiping excess soap from his cheek with a damp cloth.
Just a couple more swipes of the razor against his skin, and the Joel Miller from before the attack is revealed to you. The neatly trimmed beard now frames his face perfectly, lining his strong jaw. You knew he was good-looking, but he truly is otherworldly. He might just be the most gorgeous man you’ve ever seen.
You swipe away the last remnants of the soap with your thumb, wanting to feel his skin against your fingertips for just a little while more.
"There," you whisper, still closely hovering over him. "Much better."
For a moment, you both remain perfectly still. His eyes lock with yours, before they drop to your lips, then back up to meet your gaze. “Thank you,” he says. His mouth is so close to your skin, you can feel his words.
You nod. "You're welcome," you reply, your voice barely above a whisper. The tension is too much for you to take, finally, you pull away, and hand Joel his cane. “Why don’t you go take a look in the mirror and rinse your face off while I clean up?”
—-
He swears you can do it all. You’re a marvel. He can’t stop feeling his smooth skin. Sure, there are now a couple ridges from the new scars that lay across his face, but he’s almost forgotten what his skin felt like underneath everything. He feels so much lighter.
Once again, you’ve helped unburden him.
You’re in the kitchen, humming while you prepare dinner. Sometimes you’ll peek your head out to check on him, as he rests in the recliner with a book in his hand. Honestly, he hasn’t read a word. He’s far too busy remembering the feel of your touch against his skin, the way you bit your lip as you concentrated, how low your voice would get as you’d tell him how to move.
Seems these days all he can think of is you.
He’s so deep in thought that he nearly jumps when the front door swings open, breaking him from his reverie. Ellie breezes in, throwing her jacket haphazardly against the coat rack before she even looks at Joel.
When she does, her eyes go wide, her mouth falls open as she takes in his freshly shaved face and haircut.
“Oh shit,” she breathes. “You almost look like you.”
“Thanks, I reckon,” he replies.
You step into the living room, wiping your hands with a towel. The whole house smells delicious, he can tell you’ve been hard at work in the kitchen.
“Oh good, Ellie, you’re here just in time,” you greet. “Dinner’s almost ready. Why don’t you set the table for us?”
Ellie follows you into the kitchen without a word.
From his chair, he can hear the two of you laughing and talking. A warmth spreads through his heart at how you’re slowly making parts of his life a part of yours. It’s a feeling he never thought he’d allow himself to want, and yet, here he is, smiling to himself as he hears Ellie’s indisputable giggle floating through the house.
“Joel!” Ellie calls out from the kitchen, "Dinner’s ready!”
He stands, running a hand through his hair that he’s taken the time to slick back before he grabs his cane, pushing himself up before moving to the kitchen. He’s getting better and better every day with it.
When he walks into the kitchen, you glance over your shoulder at him, checking to see if he needs any help, but he doesn’t. It’s hard to focus on each step as he watches you do such a simple act as brushing butter on top of biscuits. He can’t imagine not having you share this home with him.
He takes a seat at the table, resting the cane against the wall. His mouth is watering, he’s not sure if it’s from the food or watching you move around the kitchen.
Ellie plops down in the chair next to him, her eyes surveying the steak, peas, and mashed potatoes on the table.
He can’t keep his eyes off of you as you bring over a basket filled with golden biscuits. You give him a shy smile as you sit across from him.
He looks at Ellie and then back at you, realizing just how much at home he feels right now, right here.
The thought hits him then, as he sits with the two people who make him feel the most at home.
He wants you to stay… especially when you pick up a biscuit, breaking it open with your delicate fingers that he just felt against his skin. He tries hard to look away, but he can’t. You bring it to your lips, eyes fluttering closed when you take the first bite.
“Mmm,” you sigh, humming with satisfaction.
His posture stiffens as you enjoy such a simple pleasure—a biscuit. He swallows hard at the thought of making you moan like that.
He needs you to stay.
Next Chapter
—-
A/N: My taglist has grown too large. Please follow @whocaresposted and turn on notifications to be alerted about new chapters!
My perma tags: @forspringcleaning, @schnarfer, @mothandpidgeon
hey. i know it has been a month since the last Cain's Curse chapter i uploaded. yes, there's more to come. yes, it will be a long fic. yes, yes, yes.
this chapter is taking a lot of time because it's really important for me. i hope you wait for me a bit more.
I'll be uploading it before December ends, i promise.
here's a... spoiler?
I found this interaction painfully cute to write. i'm excited for you to read everything.
lots of love, everyone. happy December 🎄
November Recs
Hey hey! Hello there, time to keep track of what I read this month!
You know, November was a really strange month, it felt endless, chaotic and weird and I went through some hard times but hey, at least I’m still here, I’m still writing and I read some pretty amazing stuff lately and this always help.
I wish I had read more but unfortunately days only have 24 hours and I have two jobs, damn it.
@ writers: you have brought a smile to my face many times, so thank you to each and every one of you. Maybe you don't always realize it, but your work matters, your art matters, and it makes people happy.
@ readers: Mind the tags before engaging in any of these fics and if you happen to read any of my recommendations please let the authors know that you enjoyed their work! Comments and reblogs are our greatest joy 🥰
Everything is +18 content so stay away if you’re a minor!
Full list under the cut!
Dividers by @/saradika-graphics
Joel Miller
Daddy Issues - Joel Miller x f!reader by @aurorawritestoescape (ongoing)
Series summary: Dilf. That's what young women think when they see Joel. He doesn't mind. In fact, he welcomes it and uses his status to get what he wants. His scheme works smoothly until he meets you. You seem to be the only one who sees through his bullshit, the only one he should avoid. And now the only one he craves.
Feral - a joel miller x reader story by @mcthsman (ongoing)
Series Summary: Part man, part beast, Joel Miller lives in solitude a few miles away from Jackson. At fifty-seven years old and without a Soulbond, Joel can't coexist with others— a man without his mate crazed by time and age.Until the day he sees her, the girl with tangerine blossoms in her hair and a laugh that echoes through the trees.So, he tracks her down. Hunts her through the woods, and brings home a girl that is not the wilting flower he expects.
little by little - Joel Miller x f!reader by @mirrormauve
Summary: You are forced to marry quickly after a rumor is spread about you.
Two die for - Kinktober: doppelgänger!joel x reader x Joel miller by @millermouth
Summary: A quiet weekend at the cabin shifts into something far stranger when Joel comes inside with company.
The lady in red - jackson!joel x reader by @bemyluvr
Summary: whats the best way to end a date night? a brand new-to-you, lingerie set you found on patrol, complete with crotchless panties
Needy - Joel Miller x fem!reader by @youthereader Summary: You wake up desperate for Joel.
Joel loves his women bigger by @ezraispunk - Drabble
Joel loves a plus!size girlie
joel loves your skin ♡ — f!reader with acne, fluff by @mybvalentine
High infidelity - Reed Richards x reader, Joel Miller x reader by @mytearsrricochet
Summary: Your husband's been neglecting you lately. After another cancelled date, you go out and meet a man who looks just like your husband but it's the complete opposite of him.
Feeling lucky - Joel Miller x f!reader by @millermouth Summary: a night of wrong turns lands two strangers exactly where they’re supposed to be.
Toska - a joel miller x reader story. by @mcthsman
Summary: Joel Miller was a man of order. He lived by his routine, enjoyed knowing and predicting every single step of his day— After the loss of Sarah, order was the only thing that kept him going forward. His house was well-organized and so far removed from the chaos of having a small child anymore. His job was straight-forward, the owner of a contracting company that was known to be the most efficient in his town, every single minute of his life planned ahead and accounted for. And then he meets her, a hurricane of a troubled young woman that will upend his entire life.
The Heist - Joel Miller x f!reader x Tommy Miller by @aurorawritestoescape - Drabble
Not what you made me - Joel Miller x f!reader by @easybbgrl
Summary: Joel comes home to find you upset; and comforts you.
Joel Miller, who is a certified pussy eater by @cinnxmxngxrl
Doll people - Joel Miller x f!reader | Tommy Miller x f!reader by @aurorawritestoescape
Summary: your life is perfect. Every day you wake up next to your loving boyfriend Joel, who’s your whole world and you can’t be happier, but when his brother Tommy comes to visit, your dream life crumbles into pieces in just one night.
The Nanny - a Joel Miller x reader story by @mcthsman (ongoing)
Series Summary: Widower Joel Miller needs a live-in nanny. His daughters, bless their little hearts, are the light of his life and the bane of the existence of four different ex-nannies. When he finds himself out of options, Joel hires the young woman that knocks on his door one afternoon with impossibly high heels and a résumé hastily written in glittery gel pen.
He never expected her to turn his life upside down— In the best way possible.
Calling Dr. Love - Joel Miller x f!reader by @bemyluvr
Summary: out on patrol, joel discovers a bush covered in tiny pink berries that draws him in, unable to resist throwing a handful of the fruit into his mouth. but unfortunately for him, the berries don't agree with his stomach, lugging his sweaty body to the clinic, he prays the pretty little nurse he’s been crushing on can help him feel better.
His favorite holiday - ghost!Joel x f!reader by @tateypots
Summary: Being a ghost is super boring until a little Halloween power surge means Joel can finally get his hands on you.
His favorite holiday part 2 - ghost!Joel Miller x f!reader by @tateypots
Summary: It's been a hard year, but with his handy Halloween power surge Joel seeks out revenge. And another good fuck with his favourite girl.
Tender Prey - Joel Miller x f!reader by @millermouth
Kinktober: alpha!werewolf!joel x omega!reader
La Sirena - Joel Miller x f!reader x Tommy Miller by @millermouth
Summary: on a fishing trip meant to be a bonding trip for the brothers, joel and tommy come across something far darker in the waters.
Cain’s Curse - Joel Miller x f!reader by @ishestillapunk (ongoing)
Series summary: When you thought that prayers and lies were enough to keep the past buried, he appears to turn your world upside down.
Cowboy Casanova - Joel Miller x f!reader by @easybbgrl (ongoing)
Summary: Joel; a hot as fuck old man; is known around campus for taking *really* good care of the college girls that approach him at the bar. You decide to see what all the fuss is about.
Sleep Over - Joel Miller x f!reader by @aurorawritestoescape
Summary: after an exhausting work day in the Boston QZ you come home, dreaming about one thing - sleep. You get into bed but soon your rest is interrupted by Joel, who’s having a bad night and really needs you to stay up.
Nurse Roleplay with Joel - Joel Miller x f!reader by @cinnxmxngxrl
Summary: You convince your grumpy boyfriend Joel to tap into his hidden acting skills when you suggest a little roleplaying to spice things up. In less words: Joel sucks at roleplaying.
Healing - Joel Miller x fem!reader by @milla-frenchy
Summary: since childhood, you've learned to deal with your emotions alone. Until you meet a person who helps you heal
Your way or mine? - Joel Miller x f!reader - by @ess-evo
Summary: You suggest a new game to Joel...not fully prepared for the consequences.
The taste of jealousy - Jackson!Joel x fem!reader by @shadowqueen2024
Summary: Josh, a new settler in Jackson has been paying a little too much attention to you, and Joel becomes jealous and possessive. He finally corners you after a town dance, his jealousy boiling over into a raw, claiming first night.
Golden, just for you - Joel Miller x reader by @abbotscum (cw: watersports)
Harry Castillo
The Ex education - Ex husband!Harry Castillo x F!Reader by @missadangel (ongoing)
Summary: Born and raised on the Upper East Side — mother’s an actress, stepfather runs an empire that’s suddenly “under review,” and your brother’s the reason you have gray hair. You married perfection in your 20s Years after your picture-perfect marriage went up in smoke, you left New York to “heal.” Now you’re back, in your 30s — and saw your ex-husband on the cover of TIME. Wow. He got richer, your family’s going down, and somehow, you ended up working for him. Cried? Yes. Bad idea? Definitely.
Almost enough - fwb!Harry Castillo x f!reader by @baronessvonglitter
Summary: You're friends with benefits with Harry Castillo, one of the most eligible bachelors in New York. That is, until he decides he wants to become serious about someone else.
Reed Richards
Entangled - reed richards x physicist! wife! reader | one-shot by @rosharanfiction
Summary: Reed Richards thinks best when he's got his dick inside you, and saving the world takes a whole lot of thinking.
Javier Peña
Show me - Javier Peña by @pedge-page
Summary: you let it slip to your DEA flat-mate that you aren't as experienced. Javi thinks he can teach you a thing or two about pleasure, but is surprised to find you've got it all figured it out.
Speechless - Javier Peña x f!reader by @cozymochaa
Summary: You and Javier are supposed to go on a date tonight, but when one thing leads to another...
Club 8 - Javier Peña x fem! reader x Steve Murphy by @milla-frenchy
Summary: after you give some information to a DEA agent, he and his coworker come to the brothel you work at, Club 8
Ted García
all quiet on the western front - Ted Garcia x f!reader by @hauntedinkk
Summary: ted plays with your pussy in his rocking chair while reading his book
Office Hours - Ted Garcia x f!reader by @baronessvonglitter (ongoing)
Summary: You and Mayor Ted Garcia have kept your working relationship strictly platonic. But so much can happen after office hours..
Spanking - a ted garcia x reader story. by @mcthsman
Summary: Ted Garcia's young girlfriend almost ruins his reelection campaign. He teaches her a lesson.
Oberyn Martell
Untitled - Oberyn Martell x f!reader - by @rosharanfiction Drabble inspired by When did you get hot? by Sabrina Carpenter
Dave York
The first morning with Dave York by @ashleyfilm
Frankie Morales
Frankie’s belly pooch - by @pedge-page
Beyond my control - Frankie Morales x f!reader by @milla-frenchy
Summary: during a mission in a supposedly empty house, Frankie sees and chases a witness- you. He can’t imagine that the pursuit will take an unprecedented turn
Gordita - Frankie Morales x Plus- size f!reader by @tommyslimpknee
Summary: Your date leaves since he is a shallow bastard. Sulking at the bar to drown the sorrows away. You catch Frankie's eyes across from the bar.
Clint Flood
The babysitter - Clint Flood x f!reader by @pilotispunk
Summary: You’ve been babysitting Clint's daughter for months. You didn’t expect Clint to want you. But when your boyfriend doesn’t show, Clint makes his move and makes sure you’ll never waste your time on little boys again.
Dieter Bravo
Daddy dearest - Dieter Bravo X fat!f!reader by @missredherring
Summary: He should've been good for you like he promised and not touched himself in the first place, but he missed you and started looking through the text thread, full of pictures and promises and he got horny —of course he did— it happens automatically around you now, and… and… he swallows around the lump in his throat because you're here and he's fucked it up.
Max Phillips
Max x vagina-wielding!Reader drabble by @max--phillips (Smut. In which Max is tied down, and reader gags him with their panties.)
Multiple P boys
The Sexorcist - by @baronessvonglitter stepdad!Marcus Moreno, boss!Frankie Morales, parole officer!Javier Peña, ex-boyfriend!Clint Flood, doctor!Reed Richards, priest!Joel Miller and priest!Dave York x f!reader
Summary: When you become possessed by a sex demon, your only help comes from the creeps who desire you the most..
My work:
Hungry - Joel Miller x afab!reader (Drabble)
Untitled - Husband!Joel x afab!reader (Drabble inspired by red shorts Pedro)
Cross wires - Jackson!Joel x f!reader (mini series)
Take me as your vice - Jackson!Joel x gn!reader (Drabble)
Give this a read and enjoy other amazing fanfics! ❤️🩹
I'm always glad for this type of support. Knowing what you think about what I write, gives me the energy to keep going with the series. Cain's Curse is one of the hardest series I ever wrote, from the details to the correct characterization (in my opinion) of every character.
Thanks to every person who takes their time to write me a little message like this. It fills my heart ❤️🩹
