Joel Miller doesn't flirt, he observes.
Summary: everyone thinks Joel Miller isn't interested in anyone. You're the only one who notices how he looks at you when you're not paying attention, how his voice changes only when he's with you, how his body always moves before his head when danger is near. Joel doesn't flirt. Joel observes. And when he finally acts, it's too late to pretend it wasn't always that way.
Contents warning: slow burn, emotional tension, unspoken attraction, implied physical contact, obsessive protection, adult language, post-apocalyptic trauma, Joel Miller being Joel Miller.
Joel Miller doesn't flirt.
He doesn't smile the right way, he doesn't give compliments, he doesn't play games.
He does it quietly, in his own way that seems distracted but never really is. His head slightly tilted, his eyes narrowing slightly. As if he were always assessing a threat... even when there is no threat.
Everyone at camp thinks you're just another person passing through. A traveling companion. A resource.
You're the only one who notices that when you walk into a room, he looks up before he even realizes he's done it.
That when you talk to someone else, his attention stays there—not on you, but on whoever is standing too close to you.
But he always puts himself between you and danger.
You didn't even see it coming. You just felt the sudden weight of a hand on your arm and the world spinning as Joel pulled you behind him.
"Stay back," he growled low.
Afterwards, when it was all over, he didn't look at you.
But his hand stayed on your wrist a second too long.
As if he were counting your pulse.
Joel never asks if you're okay.
You're sitting by the fire in the evening, your jacket buttoned up tightly because your hands are shaking. Not because of the cold. Not entirely.
You didn't notice him approaching until you felt the weight of his body in front of you. Big. Solid. Warm.
He adjusts your jacket without asking.
Slow, practical movements. Too intimate to be casual.
His voice is different. Lower. More attentive.
"Not because of the cold," you reply, trying to joke.
His fingers still on the edge of your jacket.
For a moment, you think he's going to say something. That he'll do the right thing. That he'll back off.
Instead, he zips it all the way up.
And he walks away as if nothing happened.
You stand there, your heart in your throat, wondering how he knows things you haven't said out loud.
With you, Joel talks less.
When you laugh, he almost laughs too.
When you're tired, he takes the heaviest backpack without saying a word.
When you sleep, it's always his turn to keep watch, which "coincidentally" happens to be first.
One night you wake up and find him sitting nearby. His back against a wall, his rifle resting on his knees.
He looks up immediately. Always ready.
He looks at you for a long time. Too long.
"Stay," you say softly. "I don't... I don't want to be alone."
For a moment, he seems torn.
Then he moves slightly, making room next to him.
But his knee is against yours. His breathing is slow and steady.
The payoff comes late. Always.
It comes one evening when you return injured. Nothing serious, you say.
Joel doesn't believe you.
He makes you sit down. His hands are steady but gentle as he checks the cut. His jaw is clenched as if it were his fault.
"You need to be more careful," he says.
"You're not my father," you reply, tired.
The silence that follows is heavy.
"I know," he replies. "If I were..."
You look up. "If I were what, Joel?"
He finally looks at you. Not as a threat to be assessed. Not as something to be protected from a distance.
As someone he cares too much about.
"I couldn't look at you like that," he admits. "And it's not fair."
Your heart pounds. "Like what?"
Joel takes a deep breath.
Then he moves closer. Slowly. As if giving you time to stop him.
His forehead against yours. His hands finally holding you.
It's charged. Restrained. Years of silence finally giving way.
And when he finally chooses you, he does so with everything he is.
The kiss doesn't last long.
Not because you don't want it to — but because Joel Miller doesn't know how to do it when something really matters.
He pulls away first, his forehead still against yours, his breathing uneven. His hands remain on you as if breaking contact would be worse than any danger out there.
"This..." he murmurs, "isn't a good idea."
His voice trembles slightly.
You hear it. You always hear it.
"Nothing ever has been," you reply. "Yet we're still alive."
Joel closes his eyes. A long exhale through his nose, as if he's losing a battle he's been fighting for years.
"You make me let my guard down," he admits. "And I can't afford to do that."
Your hand finds his, calloused, warm. Your fingers intertwine without thinking.
"You never put it up with me," you say softly.
When he opens his eyes again, something is different.
One hand slides down your back, pulling you toward him.
His body is solid, real, a promise and a threat at the same time.
You can feel how much he wants you in the way he holds back.
"If you keep this up," he murmurs against your mouth, "I won't stop."
"Don't," you reply without thinking.
The sound that escapes him isn't a word. It's low, broken.
He presses you against the wall behind you—not hard, but firmly. As if he has finally made up his mind.
Every gesture is loaded with meaning. Every caress is slow, deliberate, as if he's asking permission even when it's no longer necessary.
His forehead descends onto your neck. He breathes there, for a long time.
"Tell me to stop," he whispers.
His hands tremble slightly when he holds you. As if he's afraid of breaking you. As if he already knows you won't break, but he can't risk it anyway.
"I don't know how to do things halfway," he says. "If I want you..."
"You already do," you interrupt him.
Then he looks at you. Really looks at you.
And finally stops observing.
He kisses you as if it were the last good thing left in the world. As if tomorrow might not exist. As if you were the thing he tried not to want for too long.
When you separate, you stay close. Your hands still intertwined. Your breathing slowly calming down.
"Will you stay?" you ask.
Joel nods immediately. No hesitation.
And for the first time, it doesn't sound like a promise he can't keep.
The word is still hanging in the air when Joel kisses you again, but this time there is no hesitation.
He takes your face in his hands as if it were the only real thing left. The kiss opens up, deep, warm, the rhythm changing as you feel his breath break against your mouth.
It's a sound that shouldn't exist, yet there it is—low, hoarse, as if it escapes against his will.
His hand finally descends. Slowly. Decisively.
He squeezes your hip, then your thigh, pulling you closer, close enough for you to feel how much he wants you.
"Christ..." he murmurs against your skin. "Are you sure?"
It's the last dam before the flood.
Your fingers slip into his shirt, feeling the warmth of his skin, the tension of his muscles beneath.
Joel does. His dark eyes, shiny, full of something that dangerously resembles devotion.
He lifts you effortlessly, as if your weight were nothing. He pushes you against the nearest surface—the world reduced to breaths, hands, mouths seeking each other.
Every part of him is attentive.
He never takes without checking your reaction. Every caress is a question. Every answer makes him lose a little more control.
When he finally moves against you, you hear him moan into your neck.
His control shatters into tiny pieces.
"I didn't think..." he begins, then shakes his head. "Not like this."
"Like what?" you whisper, already knowing the answer.
Joel moves slowly, as if he wants it to last. As if he had waited too long to run. Every thrust is deep, deliberate, his name escaping your lips like a prayer.
He holds you as if you were fragile and indispensable at the same time.
His hands are strong, but never rough. His mouth follows your every broken breath.
"Look at me," he says, this time in a rougher voice.
When you do, he loses control completely.
The rhythm changes. More urgent. Closer to the edge.
Your body against his, the sweat, the heat, the sound of your breaths filling the space between one end of the world and another.
When he comes, he does so holding you tight, his face hidden against your neck, as if he doesn't want anyone to see that moment of total abandon.
He stays there long after.
He doesn't pull away immediately. He doesn't retreat.
Joel Miller doesn't run away afterwards.
His hand caresses your back, slowly, almost distractedly.
"Now you're a problem," he murmurs.
You smile against his skin. "Why?"
"Because I can't pretend I don't care anymore."
An intimate gesture, almost more dangerous than everything else.
And now that he's had you, he'll never stop.
It doesn't happen right away.
After your breathing has calmed down.
After you think it's over, that now there will be silence, distance, his usual emotional retreat.
Joel remains with his forehead against your shoulder, his eyes closed.
His breathing is still irregular. Too much so.
Then you feel the change.
The tension that never went away.
His hand squeezes your hip. Not hard. Pleadingly.
"It's not over," he admits, his voice lower than before. Rougher. "I thought it was."
He looks up. His eyes are dark, bright, almost tormented.
"Tell me it's not," he says. "Now."
And something inside him breaks.
He kisses you as if afraid you might disappear. Gone is the studied slowness of before. This kiss is urgent, hungry, dirty with need.
He pulls you against him again, as if your body were the only thing capable of keeping him anchored.
"I still feel you," he murmurs against your mouth. "On me. In my head."
His hands are no longer trembling.
He pushes you back, follows you, towers over you without ever crushing you. His weight is reassuring, necessary. The way he looks at you as he moves toward you again is almost too much.
"Look at me," he repeats.
This time it's not a request.
The rhythm is different. Deeper. More desperate.
He's not trying to last. He's trying to feel.
Each thrust is accompanied by a broken breath, a low sound escaping from his throat. Joel doesn't talk much, but now... now he murmurs your name as if it were an anchor.
"It wasn't supposed to happen like this," he says through clenched teeth.
"It wasn't supposed to happen at all."
"Yet here you are," you gasp.
He kisses you hard, as if that truth hurts him.
"Because I can't let you go."
His forehead rests against yours, sweat uniting you, your breaths mingling. The world outside no longer exists. Clickers, fire, the end of time—all gone.
When it comes again, it is more intense. More uncontrolled.
He breaks against you, holding you as if he fears you might not be there the next moment.
He stays there, panting, his body still tense.
Then slowly, as if returning from afar, Joel relaxes.
He turns slightly, pulling you with him, holding you close against his chest. A large hand on your bare back, drawing slow, almost unconscious circles.
Silent aftercare. Joel-style.
"I'm not good at this," he murmurs after a while.
He hesitates. Then he kisses your hair.
"Wanting someone so much."
His fingers tighten a little.
"If you stay," he adds, "I can't promise it will be easy."
You smile against his skin. "It never has been."
Joel Miller doesn't flirt.
And when he finally loses control, he does it twice, because once is never enough for someone who has held back for so long.
dededos
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