Summary: You’ve been divorced from Joel for a little while, now. But when your sink breaks and threatens to flood your house right before a date, you have no one else to call but him. Why does he come? You don’t know. Why does he look so fucking good? You don’t know, either.
W.C: ~6.2k
TL;DR: Rule number one of getting divorced: don’t fuck your ex-husband. (Optional).
Warnings: ex-husband!joel x ex-wife!reader, sappy love confessions, improper use of a sink, praise, oral f!receiving, mirror sex, unprotected p-in-v sex, (no outbreak!)
Note: as a child of divorce, i am allowed to touch upon this matter. anyway, happy fucking i mean reading
Part One | Part Two
One-third. A married couple’s least favourite fraction.
It was (and is) a well-known fact that one in three marriages ends in separation. And of course, you—being the lucky duck you were—found yours rapidly accelerating toward that destination.
You and Joel had agreed that you’d be better off apart. Joel got his own place while you kept the house. And Sarah lived with you every other week.
All you needed to do was send your attorney the signed divorce papers.
Outside of the sympathetic comments you received from acquaintances and relatives almost daily, you were doing just fine.
In fact, tonight you had a date.
A date. The kind that made you choose a tight-fitting dress that hugged your curves just right. The kind that inspired you to wear your hair in something other than a claw clip. The kind that provoked you to shave places you haven’t shaved in a long time.
The lucky bachelor was a fellow divorcee named Mark, whom you had met on a single-parent dating app. He had a full head of hair, a decent sense of humour, and two rescued Labradors. He offered to bring you to his favourite Italian restaurant, bringing up the fact that he’d pick up the bill no matter what, much to your protests. Needless to say, you had a good feeling about him.
After one last check in the mirror, you grabbed your coat and slung your purse over your shoulder, ready to head out the door.
Then, you heard it.
A faint gurgling.
You blinked twice, trying to zero in on the sound. Proceeding a few moments of intense concentration, you followed the sound into the ensuite bathroom.
The faucet was running. Had you forgotten to turn it off?
You reached for the handle. Twisted it. It spun freely, and nothing happened.
You tried and tried again, but all your efforts were in vain. You could only watch the tap stubbornly defy you as the handle jutted uselessly, loose in its socket.
“Shit.” You breathed.
The faucet sputtered out a particularly heavy spurt of water as if to say: shit, indeed.
You sighed, staring helplessly at the sink as it stared contumaciously back, water that couldn’t be swallowed by the drain toppling over the edge of the sink.
A quick Google search informed you that you needed to turn off the principal water pipe—the mains. Which you didn’t know how to do.
So, you resolved to delegate the problem to more capable hands. Like, a twenty-four-hour plumbing service. No, they could easily overcharge you. You could call your dad? No, he was too far.
Or…
Sighing, you dug out your phone from your purse and called your only remaining option. Someone who was a seasoned contractor, someone who dealt with this sink before, and someone who you just so happened to be divorcing.
He answered on the third ring.
“Hey—everything okay?” Joel’s concerned voice filtered through your phone.
“No.” You inhaled.
“No?” Joel echoed hesitantly, then waited for elaboration.
When nothing came, he cleared his throat.
Slightly confused, slightly wry, he continued, “This is the part where you tell me what’s wrong.”
“Um, my sink’s busted.”
“Your sink… is busted?”
“Yeah. Faucet won’t turn off. It-It’s a lot of water.” You bit the inside of your cheek, leaning on the wall. “I didn’t know who else to call.”
A moment of silence, then:
“You need me to fix it?”
Was that annoyance? Exhaustion? It definitely wasn’t exhilaration at the prospect of doing manual labour at eight o’clock on a Friday evening.
“You know what? Forget I called. This was stupid. Sorry to bother you—”
“I’m on my way.”
Despite the gravity of the situation, after he hung up, the smallest of smiles began forming on your face.
Fifteen minutes later, a knock came from your front door.
You swung the door open, and there he stood. Tool bag in hand, flannel shirt stretching tightly over his broad shoulders, salt-and-pepper hair just a little bit unkempt.
It had been a good few months since the two of you went your separate ways, but there he was—still at your beck and call. What that meant, exactly, remained to be seen.
But you were glad to see him, nonetheless.
“Hi,” You said breathlessly.
Upon seeing you, Joel’s brows shot up, and he blinked a few times.
“Hi.” He said back slowly, then cleared his throat. “Am I… interruptin’ something?”
You glanced down. Right. Tight dress and makeup.
“I have a date in…” You raised your left wrist and winced as you looked down at your watch. “Five minutes ago.”
“A date.” He clicked his tongue, nodding to himself. “Well, I’ll try to make this quick, then.”
You hummed a noise of agreement, pivoted, and, with a wave of your hand, invited Joel inside.
He stepped through the doorway with a quiet grunt. And, as he bent down to undo his boots, his coffee-brown gaze landed on a pile of unopened mail by the entryway table. A few envelopes had slipped to the floor, and he crouched to gather them without thinking.
But, as he straightened up to his full height, his eyes lingered on the recipient line.
“Mrs Miller?” Joel read aloud.
“What?” Your breath caught in your throat, and you spun around to meet his stare.
Joel wordlessly held the envelope up with two fingers, the corners of his lips slightly upturned.
“Oh.” You cringed inwardly. “Yeah.”
“Didn’t, uh, realise that you were keepin’ the name.” He shrugged offhandedly, tossing the stack of mail onto the entryway table.
“I’m not. I just…” You ran a hand through your hair. “Paperwork isn’t final.”
For the divorce.
Joel’s eyebrows pinched together. “I sent you my signed copies, if—”
“I know you did. I just haven’t sent the papers to my lawyer yet.” You pressed your lips into a thin line and avoided his gaze. “Just got a lot on my plate, recently.”
That was very unconvincing.
Joel hummed a noncommittal noise.
“Well…” He huffed sheepishly. “You know I always liked my name on you.”
You swallowed, feeling your stomach do a funny flip and your ears burn up. Why were your ears burning up?
“C’mon. The problem is upstairs.”
The faucet, to your dismay, hadn’t stopped. It was worse now, if that was even possible, spitting little rogue sprays of water alongside the main stream. Great.
You checked your watch again. Fifteen minutes late. You would no doubt have a few missed calls from your poor suitor if you had the guts to check your phone.
Joel sank to one knee as he inspected the sink, squinting at the appliance and shaking his head. Miraculously, he reached in and, a few rusty squeaks later, the water stopped.
“You fixed it.” You blinked.
“Far from it,” He muttered, frowning. “The cartridge’s shot. And the valve stem’s stripped. Who installed this?”
Without missing a beat, “You did.”
“…Right.”
You leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over your chest. “So?”
“So, this isn’t a quick fix. I need to pull out the whole assembly. Maybe replace the handle, too. And judging by the corrosion around this nut—” He held up a discoloured metal hexagon like it had personally offended him. “You’ve probably had a leak back here for a while.”
You blinked. “And you didn’t notice that when you lived here?”
Joel turned to shoot you a look. “I was your husband, not your handyman.”
“Really? I could’ve sworn I married you for that toolbox of yours.”
“And here I thought it was ‘cause of my radiant personality.”
“Definitely not that.” You huffed out a laugh.
Despite his back being turned to you, you could just about make out a reluctant smile forming through his slightly greying stubble.
You watched as he rolled up his plaid sleeves, exposing tanned forearms that were entirely too bulky for someone in his mid-forties. He then dug into his bag, fishing out an Allen Wrench.
“You can go on your date,” Joel added, not looking at you. “I’ll be out of here in an hour. Two, tops. But… if you feel like gettin’ frisky, maybe do it at his place. Just in case.”
Right, your date.
Biting the inside of your cheek, you took out your phone. Six missed calls and a flurry of concerned texts.
Decidedly, you typed out an apologetic message mentioning a water-related emergency and stuffed your phone back in your purse.
“I’m staying with you.”
Joel froze and turned to look at you from over his shoulder. “No, you ain’t. I’ll take too long.”
“Well, I can’t leave you to fix my problems while I’m out eating overpriced ravioli.” You shrugged and, with a soft grunt, took a seat against the wall near him. “You’re not a plumber, you’re a… you’re my…”
Ex-husband.
You cleared your throat, then emphasised, “You’re not a plumber.”
Joel let out a slow exhale. “Do whatever you want, but I doubt watching me fix your sink is gon’ be as fun as your date.”
“I’ve got a full bottle of Pinot Noir in the fridge.” You tilted your head. “We can make it fun.”
Joel’s eyebrows shot up.
“Not—not in that way.” You rubbed a clammy hand down your face.
To your surprise, that earned you a small, gruff laugh from Joel, his eyes crinkling momentarily the way they only did when he was truly amused.
His voice was soft when he responded.
“Go on and get the wine, then, sweetheart.”
Two crystal glasses and a little while later, Joel had put down his wrench and opted instead to sit beside you on your tiled bathroom floor, his shoulders brushing up against yours in the cramped space.
Efforts to tame the defiant sink had long since been forgotten. He did the best he could, but retired upon discovering that you had no spare sink handle lying around—how very unprepared of you.
The bad news was that you weren’t going to be able to wash your hands in the master bedroom ensuite tonight. The good news was that you were having a surprisingly good time with Joel. The conversation evolved from discussing your stood-up date (you showed Mark’s profile, Joel was convinced he was lying about his dogs being rescues), then to how his company was going, and then, reminiscing about the good ol’ days.
“All I’m sayin’,” Joel continued through a laugh. “Is that she did it on purpose.”
“My mom has always been bad with names!”
“Bad enough to still call me ‘George’ after a year of us datin’?” He scoffed.
You stifled a giggle. “In her defence, it’s a very similar—”
“Like hell it is. And your dad? He was worse.” Joel chuckled, finishing the last of his wine. “How is he?”
“Fine. Just called him yesterday, actually.”
“He still callin’ me–?”
“He still calls you ‘porn stache’, yes.”
Joel snorted into his hand, his shoulders bobbing up and down with laughter. Real, genuine laughter.
You smiled and turned to steal a glance at his profile.
His eyes crinkled at the corners, his hooked nose scrunched mid-chuckle, and his laugh was exactly as it was before—low and rough, but somehow boyish and unguarded.
You had almost forgotten how his whole face lit up when he laughed.
And, you didn’t mean to stare. But you did.
God, you missed this.
“I think I prefer George.” Joel ran a hand down his face, still smiling.
You cleared your throat and leaned over to retrieve the almost-empty wine bottle, refilling your glasses.
“Sarah told me to say hi to you, if I got the chance, by the way.” You said, pouring the Pinot Noir into his glass. “She’s with my parents at the lake house.”
“The lake house?” Joel hummed, taking another sip of his drink. “Still disappointed I didn’t get that in the settlement.”
You snorted, amused. “You don’t even like lakes.”
“No, I don’t like the mosquitoes that come with the lakes.” Joel corrected you, pointedly. “But, I don’t know, I guess I just miss it. A lot of good memories there.”
You felt yourself smile. “Yeah. Yeah, there were.”
A beat.
“Hey, at least you kept the cars. And the boat. And the frequent flier miles. And, well, you see Sarah every other week.” You turned to look at Joel, but he was already looking at you.
A certain vulnerability swam in the brown of his eyes. Something you hadn’t seen in a very long time.
“Yeah, well… there were more important things I couldn’t keep.”
The air thinned. The wine, the laughter, the conversation—everything dissolved in the quiet admission, hanging thickly in the space between you.
And suddenly, there was only you and Joel and the mistakes that had wedged you apart yet somehow brought you back together again; on a random Friday evening on the floor of a bathroom you used to share.
“Joel…” You swallowed, your hand falling from your lap onto the tiles.
But you couldn’t form any semblance of a sentence. How could you?
There was nothing to say. Yes, you missed him. ‘Missed’ was an understatement.
Sometimes you’d roll over in the night, wishing to feel the weight of his arm resting on your waist, reassuring you that these past few months had only been a bad dream. Sometimes you came to pick Sarah up early, just to get a few more minutes with him. Sometimes—no, a lot of the time, memories of him came rushing back, cleaving your heart into two, further and further each time.
No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t let go of the man you spent so many years loving.
Joel’s eyes still bore into yours. And nothing in the world could have torn you away.
He exhaled slowly, then set down his glass with care. His hand barely brushed yours, but it was enough to make your breath hitch.
“I think about it,” He said softly. “More than I should.”
“Think about what?”
A quiet, almost sad laugh escaped from his throat. He leaned back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling.
“How things used to be.”
“Oh,”
A moment passed, marked only by the metre of your incessant heartbeat pounding in your ears.
And then, “Do you ever miss us?” Joel asked.
You faced him once more. The answer was on the tip of your tongue, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say it. Because that was too complicated. Because that would break you.
Joel didn’t need you to say it. He found the answer in your eyes.
All the time.
Instead, you asked, “Do you? Miss us, that is.”
“Of course, I do.” He said softly. “More than you can imagine.”
You held your breath.
Joel heaved a sigh.
“I think about calling,” He added, voice low. “Just to hear your voice.”
“I’d answer,” You said, barely above a whisper.
He smiled in a bittersweet, melancholic sort of way and leaned in just slightly. Unconsciously, you mirrored him.
And then his eyes flickered down to your lips. It was only for a second, but it was enough to make your stomach flutter.
This was dangerous. You should’ve told him to leave ages ago. Or, maybe you should’ve left yourself and gone on your date.
But you couldn’t bring yourself to pull away.
“Can I ask you something stupid?” You whispered.
Joel whispered back, “Always.”
“Do you…” You trailed off, biting your lip.
“Do I what?”
“Do you—does even a part of you… want what we had back?”
You knew what he was going to say. You just wanted to hear it for yourself.
And you did.
“Yes,” He admitted earnestly.
You searched his face for any sign of deception, but found none. The only thing in his coffee-brown eyes was regret. And, maybe, something else, too. Something softer.
Your eyes widened. “We fought a lot.”
“We did.”
“And we probably said some shit.” You sighed, looking up at the ceiling, as if all the answers were written there. Joel did, too.
His voice came softly, sadly, “We did.”
Silence again. Thick and fragile and charged with so many unspoken words.
Joel’s knee brushed yours, neither of you pulling away. It was nice to have him close, to feel his familiar warmth, to see him—really see him. Bare and raw and vulnerable. No facades of indifference. No hiding behind closed car doors. Just Joel, your Joel, there beside you; soft-eyed and quiet, like maybe he was seeing you, too.
Your fingers twitched on the floor beside his. You wanted to reach for him, but you wanted him to reach first. Absently, you fiddled with your left ring finger, suddenly aware of its bareness.
He looked at you then. Not a glance, but a full turn, slow and deliberate. His dark eyes searched your face, pausing on your mouth, your cheek, your lashes, then settled on your eyes again. He looked at you like you were something he’d spent months trying to forget, and only just now remembered why he couldn’t.
You held your breath.
Joel’s voice, when it finally came, was low, cracked around the edges.
“I know it was bad in the end, but I meant what I said.” He breathed. “I miss us. I miss you.”
Your heart twisted. And there went that cleaver again, slicing further.
“I miss seeing your keys on the kitchen counter and knowing you were home. I miss kissing you before work and smudgin’ your lipstick. I miss watching stupid movies with you that we’d fall asleep to halfway.”
His throat bobbed. He leaned back against the wall, like it hurt to say it out loud.
“Yeah, we fought and said some real mean shit. But God help me, I’d give anything to go back in time and fight for you like I should have. Because you were it for me. You were everything. Still are.”
His eyes glistened as he held your gaze, fierce and unflinching.
“Because, no matter how hard I try to ignore it,” He smiled to himself, shaking his head like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I love you.”
He loves you.
Those three simple words rang in an echo in your mind. He loves you, he loves you, Joel loves you.
“You love me?” You could barely hear your voice above the deafening thrum of your pulse.
Your faces were barely an inch apart, now. You could smell the familiar scent of his laundry detergent, and traces of his cologne, and wood, and tobacco, and something that was so uniquely him.
Joel nodded.
“I never stopped.” He whispered.
Without thinking, you closed the remaining distance, smashing your lips against his. Joel grunted in surprise, but quickly gave in, exhaling through his nose like he’d been holding a breath in for years.
He returned the kiss with equal fervour, reaching out to cup your face and pouring all his pent-up emotions against the haven of your lips—longing, relief, desire.
You pushed yourself closer against him. Closer, impossibly closer, until you were straddling his lap, moving against the tent in his jeans, feeling his big hands instinctively settle on your hips, and tasting the Pinot Noir on his lips.
Shit. Was this even a good idea?
You pulled away suddenly. A tiny whine came from Joel, who tried to chase your mouth, but you were insistent.
“Wait,” You panted.
His eyes opened fully. His brows were knitted, his lips were kiss-swollen, and his chest was heaving slowly.
“What?” Joel asked quietly, his thumbs idly tracing circles on either side of your hips.
“This…” You breathed. “I don’t want this to be a one-time thing. I don’t want it to mean nothing.”
Joel smiled softly at your words.
“Means a whole lot to me, sweetheart.” His hand went to gently tuck a stray strand of your hair behind your ear, caressing your cheek in his wake. “We can talk about what this means, if you w—”
“Okay, good. Means a lot. Talk after.”
“After?” His eyebrows rose.
“After you fuck me.”
A breathy ‘Jesus Christ’ slipped from his throat, but Joel didn’t spend a second refusing your bold assumption.
With a hand on your nape, he leaned forward to capture your lips in another searing kiss, which you happily accepted, sighing against him.
His big hands then travelled to the back of your thighs, and the next thing you knew, he carelessly swept away whatever was decorating the base of your faucet, and carried you with ease to perch you atop the sink.
“Joel.” You mumbled urgently into his lips.
“Mmm?” He hummed back, not wanting to break your mouths apart for even a second.
“Might break the sink again.”
“Don’t care. I’ll fuckin’ fix it again, then. Just… need you,” Joel groaned. “Look too fuckin’ good,”
And he pulled away. His half-lidded, cloudy gaze drank you in, sweeping down the snugness of your dress, and lingering on the generous amount of cleavage it revealed. His hands drifted higher and higher up your thighs, until they reached the hemline—dipping under just slightly.
“Too fuckin’ good,” He snarled.
You smirked. Knowing him, he was definitely going to ask if—
“How much was this dress?”
Sighing amusedly, “It wasn’t cheap.”
“How attached are you to it?” He mumbled, a hand reverently skirting up to your hip.
“A moderate amou—”
“Can I rip it off you?”
There it was.
In the many years you were married, Joel shredded more than enough articles of your precious wardrobe in similar heated moments. If you were to count the offences, you’d likely run out of fingers. Your wedding dress had been among the few survivors of his destructive tendencies, though not for lack of trying on his part.
You stifled a snort and shook your head, reaching up to caress his face.
“No.” You smiled. “Because I’d like to wear it again.”
Joel held your hand against his face and huffed out an exaggerated sigh. “Next time.”
And then his hands found the zipper on your side, pulled it sharply down, and tugged the dress off you.
His eyes darkened.
You had chosen to don an intricate, black, lacey number underneath your dress that teased just enough and only hid the bare minimum. Of course, you had. You hadn’t had an opportunity to wear anything vaguely provocative in ages and were expecting some luck after your date.
You certainly didn’t expect that your ex-husband would be the one seeing it.
“This for him?” Joel’s lip twitched.
Heat rose in your cheeks. “Well, I—”
“Yeah, these don’t get a pass.”
With a sharp tearing noise slicing through the air, Joel ripped the flimsy lacey bra clean in half, watching intently, hungrily, as your tits spilled out.
“Joel!”
“I know, I know,” Joel grunted. “I’ll buy you a new set… buy you all the fuckin’ sets.”
You were about to object, intent on citing the price attached to that particular pair, but Joel had sunk back on his knees and spread your legs apart.
He pressed his lips on your inner thigh, scruff tickling your skin as he slowly, softly trailed his mouth upward, leaving goosebumps in his wake.
His face came to a stop in front of your core, noticing how heavily you were breathing, and his eyes flicked up to yours, smirking. Smug fucking bastard.
“Joel.” You gritted your teeth.
“Yeah, baby?”
“Don’t fucking tease me.”
And he leaned his forehead against the lower part of your navel, taking a second to breathe in the unmistakable scent of your arousal seeping through your lingerie.
He was practically salivating, now.
“I’ll try not to, ma’am.”
Without another word, he took the lace into his teeth, yanked his head sharply, and tore your panties open.
Confirming his suspicions, you were absolutely soaked. Slick drooled freely out of your puffy folds, taunting him and draining every ounce of self-restraint he had.
Fuck, you were gorgeous.
“Tell me,” Joel said lowly, meeting your gaze once more as a thick finger swiped lightly through your lips, collecting your arousal. “This for him or me?”
“You.” You breathed without a second thought.
“Louder, sweetheart. My ears ain’t what they used to be.”
“You.”
Smirking wider, “Damn fucking right.”
Then, he happily hitched your legs over his shoulders, leaned forward, and dove in.
His tongue prodded into your heat, dragging down your walls and sending jolts of electricity down your spine. He worked fast and sloppily, sliding through your folds and flicking into your walls, urgently tasting you like he wouldn’t get another chance.
Your arousal coated the lower half of his face, his eyes were almost black with desire, obscenely wet noises echoed in the silence of the tiled room as his tongue eagerly devoured you whole—
“Fuck, almost forgot how good you taste. So fuckin’ sweet.” Joel mumbled against your sex, entirely, wholly bewitched. “She missed me, too, huh? Just drippin’ for me…”
He continued to furiously lap at your entrance, scruff rubbing against your inner thighs. And then he moved up, planting messy kisses higher and higher until he reached your swollen clit.
You gasped brokenly, flinging a hand to grasp his curls as his lips alternated from pressing messy kisses along your seam to greedily sucking at your bundle of nerves, latching onto it almost desperately.
After a particularly delicious drag down the roof of your core, you rolled your hips up into his mouth and brought him closer to you with your grip in his hair.
“Shit—sorry.” You panted, breathing heavily.
He barely pulled away to look at you.
“Don’t fuckin’ be. I can handle it, you know I can.” Joel all but growled, before returning to attend to your needy fucking pussy.
He was like a man possessed; lapping frenziedly, groaning lowly into your sensitive skin, curved nose swiping through your folds as he worked.
Very soon, a familiar tingle in your lower stomach introduced itself.
“Joel,” You called urgently, attempting to warn him.
He knew you were close. Oh, he knew. So, he went faster and harder, pressing himself further against you, suffocation be fucking damned.
His low, wrecked voice came slurred and slightly muffled by your sex, “Y’gonna come? Go on, baby, all over my face—thaaat’s it.”
A shattered moan escaped from your throat, and you felt your release take over your body almost violently. You couldn’t help the way your legs clamped down around his head, but Joel loved it, letting you smother him and humming happily into your heat as he worked you through your climax, swallowing your release and eating like a man starved.
Finally, he pulled away with a wet squelch, softly pressed a kiss to your inner thigh, and gently let your legs down.
And you were immediately greeted with the sight of his lower face shining with your slick.
A good look on him, if you’d say so yourself.
He smiled lazily, eyes blown-out and absolutely fucking pussydrunk.
“That good for you, sweetheart?” He mused.
“You, Joel Miller, are what we call a munch.” You smiled back.
Pride bloomed across his face. “Gladly, sweets.”
And you pulled him up by the collar of his flannel shirt into a filthy kiss, tasting your arousal on his lips.
He let his eyes fall shut and reached up to curl a hand around your jaw as he returned the kiss, his brows furrowed in concentration.
Not wasting any time, your hands flew to his belt, blindly fumbling at the leather material to slide it out of the loops of his jeans.
Joel chuckled, leaning forward to trail his lips down your neck, leaving a path of open-mouthed kisses.
“Need somethin’, baby?”
“Wanna return the favour,” You glanced down at the bulge in his lap.
“Mm-mm. That was more for me than you. Missed your sweet fuckin’ pussy.” Joel mumbled against your pulse point.
“Munch.” You couldn’t help but giggle.
“Yeah, yeah.” Joel sighed, lifting his head and undoing his jeans just barely enough to pull himself free from his boxers.
You heard yourself swallow.
Joel Miller was a big man, and you were very aware of that fact. It was written all across his body; from his impossibly broad shoulders, to his beefy arms, to his thick fucking cock.
He stroked himself, once, twice, as his eyes fell to your pulsating, slick core. Beads of precum leaked from his flushed tip and down his length as he did so.
“Spread those legs wider for me, baby. Let me see you,” He breathed lowly.
And you very willingly obliged.
“There’s my girl,” Joel hummed.
With a hand around his base, he guided himself closer to your drooling cunt, nudging his swollen head against you.
Sighing, “Deep breath, baby.”
And he slowly forced himself in, one hand on the small of your back, the other on the underside of your thigh, prompting you to wrap your legs around his waist as he steadily fed you his cock.
You gasped some variant of a plea.
Needless to say, he was a tight fucking fit.
“Takin’ me so well. That’s it, baby, let me in.” He blabbed mindlessly as he continued to sink deeper inside.
Deeper, deeper, deeper…
He winced. “Shit—there you go.”
When all of him was nested inside your welcoming channel, he let out a gasped expletive at the sensation.
Full. You felt so full with him inside. You always did.
“Fuck, missed this.” Joel panted, resting his forehead against yours.
You tried to echo the sentiment, but the only thing you were capable of doing was letting out an incoherent groan of his name.
Joel got the message, though.
Maintaining an unhurried tempo, he rolled his hips back and forth, slowly dragging his thickness against your walls, making you painfully aware of every last inch of him.
“How’s that feel, baby?” He mumbled, voice airy.
“Good. Feels so good.”
And, fuck, he did.
He felt amazing.
His tempo soon picked up, leaving your mouth to fall open as you took every inch of him again and again, stretching you open with enough pleasure to dull the slight pain.
“Tell me,” Joel hummed as he continued to drive ceaselessly in and out of your tight channel, adopting a false lilt of indifference. “Who’s fuckin’ you so good, huh?”
An incoherent syllable slipped from your lips.
“Who, baby?” Joel urged you, unrelenting in his pace. “Sure as hell ain’t fuckin’ Mark.”
Dumbly, you shook your head.
“You, Joel.”
Your words were almost drowned out by the symphony of your own moans, which were accompanied by the obscenely wet slaps that sounded every time his hips fully met yours.
“Louder.” He snarled, punctuating his response with an intentionally rough ram. “Neighbours can’t hear you yet, c’mon.”
“You, Joel!”
Satisfied, his hands went to hold you by your waist, keeping you as still as possible as he drove insistently into you, his tip now kissing your cervix with every thrust.
You cried out at the feeling, nails raking down his back.
Heat pooled in your gut, your vision blurred, a high-pitched ringing almost deafened your ears.
“Joel, Joel, I’m…” You babbled.
“Close? Go on, gorgeous. Let me feel you choke my dick.”
With his blessing, his name left your mouth in a high-pitched scream, and you felt yourself clench around his throbbing length as your orgasm rippled across your body like an earthquake.
Joel, being the overachiever he was, didn’t stop for even a second until your breathing slowed and your eyes fluttered open again.
And, once he saw that you had recovered, he leaned forward to slant his mouth against yours, swallowing your sighs.
“You okay?” He mumbled into the kiss, barely breaking away.
“Yeah.” You exhaled.
He smiled against your lips.
“Good. Almost there, baby. Gonna take you against the sink, now, and you’re gonna give me one more, how’s that sound?”
You nodded dreamily, feeling him slowly pull out.
He leaned back and, with his hands on your waist, delicately set you down.
“Turn ‘round for me, sweetheart.”
You acquiesced without hesitation, bracing yourself on the porcelain countertop.
Joel hummed, kicked your legs open even wider, and, not long after, sank the entirety of his cock into you in one deep thrust.
A sharp breath hit the air behind you, and an airy ‘fuck’ followed it. This angle made him feel bigger, if that was even possible.
He didn’t wait long after that. He couldn’t. Overcome with the need to feel you, he started moving. The first thrust was slow. Experimental. The second was hard. The third was harder.
Before you knew it, his big hands found a home on your hips, and he began to drive roughly into you, as if making up for lost time.
He certainly proved he was willing to atone for his absence, thrust after thrust.
“Oh, look at you.” Joel tutted and pulled your hair to tilt your head upwards.
You came face to face with the woman in the bathroom mirror.
Somewhere in between thrusts, your mouth had fallen agape, letting loose a long whine of pleasure, which was stuttered by every slam of his hips against yours.
Your hair was frizzy, your face was flushed, your hooded gaze was flooded with desire, and a light sheen of sweat doused every inch of your skin.
You were a wreck, thanks to the man fucking you so well behind you.
“Eyes up here.” Joel sighed. “Keep ‘em open. Gotta watch how well you take me.”
Joel was even more of a sight.
The top few buttons of his flannel were undone, his sleeves were haphazardly rolled up, his hair was wild, and the look on his weathered face was nothing short of territorial as he held you to him and fucked you with reckless abandon.
Your eyes fell to where your bodies were connected, hypnotised by how easily his tanned cock disappeared in and out of your puffy cunt.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The corners of his lips were coyly upturned when he cooed, “Don’t we look good, baby?”
You could only respond in broken syllables.
“Yeah,” He grunted. Then, after a particularly forceful thrust, “we do.”
He continued to ram into you, finding your cervix with each thrust, keeping his eyes trained on the mirror, fixated on how your tits bounced so prettily for him.
“Beautiful.” He whispered, jaw tight.
If your brain hadn’t been turned to mush after the two orgasms he forced out of you, you would’ve heard him. But all you were focused on was the rush of another climax approaching.
You gripped the countertop harder and gritted your teeth, feeling warmth collecting in your stomach and bracing yourself for impact.
As if reading your mind, Joel’s hand moved from your hip to your front, trailing down until he brushed your clit, rubbing sloppy semi-cricles and whispering sweet things as you whimpered.
“You gonna give me one more?” He murmured encouragingly, his nose nudging the side of your face.
You could only manage an open-mouthed nod.
His fingers sped in their motions, swiping at your clit feverishly as he continued to rut into you, grazing your cervix each time.
Again. And again.
“Come for me, sweetheart. I’ll catch you.” He whispered gently.
Your jaw slackened, your heartbeat quickened, and, in a blinding flash of pleasure, you came with his name on your tongue, helpless to the throes of your climax.
“There you go. Shit… so good for me.” Joel groaned. And then, urgently, “Where—where do you want me to–?”
Not even a full second later, “Inside.”
“You sure?” He panted, starstruck.
“I have an IUD, just—please.”
He didn’t reply. Instead, he pressed closer, his chest flush against your back, letting you feel every shaky pull of his breath as he caged you in. His hands found yours at the edge of the sink, lacing over them gently. His head dropped beside yours, his forehead nearly touching your temple, and a warm breath fanned across your skin as he sighed.
And then he resumed his earlier pace.
He rammed into you hard and fast, chasing his own release as if it were a life-or-death situation. And all you could do was take it.
After a dozen more jerky thrusts, his breath caught in his throat and, with a low curse, he came. Hot ropes of his spend spilled inside you, and he rode it out until he couldn’t give you any more, which took a few more lazy rolls of his hips.
His breath evened not long after, warm and steady against your browbone. Soothing, almost.
Gently, he pulled out of you, and you felt his come slowly drip down your thighs.
“Fuck,” He breathed, pressing a soft kiss to your hair, scruff rubbing against your crown as he did so.
And he bowed his head to rest it on the crook of your neck.
“That was great, George.” You panted.
Joel snorted tiredly. “Just couldn’t help yourself, huh?”
“Nope.”
He huffed out a chuckle.
Then, he languidly pressed a trail of open-mouthed kisses wherever his lips could reach—the underside of your jaw, your throat, your neck, and down, still.
A warm, fuzzy sort of feeling radiated from his touch, lulling you into a state of bliss. It felt like love; it felt like coming home.
You couldn’t help the smile that stretched across your face.
Joel mumbled something unintelligible against your shoulder.
“What?” You replied, breaking free from your trance.
“I said,” He pulled away and, with two fingers on your chin, tenderly turned your face to look at him. His voice was wrecked and so very earnest when he finally repeated himself. “Don’t send the papers. Please.”
He held the rest of his plea in his eyes in the way they shone with a certain sincerity.
You smiled softly and shook your head. Because you knew you never really had any intention to. Because you wanted to hold on to him. And you were glad he wanted to hold on to you, too.
Your lips found his. Gentle, delicate, a reassurance. He gave in to the kiss almost immediately, sighing into your mouth.
“I won’t.”
And you meant it.
thanks for reading!!! reqs are open, if you wanna send an idea or anything over :)
PEDRO PASCAL in:
Strange Way of Life, The Last of Us, Nurse Jackie, The Bubble, Red Widow, Brothers & Sisters, Narcos, Freaky Tales, and Touched by an Angel
summary: You never meant to end up alone with the patroller, but two nights, snowed in between silence and shared space, leave you both with a bond too fragile to name and very dangerous to keep.
tags: age gap (30-56), grief, death, mention of suicide, alcohol.
w/c: 3.1k
notes: you'll hate me for this, i know
edit: part 2!
“So, by protocol, we’re gonna start sending a nurse on every patrol” María says from behind her desk, her momma-warm voice filling the silent office… smelling like incense and baby powder for some reason.
“I don’t carry guns.”
Silence. María moves some stuff through the desk, rummage through some papers with names.
“Ain’t necessary you use one” she assures you. “Might wanna keep a knife on you, just in case, but if you don’t wanna use firearms, we won’t force you. You can when you’re ready, but for now it ain’t needed.” She writes your name on the patrol roster, stamps it, and hands you a slip of paper.
“This here’s your assigned partner for tomorrow morning. You’ll find him at the stable” she says as you read: Joel Miller. Rancher St. “Here’s his address if you wanna stop by and meet him beforehand.”
You slip the paper into your scrub pocket and look at her.
“What if someone tries to hurt me out there?” you ask.
“That ain’t gonna happen. Joel’s…” María trails off for a second, thinking through her words. “He’s alert. Real alert. Before anything touches you, it’s gotta get through him first. But you know, if you wanna feel safer you can—”
“I’m not carrying a gun” you cut in.
“Good.” She nods. Not tired, you can feel the understanding in her voice. “Pack yourself a bag with food, warm clothes, a lighter, first-aid kit, water, etc.” She stands and opens the door.
“Good luck tomorrow. Let me know how it goes.”
Walking out of City Hall, you head straight home. Doesn’t strike you to go meet your new partner. Why bother? Just to stare at each other?
The thought of stepping outside again after so long makes every inch of you tremble. Freezes your marrow. Once, you were a wild creature and the outdoors was your playground… but those instincts got lost. Now, you feel like the world outside will eat you alive.
And maybe it will.
The new patrol policy is kinda rough, but it means more supplies and maybe a few privileges.
“Hey, I’m the one keeping your ass safe! Give me that last bag of coffee!” Sounds good.
Your bag’s a bit heavy. Maybe because you rolled around in bed more than you slept. Still, you reach the stable and see him. Joel’s brushing his horse like it’s showtime, whispering to it as he strokes its neck—tender.
“Hey” you say, no frills, standing on the other side of the fence. “You Joel?”
He turns, looks at you for a second, then glances away.
“Roll out in fifteen. Grab a horse and sign in” he says, returning to the horse and stuffing a few things into his bag and adjusting the girth.
His demeanor irks you at first: no hello, no eye contact. You shrug and head to the end of the stable, find the sign-in sheet with a pencil dangling on a string. You jot your name beneath his.
“Which one’re you taking?” Joel asks, leading the horse out by its reins.
“This one’s available…” you read off the board: “Shimmer.”
“No, leave that one in.”
“But I need—”
“You ride mine. Easier that way. If I gotta wait on you, we ain’t gettin’ back.”
A silence settles. You watch him settle the last few things on his horse. The jab stings. He turns his head and meets your eyes.
“Get on the horse.” He gestures you to the animal. You glance at it and then back at him. Joel closes his eyes, massages the bridge of his nose and sighs heavy. “Come ‘ere”
He makes you stand fancing the side of the horse and suddenly you're in the air. A small sound blurt past your lips but you keep it in by clamping your lips shut. Your hands go to the horn of the saddle, his strong and large hand grasp you by the hips over your jeans, when you set your foot inside the stirrup, his hands go unannounced straight to your ass, pushing you up.
Once you're sat, your eyes go briefly to his. Not staring much. You're probably beet red.
The ride’s quiet. Like you’ve both silently agreed you don’t wanna know much about each other. Your arms around his waist over his coat, it’s alright. The landscape stuns you, the sun reflecting off the snow like in a dream. Jackson’s mountains look even more intimidating close-up.
“Ain’t we going too far?” you ask over the wind.
He glances back. Doesn’t answer right away.
“You never been assigned a long route before? You think they’d send a nurse on a thirty-minute patrol? They only send someone if it’s risky.” He speaks as he guides the horse across a little stone bridge over a frozen river.
“I’ve never done a route.”
Silence.
“Well. This will be your first.”
The blizzard bites your skin, snow flicking your cheeks. You close your eyes, lean into his back, taking refuge from the wind’s assault.
A grunt rumbles in his chest.
“We gotta stop. Storm’s comin’ in,” Joel says, voice louder to fight the storm’s howl.
Soon you’re standing in front of a worn sign: “Jackson Hole Golf & Tennis Club.” Following a trail, you find a small cabin. He helps you down with a tug so abrupt it nearly throws you off balance. You give him a sharp look he doesn’t notice as he hands you the bags and gestures toward the door. After a moment, he steps inside after you.
“Where’d you leave it?” you ask as he sets his rifle on a desk and pulls a flashlight from his bag.
“What?” He’s matter-of-fact, not looking your way.
“The horse.”
“He’s got a back room. I’ve spent nights here before in the same kinda mess” he says, handing you the flashlight. Through the windows, nothing but white, daylight storm in full force.
“How long we stay here?” you ask, stammering as you turn toward the window.
“Could be two hours. Could be a day.” He draws the curtains and closes them. “Unpredictable.”
You nod, sinking into one of the chairs in the small living area.
“I brought water, some cans of food, extra matches…” You plop your backpack on your knees and start unpacking.
“Yeah, what everyone should carry when they patrol,” he mutters, pulling a small single-burner stove from his bag and lighting it on the floor. “Next time, bring a lighter, not matches. Snow melts and ruins ‘em.”
You nod again. Accept wisdom from someone who’s been around.
Afternoon rolls in silence. The cabin creaks as wind tosses around it. Joel fiddles with the radio, scanning through static. No signal, storm’s blocked it.
“I’m gonna check the horse” he whispers, getting up with a tired groan. He tries the cabin door. It won’t budge. He peers through the peephole. Only darkness. “Dammit, the snow… Shit.” He clicks his radio on his belt.
“Jackson, do you copy? Amy, do you copy?” he repeats, voice tense all afternoon.
“It’s almost six PM. They can answer, but we ain’t goin’ no place tonight. Rescue teams roll out at six AM.” Joel sets the radio on the desk and sinks into a chair, rubbing his forehead.
“We could cook something” you say, knees brushing the floor as you grab a can of chickpeas in tomato sauce and set it on the burner. “Something hot in the belly, the night’ll pass easy.” He’s staring at the cans now.
“How we divide the night watch?” you ask.
“I got it. You ain’t got a gun, and I’m sure you don’t know how to handle one” he says, lifting the rifle from the wall, then grabs a cloth from his pocket and wipes the barrel.
“Aren’t you gonna sleep?” you ask, arching your brow. “The door’s buried in snow, ain’t nothing getting in.”
He stares for a long beat, raises both eyebrows.
“All right. Fine.” You turn away and focus on the cans. “Just saying, if infected came calling, you ain’t doin’ much.”
“Infected? There’s things out there way worse than a bite. Worse for folk like you.” He studies you, wondering if you’re naive, or stupid. Maybe both. Or maybe you just prefer ignoring danger.
“How long since you haven't been out there?” he asks after a long look. Your hands, your sweater, your tired braid.
“Couple years” you murmur. “Been in Jackson for three years. Since I walked through Jackson’s gate, I never went back outside. I told María I ain’t goin’. I got good at everything inside, became indispensable.”
“You saying patrollers are disposable?” he frowns.
You meet his gaze, steeled a bit.
“No. I mean everyone’s indispensable for somethin’. You’re indispensable on patrols. I’m indispensable at the clinic.”
“Apparently not that indispensable, ‘cause they still sent you out here without a gun.”
Silence.
Your eyes go back to the open cans.
He swallows hard. He knows he stepped on a nerve.
“But they sent you with me. Means they knew you’re safe with me.” he remarks, setting the rifle aside.
You take a can with a rag around it, careful not to burn yourself, and hand it to him. He takes it. Doesn’t say thanks. Just nods.
You eat in silence.
Night comes, and you start nodding off, arms crossed, knees to your chest, coat over your legs. He watches you from his spot, stares at your form that expects nothing. Never does, never asks for anything.
There's a poor drop of sweat falling down your temple. Gladly you got to make some warmth in that little corner, Joel's wonders if you have layers and layers of other clothes beneath the one's he can see. Why is he so cold? Why aren't you?
The idea is erased by the memory of what he did this morning. He meant to push you up by thighs, not by your fucking ass but he slipped. He still has the feeling impregnated in his hands. He swears he felt the warmth of your skin seep through the denim that he squeezed.
Joel closes his eyes taking a slow deep breath.
He saw you before. At the clinic, strolling around, staying beside the ill. Going home, sometimes crying because you've lost somebody, sometimes with a neutral expression.
You're another townfolk. Another someone. Everyone has been for years to him. No one more than his family lights that protective side in his chest.
But you're slowly moving something in him. And he can't let it happen.
Joel rises and gently touches your shoulder.
“Help me move that cot from the bedroom. You’ll be more comfortable” he says softly, not wanting to interrupt your drifting rest by alarming you.
You follow him down the narrow hallway and into a cold, dark room. He takes one end of the cot and you the other, carrying it back into the living room. Then he fetches the mattress.
“I got some blankets. You got more, right?” he grabs two rolled-up blankets from his bag.
“I’m here with mine. Keep yours, you’ll freeze on that chair otherwise.”
Joel watches you crawl into the cot, curling around yourself under both blankets. After a few minutes, he hears your soft breathing, you’re asleep.
Static crackles from the radio and wakes you in the morning. You turn and see him, collapsed on the sofa, forehead against the radio, thumb gripping the volume as he naps. Rifle resting on his lap. He snores softly, almost hidden.
You notice two blankets draped over you. You sigh and rise quietly. That's why you're sweating then, you think. You move over and cover his back and legs with them. After a couple hours, Joel wakes.
“What’re you doin’?” Joel asks, confused, squinting at the clear morning light as you warm a chickpea can on the stove.
“Warming up food” you mumble, tilting your head, unable to hide the soft rhythm in your voice.
“No. Why the hell didn’t you wake me?” he grumbles, pulling the blankets off and suddenly looking at you. “You wanna get us killed?”
“...They didn’t kill us” you chirp, narrowing your eyes a bit, regretting that response.
“I’m aware. But anything could’ve gone down in a millisecond and you wouldn’t’ve woken me. Got that little survival instinct? Did nobody teach you? How’d you survive before Jackson?” he snaps.
Silence.
“I just wanted you to sleep. You looked worn out.”
Joel breathes heavily. Rubs his hands over his face and shakes his head.
“I don’t need sleep. I need us to stay alive.”
“Sorry” you murmur.
Joel blinks, surprised at your words. “Don’t apologize. Just say you get it.”
“Got it. I’ll wake you next time.” You meet his gaze and sound steady, and he notices. A flicker of fear. It makes his stomach turn water.
Afternoon finds the storm raging still. Door won’t budge, radio’s out again. You’re rationing water and gas like it’s the last on Earth. Joel’s in the spare bedroom where you moved the cot, breaking up old furniture into firewood for the chimney you both sort of cleaned in the living room.
While you’re sniffing through drawers in the cabin, you find an old photo album, pictures of a family. You settle at the desk and flip through, imagining the story behind each.
“When Tommy and I found this spot, there was some guy dead in here—gunshot to the head. Lost everything, gave up,” Joel says from behind your chair. “This shit can drive you nuts.”
He tosses the sticks into the chimney.
“I don’t think it drives you nuts” your eyes stay on the photos: a baby on a woman’s lap, a man smiling wide. “One day you got it all, and then... boom, the universe yanks it away. Not everyone can live with that memory flash in their head. Some follow those eyes anywhere they go.”
He’s quiet. Takes a seat across from you, arms crossed, watching the chimney. Reaches for a sip of whisky from his flask, splashes wood with it, lights the fire, closes the cap from the flask.
“I tried following those eyes,” he whispers. “But I couldn’t. She was fourteen that night… she died in my arms.”
Silence.
No “I’m sorry”, you know he’s sick of hearing it.
“It’s a pain that never quits.” You close the album, set it on the desk. “It’s… cruel, right? Something so familiar just disappears.”
Joel watches you.
“You don’t know where to look. You get mad at everything… The sun, the wind, anything. And then you feel a burst of happiness you think means you’ve accepted it. Then you wake up and remember. They’re gone.” You shrug, and meet him. His eyes hold that same familiar, recognized grief.
“It comes in waves” he says.
“Yeah. Never really goes away.”
Silence.
“Who?” he asks. It is understood.
“A lot of people.”
He gets it, even if it’s vague. Feels resentful for asking. Doesn’t want to show his own bottomed-out softness.
The radio clicks.
“Miller, do you copy?” Amy’s voice crackles.
“Miller here. We’re stuck in the cabin at Cottonwood St., the Golf Club” he replies.
“Copy that. Security station north. Rescue crew’ll be sent first thing tomorrow. Hold tight."
With luck, this’ll be the last night.
As the sun sets, the temperature drops lower than the night before. Both of you sit by the fire, on the cot, warming your hands.
“It’s funny,” you murmur, chin resting on your knees, eyes fixed on the fire “how quick a person can get used to comfort after livin’ so long like this, huh?” You glance over at him. His profile, that hawkish nose, his graying hair, eyes reflecting the flames.
“Never got used to it, to be honest. Feels like if I start takin’ it for granted, it’s all gonna fall to shit” he says low, arms crossed, shoulders hunched.
You look at him for another moment, then turn back to the fire.
“I think I spent so long just runnin’ that the only goal I had was makin’ it here. A safe place. The... sort of silence.” You shrug. “I think if somethin’ happened to me after this, I wouldn’t mind much."
He finally looks at you.
“It’d just mean I got somethin’ good to tell those eyes when I see ’em again” you whisper. When you turn your head again, you see it… a flicker in those tired eyes, the shimmer of tears he won’t let fall.
Joel stands and heads into the other room, the same one you both got the cot from. You don’t hear him for a couple of hours. You stop feeding the fire because the wood’s gone.
You crawl under the blankets, arms wrapped around yourself, backpack tucked under your head like a pillow. After a while, you hear him come back.
“Mind if I lie down? I’m real tired. Don’t think I got it in me tonight,” he says and it doesn’t sound like he’s just talking about sleep. Feels like he’s saying he wants to stop everything. The world. Life.
You nod, lift the blanket, and he climbs in beside you. Face to face. He exhales, the cold seeping into him, his hands clenched tight to his chest.
Your hands reach for his, guide them around your body. He doesn’t pull away. His eyes search yours in the low light, barely lit by the dying embers.
“Could we actually freeze to death in here?” you ask softly, like a secret.
“Probably... if we hadn’t gone through the wood like it was endless.”
You let out a quiet laugh, tucking yourself into the crook of his shoulder. A few minutes pass. Then you feel it, the damp of a tear soaking the neck of your shirt, your skin. Then a quiet sniff. His body trembles. His arms tighten around you. He clings to you. Your hands run over his nape, scratching gently, running your fingers through his hair, holding him close.
In the morning, they finally manage to clear the door. Jesse smiles at Joel once he pushes the door open, shovel in hand. Tommy gives Joel that usual brother-hug, then Jesse walks over to you and kindly takes your backpack.
Outside, two more patrollers are tending to the horse they pulled from the garage.
“Shall we? I’ll take you back. Tommy’s stayin’ with the rest, they gotta deal with the horse and a few other things.” Jesse looks at you as he ties your bag to the saddle. Your eyes drift past his shoulder. Joel, talkin’ to Tommy, arms crossed, face unreadable.
“You alright?” Jesse asks, frowning a little at how far away your gaze has gone. You snap back to him.
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
Jesse climbs on his horse, then reaches out to help you up. Once you’re settled, you glance back as Jesse starts the ride toward Jackson.
And Joel doesn’t look back.
hey! so this was inspired in a tweet i saw a while ago:
it's kind of short and i made it my way. it hurt me a bit to write this, idk why, I'm kind of sensitive today. anyway. I have a smut version in drafts soooo if you'd like me to also post that one, leave a comment!
thanks again for every repost, like and comment. it makes a writer really really happy on this side of the screen.
IDGAF if the women in my fiction are empowering or aspirational, I'm an adult, I don't need role models, I want the women in my fiction to be interesting, and if that involves being pathetic, hypocritical, amoral, or trapped in a delightfully dysfunctional relationship so be it
no offense but I feel like youre writing the same thing constantly always smut and nothing interesting can you write a different more thought provoking story
Sure thing! I wrote this one just for you, bud. I hope that it’s sufficiently thought-provoking and suited to your superior tastes. Remember, I mean no offense at all!
The Stupid Fucking Anon Chronicles
Pairing: Joel Miller x Stupid Fucking Anon
Summary: You decide to be a gigantic asshole.
Warnings: 18+. NO SMUT. SOMETHING INTERESTING! A tale so wildly thought-provoking and erudite that even its most vocal detractors must admit…it’s real different.
You were sick of seeing sex.
All the fanfiction you’d read of late? Perfunctory. Uninspired. Never mind the fact that these stories were being shared with you completely free of charge, at the writers’ own leisure, on a platform that didn’t pay in any way, shape, or form. Did I mention this shit cost $0.00?
Anyway, you’d decided to take it upon yourself that day to be a gigantic fucking asshole to one lowly writer in particular, so you pulled out your laptop and got to work.
Joel strolled into the room, sipping his beer.
“What’cha doin’, sweetheart?” he asked.
He leaned in to greet you with a kiss on the cheek, but you just swatted his touch away, too focused on the task at hand—How to be a Gigantic Fucking Asshole 101.
“Go away. I’m being insufferable online,” you snapped.
“Well, damn,” Joel said, scratching the back of his neck. “That sucks. What’s pissing you off so much, anyway?”
“This writer writes smut. Just…smut! So monotonous.”
“What, you don’t like to see us fuck?” Joel smirked.
“Well, I do, but…” you began to say, only to trail off into a blank, inane stare. You shook your head as if to clear it of the stupidity, but it was a fruitless endeavor. You were dumb as shit. “I just think their writing’s boring! There’s nothing thought-provoking to it! Just sex, sex, sex, sex!”
“Have you ever considered getting a job?” Joel asked.
“No, I enjoy being a spineless sack of shit who airs my grievances through anonymous mediums too much!”
“Oh, that makes sense,” he said. “What else?”
“And…and it’s not fair to me to read boring stuff!”
“Have you tried scrolling past their stories, maybe?”
“No. Again, I’m too fucking stupid to give that one a try. I’d much rather speak my piece to the writers online!”
Joel nodded in understanding. He heaved a sigh.
“Well, in that case…” he started, sitting down to place a hand on your shoulder and give you a firm, fuck-you look. “Maybe you should save the energy it took to type out a message to this writer, take your head out of your ass, and remember that these people owe you nothing. It makes you look like a gigantic fucking asshole when you send messages like these, denigrating the work they’ve decided to share online for free. I can assure you, the sentiment you’ve expressed in these lines will serve only to alienate the person whose writing you’re targeting. It’ll piss them off and discourage them from ever wanting to share a story online again. So before you get to typing out another one of these stupid fucking messages again, ask yourself: Am I being a Gigantic Fucking Asshole?”
seeing straight men be disgusted by booktok smut recommenders has actually radicalized me to the side of booktok smut recommenders. girls your taste may be atrocious but i will never disparage you for exposing mainstream discourse to the concept of soaking through your underwear. spent my whole life listening to men talk about penises it’s about time they get jumpscared by women talking about pussy in crude detail on social media. go forth and goon my warriors
Summary: In an in-between place called his life, Joel Miller is alone. In search of a cure. In need of a miracle. In want of God.
Can I interest you in a cure for loneliness? She'd asked him in a language without words. Taking it is the easy part. Letting her go is impossible.
-OR-
an a/b/o soulmates AU
Rating: Explicit 18+
Content Warnings: No Outbreak AU, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Soulmates AU, Infidelity, Cheating, HEA!!!!!, Mating Bites, Knotting, Heat Sex, Breeding Kink, Group Therapy, Social Experiments, Basically puppy training for unsocialized Alphas, And by God that man will be house trained by the time she’s done with him!, Complicated family dynamics, Discussions of self harm, Depression, Existential Angst, Author returns not with a whimper but with a KNOT, I wrote this in a very unserious state of mind beware
A/N: Gray November, I've been down since July - but we're so back, baby. I’ve missed this so bad. I’ve missed you all, I won’t drone on and on. I hope you enjoy, and please talk to me in the comments. Update me on what I’ve missed, let me know how you’ve been and what’s happening in your life.
A great heartfelt thank you to all of my wonderful friends who so supportively cheered me on while I struggled to write this. Sincerely the best people I know.
Love you all madly.
Word Count: 6.5K
Read on AO3
Part 1;
The old linoleum tiles are the most peculiar shade of puce, and Joel has realized that there is someone sitting at the back of the room who smells… strange.
More brown than purple—an ugly color. There’s something about it that fascinates him.
The woman that is currently speaking tells of her husband; it’s the only tale she has to tell. She’s been doing it for weeks, and they all know it well by now. Older, omega, the woman, and at the latter and less comely stage of life. Most of them here can say the same. They usually give their names, those that get up to share—although it’s never a requirement when you attend, it is highly encouraged—the sharing, he means—but he never pays much mind to them—the names, that is. That’s not what he’s here for after all—to make friends. Although, he does see how that’d be the initial assumption.
Joel Miller is here for something more specific.
Six weeks he’s been showing up to these things now, and he’s yet to take a turn. He tells himself he’s working up to it.
What that specific thing is…he hasn’t quite figured out. He’s listening for it, though, and intently, even if he does skip over the names. It’s the details of what they’re telling that matter to him. The hows and intricate whys of what it is that brought them here today.
Her youth had been spent on a drunk, the woman is saying—her husband—and he’d been cruel to her in those days when there was still currency to spend in the form of her vitality. Joel nods at the puce—yes, he thinks, that’s usually the way of it. But later, there’s more to the story she reminds her audience, he drank himself into a fit, and had never been right since. The cruelty had been taken away from the marriage after that, and she’d been put in charge.
“But I wonder,” she says, “If sometimes I don’t miss it, the way he’d been,” —if the reason she was here now, with all of the rest of them that were just like her in their own unique ways, was that she’d been left lonely after her cruel husband had been exchanged for a sick one.
Joel nods again and wonders what sort of face the woman wears as she confesses but doesn’t bother to check. No matter, he knows they’re the same. If not in designation, then in heart.
It’s easy, that thing, he does it too, to wish for the bad. To want to hold on to it, the thing that hurts. Addictive, even, in some cases. Missing it is easy.
It’s why he’s here.
And it’s what they promise you. In their flyers and pamphlets, when they stand on the corners of streets talking people up wearing that look in their eye and that slouch in their step, when they smell it on you—or in the lack there of—a mate or a purpose.
Welcome to our meeting. We’re here to find the cure for loneliness.
That’s what they promise you when you come here.
It’d been that word: loneliness, actually, that had caught him. L-O-N-E-liness. There was something attractive about it to him. Not a label but a state.
You see, it was like this: Joel had seen a therapist once, several years ago, against his will and at the behest of another, who’d said all the wrong things in all the wrong ways.
“You sound depressed, Joel,” the therapist had told him.
He’d worn horn rimmed glasses and had a shiny bald head he could see the reflection of the overhead lights in. And worse—the non-scent of a beta which told him they’d never understand each other in the ways Joel longed to be understood. He’d—not hated him, necessarily—but felt an immense apathy for the man; more so than the regular apathy he felt for most things in his life.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Very, very sad,” was the official diagnosis.
Joel hadn’t liked the sound of the word. The label. He did not like that a word so succinct could be ascribed to him and all that had happened to him in his life. There was no word for it. It just was.
But there was something different about a state of aloneness, which if attributed to himself, he could accept. He had been left alone, in ways. It was a tangible thing he could look around a room inside of himself and recognize.
They’re meetings, is what this place is—encounter groups this coalition offers where lonely demi humans can come to congregate, discuss their aloneness, what had led them to such a state; their lack of attachments, connections, mates—alpha, omega. Held in the basement of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church on Newbury street, right between his shop and house, although they never talk about religion which he likes because he doesn’t believe in religion.
God is still under review.
He wonders if the Catholics wouldn’t have them.
Sitting forward in his seat, the metal folding chair that always leaves his back aching something fierce, he presses his elbows into his knees to distract with alternative pressure. Focusing on his fingers woven together between his spread legs, he tries to pay attention to the man who’s stood up to speak now. Older than himself, late sixties, no children, no family, no nothin’; he’d run them all off.
But Joel is distracted.
The smell is stronger now. Stranger too. Something full bodied, but metallic like rust, astringent bleach, built in a way that forces saliva to pool heavy between his suddenly aching gums. A mask that sits atop something of a much different chemical architecture—that’s the strange part.
Or—no. The back of his neck itches, and Joel lifts a palm to cup his nape, quell the sting, feel the tender mark. No. The strange part is not the illusion of the smell. What it is, actually, is that he’s fairly certain what he’s smelling is someone else's blockers. Something which he’s positive he’s never consciously noticed on another person in the thirty plus years since he’d presented as an alpha.
He has, suddenly, the quite intense urge to peek over his shoulder, certain that he’ll be caught smelling things he has no business smelling. That there will be someone just there, breathing down the nape of his neck with accusation on their tongue—boo!
Silly. But he’d known today would not be a good day.
It’d started off wrong. The milk had gone sour overnight, the check engine light had come on in his truck, all his socks were suddenly mismatched with not a single pair to be found, and his usual route to work had been waylaid by some freak accident. A tree split in half, one side into a house, the other into the road. Not a sign of lightning in the sky all night long.
Perhaps he might be compelled to believe in God after all.
Joel does not like it when things are out of order or out of the ordinary. His life was organized in a way that never caused him strife or excess. And it was not that he was stuck in his ways, only that he enjoyed his routine and disliked when things were not as they should be. And this—whatever it is he’s smelling, whoever—is not as it should be.
The older gentleman, an Alpha too, is still speaking. He had a daughter, has, who no longer speaks to him. Won’t even take his money. He’d had a long career in government that’d filled him with greed and paranoia and a radical view of life that refused to align with the way young people saw the world now. Perhaps he’d tried to change at certain times, but he was old and set in his ways. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to change as badly as he should have when he still had the chance to. Happily stuck in the past. His wife had died, and his daughter had gone away from him. Too tired of his mediocrity as a father to give him another chance.
The man sounds like he feels sorry for himself. Like he thinks himself the victim, and this one, Joel does look up at. He looks old and worn down, heavy beer pouch and thinning hair and sagging jowls. A sad and lonely man. Joel wonders if that’s how he looks to the other people in this room, as well.
“No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good.” Joel blinks, looks at him more closely, tries very hard to find similarities between themselves. But no—not quite right, not the thing he’s looking for. Their plight is different. This man is not alone, he’s got his weakness to keep him company.
The one thing Joel had fought like hell to keep out of his repertoire of issues. He’d run from even the possibility of it as soon as she was dead, left Texas straight for the Northeast and from thereafter, everything he’d done, he’d done with a staunchness of character. If at the end of it, that staunchness was made up of apathy or numbness or dissociative fury, well, then at least he wasn’t still that man who’d been too weak to save his daughter.
That counted very much in Joel’s book.
An overabundance of cold numbness, little anger, everything a static haze—an abstinent winter. That was his whole life. But then, look at him now, he was here, wasn’t he? He’d taken that brochure handed to him on that last warm Tuesday weeks ago as he’d headed back to the shop from lunch.
Hello, sir. Could I interest you in a cure for loneliness? The young omega had said.
It’d started like anything—an experiment or a desperate ploy. The monotony had been steady going the past few years, getting older, colder. He’d grown hard and solitary around his wound, loneliness spread like a fungus, and he’d longed for any sort of change.
“A cure…how?” The terrible shrink had come to mind.
“Oh, nothing to fret over.” The young man had a nice smile, Joel remembers. Kind and straight toothed. Honest in the way that a stranger knocking on your door to sell you a Bible seems honest. “We call it an encounter group. People come, share, tell the tales of their designation and their lives. In the end, the result is different for different people. Some move on to a second step if they need more. Others find what they’re looking for just through the connection of sharing. But no matter the result, you’ll see, you’ll be cured. Promise.” He’d winked, smile deepening, giving him an appreciative once over at the end of his spiel. Joel had blinked back, surprised, confused, but curiosity peaked enough he’d obsessed over it for three short days before he’d found himself stepping into the molted incense smell of the belly of a church so dimly lit he was sure not even God peaked in this sad space any longer.
“It’s that easy?” Joel had asked, childlike in his throat-strangled hope.
“That easy.”
It seemed the smile had been honest enough to sell him the Bible.
The scent insists upon itself as the older gentleman finishes up, and Joel’s nose tickles with whatever it is it’s whispering at him. He wants to get up and walk out, run away, but suddenly his gut is tight and hot, and he isn’t sure he can actually stand up without disgracing himself in front of all these people. A wash of agonized heat moves through him, confused at what’s suddenly happening to his body.
“We have a newcomer today sharing for the first time,” Maria, the woman who leads the group, says at the front of the room. “Everyone give her a warm welcome, it’s her first day and already she’s brave enough to jump on up here.”
There’s the shuffling of bodies in their seats, a cleared throat, the man sitting behind Joel breathes so loudly he thinks he’s gotta have some sort of medical condition, the puce turns more hideous by the second, and his own heart is beating so hard in his ears the rush of blood is dizzying. He feels each thump of the thing against his breast bone in some sick imitation of a fist begging to be let out.
The new voice begins as nothing but a murmur.
An introduction—he misses the name. His breathing goes shallow, he’d tip over in his seat if he didn’t have both boots planted firmly against the puce. The voice gains strength and with it, Joel wishes he’d been paying attention from the start. He didn’t get to hear her name.
It’s a girl.
She’d run away from home in the spring of her sixteenth year to join the opera, she tells them. Had come upon the city in roaring spring and thought the rest of her life would be exactly like that, pure novelty in bloom, nothing like what she’d left behind. And was deeply disappointed when the reality was nothing such.
And Joel hears it, that disappointment in her voice at what she’d not been able to find after searching for it so religiously. This is what makes him look up at her. This, unlike all the others, he thinks he can relate to—just by the sound of her voice. The search for a thing lost which can never again be found. The fruitlessness of it all.
At that first vulnerable, terrified glance, she’s already staring at him, eyes catching like hooks.
He blinks once, twice—color—is sure he can hear the movement of his eyelashes passing through the air, the stick of his lids meeting—color—bright. This is it.
That wash of heat turns into a blaze, every single bead of sweat blooming on his brow is a tell evaporating into the ether. This is what he’d sensed from the start of the evening. Maybe even from the moment he’d seen that split maple.
“My mother always said I needed to be stronger, bolder, not so sensitive.” She looks away from him now. “I grew up in an angry house where you had to fight tooth and nail not to be overrun. Because of this, I left it at a very young age, and it was the greatest fight I could muster, abandoning that house of anger. I found myself something to bring me what I thought would be joy, a job and a city, and for a time, it was enough. But starting your lonely life so young…it’s hard.” After a pause of breath, “It’s been hard.”
“And it’s made me never want to have to—exert myself,” she says, searching for the right words, smiling when she finds them, and Joel has the urgency to smile back. “Now, I never want to have to be strong. I never want to have to try. I want to only be the way that I am. If that’s weak or sensitive or whatever it might be at any given moment, I don’t care. I don’t want to have to fight. I never want to be in an angry house again. I want someone who’ll see this in me and understand and never make me work for it, that they would give it to me willingly, easily, without me having to ask. Do you understand?” She looks about the room, and he hopes her eyes will land on him again, and even though they don’t, he feels she’s speaking directly to him. He nods, the hook of her temptation cast beneath his chin. “This is a fantasy. And it makes for a lonely existence. This idea of how I need it to be for it to be right—love.” She looks down at her hands folded atop the podium where they go to stand at the front of the group and share, and he wills her gaze to find him amidst the crowd again. “It’s so difficult. And this might seem very bad to you, weak willed, but it’s not. It’s only very honest. Which can never be a bad way to be.” That’s why she’s here, she tells them.
Finally, she looks back at him, and it’s that loneliness of two people amidst a crowd, facing one another, knowing themselves mirrored against the other and yet still disparate. There’s something indecent about the way she looks at him in front of all these people, the way he, in turn, looks back. A little bit like finding your own face on a stranger's body in a crowded room. Color rises to his face, and she gives him that same elusive smile from before.
He’s the one to look away this time.
As the crowd disperses for coffee and pastries after the last of the speakers, he searches for her. He needs to ask her name, feels as if he’s some blighted creature without it, swears he’ll never forgo attention during a meeting again if he can fish it out of her.
He finds her at the dessert table, Maria at her side and a hand at her shoulder. Something of a thank you is being imparted between the two women. The girl is saying she’s grateful for the welcome, grateful that they’d found each other.
Joel has things to be grateful to Maria for, too. His brother, mainly. It’d been pure chance that Joel had met her here, that she knew Tommy also. She’d met his brother on a summer trek to Wyoming where they’d become friends and had kept in touch afterwards. The woman has a thing about her that ingratiates people by sheer force of will. Perhaps it’s that she’s an alpha, too. Perhaps it’s just the charisma and wide smile. The fact that she has a countenance that takes no shit from anyone, that makes demands of a person whether they’ve got any give or not. But whatever the case, they’d realize their connection through Tommy, and she kept Joel updated on his brother whom he’d not spoken with in many years.
Watching the two women stand together and share that easy thanks that Joel so urgently owes, and yet which he cannot voice, he feels, suddenly, so angry. So awkward. So humiliatingly inexperienced. So unable to grapple with the pain of human contact, the fascination of it, the humiliating necessity.
That decade old anchor weighing him in place and the guilt of even thinking of it as such.
I feel decrepitly alone and odd, he thinks. And how strange, no? He was a normal man. He has a normal job. He lives in a normal house. Unexceptional in every sense. Everything in his life had been ordinary up until that one great tragedy. And then, as if none of the before had ever existed, it was as if everything afterwards was one great landslide of wrongness. The filth of it slinging mud all over his life so that nothing had ever been right after her.
So that now he cannot even approach this girl whose name he needs to know, and Maria, to whom he owes the last surviving connection to his brother.
As Maria turns to go, she gives him an encouraging nod, sending him into an agony of shyness. She’d sensed him hovering.
The girl remains at the dessert table, perusing the pastries. He can see her fingertips dancing over the golden, sugared confections, before she settles on a plain, glazed donut. He watches the bend of her elbow, bringing it to her mouth and thirty seconds later, the empty hand reaching for a napkin. He can’t help the huff of laughter it draws from him.
Watching the unknown creature with her back turned, he peers down the length of himself. Wood stain marred t-shirt, old work jeans and scuffed boots, he’d come straight from the shop. Looking back at her, she seems perfectly packaged and pristine. The two of them, different as chalk and cheese. He tells himself he shouldn’t do it, turn around and go, leave her alone, as he steps up beside her at the table.
Immediately, there’s the heat of her skin, the smell of her shampoo, and he realizes, and it’s silly because it should’ve been obvious from the get go, she’s an omega. The epiphany, not that she is one, but that he’d been too stupid and oblivious to notice, leaves him feeling vulnerable and angry.
Any sort of hello that’d been coming alive on his tongue immediately dies. And he’s about to make a run for it once again when she speaks up from beside him, “Would you like a donut?” Her small fingers are dancing over the pastries, searching once again. “I haven’t had one yet,” she lies, “I can’t decide which looks best.”
The dancing hand pauses over a golden brown puff pastry, seemingly coming to a decision, when she turns to look up at him. The scent of her isn’t just shampoo, not just the blockers he’d shockingly picked up on before, sharp, burning his nose, it’s her skin now, too. The now dry sweat from hustling under her coat to make it to her first meeting on time salted along her limbs. Hot, sweet almonds. The shocking vermillion of the morning’s split maple comes to mind. He can smell her.
“A puff pastry?” She presses, quizzical crook to her brow at his silence and glower. “I think you really need something sweet. It’ll make you feel better.”
He wants to agree, to say he also thinks he needs something sweet. All he can manage is a short grunt because she smells…indescribable. Honeyed musk, something heady, like she herself had just got done baking, straight out of the oven and full of sugar into his waiting mouth.
That earlier anger, it kicks up a notch. Why isn’t he fucking saying anything?
She shrugs, as she lifts the puff pastry to her mouth he finally manages sound.
“You stink.”
He doesn’t know when he became such a liar.
A pause, mouth open, straight, white teeth ready to bite into the fluffy sweet bread. He can see her small, pink tongue, and it makes him go a little woozy.
He might be losing his mind.
She’s got elegant eyebrows that shoot straight up her smooth forehead. The look of her skin is glorious. “Excuse me?”
Now, there seem to be too many words spilling out of his mouth. “You need better meds or somethin’. Need to sort your shit out. Can’t go gallivanting about the world smellin’ like that.” Oh god, shut up.
“Excuse me!” She takes a huge bite of the pastry. “I do not gallivant,” she shoots back, mouth full of sugar and Joel goes hot everywhere. “What is wrong with you?” she demands, the pursing of a prim little mouth as she chews, eyeing him maliciously.
He hasn’t the damndest clue.
She is not wary of him in the slightest, which in turn tells him he needs to be wary of her.
Another large bite, inexplicably she extends her free hand towards him—potentially going into shock and entirely out of his depth when he takes it, the vulnerability of tendon and muscle soft beneath his strength—offering him a firm shake. She gives him her name.
In that moment, she has a look about her that tells him she’ll bite back if he isn’t careful, even if she hurts herself in the process.
And now he knows you.
-
“We might as well acquaint ourselves if you’re going to insult me. Don’t you think?” Peering up at him, he’s tall, well over six feet, and broad shouldered. Older, distinguished, but in a rough way, hewn oak, gray. “Are you typically this rude? Or is this a special occasion?”
Incredibly handsome.
“I’m being serious.”
“I do not stink. No one has ever said that to me, and my blockers are quality. It must be a you problem.” The puff pastry really is very good. And this man really is very handsome. Coming here today was a good idea.
One of the girls from the theater had suggested it, handing you a pamphlet with Looking for the Cure for Loneliness? emblazoned across the top, and even though she’d done it kindly, any other person would’ve taken the implication as an insult. Hey girl! No offense, but we all in the company think you’re super weird and have you heard about this support group for losers? Kind of like Omegas Anonymous!
Those hadn’t been her exact words, and you hadn’t taken offense. After the initial agony of embarrassment, you’d warmed to the idea. You’d heard of groups like these before. Congregations of demi humans where one could come to find community or connection. Be it socializing or support for people struggling with their designations and all that they implied, they served their purpose. And anyways, you weren’t in a position to be nitpicky.
It’s true, you’re alone.
So alone, in fact, that even the people around you could tell. Strangers, coworkers, your roommate and her girlfriend. Like some noxious cloud of loneliness following you around virtue signaling the desperate need for love and companionship and understanding you’re so in need of.
You increasingly saw yourself as a dancer on her toes, trembling delicately all over, vying desperately to survive to the end of the song. A monster with too many heads. A Cerberus of the richest caliber.
Two or three would’ve been acceptable—heads—but you'd long surpassed that and moved on to something unrecognizable and unpleasant. Desperately in need of a solution.
“Maybe you’re the one that stinks. Maybe it’s your upper lip.” And voila, the monster makes her debut.
“My—” The rude alpha, obvious, that one, lets out a choked sound, a deeper wash of color immediately flooding his cheeks. You dip your head sideways, appraising him as you polish off your second pastry. He has pretty bone structure, masculine, and after he’s done choking and spluttering, he can’t help but laugh a little bit. You see it.
Beneath a mouth that looks forbidding, perhaps even a little cruel, you can sense that he is not an unkind man.
Yet you’re not so green that you can’t recognize the gnawing hunger of loneliness in others. There’s always a reason people find themselves in places like these. His face, edged with the weariness of age, makes this obvious. He has good reason for subjecting himself to this.
Reaching for the lovely eclair you’d been deciding between earlier, you take a large bite of it. Almond cream and a thick layer of icing on top, humming happily as you chew while he stares at you like the three headed dog.
You hold the dessert out towards him, offering. Palm up, he shakes his head no, slightly disgusted look on his face.
“So. You come here often?”
He blinks. “Really?” Patronizing look on his face now.
“Why not? I am actually interested to know if this is worth my time.”
He rolls his eyes. Oh, he’s fun. “Yes, I come here often. Every Friday, for the past two months just about.”
“And you like it?”
“Is this the sort of place one likes?”
“Oh, come on. You never know what you might find.” He watches your mouth as you finish the eclair, swallowing hard. “Anyways, I think the world is kind of over out there. Don’t you? Might as well make the best of it in here.”
Thumb pressed against the edge of the table, he looks down, suddenly awash with shyness once again. A shy alpha, who’d of thought.
“What did you used to do?” He asks, motioning at the crowded room full of chatting alphas and omegas. You wonder how many of them will go home together for a fuck after this.
“When?” You ask, sure he means in lieu of this group, if you’d ever had another form of demi human community.
“Before this.”
“Before this? Nothing.” Smiling at him, certain he isn’t picking up on your teasing.
“Nothing?”
“Nope. I’ve always been here.”
“But— Don’t you…I thought...” He’s cute, shaking his head like you’re just too confusing to sustain. “You sing, right?” He pivots.
“Sing? Me? Whatever made you think such a thing?” The sly look on your face goes completely over his head and slides to the rest of the sweets. If he wasn’t watching, you’d have another.
“You said. You said you’re in the opera,” he gruffs back, looking visibly aggravated now.
Such fun.
“I’m a supernumerary,” you concede as you turn, making your way to an old relic of a pew along the far wall, tragically abandoning the desserts.
He follows as you go, sitting a respectful distance beside you.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“We’re the actors that fill the stage at the opera.”
“No singing?”
You shake your head, flirting with him. “I’m a wench, I’m a courtesan,” You bat your lashes, fingertips pressed coquettishly beneath your chin, “Part of a harem. I’m every woman you’ve never known. It depends on the opera.”
“I’ve never heard of that before.”
“I started as a stagehand when I first got to Boston. Worked my way up.”
“How’s it work? Lines or somethin’?”
“No lines. No anything. I’m a background actor—an extra, basically. If anything, I’m given some simple choreography direction, laugh, sigh, show fear, horror, shock. Whatever. I’m playing pretend without actually having to do anything.”
“No working for it.”
Your smile melts to blandness. So he’d been listening, then.
“Did you want to sing?”
“No. I wanted to be a supernumerary.”
“Strange. I’ve never heard of that,” he repeats.
“You did say, yes.” Now, the smile turns auspicious. Everyone’s here for something. “What do you do?” Perhaps this is it for him.
You eye the rest of the congregation, at the far exit, there’s a large alpha helping an omega into his coat.
“Got a shop, furniture, woodworking and such.”
“You make things?” He nods. “Ah, a man of creation.”
Sitting back to take him in, he’s got the beginning insinuations of silver speckling the dark hair at his temples, a well groomed beard, and large, intimidating hands.
His small huff of laughter is bashful, tinged with something disappointed. “No, nothin’ that grand.” And he’s got an accent heavy at the ends of his words, not Bostonian. Southern.
“But you know, I wanted to say…”
“Yes?” You press when he loses his courage, leaning towards him, inhaling deeply.
“Well, that I know what you meant earlier. Sometimes I can be the angry house.”
You blink once. Sit back. “I see.”
“It’s hard work. I have to try every day at it.”
Hard work being the house, or not? Two opposite sides of the same coin.
“How do you stop yourself?” You cast a line, fishing for his character.
“Don’t know. Keep myself cold, I think.”
“That’s no way to be.”
“No. It’s not.” He sounds amused. You want to bite him.
Everyone’s here for a reason.
“Ah, well. Perhaps that’s what’s brought you here then,” you say, twisting the toe of your sneaker against a scuff on the old hardwood, leaning forward on your palms wrapped around the edge of the pew.
“Maybe,” he says, but a sort of pained, exasperated sound follows it. Your hung head turns to peer at the handsome face, and he’s already looking at you.
There’s something animal afoot. Perhaps in terms of designation, sure, of course, like the rest of the alphas and omegas here. Your designations weigh heavily in the air. But also intrinsic to your two personalities. You feel you know him. That the two of you might have the same sorts of problems, desires. And as you stare at him, you think you may be equally measuring each other’s character, finding that similarity in one another.
His eyes move quickly between yours, over your face, and you can tell that prolonged eye contact isn’t his norm.
He has the most surprising set of bright hazel eyes like river stones.
Suddenly, you feel desperate to pull out a flicker of sexuality in the man, hear it in his voice. Sure, that with him, the experience would be entirely different, exhilarating. Perhaps a challenge. He seems to be more quiet and more patient than any other man you’d ever come across, but also more stern—taking in that soft mouth held so firmly. Far more remote too, by the far away look in his gaze. You want to see how he could be moved and what the sight of it would look like.
“Maybe not,” he finally continues. “I’m looking for something, I think.”
“Something like what?”
“Someone like me.”
“An alpha?”
“No,” he looks away, cringing. The word out loud seems a shock to him. “Did you listen to the woman at the start—missing the bad thing? I struggle…with that. Holding on, not letting go even when I know I should.”
You’re at an age now which sometimes makes it hard to realize or accept that what you’re living is your life. That it’s been time to grow up. That you have to remember to move forward when it’s your turn in line.
Which is to say, that you understand him—the difficulties of knowing when to hold on and when to give up.
“Sometimes you hurt yourself because you don’t have anything else to do. Sometimes, because the alternative is much worse.”
“Holding on ‘cause there’s nothing else to do?”
“Sure. Or you’re used to it.” You’ll be gentle with him, you decide. He’s in need of gentle handling despite the stern face; not a puzzle so arbitrarily solved. And those eyes are still so bright, he doesn’t seem like he needs any more hardship.
“Don’t know why I’m tellin’ you this,” he says, accent heavy.
“Well you did come here for a reason. Didn’t you?” Discreetly, you slide closer to his side, but he doesn’t notice. Apparently lost in the realization that perhaps this was what he’d come here for, to talk to someone, to have someone listen and relate. You’re almost positive he’s never gotten up to share with the group before in all his time coming to the meetings; doesn’t look like the type.
“I came here because I’m going to take better care of myself,” you tell him. “I’m going to try harder.”
“Harder at what?” He blinks as if attempting to come out of a dream.
“Everything. I don’t want to end up like my parents; drunk, angry, alone. I’m scared of it. I’ve avoided at least two of them.”
“I’m afraid of getting older,” the dream moves in his eyes. “That I’ll forget,” he says, but you don’t ask what.
All of a sudden, he seems very real. The swells of grief and loneliness moving through him so similarly, so close to the surface.
Springing up, you turn to face him and he follows to stand too. You can hear the crack of his knees unfolding, and when he lifts his left palm to stifle a gruff cough, the band of gold around his finger is paralyzing.
All of a sudden, he’d seemed like what you’d been looking for here too. There’s laughter coming from the church rafters.
“You’re a widower?” He wants to forget, he’d said he wants to let go.
Hadn’t he?
But instead, “What? No.” You stare pointedly at the ring, and he looks down at it also. “No,” he repeats.
“So’re you looking for a fuck, or what?” You try and hold back the bite it comes with, but you can’t.
“No. No. That’s not what I’m looking for.”
You don’t understand, impaired by your youth, you forget you’d chosen to be gentle with him. “Maybe it’s what you need,” you tell him, turning towards the exit before you can watch him cringe.
He follows at your heels, grabbing his coat from the hook by the doors before he’s stepping out after you into the fall blister. It’s cold and wet and glorious out.
“Don’t you have a coat?” He demands.
“Nope.” You start walking towards Arlington Street and the park.
“Did you walk here? It’s freezing out.”
“I did,” you turn back towards him, still moving, and he starts to follow.
“From where?”
“Downtown.”
“Where?” He scowls at your uncooperation, the married man. Alpha. The truth was that he’d smelt strange to you too. Like no one ever had before. As glorious and shocking as the cold. Like if snow had a scent. Disappointment churns in your gut alongside the excitement at the sight of him stalking after you.
“I don’t think you know it.” Your backward walk is interrupted as a hurrying stranger bumps into you, sending you staggering. Watch it, the Boston snark spits. The alpha turns to scowl, heavy boot forward like he’s half a mind to follow after the person you’ve just inadvertently assaulted.
And it occurs to you, “You didn’t tell me your name.” How silly of you. You’d been so distracted you’d forgotten to ask, and what if you never see him again after this? What if you can’t muster the courage to come back again next week? What if he can’t?
“It’s Joel.”
You think it sounds right.
“I might—know it.” Where you’re headed to. You smile at the dog with a bone. The disappointment pulses. “Is it far?” He presses. You shrug, looking over your shoulder. You’re going to lose yourself in the garden for a few hours, forget about him. “Why don’t you drive?”
“I like to walk,” you tell him, turning back.
He looks at you like he doesn’t like the things you say much less the way you say them much less the way you’re grinning at him. Perhaps he can see the disappointment and is disturbed by the sight of it, but the possibility seems too altruistic.
“You should try it sometime, Joel. You might like it too.”
His huge body seems to be shivering in the cold.
“I think…” The look on his face has turned suspicious now. He takes a step towards you. “You’re very strange. And you’re very young. I don’t think we should be friends.”
Your heart gives a demanding thump. “We’re not going to be friends.” When you’d first spotted him in the crowd, the strangest feeling had come over you. A tug behind your belly button, a scalding heat at the back of your neck, at your wrists. Perhaps it’s merely imagination, the look of disappointment you think you see on his face right before you turn away from him to continue on walking. “And I’m not that young anymore.”
You’d known today was going to be a good day. Extra cinnamon in your latte, a late start to your morning, warm in bed, no rain in the sky despite the cloud cover. And your director, late for rehearsals after some freak accident had befallen the roof of his house.
2087
origamiaround
titsay
tangentwithtanner
dailybridgerton
turnnoffyourmind
andulkaphoto
