Could you maybe do something for Joe along the lines of you buy something and him making a comment that hurts your feelings so you return it. And he feels really bad when he realizes you returned it bc of him?
anon i thought about this one for a while and i think it turned into something really special ๐ฅบ๐ผ๏ธ she takes it back. he shows up. that's all i'll say โ it's up now, go read!! ๐
pairings: joe burrow x reader ๐ผ๏ธ
wc: 2.9k
an: an anon sent me this request a while back and i haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. she takes it back. he shows up. that's all i'll say โ i hope it's everything you wanted bb ๐ผ๏ธ๐ฅบ
masterlist here ๐
youโve got a couple hours before heโs home. the house does what it always does when he isnโt in it โ goes quiet in that showroom way. gray light flat off the windows, the long hall running back toward the bedrooms, every surface wiped down by someone who isnโt you. nothing on the walls.
youโve been thinking about the wall at the end of the hall for weeks. the one where the light pools in the afternoon and thereโs nothing there to catch it.
the paintingโs in your tote, still wrapped in the brown paper the woman at the flea market folded around it. an abstract in a chipped gold frame โ big careless slabs of red and rust and hot pink shoved up against each other, not trying to be anything in particular. eleven dollars. youโd stood in front of the booth for a full minute before you understood why you couldnโt put it back down. it was warm. in a house full of right angles and the color of wet concrete, it was just โ warm.
you measure with your eye, then with the level on your phone, then with your eye again. tap the nail in. it goes cleaner than you expect, and when you hang the frame it sits a little crooked, so you nudge the bottom corner with one finger until it doesnโt.
then you back up to the other end of the hall to look.
itโs loud. thatโs the whole thing about it. against all that gray itโs almost rude โ all that red practically buzzing, the gold of the frame catching the window light โ and you stand there in the middle of his hallway with your arms crossed, grinning at it like you got away with something.
you take a picture. thumb hovering over his name. but you donโt send it.
you want to see his face.
โโโ
heโs home a little after six, gym bag over one shoulder. youโre up off the couch before the doorโs all the way shut.
โdonโt take your shoes off yet. i got you a surprise.โ
โyeah?โ he gets one shoe half off, then leaves it. โwhatโd you do.โ but he lets you take his hand, lets you walk him backward down the hall toward it.
he sees it.
youโre watching his face, because thatโs the part youโve waited for all afternoon โ and it does open, it does, just not the way youโd been picturing. he laughs. surprised, easy, the sound he only makes when his guardโs all the way down and somethingโs caught him sideways.
โbaby.โ heโs grinning at it. โthatโs the ugliest thing iโve ever seen.โ
heโs still in it, delighted โ โwhereโd you even find that?โ โ looking from the painting to you and waiting for you to be in on it with him.
โflea market, over on vine.โ you say it too fast. โeleven bucks.โ
and the afternoon just goes out of you. quiet. all at once. you feel the grin you walked in with come off your face before you can keep it there.
he catches it. half a second late, but he catches it โ he watches everything โ and the laugh settles.
โitโs just not my thing,โ he says. gentler now, looking at you instead of the wall. trying to walk it back to somewhere okay. โgood find, though. eleven bucks, you canโt lose.โ
โright?โ you hear yourself say it. โitโs hideous.โ
you reach up and straighten the corner that doesnโt need straightening, and you let him think youโre both laughing at it. itโs the easiest thing in the room to do. he rolls the shoulder the bag strap sat on and tips his head toward the kitchen, says something about what youโre doing for dinner, and goes.
behind him all that red goes on buzzing against all that gray.
โโโ
you leave it up three more days. he doesnโt bring it up again โ but then, to him thereโs nothing to bring up. it was a bit. he walks past it on the way to bed, on the way to the kitchen, the way you walk past a thermostat.
so you take it down.
itโs a tuesday, heโs at the facility, and it comes off the wall easier than it went up. you wrap it back in the brown paper. the nail you leave โ pulling it would mean spackle, and thereโs no point making a project of it. just the bare nail at the end of his hall, where the light still pools and thereโs nothing now to catch it.
it rides in your passenger seat to your place.
your hallwayโs narrow and already crowded โ photos, a mirror you painted, a row of cheap postcards. you find a spot between the window and the closet and tap the nail in yourself, and it goes up against your wall like it was cut for it. here it doesnโt fight anything. it just looks like the rest of you.
you step back and look at it a while.
itโs a good little painting.
โโโ
youโre back at his place that weekend like nothing happened, because nothing did, technically. you made dinner. he did the dishes, sleeves shoved up, while you sat on the counter and told him about your week.
itโs later, when heโs coming back from the bedroom pulling a clean shirt on, that you catch him stop.
just for a second. at the end of the hall.
heโs looking at the bare stretch of it โ the nail still in the wall with nothing on it. you watch it not quite land; he figured the ugly thing had run its course, and a nail with nothing on it doesnโt say anything to him yet. he tugs the shirt down and keeps walking.
you figure thatโs the end of it.
it isnโt. heโs easy through the rest of the night, loose, but when youโre loading up your bag by the door he leans on the edge of the hall and tips his head back toward it.
โhey โ what happened to your painting?โ
โoh โโ you zip the bag and pull the strap up onto your shoulder. โtook it home. it wasnโt really a this-house kind of thing.โ
you say it light. like itโs nothing, because youโve decided itโs nothing.
he doesnโt answer right away.
you look up and heโs standing there with one hand on the edge of the wall, and you watch him run it back. all of it. the way he laughed.ย ugliest thing iโve ever seen. the eleven bucks out of you too fast, your face going before you could stop it, theย hideous, right?ย โ the out you handed him so heโd take it. three days of walking past it like a thermostat. the bare nail. the painting forty minutes across town in a hallway heโs never seen, where youโd decided it should live instead.
he gets to the end. you can tell the second he does.
โโฆoh,โ he says.
his hand comes off the wall. he looks at the empty stretch of it like itโs saying something to him it wasnโt an hour ago.
he doesnโt say anything else. heโs looking at you the way he watches film of a game thatโs already over โ like he can see the whole thing unfolding and thereโs no reaching in to change the play.
โโโ
he shows up thursday. no text, just the knock, and when you open the door heโs already got the look โ the one he gets when heโs decided something on the drive over and is bracing to go through with it.
he doesnโt say hi. he comes in, walks down your narrow hall like heโs been here a hundred times, and stops in front of it, between the window and the closet.
then he lifts it off the nail.
โhey โโ youโre behind him. โwhat are you doing?โ
โtaking it.โ itโs already under his arm, no paper, just the bare frame against his side. โitโs mine.โ
โyou didnโt even like it.โ
he turns around. whatever he usually does in a corner โ the joke, the warm pivot, the easy version of the sentence โ heโs not reaching for it.
โyou put something of yours on my wall,โ he says, โand i laughed at it.โ
his jaw works. he looks at the painting instead of you.
โi gave you my opinion on it. like youโd brought it over for a grade.โ he stops. โyou let me think it was a joke because that was easier than telling me it landed wrong. you handed me the out, and i took it.โ
he drags a hand back through his hair. the frame stays tucked against him the whole time, like setting it down isnโt on the table.
โyouโve been in it the whole time,โ he says. quieter. โyouโre the only thing in that house iโd notice if it was gone.โ
a breath.
โso itโs going back up. tonight.โ
โโโ
you follow him back across town. he doesnโt put the painting in the trunk โ sets it in the back seat, upright, like itโs a person.
at the house he goes straight to the end of the hall. the nailโs still there, right where you left it, nothing hanging off it. he hangs it back up without measuring, without the level on his phone, and of course it sits crooked.
he steps back. looks at it.
reaches out and nudges the bottom corner with one finger until it isnโt.
the same fix you made the first time. he doesnโt know heโs making it.
โbetter,โ he says.
you stand at the far end of the hall, where you stood that first afternoon โ except now heโs next to you, shoulder against yours, the two of you looking at eleven dollars of red and rust and hot pink glowing against all that gray. it still doesnโt match a single thing in the house.
he doesnโt tell you itโll grow on him. he looks at the other walls instead โ the empty ones โ and you can feel him seeing them for the first time.
โbring the rest of your stuff next time,โ he says.
like itโs nothing.
โiโm not moving in with you.โ you say it from where youโre leaning, shoulder still against his. โitโs been five months.โ
โfive good months.โ
โjoe.โ
โyouโre here four nights a week. your shampooโs in my shower, thereโs a drawer.โ he counts it off easy, like heโs had the argument loaded for a while. โyou did one wall better than the decorator i paid for the whole house. thatโs a tryout. you passed.โ
โthatโs a sample size of one wall.โ
โso move in and do the rest of them.โ
you laugh. โweโve known each other five months. people donโt โโ
โpeople do it in less.โ
โpeople who aren't the only one giving something up do it in less.โ
he doesnโt have a fast one for that. tips his head โ fine, that oneโs real, and heโs not going to be the guy who throws money at it to make it not real. but heโs still got the look, the one that decided something on the drive over and hasnโt undecided.
โthe sentiment, i love,โ you say, gentler. โyou want me here. you want the house to have me in it โ i got that the second you hung the ugly thing back up crooked. the u-haul, give me a year.โ
โweโll see.โ heโs not agreeing to the year. thereโs the grin now โ the one you walked in with all those days ago, except itโs his, and aimed at you instead of the wall. โi think i can wear you down before then.โ
โโโ
he's the one looking at you now, not the painting.
you don't decide to do it so much as stop deciding not to โ you turn into him, hand flat on his chest, and he goes still under it. not guarding himself. holding his breath, like moving wrong might end it.
"hey," you say.
he lets the breath go.
you kiss him. and there's none of the ease he does everything else with โ he kisses you back a half-step behind, the smoothness that runs every room he walks into no good to him here โ in his own hallway, the painting glowing red beside you, the one thing in the house with anything to say. just a guy with his hands coming up to your face, catching up.
you kiss him until he stops being behind it. you feel the moment he quits keeping up and lets you have the pace โ his hands going slack on your jaw, then sliding back into your hair to hold on instead of steer.
"come here," you say against his mouth, even though he's already there.
you walk him backward down the hall. the same way you walked him to the painting that first night, except he goes easy now, no surprise to brace for, letting you steer him by the front of his shirt past the bare walls he's going to let you fill. the bedroom's dark. you leave it that way.
you take his shirt off first. he lifts his arms, ducks his head, and then he's just standing there letting you look at him โ and you watch the joke arrive. the easy line, the thing he'd hand anyone else to take the edge off being looked at this long.
he doesn't say it.
"stay here," you tell him.
"i'm here." he means it the way he meant the hard sentence in your hallway. present. no exit cued.
you get the rest of it off between you. you take your time โ no show in it, but no hurry either, because you want to watch what waiting does to him. and something it does. the guy who walked in cocky thirty seconds ago, who saidย i can wear you down, is gone. his hands come up like they want to help and then don't know where they're allowed, and he lets them drop, and he just lets you.
you put a hand flat on his chest and walk him back until his knees hit the bed. he sits. you climb into his lap, and he makes a sound low in his throat when you settle against him, both hands finding your hips like it's the only place they're sure of.
you kiss him slow, and you can feel how hard he's holding still underneath you โ like if he moves he'll stop being able to let you run this. so you run it. you take one of his hands off your hip and put it where you want it, and his breath stutters against your mouth, and he follows you there. he's good with his hands the way he's good at everything โ except there's no plan in it now, just him learning you in real time, reading you off every sound you make.
"there," you tell him, when he gets it right.
"yeah?" low, rough. he does it again, watching your face like the answer lives there.
you don't make him wait long. you lift up, reach between you, take him in your hand โ and he goes still all over, jaw tight, bracing. then you sink down onto him slow, and the sound that comes out of him is nothing like the man who's smooth in every room he walks into. his forehead drops to your shoulder. his hands clamp down and stay.
"god," he breathes into your skin. "okay. okay."
you set the pace. slow at first, rolling down against him, and he lets you have every bit of it โ whatever instinct a man built like him has to take it back, to flip you, to run it, he doesn't use it. he just holds on and feels it and says your name when you grind down, says it again, like it's the only word he trusts himself with.
then you slow. almost to nothing. he makes a sound, hips lifting to chase you, and you put a hand flat on his chest and hold him down.
"say you're sorry."
his eyes come open. "โ what?"
"for my painting." you roll down once, slow, and feel his whole body try to follow it. "you laughed at my painting."
"i'm sorry โ" it comes out fast, on a breath, like he'll say anything to get you moving again.
"mm. too easy." you go still. "sorry for what."
"for laughing."
"at."
his jaw works. you can see him clock that you're going to make him say all of it. "at your painting."
"and?"
"and โ" his hands flex on your hips, and whatever's left of the smooth guy is gone, and he says the real one. "it was the best thing in that house. and i laughed at it."
"better." you give him an inch back โ a slow grind, just enough to pull a groan out of him โ then take it away again.
"now tell me how bad you want me to move in."
"you're killing me."
"how bad." you don't move.
"bad." it breaks out of him. "i want you in it. i want to come home and have it not be empty. move in."
"mmm." you tilt your head like you're thinking it over, rolling down slow while you do, and you watch him try to hold the thought and lose it. "i'll think about it."
"you said โ god โ you said a year."
"i said i'd think about it." you lean down, mouth at his ear. "you wanted to wear me down. so wear me down."
"baby โ" it slips out of him. the same word he laughed the painting off with. nothing easy in it now.
you tip his face up. make him look at you โ and that's his line, the one he'd run a whole room with, except you're saying it and he's the one who does it, eyes coming up to yours, glassy and open and not hiding a thing. he doesn't reach for the joke that would put the wall back between you. there's no wall left to reach for.
"i've got you," you tell him. you, to him. the line he'd usually be the one saying.
something goes out of him at that โ the last of the holding-on. his hands start to shake where they grip you, his breath goes ragged, and you can feel him fighting it, the instinct to hold the line even here, even now.
"let go."
and he does. he comes with your name in his mouth and his face pressed to your throat and both arms locking around you like he's the one who needs holding through it. you don't stop. you take him all the way to the end of it, slow, until he's shaking and spent and still won't let go.
you follow him a breath later โ his hand finding its way between you, clumsy and sure at once, working you until you come apart with your forehead dropped against his.
after, he doesn't let go. keeps you in his lap, both arms around you, his face in your neck, his heart going under your palm.
"a year, huh," he says into your skin. low. half gone.
"a year."
"...we'll see." no argument left in it. his arms don't loosen โ he holds onto you the way he wouldn't put the frame down, like setting you anywhere else isn't on the table โ and you stay where you are, in his lap, in his house, and let him.
taglist โ want to be added? drop a ๐ผ๏ธ in my asks!
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1300 of you. and somehow also 100 one shots?? ๐ฅน
i keep trying to write something normal here and failing so we're just gonna be honest: this little corner of tumblr has become one of my favorite places to exist. genuinely.
for the new loves who wandered in recently โ hi, i'm daisy ๐ค i write joe burrow primarily because apparently this is my life now, but colston loveland also lives in my brain rent free, and aj barner is on my list the second joe gives me five minutes of peace (he won't). mostly reader-insert, second person, a little soft a little feral depending on the day. i've got a few verses living rent free in my head and i talk to you all in my asks more than i talk to people in real life. that's not a joke.
100 one shots. i think about the version of me who posted the first chapter of Hide last may, terrified no one would read it. she'd lose it.
to the family โ the ones who reblog, who send the unhinged asks, who scream in my tags, who've been here since Hide โ i don't have words big enough. you made this what it is. mean it. ๐ค
joe burrow x reader
wc: ~4.8k
a/n: first โ i'm so sorry this took so long. i've gone back to the drawing board with this story more times than i can count, mostly because i really want to get the mental illness and chronic illness on the page honestly: depicted with care, not over-dramatized for the sake of a plot. she deserves that, and so do you. okay. that said โ he shows up with no warning and no plan, which is the most un-joe thing he has ever done, and the weekend that follows might be the best one of his life. i loved writing this one. soft note that we spend most of the chapter inside one of her highs; i wrote it as carefully as i could, and if that's close to home for you, please be gentle with yourself. trust me on the rest. ๐ค also โ i'm tentatively opening my requests back up, so if there's something you've been wanting, my inbox is open. reblogs + comments + tags genuinely keep this fic alive โ come yell at me.
read from the beginning โฆ
warnings: 18+ / mdni, sexual content, depiction of a hypomanic episode (bipolar), discussion of mental illness
Thursday @ 4:47 AM.
Every cabinet in the kitchen is open and most of what was in them is on the floor around you. Youโre sitting in the middle of it with the label maker, because at some point around one you went looking for the good honey and decided the entire system was wrong.
It was wrong. You can see that now. Spices by cuisine instead of alphabetical, which makes no sense the way you actually cook. The glassware moved down to where you reach for it. Two shelves are done and they look so much better that stopping isnโt really on the table.
Weenie watches from the one clear stretch of counter, tail over his feet, unimpressed with the displaced cans.
โItโs an improvement,โ you tell her.
She does not agree.
The sourdough you started is proofing under a towel by the window. The whiteboard across the room is full โ content mapped through July, captions batched, the launch calendar redone into a shape so much cleaner than the old one that you photographed it to send Mica before deciding sheโd like it better at a reasonable hour. Five emails to Harper sit in your drafts, written between two and four, all set to send at nine. You know how a 3 AM email reads.
Somewhere in there youโd also found the poppy post โ hills outside Lancaster gone orange, a ranger account saying the bloom was fading, a week left, maybe less. You saved it. Filed it under soon.
At 6:30 the alarm goes off for the morning you actually planned. You step over the cans to shut it off. Patio, brass tray, candle, citrine. You take your pills from Thursdayโs compartment with a glass of water, same time, no exceptions, the way you have every morning through every kind of weather your head has ever made. Thatโs the part nobody warns you about โ you can do all of it right and the weather still comes.
You open the app while the kettle heats.
Sleep: 4 hrs. Third night.
Mood: elevated.
Energy: 9.
In the notes field you type,ย productive. feels good. watching it.ย And you are watching it. You made that deal with yourself at twenty-two, the one your mother never got to make โ track it, take the pills, tell the truth in the gray box. The box doesnโt ask how the truth feels.
You pull a card with the candle lit. The Wheel of Fortune. Movement, momentum, things turning. You decide to take it as a green light.
The fog is lifting out of the canyon by the time you blow the candle out. Joe will call tonight after the facility โ heโs in the offseason program now, voluntary workouts he treats as mandatory because heโs never once understood the word voluntary. The text you wrote him at 5:15 is still in drafts, set to send at seven, reading like it came from a person who slept.
You stand, knees stiff, and look at the kitchen. Everything out, every counter covered, half a system rebuilt.
Every light in the house is on. You donโt remember turning them all on.
* * *
Friday @ 10 pm
You hear the car before you see it โ tires on the gravel, slow, the careful crunch of someone who doesnโt know the drive well enough to take it fast.
Itโs almost ten. Nobody comes up your drive at almost ten.
You get to the front window in time to watch the headlights swing across the house and cut out. A black SUV you donโt recognize. The driverโs door opens, and a man steps out, and before the porch light even finds his face you know him โ the shape of him, the way he shuts a car door like thereโs no version of the night that requires hurrying.
Joe.
You don't decide to move. Heโs barely cleared the front of the car when you hit him, and he catches you the way he catches everything, like he saw it coming a second before it happened, one arm banding across your back and the other already in your hair.
โHi,โ he says into the side of your head.
โYouโre here.โ You pull back far enough to look at him, both hands on his face like you need to check heโs real. Heโs in a hoodie and a flightโs worth of travel and he looks unreasonably good. โYouโreย here.ย Itโs Friday. You have lifting in the morning, you haveโโ
โI moved some things.โ
โYou donโt move things.โ
โI moved some things.โ Heโs almost smiling. His thumb finds the corner of your mouth.
โWhy? What happened, is everythingโโ
โNothing happened.โ He shrugs, the smallest version of it. โI had a window.โ
You narrow your eyes at him. โThatโs not a reason. People donโt fly across the country because they had a window.โ
โIt was enough of one.โ
And thereโs nothing to say to that, because itโs the most Joe sentence in the world and it cracks something open in your chest, so you kiss him instead, standing in the dark of your own driveway with the car still ticking as it cools, and he makes a low sound against your mouth and pulls you in by the back of the neck.
Itโs Weenie who breaks it up. Sheโs come out the open door and is winding figure-eights around Joeโs ankles with the urgency of a cat who has been personally wronged by the duration of Joeโs absence, and when Joe crouches to her, she climbs straight up into his arms and starts the loud, ridiculous purr she saves for exactly one person on earth.
โHi, buddy.โ Joe stands with him, and Weenie tucks under his chin like heโs done it a hundred times. โShe get bigger?โ
โSheโs emotional. Donโt encourage her.โ
Joe looks at you over the catโs head, and the porch light catches all the lit windows of the house behind you, ten oโclock and every room glowing.
โYouโre up,โ he says. Not a question. Just a thing he noticed.
โIโm up,โ you agree, and take his free hand, and pull him toward the door.
* * *
You donโt make it far inside. The doorโs barely shut before he has you against it, the cat exiled to the floor in loud protest, and whatever you meant to say about the flight, the workout he skipped, the bag still out in the car โ all of it waits.
Itโs past midnight when the house finally goes quiet. Heโs on his back with one arm under you, the other lying heavy across his own chest, and youโre awake โ of course youโre awake โ tracing slow lines on his sternum while his breathing lengthens toward sleep.
โIโm running a little high right now,โ you say, mostly to the ceiling. โI want you to know. Before tomorrow.โ
He turns his head toward you. โHigh.โ
โUp. The good direction.โ You taught him these words on a patio in March; you can hear yourself handing them back. โYou remember. Canโt sleep, too many ideas. This is that. The mild version of that.โ
His hand comes up and finds yours on his chest and holds it there. โHow long.โ
โA few days. I caught it early.โ You want him to have the whole picture, because the whole picture is reassuring. โMeds are on schedule, Iโm logging it every morning, Ruby knows. Iโm not white-knuckling anything. Itโs just a lot of voltage at once, and I didnโt want you to land in the middle of it and wonder what you walked into.โ
Heโs quiet, working it over the way he works everything. Then: โThat why the kitchen?โ
A laugh gets out of you. โThatโs why the kitchen.โ
โThe lights.โ
โThe lights.โ
He nods, slow, filing it where it goes. โWhat do you need from me?โ
And there it is โ the question nobody thought to ask you for the first twenty-six years of your life, the one he asked the night you told him all of it and asks again now like itโs just the thing a person says. You turn it over honestly, because heโd hear a polite answer for what it was.
โNothing,โ you tell him. โThis part feels good. I just want you here for it.โ
You feel the breath go out of him, some watchfulness you hadnโt clocked leaving his shoulders with it. He presses his mouth to the top of your head.
โOkay,โ he says. โThen Iโm here for it.โ
His hand stays over yours. His breathing goes deep and even under your palm, and heโs gone, just like that, a man who can fall asleep anywhere because heโs never once in his life lain awake doing math.
You stay exactly where you are. Wide awake. Lit up to the back teeth and happier than youโve been in longer than youโll admit to the gray box in the morning.
* * *
You wake him at five.
You havenโt slept, but that isnโt why. The light will be right for maybe two hours and then itโs gone, and so are the flowers, and you cannot lie in this bed one more minute knowing what the hills are doing ninety minutes north of here.
โJoe.โ Your hand flat on his chest. โJoe. We have to go.โ
He surfaces slowly, one eye, the side of his face creased from the pillow. โWhat time is it.โ
โTime to go see something.โ
A lesser man would ask where. A more reasonable man would ask why, or roll over, or say itโs five in the morning and mean it as an argument. Joe looks at you for a long moment in the dark, takes in whatever your face is doing, and then he scrubs a hand down his jaw and sits up.
โOkay,โ he says. โCoffee in the car?โ
You could cry. You donโt. You throw him his jeans.
You drive, because you canโt imagine sitting still in the passenger seat with this much current running through you, and he lets you, which is its own kind of thing โ Joe folded into the seat of your car with a travel mug and no idea where heโs going, watching the canyon unspool in the headlights. You put the windows down. You put on the playlist. The dark goes blue and then gray and then the first real color comes up over the ridgeline behind you and lays itself across the road ahead.
And he talks.
This is the thing nobody knows about him, the thing that took you months to earn โ that when Joe is somewhere he feels safe, the careful version of him goes quiet and the other one comes out, the one who reads everything and remembers all of it and will follow a thought to the end just to see where it goes. Heโs been reading about the Voyager probes. The golden record, the one they bolted to the outside, sounds of Earth fired into the dark on the off chance that in forty thousand years somebody finds it and figures out how to listen. He thinks itโs the most insane and hopeful thing humans have ever done. You tell him itโs a love letter with no address. He thinks about that for a mile and says, โYeah. It kind of is,โ and the way he says it does something to you.
You take his tangent and run it somewhere stranger. He follows. You lose an hour and it feels like ten minutes, and somewhere in there you realize youโre both laughing and you couldnโt say at what.
Then you come up over the last rise and he stops mid-sentence.
The hills are on fire. Not red โ orange, a living orange, miles of it, poppies packed so thick the ground looks lit from underneath, rolling out to the edge of everything under a sky going pink at the seams. You pull onto the shoulder and cut the engine and for a second neither of you says anything at all.
Joe gets out. He stands in the open door with the mug forgotten in his hand and just looks, and you watch him do it, this man who has a plan for every hour of his life standing perfectly still in front of something no plan could have produced.
โI canโt believe this just happens,โ he says.
โIt doesnโt.โ You come around the car to stand next to him. โMost years it doesnโt. You need the rain at the exact right time, and the heat after, and even then it might not. Some years the seeds just sit there. Then everything lines up and you get this, and itโs gone in a week.โ
Heโs quiet a while. He reaches out without looking and finds your hand.
โHowโd you even know about this?โ
โRanger account I follow โ theyโve been posting the bloom for two weeks. I kept meaning to drive out and kept not doing it.โ You look out at the orange. โThen you showed up at ten oโclock last night, and it felt like a sign.โ
โA sign.โ Not quite a question.
โDonโt start.โ
โI didnโt say anything.โ But heโs almost smiling, and his thumb moves over your knuckles.
* * *
You get back to the house sun-drunk and road-dusty, the day still loud in both of you, and you barely make it through the door before the laughing turns into something else.
Itโs different tonight and you feel it in your own skin. The other times had their own weather โ the desperate reunion kind, the slow reverent kind after youโd told him something true and terrifying. This is neither. Nothingโs running out, nothingโs being proven. You have too much of everything and you want to spend all of it on him.
You tell him so, mouth at his jaw, hands already dragging his shirt up his back, and he huffs a laugh against your temple and lets you take it off him. Then he stops laughing. He walks you backward through the house, unhurried even now, that patient deliberate attention youโve learned is just how heโs built, his hands skimming up under your shirt like he has all night and intends to use it.
You donโt have all night in you. You haveย now,ย immediate and insistent, and you tell him that too โ pull his mouth down to yours, get your hands at the button of his jeans, sayย I donโt want slow, not tonightย โ and he reads it the way he reads everything about you and gives you what you asked for. Your back hits the bed. He follows you down.
For a long time thereโs nothing but the two of you and the dark and the windows open to the canyon, his weight settling over you, the rough catch of his breath when you arch up into him. He says your name like it costs him something. You take him in and lose the thread of every thought youโve ever had, and when you start to move he matches you, one broad hand spread at the small of your back, holding you to the rhythm you set.
You donโt let it be only once. The current under your skin wonโt let you, and he keeps up far longer than seems fair and then keeps going past that, until youโre both wrung out and laughing again โ the giddy bottomless kind youโve never once had in a bed before him, foreheads dropped together, him braced over you sweat-damp and grinning, sayingย give me a minute,ย and you donโt give him one, and he groans your name and you feel him smile against your collarbone before he gives in and pulls you back under with him.
Itโs very late when he finally goes down for good.
Youโre tucked against his side, his arm heavy across you, his breathing gone slow and deep andย goneย โ the dead sleep of a man who flew across the country, got dragged to a flower field at dawn, and then this. His face is loose with it. Thereโs a sunburn coming up across the bridge of his nose from the fields. You watch him a while in the dark.
You are not tired.
Thatโs what you notice, lying there warm and used and happier than you can remember being โ that your body has done everything itโs supposed to do to be tired and isnโt, that the currentโs still running clean and bright like the day never ended. You could sleep. You should. Heโs right here, solid and warm and yours.
You lie still for a long time, listening to him breathe, and the not-tired hums on.
* * *
The hallway color has bothered you for two years. Youโve known it since the day it dried โ too gray, too cold, wrong for the light that comes down it in the afternoons โ and tonight, lying awake and humming next to a dead-asleep man, the wrongness of it became the only thing in the world you could think about. So now itโs almost two and youโre three feet up a stepladder with a roller and a tray of the warm white you should have used the first time, drop cloth bunched under you, and the first wall already looks so much better that you canโt understand why you waited.
You donโt hear him until heโs in the doorway.
Heโs in boxers and nothing else, hair shoved sideways from the pillow, squinting into the lamplight with one hand braced on the frame. He takes in the ladder, the paint, you, the half-done wall. A lesser-rested man might ask what time it is. He doesnโt.
โThis the color you wanted?โ he says, voice wrecked with sleep.
โItโs so much better, right? Look at it next to the oldโโ you gesture with the roller, flick a line of white onto the drop cloth โโit was practically blue. Who picked blue. I picked blue. Anyway, itโs also going to change how the art reads, which means I have to redo the whole gallery wall, which Iโve been meaning to do since I moved theโโ
He crosses the hall, picks the second roller out of the tray, and starts on the bottom of the wall you canโt reach from the ladder.
You watch him for a second. โYou donโt have to do that.โ
โI know.โ
So you paint. You keep talking because the talking wonโt stop โ the gallery wall, a thing you want to try with the next product launch, a dream you had two nights ago that youโve decided means something โ and he works the low part of the wall in long even passes and lets you go, throwing in a word here and there, mostly just there. The lamp throws both your shadows up the fresh white. Heโs got a streak of paint on his forearm already and doesnโt seem to have noticed.
Youโre mid-sentence about the dream when he says it.
โI love you.โ
You stop. Roller against the wall, paint going nowhere. He hasnโt stopped โ another pass, low and even โ and he says it the way he says the score of a game or what time he needs to leave for the airport, like a thing thatโs just true and that he figured you should have.
He looks over at you then. Paint on his arm, sleep still in his face. โWanted you to know that,โ he says. โSeemed like a good time.โ
You come down off the ladder. You take his face in your hands, paint and all, and you tell him you love him too โ and it comes out fast and total andย unguarded,ย every word of it true, all of it surfacing easy the way everything is surfacing easy tonight.
He kisses you. Soft, unhurried, his thumb at your jaw. Then he picks his roller back up.
โHold the ladder,โ he says. โYouโre going to fall off it telling me about a dream.โ
* * *
Back in bed heโs under again before youโve even pulled the sheet up, one arm finding you out of habit, the paint dried tight on his forearm where neither of you washed it off. You lie on your back and watch the ceiling go from black to the gray-that-isnโt-quite-gray that means four.
He loves you. He said it holding a roller at two in the morning and meant it the way he means everything, and itโs still there now, warm and enormous, no smaller than when he said it.
You should be asleep. You know that the way you know your own name. Three nights now: four hours, then two, then this. You know what your body is supposed to do with a number like that, and you know what usually waits at the far end of a stretch that runs this bright for this long. You know you should be a little afraid of it.
Youโre not. Not tonight.
Thereโs a man asleep beside you with your love in his mouth and paint on his arm, and the canyon will go gold in two hours, and you already know where youโre taking him.
* * *
You have him at the Rose Bowl by seven, which is when the real ones go โ before the sun turns the asphalt to a griddle and the good things walk off in somebody elseโs arms. Joe came along on four hours of sleep and a gas-station coffee and no questions asked, and now heโs trailing you down the first aisle with his hood up and his hands in his pockets, unbothered, anonymous, just a big quiet guy carrying nothing yet.
That last part doesnโt last.
By the third vendor heโs got a brass candlestick in one hand and a folded kilim under his arm, because you found a rug and the rug found you and there was no real discussion about it. Youโre good at this and you know youโre good at this โ you can read a booth in four seconds, clock the one thing worth having, talk a price down while making the seller feel like they won. This morning youโre better than good. Everythingโs bright and obvious and slightly slowed, like the whole field laid itself out for you to skim the best off the top.
You find him at the end of aisle nine. The painting.
Heโs enormous and Victorian and gilt-framed and faintly disapproving, an oil portrait of some bewhiskered stranger nobodyโs loved in a hundred years, and you have to have him. The dealer wants ninety. You donโt even haggle, which youโd notice if you were noticing things, and then the painting is yours and far too big for any sane personโs car.
Joe looks at it. Looks at you. Looks at the stack already in his arms.
โWhatโs his name,โ he says.
โHe doesnโt have one. Heโs a mystery.โ
He studies the painted face a moment, unimpressed. โHe looks like a Gerald.โ
โHeโs not aย Gerald.โ
โHeโs a Gerald.โ Settled, apparently. He shifts the rug higher under his arm and wedges Gerald against his hip. โWhereโs he going?โ
โHallway. Above the new white.โ Which means rethinking the gallery wall again, which youโre already designing as you say it, out loud, fast, while you scan aisle ten for whatโs next.
And Joe โ arms full, a strangerโs portrait on his hip, a man who got out of bed in the dark for this โ watches you go up on your toes to see over a crowd, and says it grinning, easy, no idea what heโs handing you:
โYouโre moving a little fast.โ
You laugh. โKeep up.โ
He does. He always does. You donโt think about it again โ thereโs a booth of apothecary bottles two rows over and youโve already decided you need them โ and the morning rolls on bright and bottomless, Gerald looking out over all of it like heโs seen this before and knows how it ends.
* * *
Gerald goes in the hallway, leaned against the fresh white for now, presiding over the kilim and the brass and the bag of apothecary bottles you havenโt decided about. Joe packs the way he does everything, without fuss โ the same small bag he came with, zipped in two minutes, set by the door.
Then thereโs an hour to kill before he has to leave, and you find that youโve sat down.
You donโt sit down, usually. Not lately. But youโre on the couch with your feet in his lap and the afternoon coming gold through the windows, and the bright obvious edge thatโs run under everything for days has gone a little soft at the borders โ the talking slower in your mouth, the next thing you meant to do not arriving the way the next thing has arrived all weekend. Weenie loafs on his chest. Joe works his thumb into the arch of your foot, and you let your eyes close and donโt narrate anything for whole minutes at a time.
โYouโre quiet,โ he says. Not worried. Just noticing, the way he noticed the lights on Friday.
โTired, maybe.โ It surprises you a little, the wordย tiredย โ a stranger you havenโt seen in days. โDonโt get used to it.โ
He smiles. He doesnโt push.
When itโs time itโs time. He shoulders the bag. Weenie protests from the back of the couch. At the door he turns and takes your face in both hands and kisses you slow, unhurried even with a flight to make, and when he pulls back he keeps his forehead against yours a moment.
โThis was the best weekend of my life,โ he says.
He says it the way he says true things โ plainly, like a fact heโs reporting. No production. He means it down to the floor and you can hear that he means it.
โYeah,โ you say.
And you do mean it too โ it was, for you, some of it. But underneath the warmth a small old thing turns over, the part of you thatโs watched men fall for the lit-up version and go missing when the lights came down. He isnโt them. You know he isnโt. He saw the low day and he stayed. But the open joy on his face right now lands on the old bruise anyway, because the woman he canโt stop smiling about is the one with a clock on her.
You kiss him again so you donโt have to say any of that.
โGo,โ you tell him. โYouโll miss your flight.โ
โIโll call when I land.โ
โI know you will.โ
He goes.
* * *
The taillights swing down the gravel and out, and the canyon swallows the sound of the car, and then itโs just you and the house and Gerald watching from the hall.
You stand at the window a while after heโs gone.
You donโt feel the floor drop. Itโs never the way people picture it โ no cliff, no curtain. Itโs smaller than that. Itโs the talking thatโs gone quiet in your head for the first time in days. Itโs that youโre standing at a window not doing anything, which you have not done since Thursday, and the not-doing feels less like rest than like a tide pulling out from a shore you canโt see yet.
You take out your phone. You open the app.
Sleep: 0.
Mood: high.
Energy: 7.
In the notes field the cursor blinks. Thursday you typedย feels good, watching it.ย You think about Joe somewhere over the desert with the best weekend of his life folded up in his chest, and you think about who he spent it with, and you type the truth, because you always type the truth.
here it comes.
Then you go through the house turning the lights off, one by one, the way you never turned them on โ kitchen, the half-rebuilt hallway, the bedroom last. You leave the hall light burning for Gerald.
Youโll call Ruby in the morning. Youโll tell Joe when thereโs something worth telling. For now you get into a bed that still smells like him, and you lie down in the dark, and you wait to find out which way the wheel came up.
Joe Burrowโฆ a name that would send shivers down your spine, you know the good kind? You see, the man was one of the biggest OF pornstars. He was everything you could ever desire in a man-muscular, standing tall at 6โ4โ, and a dick so big and girthy, it leaves you sore for days. He went by icedveinsafterdark across all platforms. The videos he made werenโt basic porn, it was art and the content was a wide variety of different styles. Sometimes he would be going solo or collaborating with other OF creators, but there was a rare chance that he would make a video with a lucky fan and just so happens, that day would be our main characterโs lucky day.
Alex and her friends Yvonne and Jay were in downtown Cincinnati for brunch when she received the DM from the pornstar on Twitter. They were in mid conversation when her phone went off with a new notification.
โAlex, I thought we agreed to a no phone brunch,โ pointed out Yvonne.
โIโm sorry but look at who just sent me a DM?โ She replied, eyes filled with excitement.
โAlright, show us who and then itโs back to no phones.โ Jay said.
Alex handed her phone to her friends and their eyes went wide.
โI know we said a no phones brunch,โ said Yvonne. โBut bitch you need to answer that DM right fucking now!โ
โYeah,โ Jay agreed. โGirl, you got a pornstar dming you and not just any ordinary pornstar. You got Joe Fucking Burrow.โ
โOh but Iโm a little nervous,โ Alex hesitated. โI mean heโs like the most well known pornstar, especially from Cincinnati.โ
โAlex, Jay and I are in happy relationships. This is the biggest opportunity and besides, he blurs the fans faces out so you donโt have worry about that.โ
โYvonneโs right, this is an opportunity you shouldnโt avoid. Look just DM him after brunch, Iโm sure he had a reason.โ
โOk, Iโll listen to you both and DM him, now can we get back to brunch? My food is getting cold.โ
Her two friends nodded and went back to eating.
-
When Alex arrived home, she immediately opened Twitter and went to her DMs and the first thing that greeted her was Joeโs message.
โWhat a flirt this man is,โ said Alex. She was speechless. A pornstar was in her DM, calling her gorgeous. Her fingers hesitated as she tried to figure out how to respond to the flirty comment Joe made. After much though, she figured out what to say.
Did Alex read that right? Was her favorite pornstar asking her to be in a video with him? She was nervous but then she only lived once right? So she went back to typing.
Alex was available this weekend to make the video. Once she told him, Joe sent her the address of where they were filming and what time they will be doing the video. They were set for Saturday at 8pm where they would film at his condo in Downtown Cincinnati.
-
It was Saturday, and Alex was heading to his place a little early to have time to do any touchups. Joe had asked to wear something that was easily to slip on and off for the video along with clothes to put on after, preferably comfy clothes. Joe had sent an uber to come pick her up so she wouldnโt have to worry about gas at the moment. Not gonna lie, she was nervous about being in this video but she kept calm. Well what do you expect from someone who is about to get the best fuck of their life. The uber shortly arrived at the condo and standing there waiting for her was Joe. He was wearing a loose tshirt with grey sweat pants and Alex was already catching print from a distance. Once the driver made a complete stop, Joe opened the door and helped her out the car.
โGoddamn you even more gorgeous in person,โ he blushed, already feeling himself get hard. โLetโs inside so we can get started.โ They walked into the building and heading up the stairs to his room and the camera was already set up for filming and the NDA on the bed ready to sign.
โYou nervous at all?โ
โA little,โ she said to the pornstar. โI mean I always fantasize about being in a video but now itโs happening.โ
"That's understandable Alex, so before we get started, take a deep breath in and out a couple times to calm your nerves. Just let me know when you're ready."
Listening to Joe, she took a couple of deep breaths in and out while Joe began setting. When she was done, she let Joe know so they began filming. He set up the camera while she signed the NDA. Once every thing was set up, they started to film.
*camera begins recording*
The scenario was simple, Alex was going to pretend to Joe's friend and would help her get over a bad breakup.
"Sorry I had to vent all that shit to you," she said. "He was just a really fucked up guy."
"It's all good," he replied. "I had a few bad exes here and there."
"And what's even worse is that I'm having such a hard time getting over him because of how good he fucked me."
That's when Joe smirked and had an idea for her. "What if I help you get over your ex?"
"And how will you do that?"
"What if I can fuck you better than he ever could?"
"Fuck me better than you could?"
"Yeah, I mean what are friends for after all."
"That doesn't seam like a bad idea." She slowly reached her hand over to his pants and began rubbing his semi hard-on making Joe a little breathy. "I bet your bigger than him too."
"See for yourself." Alex slowly pulled sweatpants down just enough for his cock to spring out and boy was he huge in person.
"You could kill somebody with this thing," she playfully smirked before sliding his cock into her mouth.
"That's it baby," he beathed. "Take me in your mouth nice and slowly." As Alex began sucking Joe's cock, his hand reached over to slowly lifted her dress up and she wasn't wearing anything underneath. He slowly traced his fingers up her thighs until he reached her pussy slightly lubed with slick. "May I have your permission to touch?"
"Mhm," Alex mumbled, mouth full with Joe's cock. With her permission, Joe rubbed his fingers on her clit nice and slow.
"Damn, you're so big," she slightly moaned. "Way bigger than my ex." Alex swirled her tongue around the tip, licking his shaft, making Joe moan.
"Fuck, just like that," He exclaimed. "You suck this cock so good. Fuck I need to taste you."
Alex removed Joe's cock from her mouth and got up from the bed. She slipped out of her sun dress and that laid on her back. Joe followed suit and got his pants all the way off. โSpread your legs for me nice and slowly,โ he demanded.
Doing as she was told, Alex spread her legs nice and slowly and Joe was mesmerized how wet she was. He slowly got in between her legs, kissing her thighs until he reached her pussy. โGotta question for you baby, you a creamer or squirter?โ He asked, his breath bringing shivers throughout her body.
โIโm more of a creamer,โ she smirked. โBut it takes a real man to make me squirt.โ
โI guess we will find out today.โ Joeโs tongue traced the lips of Alexโs pussy, making her shudder from his touch.
โOh baby thatโs nothing,โ he smirked. โLet me show you how a real man does it.โ Alex couldnโt hold her upper body up as Joeโs soft tongue swept circles around her wet cunt.
โOh fuck yes daddy,โ she moaned. โYour tongue feels so good on my pussy.โ
โYou like that?โ He murmured. โIs daddy making your pussy feel good?โ
Alex couldnโt get the words out due to the amount of pleasure Joe was bringing to her pussy, but Joe could tell that she was feeling good. He then brought two of his fingers up to her pussy and slid them in and out curling them, keeping his tongue nipping and kissing at her clit.
โOh fuck,โ she cried out. Her cunt was slowly gripping his fingers as she approached hitting her high. It didnโt take much for her to squirter all over his face. Alexโs body shuddered from the intense pleasure. โI guess you a better man than my ex.โ
โI guess so,โ he smirked. โAnd that was just the beginning. I need you to be face down, ass up for me.โ
Following his order, Alex turned over, arching her back nicely for Joe. The pornstar then switched his camera to a first person view camera before moving further.
โDamn, just look at this ass,โ he growled, giving Alexโs ass a smack. Oh that was gonna leave a handprint. โItโs so phat and juicy, smack, and this pussy, so pretty for me. How dumb was your ex to fumble you.โ
He slowly rubbed the tip of his cock nice and slow before sliding himself inside Alex, making her moan out. โItโs not too big for you, is it?โ
โNo, itโs just about right for, ahhh.โ
Before Alex could get another word out, Joe pistoned his cock in and out of her pussy making her moan into the pillow.
โNah baby,โ he pulled her hair. โLet daddy hear how good he making you feel.โ
โFuck, daddy,โ she cried. โYou fuck this pussy so fucking good.โ Joe watched as his dick stretch her pussy wide because of how big he is.
โFuck I could stay in the pussy forever,โ he rubbed her clit. โLook at you, taking my dick so fucking well for daddy.โ Cum began trickling down Alexโs thighs as Joe fucked her, the camera capturing all her lew expressions, which was going to be blurred out later on for when he posts on Onlyfans. She felt her body tingle once again as she felt the wave of her second orgasm coming.
โOh fuck, daddy, Iโm gonna,โ she moaned.
โShhh, I know baby,โ he replied. โWeโll come together ok?โ
The second wave of her orgasm was much stronger, he slowly came inside her pussy right after. It was a good thing Alex was on birth control. Joe dick slid out making a pop sound as his seed oozed out onto his sheets.
โSo did that help with getting over your ex?โ He deeply laughed.
โYeah it did,โ she replied. โAnd I would love to do it again.โ
-
After finishing filming Joe helped Alex clean up, putting on her spare clothes and letting her relax before sending an uber to pick her back up
โHereโs some water and some snacks to help replenish your energy.โ He said, holding out the stuff for her. โI always like to give people I working with snacks and stuff right after.โ
โThanks Joe,โ she accepted the stuff. โSo when should I expect the video to be out?โ
โIn a few weeks, I have to edit the stuff first before itโs published.โ
โWill my privacy be protected Joe?โ
โ100 percent. Iโll also text you as well when itโs ready.โ
โSounds good Joe, thanks for this opportunity.โ
-
Like promised, the video was posted a few weeks later and boy was it the hottest video Alex ever watched in her life.
Authorโs Note: Apologies for the delay on this fic and many others that were in my draft. A lot has been going on in my life so Iโm glad I was able to get this one out, anyways love yโall ๐๐
moonโs about to go dark. new moon tomorrow. this is genuinely not a starting day. do not start the thing. today is for finishing one (1) loose end and then lying down. you donโt have to bloom. itโs literally the day before. log off.
hii not sure if youโve answered can i ask how sissy got her name? iโm reading it and itโs sooo good im just curious lol
hii bb!! ๐ฅบ first of all thank you for reading, that means everything to me
basically, its just what her family's always called her. she's the baby of the family, and her big sister lauren basically claimed her the second she came home from the hospital. "sissy" stuck before she could even talk and it justโฆ never went anywhere. by the time she's grown it's the only thing anyone who loves her calls her. which is why it means something when joe starts using it ๐
ok and on a real note โ my grandmother's family nickname was sissy and i've always loved it. so it's a little bit of her in there too ๐ค felt right to give it to a character i love this much
