@plsilovedilfs - Tumblr Blog

Aug 19, 2025

somewhere I have never traveled

summary: i do not know what it is about you that closes / and opens; only something in me understands / the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses (or: one afternoon on patrol, your friendship with Joel tips into something else) || SMUT MDNI 18+ little angst, little fluff, its got it all, baby! please! read! all! tags! friends to lovers, joel is touch starved, jackson!joel, soft!!!!!!joel, joel is bad at feelings, im so fucking in love w him, anxious!joel, << ive loved discovering this part of him lately, lonely feelings and thoughts, existential thoughts, 1 mention of an age gap, joel feelin guilty whats new, reader feels inept, but reader is capable!, independent!reader, strong!reader, and there was only one bed sleeping bag!, kissing, intimacy, pinv, uhh slightly animalistic moments of smut, praise kink as always cw: animal death (very brief), some dialogue reflective of self destructive tendencies, reader feels very alone || a/n: title is from a poem / yr honor I literally love this man down bad ok? / originally named “joel miller actually likes you” in my docs if that gives you any idea of what this entails wc: 8k

Joel Miller didn’t really do friendship.

And it could’ve been a symptom of twenty years of the world turning neighbor against neighbor or perhaps he’d just always been wired that way. An introvert with a streak of cantankerousness that flared, especially on the wrong day. He knew the folks of Jackson liked him enough to call him over to fix their things, to offer coffee beans or a cold beer or a slice of pie in return for the work he did. He liked doing it. Afterall, he liked being useful. It gave him a quiet satisfaction of knowing he was part of a community, even if he didn’t have what most people would call friends. He was aware that he was no ray of sunshine, and maybe a bit irritable. And when the job was done, people didn’t usually ask him to stick around, but he didn’t mind. He wasn’t sure what he’d have to say, anyway.

But there was one exception.

One person—besides Tommy and Ellie—whose name he didn’t mind hearing when patrol assignments went out. One he didn’t meet with a groan or an eye-roll. The rare soul he could spend a long stretch of miles beside without feeling the itch to fill any silences.

You were different from most of the people that Joel had met in his fifty something years. Independent and tough skinned but kind to the bone. You didn’t talk much, which suited him fine, but when you did, you were… hell, you were funny. You caught his awful dad jokes and lobbed better ones back when the mood allowed. You liked to learn, took pointers without bristling—though you rarely needed them. And when he offered a tip, whether it was coaxing a stubborn fire to life or stripping a rifle, he could tell you appreciated it. You could shoot straight, move quick, scavenge smart. You were steady in a panic and didn’t fold in a fight.

It was strange— enjoying someone’s company the way he did yours. Strange enough that Joel sometimes caught himself wondering if you felt the same.

This summer had been the nastiest so far in Jackson. The heat blazed during the day, pressing against the mountains until the nights split open with storms, leaving behind a heavy, lingering damp that clung to the air in a way the northwest rarely did. It turned the woods thick with biting insects, the trails slow and mud-ridden, and the nights long and restless.

You were moving slower than usual, trailing behind Joel as you rode toward an abandoned lookout the patrol log had marked to make usable again for training new members of the community. Both of you knew it would take the better part of the day, and you’d packed in case it took longer: a sleeping bag rolled tight behind your saddle, extra rations stowed away. The dark clouds that were stacking over the far mountain range promised a storm you didn’t want to be caught in unawares.

He couldn’t say exactly what it was, but something about you felt…off that day. You were quiet, which wasn’t anything new, but the air around you carried a kind of unease he couldn’t place. For one, you hadn’t laughed at his god awful joke twenty minutes ago.

How you like your eggs? ‘Cause it’s hot enough I could damn near fry ‘em on my back right now.

Wasn’t his best work by any means, but he’d only said it to crack a smile on your face, but nothing ever came of it. He was almost certain you hadn’t even heard him, your mind a thousand acres away while your horse kept close behind his.

Joel slowed, reining in his steed until you drew up beside him. Ahead, the field opened into low brush, not tall enough to hide the cabin on its stilts. A weathered A-frame, the kind that had once been rented out for weeks at a time to families looking for mountain air in summer, or skiers in winter. Back when the world still turned like it should.

“What d’you say we run a perimeter check? I’ll take south, you take north. Meet in the middle. Blow the whistle if—”

But you were already nodding, turning your horse to the right and breaking off without a word.

Joel’s eyes stayed on you as you rode away, his stare heavy between your shoulder blades. Something about you was wrong today in a way he couldn’t shrug off. You weren’t just quiet. It was like you were somewhere else entirely, moving like the work in front of you barely registered. Normally, you’d meet his eye before splitting up, maybe toss him some dry comment to show you’d heard him, double check he had ammo in his gun or water in his canteen. Now there was nothing.

He didn’t like not knowing what was going on in your head. Not out here.

Still, he turned his horse toward the south side of the ridge, keeping his rifle close, boots shifting against the stirrups as he started down the slope. The air felt thick enough to press against his skin, and every sound—or lack of one—seemed louder for it. He kept his eyes moving, ears tuned to the treeline. For a while it stayed still and empty, the kind of quiet that made a man think that, just maybe, it’d be an easy sweep. He could picture the rest of the evening like this, eventually getting to the cabin and filling the log book with no sightings to report, working through a few repairs the rest of the day before splitting rations and building a low fire inside with you. It was almost enough to let himself breathe.

But then came the shrill of your whistle.

Cutting through the mountain air, all thoughts of finding you and splitting a strip of jerky over a well-earned cup of coffee went out of his head faster than a landslide. His horse, trained to react, lunged forward, ears pinned, muscles coiled and driving hard toward the sound. Joel leaned into the motion, tightening his grip on the reins as the world narrowed to a tunnel of wind and pounding hooves. His heart climbed high into his throat, his stomach dropping hollow beneath it, and still he forced the air steady through his lungs, urging the animal faster, faster, until the ground blurred beneath them.

North of the cabin now, his eyes raked the tree line, desperate for a glimpse of you. What he found instead made the blood in his veins turn heavy—your horse, crumpled in the grass, flank torn, eyes blank and lifeless, a knot of runners hunched over it, feeding. They didn’t look up, he was no use to them now.

Your scream cracked the air, and Joel yanked the reins hard, swinging the horse toward the sound. You came into view in a break between the trees, boots sliding in the mud, shotgun bucking in your hands as you fired into the group closing in on you. They were too many, shadows spilling from the undergrowth, and still you fought, the wild light of survival blazing in your eyes.

Joel fired his gun into the mass as he closed the distance, each shot punching a hole in the tide until he was on you. His arm shot out, grabbing you at the elbow, yanking you forward in one hard pull that hauled you up and across the saddle behind him.

He heard the breath knock out of you, but you managed to haul yourself up, seated behind him, your arms securely around his waist as the horse tore through the trees. Branches whipped past, the infected howls fading behind you but never enough to ease the knot in his chest. You were pressed tight against him, your breaths ragged and hot in the heavy summer air, and Joel kept his eyes on the path ahead, willing the trail to hold until they had four walls between you and the world.

When he finally made it to the safety of the A-frame, Joel didn’t waste a second. He turned toward the oncoming hoard that followed, yanked the lighter from his pocket, and set the rag of his Molotov ablaze. In one smooth motion, he hurled it at the advancing infected. The bottle burst in a roar of fire, and the snarls and shrieks of the fungal creatures were swallowed by the crackle of burning flesh.

Finally inside, he let you down from his horse in the stale basement garage. The air was full of breath; the horse’s throaty heaves, Joel’s bullish breathing, and your short, panicked lungfuls. Sweat dripped from every pore in the room, dripping to the floor as Joel hefted himself down to the ground, staying by the horse’s saddle for his canteen. He threw it to you, and you caught it, unscrewing the cap and sipping slowly.

Your eyes stayed wide, fixed on nothing, like the last ten minutes were playing over and over in some loop you couldn’t step out of.

“What happened?” he asked finally, voice low, his own breathing still heavy but beginning to steady. He worked at the tack while he waited, pulling the straps loose, setting the weight down in the corner.

“I…” you shook your head, swallowing hard. “I thought it was fine. Jasper was—he knew something was there, and I didn’t listen to him. Oh god, Jasper—”

The words broke apart and you sucked in air too fast, your mouth opening in a soundless, gaping cry before it collapsed into sobs. You folded in on yourself, shoulders drawn up, forehead bent toward your knees.

“Hey, hey,” Joel murmured, stepping closer. “S’alright, you didn’t know. I shouldn’t have let you go alone, I should’ve helped—”

“i don’t need your help, Joel.” The snap in your voice was sudden, sharp, cutting between you like a knife. Your teary face turned up to him, eyes narrowed, cheeks hot and wet with anger.

Joel felt the sting of it in his chest, his head drawing back as if you’d struck him. You’d never spoken to him that way before. Never once had you been cruel to him, not even in jest.

“What the hell’s gotten into you today, girl?” His tone sharpened, though he hated himself for it, the old reflex of defense coming too easy. He could feel his temper straining at the leash, the collar of it cinched tight around his throat. Always there, always needing to be held short. With you, it usually heeled: quiet, watchful, content to sit at his side like a domesticated dog. And maybe your outburst had startled the beast, yanking the chain from his grip before he could close his fist around it.

“You should’ve left me out there, asshole. I had it.”

“S’that why you blew the whistle then?” His voice climbed with the words, “Sure didn’t look like you had it.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered! No one—” Your chest was rising too quick, too shallow, and he knew that sound, that pace, that look. He’d worn it himself, alone in the dark, waking from dreams that clung like a second skin, haunted by the things he could never take back and the ones he knew were still coming, no matter how hard he fought.

“Hey—” He said again, leaning down toward you, hands reaching.

“Don’t!” you cried, jerking back. “Don’t you hear me? It wouldn’t have fucking mattered. No one gives a shit, no one cares. No one even likes me. I have no one, Joel. If I didn’t make it back, no one—n-no—” your words punched into sobs, your fingers pushing into your eyes as if to stop the tears from falling.

The words landed heavy, his jaw tightening against the ache. “That ain’t true, darlin’—”

“You’re the only—” You cut yourself off, as if the words caught on your tongue, your mouth stitched closed for a heartbeat. Your breathing came hard and uneven, tumbling over itself. “You’re my only friend. And you don’t even trust me to handle my own shit. I’m useless. I’m useless.”

“You’re not—” He stopped, his throat locking around the rest. God, he was so bad at this. Watching you split open in front of him was like watching his own reflection splinter, all those same cracks he carried, all the same thoughts he’d fought down for years. This independent, capable, stubborn person—someone who could hold their own in a fight, who people relied on—sitting here convinced she had nothing to offer. It was baffling. And it made sense in a way he hated, because he’d known that angry, digging feeling all the same.

And now here you were, the one person he’d trusted, the only person he had left, looking at yourself the way he’d looked at himself for years. It was breaking his fucking heart.

He wanted to tell you everything he saw in you: your grit, your quickness, the way you made his worst days bearable. But the words wouldn’t come. All he could do was kneel there, feeling as useless as you swore you were, wishing he knew how to make you believe otherwise.

You hid your face in your hands and sobbed harder, the sound tearing through the quiet. Joel only knew one thing for sure, and that was to sit down beside you against the wall and wrap his arms around you. He pulled you in, and you let him—thank God. He wasn’t sure he’d survive another lashing of rejection from you.

Your head found his chest, fingers clutched in his shirt. His hand settled over the crown of your head, stroking gently as you buried your face against him. You were still streaked with blood and mud, but he didn’t give two shits. This, he could offer, and so he gave it.

Eventually, your sobs ebbed to uneven sniffles, to a cough, to steadier breaths. You looked up at him from the concrete floor of the stupid A-frame’s basement, and Joel felt things he’d told himself long ago he’d never feel again.

Because yes, you were his friend, he thought—through and through, the only person he could stand to be around outside of his family, both blood and chosen. But in moments like this, when the fight had gone out of you and you let yourself lean into him, there was something else stirring in him. He found himself looking at you longer than he should, noticing the curve of your cheek where it pressed into him, the way your lashes clung together in damp points. You, the sure-footed girl who maybe wasn’t so sure of her place after all, and yet to him you had never seemed more certain, more unshakable. He felt it like a pull, the quiet realization that somewhere along the way, he’d stopped seeing you as just someone to watch his back. And now he wasn’t sure what to do with that.

He smoothed your tear-stained wet hair back behind your ear, letting you sink deeper against him until your head rested in his lap, your body curled on the floor beside him. He kept his hand moving through your hair, eyes on your face.

“Somethin’ happened before we left, huh?” he asked quietly.

Your lip quivered, and you nodded.

“You wanna talk about it?”

You shook your head quickly, then stopped, rubbing your eyes with a groan. “It’s so… so stupid.”

Joel stayed quiet, still combing his fingers through your hair.

“I was gonna watch a movie last night with Ellie and Dina, and… they never came to get me. This morning I heard them laughing about the actors. I guess they’d watched it together. Didn’t bother to tell me where they were meeting, didn’t check in—nothing. I don’t know if they just didn’t want me there, or if they forgot about me, and…I can’t decide which feels worse.”

Joel couldn’t help it, he chuckled.

“Don’t be an asshole,” you snapped, “Just cause she’s your kid doesn’t mean—”

“No, no, it ain’t that,” he said, a laugh tugging at his voice as you swatted his chest. “They like each other, darlin’. I think it was—”

“Yeah, I like them too. I thought they liked—”

“No, I mean… Baby, they’re datin’. I think it was a date.”

You froze mid-shove. So did he, though not for the same reason. He probably shouldn’t have told you Ellie’s business at all, but he’d wanted that look off your face. The one you’d worn when you thought they’d left you behind. But that thought barely got half formed before the other one shoved it aside—he’d called you baby. It had come too easy, too natural, like it had been waiting there for years, lodged behind his teeth. And now it was hanging in the air between you, and all he could think about was whether you’d noticed, whether you’d say something, whether he wanted you to.

“They… oh,” you breathed, stuffing your fingers in your mouth as you stared up at the ceiling.

Mmhmm Joel hummed, the corner of his mouth twitching.

He let you turn it over for a while, watching as exhaustion softened the sharp edge in your eyes. The glossy look no longer from tears but from your mind going far away again.

Then, quietly, before he could stop himself, he said quieter than anything, “You’re my only friend too, you know that?”

Your gaze found his. He pushed past the instinct to shut up. He had to tell you. Had to.

“Only person I like bein’ around, really,” he admitted.

He watched your eyes search his, catching the way the dark light around you softened their edges and pulled out every shade. The only sound in the room came from the horse in the far corner, shifting its weight and tearing quietly at the weeds sprouting through the cracks in the foundation. Joel’s hand stilled in your hair, his palm resting warm against the back of your head as he watched your reaction.

“You’re the only person I like being around too,” you whispered.

Joel felt something shift in him then, small but deep, like a weight sliding into place where it didn’t belong but somehow fit too well. He didn’t know what to do with this…awareness of you that went beyond the easy camaraderie you’d built, beyond the trust earned on patrols and quiet rides. It wasn’t even sudden or new to him. More like noticing a trail he’d been walking for a while without ever looking down at his feet. He’d told himself you were his friend, his only friend, and that was true. But here you were, looking at him like you meant it when you said you liked being around him, and he felt… seen. In a way he didn’t often let himself be.

It stirred things he wasn’t sure he wanted stirred—things he thought had no place in him anymore. Affection that ran warmer than he knew how to name. A pull toward you that was as much about the way you laughed at his worst jokes as it was about the way you were looking at him now, open and unguarded.

Your hand came up suddenly, fingers brushing through his beard. You shifted, propping yourself on your palm resting on the far side of his thigh as you looked up at him. There was something in your eyes that set his pulse knocking harder against his throat.

Your hand lingered in his beard, thumb brushing slow over his jaw, and Joel fought the old, bone-deep urge to pull away the way he would have with anyone else in the world. That instinct had been carved into him over twenty years. But he wanted to stay still for you, let you explore, let you rediscover him. He was human, after all, though the act of being touched for anything beyond survival felt so foreign it left him almost dizzy, a kind of nausea born from hunger gone on too long. The feeling of someone reaching for him, wanting to map out the planes of him, wanting to know him.

You moved again, only a fraction, leaning in just enough that he felt the change in the air between you. His breath caught, but he didn’t move—afraid to spook whatever moment was blooming here, afraid he’d shatter it by reaching back. You whispered something, your sweet breath feathering over his lips, curling under his nose until he found himself breathing it in, drawing in the warmth you exhaled.

He blinked when you pulled back the smallest inch, realizing you just asked him something. Hm? he murmured, his voice catching on the sound.

“You…only like me…” you tilted your head, tongue dipping out to moisten your bottom lip and oh, you were teasing him— “as your friend?”

His throat worked, and your hand trailed down his jaw, lingering along the scruffy line of it before sliding to the column of his throat. You let your fingers rest on the rise and fall of his adam’s apple, the shift beneath your touch as it moved down in one measured glide.

“What do you think?” he said, voice rough as if he’d been screaming.

Mmm you hummed, eyes downcast, lashes fluttering as they lowered. Your gaze settled on his mouth, fingertip rising again to trace lightly along the curve of his lips, brushing the place where they parted under your touch. His heart was hammering now, wild and unsteady, like he was sixteen again, green and made anew by you.

Then, his mind suddenly made of cotton and clouds, you leaned in and touched your lips to his. The faintest, most careful press, warm and tentative, as though you were asking him a question without words.

His hand lifted of its own accord, settling against the back of your head again, holding you there, keeping you. He kissed you back, just a little deeper, but he let you guide it, his heart pounding so hard he was certain you could feel it where your palm rested on his thigh.

Joel thought he might’ve been going insane. So many big, scary feelings colliding in his head, so many thoughts that made his chest feel tight, that he’d spent decades keeping at arm’s length. What this meant, what you meant, what this would all be. It was terrifying to even look straight at, because if he did, he might see the whole truth laid out and there’d be no taking it back. He’d wanted this, wanted you. Longer than he’d let himself believe. And fuck, he was so scared. Scared of reaching for it. Scared of letting himself want it. Terrified that the wrong move would spook you, the one person he felt really knew him.

Then you moved, crawling into his lap, your knees bracketing his thighs, fingers sliding into his hair as your mouth found his again and all rational thought slipped from him for the moment. This kiss was hotter, more urgent, your tongue gliding against his, and Joel couldn’t hold back the rough, needy sounds that rose from his throat. He ate at your mouth, hungrier than he’d ever been in twenty years, all tongue and teeth and need. Spit slicked your lips, the sweet salt of it clinging to his tongue as your mouths met again and again, each kiss landing with wet, messy sounds that seemed to echo in the quiet room.

He tore back, gasping, eyes locked on your shining, kiss bitten mouth, fighting the near uncontrollable urge to devour you whole. “C’mon,” he rasped, trying to find reason in the fog. “Let’s get settled in, we need to do a sweep and—”

You were already pressing kisses into his beard, catching the corner of his mouth.

“Baby,” he said, voice straining as he tried to keep his head, “we gotta make sure everything’s safe. Then we can have some dinner, make a fire.”

Mmhmm, you agreed, catching his bottom lip between yours, sucking lightly, and it sent heat rushing down his spine. Joel groaned, his hands gripping your hips in the desperation to keep his head on straight.

He gathered you up in his arms and stood, lifting you easily, his knees protesting as he carried you through the dim room beneath the house. The stairs groaned under his boots as he ascended, sunlight spilling above through the cabin’s wide windows as he made his way up into the main area, setting you down on what had once been a kitchen counter. Then he stepped back, pointing a finger at you like you were a wild thing he couldn’t trust to—

—“Stay,” he said.

You crossed your arms, kicking your legs idly.

“I’ll be back,” he warned, turning away. Before he’d made it two steps, he spun back, cupping your face in both hands and kissing you deep, getting one last taste before facing his tasks.

“We’re gonna eat,” he murmured between quick, greedy kisses. “We’re gonna set up for the night,” another kiss, slower this time, “and then we’ll finish this.”

“Promise?” you giggled.

His mouth curved, a low chuckle rumbling in his chest. “I always keep my word.”

“I know,” you said softly, biting your finger as you looked at him.

And that made his heart thump hard enough he swore you could hear it in the space between you.

Eventually, Joel made his way back after sweeping the cabin and checking the exits, finding you in the kitchen, unpacked and bent over a fresh log book. His sleeping bag was already unrolled from the saddle, backpacks open with gear and food laid out in neat piles, a small fire in the old, dusty hearth with a covered pot above the embers. He stepped in behind you, leaning just enough to glance over your shoulder at the page.

Horse lost. Infected in woods around. Cabin swept and safe.

A soft, heavy sigh slipped from his chest before he could stop it. He pressed a kiss into your hair, the scent of smoke and summer still clinging to you. “M’sorry about Jasper.”

You nodded, gripping the pen a little tighter before turning toward him. His hands came up to your arms, thumbs stroking slow, the golden-pink sunset spilling through the windows and painting the room in a warm blush.

“I, uh… got the can of pork beans cooked. Apples aren’t too bruised. Coffee’s on.”

“Music to my ears,” he grumbled, pulling you gently against him. “You okay?”

You nodded again, but still didn’t meet his eyes, and it made his heart constrict. He reached up, fingers curling under your chin, tilting your face until your gaze met his. And God, you were so damn pretty it almost knocked the thoughts from his head—the way your skin still seemed to glow even after the tears, the way your eyes caught the last of the light, bright and alive.

“People do like you,” he murmured. “They like you a lot.”

“People, or just you?” you teased, a faint smile tugging at your lips.

He grinned, “Both.”

You huffed a quiet laugh, sliding your arms up around his neck and curling your fingers into his hair.

“You did a good job today,” he said, his eyes glued to yours so he knew for a fact you heard him. And when you tried to pull your chin away, your eyes moving across the room, he pulled you back. He leaned down and pressed a slow, tender kiss to your lips, breathing you in like he’d been holding it all day. You hummed softly at the feel of him, fingers curling into the hair at his nape and giving the slightest tug. When he drew back, your eyes stayed closed a moment longer, savoring the warmth he left behind.

“I promised we’d eat first,” he murmured.

“Then hurry up and eat, old man,” you teased, the smile in your voice tugging a matching one from him.

For the rest of the meal, he felt your eyes on him. Every bite he took, you watched, your fingertips sometimes drifting along his jaw while he chewed. He watched you back, the familiar lines of you somehow new again—reborn before him. A reflection of himself in so many ways, yet so different. Stronger. Able to keep going, to shoulder what felt impossible, and somehow still meet his gaze with that spark that made him wonder how you carried so much without breaking.

The sun eventually sank behind the ridgeline, leaving the cabin wrapped in shadow. The only glow came from the hearth, the fire low but steady, its light breathing over the walls in slow, uneven pulses. Outside, rain began to fall in a steady curtain, the sound filling the quiet between you. Every so often, lightning split the dark, a stark, silver flash that lit your face for an instant before the thunder rolled in, low and deep enough to stir the floorboards.

At some point, the meal had gone untouched, mugs cooling on the table. Whatever small tasks there had been to keep hands busy were left where they were, and you found yourselves simply… watching each other. The stillness between you felt heavy, charged.

Joel had your hand in his now, his thumb working slow circles into the back of your palm, as if feeling for something beneath the skin, and you let him. You were quiet, steady under his touch, letting him explore the rough ridges of your knuckles, the way they gave way to the delicate skin of your wrist. His fingers moved gently, almost reverently, and the longer he looked the more he realized how little of you he’d really touched before now.

It was odd. Part of him thought, yes, this was it. A natural progression of things between two people who respected each other, who knew each other better than anyone at the bottom of the mountains behind those big fences. Two people who trusted each other, who looked after each other for this long.

And yet, the other part of him recoiled at the thought—who did he think he was, taking advantage of your trust like this? You were younger, thrown with him on a patrol by nothing more than chance long ago. You trusted him, and now he was thinking about how it would taste in his mouth.

It was as if you could hear the clanging of it all in his head—the rusted gears grinding against one another after too many years without oil, a machine long unused and suddenly put to work again.

You took his hand in yours now, bringing it up to your mouth and kissing the pad of his thumb, your eyes steady on his. “What’s goin’ on in that big head, hm?” you asked, the words quiet, almost coaxing, before you pressed another kiss to the tip of his index finger.

He shook his head.

“You trust me?” you asked.

“With my life.”

It was the plain truth, he barely had to think on it.

“Then trust me to know what I want—who I want—regardless of anything trying to tell you otherwise.”

“How did—”

“I know you, Joel Miller,” you said, almost with a sigh. “Sometimes I think I know you better than I know myself.” You kissed his palm, your mouth warm against the worn skin, and traced along the lines carved into him, your lips following the curves as though you were reading him. He wondered, briefly, what you might find there. If the notches in the lines gave away the years he’d spent half alive, hollowed from the inside, wearing the shape of the person he’d long lost hold of. He wondered if you’d notice where the course shifted, where the tide had turned. How much of him had been remade because of you—your steadiness, your light. A friend, a truth teller. Someone who saw him as he was, and somehow, still wanted to look.

“Yeah, I reckon you do,” he said, his voice low, almost hesitant, “I…I feel the same. About you.”

“Then you know I’d never lie to you.”

He nodded, still trying to wrestle the thought down his throat. A long pause rented the room, only the cracks of embers and the rain on the roof filling it.

“Think it’s time for bed, don’t you?” he said at last, his voice a touch rough, like he wasn’t quite sure how to bridge the space between what had just passed and whatever came next.

Your eyes lifted to his, and for a heartbeat he was certain you saw more than he’d ever meant to let slip. More than he’d ever wanted anyone to see—but then again, you were the only person he’d want to see him like that. As he was.

“I think so.” you whispered back.

He moved around slowly, as if cautioned by some nervous creature in his midst, to the open sleeping bag you’d laid out in the hours before. You both seemed to hesitate as he knelt onto the plush padding above the floorboards, the wood creaking in complaint, not unlike his joints. Something about it felt like a threshold—this shared bed, this shared space. It was stepping into the unknown, a closeness neither of you had crossed before.

You followed him, equal in your nervousness but far more graceful, easing yourself down as the firelight painted your face in amber. Joel lowered himself beside you with the stiffness of a man too aware of the nearness, lying there in a strange stillness, eyes to the ceiling. Shadows fluttered in and out across the beams above, stirred by the dance of the fire.

“Joel,” you finally said quietly. The sound of it sent his heart pouncing into his throat.

Mm? He couldn’t form words just yet, your arm much too close to his.

“What do you think happens when we die?”

His head turned toward you sharply, the swish of the sleeping bag loud in his ears as he found your profile, half outlined in pale moonlight and half blazing in the fire.

“Why you askin’ that kinda thing?”

You turned your head to look at him, his mirror, your eyes as curious and forlorn as he felt. Like the dawn after a storm.

“I don’t believe in heaven.” you began, just a whisper, “or hell.”

Your teeth caught your bottom lip, testing the taste of a confession he knew was on the tip of your tongue. Joel wished, more than ever before, that he could read your mind now. That he could slip inside your thoughts, see the landscape of them for himself. To settle them, quiet their worrying.

“But…” You gnawed your lip now, nerves and some quiet ache knitting themselves into your brow, and Joel turned onto his side to face you fully. His hand came up, thumb coaxing your lip free, brushing the line of your chin as though he might smooth the uncertainty from you.

Your fingers came up to his wrist, delicately holding him in place, tying him to you, “But when I’m with you…it’s the closest thing I’ve ever come to believing in something after all of this. A quiet, some sort of… of peace. And sometimes I wonder…” You closed your eyes briefly, gathering yourself, before finding him again with a gaze soft enough to unmake him. “like maybe I died a long time ago, and no one told me. And this is where I was sent. To be beside you.”

Something in his chest pulled so hard he thought it might tear him in two. He didn’t trust his voice to survive the weight of what he wanted to say, so instead of saying anything at all, he crushed your lips to his. You responded with equal fervor, your eyes screwing shut, brows threading, the look he knew he mirrored in his own features.

You opened for him, mouth parting and tongue reaching, and he swallowed the gift of it. His hands framed your face, calloused palms spanning your cheeks as he tipped your chin higher, taking more of you, drawing you deeper into him. He was so hungry—God, he was starved— for this, his gut rolling with the ache of it, all heat and reverence a tsunami in him now. Your soft, breathless sounds filled his ears and lodged somewhere in his chest, determined to pull more from you. He shifted enough to lay over you, and you cradled him between your legs, wrapping around him.

His mouth broke from yours only to map your skin with open, wet kisses at the hinge of your jaw, the warm slope beneath your ear, his tongue tasting the quick thrum of your pulse. You dragged your fingers into his hair, pulling hard enough to make him moan. Yes, yes, mark me. Make me yours.

His hands roamed with greed of something long denied, gripping your ribs and pressing your hips to his, squeezing the flesh that shown from your shirt riding up. He tugged it higher, then stripped it away entirely, throwing it aside before bending to take your breast in his mouth. Lips latched with a hunger that only that wanton creature in him knew—not with anger now, but hunger. He wasn’t sure how much chain to give it, how much slack on the leash. It had been so long, so long since he’d let it feast like this. Years of pacing behind his ribs, gaunt and bone thin from neglect, now fed and watered in the sanctuary of you.

Your gasp sharpened into a moan when he moved across your chest, kissing and biting the soft valley between before taking your other breast, teasing the peaked bud with his teeth. Your fingers curled deeper in his hair, and his eyes, surely black with need, met yours.

“I love you,” you whispered suddenly, your jaw slack, eyes glazed in heat.

He paused, only for a moment, because yes, yes. It was all so clear. That was what it was, what it had always been, seeded quietly between you and now breaking open to bloom.

He kissed up your neck, nibbled your chin, and pressed his lips to yours gently before opening his mouth and letting the whole of him pour out as he said:

“I love you.”

You kissed him harder, the sound of lips and spit and moans filling his ears in ecstacy, your voice breaking between, “Say it again,”

He chuckled, all throaty and broken, hands smoothing down your body to grip the meat of you, pulling into him, “I love you,” he said, “‘Course I do,”

“Again,” you chanted, breath hitching when he grinded his throbbing lap against yours.

“I love you, baby,” he said, teeth and lips moving to your neck again, fumbling with his belt, your pants, his zipper.

Soon, the absence of clothing made everything heightened and so fucking needy. Every place his skin met yours felt electric, like sparks leaping from one body to the other. He was determined to open you, to split you around him, his cock now aching with the mere thought of you, thick and heavy between his thighs as he pulled your legs up the expanse of his body, feet dangling over his shoulders, hugging your knees to his chest while you lay back, breathless and heated.

You breathed in, hiccuping softly, hands traveling up the length of his arms, over the thickness of his fingers where he held you, finally reaching for his face. He leaned in, desperate for the touch, your delicate fingers tracing the slick, sweat damp skin there as if memorizing him in the dark. Every ridge of cheekbone, every rough line carved by years.

“Please,” you whispered.

He nodded, kissing your limbs. His mouth lingered at the side of your knee, lips brushing over the tense muscle before moving higher. Up to your calf, the scrape of his stubble leaving a faint burn in its wake, then to your ankle, his mouth pressed warm against the delicate bone there.

When he reached the instep of your bare foot, he kissed it as though it were as sacred as your mouth, a quiet hum leaving him as he nipped gently. His hands slid down the front of your thighs, pulling you open wider. One stayed on you, hugging the tops of your legs to his body, the other moving to wrap around himself, sliding gently against your glossy folds. You were pooling with want, the shlick of arousal a symphony to his ears with your pleas and mewling below him. He breathed you in, hot and ragged, and throbbed against you, circling the head of his cock on your bundle of nerves before moving lower.

He looked up at you, the sharp gasp he pulled from your lungs was enough to make the beast in him strain harder against the leash.

“Just the tip for now, baby,” he murmured, voice low and coaxing. “Just to get you ready for me.”

You shook your head quickly, words tumbling out in broken breaths. “Wan-want it all.”

“I know you do, sweet girl. Gotta take our time, don’t wanna hurt you.”

You whined and thrashed a bit, needy and pettish, the wriggle of your hips almost enough to undo him then and there.

He tsk’d softly, though the curve of his mouth betrayed him, and he pressed another kiss to the side of your leg before pushing just barely inside. Your hands gripped his forearm where it still clasped your knees to his chest, nails dragging over the coarse hair there. He eased another inch in, pulled back, then rocked forward again—gentle, testing, opening you up. He should have taken more time. Should have eaten you first, worked you open with his fingers until you were ready for him. But the want was too loud now, too deep in his marrow. He was half-man, half that chained beast in his mind, behind his ribs— crazed by your need, by the tight pull of you already wrapping around him.

“Please, Joel… I’m ready,” you whispered, a moan slipping out as his hips rolled once more.

“Yeah?”

“Yes!” you squealed, talons sinking into the meat of his arm.

“Okay, okay,” he conceded.

He wrapped his arms tighter around your legs, locking you in place as his hips surged forward. The stretch tore a strangled sound from both of you, and he swore he could feel the mouth of your womb kiss the tip of his cock. Your walls hugged him, pulling him in deeper as he rested there. He dug his teeth gently into your calf as he watched your face, your features twisted with strain and bliss.

“So fuckin’ pretty, baby,” he rasped, kissing your bitten flesh, unable to stop the words from pouring out of him, his mouth slack and brain gone to the fog of arousal. His syllables slurred past his mouth before he could catch them, “Prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, prettiest fuckin’ pussy too.”

“J-Jooooel,” you mewled, hands scrambling for something to hold. He dropped one of his hands to catch them, threading his fingers through yours and bringing your joined hands to his lips as he leaned forward. He pushed down, bending you in half, knees to chest, kissing your fingers where they held his broad palm between them. He set an easy pace, enough to keep him tethered to reality for a bit longer. A gentle push and pull, your walls hugging him, demanding to keep him in deeper.

“How you feelin’ sweetheart, hm? How’s that feel?”

“So—oh godddd,” you moaned, “so full, Joel,”

“I know, I know… doin’ so good for me. My good girl,” he cooed, watching your brow pinch, your teeth sink into your bottom lip as your eyes threatened to roll back.

“Focus. Right here—eyes on me, baby.”

You forced them open, only for them to widen when he pushed in harder, deeper, a deliberate thrust that made you squeal and clutch at him: one hand still trapped in his grip, the other clawing at his arm, his neck, the rough of his beard.

“Tell me how good of a girl you are," he demanded voice nothing more than a growl, “tell me,”

“I’m…I’m…”

“‘I’m a good girl’,” he practiced, "ain't you, baby? Repeat it.”

“I’m your good girl.”

How could one fucking word completely undo him?

“That’s right, honey. That’s it.” He continued a rhythm that had you keening, your legs tightening around his neck as your voice climbed. Yours, yours, yours, you breathed, eyes rolling, your heat fluttering around him. He pushed in harder, deeper, peppering kisses along your fingers and the round bones of your knuckles, his beard scratching just enough to make you shiver.

“Love you so much, sweet girl,” he murmured into your skin. “Come on, come for me now, be my good girl.”

You shook your head, a whine catching in your throat as your hips rolled to meet his, your fingers tightening in his grip.

“No?” Joel questioned, a breathless laugh pushing out of his lungs.

“Wanna—” you swallowed another moan as he drove into you, still pushing your knees tight against your chest. His mouth hovered so close to yours that he could have stolen the breath straight from you if he leaned in just a little further.

“Wanna come with you,” you mewled, hands slipping from his to tangle in his hair, both of them dragging him down until his mouth hovered over yours. One lean, one slip of his tongue across your lower lip, and he’d have you. But then, your voice was soft, pleading, begging as your lips brushed his, moving around the words: “Let go for me, Joel… give me everything.”

And he knew, knew you saw every part of him, every piece he kept buried— and that you knew him better than anyone had ever known him. A mirror, a reflection. Like staring into still water and not just seeing himself, but the thing that he’d been missing all along. All this time, he thought he was the one with his fist around the chain of the dog that paced in his chest, but it was you. And you were unleashing him now, taking off the prong, the muzzle, setting him free.

He drove into you hard, letting your legs fall to hook around his hips, sinking into the cradle of you. His hands found your head, the back of your skull fitting into the breadth of his palms, it belonged there, and then he took you, giving you everything he had. Skin slapping skin, mouths colliding, teeth catching, breath tangling— he fucked you as your head tipped back, eyes gone white, cresting and crashing and falling apart around him, your voice a raw cry of his name. And he followed, spilling into you with the same sweet abandon you’d pulled from him, every last shred of restraint gone.

The room was steeped in breath and sweat, the air still trembling from the rampage of Joel’s heart against his ribs. Only, this time, the feeling that followed was a quiet, reverent solace, a sort of beauty in its newness. He lifted his head from where it had fallen in the crook of your shoulder, tracing a path of soft, long, wet kisses to your chin, your jaw, the corner of your mouth, the tip of your nose. You hummed, the sound lush and frayed, your voice rasping with the aftermath of his name.

“You are everything,” he whispered, soul bared now, holding the mirror to you. Look, look, see where we are the same.

Your eyes opened, only slivers of color, the light of the moon and dying embers catching in them and returning to him. You kissed him softly, your mouth finding the bristle of his beard, the ridge of his cheek. You drew his head lower, brushing your lips over the delicate flutter of his lashes, the slash across his nose.

“And you…” your voice broke, reformed into something raw, “you’ve always been there, haven't you? Like calls to like.” You searched his face as if the truth might try to hide from you now. But he couldn’t. You saw him now, and there was nothing left for him to hide. And, as if reading his mind, you said:

“We are the same, aren’t we, Joel?”

The rain answered first, slowing against the roof, the roll of thunder climbing further away and over the mountains. Somewhere outside, a branch scraped against the siding in the wind, a faint, rhythmic sound that kept time with the pounding in his chest.

“Yes. Yes, I think so.”

listen idk what happened to me during this I feel like I was in another dimmension with all the shit I was throwing in here. hope you enjoyed :'')

thank you my loves @dixonsdarkelf & @dixons-sunshine for giving this a read before it was anywhere close to ready! love you!!!