𝐒𝐄𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐓𝐒
𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩: the last thing you had expected in your years of peace was to see a ghost from your past; joel miller. a man you had known years ago, who had left you years ago, and one you had tried your hardest to avoid since you ended up in jackson. but none of that mattered now when he shows up on your doorstep with a pale face and a wounded leg.
𝐰𝐜: 2.5k
𝐟𝐭: jackson!joel x ex-gf!reader
𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐬: mdni, one shot, angst, hurt/comfort, tw blood, tw injuries, tw needles, ex established relationship, slight age gap, medic!reader, eventual fluff, mentions of joel being a smuggler, joel is on the verge of tears in this, he’s a lil insecure if you squint.
𝐚/𝐧: this probably isn’t any good but i couldn’t get the idea of it out of my head AAA
“H-hey, uh, can I come in?” Joel half ass chuckles before sucking in a breath from the pain, leaning against your door to support himself.
You quickly glance over the pale man, immediately catching the scarlet staining his pants from what you assume is a pretty deep wound. And in your heart you know you’ll never turn him away but dammit if you don’t consider closing the door, stepping away, and leaving him this time. But you couldn’t. No matter what, he was still Joel, and you couldn’t leave him to die.
“This way. Just try not to get blood…everywhere.” You say with a roll of your eyes before moving to his side, taking up one of his arms and laying it across your shoulder and guiding him into your home. You carry him off towards the bathroom, the cleanest place you can think of, settling him down on the edge of the tub. “Take off your stuff.”
“Not gonna help?” Joel teases but the look you give him shuts him up, for the moment. He begins to strip to the best of his ability while you rummage under the sink for your damn first aid kit. Finding it right about the same time he’s attempting to shed his durable jacket.
You set the first aid kit on the closest ledge to the bathtub before begrudgingly helping Joel out of his clothes. You toss his brown durable jacket onto the floor behind you before your fingers head straight for the buckle on his belt. You twist and turn it, like you’ve done…far too many times, before discarding it along with his coat. Your nimble fingers quickly work on his jeans next; using your own knee for support as you strip him of his stained jeans, finally allowing you a decent look at what he’s gotten himself into.
“Shit…” You swear under your breath, slightly turning his badly wounded leg to the side, just to see how far the knife wound goes.
Joel laughs though, despite the circumstances. “That bad, huh?” He groans at the first press of your fingers, sucking in another sharp painful breath.
You don’t answer him, ignoring him for the moment as you continue to look at the wound. Blood bubbles under your examination and you needed something to stop the bleeding an hour ago. You move back to the bathroom sink, grabbing a towel and drenching it in the warmest water you can manage before moving back to the battered man. You press the soaked towel into his wound as hard as you can, fishing for another towel at your feet and handing it to him. “You know what to do with that.”
Joel takes the towel you offer him, wrapping it around the thicker part of his thigh, right above the wound, and ties it tight around his leg; a late attempt to stop the bleeding while you work your magic. “Damn hunter,” Joel grunts through the pain, tightening the towel with every word. “Didn’t see him. Caught me on my way back to town.”
You weren’t that interested in how he got to this point. Knowing what happened would just make your fingers tremble and your heart hurt. So you try your best not to indulge him. “You’re just getting old.” You mutter back before you press hard into the wound, your other hand rummaging with the lid of the first aid kit beside you. You retrieve a thin needle and the sutures needed for stitching the wound, nodding your head for Joel to replace your hand with his as you attempt to thread the needle as quickly as you can.
Joel starts to chuckle but the pain spreading across his thigh has him trailing off into a groan. Once successfully threading the needle, you return to your work, peeling off your now ruined towel from Joel’s wound.
“You know I was, uh, never…good with words,” Joel frets, picking at something invisible under his nails. Dull and dim from years of working with his hands. “But uh…thank you. For this.”
“Yeah, you made that a little too obvious, Joel.” You hum back, hoping to hurt him as much as his knife wound did, before continuing to work on the task at hand. Your fingers trail along his inner thigh, smoothing over the edge of his wound, sizing it up once more. “Now, no more moving. Or talking.” You add before placing the needle on some clean gauze, reaching for alcohol to sterilize the wound and the needle.
Silence falls between the two of you, allowing you to focus entirely on fixing him up. With a deep breath, you steady your hands before pressing the tip of the needle directly into his skin. You move skillfully, having also done this a time or two, pushing the needle in, stitching it across, threading it back down to tightly seal the wound. You keep your gaze locked on the work you do. Watching every press of the needle and the sutures that follows suit. You may be upset about some other old wounds of your own opening up— but at least Joel wouldn’t die to this one; not this time.
“Just like…old times, huh?” He says through gritted teeth, tossing his head back when you press the needle through his skin.
You exhale an annoyed huff through your nose at his statement. Trying your damned best to quickly do the rest of the stitching needed to keep him from bleeding out everywhere. You didn’t want to linger too long anyway. “Heh, yeah, before you left me in the middle of the night, right?” You say, biting your bottom lip to keep it from wobbling. No, you couldn't break down crying…not right now, not in front of him.
After what feels like maybe forever, with just a few more twists of your needle, you’ve managed to completely sew up his knife wound. Quickly, you knot the edge of the thread as tight as you can, clipping the suture with a pair of metal scissors before tossing the entire kit back into its box. With a slam of the lid, you forcibly close it, turning to put the first aid kit back where it rightfully belongs— for next time. Why you would ever hope there was a next time…you didn’t know. Didn’t really need to get your hopes up.
What you needed was a fucking drink.
“You’re still angry at me.” Joel weakly says, clearing his throat in an attempt to try and not make everything so damn awkward…it obviously wasn’t working.
In that moment, everything comes back to you in a rush. The feelings, the sleepless nights, the tears you shed…everything rushes up like a punch to the gut; knocking the air from your very lungs. “Dammit Joel!” You yell, turning on your heel to stare him down, unable to stop the tears from forming this time. “Of course I’m still angry! I spent months waiting on…fucking anything from you! You left me in a world full of shit!” You choke out, picking up his coat and throwing it at him with as much force as you can manage. It almost pisses you off more that he easily catches it without so much as a flinch. Your next target is the bloodied towel as you pick it up with a tight grip.
And you think the silence that stretches for mere seconds right then and there was going to be the end of it…but your thoughts just keep spilling out.
“You would rather throw your life away than tell me goodbye! You didn’t care if you died tomorrow while I sat waiting, hoping, praying for your god forsaken safe return.” You cry out, pointing an accusing finger his way. “But what hurts the most, damn you, is that I could never stay angry at you! I knew you had your reasons! Knew in my heart I…I would always forgive you!” You finally snap, slamming down the blood soaked rag into your sink. You turn away from him once more, tension lining every inch of the muscles in your shoulders as you grip the edge of your bathroom sink for any semblance of balance. You wished you could keep going, to yell at him some more to make up for all the lost time the two of you had but your words are quickly replaced with broken sobs and hot tears streaming down your face.
The silence, once welcomed, is now suffocating. The only sound echoing inside the room was that of your pathetic sobs. You think for a split second that maybe he’s going to just gather his things and leave you, to flee into the night, never to be seen again…but instead of listening to him run away, you feel a shaky hand press into the small of your back.
Joel stands beside you, hazel gaze full of sadness and worry as he looks down at you. He leans heavily against the vanity, trying his best to keep up off his hurt leg for the moment.
“I’m…an idiot. And sorry.” Joel whispers as he retrieves his hand from your back, moving it to caress the side of your face— and like a fool, you let him. “I can’t apologize enough. I just…dammit, I was scared. I’m not a good man, darlin’. I was a smuggler back then and was…terrified you might end up hurt because of it. I’ve lost too fuckin’ much. I couldn’t…lose you too.” He admits with a weak tone.
If anything, at least you knew he was genuine about the entire thing; you truly had never seen such a vulnerable state out of Joel before. It was evident that the years had changed him; and you.
“So you just left?” You ask with that wobble to your lip, tears still streaming down your face.
Joel frowns, swallowing a lump in his throat, as his thumb moves to brush along the trails of tears left behind on your pretty face. “Yeah, I left. It was wrong. And I’m…a fuckin’ coward for it but I was fallin’ for ya, too hard and too fast and it scared me.”
You want to say something, to stop him from speaking, but all you can manage is a whine followed by a sniffle. With the back of your free hand, you wipe across one of your tear filled eyes, trying to return to your previous cold-like state.
But before you can, Joel with his other hand, catches your own in a firm grasp. His fingers press gently into the cup of your palm, smoothing along your soft skin while butterflies dance in your stomach. He brings the back of your hand up to the curl of his lips, placing a gentle but forgiving kiss against your skin. You watch his eyes fall close for just a split second, as if he’s gathering the strength to continue. “You may never be able to forgive me for that and…and…I’m so sorry.” He mumbles apologetically. He was never able to find the right words so all he could muster was to apologize. And he would, until his very last breath.
Now you really can’t find the words to respond to him. Cotton in your mouth, choking you, keeping you from further speaking your mind.
He takes your silence as an answer though.
He coughs slightly, clearing away the pain that lingers in his own chest. “I’ll leave and this time…uh, I’ll stay gone.” Joel finally says, promising to never return. Didn’t want to hurt you more than he already has.
And yet, he lingers letting go of you. His warm hand catches one more tear from your reddening eyes before he slowly begins to slip his hand from your face. Sculpting you— as if he wanted his hands and his heart to never forget you, if this was to be the last time he ever saw you. So when his hands finally fall away, untangling entirely from you, it feels like the weight of the world slams into your chest. You watch as he stumbles back to the edge of the tub, fishing after his stained jeans.
Time slows as your gaze follows him. You watch him move sluggishly towards his clothes littering your bathroom floor. You imagine him leaving, for good, this time, limping his way back to his little corner of Jackson, leaving you, avoiding you for the rest of your numbered days, never to see each other again…and that thought hurts more than anything.
You were not losing him a second time.
You reach out for him. A firm hand stretches out quickly and you grip around the thick of his bicep; stopping him in his quest for his clothes. Tears spring free once more before you can stop them, and now it’s your turn to caress his confused face. You shake your head and thankfully, without any words, Joel seems to know exactly what you mean. His hand slips over your own, tangling his fingers into yours once more, while his other hand returns to press flush into your back. He moves like a man not wounded as he sweeps you up into him; closer and closer, he needs your body against his far more than he needs anything else. Pain, to be forgotten, as his lips crash into yours. He kisses you, full of longing and passion and need and all sorts of want. As if he had been waiting for ages to get the chance to kiss you once more.
A sob slips from your lips and into his own but you kiss him back nonetheless. He gently squeezes your hand as you reciprocate his yearning, kissing you deeper and you accept it all. Falling into a perfect rhythm, as if you two had never parted in the first place. Twisting and turning, stitched together, made to fit perfectly for each other.
You’d never admit how many nights you had lied awake, hoping for another moment like this with him. Never once had you sought out someone to fill the hole he had left. There was never going to be anyone else— it was always going to be him, and deep down you knew that from the moment you two had met.
You’re the first to break from the kiss. Sucking in a sharp breath, tilting your head down and away from him for the moment. A laugh bubbles in your throat but it never comes out, so Joel oddly laughs for the both of you.
“I don’t deserve this.” He admits, shaking his head in disbelief. As if he truly cannot grasp that whatever this was, that it was happening.
“Maybe so,” You respond, finally clearing your throat of every obstacle from before. “You’ll just have to do a really damn good job of making it up to me.”
“I’d…like that. To make it up to ya.” He echoes your request, brushing his thumb once more across the high of your cheekbone, collecting any tears that he possibly could. His gaze is softer than you had ever seen it before; even when it had just been the two of you, surviving in Boston. Regret, sorrow, and love in those damned hazel eyes of his as he looks so sweetly at you. “I wrote…letters. Tried to, anyway, was just never good at words.” Joel chuckles, restating at how bad he truly was with words…and his feelings. That much was obvious, again.
This time, you finally manage to laugh along with him. “Mhm, tomorrow, I’d really like to read them.”