Sweet With You
Pairing: Joanne x Reader
Words: 4.2k
Summary: Behind closed doors, Joanne lets herself be loved.
Warnings: Older Woman/Younger Woman, Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Aging, Mentions of Alcohol, Light Drinking, Discussions of Aging/Insecurity
AO3
AN: sorry for not posting in a while nor consistently, I’ve been swamped with papers and finals recently and I’ve just got a new job.
The apartment always smells faintly like perfume and red wine.
Not fresh perfume, either. Something older. Powdery. Expensive in a way nobody really wears anymore. It clings to the silk scarves draped over lamp shades and the wool coats hanging by the door and the cardigans Joanne leaves folded over the back of the couch like she forgot them there, even though she never really forgets anything.
Tonight the television is on low in the background, some black-and-white movie neither of you are watching. Rain taps softly against the windows. The city glows gold outside.
Joanne is in the kitchen barefoot except for her house slippers, muttering to herself while she digs through the freezer for ice. “Someone,” she says, voice dry, “finished the good olives.” You smile into your book. “You finished the good olives.” She shuts the freezer harder than necessary. “Well. Then someone should’ve stopped me.”
Most people would not recognize her like this. Not the Joanne who sits at dinner parties in sharp black dresses with diamonds at her throat and martinis balanced elegantly between ringed fingers. Not the woman who tears through conversation like she’s trimming dead branches off a tree. Not the Joanne people whisper about afterward—intimidating, glamorous, impossible to hold onto.
They don’t know about this version. The cardigan hanging loose off one shoulder. The reading glasses suspended from their little gold chain while she squints at the liquor cabinet anyway because she refuses to admit her eyesight is getting worse. The silver roots beginning to show through dark dye near her temples because she keeps postponing her salon appointment another week. You know every version.
You hear the ice clink into her glass. Hear her sigh afterward. Tired. “Baby,” she calls a moment later. “Did you move the vermouth or am I becoming senile?”
“In the fridge.”
“Oh, horrifying. Thank you.”
She appears in the doorway holding her drink, cardigan sleeves pushed up messily to her elbows. There’s lipstick still faintly lingering around the edges of her mouth from some charity gala earlier tonight, though most of the rest has worn away. She looks softer without it. Older, too. Beautiful anyway.
Her eyes flick toward you over the rims of her glasses now perched properly on her nose. “You’re staring.”
“You’re cute.” Joanne narrows her eyes immediately. “I am never cute.”
“You’re wearing slippers with little tassels.”
“They’re Ferragamo.”
“That doesn’t help your case.”
A quiet scoff leaves her, but you see it—the tiny fight against a smile. She crosses the room slowly, drink in hand, and lowers herself beside you on the couch with the familiar carefulness she pretends you don’t notice lately. One hand presses briefly to her hip once she settles. You pretend not to notice too. That’s love sometimes. Knowing where dignity matters.
She leans back with a long exhale, warm shoulder nudging yours. The rain keeps falling outside. For a while neither of you says anything. Then, quietly: “You know what happened tonight?”
“Hm?”
“That horrible man Richard what-ever-his-name asked if I was Bobby’s mother.” You burst into laughter before you can stop yourself. Joanne looks deeply offended for all of three seconds before her mouth twitches too. “I could kill him,” she mutters. “You threatened to kill him at least twice already.”
“Yes, but now I mean it sincerely.” You laugh harder, leaning into her shoulder, and Joanne finally lets herself smile fully. Small. Tired. Real. Not the sharp public smile. Not the performance. Just Joanne.
Her hand finds your knee absentmindedly. Warm fingers. Heavy rings. “You know,” she says after a minute, quieter now, gaze somewhere distant toward the rain-lit windows, “everyone thinks they want a woman like me until they actually have one.” You look up from your book, the book you’ve barely read a page in for the last twenty minutes.
The television flickers soft light across her face. You can see the exhaustion there now that nobody else is around to witness it. The age. The humanity of her. You close your book carefully. “I think,” you murmur, reaching over to straighten the crooked glasses chain against her cardigan, “most people never got close enough to know you.”
Something shifts in her expression then. Tiny. Almost invisible. Joanne looks down into her drink for a second before setting it aside altogether. Then she reaches for your hand like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
The movie ends without either of you noticing. The rain slows to a soft hiss against the windows, and the apartment settles into that deep nighttime quiet Joanne claims she hates but secretly clings to. The lamp beside the couch throws everything gold and soft. Her drink sits abandoned on the coffee table now, ice melted down completely.
You’re still tucked against her shoulder when Joanne shifts beside you. Not much at first. Just a small movement. Her hand sliding from your knee to your waist. Then, with a quiet little sigh that sounds older than she ever lets herself sound in public, she sets her glasses carefully on the side table and opens one arm toward you. “Come here,” she murmurs. You go immediately.
Joanne pulls you against her chest with surprising firmness, cardigan soft beneath your cheek. One arm wraps fully around you after that, heavy and protective and possessive in a way that always makes your stomach ache a little. Her hand settles between your shoulder blades and stays there. Like she needs the proof. Like she still can’t quite believe you’re real sometimes.
“There,” she says quietly, almost to herself. You can hear her heartbeat through the layers of wool and silk and skin. Slow. Steady. Joanne sinks deeper into the couch with you folded against her, chin resting lightly against the top of your head now. Her fingers move once along your back. Not even really a stroke. Just touch for the sake of touch. No audience. No sharp little one-liners. No martini-glass shield. No performance. Just a woman holding the person she loves most in the world.
You tilt your face up slightly. “You’re sleepy.”
“I’m old,” she corrects automatically.
“You’re dramatic.”
“I’m dating someone over thirty years younger than me. I’ve earned dramatic.” You laugh softly against her chest, and Joanne’s mouth presses briefly into your hair afterward. Barely there. Tender enough that nobody else would believe it if they saw. But nobody else gets this version of her.
Nobody else sees the way her face softens when she looks at you. The way her hands linger. The way she always reaches for you in unconscious little movements, like her body learned yours months ago and never stopped searching for it afterward.
She holds you tighter suddenly. Not enough to hurt. Just enough that you feel the shift. You glance up again. Joanne’s staring somewhere past the windows now, expression gone quieter around the edges. “What?” you ask softly. Her thumb moves once against your back before she answers. “I wasted a lot of years,” she says. You frown immediately. “Jo—”
“No, I did.” Her voice stays calm. Matter-of-fact. “Terrible husbands. Terrible parties. Terrible people.” A dry little breath leaves her. “All that time thinking love was supposed to feel difficult.” Your chest tightens. Joanne finally looks down at you then. Those eyes. Older now. Tired around the corners. A little glassy from wine and exhaustion and honesty. But warm. Always warm with you.
“And then you came along,” she says quietly. You feel your face heat under her gaze, but Joanne just keeps looking at you like she’s trying to memorize something. “I’ve loved plenty of things in my life,” she murmurs. “Apartments. Jewelry. Money. Attention.” One side of her mouth lifts faintly. “A few dogs.”
You laugh softly. “But you…” Her hand spreads gently over your back. “Sweetheart, I have never loved anything the way I love you.” The room goes still around the words. Joanne isn’t dramatic when she says things like this. That’s what makes it worse. Better. More dangerous.
She says it plainly. Like truth. You stare at her for a second before burying yourself closer against her chest again, and Joanne lets out the quietest sound—almost relief—before wrapping both arms around you fully this time. Protective. Certain. Like she’d hold you there forever if she could.
Her lips brush slowly against your forehead. “My girl,” she murmurs, so soft you almost miss it. Then again, quieter this time: “My sweet girl.”
Joanne keeps holding you long after the apartment goes quiet.
The lamp beside the couch hums softly. Somewhere downstairs, a cab horn echoes briefly through the street before fading again. Her breathing has gone slow and heavy above you now, one hand still spread across your back beneath the thin fabric of your shirt. You’re half draped across her at this point, legs tangled together under the blanket she insisted she “didn’t need” ten minutes earlier.
Her hand rests near your waist. You reach for it absentmindedly at first. Just something to do while you listen to the rain. Joanne’s fingers loosen immediately when yours touch them, familiar with your hands by now. Comfortable. Trusting. You lace your fingers together loosely, rubbing your thumb over the back of her hand while she watches the darkened television screen. And then you feel it.
The slight stiffness in her knuckles. The thinner skin. The faint ache in her joints she complains about only when she’s had enough wine not to stop herself. Even the veins beneath her skin feel more delicate than the rest of her somehow.
Joanne always hides her age beautifully everywhere else. The monthly hair appointments when the silver starts showing too much at the roots. The expensive creams lined up across the bathroom counter. The careful makeup. The posture. The jewelry. The lighting. In public she is immaculate. Sharp black dresses. Perfect lipstick. Glamorous and untouchable and dangerous enough that people stop noticing the number attached to her age altogether.
But her hands tell the truth. You trace gently over one of her rings. Then over the lines across her knuckles. Joanne shifts slightly beside you. “What are you doing?” she asks, voice lower now. Sleepier. “Nothing.”
“Hm.” But she looks down anyway. You feel it the second she realizes what you’re looking at. Her hand tries to pull back automatically. Small. Reflexive. You tighten your fingers around hers before she can. Joanne goes still. “They look old tonight,” she says after a moment, too casual. Your chest aches a little at the tone. You glance up at her. “Jo.”
“I mean, objectively.” Her mouth twists faintly. “My dermatologist says hands are impossible. You can do the face, the neck, all of it, but hands…” She exhales through her nose. “Hands betray you.” You keep tracing your thumb slowly across her skin. “They’re beautiful.” She gives you a look immediately. “Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re still fresh. You still think aging is poetic.” You smile a little. “No. I think your hands are beautiful because they’re yours.” Joanne’s expression flickers. You lift her hand carefully then, turning it slightly beneath the lamp light. Her rings glint gold between your fingers.
“These hands make martinis too strong,” you murmur. “These hands point at people when you’re angry.” Another small stroke across her knuckles. “These hands hold onto me every night like you think I’m going somewhere.” Joanne looks away first. That almost never happens. You keep going softer this time.
“These hands scratch my back when I can’t sleep.” You press a kiss against the center of her palm. “They play with my hair during movies. They fix my necklaces because you hate when the clasp twists around.” A long silence settles after that. Joanne swallows once.
When she finally speaks again, her voice comes out quieter than before. “You make me sound ancient.” You smile against her skin. “You are ancient.”
“Oh, cruel.” But there’s no bite in it. None at all. You settle closer into her side again afterward, still holding her hand between both of yours now. Joanne watches you for another long moment, something unreadable moving behind her eyes.
Then, slowly, she turns her hand over completely and threads her fingers through yours on purpose this time. No hiding. Her thumb strokes once against your wrist. “You really don’t mind?” she asks eventually, so quietly it almost disappears. The question hits harder than it should.
You look up immediately. “Joanne.” She shrugs one shoulder, gaze fixed somewhere ahead again now. “The age difference. All of it.” A pause. “The reality of me.”
The reality of me. Not Joanne the performer. Not Joanne the glittering terrifying woman people whisper about at parties. Just this. A sixty-two-year-old woman in a cardigan and slippers holding the girl she loves on a rainy night.
You move before thinking, climbing higher into her lap until she lets out a startled little sound beneath you. Your hands come up carefully to either side of her face. Reading-glasses marks still faint against her nose. Silver hidden beneath dark dye near her temples. Beautiful. “I love the reality of you,” you whisper.
Joanne stares at you. And for one brief second she looks unbearably vulnerable. Stripped clean of all the sharpness she wears like armor everywhere else. Then she pulls you down against her again quickly. Almost fiercely. Like she can’t stand the feeling of being seen for too long. Her face disappears into your neck. One hand tightens at your waist. “My girl,” she murmurs against your skin, rougher now. “God, you’re my girl.”
At some point Joanne stops talking altogether.
The rain outside fades completely, leaving only the low hum of the city and the occasional rattle of pipes somewhere deep in the building. The lamp beside the couch still burns warm and low, catching on the gold chain of Joanne’s glasses where they sit abandoned on the side table beside her untouched drink.
You’re curled almost fully in her lap now.
One of Joanne’s arms stays wrapped around your waist even in sleepiness, fingers flexing every so often like she’s checking you’re still there. Her cardigan is warm against your cheek. Soft from age and too many washes.
You can feel her drifting. It happens slowly with her. Joanne fights sleep like it’s personally offended her. Even exhausted, she keeps trying to stay awake long enough to say one more thing. “You know,” she murmurs drowsily above your head, “if I die before my cousin gets her money back from that gallery investor, promise me you’ll laugh.” You snort softly. “Go to sleep.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Hm.” A pause. Then, quieter: “You smell nice.” You smile into her shoulder. “That’s your perfume.”
“Well. Excellent taste, then.” Her words start slurring together after that. You feel her chin dip against the top of your head once. Twice. Then silence. Real silence this time. For a few minutes all you hear is her breathing. Deep and slow now, chest rising steadily beneath your cheek while one hand stays heavy against your side.
And then—A snore. You close your eyes immediately. God. Not even delicate, either. Joanne snores like an aging heiress in an old movie. Low at first, then abruptly louder on the exhale, right into your ear. Normally you complain about it relentlessly. Normally Joanne wakes up afterward pretending she “wasn’t asleep” while you laugh so hard you nearly fall off the couch. She threatens separate bedrooms every time.
Tonight you just stay where you are. Another snore vibrates through her chest beneath your cheek. You should move. Your neck hurts a little. One of your legs is falling asleep under the blanket. Joanne’s rings keep pressing against your waist where her hand rests possessively even unconscious.
But then she shifts slightly in her sleep and pulls you closer automatically. A sleepy reflex. Like even unconscious she’s searching for you. Your chest tightens painfully. You tilt your head just enough to look up at her. Joanne asleep is still strange to you sometimes. The sharpness disappears completely. No socialite smile. No cutting remarks. No performance holding her together.
Just a woman in her sixties asleep on the couch in house slippers and a slipping cardigan, hair slightly mussed, mouth parted faintly as she snores into your ear without an ounce of dignity left. And somehow you love her most like this.
You reach up carefully and smooth your fingers through the hair near her temple, where silver roots are beginning to show again beneath the dark dye. Joanne makes a soft sleepy sound but doesn’t wake. “I love you too,” you whisper anyway.
Another snore answers you immediately. You laugh quietly against her shoulder this time, eyes slipping shut again as you settle deeper into her arms instead of moving away.
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*
The next morning starts with Joanne groaning. Not elegant groaning, either. Real groaning. The kind that sounds dragged out of somebody against their will.
You blink awake slowly to grey morning light filtering through the windows and Joanne shifting beside you with all the quiet grace of a collapsing building. “Oh, Christ,” she mutters. Your face is still tucked against her shoulder. “Good morning to you too.”
“My hip is ruined.” You smile immediately without opening your eyes yet. “Mhm.”
“No, I’m serious.” Joanne carefully presses one hand against her lower back with a deeply offended expression. “Why would you let me sleep on this couch?”
“It’s your couch.”
“It’s decorative.” That finally makes you laugh awake. Joanne glares down at you, hair flattened on one side from the cushions. Without last night’s lipstick and careful styling she looks wonderfully disheveled—cardigan wrinkled, glasses crooked on her nose again, silver peeking openly through dark roots in the morning light. Beautiful. Miserable. She shifts again and immediately hisses through her teeth. “Oh, absolutely not.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“I am sixty-two years old.”
“You say that like you’re ninety.”
“My spine says otherwise.” You prop yourself up on one elbow, smiling helplessly while Joanne continues muttering under her breath about “structural support” and “the lies of modern furniture.”
“You could’ve woken me up,” she says finally, shooting you another look. “You know my hips can’t handle this.”
“You looked comfortable.”
“I was unconscious.”
“And snoring.” Joanne freezes. Slowly narrows her eyes. “I do not snore.” You burst out laughing immediately. “Joanne.”
“I absolutely do not.”
“You were snoring directly into my skull.”
“That sounds medically impossible.”
“You sounded like a sleepy bulldog.” Her expression turns scandalized. “A bulldog?”
“Mhm.”
“In my own home.” Joanne starts trying to stand, one hand braced dramatically against the couch cushion. “I was suffering.” You reach automatically to help her, but Joanne waves you off before immediately regretting it halfway upright. “Oh, for God’s sake—” You grab her arm before she can topple sideways back onto the couch laughing. “There we go,” you murmur. “I hate aging.”
“No you don’t.”
“I absolutely do.” But she leans into you anyway while you guide her carefully toward the kitchen. The apartment still smells faintly like last night’s wine and rain. Morning light catches dust in the air. Joanne shuffles slightly in her slippers beside you, one hand staying around your wrist longer than necessary. “You know what the worst part is?” she says bitterly. “What?”
“I used to be able to sleep on floors.” You gasp softly. “Joanne.”
“It’s true.”
“You’ve never slept on a floor in your life.”
“I was once young and bohemian.”
“You were once drunk in someone else’s penthouse.”
“That still counts.” You laugh again, and Joanne finally cracks too, a small reluctant smile pulling briefly at her mouth before she sighs and presses closer into your side. “Treason,” she mutters, resting her head lightly against yours for a second while you wait for the coffee to brew. “My own girlfriend letting me decay on decorative furniture.”
“You looked peaceful.”
“I looked dead.”
“You looked loved.” That stops her. Completely. Joanne goes quiet beside you. You glance over and find her already looking at you now, sleep-heavy and soft in the pale morning light. The irritation drains slowly from her face until all that’s left is something warmer. Older. Vulnerable in that private way she only ever lets herself become around you. Her hand slips from your wrist to your waist. “Well,” she says quietly after a moment, voice rough with sleep, “that’s different.”
Joanne insists the screwdriver is medicinal. “It’s eight-thirty in the morning,” you tell her from the kitchen counter while she pours vodka into a crystal glass with absolutely no restraint whatsoever. “It’s physical therapy.”
“That’s not orange juice anymore.”
“It’s fortified.” You laugh into your coffee while Joanne takes a long sip with the grim determination of someone treating a chronic illness. She’s changed into one of her softer cardigans now—cream-colored this time, sleeves hanging past her wrists slightly—and she keeps rolling one hip carefully like she’s trying to negotiate with it. “You’re mocking an elderly woman,” she says. “You called yourself elderly, not me.”
“Well somebody has to acknowledge my suffering in this apartment.” She points vaguely at you with the screwdriver before shuffling toward the bedroom in her slippers, muttering under her breath about “joint failure” and “beautiful young women with no compassion.” You hear drawers opening a few moments later. Closet doors. The familiar rhythm of Joanne reconstructing herself.
It always fascinates you a little—how deliberate the transformation is. How the woman from last night slowly disappears piece by piece once morning settles in properly. The glasses come off. The posture straightens. The expensive creams. Concealer beneath tired eyes. Lipstick carefully reapplied even if she claims she’s “not going anywhere important.” Hair brushed meticulously to disguise the silver at her roots for another week or two.
Armor. Beautiful armor, but armor all the same.
You wander into the bedroom doorway eventually, coffee still warm between your hands. Joanne sits at the vanity in a silk slip now, one leg crossed carefully over the other while she fastens an earring. Sunlight spills across the room in pale gold bands. The bedroom still smells faintly like her perfume and cold cream and last night’s rain drifting through cracked windows.
She catches your reflection in the mirror immediately. “Are you supervising?”
“I’m admiring.”
“Hm. Dangerous.” You lean quietly against the doorway watching her for another moment. And then you see it. The locket. Small gold oval resting against her collarbone, partially hidden beneath the neckline of her slip. Old-fashioned. Worn smooth from years of touch. Joanne almost never takes it off. Even sleeping. Even in the bath sometimes, though she claims that’s accidental.
She notices your eyes flick toward it and instinctively touches it once with her fingertips. Soft. Protective. Your chest tightens immediately. “That thing is practically fused to you.” Joanne hums lightly, still looking at herself in the mirror while she reaches up to unclasp it. “Probably.”
For a second you think she’s just adjusting it. Then she turns slightly in the chair and holds her hand out toward you. “Come here.” You step closer automatically. Joanne places the locket carefully into your palm. It feels warm from her skin. Old. Important. “You can open it,” she says, trying for casual and missing by a mile.
You glance up at her once before carefully pressing the tiny clasp. Inside, on one side, is a picture of you. Not posed. Not glamorous. You’re laughing in it. Head turned halfway away from the camera, eyes crinkled soft at the corners. You remember that day suddenly—brunch downtown, Joanne pretending to be irritated while secretly taking pictures of you every ten minutes.
Your throat tightens immediately.And on the other side—The two of you together. Foreheads touching. Joanne mid-laugh for once instead of composed. Her hand visible against your cheek. You stare at it for a long moment. “You carry this around every day?” you ask quietly. Joanne reaches for her drink on the vanity. “I’m old. Old women like lockets.”
“Jo.” She shrugs one shoulder, but you can see the faint color rising beneath her makeup already. “I spent most of my life carrying around things that didn’t matter,” she says after a moment, voice calmer now. “Money. Jewelry. Husbands.” A dry little smile touches her mouth. “Thought I should probably start carrying something I actually loved.”
You look at her through the mirror. Really look. The careful makeup. The mostly dyed hair. The jewelry. The posture she rebuilds every morning like scaffolding. And beneath all of it, still just Joanne. A woman terrified sometimes of becoming invisible. Of becoming old. Unwanted. Ridiculous for loving someone younger this much.
Meanwhile she carries your face over her heart every single day. You move before thinking, stepping between her knees where she sits at the vanity. Joanne looks up immediately, one hand still wrapped loosely around her screwdriver glass. “You’re staring again,” she murmurs.
“You’re very loved.” Something in her expression falters at that. Tiny. Immediate. Then she reaches up and hooks two fingers lightly into the waistband of your pajama shorts, pulling you a little closer between her knees. “Well,” she says softly, eyes moving over your face like she’s memorizing it all over again, “that’s because I’m selfish.” You smile faintly. “Selfish?”
“Mhm.” Her thumb brushes slowly against your hip. “I found the love of my life and decided to keep her.”
