Plz write for joe r1999 there isnt enough about him and I just got him on insight lvl 3 plz im begging sobbing and shaking
Absolutely anon. if only he came home to ME TOO.
Mwah.
(fluff, kisses, domestic, f!reader)
Joe is mid-ramble when it happens.
Something about the blade, something about the forge temperature — his hands are moving the way they do when he gets going, broad gestures, animated, the words coming easy like they always do when it's something he knows and loves. You've been watching his mouth move for the last two minutes and listening to approximately none of it.
You reach up and grab his collar.
He has maybe half a second of hm? before you pull him down and kiss his cheek.
Clean. Deliberate. Unhurried.
You let go.
Joe straightens back up slowly. The sentence is gone — whatever he was saying has vacated the premises entirely, and in its place is just him, standing very still, staring at the middle distance with the expression of a man who has just been informed the ground is made of something different than he thought.
The color starts at his neck.
It moves fast.
"So," you say pleasantly. "The forge temperature."
"The—" He blinks. Looks at you. His ears are already red. "Yeah. The— right. The tempering needs to—"
You grab his collar again.
Other cheek this time.
His hands come up on instinct — and then just. Stop. Hovering somewhere near your waist, not quite landing, caught between a decision his body made and one his brain hasn't finished making yet. You can feel the warmth radiating off them anyway. Close enough.
"You're doing this on purpose," he says.
"Mmhm."
Temple. You pull a little harder because he's tall and you're committed.
The bridge of his nose because you're already up there.
"Hey—"
The corner of his mouth. Slow. Deliberate. You feel more than hear the small sound he makes, something that doesn't quite become a word.
You release his collar and step back.
He is a complete catastrophe. Twenty-one years old, protector of Haight Street — standing in his own forge with his ears on fire and his hands still hovering at the exact height where your waist just was, like they didn't get the message that you'd moved. The easy grin is trying to exist on his face and not quite managing it. It keeps threatening to fold into something younger and more helpless and entirely too honest.
Blue eyes a little wide. Warm. Unguarded in a way he probably doesn't know yet.
You stick your tongue out at him.
And then you turn and walk away.
Two seconds of silence.
Then — footsteps.
"Oh no you don't—"
You're already laughing when his arm hooks around your waist from behind, momentum carrying you both sideways, and he's warm and solid and smells like smoke and metal and he presses his face into the top of your head making a sound that is trying very hard to be indignant.
"That was cruel," Joe says. Muffled in your hair. "Genuinely cruel."
"You were rambling."
"I was explaining—"
"Rambling."
He makes a noise. His arm doesn't loosen. You can feel his heartbeat where he's pressed against your back and it is, notably, not calm.
"...you're the worst," he mutters.
You pat his arm.
"The forge temperature," you remind him sweetly.
A pause.
"I forgot what I was saying."
You laugh so hard he has to hold you up, and his grip tightens, and somewhere above your head — you don't see it but you know — he's smiling like he doesn't know how to stop.