✨Birthday Blues✨
Jackson! Joel Miller x bartender fem! reader
A/N: This is a little one-shot I did for @justagalwhowrites Joel Miller’s birthday celebration writing challenge! I had so much fun with this one and love it so much. I hope you enjoy! This one is all in Joel’s POV 🩵
Summary: Joel spends his birthday sulking on the porch, regretting the mistakes of his past. Just when he thinks he’ll spend his birthday alone, you come around and turn his cloudy skies into sunshine.
Rating: 18+ only
Word Count: 3.6k
Tags: Lots of angst, Joel’s POV, Jackson! Joel, losing Ellie, regrets, no use y/n, fluff, yearning, angst/comfort, lots of feelings, Joel’s birthday, age gap (Joel is 54, reader is 30)
Dividers by @saradika-graphics
The wooden rocking chair creaks like a rundown, abandoned building, making the old floorboards of the porch groan beneath him with every shaky breath he takes. The acoustic guitar feels like a heavy anchor in his arms as he thinks about those long afternoons when he’d teach Ellie how to play songs of his past. Now, it feels like sawdust under his calloused fingertips. Brittle and old. Just like he is.
September twenty-sixth. The day he can’t fucking stand anymore. The day he was brought into this unapologetic world, not realizing he’d lose himself along the way.
Birthdays were supposed to be spent with loved ones. A celebration of life. But what does he have to celebrate anymore? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He doesn’t have anyone anymore. He’s just… alone.
Sarah is gone, dead. And Ellie… she wasn’t coming back. Not to his house, his doorstep. No. She’d just stay away like the plague.
Fifty-four-years-old. Just one step closer to being six feet underground. He wishes he was already dead because that’s how he feels. Hollow, broken, lonely.
God, he’s so fucking lonely. Ever since Ellie found out about the fireflies. About what he did…
She hates his guts, hates the way he lied straight to her face for months, hates the reason he did it. She thinks he’s selfish and feels like she was used. But really, he only looks at it one way.
He saved her… And he’d do it a thousand times over if he had the choice. To lose another daughter. Well… he just couldn’t. So, he did the selfish thing and got her out of that hospital. Because if he lost her, he’d surely lose himself.
But he already lost her. Lost himself, too. So why does any of this even matter? It’s useless. He’s useless.
He strums along to the melancholy tune, the frail strings sliding along calloused skin, echoing the quiet melody back into the cool autumn breeze of Jackson. Maybe Ellie would hear it, come running back with tears staining her hazel eyes, apologize for moving out and screaming at him to stay away. But she was the one that stayed away. He never wanted to…
He just strums along and keeps playing. The song that he had written just for her. A song she probably hears in her nightmares now. Maybe it’d bring her back…
He gets lost in the music, greying curls tousled by the wind, his green flannel clinging to his flexed biceps, broken military watch glistening in the dying orange sky. Just when he starts to get drowned out by the screaming voices in his head, a soft, lilty voice pulls him from the darkness.
“Hey.”
His head snaps up and his calloused fingers still from the sudden intrusion. When he sees who it is, he freezes in place. His jaw locked, eyes wide, teeth clenched together. It’s you. The pretty bartender who caught his eye the moment he stepped into Tipsy Bison that first he arrived in Jackson.
There you are. Hair blowing gently in the brisk breeze, doe eyes locked on his, a half-smile curled against your glossy red lips. Jesus. You’re even more beautiful with the orange sun shining down on you, casting halos over the crown of your head.
You’re absolutely breathtaking.
“Haven’t seen you around Tipsy Bison lately. Was wondering where you’ve been.” You look at him intently, questions spiraling in those pretty shades of moonlit eyes.
“Been a little busy, I guess,” he mumbles, keeping his fingers locked tight around the neck of the guitar.
“Got your whiskey waiting for you behind the bar. Been saving it just for you,” you smile sweetly, nearly making him drop to his knees at the sight.
“Thanks, darlin’. You don’t gotta do that, though. Might as well jus’ give it to someone else,” he sighs, eyes dropping to his denim-clad lap. It’s been a while since he went and drowned his sorrows at the bar. He’d rather just do it in the comfort of his own home. A home that was empty now except for him.
“You okay?” you ask, voice leery as your eyebrows thread together in worry.
“’m fine,” he states lowly, eyes hollow and weathered from the pain he wears like weights under his eyes day after day. He’s not fine. He’s far from fine.
When’s the last time someone asked if he was fine? He can’t even remember.
“You don’t sound fine. You look… sad.” Your voice is quiet, subdued, and your eyes look like clouded skies with hurricanes and thunderstorms brewing ominously. You look just as sad as he feels.
You’re so empathetic and tuned into other people’s feelings. He wishes you’d stop that. Stop looking at him like he deserves to not feel like that. But again, It’s hard to look away when a beautiful girl who’s kind, caring, and all around good is standing right in front of him, asking him if he’s alright.
“Reckon I am sad,” he finally mutters, eyes cast down to the fading paint of the wooden boards on the porch. But then he looks up again, and there you are. Beautiful eyes swallowing him whole.
“You want to talk about it?” You lean against the stairwell on the porch, eyes boring into his, arms crossed over your soft blue jacket.
He shakes his head and sighs. “Darlin’, I really don’t think you wanna sit here and listen to an old man talk ‘bout how he’s feelin’.”
You shift your weight and flex your jaw, like he just punched you right in the gut. Fuck. He’s already ruining everything, but what you say next surprises him. “I’ve got time.”
He stares at you a moment, feeling like he just got struck by lightning. You want to stay and listen? You’ve got time?
“Why don’t you take a seat then? I don’t wanna bore you with my problems. And God forbid I waste more of your time,” he murmurs.
You shuffle your way up the steps and sit slowly into the wooden rocking chair next to him. The one he crafted by hand. “Like I said, I’ve got time. I’m listening.” You smile softly at him, and he can’t help but to memorize the outline of your pretty face. Your deep dimples that appear whenever you’re grinning, your light freckles scattered across your nose. The ones you get from sitting out in the sun for too long. You always did love the sunlight. That’s something he picked up on quickly.
He’s watched you for so long from a distance. Only really saying hi if he was stopping by the Tipsy Bison for a drink, maybe waving at you when you walked past him on the street, the casual back and forth glances the two of you would exchange every once in a while.
He’s shy, reserved, an introverted man that likes his space. But he’d have no problem sharing his space with you. Especially when you wear that flowery lavender scent that magnetizes him to you.
After a moment of comfortable silence, he huffs out a heavy breath and begins. “Look, I’m not the best at talkin’. Especially ‘bout how I’m feelin’. But let’s make this short ‘n sweet. I know you got better places to be.”
You lean back into the slant of the chair and rest your arm on the smooth armrest, smiling over at him with your sweet demeanor. “I don’t have anywhere to be, Joel. So take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”
He sets his guitar down and leans it against the edge of the porch, carefully scooting back into the worn chair. His thumb taps nervously against the armrest, but you just stay quiet and keep your eyes on him. It helps him breathe a little easier, he thinks.
Taking his time chewing over the words, he finally spills them. “I’ve made some stupid mistakes in the past that I can’t fix. No matter what I do, nothin’ is gonna change what happened.”
You knit your eyebrows together like you’re mulling it over, guessing what he could be talking about. The way you bite your bottom lip and flick your eyes between the open mailbox that says Miller’s and back his way says you do know. “Are you talking about Ellie?” you ask hesitantly.
“How did you know…”
You shrug and push a piece of fallen hair behind the slope of your ear. He wishes he could be the one doing that. “This town is small, Joel. I notice things. It’s not a secret Ellie moved in with Dina.”
He sighs deeply and pushes his fingers back through his slick hair, letting the tousled curls fall back into place. “Guess gossip gets ‘round fast here. Shit.” He lets his head hang low, cursing under his breath when he thinks about the way Ellie stormed off that day. She said she never wanted to speak to him again, and it hurt just as much as Sarah’s death.
Your voice jolts him out of those dark thoughts. “Have you talked to her lately?”
He clenches his jaw and shakes his head defeatedly, tears lining the back of his eyes as pain radiates down his spine. “It’s been over two months. She can’t even stand to look me in the eyes. Fuckin’ hates me, and it’s all my fault.”
And there you go again. Looking at him like a lost puppy with those big doe eyes of yours. You make him so soft. Nobody else can do that. Not since Tess.
“I don’t think she hates you.”
You place your dainty hand on the back of his for a few seconds. Warmth shoots through his skin, races down his bloodstream, nearly chokes him up when you retrieve it and place it back in your lap. In just those few seconds, he felt what it would be like if you were his. But that couldn’t happen. You’re far too young for him, a twenty-four year age gap, fresh out of your twenties. Just now thirty. You’re too pretty, too out of his league, too good.
You’re just too good for him. He’d never deserve a woman like you. Not after everything he’s done.
I don’t think she hates you. The words permeate and sizzle deep in his brain.
“No? Well, sweetheart, I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but that jus’ ain’t the case,” he scoffs, kicking the heel of his worn boot into the porch to get his point across.
You twist your fingers together nervously and look up at him, sparkling eyes shining like starlight. “You know she asks about you, right?”
His mouth gawks open, and he stares wonderstruck at you. “What?” He can’t believe his ears. “She… asks ‘bout me?”
A faint smile lifts over your red lips. “Yeah. She sometimes comes up to me at the bar and asks if you’ve been in recently or if I’ve talked to you lately. She wonders about you, Joel.”
His mouth feels like sandpaper, throat dry and closed up. Maybe the dry air will suffocate him before he gets his hopes up. “Why would she do that…”
You shrug and give him a tight-lipped smile. “Look, I don’t know what happened between you two. And it’s not my business to ask, but I don’t think she’ll stay away forever, Joel. No matter what you did or how bad you think it is, she’ll come around. I know she will.”
His grip tightens against the armrest, nails digging like claws into the rustic wood. “I dunno. She really stuck it to me to leave her alone. Don’t think she wants me ‘round anymore. S’why I stayed away. She’ll never forgive me…” His voice is strained, sad, choked up like he forgot how to breathe. He wishes she’d forgive him. Just one word from her. That’s all he wants.
“Give her time, Joel. I know she will,” you say encouragingly as the wind laces through your silky hair, blowing it just enough for him to see the pretty blush painting your cheeks pink.
You’re so fucking beautiful.
His deep bravado voice drops an octave as he looks up through glassy eyes at the sunshine of a woman sitting before him. “How do you know?” he asks quietly.
You just shrug and smile. “I just know, okay?”
“Mmm.” Sitting back in his rocking chair, he thinks and thinks over your encouraging words, analyzing them like tiny jigsaw pieces. A puzzle that just can’t be put together. You never were the type to linger on sadness. Never seemed to let a rainy day cloud your joy. You were always so carefree, always bringing rainbows after destructive thunderstorms. Always just there.
Slowly, steadily, your fingers curl around his dark green flannel, hooking underneath his bicep. And your eyes, like a warm summer’s day, shine brighter than he’s ever seen them shine before. Just like shimmering sparkles under a starlit sky. Embers and all. “Hope is like a migrating butterfly. It spreads its long wings and takes off in the morning sky. The butterfly may not return to the same place for quite some time, but it always seems to come back to the place it came from. Eventually, it returns home. She’ll come back, Joel. Ellie will come home.”
His eyes cloud over, foggy from the tears building in his dark brown irises. And when one slips free and slides down his cheek, falling like a raindrop and landing on top of your hand, you don’t pull away. You stay. No one else had stayed. But here you are, smiling up at him like he’s the center of your gravity. Like he’s worth something to you.
And then something happens. Something he hasn’t done in so long. He smiles. He smiles at the pretty girl that turned his entire birthday upside down. He smiles because you stayed when no one else did.
You stayed.
“Think you jus’ might’ve struck some hope inside me after that speech, darlin’,” he drawls, brown eyes sparkling into yours.
“Glad I could be of service,” you giggle, your hand brushing over the fabric of his soft flannel. And there you go. Giving him that breathtaking smile. He wishes you’d never leave.
“Look at you. Ruinin’ my plans of sulkin’ for the rest of the evenin’.”
You tilt your head and give him that look. A look like you want to drown out all his sorrows. “Why are you sulking in the first place?”
Sighing loudly, he rakes a hand slowly down his patchy beard and stares out into the void of the green and yellow leaves littering the ground. “‘Cause it’s my birthday. And I got nothin’ to celebrate.”
You sit forward in your seat, drawing your hand back to your lap and staring all wide-eyed at him like you just can’t believe he’d be alone. “It’s your birthday?”
“Mhm,” he hums, feeling the excruciating pain of losing Ellie all over again.
“What are you doing spending it alone, then?” you whisper, heartbreaking eyes tearing his soul in two.
He pushes a hand painfully slow through his windblown curls and takes a deep breath as he thinks of that stupid fight he and Tommy got in. “Me and Tommy had a fight the other day. Reckon he doesn't wanna see me for a few more days after that. Maria’s on Tommy’s side. And Ellie… well. You know. Needless to say, I got no one to celebrate with.”
Silence permeates through the cool air, a deafening noise that rings through his ears. He wishes you’d say something, anything. Break the lull that hangs like a thick, impenetrable wall in the sky. Maybe you too are having second thoughts of being here alone with him in his suffering.
“Can you just… wait here for a few minutes?” you ask, pushing yourself up and hanging over the thresholds of his rickety porch.
He takes a minute to digest your words, thinking you won’t come back. “I suppose. Not goin’ anywhere. Why?” he asks hesitantly, his voice hoarse from the thought of you disappearing too.
“Just wait here. There’s something I forgot,” you plea, your pretty smile telling him you’ll be back.
Before you take a step off the porch, he stops you. “You don’t have to, you know. Come back, I mean.”
You give him a small smile, your hair blowing softly in the wind, tangling around your beautiful face. An angel cast in shadows from the purple and pink painted sunlit skies. “Nobody deserves to be alone on their birthday, Joel. Not even you,” you say in a soft, lilty voice.
You hang there a second, just watching each other. Waiting for something, but he doesn’t know what. And eventually, you take that step off the porch. “Be right back! Just wait here,” you shout, running off into the sunset.
“Alright,” he whispers, watching you go. And then you disappear down the street, practically sprinting back to your house or back to the bar. He doesn’t know. All he knows is that he hopes you come back.
Please, come back.
He fidgets in his chair, trying his best not to pull out the greys from his tousled curls. His chest feels tight, like his button-up shirt is stifling the chilly air all around him. He feels choked up, like something is lodged deep in his throat. Feels like he drank too much whiskey, palms sweating against his jeans.
Lord knows he shouldn’t feel like this. Shouldn’t act like this means anything. But what if it does? What if this is everything he’s waited for? He shouldn’t yearn for you, shouldn’t pine mindlessly for the pretty bartender that’s way too young for him to be falling for. But he fell head over heels the first moment you said hi to him in the bar. Your smooth fingertips brushing against his when you passed him a glass of whiskey. It felt like fire smothering his insides, igniting dangerous feelings that he should’ve never developed in the first place.
He shouldn’t have fallen for you, but he did. And now, he was wrecked.
You come walking back just minutes later, your hands behind your back, something hidden behind your jacket. And when you make your way back up to the porch, you hold out a single muffin with a blue birthday candle placed right in the center.
“What’s this?” he asks, eyes wide as you place it in the palm of his hand.
“A blueberry muffin. I just made them this morning. I hope you like blueberries. It’s not much, but it was made with love and care. So here, something sweet that I hope will brighten up your day.”
He stares in awe at the fluffy muffin, blueberries scattered around the pastry. His eyes mist over, tears licking at the edges, threatening to spill at any moment. He’s not used to this kind of treatment. Someone being nice, thoughtful, acting like he’s special.
He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve you.
“Th—thank you…” he chokes out, holding back tears.
“Happy birthday, Joel,” you smile, lighting the candle and making shadows cast over his palm from the flame. “Make a wish.”
“Think it already came true…” he whispers.
Your eyes meet, tension thick in the air, smiles bouncing off each other's mouths. And when he blows out the flame, you give him a quick, fleeting kiss to the cheek. A kiss that’ll surely never wash off his skin. It’ll stick like permanent ink until his mouth hangs over yours.
“You’re a sweet little thing, ain’t ya?” he asks, his skin tinged red from the blush you’ve painted over his tanned skin.
“Sweeter than a shaker of sugar?” you giggle out. A laugh that sounds like music to his ears.
“Sweeter than sugar, darlin’,” he confirms with a wide grin.
His hand finds yours, lacing his fingers through until your warmth is mixing with his. And as the sun goes down, stars igniting the sky in glitter, you lean your head on his shoulder while you tell him stories of your past. He could listen to you all night. He thinks he could listen to you forever.
You stay there until midnight, fingers entwined together, his hand pushing a strand of hair behind the shell of your ear, memorizing your perfect smile and dazzling eyes. And just before you go, he pulls you in for a kiss. A kiss that could make the entire world stop. Because in that moment, on your soft lips, he thinks he found heaven.
Just as you turn to go, a figure emerges from the dark shadows, leaving him breathless and dumbstruck from the sight. He rubs his eyes, figuring he’s seeing things. Maybe the sleepless nights have finally got to him. But your encouraging smile says it’s real.
“Joel, look. She came back,” you smile, eyes glossy just like his are now.
She hesitates out in the road, jaw locked and eyes watery. Those big hazel eyes haven’t changed a bit.
Ellie. She came back. She’s here…
And just like a butterfly, she spreads her wings and waves, mouthing happy birthday as she lingers by the open mailbox. But that’s enough. That’s one step to fixing a promise he broke.
“Ellie,” he calls, voice cracking as tears drop down his face.
“Joel,” she nods, giving him a half-smile. “Can I… can I come in?” she asks hesitantly.
“‘Course you can, kiddo.”
And it’s then, right at that moment, where everything fell back into place. Right when she stepped back into his life. He has a feeling you had something to do with it, but he’ll thank you for that later. Maybe tomorrow when he stops by your house and asks for some more blueberry muffins.
Today will go down in history as one of his favorites because he got the girl, and Ellie came back home. He got his birthday wish after all.
