Series Summary: Joel and Ellie settle into life in Jackson, one more easily than the other, until Joel is reminded of what normal feels like. A series of one-shot glimpses into a relationship (no real plot here, people.) Soft!Joel. Two touch-starved babes. Slow-ish burn. * - Denotes smut. WIP - Undetermined amount of chapters.
Pairing: Joel Miller/Herbalist!OFC Lennie. POC OFC. Age-appropriate age gap.
Twenty Questions and Then Some - A YBMPF Miniseries
How Old Were You?
Series Summary: Joel asks a lot of questions. Shorter drabbles that don't quite fit into the main YBMPF storyline.
Pairing: Joel Miller/Herbalist!OFC Lennie. Age-appropriate age gap.
Rating: Explicit 18+ / Minors DNI
Warnings: Discussion of deceased family members.
Word Count: 780-ish
A/N: These are little drabbles that come up in the course of writing YBMPF that don't quite fit into a main chapter but do offer some insight and background on Joel and Lennie's relationship. In this one you finally find out how old Len is and learn a little bit more about Andy. This one takes place very early on. I do hope you enjoy.
Divider by @cafekitsune!
“How old were you?” Joel whispers into her hair one night, warm palm skating down her bare spine to pull against the small of her back. “When it all happened?”
Lennie snuggles down into his sheets. “You asking how old I was, or how old I am?”
“Such a fuckin lawyer,” Joel taunts.
“You should never ask a woman her age, Joel,” she teases as he props his head up in one hand.
“I didn’t, I asked about past age," he taps his index finger against her hip to punctuate each point, "at a point in time—that’s fixed.”
“Ahhh who’s the fuckin lawyer now,” she leans back to get a better look at the smile playing on his lips.
“You don’t have to—” he says in earnest.
“Twenty-seven. I was twenty-seven when the world went down. Turned twenty-eight later that year.” She presses into him, nuzzling against his neck. “And you?”
“My thirty-sixth. To the day.”
She hums, half in acknowledgment, half in gratitude.
So little of what he shares is ever done with words.
And to her surprise, they flow.
“Ellie’s not my daughter.”
He feels her tense against him before he continues.
“She’s not—I didn’t—it’s not bad.” He realizes how it sounds the moment the words are free. “We didn't just, trek across the country. She needed to get here and I was goin' here.”
"Why?" Lennie whispers.
"We—thought she had family out here. Turns out she had no one."
And it's a tinsel strand of truth bundled up in a thick coil of lies.
"She needed protecting." Joel strokes his knuckles over Lennie's thigh. "And it turns out we—ended up meaning something to each other."
Lennie’s still tense.
“She’s not blood. But she became as much my daughter as Sarah was.”
Joel feels her lean back to look at him, and his profile catches the lamplight when he angles his eyes down at her.
“Sarah was blood. My blood. I was twenty-two, stupid as all get, just starting senior year of college and my girl tells me she’s late.” He’s staring over her shoulder now, straight into that moment. “One week turns to two, four, and she wants to keep it, so I did the right thing. What I thought was the right thing," he tosses dismissively.
"Quit school, got a job, got a ring, down on one knee, church, priest, the whole thing. I did it all right.”
“And three days after Sarah was born, she left us. Never gave her a chance. Never wanted what I offered.”
Lennie’s palm flattens against his bare heart.
“Fourteen years I raised her. Loved her. We didn’t have much but she always had everything she ever wanted. She was everything. My everything.”
She can already see the end of it and she’s breaking right along with him.
“It was the same night.”
“The night the world went down.” And he uses her words but he means his.
“Some days all I can see when I close my eyes is her lying there in my arms and I can’t wash the sight of it away.”
“And some days I worry that I’m forgetting her face.”
"Joel," Lennie reaches to cradle his cheek, "a father never forgets his daughter’s face.”
“I sure hope that’s true,” he whispers against her hairline, pulling her tight to his chest again.
After a moment, “I worry that I’m forgetting Andy's laugh." falls from her lips. A whispered confession against a new lover's skin.
Joel looks down at her, brown eyes swimming.
“Tell me,” he breathes. “Tell me so it’s never forgotten.”
“His laugh was beautiful. And it was—huge,” and her face lights up with it. “This bold, clear thing that never sounded like it came from him. Not by the way he looked.”
“He was tall, so damn tall, Joel. Had this long mop of curly brown hair. Broad but sharp. Bony fucking shoulders.” He feels her smile against his neck like it was something she would tease her husband about. “Andy didn't need to be anything else. It wasn’t his place."
She sniffles softly against Joel's pulse.
"He was a poet at the heart of him. Saw magic in everything. Could’ve written you a sonnet about a single blade of grass that would forever change the color green for you."
“Andy's place was to remind you to find beauty. Even in all of this.”
“And he loved me.”
“He did well in finding a beautiful thing,” Joel kisses the crown of her head.
“I worry I’ve stopped seeing it without him. Forgotten what it means.”
And Joel slants his lips over hers, cheeks damp with tears as Lennie winds fingers in his hair.
Gripping life and breath and remembrance in her hands.
Did I just bust out 1.6K worth of a YBMPF drabble? Yes. Should I be working on The Margay? Yes. Is the thing I just finished in any way adjacent to any other YBMPF chapter that is finished such that I can post it? Absolutely not.
