i would LOVE something where the reader is comforting Joe! Maybe him feeling insecure or upset about something and just fully leans on the reader for support. Just fluffy needy Joe and maybe some intimacy/smut to wrap it up! You’re the best!!
thank you so much for sending this one in!!
i absolutely adored this request. the idea of joe getting home from a long press run, feeling exhausted and overworked and like he has to perform for people to like him, then getting home to reader and just... letting himself be held for a while 😭
i really hope i did your idea justice. thank you for trusting me with such a lovely prompt 🫶
get back to your heart
Joe Keery x reader
Summary: After weeks of performing for everyone else, Joe finally comes home to the one place he never has to perform at all.
Warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, minors DNI, no use of y/n, established relationship, fluff, hurt/comfort, smut, p in v sex, unprotected sex, praise (lmk if i missed anything)
W/C: 10k (my longest fic yet, i had a lot of fun with this one lol)
Read more of my writing here: [masterlist]
If you want to be added to my taglist, leave a comment to lmk!
The engine idles, a low vibration through the steering wheel that you'd stopped feeling twenty minutes ago. The arrivals board has blinked through three flight status changes - landed, taxiing, arrived - and now the automatic doors cycle open and closed, open and closed, each time spitting out travellers you don't recognise. Your hands rest at ten and two, though you've relaxed your grip somewhere around the thirty-minute mark. The heating fights the cold pressing against the windscreen, and you've cracked the driver's side window an inch just to feel the January air against your cheek.
A family rolls past with matching suitcases. A man in a suit talks loudly into his phone. A woman with a toddler balanced on her hip scans the crowd, face lit with recognition, and breaks into a smile. You watch her run toward someone, watch the hug, watch the way the toddler squirms between them. You look back at the doors.
He comes through them alone.
You know his walk before you can make out his face - the slight forward lean, the way his shoulders curve in like he's trying to take up less space than he needs. His duffel hangs from one hand, dragging his arm low, and the other hand is shoved into his jacket pocket. He isn't looking at the crowd. He's looking at his feet, at the concrete, at the striped zebra crossing - anywhere but at the people who might recognise him.
A woman glances his way. Does a double take. Opens her mouth.
Joe keeps walking.
Your hand moves before you decide to move it - you reach across and push the passenger door open, a small act, a crack in the silence. The console light clicks on. His head lifts.
Your eyes meet through the windscreen.
Something in his face softens. Just a fraction. Just enough for you to see the man beneath the exhaustion, the one you haven't seen in weeks. He doesn't smile yet. But his pace quickens, just slightly, and that small acceleration tells you more than any word could have.
You watch him cross the last stretch of concrete. Watch the way his free hand comes up to push his hair off his forehead - a nervous gesture, one he does before shows, before interviews, before anything that requires him to be someone else. He does it now, in front of you, and you understand: he's still shedding the performance. Still finding his way back into his own skin.
He reaches the car and bends to toss his duffel into the backseat. It lands with a heavy thud - clothes, probably, and a laptop, and the thousand small things he's carried through airports and hotel rooms and green rooms for weeks. He straightens, meets your eyes again, and this time his mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. But close.
"Hey," you say. Soft. Simple. Just your voice, no pressure behind it.
"Hey." His voice cracks on the single syllable, and he clears his throat, looking away. He pulls the door closed, and the overhead light dies, plunging you both into the dim glow of the dashboard. The seatbelt clicks into place. The silence settles around you like something physical, something you both have to adjust to.
You don't ask how the flight was. Don't ask if he's hungry, if he needs anything, if the press tour had been brutal, if the fans at the gate had been overwhelming.
Not yet.
You just put the car in drive and pull away from the curb, merging into the airport traffic with the ease of someone who's done this route a hundred times.
Beside you, Joe lets out a breath. Long. Slow. Like he's been holding it since he stepped off the plane.
The motorway unfurls in front of you, a ribbon of wet asphalt reflecting the red taillights of the cars ahead. Streetlights pass in rhythm, casting shadows that move across his face - illuminating, then hiding, then illuminating again. His profile. The slope of his nose. The dark circles under his eyes that you can see even in the fractured light. The way his fingers rest on his thigh, motionless, not tapping, not restless - just still in a way that feels wrong on him. Joe's hands are never still. They move when he talks, when he thinks, when he breathes. These hands are dead weight.
You glance at him. Look back at the road. Say nothing.
You pass an exit for a roadside restaurant you'd been to together once, months ago, before the tour had swallowed him whole. You remember him laughing at something you'd said, remember the way his knee had pressed against yours under the table. That version of him feels distant now, like a photograph of a person you used to know.
But you don't reach for the old version. You don't try to pull him back to a memory. You just drive, letting the silence be what it is - not empty, not heavy, just a space you can both exist in without performing.
Fifteen minutes pass. Maybe twenty. The motorway gives way to residential streets, familiar turns, the oak tree with the twisted branch, the corner shop with the flickering sign. Home territory. The last mile.
Joe shifts in his seat. You feel him looking at you before you see it- the weight of his gaze on your profile, studying you the way you'd studied him.
"You're not going to ask," he says. Not accusatory. Just observant, like he's testing a theory.
"I'm not going to ask," you agree.
A pause. The heating hums.
"Why?"
You consider the question. Take the last turn onto your street, the tyres crunching over gravel and fallen leaves. The headlights sweep across your garage door - closed, waiting, familiar.
"Because you'll tell me when you want to," you say. "And right now you look like you need to not talk more than you need to explain anything."
He doesn't respond. But you hear him breathe again - that same long exhale, like you've given him permission for something he didn't know he was asking for.
The garage door creaks open as you pull into the driveway, the automatic light clicking on, illuminating the cluttered space - your bike leaning against the wall, a stack of boxes you still haven't unpacked from when he'd moved in, the dusty shelf of tools he'd promised to organise. You pull in and cut the engine.
The silence changes. The absence of the road noise, the absence of movement - just the two of you, sitting in the dark garage, the engine ticking as it cools. The garage light hums overhead, fluorescent and unflattering, casting everything in a pale, washed-out glow.
Joe doesn't move to get out.
You don't prompt him. You sit, your hands still on the wheel, your gaze fixed on the wall ahead. You can feel him beside you - the heat of him, the weight of his presence, the small sounds of his breathing. You wait.
His hand moves. You see it in your peripheral vision - his fingers uncurling from his thigh, reaching across the centre console, finding your arm. His touch lands light, his palm resting just below your elbow, his thumb brushing a slow arc across the fabric of your jumper.
You turn your hand over, palm up, an invitation.
He takes it. His fingers intertwine with yours, cold from the airport, from the hours of holding nothing. His grip tightens. Holds.
"I missed this," he says, so quiet you almost miss it. "I missed-" He stops. Swallows. Starts again. "I missed being able to just... sit. And not have to be anything."
You squeeze his hand. Your thumb finds the inside of his wrist, the place where his pulse beats steadily against your skin. "You don't have to be anything here."
He nods. A single jerky motion. His jaw is tight; you can see it now - the muscle jumping along the line of his cheek, the way he's holding himself together by sheer force of will. You don't call attention to it. You just hold his hand, letting the silence do what conversation can't.
Two more minutes pass. The garage light clicks off, sensing no movement, plunging you into darkness for a beat before clicking back on. The cycle of it. The patience of it.
Finally, you hear him unbuckle his seatbelt. The sound is loud in the quiet - a sharp metallic click that signals a shift. But he doesn't move to get out. He just sits there, his hand still in yours, his gaze fixed on the garage wall.
"I'm glad you were the one picking me up," he says. His voice is rough. Tired. Real. "I don't think I could have done the small talk. The smile-for-the-camera routine. Not tonight."
"I know."
He turns to look at you, then - really look, his hazel eyes finding yours in the dim light. There is something raw in them, something unguarded, like he's forgotten to put the mask back on. You meet his gaze and hold it, letting him see that you see it, letting him know that you aren't afraid of what he's showing you.
"Come on," you say softly. "Let's go inside."
He nods. His hand slips from yours, and the absence of his touch feels like a small loss, a thread cut. He reaches for the door handle. Pauses.
"Hey."
You wait.
"Thanks. For not-" He gestures vaguely, a motion that encompasses the car, the drive, the silence, the whole evening. "For this."
You smile. Small. Warm. "Always."
He pushes the door open, and the cold air rushes in, sharp and clean, carrying the smell of wet leaves and winter. You watch him step out, watch him walk to the back of the car to grab his duffel, watch the way his shoulders straighten as he stands - not in performance, but in preparation. The small gathering of himself before the next threshold.
You unbuckle your own seatbelt and follow.
The cold hits you the moment you step out - a January bite that finds the exposed skin at your wrists and the back of your neck. You pull your jumper tighter around yourself, the wool scratchy against your palms, and round the front of the car. Joe stands at the back, his duffel slung over one shoulder, his other hand resting on the open boot as if he needs something to anchor himself to.
The garage light hums above you, casting long shadows across the concrete floor. Your bike leans against the wall, a spiderweb glistening in the corner, the stack of boxes still waiting to be unpacked. You'd meant to organise them while he was gone. Hadn't found the energy. Now you're glad - the familiar clutter feels like proof that life has continued here, ordinary and unglamorous, waiting for him to return to it.
You walk towards him, your feet silent on the cold concrete. He doesn't look up until you're close enough to see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the way his stubble has grown past careful into something rougher, less tended to. He'd stopped shaving mid-tour, probably. You've seen the photos - the carefully curated scruff that looks good under studio lights. This is different. This is neglect. This is a man who's stopped bothering with the small rituals of upkeep because he's too exhausted.
"You want me to grab anything?" you ask, nodding at the duffel.
He shakes his head. "Got it."
You don't argue. You step back, giving him room, and watch as he closes the boot with his free hand. The sound echoes in the garage - metal meeting metal, final and dull. He stands there for a moment, hand still resting on the closed boot, his gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance. You see the crease between his brows, the one that appears when he's thinking too hard, when he's trying to solve a problem that doesn't have a solution. It's deeper than she remember. More permanent.
You wait.
His hand drops from the boot. He turns towards you, and for a second, something passes across his face - a flicker of uncertainty, as if he isn't sure what comes next, as if the script he's been following for weeks has run out of pages. You know that look. Have seen it before, in the early days, when he'd first started staying over and didn't know the rhythm of your place yet. He's learning a new space again. The space of being home.
"The light," he says, gesturing with his chin toward the automatic sensor. "It keeps turning off."
You glance up at the fixture. "Yeah. The sensor's been acting up. I keep meaning to replace it."
"I can do that."
"You don't have to."
"I know." He shifts the duffel on his shoulder. "I want to."
It's such a small thing - replacing a light sensor. But you hear what he isn't saying: he wants to do something useful. Wants to feel like he belongs here again, like he has a role to fill beyond the one he's just left. You understand. You feel it yourself, after long trips, the need to reassert your place in your own home by touching things, fixing things, making them yours again.
"Okay," you say. "We'll drive to the hardware store tomorrow."
A ghost of a smile crosses his face. There and gone. But you see it.
The garage light clicks off, plunging you into darkness for a moment before the sensor catches your movement and clicks back on. You think about how many times you've stood here alone, waiting for the light to come back, and how different it feels with him beside you.
"Ready?" you ask.
He takes a breath. Lets it out. Nods.
"Yeah."
You turn towards the door that leads into the house - the familiar wood with the scratched paint near the handle, the one you've been meaning to repaint for a year now. You read for the knob, and behind you, you hear Joe's footsteps on the concrete, following.
The key turns in the lock. The door swings open, revealing the dark hallway beyond, the faint outline of the coat hooks, the pile of mail you'd left on the entry table. Home. Waiting.
You step inside and hold the door open for him.
The door clicks shut behind him, the latch settling into the frame with a sound you've heard a thousand times but never noticed until now. The hallway light is off - you hadn't switched it on, relying on the spill from the garage through the small window near the top of the door. It casts a thin, bluish rectangle across the floorboards, illuminating the dust motes that drift in the still air.
Joe stands just inside the threshold, his duffel still slung over one shoulder, his free hand resting on the doorframe as if he needs to brace himself against the act of crossing. The garage light flickers behind him, the faulty sensor cycling through its familiar rhythm - on, off, on - before finally settling into a steady hum.
You toe your shoes off and let your keys fall into the ceramic dish on the entry table. The sound is small, ordinary, the kind of noise that belongs to this house and this life. The pile of mail you'd left there - a utility bill, a flyer for a new pizza place, a postcard from a friend travelling in Portugal - shifts slightly under the weight. You don't look at it. You look at him.
His eyes are on the floor, on the worn boards near his feet, on the spot where the finish has worn thin from years of footsteps. His chest rises and falls with a breath that seems to cost him something. The duffel's strap cuts into his shoulder, pulling his shirt collar askew, revealing the edge of a collarbone you want to touch but don't.
You turn to face him fully. The movement is unhurried, a rotation that brings your shoulders square to his, your feet planted on the cold floor. Your socks make no sound against the wood. The house is quiet around you - the hum of the fridge from the kitchen, the distant tick of the wall clock in the living room, the small settling sounds of a building adjusting to the winter night.
You open your arms.
No words. No explanation. No "come here" or "it's okay" or "let me hold you." Just your palms turning upward, your elbows bending, your chest opening in an invitation that asks for nothing in return. The gesture is simple, almost casual - the same way you might reach for him on the couch or in bed - but there is a stillness in it that makes it something else. Something deliberate. Something offered.
He stares at your hands.
For a long moment, he doesn't move. His gaze travels from your palms to your face, and you see the question in his eyes - the wariness of someone who's been performing so long he's forgotten how to accept something genuine. His jaw works. The muscle along his cheek jumps once, twice. His hand tightens on the doorframe.
You don't lower your arms. You don't fill the silence with reassurance. You just stand there, your palms open, your breath steady, your body saying the only thing that matters: I'm here. I see you. You don't have to earn this.
The duffel slides off his shoulder.
It hits the floor with a heavy thud - the sound of clothes and a laptop and the accumulated weight of weeks on the road landing in a heap on the entryway floorboards. He doesn't look at it. Doesn't reach for it. He just lets it lie there, a discarded shell, and takes a step towards you.
The distance between you closes in increments you can measure in heartbeats. One step. His hand leaves the doorframe. Another step. His shoulders curve forwards, the posture you'd seen in the airport, the one that says he's trying to take up less space than he needs. Another step. His breath hitches - just once, a small catch in the rhythm of his breathing, the kind of sound a person makes when they're trying very hard not to fall apart.
You hold your ground. Your arms stay open. Your palms stay turned towards him, empty and waiting.
He crosses the last inch of air between you.
His body meets yours with a force that surprises you - not impact, but surrender. The full weight of him falling forward, his chest pressing against yours, his arms wrapping around your waist with an almost desperate grip, his face burying into the curve of your neck. His knees buckle slightly, and you feel him sag against you, all the tension he's been carrying for weeks finally finding somewhere to land.
Your arms close around him.
The fit is familiar - the width of his back, the slope of his shoulders, the way his head fits perfectly into the hollow of your throat. You've held him a thousand times, in a thousand different ways, but this is different. This is a homecoming. This is him trusting you with the part of himself he shows no one else.
His hands press flat against your lower back, fingers spreading, gripping the fabric of your jumper as if he's afraid you might disappear. His breath is warm against your neck, uneven, coming in jagged fragments that you feel more than hear. He isn't crying - not yet - but there is a tremble in his body, a fine vibration that runs through his muscles like a current, the aftermath of holding himself together for too long.
You rest your cheek against the side of his head. His hair is soft against your skin, still carrying the faint smell of airport air - recirculated oxygen and jet fuel and the synthetic freshness of a plane cabin. But underneath it, there is him. The familiar scent of his skin, the one you've missed in the weeks he's been gone, the one you've caught yourself searching for on his pillow when you can't sleep.
Joe's forehead finds your shoulder. The gesture is instinctiv - a seeking, a settling, a final surrender of the last defences he's been holding. His nose presses into the fabric of your jumper, and you feel the warmth of his breath through the wool, a rhythmic pulse that begins to slow as the seconds pass.
Your hand moves up his spine, fingers trailing over the ridges of his vertebrae, counting them the way you've done a hundred times before. You reach the nape of his neck, where his hair grows softer, and the skin is warm, and let your palm rest there. A grounding point. An anchor.
He makes a sound against your shoulder. Not a word. A small, broken thing, half exhalation and half sob, muffled by the wool of your jumper. You feel it more than hear it - the tremor that passes through his chest, the way his arms tighten around your waist, the way his body presses closer, as if he's trying to climb inside your ribcage and live there.
You don't say anything. Don't shush him. Don't tell him it's okay. You just hold him, your palm warm against his neck, your other hand resting flat on his back, feeling the rhythm of his breathing against your palm. Letting him take what he needs.
A minute passes. Maybe two. Time loses its edges in the dim hallway, the only light the pale rectangle from the garage window, the only sound the soft rustle of his breathing and the distant hum of the fridge. The duffel lies at your feet, a dark lump on the floor, forgotten. The pile of mail remains untouched on the entry table. The coat hooks cast a long shadow against the wall, and somewhere in the living room, the clock ticks forward, measuring time you aren't paying attention to.
Joe's grip loosens. Just slightly. His hands relax from fists into flat palms, the tension draining out of his fingers in stages. His forehead stays pressed against your shoulder, but his breathing has steadied, the jagged edges smoothing into something closer to sleep than distress.
You turn your head, just enough to press your lips to his hair. The kiss is light, barely there, a brush of warmth against the crown of his head. You let your mouth linger for a moment, breathing him in, before pulling back to rest your cheek against him again.
His hand moves. The one that had been gripping the small of your back slides around your hip, his fingers finding the hem of your jumper, slipping underneath to touch the bare skin of your waist. His palm is cold - the cold of the airport, of the car, of the walk from the garage - but it warms quickly against your body, his fingers pressing into your skin with a gentleness that feels like a question.
You answer by pressing closer. By letting your hand slide from his neck to his jaw, your fingertips tracing the line of his stubble, the sharp edge of his cheekbone, the soft skin beneath his eye. He closes his eyes at the touch - you feel the flutter of his lashes against your fingertips - and lets out a breath that seems to carry the last of the tension from his shoulders.
The duffel lies on the floor. The door is closed. The garage light has clicked off, finding no movement, and the hallway is dark except for the thin seam of light beneath the door. You stand in the shadow, two bodies learning each other again, the silence between you filled with everything you haven't said and don't need to.
His thumb traces a slow arc across the skin of your waist. A single motion, repeated once, twice, three times. A pattern. A reassurance. A way of saying I'm here without using words he doesn't have.
You let your fingers drift into his hair, combing through the tangled strands, working out a small knot near the base of his skull. He leans into the touch, his weight shifting further into you, and you feel the last of the resistance leave his body - the final surrender of a man who has finally, fully, come home.
His forehead is warm against your shoulder. His breath is slow and even, warming the fabric of your jumper. His arms are loose around your waist, no longer gripping, just resting, just holding.
You hold him back.
The duffel waits on the floor. The mail waits on the table. The rest of the house stretches out behind you - the kitchen with its unwashed dishes, the living room with the blanket still draped over the couch where you'd slept some nights, the bedroom with the bed you'd made that morning, not knowing when he'd be in it. All of it waiting. All of it patient.
But here, in this dim hallway, with his weight against you and his breath in your hair, nothing else exists. Just this. Just you. Just the slow, steady rhythm of two people breathing together, the silence holding you like a room with no walls.
His voice comes finally - rough, barely above a whisper, muffled against your shoulder.
"Can we stay like this?"
Your arms tighten around him once - a squeeze, a confirmation, a promise sealed without words. Then you pull back just enough to look at him, your hands sliding from his back to his shoulders, your fingers tracing the line of his collarbone before coming to rest on his chest. His eyes are still closed, his forehead still pressed to your shoulder, his breath warm against the column of your throat. You let your gaze travel over him - the dark crescents beneath his lashes, the slight part of his lips, the way his features have softened into something almost childlike in their surrender.
"Yes," you say. The word is quiet, barely more than a breath, but it lands in the space between you like a stone dropping into still water. "We can stay like this."
Joe's hand presses flat against your lower back, a small acknowledgement, a thank-you spoken through his palm.
You let the silence hold you for another moment - one more breath, one more heartbeat, one more second of the world reduced to the warmth of his body against yours. Then your hand moves. Slides from his chest to his shoulder, down his arm, your fingers trailing over the fabric of his jacket until you reach his wrist. You wrap your hand around it - not gripping, just holding, your thumb resting in the hollow where his pulse beats steady and slow.
"Come with me," you say.
He opens his eyes. Lifts his head. Looks at you with that raw, unguarded gaze that makes your chest ache. There's no question in his expression, no hesitation - just a quiet trust, the kind that comes from knowing he doesn't have to understand where you're going, only that you're leading.
You tug gently. A small pull, an invitation. His feet move, following your lead, his hand turning beneath yours so his fingers can intertwine with yours. The duffel lies forgotten on the floor behind you, a dark lump in the dim light. You don't look back. Neither does he.
You step past him, turning towards the living room, your fingers still laced with his. The hallway is narrow - familiar, worn, the walls close enough that your shoulder brushes against the textured wallpaper as you pass. A photograph hangs crooked on the wall, a candid shot of you at a farm shop last summer, his arm around your waist, your head thrown back in laughter. You meant to straighten it. Never have. Now it feels right, that small imperfection, that proof of a life lived without posing.
Joe's footsteps follow yours, unhurried, the soft scuff of his sneakers against the floorboards. His grip on your hand is loose but present - a connection, not a restraint. You can feel his gaze on the back of your head, on your shoulders, on the curve of your spine as you lead him forwards. You don't turn around. You let him look. Let him find his way back into this space through the shape of you.
The hallway opens into the living room, and you feel the shift in the air - the change from the narrow corridor to the broader space, the warmth of the radiator clicking in the corner, the faint smell of the candle you'd burned earlier that evening. The curtains are half-drawn, letting in the pale glow of the streetlight, casting long rectangles of gold across the hardwood floor. The room is quiet in the way only a room that has been empty for weeks could be - a stillness that feels like waiting, like the furniture has been holding its breath for Joe's return.
The couch sits against the far wall, the same one you'd bought together at a thrift store two years ago, its faded blue upholstery worn soft from use. The blanket you've been using is draped over one arm, a cream-colored throw that has pooled on the cushions when you'd gotten up for water and never folded. A mug sits on the side table, cold now, a ring of coffee staining the wood. You'd left your book face-down on the armrest, spine cracked, page marked, a life paused in the middle of a sentence.
You stop at the edge of the rug - the threadbare Persian one you'd found at a car boot sale, the one with the faded medallion pattern that Joe always says looks like a target. He'd laughed the first time he saw it. You remember the sound. Remember wanting to bottle it.
You turn to face him.
He stands a step behind you, still holding your hand, his shoulders curved in that posture you've come to recognise as his default after long days. The streetlight catches the side of his face, illuminating the sharp line of his jaw, the hollow beneath his cheekbone, the way his hair falls across his forehead in tangled strands. His eyes are on you, soft and dark and full of something he isn't saying.
You lift your joined hands and press a kiss to his knuckles. The gesture is small, almost unconscious, but you feel his breath catch - a tiny hitch, a moment of surprise at being touched so gently, at being treated like something precious.
"Sit down," you say. "I'll get you some water."
He shakes his head. "Don't-" His voice cracks again, and he clears his throat, looking down at your hands. "Don't leave."
The words hang in the air between you. Simple. Bare. A confession of need dressed as a request.
You let go of his hand and reach up, your palms finding his cheeks, cradling his face with a tenderness that makes his eyes flutter closed. His stubble is rough against your skin, unfamiliar after weeks without touching it, but his warmth is the same, the fit of his face in your hands as natural as breathing.
"I'm not going anywhere," you say.
He leans into your touch, his hands coming up to cover yours, pressing your palms more firmly against his cheeks. A long exhale escapes him, carrying the last of the tension from his shoulders, and you watch him soften - watch the rigid lines of his posture melt into something pliant and trusting.
"Okay," he says. The word is quiet. Resigned in the best way, the resignation of someone who has finally stopped fighting.
You guide him backwards, your hands still on his face, your steps slow and deliberate, until the backs of his knees hit the edge of the couch. He drops onto the cushions without resistance, his hands falling from yours, his body sinking into the familiar dip of the seat you've spent hundreds of evenings on. The blanket pools against his hip, and he reaches for it instinctively, his fingers finding the edge of the fabric and holding it like an anchor.
You stand in front of him, looking down at the way the streetlight paints shadows across his features. He looks smaller here, in this room, in the context of your shared life - not diminished, but relieved of the weight of performance. The couch is too soft, the cushions too worn, and he's wearing the same band t-shirt he'd worn on the flight, the collar stretched, a small stain near the hem. He looks like he belongs here. Like he'd never left.
You move around the coffee table, your feet silent on the rug, and settle onto the couch beside him. Not too close - you give him space, let him decide how much contact he needs. But close enough that your knee brushes his, a point of connection he can choose to deepen or ignore.
He chooses to deepen.
He shifts, turning towards you, his hand finding your thigh and resting there with a weight that feels deliberate. His palm is warm through the fabric of your joggers, his fingers curling slightly, gripping the softness of your leg as if you're a fixed point in a world that has been spinning too fast.
"Can I-" He stops. Swallows. Starts again. "Can I put my head in your lap?"
The question is small, almost shy, and it undoes you in a way you don't expect. This is the same man who commands stages, who holds the attention of thousands, who has been photographed and interviewed and analysed from every angle. And here he is, asking permission to rest his head in your lap like a child seeking comfort from a nightmare.
"Yes," you say, and your voice comes out softer than you'd intended, thick with an emotion you don't try to name.
He moves slowly, the way a man moves when he's running on empty, his limbs heavy and uncoordinated. He shifts his weight, twists his torso, and lowers himself onto his side, his head finding your thigh with an accuracy that speaks of practice. He'd done this before - in the early days, when you'd spend whole Sundays on this couch, reading and talking and falling asleep in the afternoon light. His body remembers the shape of this position, the way his shoulders fit against the cushion edge, the way his spine curves to accommodate the length of the seat.
His head settles in your lap, the weight of it familiar and grounding. His hair spills across your thigh, dark against the cream fabric of your joggers, and you watch his eyes close as he lets out a breath that seems to carry the last of the day's defences with it.
Your hand finds his hair before you consciously decide to move it. Your fingers comb through the tangled strands, working through a knot near his temple with a patience that feels like a prayer. His hair is longer than it had been when he left - he hadn't gotten his usual trim before the tour, and it shows in the way it curls at the ends, brushing against his collar and falling across his forehead in waves you have to push back to see his face.
He makes a sound. A small, hummed note of contentment, the kind of sound a person makes when they're finally, truly comfortable. His hand finds your knee, his palm resting against the joint, his thumb tracing slow, absent circles on the fabric.
"I forgot what this felt like," he says, his voice muffled against your thigh. "Being cared about by someone who-" He pauses, searching for words. "Someone who isn't getting paid to do it."
You don't laugh. Don't brush it off with a joke. You just keep your fingers moving through his hair, your nails scraping lightly against his scalp in a rhythm you've learned from trial and error, from the nights he'd come home wired and unable to sleep, from the mornings he'd woken up with his head in your lap and asked you to stay there a little longer.
"I thought about you," he says. The words come out fragmented, like he's testing them as he speaks. "On the road. In the hotels. Between interviews. I'd lie in bed and try to remember what it felt like to just-" He gestured vaguely, his hand waving near his chest. "To just be held. Without the performance. Without having to give anything back."
"And?"
He's quiet for a long moment. His thumb stops moving on your knee. His breath evens out, slowing, deepening into something that sounds almost like sleep.
"I couldn't," he says finally. "I couldn't remember. I knew it existed. I knew I'd felt it before. But I couldn't-" His voice cracks, and he stops, pressing his face harder against your thigh. "I couldn't feel it."
You feel the wetness before you understand it - the warmth of a tear soaking through the fabric of your joggers, spreading against your skin. You don't look down. Don't call attention to it. You just keep your hand moving through his hair, your fingers steady, your touch soft.
"I'm here now," you say. "You don't have to remember. You can just feel it."
His hand finds yours, pulling it from his hair, pressing your palm against his chest. You feel his heartbeat through the fabric of his shirt - steady, strong, alive. His fingers curl around your hand, holding it there, keeping you anchored to the rhythm of him.
"I love you," he says. The words come out raw, scraped clean of performance, bare in a way that makes the air in the room change. "I don't say it enough. I don't- I don't show it enough. But I love you. And I-" He takes a shaky breath. "I don't know how to be the person who deserves the way you love me."
You lower your head, pressing your lips to his hair, letting the kiss linger. Your thumb traces the line of his collarbone, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath the fabric.
"You don't have to deserve it," you say. "You just have to let yourself have it."
His hand tightens on yours, and you feel the shudder that runs through him - a release, a surrender, a letting go of something he's been carrying for longer than you could know. You hold him through it, your body a container for his grief, your presence a promise that he doesn't have to carry it alone.
The clock ticks on the wall, measuring time in increments that feel both infinite and irrelevant. The streetlight shifts as a cloud passes overhead, dimming the room for a moment before brightening again. Somewhere outside, a car passes, its headlights sweeping across the curtains before fading into the night.
Joe's breathing slows. Deepens. His hand relaxes around yours, his grip loosening into something more like resting than holding. His body settles against you, his weight becoming heavier, more trusting, as the tension of the last weeks slowly bleeds out of him and into the cushions beneath you.
You watch his face in the dim light - the way his features soften in sleep, the way the lines around his eyes smooth out, the way his lips part slightly as his breath evens into the rhythm of rest. He looks younger like this. Lighter. Like the version of himself that existed before the cameras and the crowds and the constant pressure to be someone other than who he is.
Your hand continues its slow path through his hair, your fingers mapping the familiar territory of his scalp, the curve of his ear, the soft skin behind it. You don't stop. Don't slow. You keep touching him, keep proving that he's here, that he's home, that the world hadn't ended while he was gone.
Minutes pass. The clock ticks. The radiator clicks and hums. The streetlight throws its steady beam across the floor, and the dust drifts in the pale light, suspended and unhurried.
His hand moves. Not much - just his fingers curling around the hem of your joggers, holding the fabric like a child holding a blanket. A small gesture. An unconscious seeking of comfort.
You cover his hand with yours, threading your fingers together over your thigh, and let your eyes close. You don't sleep - not quite - but you let yourself drift in the warm, quiet space of having him back. The weight of his head. The warmth of his hand. The slow rhythm of his breathing, syncing with yours in a cadence that feels older than words.
The book on the armrest waits to be finished. The cold mug of coffee on the side table waits to be washed. The unpacked boxes in the garage wait for another day. None of it matters. None of it exists beyond the boundaries of this room, this couch, this man sleeping in yur lap.
You press another kiss to his hair, letting your lips linger, and feel his hand tighten around yours in response - a reflex, an acknowledgement, a small confirmation that even in sleep, he knows you're there.
"Welcome home," you whisper against his hair.
You feel the shift before you hear it - a change in the weight of him, a small tension returning to muscles that had been slack with sleep. His fingers curl against your thigh, not quite gripping, just moving, a subconscious return to awareness. His breath changes, deepens, and you feel the precise moment he surfaces from sleep into the grey space between dreaming and waking.
You don't stop the motion of her fingers through his hair. Keep the rhythm steady, your nails grazing his scalp in the same slow pattern, letting him find his way back at his own pace. The streetlight has shifted, the rectangle of gold on the floor now stretching towards the wall, and the room has grown cooler, the radiator's heat fading into the winter night.
Joe's hand moves from your knee to your shin, his palm sliding down the curve of your calf, his fingers wrapping around your ankle like he's checking that you're still there, still solid, still real. His thumb presses into the bone, a small pressure, an anchor.
You look down at him. His eyes are still closed, but there's a wakefulness in his face now, a subtle shift in the set of his jaw. His lips part, close, part again, as if he's testing whether he has words ready.
"Hey," you say. Your voice is quiet, a thread of sound in the dark room.
His eyes open.
They find yours immediately, as if he'd known exactly where you would be. His gaze is soft, still blurred with sleep, but there's something else in it now - a warmth that had been buried under exhaustion, surfacing like light through receding water. He looks at you for a long moment, his hand still wrapped around your ankle, his head heavy in your lap.
"Hey," he says back. His voice is rough, sleep still clinging to the edges of it.
You smile. Small. Just for him.
He doesn't smile back. But his hand moves - sliding from your ankle up your calf, over your knee, coming to rest on your thigh. His palm is warm through the fabric, and his fingers press into the softness of your leg with a weight that feels like intention.
You watch his hand. Watch the way his fingers spread, gripping your thigh with a new possessiveness that hadn't been there in the sleepy vulnerability of the past hour. His thumb traces a slow arc on the inside of your leg, the pressure firm enough to feel through the joggers.
You look at his face. His eyes are on your mouth.
Something shifts in the air between you. The room doesn't change - the same streetlight, the same dust motes, the same ticking clock - but the quality of the silence alters, thickens, becomes something you can lean into.
Joe's hand tightens on your thigh. A small pull, a request.
You lower your head towards him, your hair falling forwards, brushing against his cheek. You pause an inch from his mouth, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath, to see the slight part of his lips, the way his eyes are dropped half-closed, waiting.
"Tell me what you want," you say.
His hand slides up your thigh, over your hip, finding your waist. He tugs, a gentle but insistent pull, drawing you down towards him. You let yourself be moved, your body bending over his, your hands finding the cushions on either side of his head.
His hand comes up to your face. His palm presses against your cheek, his fingers threading into your hair, his thumb brushing across your cheekbone. He looks at you like he's memorising you, like the light in this room is the only light he trusts.
"I want to kiss you," he says. "I want to feel you. I want to remember what it's like to want someone without performing it."
You hold his gaze. Let the words settle.
Then you close the distance.
The kiss starts soft - a brush of lips, a question asked through pressure rather than sound. Joe's mouth is warm, slightly chapped from the dry air of planes and hotels, and he tastes like the faint residue of coffee and exhaustion. You keep it gentle, your lips moving against his with a slowness that feels like reverence, your hand finding his jaw and cradling it the way you'd done earlier, in the hallway.
He makes a sound. Small. Lost. A noise that starts in his chest and escapes through his nose, a vibration against your mouth that you feel in your own ribs.
His hand tightens in your hair. Not pulling, just holding, like you're something precious he's afraid of dropping. His other hand finds your waist, fingers gripping the fabric of your jumper, bunching it in his fist.
You deepen the kiss. Press harder. Your tongue traces the seam of his lips, and he opens for you without hesitation, a surrender so complete it makes your breath catch. His mouth is warm and familiar and new all at once, a taste you'd been missing without knowing how much.
His hand slides under your jumper. His palm presses flat against the small of your back, his fingers spreading, pulling you closer. The contact is skin on skin, his hand warm against your spine, and you feel the shudder that runs through him at the touch.
You break the kiss. Just far enough to look at him. His lips are slightly swollen, his eyes dark and open, his chest rising and falling in a rhythm that's faster than before.
"Come to bed," you say.
It isn't a question.
Joe's answer is in the way he moves - sitting up, his hand finding yours, his body turning towards the hallway without letting go of you. The blanket falls away from his lap, pooling on the cushion, forgotten. His hair is a mess, tousled from sleep and your fingers, and the streetlight catches the hollow of his throat as he swallows.
You stand, and he stands with you. His hand stays wrapped around yours, and you lead him through the living room, past the coffee table with the cold mug, past the book face-down on the armrest, past the photograph hanging crooked on the wall. The hallway opens in front of you, narrow and familiar, and you feel his gaze on the back of your head, on the curve of your spine, on the way your hips move as you walk.
The bedroom door is open. The room beyond is dark except for the thin seam of light from the hallway, cutting across the foot of the bed, illuminating the corner of the dresser and the edge of the frame holding a photograph you can't quite make out. The bed is made - you'd done it that morning, a small ritual, a gesture of hope that he would be in it tonight.
You step inside, pulling him with you. The door clicks shut behind you, and the darkness deepens, the only light the faint glow from the window where the curtains haven't been fully drawn. The streetlight filters through, casting long shadows across the floor, painting the room in shades of silver and grey.
You turn to face him.
He stands in the dark room, a silhouette against the pale light from the window. You can see the outline of his shoulders, the way his hands hang at his sides, the slight forward tilt of his posture. He's waiting. Not for permission - for direction. For you to tell him this was real.
You reach for the hem of your jumper. Pull it over your head in one motion, letting it fall to the floor. The air is cool against your skin, raising goosebumps along your arms, and you stand before him in just your bra, your skin warm in the dim light.
Joe's breath catches. Audible. A sharp intake that he doesn't try to hide.
He steps forward. His hands find your waist, his palms sliding up your ribs, his thumbs tracing the underwire of your bra. He doesn't unhook it - just touches you, his fingers mapping the curve of your breasts through the fabric, his gaze fixed on the place where his hands meet your skin.
"You're so beautiful," he says. The words are quiet, almost to himself, as if he's surprised by the truth of them.
You reach for his shirt. The hem is worn, the fabric soft from a hundred washes. You lift it, and he raises his arms, letting you pull it over his head. It joins your jumper on the floor, a pile of dark fabric in the shadowed room.
His chest is pale in the dim light. Lean, the muscles defined but not exaggerated, the kind of body that comes from movement rather than the gym. A scar you remember from a childhood accident, a thin white line near his collarbone. A scatter of freckles across his shoulders. The hollow at the base of his throat, where his pulse beats visibly against his skin.
You press your palm to his chest. Feel his heartbeat beneath your hand, strong and quick. His skin is warm, warmer than the air, and you let your hand slide down, over his stomach, stopping at the waistband of his jeans.
His hand covers yours. His fingers intertwine with yours, pressing your palm against the button of his jeans.
"I want to feel you," he says. His voice is rough, the words scraping past something raw in his throat. "I want to feel all of you. I want to-" He stops. Swallows. Starts again, his hand tightening around yours. "I want to be close to you. As close as I can get."
You unfasten his jeans. The button gives easily, the zipper sliding down with a sound that cuts through the silence. You push the denim down his hips, and he steps out of them, kicking them aside, standing in just his boxers in the pale silver light.
Joe's hands find your waist again. This time, he doesn't stop at your bra. His fingers find the clasp at your back, unhook it with a practised ease that makes you smile in the dark, and the straps slide down your shoulders. You let it fall, let it join the pile on the floor, and stand before him bare from the waist up.
His hands come up to cup your breasts. His thumbs brush across your nipples, once, twice, a touch so light it makes you shiver. He watches his own hands, watches the way your breath hitches at his touch, and you see something shift in his expression - a hunger surfacing, raw and honest and unguarded.
"I missed your hands," you say. The words come out before you can stop them, a confession you hadn't meant to make.
He looks up at you. His eyes are dark, the pupils wide, the hazel nearly swallowed by black. He doesn't say anything. He just pulls you closer, his mouth finding yours, and the kiss is different this time - harder, needier, his tongue sliding against yours with a desperation that borders on bruising.
His hands slide down your back, over your ass, gripping you through your joggers. He pulls you against him, and you feel him - hard, pressing against your hip through the thin fabric of his boxers. The evidence of his desire, unguarded, unmistakable.
You break the kiss. Step back. Your hands find the waistband of your joggers, push them down along with your underwear, and step out of them. You're naked now, standing in the dark room with the streetlight painting your body in silver, and you watch his gaze travel over you - your thighs, your hips, the curve of your stomach, the dark patch of hair between your legs.
Joe's boxers follow. He pushes them down, kicks them aside, and stands before you in the same silver light, his cock hard and waiting, the tip glistening in the dim glow.
You reach out. Your fingers wrap around him, light at first, just a touch, a greeting. He's warm in your hand, solid, and you feel the tremor that runs through his body at the contact. His head falls back, his eyes closing, his hand finding your shoulder for balance.
"I want you inside me," you say.
The words hang in the air, simple and direct, and you feel the effect they have on him - the way his breath catches, the way his cock twitches in your hand, the way his hand tightens on your shoulder.
You lead him backwards to the bed. Your knees hit the edge of the mattress, and you climb onto it; the sheets cool against your skin. You lay back, your hair spreading across the pillow, your legs parting in an invitation that needs no words.
He follows you onto the bed, his body covering yours, his weight a familiar pressure. His elbows bracket your head, his forearms taking his weight, his chest brushing against yours with every breath. He looks down at you, his face inches from yours, his eyes searching your expression for something you can't name.
"Are you sure?" he asks. The question is quiet, almost fragile, the vulnerability from earlier resurfacing.
You reach up. Your hand finds his cheek, your thumb tracing the line of his cheekbone, the curve of his jaw, the corner of his mouth.
"I've never been more sure of anything," you say.
Joe lowers his head, pressing his forehead to yours. His eyes close. He breathes you in - a long, slow inhale that seems to fill him with something he'd been missing. When he opens his eyes, they're soft, full of a tenderness that makes your chest ache.
He shifts his weight. His hand moves between you, guiding himself, and you feel the head of his cock press against you - not inside yet, just resting at your entrance, a question waiting for an answer.
You lift your hips. A small motion, a yes.
He pushes inside you.
The stretch is familiar and new at once, the way your body opens for him, the way he fills you. He moves slowly, inch by inch, giving you time to adjust, his forehead still pressed to yours, his breath coming in shallow, uneven gasps. You feel every increment of his entry, every ridge and vein, the heat of him spreading through you like warmth through cold glass.
When he's fully inside you, he stops. Just stops, his body still, his eyes closed, his breath shivering against your lips.
"I forgot what this felt like," he whispers. "Being this close to someone. Being-" His voice cracks. "Being wanted like this."
You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. Your hands find his back, your nails tracing light patterns across his skin, feeling the muscles shift beneath.
"You are wanted," you say. "You're needed. You're mine."
Joe makes a sound - a low, broken groan that seems to come from somewhere deep in his chest — and begins to move.
The rhythm starts slow, a gentle rocking that feels more like grinding than thrusting, a back-and-forth that lets you both find the pace. His mouth finds your neck, pressing open-mouthed kisses to your throat, and you feel the vibration of his moans against your skin. His hand slides between you, his thumb finding your clit, circling in time with his movements.
You arch into his touch, your fingers gripping his shoulders, your breath coming in gasps that match the rhythm of his hips. The pressure builds slowly, a warmth spreading from your core through your limbs, and you feel the familiar coil tightening in your belly.
He lifts his head. Looks at you. His eyes are dark, his pupils blown wide, his lips parted and wet.
"Look at me," he says. His voice is rough, a command wrapped in a plea. "Please. Look at me when you come."
You hold his gaze. Feel the weight of him above you, inside you, the heat of his body and the depth of his need. The coil tightens, tightens, and then breaks - a wave that crashes through you, your body clenching around him, your mouth falling open in a sound you can't contain.
He watches you. His eyes never leave yours, not even as his own climax builds, his thrusts becoming faster, harder, less controlled. He follows you over the edge, his body shuddering above you, his face buried in your neck as he comes with a sound that's half groan, half sob.
His weight settles on you. His breathing is ragged, his heart pounding against your ribs, his cock still inside you, softening. You wrap your arms around him, your hands cradling the back of his head, your fingers threading through his damp hair.
You both lay still, the only sound your breathing, the only movement the rise and fall of your chests. The streetlight casts its steady beam across the bed, illuminating the tangle of sheets, the curve of his spine, the way your hand rests on the back of his neck.
Joe lifts his head. Looks at you. His eyes are red-rimmed, not from crying but from the proximity of it, the closeness of the tears he's already shed and the ones still waiting.
"I love you," he says. The words are simple, stripped of everything but their truth.
You press your lips to his forehead. A kiss, soft and lingering.
"I love you too."
He lowers his head again, his cheek resting on your chest, his ear over your heart. His hand finds yours, your fingers interlocking, and you feel the last of the tension drain from his body - a long, slow exhale that seems to carry the weeks away with it.
The clock ticks in the living room. The radiator clicks. Somewhere outside, a dog barks, distant and irrelevant. The streetlight holds its steady watch, and the dust drifts in the silver light, suspended and unhurried.
Joe's breathing slows into the rhythm of sleep, his hand still holding yours, his body curled around you like you're the only safe harbour in a world that has demanded too much of him.
You press another kiss to his hair, let your eyes close, and hold him through the night.
dividers: saradika-graphics
new taglist: @whispersoflost, @teheblue, @mr-joel-keeny, @je33123, @eller41, @bluehexagon8, @n4ina-07, @prettyfortucker, @leahfaith, @keerymylove, @sexyvixen7, @writingforuandme, @oohlillie, @lacywithdrawal, @stoneyggirl2, @kurtsw7rld96
I needed that. Thank you.
