Vic

. She/her. 26.

[andrew-garfielld]

PAUL MESCAL Rolling Stone (October 2025)

[mevil]

[half-moon16]

Inertia Masterlist

Series Summary: Psychological Law of Inertia: a person will tend to maintain the status-quo unless compelled to alter the status-quo by a psychological motive. So...between you and Javier Peña, who will move first?

Series Rating: Mature/Explicit (18+ only!!) Chapters will also be marked individually

Contents/Warnings: ❤️‍🔥Slow burn baby❤️‍🔥, co-workers to friends to lovers, no use of y/n, angst, canon-typical grief & violence, language, smoking, alcohol use, unhealthy coping mechanisms, mentions of death (of a character & parents), infidelity, unprotected PIV, masturbation (m & f), oral (m & f)

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!DEAagent!reader

Playlist if you’re moody like that

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 16

Part(s)….???? Idk how many just gonna go till it feels right.

Drabbles

A Very Inertia Christmas -a flashback to your first Christmas in Colombia with Javi & Steve

[littlcdarlin]

Event Horizon

summary: When you start university to do your master’s in physics, you are more than surprised to meet your professor: Joel Miller, an old friend of your parents' who moved away years ago. word–count: 15k warnings: professor kink, power imbalance due to Joel being reader's professor, illegal relationship (overage & consenting), dbf!Joel, big fat age gap (unspecified but written with early 20s & mid 50s in mind), unprotected piv, just overall daddy issues (no use of the word daddy)

note: I know most people hate physics, but I promise Joel makes it hot. Warning: explanation of the Dirac equation as foreplay. Enjoy <3333

event horizon noun ASTRONOMY a notional boundary around a black hole beyond which no light or other radiation can escape. a point of no return.

Uni felt different at eighteen, when everything was about moving out, drinking beer at frat parties, and kissing boys who didn’t grow up in the same town you did. It was an exciting time, the degree itself fading into the background of all sorts of new experiences, but now that you’re doing your masters, you plan on focusing on your your grades more than on partying.

You enrolled in a new university, farther away from home, with a better physics program, and although you’ve grown up considerably, you still feel that tingle of anxiety you did when you first walked to your dorm, fresh out of high school. This time you won’t have to share with another student, spending your saved money on a bit of privacy that is a single dorm room, but still, you wonder if you’ll make friends here, or if you’ll spend your night hauled up alone, watching trash TV and crying because you’re lonely.

The room is small, blank, but functional with a bathroom you share with another student and a small kitchenette, and immediately you dream of all the ways you could decorate it. You didn’t bring much, just a big suitcase and a few boxes your Dad dropped off earlier. You feel slightly guilty for leaving your parents behind, but the relief outweighs the guilt – you won’t have to come home every Sunday for dinner, visits will be scarce. You love you parents, but the distance is much needed.

You get to unpacking your clothes, reveling in the fact that you can listen to music without headphones in your very own space. You could do it in your underwear, or naked, you could sing and dance along, and nobody would be bothered by it. It’s going to be a tough two years, the program you chose more than challenging, but a childish sort of giddiness fills you – no roommate to be considerate of, no parents to visit and take care of every week. This time in your life is about you, and only you – your career, but also your well-being. You promise yourself to do what makes you happy, instead of looking out for everyone else all of the time, and you’ll start by ordering Thai food and watching the trashiest movie with the hottest actors you can find on the little flatscreen you brought with you.

***

Your first lecture is Computational Physics – the one you’re looking forward to the least. The reason you decided to study physics at all was the predictable logic behind each problem, but the more you studied, the more complex the problems got, until they were impossible to solve analytically. Now you get to solve fluid dynamic equations and simulate quantum systems on a Monday morning instead of having a peaceful cup of coffee and taking a walk around campus.

The lecture hall is big, and you pick a seat that is neither too far away to be able to read the professor’s notes, nor close enough to immediately be pinned as an over-eager teacher’s pet. In the end, you plop down next to a girl who’s sitting alone, something about her shaved head and countless earrings making you think she wouldn’t make fun of you even if you didn’t understand a single thing all lecture.

"Okay if I sit here?", you ask somewhat timidly, trying hard not to sound too much like an eleven year old Ron Weasley boarding the train to Hogwarts.

"Please," the girl answers, "I don’t know anybody here."

"Did you move here, too?"

"Yeah, I’m from New York."

"You look it," you say with a smile, eyes drifting over her clothes and jewelry.

"Thanks…I guess?", she answers, her grin revealing a charming gap between her front teeth. "I’m Alva."

You introduce yourself, thankful to have found someone you can stick to already. Throughout the lecture you find out that apart from being much cooler than everyone else in the room, Alva has a biting sense of humor, and a near endless knowledge of computational physics. You make a mental note to ask her to study together, her explanations much easier to understand than the professor’s.

The two of you spend your lunch break together, and you tell her a little bit about yourself, but way too soon it’s time to go already – you have Advanced Quantum Mechanics in a different lecture hall. This you find way more interesting, basic quantum mechanics was one of your favorite lectures during your bachelor’s degree. As Alva and you sit down, you find yourself hoping you’ll be able to help her out this time, or you’d feel like a leech for making her help you with Computational. She doesn’t seem bothered, though, and keeps babbling happily about a band she recently discovered.

"– Britpop, but they only put out two albums. I think they were like a student band or something? They’re wildly underrated, I’ll send you a song, their debut is called The Sun Is Often Out."

Your thoughts start to wander off a little, eyes drifting over the old-fashioned chalkboards, when the door at the front of the lecture hall opens, and a tall man walks in – a man you recognize.

"Holy shit," you whisper, interrupting Alva’s rant about the Longpigs, and she turns her head to look at what you’re staring at.

"Damn," she says with a grin, "if I wasn’t gay, I’d want a piece of that."

"No," you snort, "I know him. He’s my Dad’s friend."

Alva opens her mouth to say something, but at that moment, Joel Miller steps forward, checking to see if the microphone is working, and introduces himself to the hundreds of students in front of him. His voice is deep, and as warm as you remember it, but that’s where the accuracy of your memories ends – your childish brain failed to register the tanned forearms and rolled up sleeves, the carelessly styled curls, the perfect side-profile. He’s got grey streaks in his hair now, which should send you into a crisis about time passing and your own little life being finite, but instead it makes your stomach swirl with something dangerous. Joel Miller, the Joel Miller, who organized backyard barbecues with your father and bought your favorite vegan sausages when your Dad rolled his eyes at you, who made strawberry lemonade instead of lemon, because he knew you preferred it, who helped you with your physics homework when you were graduating high school and didn’t rat you out when he caught you smoking at seventeen – he’s handsome.

There’s still a familiarity about him, the way he moves and talks, although it’s unsettling to see him in such a different environment. You’re used to band-tee-Joel, beer bottle and tongs in his hands, a breezy smile on his face. He looks different here, in a white button-down, with a stern expression on his face, as he’s reading the names on his list to check attendance. When he calls Alva’s name and she raises her hand, his eyes flicker upwards, but he doesn’t look at you. Still, your stomach lurches. If you listen carefully, you can detect that southern twang in his voice you’re sure most people would miss, and it fills you with satisfaction to know you’re the one who knows him best in this room – you’re sure half the lecture hall must see how attractive he is.

When he reads out your name, there’s a surprised lilt to his tone, and your heart threatens to skip a beat.

"Here."

Your eyes meet, and although his expression doesn’t change, he holds your eyecontact for a second too long. Alva nudges your side and grins.

Your plans about outshining Alva and returning the favor of helping with a lecture are quickly buried by Joel Miller’s beautiful hands – thick fingers holding a piece of chalk almost tenderly, twirling it around when he isn’t writing on the chalkboard. You vaguely register him introducing the Dirac equation, but as interesting as you would normally find it, your thoughts are stuck between memories of barbecues and the realization that you will have to call the man who taught you to drive Professor Miller.

If Alva notices your wandering mind, she doesn’t comment on it, which you’re thankful for. You do notice her throwing you a couple of knowing glances, as you copy down what Joel is writing down, mixing up gamma, delta, and the Dirac spinor.

"Alright, so you all know how Schrödinger’s equation works great for quantum mechanics, but it doesn’t play nicely with Einstein’s relativity, right? That’s a problem because electrons move fast, sometimes close to the speed of light, so we need an equation that respects both quantum mechanics and special relativity. That’s where Dirac steps in."

He’s still got that warm way of explaining things your Dad never managed when you needed help in high school, like he enjoys clearing things up for people. He’s a born teacher, patient when you panicked in the car because you confused the clutch and the break, persistent when you wanted to throw your physics book against a wall. Look, kid, think of it this way: Push harder, it moves faster. Make it heavier, it’s harder to move. If you apply a force F to an object with mass m, it will accelerate a. That’s why your Dad’s car takes longer to stop than your bike. Even now, he manages to make a far more complex equation than Newton’s second law tangible.

"Dirac's equation is like the grown-up version of Schrödinger’s equation. It explains how particles with spin-half, like electrons, behave when they move at relativistic speeds. The gamma mu matrices make sure the equation works in four-dimensional spacetime, meaning three space dimensions plus time. The psi is a spinor, which is just a fancy way of saying that an electron isn’t just a simple wave function, it actually has spin built into its nature. Now, can anyone think of a situation where we would need to use this equation instead of the regular Schrödinger equation?"

Nobody raises their hand, most people still busy with writing down Joel’s complicated notes, and as if on cue, his eyes are on yours when you look up from your notebook. He raises an eyebrow, and you see the corner of his mouth twitch almost imperceptibly. Then, he calls your last name, a formal Miss dripping off his tongue as if he hasn’t called you kiddo for most of your life. It’s almost like he’s making a joke only the two of you are able to understand, and the thought thrills you to your bone. Two can play this game – you smile back.

"Sure, Professor Miller. You’d use it for studying high-energy particles, like electrons in particle accelerators, because it accounts for relativistic speeds. It’s also needed for situations where particles are created or destroyed, which Schrödinger’s equation doesn’t cover."

Again, his eyes linger on yours, and his slightly amused smile turns into a more genuine one at your answer. You let out a relieved sigh.

"Exactly," Joel answers, his attention on the rest of the class again, "Someone payed attention during Basic Quantum Mechanics. Now, here’s where it gets wild. When Dirac wrote this down, he realized it naturally predicts antiparticles, meaning for every electron, there should be a mirror-image particle with opposite charge, which we now call the positron. That was a huge deal because it wasn’t something people were expecting, it just fell out of the math."

For the rest of the class, Joel doesn’t continue that little game between the two of you, but whenever he asks a question, his gaze flickers over you, and your stomach gives an embarrassing little jump. Alva grins whenever this happens, but for most of the class she’s busy following Joel’s explanations.

"I want you to read up on today’s lecture," Joel says at the end of the lecture, and writes down a few page numbers on the chalkboard, "and solve the problems I mentioned earlier. Attendance isn’t mandatory, we’re all adults here, but I urge you to come if you’re interested in graduating in the next three years. Trust me, it’s easier to just do the work here than in your dorms. Now, enjoy the weather, see you Monday."

You and Alva pack up your things, and before she can ask you which class you have next, you pick up your backpack.

"I’m gonna say hi to him," you tell her, nodding in Joel’s direction, "my Dad and him go way back."

"Sure," Alva says, a cheeky smile on her face, "it’d be rude not to."

"Meet you outside?"

"I’ll be at the vending machine. Go get him," she jokes, and you snort.

Joel is packing up his course materials when you make your way down the steps and to his desk, but he looks up when he hears you coming towards him, and immediately his face splits into a smile. If you were anywhere else and ten years younger, he’d probably ruffle your hair.

"Good lecture," you say, "Dad didn’t tell me you’re teaching again."

Joel puts his piece of chalk into a tin box and nods.

"I don’t think he knows. You know how it is, we never get around to callin’ and I haven’t been home in a while."

So this is a new development, perhaps even Joel’s first semester back at university, too.

"What about the contracting? Don’t you miss the…pipes?"

He chuckles at your lack in basic contracting knowledge, his eyes not moving from yours.

"Ah, that was always Tommy, he just needed a little help. Company’s doin’ well now, though, so he’ll manage without me."

You think you remember Tommy – a man good-naturedly chasing you and the rest of the giggling neighborhood kids with a harden hose – but the memory is too vague to be sure it’s really him.

"You’ve grown up," Joel says, almost accusingly, and you shrug and smile. "Doin’ your master’s already. How come you’re familiar with Dirac?"

His accent is much thicker now that it’s only the two of you, and you notice a hint of pride when he asks about your correct answer to his question during the lecture. The satisfied feeling it gives you is still the same as when he high-fived you after your drivers test, or when he patted your back after you solved a problem for school without his help.

"Summer reading," you admit, trying hard not to sound like a nerd, "Basic Quantum Mechanics was my favorite lecture as an undergrad."

Joel smiles at you, and puts his notes into his leather bag. He slings it across his shoulder, and nods towards the door.

"How would you like to grab a coffee and tell me all about what’s been goin’ on with you and your old man?"

Your eyes flicker briefly over his hand, gripping the strap of his bag, and you raise an eyebrow.

"What’s the policy for staff having coffee with their students, Professor?"

Joel holds your gaze, the corners of his mouth twitching.

"I’m actually not sure, Miss, I’ve never had to check before."

He’s playing along, and it feels dangerously blurry – yes, he’s your Dad’s old friend, your childhood neighbor, but it feels like more than just joking around.

"Does that mean I’m your first, then?", you ask, voice sweet and close to flirting now. The smile freezes on Joel’s face, and his gaze becomes almost calculating.

"Am I yours?" he asks you softly, and the double-meaning behind his question isn’t lost on you. You feel a thrilling pang in your stomach – Joel Miller is flirting with you.

***

You do end up getting coffee after you tell Alva you’ll meet her later, Joel reassuring you it won’t get him into trouble, and you’re fascinated to see he still drinks it black. What fascinates you even more is that you remember how he takes his coffee, and you wonder why your brain filed this fact away as important, not to be forgotten.

"So, when did you graduate? Sorry I missed it."

There’s honest regret in his voice, which surprises you. Joel was always a warm person, but you figured he cared for you as much as he would have for any kid living across the street.

"Last June," you tell him, dropping a sugar cube into your cappuccino. "I spent the summer working, and now I’m here."

"How d’you like it so far?"

You give a nervous chuckle, torn between the honest truth and pleasant small talk. You opt for the former – this is Joel, after all, not some stranger.

"To be honest with you, I oscillate between enjoying my freedom away from Mom and Dad, and being scared shitless by starting over somewhere new," you admit, looking at your coffee. You haven’t told people about your fear, and it feels good to finally admit it – the grip your parents have had on you makes your newfound freedom almost uncomfortable.

"What d’you mean, startin’ over?", Joel asks, his voice strikingly gentle. You sigh, and shrug.

"I know the distance is good for me, but it was comfortable, just doing what my parents expected of me. I had good grades, nice friends, and just the right amount of drunken nights for them not to worry about my social life too much," you explain, "and now it’s like…there’s so much room to be someone else, cause they won’t see it anyway."

You look up, embarrassed to have spilt your guts like this, but Joel looks thoughtful, his thumb moving along the handle of his coffee cup.

"Sorry," you mutter, "I know they’re your friends, but they can be…"

"Overbearing?"

You smile at him gratefully and he smiles back.

"Look, I know your parents pretty well. They love you to bits, but as an adult I imagine it must be stiflin’.“

"Yeah," you sigh, grateful for his understanding, "I feel like I don’t know who I am when I’m not…their kid."

Joel nods, and sips his coffee, apparently pondering what you said.

"I promised myself I would only do what makes me happy while I’m here," you tell him sheepishly, as if it’s a secret, and Joel laughs.

"Well, I’m not expectin’ you to hand in any homework, then."

You grin, too, and shake your head. It’s surreal, Joel being your professor, and you wearing your heart on your sleeve for him.

"Don’t worry, Professor Miller, I’m not dropping your class."

"You’d better not, it’d really hurt my feelings," Joel says, eyes trained on yours. Again, that blurriness set in motion by the change of his role in your life: neighbor to professor to – what?

"What about you, though? This your first semester here?"

"Second," he tells you, "but I still don’t feel at home. Once a Texan, always a Texan, I guess."

You cock your head and watch him drain the last of his coffee, the cup tiny in his hands.

"What?" he asks you, curiosity evident in his voice.

"You look so different," you say, and Joel scoffs.

"Well, that’s real nice. Know I’m not thirty anymore, but geez–"

"No," you say with a grin, "it’s not that. I don’t know, I’ve just never seen you teach before. Or dressed this nice – I remember you mowing the lawn in a Fleetwood Mac shirt, not checking attendance in a button down."

Joel’s cheeks go slightly pink, and he scoffs again.

"Well, I can’t show up here in a band tee, can I? Gotta dress the part," he mutters.

"I get it. You suit it," you tell him, if only to see that blush appear on his face again. He looks up at you, holding your gaze for a couple of seconds, then he shakes his head.

"What were the odds of us meetin’ like this, huh? I gotta call your father and tell him."

Something about that bothers you, you’d prefer for your parents not to know. You like sitting here with Joel, reminiscing the old times, without anybody getting a peek in.

"Or not," he says gently, seeing the expression on your face.

"Sorry," you say, "course you can tell him."

"You apologize a lot," he tells you, and you fight the urge to say sorry once again. "It’s okay, I’m not tellin’ anyone, kid. ’S just you n me."

That pang in your stomach again, and you nod.

"Alright," you answer, "just us."

You get a refill for the two of you, and a blueberry muffin to split, which feels strangely intimate, but Joel pats his stomach and jokes about keeping an eye on his figure, so you grin, and ask the barista to cut it in half. Joel asks you about your friends, and you tell him about Alva.

"Oh yes," he says and swallows a bite of the muffin, "that punky lookin’ kid who sits next to you?"

"Yeah, she’s nice. Haven’t really met anyone else."

"Geez, I’m not keepin’ you from findin’ frat boys to hook up with, am I?"

You laugh, the idea of sitting here with a twenty-something year old kid named Cole or Josh instead of him so absurd, you can’t help it.

"No," you tell him, "I’m honestly enjoying the fact that I don’t have to have someone else in my dorm anymore."

"Well, that’s a relief to hear," Joel says, "they’re all dipshits."

You remember him telling you something similar about the boys in high school, and it makes you smile. He’s still got that protective streak, then.

"To tell you the truth, I’m glad you’re here," you say quietly, "if I’m not making any friends, I can come crying to you."

Joel watches you for a couple of seconds, not laughing as you intended, but taking your words seriously.

"Course you’ll make friends. Give it a couple of weeks, and you’ll have forgotten all about physics cause you’ll be skippin’ classes left and right to hang out with people."

You don’t tell him, but you think it’s very unlikely you’ll skip any of his classes. Still, you appreciate his words and how confident he seems to be in your ability to open up to people.

"Well, will you give me the answers to your exams if I skip your class?"

"No way," he says with a cheeky smile, the crinkles around his eyes prominent. "I don’t do preferential treatment. You wanna split another blueberry muffin?"

You grin.

"Thought you were watching your waistline."

"I am, that’s why I’m only eating halves."

***

Your afternoon with Joel leaves you on a high for the rest of the day, feeling much less lonely now that you’ve had a conversation beyond the usual so how many siblings do you have? and where did you do your undergrad?

You start spending your lunch breaks with Alva and some friends she made in another lecture, all of whom are very nice. In the evenings you all go to see a movie or have dinner together in any of your dorm rooms, and although you walk around campus holding out one eye for Joel, you don’t see him for the rest of the week. There is always a nudge of disappointment in your stomach, when you glance in the direction of his office, and the door is closed, but you’re so busy, you don’t dwell on it too much. The days pass in a blur of new lectures, swapping music with Alva, and evenings spent as a group of six, and suddenly it’s Sunday again. You aren’t too sad the weekend is already over, and you know exactly why you’re looking forward to Monday, but you don’t allow yourself to think about Joel any more than you can help.

In the afternoon, while you’re doing Joel’s assignment for the next class, your mother calls, and you answer the phone with a mixture of feelings.

Hi, my darling, how are you doing?

"Hi, Mom. I’m good, just doing my work for tomorrow. How are you?"

Good, good. How was your first week? Did you meet anyone nice?

Hah, if she only knew. It feels deceptive, not telling her about Joel, but you like that for now, he’s just yours.

"Yes, this girl called Alva. We and some guys hang out a lot, there’s a cinema near by, but the lectures are pretty hard, so we only have the evenings off."

Well, I’m glad you found some nice people! Dad says hi, he’s making dinner. Anyway, baby, we miss you terribly. Do you know when you’ll be coming home?

"I just got here, Mom."

You sigh so quietly your mother can’t hear it, guilt already nagging at your heart. Sunday is the day you would usually be coming home for dinner, and you know it’s no coincidence your parents called you now.

Of course, you’re right. It’s just not easy for your Dad and me, you know? You’ve never been this far from home, and you’re our baby.

Yeah, you think, your adult baby. You sigh again.

"I don’t know if I’ll come this month, I’m still sort of settling in. But I’ll let you know if there’s a free weekend next month, alright?"

Sure, that sounds great. Will you send us some pictures of your friends, and your room?

"Sure," you say, but it bugs you that you’re giving in. Already, you’re breaking the promise you made yourself, and letting your parents further into your life here than you’re comfortable with.

"Mom, I gotta go, I’ve still got some problems to solve and I’m meeting Alva for dinner soon."

Okay, darling, enjoy your night! And make yourself heard. I love you!

"Love you, too! Talk soon."

Your kind, clingy mother, whose greatest pain is not knowing if you’re safe. In a way you miss her, and you feel guilty for being annoyed. Still, you know you have to gently nudge her away from you, or she’ll suffocate you one day. It makes you angry with yourself, because you know your Mom would have liked nothing more than to hear all about your week, but as soon as she asked you a question, you felt like your seventeen year old self again, getting yelled at because you stayed up past your curfew, and your parents didn’t know where you were.

Tears of frustration spring to your eyes – the mix of feelings too much for you to handle. You wipe them away with the back of your hand, breathe in shakily, and try to focus on your assignment again, but now you’re riled up, and the tears won’t stop.

It’s hard for you to deal with disappointing your parents, forcing them away when they would like nothing more than to know everything that’s going on in your life. So, instead of preparing for Joel’s lecture, you cry on your bed, feeling lonely and angry with yourself for hurting them. You know your reaction is disproportionate, but everything you kept buried while you lived close to your parents comes bubbling out of you.

You call Alva, tell her you have cramps because of your period and just want to stay in bed. She’s understanding, asks you if there’s anything she can do, even offers to bring you takeout or a hot water bottle, which makes you feel all the worse for lying to her. You decline her offer, tell her you’ll meet her Monday morning. In the evening, you regret not letting her bring over a real meal, eating cold pasta in your underwear, tears still running down your face and making your head pound.

***

On Monday, you feel slightly better, your headache is gone and your face isn’t as puffy as you expected it to be. Still, you’re in a solitary mood, and are glad to find Alva is able to keep up an entire conversation virtually by herself – you just grunt from time to time, or give noncommittal movements of your head in vague agreement. You hope if she notices your bad mood, she just thinks it has to do with your period.

Computational Physics is hell – you dislike it on the best of days, but guilt ridden and tired, you’re barely able to pay attention at all, and the professor’s handwriting is so bad, you end up copying down Alva’s notes instead. She’s kind about it, slides over her notebook at an angle that makes it easy to read, and you make a mental note to thank her for being so kind to you while you’re offering nothing but a scowling expression all day. Maybe you’ll cook for her, or make a mixtape of your favorite songs, just to show her you’re interested in being actual good friends.

Lunch passes easily, as always you sit with Alva and the guys, and there’s enough people for you to stare at your mashed potatoes and repeatedly stab them with your fork instead of eating them. They taste like flour mixed up with water, and you dream up your father’s Sunday dinner instead, but it does little to help with the taste.

"So, you lookin’ forward to flirting with Miller in front of the whole lecture hall again?" Alva asks you, as you’re making your way to said room. You glare at her, but can’t help the corners of your mouth twitching.

"Wasn’t flirting with him," you answer, kicking a pebble, "I grew up across the street from him, I’ve known him practically my whole life."

"Whatever you say, grumpy," Alva teases, nudging your shoulder with hers. You’re overcome with a rush of gratitude for the way she treats you, persistently kind and humorous. You chuckle, your mood lifting slightly.

"He’s probably been waiting for you to turn legal," she continues, and you groan.

"Gross, Alva, he’s not a creep."

"I’m just saying, if your little connection gets you the answers to his tests, you could sell them and become rich."

"I already asked him, he said no," you say darkly, thinking of the nights you’ll have to spend studying to pass his exam. This makes Alva laugh her brilliant laugh, and you can’t help but smile, too.

"Damn," she grins, "I’d try if he wasn’t a guy."

You snort.

"You try with Professor Carter, I need the answers to Computational," you suggest, wiggling your eyebrows suggestively.

"You’re joking, but I bet once you get her out of her frumpy cardigans, she’s a real–"

"Okay, stop," you grown, the image of Professor Carter taking off her cardigans worse than her keeping them on – if possible. Alva giggles.

"I’ll help you with Computational," she says, "if you help me with Quantum Mechanics."

"You’re good at both," you argue, and Alva shrugs.

"Not like you, though. I spent like four hours doing Miller’s assignment last night."

You want to tell her you didn’t do it at all, but before you can open your mouth, she spots a friend in the crowd, grabs your arm and drags you over to him.

The three of you sit down together, closer to the front than the week before, which gives you a direct line of sight to Joel’s desk. When he walks in, your stomach jumps – he’s wearing a tie today, a dark burgundy or blue, you aren’t sure from this distance, flecked with specks of white. Again, his hair is styled in that carelessly disheveled look you like so much, and the image of him putting gel in it makes you smile. He gets out his materials for the lecture, and looks up, his eyes finding yours – you smile and he gives a small nod. Again you’re struck by how different he acts in front of the class, how serious he seems. You think of his laid back manner when you had coffee, and struggle to make the images align. Joel clears his throat, and the chatter around you stops.

"Quiet, please, everyone. Thank you. So, last week, we found out that Dirac’s equation predicts the existence of antiparticles. But instead of just accepting that, let’s think deeper—mathematically, what feature of the equation forces this conclusion?"

Joel jumps right into the lecture, and just like last week, nobody raises their hands – you curse the people around you for their lethargy, because sure enough, Joel’s eyes land on you. Before you can shake your head to signal to him not to ask you, he calls your name.

"If I remember correctly, you were already familiar with Dirac’s equation last week. What would you say, what does the existence of negative-energy solutions tell us, and why couldn’t we just ignore them?"

You wish you could answer him, know he asked you because he was sure you’d know the answer, perhaps hoped your enthusiasm for the subject would get the rest of the students to participate more, but you didn’t do the assignment, and you’ve already half forgotten his question. You swallow.

"Um…I…I’m not sure, Sir," you say, watching the way his brows furrow, and looking down at your notes. Alva shoots you a curious look, and when she sees your expression, she raises her hand. You’re thankful to have Joel’s attention diverted, feeling like a fool in front of hundreds of students you’re trying to make friends with.

"Dirac’s equation gives positive and negative energy solutions, and at first, the negative ones didn’t make sense. Dirac suggested they represent antiparticles, like the positron, which he predicted. The idea was that electrons could, like, jump into these negative-energy states, creating a hole that looks like a positron, which was later confirmed experimentally," Alva explains instead of you.

"You're close, but electrons don’t actually 'jump into' negative-energy states. Instead, Dirac proposed that these states are already filled, forming what he called the Dirac Sea. A positron isn’t an electron jumping down, it’s actually a 'hole' left when a negative-energy electron gets excited to a positive-energy state. That distinction is important because it explains why positrons have the opposite charge. Good answer, though, thank you Ms. Bennet."

Joel’s eyes flicker over to you again, but you show no reaction, and he continues with his lecture without asking you another question. Alva glances at you inquiringly, and you sigh.

"I wanted to do the assignment yesterday, but my cramps were really bad," you explain quietly, and she nods sympathetically.

"Call me next time, I’ll send you my answers," she whispers, and you smile gratefully. It seems you really hit the jackpot in friendship when you sat down next to Alva.

***

After Joel’s lecture, you and Alva make your way over to the vending machine, because it has the sour patches she likes, and in her own words she’ll combust if she doesn’t eat some right fucking now.

"Shit," she curses, "they’re stuck."

"Let me," a voice comes from a behind you, and when you turn around, Joel is smiling at the two of you. "Took me a while to figure this thing out, too."

Alva steps aside, and Joel bangs his palm against the side of machine. You jump, but the sour patches make their tumbling way down to the dispenser.

"Great! Thanks, Professor Miller," Alva says, ripping the bag open and offering it to the two of you. To your surprise, Joel takes her up on it, and Alva grins at you.

"You were quiet during today’s lecture," Joel says tentatively, when he’s swallowed his sour patch "everything alright?"

You glance at your shoes.

"Um, yeah. I wasn’t feeling well yesterday, and I left your assignment for last, so…I didn’t do it."

Joel’s expression grows worried, and Alva glances between the two of you.

"Hey, I’m meeting Max for coffee," she tells you, "see you later?"

"Yeah," you answer, grateful she’s granting you this time alone with Joel, "see you, Alva."

When she’s gone, Joel is still looking at you with that worried look on his face, and you sigh.

"Sorry about the assignment," you say, "won’t happen again."

"I’m not worried about the assignment," Joel says earnestly, but then he turns his head, and you know he doesn’t want someone listening in. Sure, you can be seen chatting in the university cafe, but this conversation is rapidly blurring the lines between scholarly and – something else.

"I…have some materials in my office that might make it easier for you to catch up with the lectures again," Joel tells you, and you understand the underlying meaning. Let’s talk in my office.

"Thank you," you say, relieved, and Joel nods, eyes still glued to yours, brows still furrowed. You walk to his office making smalltalk about the lecture, which to anyone listening in would seem like a normal conversation between a professor and an interested student.

Joel opens the door to his office for you, and lets you step in first. It’s small, cramped bookshelves on the walls and a sturdy desk in the middle that is littered with notes, pencils, books, and a couple of old coffee mugs. You notice he put part of his books sideways onto the shelves, which you find weirdly endearing. This is the Joel you know – clutter and warmth.

He closes the door behind you, and you turn around to watch him drop his bag and walk over to the kettle in the corner of the room.

"Coffee?"

"Please," you sigh, "if you don’t have anything stronger."

He raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t answer, just turns on the already filled kettle, and gets two clean cups for the two of you.

"I only have drip coffee," he tells you, "I don’t drink that crap the machines brew up."

"That’s fine, I enjoy the medieval feel of it."

"Watch it," he answers, a smile tugging on his lips, "don’t insult my coffee filter in front of me."

You grin, and walk over to his bookshelf to have a look.

"So, what’s going on?" he asks you while pouring the boiling hot water over the coffee grounds. Again, the Joel you remember – empathetic, but unusually direct. You sigh, turn around and shrug.

"Mom and Dad called yesterday, and I could tell they missed me, but I just…I cut them off after two minutes."

Joel places the cups on his desk, and leans against it. His sleeves are rolled up again, and when he crosses his arms, you feel that familiar pang in your stomach.

"And now I…I don’t know, I feel so guilty, Joel. They’re not even being dicks about it, but I just know they’d prefer for me to check in with them more…and the worst thing is, I know it’s not a big deal. They’ll get over it, they’ve got a good life without me constantly in it, so I don’t know why my stupid brain can’t just let this go, you know? One I miss you, darling, and I’m reduced to this pathetic mess, instead of just, I don’t know, getting my shit together."

You shake your head and clench your teeth, once again embarrassed to come crying to Joel about your parental issues, but he’s the only one you can tell. Sure, Alva would probably listen, but you don’t feel like explaining your family to a near stranger. Joel just gets it. Joel knows you.

He’s looking at you, arms still crossed, and for a second you worry he might not want to hear about your little breakdown, but then he sighs.

"You have your shit together all of the fuckin’ time, kid, I think that might be the problem," he tells you quietly. "You’ve always been so hard on yourself."

He’s right, once again he sees what you struggle to show the world, and his words make tears spring to your eyes. You will your eyeballs to suck them back in, but of course, Joel sees.

"Hey now," he says, taking a tentative step towards you. One tear drops from the end of your lashes and down your cheek, and the dam is broken again – they come spilling in floods. Joel crosses the room in a second, and there is a slight moment of hesitation between the two of you, before you bury your face in his chest, and let your restraint fall. You cry quietly, feel him wrap his arms around you, as he rocks you back and forth.

"You’re alright," he tells you, "Shhh, it’s okay, you’re alright."

"S-s-sorry about the assignment," you manage, and Joel’s hand starts stroking your back.

"Jesus, kid, stop worryin’ about the fucking assignment," he tells you, voice low and worried. "You don’t gotta be so strict with yourself. You’re doin’ just fine."

He smells so much like home, you think you might never stop crying.

"I don’t know what’s wrong with me," you hiccup, "One week here and I’m a mess already."

You feel Joel rest his chin on your head, and his arms tighten around you.

"There’s nothin’ wrong with you, you hear me? You hold yourself to high standards. Creates pressure, kid."

As always, he’s right of course – you want to excel academically, you don’t want to hurt your parents, you want to stay true to yourself and do what makes you happy, you want to make friends without compromising your grades. It’s impossible.

You breathe in shakily, your eyes closed, face buried in Joel’s chest, and for a second he is all that exists – just Joel, all around you, pulling you to the earth. Slowly, your breathing calms, Joel still rocking you soothingly, holding you close.

"There we go," he mutters, when your chest stops shaking, "that’s good."

When you pull away from him, he puts his hands on your shoulders to really look at you, and although you’re embarrassed by your outburst, you’re glad he doesn’t shy away from you.

"I want you to start being a little more lenient with yourself, alright? You don’t need to worry about an assignment on top of everything."

His hands are rubbing your shoulders, his eyes are kind and warm.

"Maybe not about yours, but I have like five other lectures –"

"Okay, so try to stop worrying about my assignments, just mine. Won’t bite your head off if you don’t do them, and I’ll only ask you questions when you raise your hand, alright? In fact, for the rest of the term, I want you to hand them in late."

Despite yourself, your lips pull up in a small smile.

"That’s silly, Joel," you say softly, but he shakes his head.

"It’s not silly, it’s practice to get you out of your comfort zone."

You consider his words for a moment. You do keep a pretty tight reign on yourself, and just the thought of doing every assignment late makes your skin crawl with anxiety. But when will you get another chance to step out of your comfort zone as safely as now, with Joel? He’s offering you a way to try it without actually risking your grades. And who knows, perhaps it actually will take a little bit of pressure off of you.

"Okay," you answer, staring up at Joel with puffy cheeks and teary eyes. "Alright."

He smiles at you, but he still looks worried and you wish he’d pull you close to him again. It’s such a relief to have this sort of human contact with someone who really knows you.

"Feel better?"

You sigh, and nod.

"It’s just a lot, you know, uni and my parents, and every social interaction feels like such a chore, cause I don’t know people yet. I feel like I’m not even relaxed when I’m asleep."

Joel hesitates for a moment, before he speaks, but when he does, he sounds determined.

"Come over tonight, I’ll make us somethin’ to eat, and you don’t have to worry about talkin’ to anyone. We’ll watch whatever you’d like. You still enjoy those crappy horror movies?"

You smile at the shared memory – Joel letting you use his living room to watch slashers your parents didn’t want you to see. One summer, when the heat was so stifling you barely went outside, you practically lived at his place, and when you’d seen all the DVDs he owned, he got you more from the video store.

"I do," you say quietly, the fact that Joel remembers more important to you than his proposal to spend the evening together. You feel significantly less alone, all of a sudden.

"Alright, then. Be over at seven,“ Joel tells you, and you nod, wiping your wet face with the back of your hand.

"Thank you, Joel," you say, and hug him again, because you don’t know how to tell him in words what you’re feeling, and his big, warm body against yours feels more than soothing.

"Course, kid. Just don’t tell Alva, or they’ll fire me."

You smile, your arms still wrapped around his neck, as he holds you.

"But I don’t wanna get you in trouble, what if–"

"No," Joel interrupts you, "no what ifs. No worryin’. I forbid it."

And you accept it, leave it to Joel, because he tells you to – because you don’t have any room in your head for more worries, and because you trust Joel not to do anything reckless. You trust him, period.

***

You text Alva you’re having dinner alone, that your cramps are still acting up, and you do feel slightly bad for lying, but you would never risk Joel’s job. The idea of having dinner with him at his place should make you nervous after your change in feelings about him, but you’re just looking forward to having a meal with someone who knows you, and lets you be yourself.

Joel asked you to be there at seven, so you spend the rest of the afternoon in your dorm room, wondering if you should change your outfit or if it would seem desperate – in the end, you keep the jeans but change into a blouse instead of a sweater. The part of you that stares at Joel’s forearms during class now wants to look pretty for him, so that he’ll ask you over again. You know you’re being ridiculous, but it doesn’t stop you from putting on your nicest perfume.

You’re ten minutes early, so you sit in your little second hand car and try not to panic. You know Joel is merely trying to be a good…friend? Ex-neighbor, Dad’s best friend turned professor? There’s no real etiquette to cling to in this situation, for either of you, and although you’re positive Joel doesn’t have any ulterior motives with you despite his flirting, you know he could lose his job if someone finds out you went to his house. Even if you just watch slashers together the way you did ten years ago. It makes you anxious to know he’d risk something clearly important to him for just that – he moved to a different state, quit his old job, started over completely, and is now willing to endanger that new life just because you’re stressed. At the same time it seems ridiculous anyone could forbid the two of you to spend time together after having known each other your entire life. The thought is absurd, and still, you need to be careful.

You get out of the car before you start to hyperventilate, and ring Joel’s doorbell – it feels strange for him to live in a new house. He opens the door with a smile, and absurd relief floods your veins when you realize he’s wearing an old Led Zeppelin shirt and a pair of worn jeans. This is your Joel.

"I come bearing gifts," you announce, stepping into the house.

“Christ, where did you get this?”, Joel asks, taking the six pack of beer from you, so you can take off your jacket. “I didn’t know they sold Shiner Bock outside of Texas, I’ve been survivin’ on Bud”.

“Brought it with me,” you explain, “figured it’d help if I got homesick, you know, in multiple ways.”

You grin, and Joel shakes his head good-naturedly.

“Old enough to drink, well I’ll be damned. I remember when you begged your Dad to let you have a coke and he asked me if I thought the caffeine would stunt your growth.”

“Did it?”

“It might’ve,” Joel says with a chuckle, “but he didn’t let you have it.”

“Well, he isn’t here now, so let’s put those in the fridge.”

“No," Joel mutters, “no, he ain’t.”

While Joel puts the beer away, you take a look around his living room – despite your reservations about the new house, it reminds you of his old place. It’s got the same masculine and warm feel to it, dark wood, books all over the place, no bells and whistles. Joel is a practical man, and it’s charmingly etched into every part of his life – except for his new work-look. The room isn’t as cluttered as you remember Joel’s old house back in Texas, but you assume he hasn’t had time to accumulate clutter yet. No old newspapers are lying around, no birthday cards stacking up. You wonder if he’s lonely here, teaching all by himself, hundreds of miles away from the place he last grew roots in.

“Do you miss home?” you ask him, when he comes back from the kitchen with two bottles of beer in his hands. He looks at ease, much more himself than back at university. His jeans are faded, his shirt a little too big on his already broad frame, and his hair is clean and curly the way you like it – no gel twisting it into all sorts of un-Joel-like styles. Warmth floods your chest at the sight of him taking a swig of his beer. His crowfeet are a little more pronounced, and his hair has more grey strands than it did back home, but he’s still got that distinctly warm, no-nonsense feel to him.

“Sometimes,” he answers, offering you the second bottle. Your hand brushes his when you take it from him. “But I’m pretty busy here, you know, got a whole lotta lectures to plan, papers to grade and that sort of stuff.”

You nod, and sip at your beer.

“Have you…you know, met people? Made friends here?”

Joel plops down on the couch, and smiles up at you.

“You worried about my social life?”

You shrug, and smile almost timidly.

“You know me, kid, I like bein’ by myself.”

That’s true, for as long as you’ve known Joel, he’s been alone. You know he has nieces and nephews who adore him, and your Dad mentioned a woman once, but it must have been at least twenty years since they were together. You wonder why Joel doesn’t seem to want that sort of a domestic life, surely many women would be happy to let him put a ring on them.

You walk over to the window, and watch a blackbird tug at a writhing worm.

“Have you met someone at uni you wanna be by yourself with?” you ask with a small grin, turning back to find Joel already watching you. “I heard Professor Carter’s still single.”

“She’s very intelligent,” Joel says earnestly. You give him credit for not laughing about his colleague, and suddenly you feel bad for calling her frumpy with Alva. “But I think I’ll leave her to her simulations. Why am I bein’ interrogated?”

“Sorry,” you mumble, and glance out of the window again, “just making conversation.”

“Your turn, then,” Joel answers, and takes another swig of beer. “Any frat boys catch your eye? Or frat girls?”

You glance at him, a smile on your lips, and raise your eyebrows.

“Hey, I don’t discriminate. I thought, maybe Alva…”

“No,” you answer, feeling fond of him for considering the possibility. “Alva’s a friend. The guys are…well, they’re frat boys.”

 Your voice carries enough disgust for Joel to laugh.

“Right,” he says, and his eyes are warm when they meet yours again. “Just us two loners, then."

“Cheers,” you say with a smile.

“Cheers.”

***

Joel’s cooking is a mystery to you – he loves to eat, and when he does cook, it’s always delicious, but he only ever makes one of five dishes. Again, that practicality shining through. Why try something new if you’ve perfected your routine? He made pasta for you, wasn’t sure if you’re still vegetarian and makin’ your Dad’s hair fall out, and you smile into the neck of your beer bottle, when you watch him drizzle dressing onto a carefully arranged side-salad. Throughout dinner, you tell him how much you love it at least five times, because you can tell he put effort into the meal. You know it’s not technically a date, but having a dinner he made just for you, in his home – it feels like one.

You steer the conversation away from heavy topics like your parents. Although Joel offered you this evening to make you feel better, you want to spend it with him rather than in your head, so you ask him about books and music, about his lectures, about Tommy and the kids. You like watching how his face lights up whenever he talks about something he particularly loves. Joel is a quiet man, but you found out years ago it isn’t shyness, but a disinterest in most mundane topics – he doesn’t like gossip or superficial small talk. When he tells you Tommy made him godfather of all of his children, the pride is evident in his voice, and you don’t have to fake your enthusiasm, although it amuses you, too – Tommy loving his big brother enough not to consider anyone else.

"She calls me uncle Joe," he tells you with a chuckle, "Can’t pronounce her Ls yet, but I’ve considered legally changing my name."

When you’re done eating, you help him clear the table, but when you reach for the sponge to do the dishes, Joel shakes his head.

"Let me do that later, kid. You wanna watch a movie?"

So the two of you plop down on the couch with a bag of M&Ms and another round of beer, and Joel hands you the remote.

"Go wild," he says, chuckling when you excitedly turn on he TV to open Netflix.

"Wow, a streaming service? I thought you’d just hoard DVDs for the rest of your life."

Joel huffs, and instead of answering, he leans forward, and reaches for something under his couch table. When he turns his head, he’s got glasses on his face, thick-rimmed and black, and so startlingly sexy, you almost drop the remote.

"You…you’ve got glasses?"

"Yeah," he answers, his eyes meeting yours, and you swallow. "When your eyesight deteriorates, that’s when you know you’re gettin’ old."

You hum but don’t answer, just hold his gaze for a second and look back to the screen. You try to ignore the familiar pang in your stomach at the sight of Joel in his new glasses, and skip through movie after movie, mumbling seen it, seen it, that one sucks, seen it, until Joel reaches over and snatches the remote from you.

"Hey–"

"I can’t read anything if you skip through them that quickly."

"You’re not supposed to read, you’re supposed to go with the vibe of the cover."

He glances at you with furrowed brows.

"Okay, sorry, didn’t know you’re a filmbro," you grumble, but it’s almost entirely fake – you couldn’t be annoyed with him, not when he pushes his glasses up his nose, and carefully considers which button to press on the remote.

"I don’t know what that means," he answers, and starts reading the description of a romantic comedy about Christmas.

"I’m not watching that."

"You don’t even know what it’s about."

"It’s September, Joel."

He huffs again, but finally reaches the horror movies. Surprisingly, it doesn’t take the two of you long to pick one, and the thought of two hours of brainless, scary entertainment on a couch with Joel makes you practically melt into his couch.

You can feel Joel’s eyes on you during the opening credits, so you glance over and he smiles.

"Comfy?" he asks, his voice hoarse from relaxation.

"Yeah," you answer, and smile when hands you a blanket. He’s not exactly close to you, but it still feels a little intimate when you spread the blanket out and offer him the other end. He moves over a little, so that the blanket covers his legs, and when you concentrate you can feel his body heat next to you, so you try hard not to – and instead get lost in the movie.

It’s not particularly good, but the story does get under your skin a little, and when there’s an unexpected shriek, you violently jump and instinctively move closer to Joel. He chuckles, but doesn’t give any reaction to your arm suddenly pressing against his. He doesn’t move away, either, so you don’t, fear suddenly not being the only thing bubbling up in your stomach.

"Jesus," you mumble, the creeping music making you anticipate another jumpscare. You’re right, it does come, but prepared though you are, you still wince, and turn away from the screen slightly. Out of sight, out of mind. Joel turns around, too, and when he sees your widened eyes, he grins.

"How’s that Christmas movie lookin’ now?"

"I’m not scared," you say, and there is some truth to it, "I’m just not good with jumpscares."

When the next one comes, you can’t help it, you clutch his arm next to you, your nails digging into his firm muscle, and Joel glances at you again.

"Sorry," you say quickly, letting go of his forearm now marked with five tiny crescent shapes. "Jesus, Joel, sorry."

"It’s fine," he says, and the amusement is evident in his voice, "you sure you’re into this? There might be some cartoons–"

He stops talking when you glare at him, but his mouth is twitching under his beard. You’re determined to watch the entire movie, and you try not to let any reaction show, wanting to prove Joel wrong.

There is one particularly scary scene – it’s not necessarily violent, but the music and shaky camera movements make your pulse race, and you turn your head slightly, so as to look at something else. Joel glances at you again, but he doesn’t laugh this time, just puts a heavy hand on your shoulder. It’s grounding, the warmth of it, how his thumb digs into your muscle and his fingers spread out over your back and neck.

"You don’t gotta force yourself to watch this, kid," Joel says gently, all teasing humor gone.

"No," you say stubbornly, but move even closer to him. His touch is a welcome distraction from the movie, and although you know it’s stupid and reckless, you lean into him, and Joel puts his arm around you. It’s closer than you’ve been to him except for hugging, and your heartbeat starts to quicken for all the wrong, non-horror reasons. When you flinch, Joel tugs you against his side, and it feels natural to hide your face in his shoulder.

He was never touchy with you, or anyone for that matter, so something must have changed. You wonder if he’s trying to comfort you, or if you might not be the only one who can feel that strange pull between the two of you.

When the movie ends, Joel regrettably removes his arm from around your shoulders to switch off the TV, and although you’re slightly disappointed, you scold yourself for expecting something else.

"Not bad," Joel says with a small smile, and pushes his glasses up his nose. "Very brave."

You scoff, but feel the corners of your mouth twitching, too.

"I used to be less of a wimp, but I guess you soften with age."

"You’re twenty-three," Joel argues, "that’s young."

Yeah, too young. Too young to lean over and kiss him, or climb into his lap, or expect anything other than paternal care when he’s got his arm around you. You look at your lap, all of a sudden feeling stupid and silly for having dreamed up an absurd fantasy about the man in front of you.

"Hey," Joel says gently, "what’s wrong?"

"Nothing," you say quickly, "nothing, I had a really great evening. Thanks, Joel."

You can tell you’ve confused him, but he nods, doesn’t question your sudden change of mood, and stands when you get up from the couch.

"Anytime, kid. You call me if you’re havin’ a bad time, alright? My door’s always open."

He’s so kind, so recklessly, stupidly, lovingly kind, and all of it is directed at you. You curse yourself for it, but again you feel that familiar burn in your eyes. Joel reaches out and easily pulls you towards his big body, hugging you the way he did in his office just this afternoon. He doesn’t ask you what brought on your tears, just lets you cry into his Led Zeppelin shirt that smells so much like home, like a childhood you won’t get back to. You remember whiffs of that smell when you were watching movies on his couch while he was at work, too pissed off at your parents to spend the summer at home. This scent was there when you attended a neighborhood barbecue after fighting with your father and Joel grilled some vegan sausages for you without comment or question. He’s always looked out for you like this, quietly, without demanding an explanation, just a solid, comforting presence in your life.

Your tears stop after a couple of minutes, and you take a step away from Joel, wiping your face. He looks so worried again, brows all furrowed and arms hanging limply at his side. Didn’t he flirt with you, though? Didn’t he prepare dinner for you the way a date would, ask you about your dating life, ask you to coffee? You don’t think you would be able to handle another evening like this one not knowing what Joel really thinks, so in a moment of hazy recklessness, you lean up.

His eyes meet yours, all warm and strangely unguarded, but before your lips brush his, a hand on your shoulder stops you. Without saying something, you move away from him, and nod to yourself, his reaction all the information you needed.

"Sorry," you say very quietly, not managing much else now that you’ve humiliated yourself in front of the only person you really know in a six hundred mile radius. Joel runs a hand through his soft hair, and inhales deeply.

"No," he says, his voice a little strained, "no, don’t be. I just…Jesus, kid."

He rubs his palm over his beard in such a familiar way, your chest aches a little. It’s ridiculous how much you want to touch his face, to feel him again, skin on skin. So you don’t turn and run the way your embarrassed heart is telling you to, just watch him collect his thoughts, standing in front of him like a wet and beaten dog.

"Look," he begins, "I won’t say I’m not flattered, but that’s…it’s a bad fuckin’ idea. It’s…it’s chaos, and on top of that most people would argue it’s wrong."

You swallow. You know all of this, have turned it over in your head ever since you stared at Joel’s rolled up sleeves for two hours on that first Monday, but hearing him say it makes your stomach churn.

"Yeah," you mutter, and trace Joel’s shadow with the very tip of your foot, "yeah, of course. Sorry I put you in that position, wasn’t right."

Your face still feels puffy, and you know you’re probably all red and pathetic looking, begging Joel for scraps of his attention, but all of a sudden, he lifts his hand up to your face, and cups it in his broad palm. His thumb strokes your cheek, and when you meet his eye, the expression on his face is tender.

"It’s alright," he tells you softly, "I can see you worryin’ at the speed of light in that pretty head of yours."

Something in your chest flutters at his words, at the rough and warm cadence of his voice. He reads you so easily, one turn of your head and he knows you’re lost to your thoughts.

"I shouldn’t have let myself toy with this idea," he continues, and your stomach flips. "I should’ve realized you’d pick up on it. It’s on me, alright? It’s on me not to start anythin’."

You can hear the implication – I’m the adult here. It’s not what you want to hear, but just the mention of Joel toying with this idea, as he put it, is enough to lift your spirits. So you weren’t crazy.

"I’m an adult," you say weakly, never having felt more like a child. Joel nods.

"You are, but I’m still in a position of power here. Be wrong, to abuse that."

His thumb is still moving over your cheek slowly, making it hard to think straight.

"So dinner and a movie doesn’t abuse it?"

You don’t want to argue, you don’t know why you keep disagreeing with him, and the way his face falls, you wish you hadn’t said it.

"No, it…it does, you’re right. Jesus, of course it does. I don’t blame ya for bein’ ang-"

"I’m not angry," you say softly, and tentatively turn your head in Joel’s hand. You press a kiss to his palm, his warm skin pressed right against your mouth. "I’m not your student, Joel. I mean, of course I am, but I know you. It’s different."

Joel’s eyes are glued to your face, and he looks so conflicted you wish he’d just throw you out of his house, if only to solve his dilemma.

"It’s still wrong," Joel mutters, his eyes glued to your lips since they brushed his skin "even if you take away the fact that I’m your fuckin’ professor. Your Dad…"

"My Dad is half a continent away and finds a way to be unhappy with whatever choices I make, so I might as well make the ones I want to."

The very first day, before you even met Joel, you decided to do what makes you happy while in university, and although this certainly wasn’t what you had in mind, you know it’s what you want. The only thing you want, in fact.

Joel sighs, and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear.

"Joel, I’m not trying to…look, if I’m wrong about this, just tell me, but I feel…I just wanna be close to you all of the fucking time," you say quietly, "and it’s okay if you don’t, really. I just…I want you to know it’s not nothing to me."

Saying I don’t just want to hook up with you would feel too straight forward or crass, but you think Joel gets the gist of what you’re trying to say, and he closes his eyes briefly. You study his face behind his glasses, the wrinkles and freckles from years in the sun. You do feel anxious about his answer, but whatever it is, you’re glad you told him. It’s out in the world now, the way you feel when he holds you, and he can do with it what he pleases – you’ve handed him the reigns.

"I…I know what you mean. Me too," he says very quietly after a beat, his eyes open and looking directly into yours again.

A triumphant pang of affection pulses through you, and you put your hand over Joel’s, which is still resting on your cheek. He looks conflicted, but his other hand holds your waist now, and tugs your smaller body closer to his again. He’s solid as a brick wall in front of you, and you figure you’re allowed to touch, so you rest your hand on his shoulder.

"What am I gonna do with you?" Joel mutters, and strokes your lower lip with his thumb. If you had more guts, you’d let it slip into your mouth, but you’re still afraid he’ll pull back if you make a wrong move, so you just let him caress your mouth tenderly.

"Whatever you’d like," you answer just as quietly, and you know it sounds sexual, but you mean it in every way – if Joel wants to be nothing but your professor, you’d take it, and if he wants to keep you here in his house indefinitely, you’d let him. Joel keeps looking at you, taking you in as if he’s considering whether the risks outweigh whatever magnetic or gravitational pull the two of you have between you.

"Stay," he say after a while, and although his face looks slightly regretful, his voice is determined, "just…sleep here tonight. I like havin’ you here."

You want him to kiss you, to pull you onto his lap on the couch, to take you upstairs right now, but Joel seems to be restraining himself, so you just nod.

"Me too," you whisper, echoing his words back to him, and for just a second, his thumb digs into your lip a little harder, but then he pulls away.

"Testin’ my goddamn restraint," he mutters, and takes a step away from you. "I’ll get you something to sleep in."

***

Joel gets you one of his band tees you love so dearly, and just the idea of being enveloped by something that smells like him all night makes it a little easier when Joel tells you he’ll take the couch instead of inviting you to sleep with him in his bed.

"No," you say softly, "it’s fine, you just sleep in your bed, Joel. I’ll take the couch."

He looks critical, so you offer him a soft smile.

"I don’t know if your back could take it," you tease, and he seems torn up between laughing and frowning. In the end, he just shakes his head, mutters something that sounds a lot like bad fuckin’ idea, and gets you a blanket and pillow.

He brings you a clean toothbrush and towel, let’s you use his bathroom (you look at the shower the entire time you’re brushing your teeth, trying hard not to think about what Joel looks like using it in the mornings), and when you’re done changing, you unlock the door again.

He’s there, sitting on the edge of his bed, his eyes trailing over your form in his much too big shirt. It’s long as a dress on you, coming down to your naked thighs. Joel visibly swallows and gets up from the bed.

"You got everythin’ you need?"

"Yes. Thank you, Joel."

There’s a beat of silence and you almost think Joel’s about to cross the room, but he just runs his palm over his beard the way he always does, and nods.

"Alright. Just shout if there’s…well, you know. I’ll be here."

"I will."

"Alright. Okay…goodnight, kid."

"Night," you almost whisper, voice soft, and right before you reach the door, Joel clears his throat.

"I…you were right about dinner and the movie. I wasn’t just tryin’ to be friendly," he says quietly, and your stomach swirls. Before you can walk over to Joel and do something about it, he sighs.

"Sleep tight, sweetheart."

Sweetheart.

***

You wake to the sound of something dripping, and when your eyes flutter open, you can see Joel’s back from the kitchen. He’s wearing his work outfit again, a white button down and dark pants, sleeves rolled up. It smells like coffee, and with a smile you realize he must be brewing his beloved coffee – no machine, just a filter. He looks broad, even from your spot on the couch, and you enjoy peeking in on him. You study his movements, the way he reaches for a cup, how his fingers absentmindedly drum on the kitchen counter while he waits.

When he turns around, his eyes find yours, and he smiles.

"Mornin’. Did I wake ya?"

"’S fine," you yawn, pulling the blanket up to your chin, not yet ready to get up. "I have classes at ten anyway."

"’S eight," Joel tells you, "Coffee?"

"Yes please," you answer, and stretch your limbs under the blanket.

Joel brings you a cup, complete with a little bit of milk and sugar, and you move your feet so he can sit down on the couch.

"Sleep well?"

You sip your coffee, let it burn your tongue and close your eyes at the taste. When you open them, Joel’s gaze lingers on your face.

"Yeah," you answer, "thank you for…you know."

He nods, takes a sip of his coffee, and looks at his lap. He looks like he wants to say something, but he’s very quiet, and you feel anxiety bubbling up in your stomach.

"Joel, do you want me to leave? It’s fine if you do," you ask him softly, not wanting to make things awkward for him. It would be rational of him to ask you to leave, the smart and ethical thing to do.

"No," he answers quietly, still not looking at you, "I want you to stay."

Stay? On a Tuesday morning, after you almost kissed him and he told you he couldn’t do that, after you spent the night on his couch? When you have classes in two hours, haven’t showered yet, are half naked and wearing his clothes, on his couch under his blanket? When you’ve got friends wondering where you are and probably ten unanswered messages from Alva?

"Alright," you say, agreeing as easy as breathing.

Finally, he looks up, and his expression is so conflicted you reach out for him. Your hand finds his and you squeeze it. He keeps looking at you, his hand limp in your grasp, as if any movement of his muscles would incriminate him.

"You shouldn’t," he tells you earnestly. "Stay, I mean. You shouldn’t stay."

"I know."

You don’t let go of his hand. He doesn’t move his away.

"It’s a really, really bad idea," he adds, and you’re not sure who he is trying to talk out of whatever this is. "It’s risky. Could blow up both our lives."

"Yeah," you say, and watch him sip his coffee, "okay."

Then, a tentative flex of his fingers against yours, and finally, he’s squeezing your hand just as tightly, and before you can process what that means, Joel is leaning over you, dangerously close. Your breathing quickens, you register how soft his hair looks, how strong his hand is. He leans in further and you sit up a little, still cocooned in his blanket. His face is close to yours, his eyes fiery with something you can’t pinpoint, and you sigh, when he closes the gap between you.

He tastes of coffee and toothpaste, and you wish you’d gotten the chance to shower, but the thought disappears almost immediately when you hear Joel groan. His kisses you languidly, deeply, and your fingers come up to his beautiful arm, barely wrapping around half of his biceps. He cradles the side of your face, pulls you closer, makes your stomach clench with need. It feels inevitable, the way he touches you, like you only exist in a physical form to be touched by him.

His free hand peels the blanket off your body, lets it slide to the floor without ever stopping his the kiss, and you moan softly, when his hand touches your waist. The sound makes him break away, stare down at you, pupils blown wide.

"Fuck, you look good in my clothes," he mutters, nudging your jaw with his nose, and pressing a kiss there. "You should really, really go home."

Your head falls back slightly to give him better access to your neck, and he brushes his lips over your pulse point. Your heart skips a beat.

"I – I know," you breathe, fingers digging into his arm. His beard scratches your skin deliciously, and it takes everything in you not to whimper or beg. Joel’s hand slips under your shirt – his shirt – and instead of finding your waist again, he digs his thumb into your hip, stroking the fabric of your cotton panties. The fire in your stomach burns brighter, and you almost buck up into him. Joel Miller, the Joel Miller who until recently had a key to your childhood home, who lent it to you whenever you forgot yours inside – he’s sucking bruises into your skin, and toying with your panties. It’s dizzying, his familiar voice when he hums in satisfaction, even rougher than usually.

His fingers trace the waistband of your panties towards the front, until they find a small, silky bow, and Joel groans. He doesn’t take your underwear off, doesn’t even touch you where you need him the most, just keeps playing with the little bow, until your hips twitch without your permission. A little lower, and he would be able to feel how wet you are, how wet you have been all night. You didn’t do anything about it, not while you were a guest in his house. It would have felt wrong. You can’t imagine anything feeling more right than Joel’s mouth and hands on you, though.

"Jesus," Joel curses, "I should stop bef–"

"No," you whine, all dignity turned to hot air by Joel’s fingers, "please, Joel, please don’t stop."

He curses again, and moves his big body so that he’s not just hovering above you, but actually on top of you, your thighs falling open for him easily. At the movement, his shirt hikes up your thighs, and you know you’re basically on display for him, your soaked underwear leaving little to the imagination. He’s still fully clothed, his perfect button down all wrinkled now.

"Look at you," Joel breathes, lightheaded with desire, "this all for me?"

So he saw, when you moved to accommodate his broad form, saw how soaked you are, knows you ruined your panties just because he kissed you.

"Yes," you breathe, "yes, please–"

Before you can beg further, his finger presses down on your clit, and he watches your face contort in pleasure, as it shoots up your spine. You whimper, staring into his eyes, and he stares right back, as you start to grind your hips against his palm.

Your head feels blissfully empty, all worries about this relationship, uni, your parents, gone from you with a simple, practiced movement of his hand. The whimpers keep falling from your lips, and Joel curses.

"So beautiful," he mutters, "tell me what you need, angel."

It’s not a question, it’s an order.

"I – fuck, I need you i–inside," you groan, and Joel’s lips find yours again.

"Yeah? Need me to fuck you good, even though they’ll throw us both out?"

It shouldn’t turn you on. You’re jeopardizing both your own and Joel’s career, and he’s turning it into dirty talk. Still, your pussy doesn’t lie, and the way it throbs for him, aching to get him inside, makes all doubts disappear from your mind.

"Yes," you answer, unable to say much more as Joel keeps drawing tight circles into your clit.

Your hands drift from his arms towards his front, and Joel curses, when you paw at his belt buckle. It takes you a second, but then it’s open, the sound of the metal exciting you – it sounds like a promise.

Joel finally tugs your panties down, and for a second you’re self–conscious about not being clean shaven, but the second he sees you bare and glistening for him, his fingers dip into your folds, gathering your wetness with no hesitation.

"Fuck me," he groans, bringing his hand up to his face and tasting you, holding eye–contact the entire time, "prettiest pussy I’ve seen in my life."

You twitch under him, dragging your gaze away from his eyes and to his fingers. A moan escapes you, your hands have gone slack on his waistband, and Joel smiles down at you. Then, he does the same motion again, drags the tips of his thick fingers through your sticky arousal, but instead of sucking them clean himself, he holds them up to your mouth. His eyes burn, when you wrap your lips around them without a moments hesitation, and he feeds you your own slick.

"Taste so sweet, huh?"

You don’t answer, just swirl your tongue around his fingers, and suck on them. Joel watches your mouth intently, lets you take your time.

"Good girl," he praises you, and you clench around nothing, "so fuckin’ needy for me."

He drags his fingers from your mouth, and finally pushes into you, the stretch much tighter than with two of your own. Your head falls backwards, and Joel curls his fingers.

"No, baby, look down here," he orders, and immediately you lift your head again, and watch him pump two thick digits in and out of you. It’s dizzying to think it’s the same hand that waved to you from over his fence for years and years. You feel a coil building in your stomach, and you moan.

"Fuck, Joel," you moan, his name leaving a delicious aftertaste in your mouth. His beautiful forearm flexes with every movement, your slick is dripping down his fingers, and those damn sleeves are still perfectly rolled up.

With a few more curls of his fingers, you gush around him, barely having time to warn him, and he praises you, calls you his good girl, drags his fingers against that spongey spot inside of you until you see stars.

When he slips his fingers out of you and holds them up to your face again, you clean them up with your mouth as Joel watches with bright eyes. To think that he’s the same man who taught you Dirac not twenty-four hours ago – already, you want him inside again. When you’re done, he fumbles with his own clothes, and you watch him this time instead of helping.

"You look so good like this," you mumble, eyes raking over his broad form, "Professor."

His eyes snap up to yours, and you grin.

"Fuckin’ Christ, kid," he mutters, popping open the buttons on his shirt, "you can’t say shit like that."

"You don’t like it? You know, I watched you during your lectures and dreamed about…well, about this."

His expression is unreadable, but if you’re not mistaken, his hands move even faster now, and then he shrugs out of his shirt. You almost moan at the sight of his naked torso, so broad and solid.

"You need to pay attention in class," Joel answers, as he opens his pants. Your breathing grows a little shallow when he reveals his boxers underneath, his bulge huge.

"Can’t," you mumble, "not with you looking like this."

He chuckles at that, at the honesty and need in your answer.

"Don’t worry," he says softly, "I’ll fuck it outta you. Won’t be needing’ me in class, not if I’m still leakin’ out of you."

Your lips part, your pussy clenches – a smile tugs on the corners of Joel’s mouth at your reaction. He drags down his boxer shorts, and your eyes snap towards his cock, so thick and dripping in precum. You whimper, you can’t help it, and Joel’s smile widens.

"We’ll make it fit, baby," he says, reading your mind, and then bends down and kisses you again. You try to tug your shirt upwards, but Joel’s hands find your wrists and he holds them tight.

"No, want to fuck you in it," he breathes against your lips, and you press your hips upwards until he groans. He pumps his fist over his cock a couple of times, and aligns it with your entrance.

"Deep breath, baby," he mutters, and you obey, staring up at him as he starts pressing into you. It’s tight, much tighter than his two fingers, and your eyes glass over with pain, but Joel goes slow. His hand strokes your tummy, helps you relax, while he pushes on consistently. You feel like he’s punching the air from your lungs, eyes wide with the stretch of him, as he nips at your jaw and neck to distract you.

"Know it’s a lot, but you can take it, angel."

"Y-yes," you moan, and screw your eyes shut, "please don’t stop, Joel."

 Joel’s breathing is ragged with restraint, and suddenly his hips snap forwards – and he’s fully buried inside of your tight body, nestled right against your cervix.

"Back to Joel, are we?" he teases, and gives you a couple of seconds to get used to him. You whimper and claw at his arm.

"I – ah – I’ll call you Professor Miller ’f you want," you slur, as he starts dragging his cock out of you again. You tremble under him, the feeling almost more intense than when he pushed inside of you.

"Yeah? That get you off? Or – fuck–  is it the fact that I’m friends with your parents?"

It really, really should be a turn off, to be talking about your parents right now, but the way Joel says it, the way he points out just how debauched it is what you’re doing – you can’t help but moan. You blush, too, can feel the heat in your face, but you’re tired of being ashamed of wanting him the way you do.

"Both," you answer, and this time Joel groans, his hips snapping into you at a rougher pace. The head of his cock hits your spot every time, and you let out little sounds of pleasure with every drag of his cock, unable to form a coherent sentence. Joel’s hand finds your clit again, rubbing circles as his other one pressing down on your stomach.

"Feel that?" he asks you, and you do, you feel him all up in your guts, "you take it so well baby, take all ’f me."

"Yes," you answer, eyes glassy with pleasure, "want all of you, Joel."

He bites your shoulder, keeps rutting into you, and soon you feel another orgasm building.

"Close – ah – so close," you whimper, and Joel speeds up his thrusts just slightly. You clench around him, right on the edge.

"Come for me, angel, give it to me."

You do, your hips bucking, back arching.

"Ah – fuck, Joel, Prof–"

"Say it," Joel orders, fucking you through the waves of pleasure.

"Professor."

He comes, too, twitching deep inside of you and spilling rope after rope of come. It feels right, like you’re his. His groan is rough, his thrusts sloppy, and you feel your pussy spasm around him in a third, weaker orgasm, or maybe it’s just aftershocks from your second. You’re limp underneath him, letting him use your body how he needs to.

"Fuck," he curses, "did so good for me."

He slips out of you, and you can feel his spend drip out of you. You’re weak, soft like jelly, sweaty and entirely satisfied.

"Jesus," you breathe, when he falls down next to you, his couch mercifully being big enough.

"Yeah," he answers, "Jesus."

***

Turns out, Joel Miller is a dirty talking bastard during sex, and a big softie afterwards. He makes you tea, strokes your hair while you sip it, then carries you up to his shower and gently washes your body his his sponge. Throughout, he’s quiet, and you wonder if it was too much, the mention of him being your professor, of your parents, but you’re too afraid to ask. He brushes your forehead with his lips when he dries you off, and pulls another of his shirts over you head. Your panties are entirely ruined, it’s all you’re wearing.

When you’re clean again, and relaxed, Joel pulls you onto his bed, wrapping you up in his arms.

"Did you…was that too much?" he asks you softly fingertips tracing over your thigh lazily.

"It was just right," you answer quietly, and he hums.

"You didn’t feel like you…I mean when you called me Professor, you wanted to do that, right?"

You look up at him, and press a soft kiss against his jaw.

"Of course, Joel. Wanted everything we did, I promise."

He nods, but you can tell there’s still something bothering him.

"You know that’s not what you are to me, though, right?" Your voice is soft. "You’re just Joel."

He brushes the top of your head with his lips.

"I mean it," you press on when he doesn’t answer, "it’s like a costume, Joel. I know it’s your job, but it’s…I don’t think of you as like, an authority figure or something. I just thought you looked hot in that slutty shirt."

"Slutty–?" he sputters and you laugh.

"Sure, you know, with your sleeves rolled up, and that first button popped open."

"’S not slutty."

"You showed your forearms. Half the lecture hall felt like a victorian man seeing ankles for the first time."

Joel makes an exasperated sound, half amused and half offended.

"I mean it," you say again after beat, humor gone from your tone, "and it’s not just sex to me. You know that."

"Yeah," Joel answers slowly. "’S more to me, too."

It’s a hell of an admission.

"What are we gonna do?", you ask quietly, and Joel sighs.

"You’re gonna go to class," he says, voice dark, "and I’ll try very, very hard not to call your father and tell him I’m fallin’ for his daughter."

You bury your face in his chest. With anyone else, it would be too much, too fast, too intense. But this is Joel. It’s not fast if you’ve known him your whole life, is it? You kiss his chest, and he seems to understand.

"We’ll figure it out," Joel says quietly, pressing a kiss to your hair.

For a second you do want your parents to know, want them to see that someone does treat you like an adult, want to look them in the eye and say I’m with Joel now and there’s nothing you can do about it. I have my own life now and it includes this kind man. It’s childish, you know it is. You lean up, catch Joel’s mouth in a kiss.

"Yeah," you answer, “We’ll figure it out, Professor.”

[cherubnthechaoschoir]

THANK YOU, MR. MILLER. (series masterlist) - bfd/dbf!Joel Miller x AFAB!Reader

summary: caught up in the devistation of you parents ever crumbling marriage, you seek help and comfort from your older neighbour.

a note from lucy:  i wrote this ages ago before i took a long break from the fandom, but only posted it to ao3 and not to tumblr. a lot of my mutuals arent writing anymore or just arent as active so i feel like im going into this completely new again. i'd love to get to know people again so please send me a message or leave a comment of any fic recs/blogs for anything pedro (self plugs are so welcome too). i also have loads of other fics so if you liked this please feel free to check them out. dont forget to follow @cherub-notifs and turn on ‘get notifications’ to be notified when i post. xxx

playlist | m.list

PART I

wc: 7789 | smut, angst, fluff

summary: caught up in the devistation of you parents ever crumbling marriage, you seek help and comfort from your older neighbour.

warnings: 18+ MDNI!  no outbreak au! bfd!joel, angst, fluff, smut, p in v smut, fingering, oral - fem receiving, light choking, age gap (reader is twenty one, joel is in his forties), swearing, mentions of infidelity and divorce.

PART II

w/c: 5736 | smut, angst, fluff

summary: it was everything. it was perfect, too. but like all perfect things, it didn't last. now you're back to square one, begging like a dog lost without its owner.

warnings: 18+ no outbreak au! bfd!joel, angst, a tiny bit of fluff at the end (happy ending), smut, p in v smut, techinaclly dubcon, fingering, choking, spitting don't look at me like that, you're here too!, age gap (reader is in her twenties, joel is in his forties), swearing, use of drugs (ketamine), heavy drinking. Big Dick Joel Miller comes as his own warning.

[isabellaboo2025]

Where Our Shadows Meet - Part Sixteen

Pairing: Joel x Reader.

Plot summary: In 1870s Texas, Joel Miller loses his wife and son in childbirth, leaving him to raise his five year old daughter Sarah alone. Faced with losing her to his wife's grieving parents, or being forced into marrying her younger sister, he turns to you - the town's thirty-something spinster - and asks for your hand in a marriage of convenience.

Chapter summary: James Oliver lays out his strategy to Joel.

Warnings: 18+only due to eventual explicit smut. Also references death and grieving.

A/N: We’re getting closer….😛

Masterlist

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰❤️➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰

James retires to your old room shortly after a very fine supper of roasted spring lamb, during which he charms Sarah with stories about a cat his elderly aunt kept in New Orleans that wore a small velvet collar and could open doors. He bows to you, thanks Maria warmly for the meal in his elegant Spanish, and retreats with the easy, unhurried tread of a man who’s concluded his day's business to his complete satisfaction.

“Please go home,” you tell Maria once everything has been cleared away and she nods gratefully, hanging her apron up by the door and heading outside to meet Tomás. You wave them both away knowing that you’re more than capable of providing what the house, and your guest needs, moving forwards.

You don’t retire for another three hours.

Instead, you sit at Joel's desk in the parlour with a single lamp burning low beside you, ostensibly reviewing all the papers, but in truth doing nothing more than staring at the brass fittings of the inkwell and replaying every word of James’s surgical interrogation in your head.

The intimacies. The barn. The night before the arrest. The third option.

We resolve the matter at its source.

When you finally climb into bed, you lie there, staring at the ceiling, and think about the precise, infinitely complicated question of whether you wish to be consummated under the auspices of a bond posted by an attorney.

You don’t know the answer.

You know that you love Joel with an intensity that makes your hands shake when you think about him too long. You know that the memory of his hands and mouth mapping the curves of your body before his arrest is a sense memory so vivid and so frequently revisited that you sometimes have to pause and draw breath because the heat of it suddenly overwhelms you. You know that had it not been for Samuel’s illness, and then your own, the question would no long be relevant, because the consummation would have long since been sealed.

You know that you want your husband in a way that completely shocks the spinster you once were, and that this want has only grown more urgent and more specific since the iron door of the Sheriff's office slammed shut behind him.

But to do it like this, with a lawyer's pencil hovering somewhere in the background and a bond filed in a Sheriff's office all so that you can swear on a Bible that your marriage is real as proof at a circuit trial…

It makes something deep inside your chest curl up tight, like a fist.

You don’t want the pressure, or the expectation. You want it to happen in a natural way – two people choosing, deciding – not because one might hang, or face a lifetime in prison, if it doesn’t.

You’re still thinking about it when the dawn light begins to creep through the curtains. Dragging yourself from your bed, you wash quickly then dress smartly in grey cotton with black piping at the cuffs and collar, your hair pinned in a tight coil at the nape of your neck. You look at yourself in the mirror for a long moment and decide you look exactly as you wish to look.

You look like a woman conducting the business of her family, not like a woman who’s spent the night turning over the question of whether to sleep with her own husband under the strategic guidance of a lawyer she met yesterday.

After breakfast, and once Tomás has collected Sarah, the drive to town is made in James’s hired brougham. He sits across from you on the soft leather bench, dressed in a beautifully tailored dove-grey suit with a deep navy cravat, his hat resting on his knee and his notebook tucked under his arm. He doesn’t speak for the first several miles, rather simply gazes out the small window at the rolling Texas landscape, his profile turned away from you, allowing you the dignity of your own composure.

"Mr Oliver," you say finally, as the outskirts of Sawyer's Creek come into view on the horizon.

"Yes?”

"Have you considered, sir, that my husband may not... may not be agreeable to the strategy you propose?"

He turns his head and looks at you, his eyes warm with a kind of dry, considered amusement.

"Mrs Miller," he says gently, "I’ve considered very little else since I drafted the bond paperwork last evening. I assume that this will form the substance of our conversation with your husband this morning. I don’t propose to ambush him, you understand. I propose to lay the strategy before him exactly as I laid it before you, to answer his questions with the same frankness, and to give him the same opportunity to refuse that I gave you. He is my client, ma'am, not my pawn. I don’t intend to move him about the board without his consent."

"Thank you."

"You’re most welcome.” He looks back out the window. "I should add, however, that his likely initial response is one I’ve already privately predicted to myself, and have prepared for. He will not, I think, take the proposal well at first hearing. Men of his particular character very rarely do. We must allow him the room to be properly outraged before we allow him the room to be properly persuaded."

"I don’t want to persuade him to anything he doesn’t want, Mr Oliver"

"Of course not, I wouldn’t dream of suggesting otherwise. I propose only to inform. The persuading, if there is any to be done, is entirely a matter between yourself and your husband. I shall absent myself at the appropriate moment."

The brougham rolls into the Street a few minutes later. The town is already at its mid-morning bustle, but you notice at once that the energy on the boardwalks has shifted in your absence. Heads turn, conversations stop and a pair of women outside the milliner's shop nudge each other and whisper behind their hands as the polished black carriage rolls past. The story of your encounter with Reverend Sawyer has, as you had hoped, become the only story in town.

The brougham comes to a stop outside the Sheriff's office. James steps down first, offers you his hand, and helps you to the dusty street. Then he tucks your hand into the crook of his arm and guides you up the wooden steps.

Sheriff Hayes looks up from his desk as the door opens, his eyes widening by perhaps a quarter of an inch when he registers the cut of James’s suit and the easy, aristocratic poise of his entry.

"Mrs Miller,” he greets you, rising slowly. “Sir."

"Sheriff Hayes," you say calmly. "This is Mr James Oliver of Oliver, Gerard, and Beaumont, attorneys at law of Galveston. He’s agreed to represent my husband in the matter of the upcoming proceedings."

"Sheriff,” James extends his hand courteously. "Mrs Miller tells me you have been a model of professional courtesy throughout this most regrettable matter. I thank you for it, sir."

Hayes shakes the offered hand looking faintly stunned.

"Well, uh…Joel Miller's a good man, sir. I'll be glad to see him out of that cell, if you can manage it."

"We shall see what can be managed, Sheriff. For the moment, Mrs Miller and I require a private consultation with Mr Miller. Have you a room suitable for the purpose? The cell itself is, I understand from Mrs Miller's description, somewhat inhospitable to the careful review of legal documents."

Hayes hesitates for only a moment, then nods firmly. “You can use my office here. I'll bring Joel through directly, but I’ll have to stand outside the door, you understand.”

"That seems entirely appropriate, sir. Thank you."

“Please.” Hayes gestures to his desk and James nods before sitting down into the recently vacated chair with you taking one opposite.

He sets his notebook precisely in the centre of the desk, aligns the pencil beside it, and folds his hands on top. He looks perfectly composed, perfectly patient, perfectly prepared to argue a complex matter of common-law marriage doctrine in a country sheriff's office without breaking a sweat.

You, on the other hand, can’t seem to stop the butterflies from swirling in your stomach.

The door behind suddenly opens and Joel walks in, your breath catching when you see him.

Hayes has clearly taken some pains since your last visit. Joel’s been given the opportunity to wash, his hair damp and combed back roughly from his forehead, his beard trimmed back to how it looks normally. He’s been allowed to change his clothes, and he somehow seems both larger and gaunter than when you last saw him through the iron bars, the hollows beneath his eyes more deeply shadowed.

His eyes find yours instantly and the relief that breaks across his face is so complete and so undisguised that it takes every shred of your composure not to leap up from the chair and throw yourself into his arms.

James rises smoothly to his feet and extends his hand as Hayes mutters something indecipherable and slips out of the office door.

"Mr Miller, sir. I’m James Oliver, of Galveston. I’ve been retained as your counsel of record, and I’ve already had the considerable pleasure of an extensive consultation with your wife. I have the honour, sir, to inform you that you are now represented by, if you will forgive the immodesty, the finest trial attorney west of the Mississippi River and we shall have you free of this absurdity very soon.”

Joel looks at the offered hand, at the immaculate suit, then he reaches out and returns the handshake.

"Thank you, sir."

"The honour is entirely mine. Please, sit down.”

Joel sits down beside you, his eyes drifting over your face with an intensity that’s almost physical and reaches for your hand, his warm fingers enveloping yours. “You look better, darlin’.”

"I am better," you reply as firmly as you can.

James clears his throat very politely.

"Mr Miller, with your indulgence, sir, I shall now lay before you, as concisely as possible, the substance of the case as I understand it, the prosecution's likely line of attack, the defensive strategy I propose, and the specific legal mechanisms by which I intend to effect that strategy. The matter is somewhat urgent, sir, as the judge will be arriving before the end of the month and certain preparatory actions must be taken without delay. I shall require your active consent to several proposals. May I proceed?"

"Uh…sure,” Joel replies, glancing quickly at you and then back again.

For the next thirty-five minutes, James lays out the case with the same precise, surgical clarity he used with you the day before. He summarises the evidence on both sides and the political situation in town following your encounter with Reverend Sawyer on the boardwalk. He lays out the doctrine of defence of conjugal estate and the precedents along with the prosecution's likely counter arguments.

You watch Joel listen intently, shifting occasionally in the chair and nodding where it seems appropriate.

Then James arrives at the matter of consummation, and you watch the precise instant when he understands where the lawyer is going. You watch the small, tight muscle that jumps in his jaw and the deep flush that begins to climb very slowly up the back of his neck, just above the open collar of his shirt, and which creeps upward into the hollows beneath his ears.

James doesn’t look at Joel while he speaks. He keeps his eyes fixed on his open notebook as he explains the legal doctrine and the prosecution's likely line of inquiry. He tells Joel that you’ve been entirely forthright with him about the current state of the marital relations, that no judgment whatsoever attaches to that fact, and that the defence have three options for handling it, of which he favours the third.

He explains the legal mechanism of the consultation bond and that with appropriate surety and his personal guarantee, the Sheriff can temporarily release Joel into James’s custody for purposes of trial preparation for a period of up to forty-eight hours. He explains that no witness is required to verify the specific use of those hours, only that the prisoner be returned at the appointed time. He explains that this will, in his professional judgment, render the prosecution's line of inquiry as to the legal status of the marriage entirely moot.

He sets down his pencil, closes his notebook and finally looks at Joel.

"Mr Miller, I have laid before you the strategy I believe most likely to secure your acquittal. I shall not pretend that it is not a strategy of considerable personal intrusion because it is and I do not propose it lightly. I propose it because, in my professional judgment, it is the cleanest and most decisive defence available to us, and because your wife has authorised me to lay it before you for your consideration. The decision, sir, is entirely yours."

Joel doesn’t move, his eyes fixed on a small knot in the wood about six inches in front of him. The deep flush at the back of his neck has spread now, climbing into his cheeks above the beard, mottling the rugged tan of his face with patches of hot, embarrassed red.

He doesn’t look at you, or the lawyer, though his hand remains firmly around yours.

"Mr Oliver," he says finally. "I appreciate the trouble you've gone to and what you’ve said here today. But you’re sittin’ in my Sheriff's office tellin’ me that the way out of this cage is for me to take my wife to bed under a writ of paper."

"Mr Miller, I…"

"I ain’t finished, sir."

James closes his mouth.

"My wife," he says, very quietly, "has been my wife for almost six months now and she’s the most decent person I’ve met in longer than I care to remember. And she has been kind enough to put up with a marriage to a man who hasn’t done right by her in the way that... in the way that a husband should. I should’ve bedded her that first night and I didn’t. She knows why and she understands it.”

He squeezes your hand.

“But that is between her and me. It ain’t between her and me and the Sheriff and you and a circuit judge. It is between her and me, sir."

The last word comes out hard, almost a growl, and you see James’s fingers tighten very slightly against the edge of his notebook.

You sit very still in your chair and don’t breathe as you feel the hot, stinging pressure of tears rising behind your eyes, furiously, absolutely refusing to allow them to fall. You stare at the side of Joel's face, at the deep red flush across his cheekbones, and you understand with a sick, sinking lurch in your stomach that he’s not refusing the consummation, but rather the audience. He’s refusing the violation of the small, private, infinitely careful thing the two of you have built together. He’s refusing to have it weighed and measured and entered as evidence in a courtroom.

You understand it absolutely, and yet, beneath the understanding, there’s another, smaller, more painful voice whispering in the back of your mind that asks whether perhaps, despite all he’s said and done, he simply doesn’t want you in that way.

You don’t allow your face to move, but you feel the small, tight muscle in your own jaw lock, the hot pressure climb higher behind your eyes, and you slide your hand back to your own lap.

Across the table, James registers the change in you with the speed of a man flicking a card across a green baize table. His eyes dart to your face for less than half a second, then snap back to Joel.

"Mr Miller," he says quietly, "I take your point entirely. I shall give you and Mrs Miller some privacy in which to discuss the matter between yourselves. I shall step outside into this glorious morning and inquire as to whether the Sheriff might be able to procure some coffee. I shall return shortly and should you wish to dismiss the proposal entirely, sir, I will receive the dismissal without argument, and we shall pursue an alternative defensive strategy."

He stands up smoothly, picks up his notebook and pencil, tucks them under his arm, nods once and then crosses to the door, pulling it shut behind him with a soft, deliberate click.

For perhaps ten seconds, neither you nor Joel move. Somewhere outside the door, you can hear the low murmur of James’s voice politely inquiring after the Sheriff's coffee mingled with the day-to-day workings of Sawyer’s Creek.

Joel keeps staring at the knot in the wood as you draw in a small, careful breath.

You mean to keep your voice perfectly level, to be the woman of steel who stood in Doc Cooper’s office and threatened to bankrupt the county, and the woman who had eviscerated Reverend Sawyer on the boardwalk in front of half the town.

You mean to be that woman, but what comes out of your mouth, instead, is a small, thin, betrayed whisper.

"You don’t want me."

Joel's head snaps up, the deep flush across his cheeks turning, in an instant, from embarrassed red to a stark, drained white. His eyes fly to your face with a force that almost rocks you backward in the chair, his hands raising up in a single sharp, helpless gesture.

"Darlin’…"

"It’s alright, Joel," you say, hearing your voice shake over the words. "I understand. Perhaps…perhaps time in a cell has given you the opportunity to think and perhaps you’ve decided that…”

He leaps from his chair, surges forward and then he’s on his knees beside you, his hands seizing yours where they sit clenched in your lap.

“Look at me,” he demands, his face inches from yours. “Darlin’, look at me.”

You slowly raise your eyes.

"Do not ever, ever say those words to me again. Do you understand me? Do not ever in your life say those words to me again."

"Joel…"

"There has not been a single hour these last months that I haven’t wanted you. I’ve wanted you sittin’ at the breakfast table and when you bend over Sarah's reading book at night and when you walk across the yard and when you’ve been sick and when you’ve been well and I…”

He breaks off, his body shaking.

“You have to know that I couldn’t have touched you the way I did in the barn if I didn’t want you. Nor would I have been so goddamn foolishly jealous of Samuel Thorne if I hadn’t thought he was tryin’ to take what’s mine. Darlin’ I…we…” he swallows. “I couldn’t have loved you the way I did that night if I didn’t want you. Hell, if things had been different…”

"Joel," you whisper.

"You ain’t been undesired, darlin’, you’ve been worshipped. There’s a difference. I didn’t want your first time to be when some stranger was lyin’ sick down the hall, or when you yourself weren’t fully healed and…and in the barn…” he lets out a ragged breath. “Well, that wouldn’t have been right neither, and maybe we oughta be thankin’ Tomás for interruptin’ us like he did.”

The hot pressure behind your eyes finally breaks and you feel the first tear spill over your lashes and slide down your cheek, hot and silent.

"Then why…when Mr Oliver said…"

"Because I don’t want it like this neither," he grounds out, his thumbs stroking frantically across the backs of your hands, his eyes misting. “Not on a goddamn writ. Not under a bond. Not for evidence to try and satisfy other people. We’ve been buildin’ somethin’ between us that is so careful and so quiet and so utterly ours that I’d rather chew off my own hand than have it dragged into a courtroom and weighed as a strategic asset. Do you understand me, darlin’? Do you understand what I’m tryin’ to say?"

"I understand.”

"Do you?"

"Yes, Joel. I understand, I do."

His shoulders sag and he leans forward, pressing his forehead against your clenched hands where they rest in your lap, his hair brushing your wrists. You feel the small, fine tremor that runs through his frame and watch, dizzily, as your own tears drip down onto the back of his head. You feel your hands unclench beneath his and turn over, palm up, your fingers threading into his beard, thumbs pressing gently against the rough plane of his cheekbones.

"Joel," you say quietly. "My darling, look at me."

He raises his head.

"You are the most caring, generous man I’ve ever known, and I don’t know why I said...” you shake your head. “You’re right about Mr Oliver’s proposal. I had the same response when he laid it before me yesterday afternoon. You’re right and I’ll tell him that we decline the third option, and we’ll find another way. I still haven’t given up on Doc Cooper and the town council and…”

"I didn’t say I declined the third option, darlin’."

You stare at him. “I…”

"I said not like this. I didn’t say not at all."

"Joel…"

"Lemme finish."

He shifts on his knees, drags a hand across his face, then he takes yours back, turns it over and presses his thumb into the soft centre of your palm, slowly, deliberately.

"I’ve been sittin’ in a brick box for over a week thinkin’ ‘bout you. Just about you, nothin’ else. There is nothin’ else to think about in this place, darlin’. I’ve thought about the night before I was arrested more times than I care to admit to a man of God or a lawyer. I’ve thought about it until I’ve very nearly worn the memory smooth. And what I’ve been thinkin’, darlin’, in the small hours of the night is that I might hang without ever havin’ known what it is to love my own wife properly and I can’t allow that. Do you understand what I’m tellin' you?"

"I think so.”

"So when that lawyer comes in here and tells me that he can have me released for forty-eight hours under a consultation bond, and that the bond will hold up before a circuit judge, and that the only condition is that I'm returned to this cell at the appointed hour... when he tells me that, darlin’, what my mouth says is not like this, and what my mouth means is that I will not have it weighed in a courtroom. But underneath what my mouth says, darlin’, there is another thing my mouth wants to say, and what that other thing wants to say is yes."

You go very still. "Yes?"

"Yes." His eyes don’t waver. "If you’ll have me on the condition that no piece of what passes between us is ever entered into evidence. If you’ll have me on the condition that the bond is the law's business and what happens at the ranch is ours and ours alone, and the lawyer can argue the rest of the case on his own pretty wits without our help, then yes, I’ll walk out of this Sheriff's office and not waste a single one of those forty-eight hours."

You look at him for a long moment, kneeling at your feet on the dusty floor, his hands wrapped around yours, his eyes burning with a banked, hungry fire that has nothing to do with strategy and nothing to do with consummation evidence and everything to do, simply, with the man you’ve married who wants you.

You lean forward in the chair, take his face in your hands and press your forehead against his.

"Then yes, Joel," you whisper. "On those conditions, yes."

His shoulders sag again, but this time from a long, slow exhalation of profound, weary relief, as though something he’s been carrying for a great deal longer than a week has at last been set down on the floor between you.

You sit there with your foreheads pressed together for a long, quiet moment, listening to the slow, even sound of his breathing. You feel the rough scratch of his beard against your cheekbone, the warm pressure of his hands on yours and the steady, deep, drumbeat rhythm of his pulse where your fingertips rest against his throat.

"You’d better call your lawyer back in here,” he says finally. “We got a bond to sign."

You laugh, small and watery and slightly broken, but it’s a laugh that feels like the first sip of cool spring water at the end of a very long, very dry road.

When James comes back into the office, he doesn’t look at your damp lashes or the faint pink at the rim of Joel's eyes. He simply resumes his chair, opens his notebook and lifts his pencil.

"So, have we arrived at a determination?"

Joel clears his throat. "We have, sir, but I have a question first.”

“Of course, ask away.”

“Does my wife have to take the stand? I mean, is there any way, if this thing goes to trial, that we can avoid that happenin’?”

James blinks. “Unfortunately not. If we’re forced into a trial, your wife will be a very important witness and given how articulate she is, I would be remiss not to use her.”

“Joel?” You look over at him. “I can do it.”

He pauses for a long moment, his gaze fixed on an indeterminate spot, then blinks twice and nods. “Then we'll take the option you suggest, sir – with conditions."

“Name them."

"First, what happens at the ranch over those forty-eight hours is the ranch's business. Not yours or the Sheriff's or the judge's. You won’t ask either of us about it. You won’t ask anyone else who knows us about the state of our marriage. If the prosecution puts that question to my wife on the stand, she’ll answer it truthfully and with dignity, and that’ll be the end of it. I expect you to intervene if any questions are asked tryin’ to probe into the nature of timin’ or method or the like. We ain’t manufacturin’ evidence, sir, we’re conductin’ a private marriage. Are we clear?"

"Entirely clear,” James nods, his pencil moving over the page.

"Second, I’ll not give the Sheriff a single cause to regret signing the paper for this bond, so I gotta be returned here on time."

"Noted."

"Third." Joel pauses, his hand reaching for yours again. "My wife sets the pace of every moment of those forty-eight hours. If she changes her mind about anythin’, the bond still stands and I still return on time. Are we clear on that too, sir?"

"Crystal clear, Mr Miller."

James sets down his pencil and looks across the table at the two of you for a long, considered moment.

“The bond paperwork has already been prepared and all it requires are the appropriate signatures. I believe you shall both be on your way back to the ranch within the hour."

“What about you?” You frown. “Don’t you have to come with us?”

“Mr Miller is being released into my custody, yes,” James nods, “but I have some business that I need to attend to in Sawyer’s Creek and therefore it would seem more appropriate for me to remain here in town until that business has concluded. You’re welcome to the brougham, of course.”

You glance at Joel. “But…”

“I am liable for what happens whilst Mr Miller is under bond, but that doesn’t mean he has to be in my sight at all times. Obviously, were you to flee the state, there would be ramifications for me, but you’re not planning to do that, Mr Miller, are you?”

The pause before Joel answers is longer than you would have considered appropriate, but just as you open your mouth to gently nudge him into responding, his grip tightens around your hand.

“No sir, I am not.”

“Good,” James smiles. “Well, let’s get you out of here.”

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰❤️➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰

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[isabellaboo2025]

Emergency Contact - Part Twenty-Three

Pairing: Javi x Reader x Joel.

Plot summary: Divorce is meant to be final, when two people stop caring about each other. But not when one of you forgets to update your emergency contact.

Chapter summary: You and Javi make a bid for freedom, before a planned exit from Colombia leaves you shaken.

A/N: 18+only. I’m going on holiday on Monday so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to update again before then, but I’ll try my best 🥰

Masterlist

🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫

“Rabbit!”

Joel's hand clamps over your mouth and you bite down hard enough to draw blood. He hisses in pain, his grip convulsing, and you drive your elbow back into his ribs and feel him fold. Then you’re moving, stumbling towards the door, grabbing the handle and pulling it all the way open, Joel’s preoccupation with the injury you’ve inflicted giving you the precious seconds you need.

You run, your hand on the iron banister, using it to take the first four steps in two strides, your feet finding the worn stone. Behind you, Joel yells your name, but you keep running forwards, towards the courtyard and Javi, who’s already moving, his face coming up as you descend, reading you before you've reached him.

You hit the courtyard at speed, and his hands catch you by the arms, absorbing the momentum.

"We have to go,” you pant. "Right now, we have to get out of here!"

"What…?"

"It's a setup, all of it. Marco, this building…they're coming for you. Joel said there are men in the passage…” You turn, reading the courtyard with its three doors, the colonnade shadow and the single entrance of the passage behind you. "I don't know where Joel and Marco…they were trying to get me out the back and I…"

His hand goes to the gun at his hip with specific practiced movement, the draw and the check, his eyes already off you and on the passage entrance.

The sound comes from there first, not voices, but rather movement, the specific quality of multiple bodies moving fast through a confined space, the echo of the passage amplifying and multiplying the footsteps.

His hand finds your arm. "Behind me.”

"I have a gun," you reply, pulling the weapon out, pushing the phone into your back pocket and then discarding your bag on the ground.

"Behind me,” he says again, in a tone that suggests it’s not up for discussion. "Stay on my left and stay close.”

“Just like the old days,” you breathe, as the first man comes through the passage entrance.

Javi fires before he’s fully cleared the threshold, the single shot ringing out in the enclosed space, and the man goes down, his compatriot requiring to adjust his position long enough for Javi to move, pulling you with him towards the colonnade on the left.

The shadow of it swallows you both and Javi gestures to the door – the one on your left, the one Marco went through earlier. You twist the handle, find it unlocked and hurry through, Javi bringing up the rear, pulling it mostly closed and putting his back to the wall beside the frame.

As your eyes adjust, you see a corridor in front of you, running deeper into the building's interior, with offices on both sides. At the far end, there’s a junction with options of left or right, the building's internal geography opening up. Behind the door, in the courtyard, you can hear voices now, talking fast and low in Spanish.

"How many came through?" you whisper.

"I saw two," he replies, "but there were more behind."

"Okay…” you breathe, counting to ten quickly in your head, allowing the familiarity of the past settle in your chest and help clear your thinking. “Left or right?”

He looks at the junction, calculating. "Right runs back toward the passage. Left should take us toward the rear of the buildin’."

“The back exit.” He nods. “Okay, let’s go.”

You start moving along the corridor, taking the left turn and it opens into another narrower passage, the commercial premises of the upper floors accessible by a secondary stair that rises on your right. The ceilings are lower here, the smell of stone, old timber and salt-coast damp almost overwhelming.

Javi moves fast and low, you behind him and to the left, close enough to communicate, far enough that a single burst won’t take you both. Above you, you hear the sound of boots on stone and you both slam to a halt at the realisation that someone has come in through the upper level and is descending, the footsteps deliberate. A single person, moving carefully.

You both press yourselves back against the wall, guns up, and as the man comes around the corner, Javi moves, slamming his body into the opposite wall, pressing his gun to the man’s throat. The man – younger than you imagined, goes still immediately, the whites of his eyes enormous in the dim light.

"Cuántos?" Javi says against his ear. The man says nothing and he presses harder.

"Seis," the man says finally.

Javi looks at you over his shoulder and you can see him running the math in his head. Then he hits the man with the butt of the gun in one specific efficient movement, finding the precise location through years of practice, and the man folds without drama, sliding to the floor.

"There has to be a door at the end of this passage," you say.

He nods, and you keep moving forwards, slower now, listening for the sounds of others, until the door appears in front of you, heavy and iron banded. He reaches for the handle, twists it and it shakes against its hinges. He presses against it, and you join him, only for it to remain immoveable.

"Mierda," he swears quietly and you stare at the wood, the terrible realisation that Joel has locked you inside settling in your chest and fighting for recognition that you don’t have time to give it right now.

“The stair,” you say, thinking quickly. “We go up and over. The gallery above looks like it runs the full perimeter, so there has to be an exterior stair on the rear elevation." He hesitates. "It’s an old building. There has to be a secondary way down in case of fire."

"You're guessin’.”

"Yes, but I don’t think we have many other options right now. If we go back the way we came…” You trail off at the sudden sound of voices behind you, the decision seemingly made with no time for any further considerations.

The secondary stair going up is narrow and dark and your shoulder hits the wall twice on the turns. Javi’s hand presses against your back through the tight sections, encouraging you onwards and, eventually, the upper floor arrives in a sliver of light, and you exit through a door at the top onto a landing, then into a corridor that runs perpendicular to the gallery.

Javi takes your arm, holding you at his side whilst you both listen to the sound of footsteps distributed across multiple levels of the building in the coordinated sound of people closing a net.

"The gallery," he says quietly. "If we can reach the rear corner…"

A door opens to your left before he completes the sentence, the man who emerges experiencing a fraction of a second of surprise before Javi pulls you out of the way and subdues him. Stepping over the body, you press your back to the wall beside the open door and sweep the interior of the room. It’s empty and when you cross to the window on the far wall, you see the external stair – iron, bolted to the stonework and running from the first-floor gallery level down to the alley below.

"Here," you say, Javi joining you at the window. “If we get out onto the ledge we can drop down.”

"You first," he says, nodding when you hesitate. “Go – I’m right behind you.”

The window opens inward and you slide through it, feet first, your toes reaching, then finally gaining purchase on the ledge, before you drop down to the gallery rail below and move toward the external stair. It’s old and steep, ringing like a bell with every footfall – the specific resonant clang of iron announcing you and Javi to the alley below, to every window above and to anyone who happens to be waiting.

Halfway down, there’s a shot from above, the bullet striking the iron rail two feet from your hand. Pressing flat against the stair you turn and return fire upward – two shots, the angles wrong, suppressive rather than accurate – hear Javi firing above you and then the sound of someone falling heavily.

"Move," Javi says as he reaches you and, seconds later, the two of you hit the alley and start running, feet slapping against the concrete, breath tearing from your throat, chest burning and eyes streaming.

A block from the building, he shoves his gun into the waistband of his jeans, and you follow suit. The transition is seamless, borne from countless similar encounters, the shift from one mode to the other, walking replacing the running. To the casual observer, you’re simply two people moving with purpose through a street. The tourists with their cameras and their morning coffee part around you with complete indifference to everything that has just happened.

"They'll have the main road covered," you say, when you’ve recovered breath enough to talk.

"Yes." His hand finds its way to the small of your back again. “This way.”

You let him guide you, second left, right at a church with a blue door, through a covered market passage that smells of fish and cut flowers and the particular sweetness of overripe mango, then left into a street that runs along the inside of the old wall. A car slows in front of you and you both slide into a doorway simultaneously with the coordination of two people who know each other's rhythms. The car passes without stopping and you keep moving.

You take the next right, then left, the buildings changing register, the Colonial giving way to the early twentieth century, and when an alley appears to your right, Javi pulls you into it. It’s too narrow for cars and too dark for tourists. You follow him deep into the shadows, then you both stop for breath, allowing your bodies to honestly account for the last half hour, your lungs asserting themselves with considerable conviction. Javi rests beside you, his shoulder against yours, his chest doing the same frank admission of effort.

You bend forward and put your hands on your knees, inhaling and exhaling for you’re not sure how long, the alley around you quiet and staying quiet – no footsteps, no voices, the street beyond it going about its business.

“You okay?” he asks, and you clearly take too long to answer as you feel his hands on you before you can utter a word. They move quickly, taking rapid inventory, checking, accounting, reading you for damage.

"I'm fine," you manage finally, but his hands don’t stop.

They move to your face, tilting it towards whatever light the alley has, his eyes doing their own inventory, reading the evidence of the morning in your expression, in the flush of exertion, in whatever else is written there.

"Javi, I'm fine…"

"Let me see," he says and so you hold still whilst his hands move through your hair looking for blood, for impact, for the evidence of things that might have happened in the building or on the stairs or in the moments when you were separated by the width of a corridor or the turn of a landing. "Nothin’," he says, more to himself than to you.

"I'm fine," you say again as his hands still in your hair while he looks at you "Are you hurt?"

"No,” he replies softly. "I'm fine."

You look at him as your hand moves over his heart, feeling the hammer of it through his shirt. His hand covers yours and with the touch of it, something breaks in his expression, the specific fracturing of the operational face, the thing underneath it surfacing fast and complete.

"Dios…when I heard you…" his voice cracks. "When I heard rabbit and I didn't know…"

You kiss him hard, your hands fisting in his shirt and pulling him to you, your mouth finding his with the specific violence of relief, of fear finding its other side, of countless minutes of not knowing resolving into this.

He makes a sound against your lips, broken and raw, and kisses you back like he’s trying to crawl inside you, like the only proof that matters is this, his tongue in your mouth and his hands shaking against your jaw and the full weight of him pressing you back into the alley wall.

You pull him harder against you – no space, no air, nothing between you but the morning and what it’s been and the specific desperate need to confirm that you’re both on the other side of it. His thigh moves between yours, his hand sliding into your hair and gripping, pulling your head back, his mouth moving over yours.

Your teeth catch his bottom lip, and he groans your name into your mouth, the sound vibrating through both of you, his hand tightening in your hair hard enough to hurt and you don’t care because you want it, want the hurt of it, want the proof of his hands on you.

You kiss him harder, his hand leaving your hair to grab your thigh, operating purely on the desperate arithmetic of skin and breath and the need to be closer even though closer isn’t possible. Then his mouth moves to your neck, teeth scraping against your throat, his hand gripping hard enough to bruise, his breath coming in harsh bursts against your skin.

“Javi…” you gasp, and he suddenly pulls back, just far enough to look at you, his eyes completely black, mouth swollen, chest heaving.

"Mierda…" he swears, forehead dropping to yours, both of you breathing like you've run another mile. “I thought…I thought…”

“I know.” You cup his face gently and drop a soft kiss on his lips, practicality winning through. “How far are we from the hotel?”

He moves away from you, pulls out his gun and checks it, his eyes on the alley entrance. “Three blocks.”

“How long?” You ask, the look he gives you in response indicative of the fact that he knows exactly why you’re asking.

Ava.

“Ten minutes – give or take.”

“Okay,” you nod, pushing off the wall and quickly checking your own weapon before following him out of the alley and back onto the streets where ten minutes quickly become more like fifteen – not because of distance, but because of the doing of it correctly.

The route you take to avoid arterials adds four hundred metres, then you have to pause at the corner where a dark saloon sits idling outside a café and stand inside a hardware store pretending to examine paint until it moves.

Your heart surges as the hotel finally appears in front of you and you move quickly through the lobby, noticing the complete absence of evidence that anything untoward has happened, knowing you should feel relief, but unable to allow yourself to feel it until you’ve seen the proof.

You take the stairs two at a time, Javi at your back, then run along the corridor to the room, stopping yourself short from banging on the door and instead knock as calmly as your body will allow.

There’s a pause that seems to last an eternity and then Elena opens the door, her face rapidly assessing the two people standing in front of you.

“Dios mío” she says quietly, then steps back to allow you inside.

The first thing you see is Ava, sat on the rug with the blocks, her back to the door. For a second, you simply watch her, your body a beat behind your heart, then she hears you and turns, her eyes lighting up at the sight, a wide smile crossing her face as she instantly pulls herself to her feet and toddles towards you.

“Mama!”

The sound of her voice causes your body to go limp and you drop to the floor in front of her, throwing your arms around her and pulling her to you, her face going into your neck and her hands gripping your shirt with the fierce grip of a person who knows exactly how to hold on. You inhale deeply, holding onto the specific irreplaceable smell of her and press your face into her hair.

Then, you start to cry – not gradually, not in a dignified way with a single tear and a composed expression and the quiet management of it, but rather with emotion that arrives without permission and without warning, the kind that has been waiting in your body since you first locked eyes with Joel and is now arriving at its purpose.

Your shoulders are shaking before you know it’s happening. You feel Ava register the change and her hands tighten in your shirt. Elena's voice sounds at your ear – quietly, words you don’t understand – and then she takes Ava from you and moves towards the window with her.

Javi’s hands land on your shoulders, drawing you gently upwards from the floor towards him before steering you towards the bathroom, where he sits you gently on the edge of the tub and closes the door. Then he sits beside you and says nothing, his hand moving slowly on your back, not telling you to stop or to quieten, but just moving gently, aware that some things need to run their course and that the most useful thing is to be present while they do.

You let yourself sob whilst his hand stays on your back and when the worst of it has passed, he reaches past you and pulls a towel from the rail, putting it in your hands without comment. You press it to your face and take a deep breath.

“Can you…” his voice shakes slightly and you hear him pause to correct it. “Can you tell me what happened in that room?”

You lower the towel and stare at the while hotel tiles in front of you, deliberately avoiding his gaze.

“Querida,” he says, voice lower. “Did he…did he touch you?”

You shake your head dumbly. “Not…not like that, not like you’re imagining. He…I kissed him, he held me, but…it was all lies, Javi, all of it. He never cared about me, never loved me – not the way that I loved him. It was…it was like looking at someone else, someone I didn’t recognise.”

He waits, and you feel the weight of the waiting like a present entity in the room with you.

“He told me the truth – about himself,” you say slowly. “Told me that Sarah was real, but she didn’t die because of a car bomb. He shot and killed her by accident during a drive-by shooting and the cartel…erased her. That’s why you couldn’t find any records on her.”

He exhales.

“After she died, he left and moved to Austin. Only he didn’t leave, not really. The cartel reactivated him shortly after I moved to Cedar Park and…and that’s when he started targeting me.”

You put your hands over your face.

“The whole thing was a ploy. It was all to get to you. The plan was to abduct me, bring me to Colombia and torture me to reel you in. He said they knew you’d come if you thought I was in danger and, when you did, they’d torture and kill you. He said…he said he didn’t know why but…I don’t believe him. I think…I think he knows but he just didn’t want to tell me.”

“Maldito,” Javi swears softly, his arm coming around your shoulder, pulling you gently into him, his lips finding your hair.

“Do you know?” You ask softly. “Do you know why? I mean – you’re just one agent, but you told me before that this has been going on for years and you must have asked yourself why.” He tenses, his arm tightening around you and after a few seconds, you pull back and look up into his face. “Javi?”

You wait for him to deflect, to shrug, to claim he has no idea – to wear the look of dishonesty that you saw so many times during your marriage. But, instead, he meets your gaze and nods.

“I know why.”

You move slightly away from him.

“In the beginnin’ it was because I was prominent in the investigation. Speakin’ Spanish, being able to move around easier than those who didn’t…my name got out there, got back to the people in the cartel who obviously thought I’d have useful information. Latterly, when I came back to Bogotá after Escobar escaped…” he pauses, but his eyes never leave yours. “It was because I was feedin’ information to Los Pepes.”

Your jaw drops fractionally, the substance of what he’s saying landing hard. Los Pepes – the vigilante death squad formed in the months before Escobar’s death with the sole purpose of destroying him. Los Pepes – who brought violence and murder to the streets.

“It wasn’t official. I did it on my own, no-one knew, no-one sanctioned it.” He pauses. “Was it the right thing to do, I don’t know. All I know is, I thought my time in the DEA was up after Escobar died because it got back to the top brass and so…I resigned before they could fire me. I never thought, in a million years, that they would ask me to come back. But when I did…I guess the cartel Joel operates with now saw me as some kind of threat. Or maybe it’s Cali, worried that I know too much, I…” he looks away. “I’m sorry – I should’ve told you all this.”

You blink, your brain running rapidly over what he’s saying, thinking about dates, timelines, what makes sense and what doesn’t.

“But Los Pepes was only formed after Joel left me – and from then until now, nobody's tried to get close to me or…”

“Maybe they figured, after Joel left, it would look too suspicious.”

“But they could have just taken me, abducted me, like he said they were planning to. I don’t understand…”

“What is there to understand about this fucked up country, this fucked up world?” He says softly. “You could try to analyse it a hundred different ways and still end up with no answers – not real ones anyway.” He reaches out and cups your face again, your eyes closing, head automatically turning into his touch. “I love you, querida.”

“I love you too,” you whisper, saying the words for the first time in more years than you can remember, and meaning them. When you open your eyes, you see him looking at you with an expression that’s part devastation, part relief and part something else you can’t name.

“The first thing we need to do is get you and Ava the hell out of here. There’s a direct flight from Cartagena to Miami and I want you both on it – this afternoon.”

You look at him, the heat of his hand still warm against your cheek. "Come with us.”

"I can’t.”

"Please.”

"I can't,” he says again, his voice wavering slightly. "I have to go back to Bogotá. There’s gonna be chatter about this and fallout and I’m gonna have to explain…” he breaks off and exhales. “What happened this mornin’ needs to be accounted for. Joel, Marco, whoever sent those men… if I disappear with you tonight then none of it gets…"

“I don’t care about any of that,” you interrupt, tears welling in your eyes again. “I want you to come with us, Javi, I need…”

“I know and I want to, but I have to do this, and you and Ava can’t be in Colombia while I’m doin’ it," he says firmly and you feel the non-negotiable weight of his words. "I need you both back safe on American soil. You’ll fly to Miami tonight, then get a connection back to Austin."

"Javi, please,” you beg, panic rising in your chest. “You said you’d leave, you said…"

He turns on the edge of the tub to look at you, both hands coming to your face now, warm and gentle against your skin, his gaze holding yours. "I’ll come to you when it’s done. When I’ve done what I need to do, I’ll hand in my resignation, get on a plane and I’ll come to you, querida, I promise." His thumbs move at your cheekbones. "But I need you there to come to. I need to know you're there – you and Ava."

You look at him, at his earnest expression, entirely present, entirely here, entirely not lying to you.

"How long?" you whisper.

"I don't know."

"But…"

"I don't know," he repeats. “A month, maybe two."

“That’s too long,” you inhale sharply, the tears spilling down your cheeks again. “I don’t want to be without you. Ava needs you – I need you…”

He leans forward, the gentle pressure of his mouth on yours silencing whatever words are destined to come next, his thumbs wiping at the salty liquid on your skin.

Eventually, he pulls back and rests his forehead against yours. “I love you, querida, and I swear – on my own life, on my father’s life, even on Ava’s life – I’ll come to you. If you want me to, if you’ll have me, I’ll come.”

“I want you to,” you breathe and you close your eyes and kiss him again until Ava’s protests from the bedroom force the two of you apart and back into the present moment.

You pack fast, folding yours and Ava’s things together with both a desperation and a reluctance. Desperation to get out of Colombia, away from Joel and the sourness he’s left in your gut, but also reluctance to leave Javi to face whatever’s going to come next. Glancing up, you see him on the phone, talking low and fast in Spanish, moving the pieces that need to be moved in order to get you and Ava to relative safety.

"The flight's at three-thirty," he says when he hangs up the call. "I have you both booked on it and you’ll be back in the States by tonight. Go to the airport hotel in Miami and then take the connectin' flight to Austin in the mornin’. Elena and I will travel back to Bogotá.”

You nod wordlessly.

“You call me when you land in Miami and again when you get back to Austin, okay?”

“Okay,” you manage.

He nods and exhales, the plan imperfect but at least real. “Okay.”

****

The journey to the airport takes thirty-five minutes.

Javi drives in a way that exudes hyper-vigilance. You see it in the watchfulness of the simple act, the additional layer that isn’t visible in the hands on the wheel or the set of his shoulders but that you can feel in the car, in the particular way his eyes move between the mirrors and the road and the mirrors again. The route takes you through the secondary streets, the long way around.

You watch his profile – the jaw, the eyes moving through their pattern and see beyond that, to the other thing, the thing that isn’t the drive or the mirrors or the route.

"Don't," he says, voice low.

"I'm not doing anything.”

"You're lookin’ at me like you're memorisin’ me.”

You turn to look out the windscreen. “Maybe I am,” you reply and his hand comes across to your lap, warm fingers folding around yours, Ava babbling in the backseat as though the sight has stirred something inside her.

You don’t speak again until you reach the terminal, Javi pushing the trolley through the crowds whilst you follow with Ava on your hip. At the check-in desk, you watch the bags disappear, then retrieve your passports and boarding passes, smiling weakly as you’re told to have a pleasant flight.

"Gate fourteen," Javi says, reading over your shoulder, then glancing up at the board. "You’ve got an hour, but you should go through security now. Don't wait."

You look at him and nod, stomach clenching. "I need to say something.”

He blinks.

"I know you have a list of things you need to do, and I know that list is real, and I know this isn't the place to talk about it but…" you take a breath. "I don’t care about the reasons why people want you dead, Javi. I don’t care about Los Pepes or whether it’s Cali or whether it’s another group of fuckin’ psychos who…I just…I need you to come home for good. I need this to be real.”

"It is real," he says.

You nod, feeling your throat start to thicken. “We didn’t make it to the finca.”

“There’s still time,” he nods. “We’ll get there – or somewhere else.”

“If I didn’t have Ava,” you say, voice breaking on the words. “If I didn’t have Ava, I would stay. I would stay with you, I would…”

He steps forward and kisses you, firm, gentle and tender, and you kiss him back, because you don’t care who might be around to witness it.

"I love you," he says, when you pull back.

"I love you too,” you sniff, “and I need you to come home."

"I will.”

"Say it again – properly.”

"I will come home," he says, emphasising each word. "I promise you."

He presses his mouth to your forehead and holds it there for a beat, before turning to Ava and taking her from your arms. Lifting her gently, he brings her against his chest, holds her and looks at her face.

She looks back at him, quietly assessing, then grins. “Ha-vee.”

“Cuídate pequeña," he says quietly, closing his eyes and kissing the top of her head. Then he passes her back to you, steps back and looks at you. "Go.”

You nod, too full of emotion for further words, hoist Ava and your carry-on in your arms and turn towards security without looking back.

Tears blur your eyes as you move through the motions, queuing, dropping metal items into trays, and negotiating Ava through the metal detector in a way that’s acceptable to both. On the other side, you look at the departures board again.

Gate fourteen.

You start to walk slowly, Ava insisting on being put down so she can toddle beside you, her hand firmly in yours, watching the people around her with critical attention. You pass gates twelve and thirteen and see gate fourteen ahead – the seating area beginning to populate with families arranging themselves among the plastic chairs, a man asleep with his mouth open across three seats and a child working through a packet of crisps with mechanical focus.

You let out a breath.

"Excuse me."

You keep walking.

"Señora."

You suddenly feel a hand on your arm and stop dead, turning to see two people in suits standing to your left, a man and a woman, their expressions neutral.

"Agent Peña,” the woman says.

“I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong…"

"Agent Peña," she says again, as though she hasn’t heard you. "We need you to come with us, please."

"I'm not…" you look down at your boarding pass, your fingers curling tighter around Ava’s. "My name is not Peña, and I have a flight that boards in…"

"We're aware of your flight," the woman says with professional pleasantness – not unkind or aggressive, but simply a voice that indicates things will go much smoother if you simply cooperate. "This won't take long. If you'll come with us, please."

"My daughter…"

"Your daughter is welcome to come," the man says, stepping forward and raising his arm. “This way, please.”

You swallow hard, considering your options. Running will only draw attention to yourself and where would you and Ava run to? The gate isn’t open, the flight not yet ready for boarding and, besides, you can tell both the people in front of you are armed. You turn and look back the way you came, as if by some magic Javi will appear and whatever misunderstanding there is will be cleared up.

"Can I see your identification?"

“I promise that you’re in no danger,” the woman says, smiling down at Ava, who’s now looking up with curiosity and barely contained patience.

"I asked for..."

"Come now, please," she repeats, looking at you with the same smile.

“Okay,” you say after a beat, your heart hammering wildly as you follow them through the throngs of people over towards a door clearly only accessible with a key card. As you move, you reach into the pocket of you bag, the one containing the phone with Javi’s number still programmed in, fingers closing around it gratefully.

The man swipes, punches in a code and then pushes it open, gesturing for you and Ava to go first. Slowly, you walk through, the sounds of the departure lounge swallowed up as it closes behind you. The woman moves in front, and you follow her along a long corridor to another door that she swipes and opens.

Inside the room there’s a table with four chairs and no windows.

"Someone will be with you shortly," the man says and he and the woman leave, closing the door behind them before you can ask any questions.

“Mama,” Ava says as you set your bag down in the corner and stare at the chairs as though they might somehow not be real. Slowly, you pull one out and sit down gingerly, pulling her onto your lap and giving her your boarding card to inspect.

Five minutes pass and then ten, the room silent around you, the boarding pass now slightly damp and partially destroyed by Ava’s fingers. You take a breath and think about the two of you on the plane, Ava at the window watching Cartagena change and morph into Miami below you. You think about Javi, the look on his face and the feel of him against you, until you can’t think about him anymore. You reach into your bag and pull out the phone, noticing with dismay that there's no signal.

After another few moments, the door in front of you opens, and your eyes fly to it, your body bracing for whatever interrogation is about to follow.

And then you see who’s standing at the threshold.

Joel.

He comes through the door, looks at you and Ava, then closes it behind him.

You get to your feet quickly, pulling Ava close to you, moving away from the table until your back hits the far wall. Your fingers fumble over the useless phone and it drops to the floor with a crack.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Joel says, voice low, one hand reaching towards you.

“Get the fuck away from us,” you say in a voice that wants to be a shout but comes out merely as a whisper.

"We don’t have much time, and I need you to hear me.”

"I've heard you," you say, voice shaking. "I heard you this morning telling me what you built around me and what you used me for and then you tried to have me and Javi killed…!”

“No.”

“…and there is nothing more that I want to hear from you." You tremble, holding Ava so close that she starts to protest. "I don’t know why you’re here, or why you’ve brought us here like this, but I have a flight to catch that I’m going to miss if you don't let me out of this room."

"You're not gonna miss your flight.”

"How would you…?"

"Because I have someone holdin’ the gate," he says, “I promise you won’t miss it.”

You look at him and he looks at Ava – the brown eyes finding the brown eyes – and you see something moving through his face, returning to the moment when you said she has your eyes and your mouth and your curls.

"I need two minutes," he says, eyes lingering on Ava before moving back to you. "Two minutes and then you get on your flight and I'll never…" he takes a breath. "Two minutes."

"Joel…"

He reaches towards the back pocket of his jeans, and you tense with a sharp inhale that he recognises. “It’s not a weapon. I’m not…please, it’s…” He continues with the motion, then draws his hand back and you see him holding what looks like a small white card.

Slowly, he places it on the table, and, for a moment, you just hold his gaze, not trusting yourself to look, not wanting to see. After a beat, he motions with his head, encouraging you, and you take a small step forwards, then another, your eyes eventually dropping down.

It’s the emblem that hits you first. The blue circle, edged in yellow. The eagle, the shield and the rose.

Then you read the words printed underneath and your knees threaten to give out.

Joel Miller - Central Intelligence Agency

🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫

Part Twenty-Four

Taglist: @cumberbatchaddict @marrowfrog @cuteanimalmama @suzysface @joelsarchive @wildthyng @itsdaddyoclock @delicious-collection @oldenoughtoknowbettersstuff @chewie-bars @wand-erer5 @victoriaholland @originals23 @taniamiller @desuidesu @canonisoptional @kaylakrol

[cozymochaa]

── HAUNTED MASTERLIST ♱

series summary: Jerónimo Matías Cruz is a kingpin on the rise in Medellín, Colombia. Javier is sent there for undercover work to take down the cartel. He finds his in with the drug lord's secret daughter, but quickly learns that you're nothing like your father. The lines between his job and his desire to protect you start to blur, forcing him to make a difficult decision.

pairing: Javier Peña x OFC (nickname is Mimi)

series rating: Mature/Explicit Content (18+ MDNI!) Chapters will be marked individually with their own warnings.

series contents: narcos AU, canon violence, injuries, and death, original characters + Steve Murphy & Horacio Carrillo, age gap, morally ambiguous decisions, misunderstanding, feeling trapped, longing for another life, family problems, 'i am my father's favorite and only daughter', degradation (not from Javi), angst, alcohol, drugs, smoking, sneaking around, forbidden love, 'what are we?' trope, no uses of y/n, Spanish is roughly translated.

smut tags: loss of virginity, inexperienced!reader, f!receiving fingering and oral, protected and unprotected PiV sex, dirty talk, handjob

status: ongoing (28.7k+ words)

updated: May 20, 2026

a/n: my contribution to @pedroscurls ppcu fandom writing challenge ! the dialogue prompt i was given was 'did you ever love me?' and this took me for a whirlwind. this fic has been consuming my brain since the start of February and these two were perfect for it. the song that inspired this whole thing was salvatore by lana del rey, so do with that what you will idk. pairing is marked as OFC, but it is written as you/reader.

Main Story ♱

Part 1: Don't Blame Me

Part 2: Dollhouse

Part 3: Sad Girl

Part 4: Religion

Part 5: Try Me - TBD

Part 6: Salvatore - TBD

Part 7: Out of Time - TBD

Epilogue: Risk It All - TBD

Drabbles ♱

Lost in the Fire (from Part 4)

Links ♱

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fancast

#fic: haunted

if you would like to be added to my taglist, please fill out this form or comment below!

dividers by @/saradika-graphics

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[rotten-biter]

mmh he’s so rockstar bf ✮⋆˙

[lewisdaily]

LEWIS PULLMAN by Greg Williams for Hollywood Authentic, May 2026

[takeoveryourlife]

[violentlillamb]

i think i made you up inside my head

-sylvia plath

[lalalalalew]

FORBIDDEN FRUITS; RA-TS

Rhett Abbott x Reader x Todd Stevens

Summary: In a world where reputation is everything, losing control isn’t an option… but falling always has been.

Author’s Note: Inspired by the movie Cruel Intentions. Obviously different topics will be touched on, if you stay: I appreciate your support. Otherwise, I just ask you to turn the page.

Yeah… this is definitely gonna be a series.

Chapter 1: Don’t Speak

You walk through the hallways with a kind of stillness that unsettles people, as if every inch of the place belongs to you.

You glance at a couple of guys cleaning up the remains of last night, and even though it clearly pisses them off, neither of them dares to question why you’re there. They never would.

You make your way up the stairs, each step so light it almost feels like you’re floating. The guys who cross your path go pale, like they’re afraid you might uncover something—but one look from you is enough to silence them. The rule was clear: Don’t talk to her. Not out of respect. Out of fear.

That’s when you notice the door, slightly ajar.

It’s not the light that stops you. It’s the sound.

A low moan, fading into the walls. A failed attempt at sounding perfect that, as it fills the room, turns into something pathetic. It sounds less like pleasure and more like a desperate need for approval.

You recognize it instantly—not because you’re unfamiliar with it,

but because you know exactly what someone starved for attention sounds like. What it sounds like when someone tries to fit somewhere they don’t belong.

Your hand rests against the wood, and you linger there for a few seconds. You’ve never been impulsive with these things. You don’t interrupt—you show up when it’s least expected.

That’s when you look inside.

Todd has his back to you. One hand braced against the headboard, the other lost somewhere out of sight.

You know it—Todd is comfortable, like this is his natural habitat, like his body already knows what to do without needing to think.

He never tries, and still, he rarely disappoints.

The girl, on the other hand, is the complete opposite.

Her hands don’t know where to settle. Her breathing is uneven. You can see her trying to keep up with him—and still falling behind.

You lean against the doorframe, arms crossed calmly. Your expression barely shifts, but your gaze turns cold, calculating. Like you expected more from the show.

It’s not jealousy. Or at least, that’s what you tell yourself.

And that’s the worst part when Todd senses your presence.

He doesn’t need to see you to know. There’s a subtle change in the way he moves—slower now, more aware. Like it suddenly matters what he’s doing.

It irritates you. More than it should.

When he turns his head and finds you, he smiles. Of course he does.

Especially because he knows you love the drama—and you’d be more than willing to make a scene just for fun.

“Well…” you say indifferently, pushing yourself off the frame with that effortless elegance that defines you, “I didn’t realize the selection process now included… practical evaluations.”

The silence turns heavy before the girl lets out a small gasp.

You roll your eyes as she scrambles to cover herself, looking for a way to disappear. But within seconds, her expression shifts. She pulls herself together just enough to be unpleasant.

“And who are you?” she asks with a short, mocking laugh. “His girlfriend or something?”

It’s not the question that bothers you. It’s how stupidly she tries to offend you.

As if she’s lowering you to her level. As if you’re just another girl.

You step into the room, the sound of your heels setting a rhythm she clearly couldn’t keep up with in bed.

“No” you reply calmly. “I’m not his girlfriend.”

You stop in front of her, close enough that she has no choice but to hold your gaze.

“I’m part of the sorority board” you add, adjusting your sleeve like this is just another casual conversation. “I oversee admissions, evaluations… final decisions. I don’t belong to just one because I don’t need to.”

You watch her process it.

She doesn’t fully understand—but she understands enough. And the way her expression slowly tightens is a delight to your ego.

“In simple terms” you continue, tilting your head slightly, “I decide who gets in… and who definitely doesn’t. So you might want to skip the performance…” your gaze drags over her without shame, and that alone is enough to unravel her “this doesn’t impress anyone. Well… maybe him for a while. But I don’t blame him—he’s never had great taste.”

Todd says nothing. But you know he’s watching. And he’ll probably get back at you for it later.

“Fraternities value other things…” you go on, your voice low—if Todd didn’t know you, he might think you were being too kind for a moment like this. “Discretion, class, self-control… not this.”

Every trace of mockery fades from her face. She can barely look at you now.

“This is what girls do when they don’t have anything else to offer.”

You see her tense.

“And that’s fine…” you add, as if offering a sliver of kindness. “Everyone works with what they have.”

Her eyes fill with tears. Todd knows it’s enough—but he enjoys watching you take control.

You sigh softly, lifting your brows just slightly.

“But you should be more careful about where you do this. Some things don’t stay here” you say, almost thoughtfully. “Eventually… they reach the wrong ears.”

A hint of false sympathy crosses your face.

“I’m sure your parents would find it… concerning to know how you’re spending your time outside of class.”

That’s when she breaks. Tears spill freely, her sobs loud and messy.

You look at Todd with mild disgust while he simply shifts on the bed, shrugging slightly.

He says nothing. She rushes to gather her clothes, clumsy, avoiding both your gazes like the floor is safer than either of you. She mutters something you don’t care about and leaves, the door left half open behind her.

Silence lingers for a few seconds as you walk to the couch and sit down like nothing happened, crossing your legs neatly.

You smooth your clothes as if that’s the only thing that matters, glancing at the mirror beside you while applying gloss to your lips.

“I hope you didn’t do that right here…” you say, glancing toward the bed. “That would be predictable.”

Todd finally moves. Unhurried. He’s never in a rush with you. It’s almost like, out of everything, he actually enjoys your company.

“Jealous?” he asks, and there’s something in his tone that doesn’t quite sound like a joke.

You don’t answer. You just watch him stand, completely unbothered. He catches you looking as he pulls on his underwear—just to mess with you before covering up.

You look away, focusing on a button on your blouse, on a nonexistent wrinkle, trying to steady yourself.

“Your father organized a dinner for Sumpter” you say finally, reaching for a bottle from the minibar. “He wants us there.”

Todd notices the shift but lets it slide.

“I confirmed” he says.

That makes you look at him.

“Did you?” you let out a short laugh, taking a sip. “How considerate.”

Todd steps closer. One step, then another—until he’s in your space without asking, like always.

“I thought you liked those events” he murmurs. “You’re good at pretending to be the perfect family.”

You hold his gaze without moving.

“We’re not family.”

He doesn’t react.

“Our parents are married.”

You step closer now, just enough for him to catch your scent.

“Your father married my mother” you clarify. “It’s not the same. And it never will be.”

Todd smiles, like that only makes things more interesting.

“Just imagine it…” he murmurs, his tone shifting as his fingers brush your arm lightly. “Just the two of us in that house… it’s ridiculously big.”

He stops in front of you. Too close. Close enough for you to feel his breath.

“We could get bored… or we could not.”

You hesitate—just slightly. You think he didn’t notice, but of course he did.

“That’s in the past” you add, your breathing a little uneven. “I’m more… focused on my studies now. I’ve… been getting closer to God.”

Todd lets out a quiet laugh. That damn laugh that exposes how bad of a liar you are.

“Right” he says sarcastically, leaning in. “You’ve always been very devoted.” His eyes drop to your lips for a moment before returning to yours. It throws you off—but you can’t lose, not in front of him.

“Especially when it comes to getting on your knees.”

Low blow.

His hand rises slowly, brushing your neck with a touch that borders on intimate. It trails down just enough for your body to react before you do.

You stay still. Too aware of everything he’s doing.

“Don’t you dare kiss me” you say, lifting your chin slightly. “Not after being with her. I have no intention of catching anything… you should get checked.”

Todd smiles, like that confirms everything.

“Does it bother you that much?” he murmurs.

You don’t answer.

You can’t—because his fingers find the first button of your blouse. He unfastens it slowly, effortlessly.

The fabric parts just enough to reveal white lace. His gaze drops briefly, settling on the cross resting against your chest, and he smiles faintly.

His fingers brush your skin, tracing the small pendant before drifting lower. You close your eyes for a second when his touch sends warmth through you.

When you open them, he’s already pulled away.

Like that was enough—to remind you he could be the reason your faith cracks.

You straighten yourself as best as you can, though it’s not as easy this time. You clear your throat, regaining composure.

“You’re an idiot” you mutter, buttoning your blouse again.

Todd smiles. That mocking smile he always gives you when he’s one step ahead.

“I know.”

[dontpulloutman]

spring seventeen (2).

tags: owen taylor x reader. the starling girl. Owen Taylor Is His Own Warning. a/n: *clicks post and runs* … i hope u guys like this

(masterlist)

On the next field trip with the youth group, you take the chance to slip away. The yellow shirt itches on your skin. If you let your eyes close for too long, if you let your mind wander too far, you'll start thinking of Owen. How he left when he used to promise that he would never leave you alone.

He's a liar.

Your reverie is broken by the jingle of a bell above you. Behind the counter, a girl in her early 20s with bright blue hair looks up from her phone. You can feel the heavy stare on your shirt. Then she looks back down as casually as she could. With a deep breath and shaking hands, you walk up to her. Chest and palms pressed against the cold display case, you clear your throat.

"How can I help you?" She takes her attention away from her phone.

"I've been feeling sick a lot lately. And I threw up a few hours ago."

She takes a clipboard from beside the cash register, "Any allergies?" you shake your head no. "Fever?" you shake your head again.

She takes another quick look at the text printed on your stupid yellow shirt. "Sexually active?"

You take a pause. The lump in your throat refuses to let you speak. Through tears, you catch how her own eyes soften. You're speechless when she opens a drawer and places a rectangular box on the counter.

"There's a bathroom near the back."

"Satan has its grasp on you," she moves her accusing finger from your face to the small swell of your belly, "And that creature is its abomination. You are ruined!"

"Momma," you raise your hands, palms open, pleading, "Please, momma..."

She flinches back as if your touch would burn. As if you were the devil itself. "You stay away from me!" she shrieks. Gasping back a cry, you try to get closer to her. You're sorry. You're so sorry. You haven't been sorry yet.

"Get out of my house."

It brings a chill down your spine. Like a coward, you shrink into yourself. Like a mother, you move your hands to protect and cradle the life growing inside you.

"You better leave before your father comes back. Lord knows what he'll do if he sees you like this."

Your spine goes rigid. And then, almost stubbornly, you turn away. And then, you run. You run like its all you've ever known to do.

"What a raging bitch!"

You curl into the pillow pressed against your chest. Eyes following the girl pacing across linoleum tiles. It's only been a week since that fateful day, but she already has platinum streaks in the blue of her hair.

You didn't expect her to be so accommodating. Showing up at her parents' pharmacy on a random Wednesday evening. She quickly brought you in, ushered you into her basement bedroom, screamed a "Don't disturb us!" before she prodded at you to tell her what's going on.

"I can't believe she'd do that to her own daughter!" You can feel the rage in her voice.

"It's fine," you try to placate her. It doesn't work.

"No, the fuck, it isn't! I mean–" she stutters, at a loss for words. She parts her lips to continue her tirade, a new string of curses toward your mother, when she realizes the tears forming in your eyes. She immediately sags at the look on your face.

"What do you wanna do?" She says. Instead of more hate, more profanities, more choice words about your 'cunt of a mother'.

"I want to keep the baby."

"You have other options," she gently reminds you. But the thought of it is bitter. Less than five weeks, and yet you know you won't ever let this child go. The babe is a sacrament of the love you once had.

"I can't... I want... I need to keep it."

Joanna sits on the bed beside you. Slowly, but with such tender care, she places a hand on your knee. "Okay, babes. That's your choice."

There's a moment of silence.

"Do you know any way to contact the father?"

He's completely and utterly fucked. Waking up alone on a random motel bed, only to find that his truck (his one-way ticket out of dodge) was missing from where he parked it last night. He's tried to call the cheap cell he bought for Jemima, only for it to beep in his ear. Out of service, out of range. He's in deep shit. Running his hands through his hair, he lists down all of his options.

Hell has to burn over before he returns back home. And without his truck to sell, he won't have enough money to afford a ticket back to Puerto Rico. Unless... He's quick to go through his duffel bag, deep into its inner pocket, where his old notebook lays tucked away.

In it, there's a slip of paper. Worn and tattered, an envelope with its seal still intact. The words inside having been accessed by a letter opener. Obvious through the jagged cut at the seam. Like a source of salvation, the light at the end of the tunnel, there it is.

It was sacrilegious. But with the taste of his gasps and the press of his lips, you knew you were on sacred ground. Leaning across the console of his truck, with his hands in your hair, and the dangle of your Benedictine medallion, you are reborn.

Owen pulls away, his palms against your cheeks. There’s a furrow to his brow. With a gasp, your cheeks turn red. His jaw moves, chewing. “Is this gum?”

You nod. How sordid to think of it. Candy passing from one’s lips to another. It’s downright sinful.

“I didn’t notice you chewing it the entire drive,” he comments, almost thoughtful while he plays with the candy in his mouth.

“I like mint.”

He chuckles, looking out the window. “You always taste like mint.”

(Are you chewing gum? Spit it out.)

Infatuated, like a school girl with a crush, you bashfully ask, “Do you like it?”

He’s leaning across the console again, grin on his lips before he kisses you once more, “I love it.”

He’s probably lost. Following the return address scrawled in your writing, he ends up in front of a pharmacy. He looks up at the sign, blue and white with the paint chipping. Above the pharmacy, he sees floral patterned curtains on brick-lined windows. With a breath, bracing for the unknown, he steps into the store. A bell rings above the door. There’s a lady with pink hair behind the counter. And a little girl sat beside the cash register. The lady looks up from where she was babbling at the girl. Owen doesn’t miss the way her eyes widen for a second. And then, she lifts the girl, placing her down on the hardwood floors.

“Sweets, go to your momma.”

The little girl, chubby fingers clutching on rubber teethers, nods with a smile before disappearing behind a curtained doorway.

“How can I help you?”

His lips part to speak, but he’s interrupted when someone else bursts into the store.

“Jo, these just came in.”

And there you were. With a box pressed against your hip, eyes focused on a piece of paper. His mouth dries. You’ve always been so beautiful.

“It’s the antibiotic we ordered last week—”

After years, your eyes finally reunite with sinful blues.

“Owen?”

He’s rushing forward. You’re numb, almost unseeing while he cups your face between his hands. He’s trying to get you to listen. “I’ve looked for you everywhere,” he says. “I missed you. I tried to go back,” he insists.

“What are you doing here?”

He pauses at the cold of your voice.

“I came back for you. I missed you.”

“You came back for me?”

You notice Joanna leaving the room, giving you privacy. Knowing her, she’s probbaly waiting by the curtained door. One ear out just in case something happens.

“Yes, baby. My darling girl,” he presses his forehead against yours. Your fingers tighten around the corners of the box you hold.

“You came back for me?”

Harsh and biting, a deep-seated rage bubbles inside you.

“It’s been three years. Almost three years. You only came to me now?”

His fingers are desperate, palms cupping your jaw. Thumbs rubbing into your cheeks. “I tried. I couldn’t get out of Puerto Rico for a while. I did everything I can to get back to you.”

His thumbs catch the salt tears running down your cheeks. The kiss he presses between your brows is solemn and pleading. The anger in your heart turns down into a simmer. You will always succumb to him.

You kiss him. It tastes like salt and relief. Desperate in how he tries to take it further. With one hand, slowly, softly, you push him away. His forehead presses against yours. Nose breathing you in. Quietly, almost scared, you whisper, “There’s someone you need to meet.”

[mustyrosewater]

𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐧𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐚

𝐫𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐭 𝐱 𝐚𝐟𝐚𝐛!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 3,424

𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: when she went missing, disappeared without a trace, it was almost like a deep seated black hole found it's way into rhetts chest, as he recalls all his time spent with her admist trying to find answers, the deep seated energy of the cursed lands they live on come apart to make way for lovers to find each other again.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: reader haunting the narrative, missing persons, religious themes, supernatural elements if you squint. narrative told through time skips and flashbacks.

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: so the lewis pullman resurgence seems to have pulled me out of my cave, i can't promise ill be back to publishing on a regular occurence, but my ethel cain love has seemed to have pried this out of me. inspirations of a southern gothic nature, ethel cains music, and the movie lake mungo. if you guys get invested enough in this i'll release part two.

the dull hot wind is the only sound finding its way through the window opened only a crack, blowing the ripped white cotton curtains back and fourth softly, the peeling white paint around the window frame catching the early morning rays in a way that almost makes it look like a painting. 

even in the cramped single bed with a spring mattress that creak with every minute movement made, they’re so still that no sound emerges from its springs. in this moment, nothing exists outside of this old bedroom, nothing except the pair of them achieving what some might consider peace, or at least whatever semblance of peace they could find in between the hellscape of a small christian town they live in together.

she smells like bar soap and the old antique perfume she’s had for god knows how long that never seems to run out, the cotton dress splayed over her body practically soaking up the scent which he makes a point of resting his nose against, his eyes shut softly as he feel’s her fingers running across his scalp, his head resting on her chest as he feels the slow rise and fall of her breathing, the slow heartbeat seemingly matching pause with his own to create a song unlike any he’s ever heard before. 

maybe this is what they meant whenever they mentioned heaven, not some pair of pearly golden gates with a swarm of angelic choirs, maybe heaven was just this bedroom in her folks old farmhouse that they’d lived in for generations, maybe heaven was him resting atop her as she played with his hair absentmindedly and stared out the window to the field staring back at her with an overwhelming silence.

she felt like the mountains were watching her, like they were their own conscious being’s with such wisdom that would never match her own, guardians watching everybody live and die, countless stories they could never tell. 

his eyes finally opened to stare across at her, the concern on her face seemingly breaking him out of the trance he was stuck in; this is how it always was when he was with her, he’d spend hours in her arms only for it to feel like minutes, lying in the arms of a creature like her, sometimes it felt as if he was looking across at the face of god, yet he knew how much trouble such a statement could get him in with her ma and pa, if they even knew about the pair of them. 

so many nights climbing in and out of her window, fleeting moments and time spent together going down the drain quicker than he ever wanted it to, he wanted to get the fuck out of here, take her with him, go wherever his truck would take them. 

he could see the worry in her eyes, the way she stared out the window like she knew something was coming that she couldn’t stop, some unmovable and unchangeable fate that she couldn’t run from if she tried.

when her head finally turned to face him, he could see the look of concern in her eyes now changed to sheer horror, her mouth opening but no sound coming out as tears began to roll down her cheeks.

rising from his resting place on her chest, just as he lifted his hand to place a hand on her cheek, he felt his hand fall into nothing, darkness overtaking anything he could see as the sudden feeling of falling intruded upon his senses like a wash of ice cold water. 

-

4:02 AM

the red numbers across from him on his side table glared into his vision, the dull red light only filling up a small amount of his bedroom as he awoke with a soft gasp, his eyes looking around wildly for a few moments as he sat up quickly; trying desperately to find her in his bed where he could have sworn she had been only moments ago.

the reality of where he was came crashing down on him as his eyes flutter closed, the ramming thumping of his heart beat trying its hardest to crawl its way out of his chest as he lifted a hand to his face, the feeling of sweat across his skin bringing him back down to earth.

every time he had that dream, it always felt like he got closer every damn time, that maybe he’d finally be able to touch her and hold her.

maybe this time he’d be able to bring her back with him, out of his dreams and back into his arms where she belonged. 

everybody in town had tried to tell him that she’d skipped town, that she was probably my halfway across the country with a new name and a new identity. 

it wasn’t uncharacteristic of the people in this place to try and bury the memory of that they didn’t understand, try to pretend like it never even existed in the first place; they sure as hell never understood her, even he didn’t sometimes. sometimes when he’d look in her eyes, he had no idea what was looking back at him, what sort of secrets lied behind those pools and what was she trying to run from. 

the sheriff’s effort was minimal when it came to investigating her disappearance, extending as far as putting up a few missing posters with a photo of her standing smiling in the church choir, the smile on her face doing nothing to off set the look that was always ever present in her eyes, the picture always being more haunting than fond to him. 

it seemed that he was the only one who wasn’t content to just let her fade into obscurity, for the missing posters to just become another face in the crowd to be forgotten, the image of her continued to remain burned into his mind, his every waking moment taken up by questions of where she was, what happened, was she okay? 

it had been like this every day since she hadn’t shown up to church on sunday, concern seeming to rise with her folks when she’d remained gone since that morning, unsure if she’d even come home that night.

it wasn’t the missing church that had made rhett start to feel that pit of dread in his stomach, it was the fact that she hadn’t been to see him. 

as far as he’d been told, all her possessions were left behind in her room, nothing was missing save for the silver cross she always wore around her neck, the only thing she would never leave the house writhing, the cross he’d held between his fingers as she lay beneath him many a night, looking up at him like he was an angel. 

when she was officially declared missing, he’d be unable to hide his reaction, his jaw tensing when her ma had relayed all the details to him with a shaky voice when she’d come by to ask if he’d seen her, citing that she’d seen her chatting to him after church once or twice. 

if only her poor old ma had known just how deep their connection went, just how much her daughter’s disappearance was causing bile to feel like it was rising in his throat, a black hole growing larger and larger the longer she was gone. 

it like she’d simply ceased to exist, like she was there one moment and the next not. but he knew that didn’t happen, people don’t just fade out of existence and never return. she had to be somewhere out there, somewhere waiting for him. 

seven weeks later, and her absence was still a constant presence leering over him at all times, seeing her missing posters as he drove past the bus stop in his rusted truck, seeing her folks farmhouse up on the hill as he drove across the dirt road back to his own home. 

he’d taken the time to visit her folk’s every now and then, convincing himself he wanted to see how they were holding up, telling himself you would have wanted him to make sure they were doing okay; once every few weeks became once a week, which then became every three days. he’d bring them groceries when they needed them, even stayed to make sure her ma would actually eat, the grief of her lost daughter seeming to place her in a downward spiral. 

her pa wasn’t handling it any better, spending his every waking hour in the shed out back, isolating himself from everyone around him and refusing to speak to anybody save for a sentence or two, most of all rhett. 

he could make sure her ma was okay at the very least, even if it meant sitting with her in the kitchen as she showed him through photo albums looking over childhood photos of her standing ankle deep in the lake down the hill from her house, her face frozen in a laugh as she held her white church dress up away from the water. 

the pain was like a hot knife searing across his throat, keeping himself composed even as her poor mother shed her tears for her lost daughter, joining his hand with hers in a prayer even if he never thought of himself as a particularly godly man. 

yet even now, sending off his prayers to a god he didn’t believe in hardly seemed like a fool’s act, silently promising that if he could find his way back to her, that he’d never question again, never stop going to church till he was too old to walk, and even then, he’d damn well crawl. 

when he’d first seen her standing in the family graveyard across the field, he’d thought it was his own mind playing tricks on him, convincing himself that the lack of sleep from staying up all night with a grieving mother had made him so weary to the point he was now seeing the flow of her white church dress in the distant darkness of the night. 

when he’d blinked, turning his head completely to face the eerie site of the uneven headstones sticking into the ground, there was nothing there, only the reeds growing out of the hollow ground flowing silently in the cool autumn wind. 

as he’d climbed back into his truck and slammed the door shut, he taken a moment to rest his forehead on the steering wheel, a deep sigh emerging from his ribs as he tried to reason with himself, assure himself that he wasn’t going nuts, a trick of the light shining down on the farm by the half moon was all it was. 

the land around here had a strange way of playing tricks on people, sometimes it felt like the ground itself was breathing, like standing in the back of a giant. the tree’s were ancient the mountains even more so, some used to say that there were forces at play that would drive even the most sane man to do unspeakable acts. 

maybe the land itself had swallowed her up and stole her from him, claiming its pound of flesh in order to keep some undisturbed force at bay. 

if that had been the case, he would have gladly allowed himself to be swallowed up with her. 

he truly hadn’t mean to go looking, he’d insisted with himself that it was purely because the police weren’t doing enough, having essentially filed her away to the depths of a cabinet to be forgotten. he told himself that if he just went a little further, he might finally be able to have her back in his arms safe and happy just like he always had. 

sometimes going looking results in more questions than answers, even worse so, answers to questions you’d never think to ask. 

he didn’t know what he’d expected to find as he stalked through the tree line near her families home, his eyes peering from top to bottom as he searched for any sign of her presence, any little detail that could give him insight into where she’d gone. 

even if it had turned up with nothing, he could at least find some semblance of peace knowing there was nothing to be found. 

and yet, he had done so little to prepare himself for the possibility that something would find him. 

hanging across a branch in the distance, catching the sunlight in a way that had managed to catch his eye instantly, swinging softly in the wind, was that exact same silver cross, swaying back and fourth with a soft almost silent jingling as the silver chain collided with itself. 

moving in an abnormal way for the noticeable lack of wind, he took little notice of its almost unnatural movements, only able to let out a pained sound as he wrapped his hands around the chain and pulled it from its place hanging on a thin branch. 

from its placement, all the way to the harsh movements, he couldn’t help but feel like she was calling for him, reaching out of the darkness and pleading with him to find her, a silent scream for help. 

-

12:38 am 

Running the delicate silver chain along his finger tips, he’d made little effort to fight back the emotion of finding the necklace, his throat on fire with the tears he let fall, he couldn’t even tell himself if it was because he was grateful to finally have a piece of her back with him for the first time in months, almost as if her energy was practically radiating off of the metal, or if he was more terrified of the implications that came with it.

He refused to ask himself the why’s and the hows of the necklace ending up hung on a tree in the woods, only promising himself that he’d return to those woods again tomorrow, try and see if there was anything else to be found that might tell him even a little bit more about what happened to her. 

Staring up at the dull cream coloured ceiling of his bedroom, he could only pull the cross over his head and let it rest over his heart as he held his hand over it and tried to fill his mind with happier memories of her, anything that could alleviate from the horrifying images that his mind was playing back like a reel, swimming in a pool of all the things that could have happened to her, trying to believe they weren’t true.

-

It had been a muggy night in the summer when they’d first crossed path’s, even though it was late in the evening, the small town was still brimming with the occasional sound of children yelling out, finally allowed to stay out a little later in the evening to do whatever it is that the young ones did nowadays.

He was hardly excluded from a summer night of activities just like everybody else, seemingly wanting to take advantage of the warm nights while they still could, before they were sucked back into a cold dark winter that brought with it early sundowns and frostbitten mornings. 

The warm summer evening’s brought with it a populace of folk trying to beat the hot night air by venturing down to the lake just down the road from the church, a freshwater sanctuary hidden by tree’s that went barely touched save for the summer months.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that he’d spotted the group of teens running down towards the church as he’d passed in his truck, headlights clearing the dirt road in front of him, revealing what the moonlight couldn’t. 

In his defense, he’d hardly ever needed to pay much attention to the road at hours as late as this.

The stream of white suddenly in front of him had him slamming his foot on the brake so hard that it lurched him forward, a painful reminder of the seatbelt he’d clipped in earlier which dug into his collar. 

With wide set eyes and his hands gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles went white, he allowed to headlights to make the image in front of him clearer, his heart ramming in his ears so hard he could barely even hear the rumble of the engine.

She’d might as well have been a deer in headlights, her white dress flowing against the soft warm wind as she held a towel closely to her chest, almost as if it would have been a barrier between her and the truck had he not stepped on the break soon enough.

Her wide set eyes focusing on him were quickly moved to the other side of the road, the sound of amused screeches of other girls ringing out as one of her friends ran across to grip her wrist and pull her the rest of the way across the road, playfully calling her an idiot as she urged her to move. 

Her friends amusement at the prospect of her being hit by a car wasn’t as distracting as the fact that as she began to run the rest of the way across the road and towards the lake just down the hill, she turned suddenly and looked back at him through his passenger side window, an unreadable look crossing over her features as the world suddenly seemed to move in slow motion.

The truck didn’t start moving again until she was completely out of sight, disappearing over the hill and completely out of rhett’s field of view, seemingly entranced by the sight of her white dress shining against the field’s in the moonlight. 

The next time he’d seen her had been at the church at the top of the hill. Even if we wasn’t in attendance himself, he’d offered to fix the broken fence surrounding the almost decrepit building, something to keep him busy, probably didn’t hurt that it kept him in the church folk’s good graces, considering just how many of them were littered around the town. 

He was never one for religion, never saw much point in prayer, he’d been under the belief that life dishes out what it does, and that you could only move on and make the most of it for as long as he could remember. But it wasn’t his place to judge what people did to bring themselves any small comfort when it came to the ups and downs throughout, if somebody could gather any form of faith that made things make just a little more sense, he couldn’t blame them.

When that same white church dress came into his peripheral vision like a ghost, he couldn’t have not looked, almost like the wind was singing to him, urging him to look up from the particularly stubborn nail he was trying to pry out of the wood and catch sight of the angel stood at the entrance of the church.

The sounds of shuffling and footsteps seemed to signify that the service was coming to an end, the chattering sounds of voices beginning to grow louder and louder as people began to leave.

It was that same goddamn pair of eyes on him, just as they had been when she’d been stood in front of the headlights of his truck, only this time paired witha tilted head as she seemed to observe him from a distance, her expression once more unreadable, only before the soft smile came across her plush lips when they’d made eye contact. 

He’d stood from where he was kneeling like a reflex, taking a moment to adjust the cap sat on his head, never once breaking the eye contact shared between them, silent yet such an exchange of energy that speaking could never achieve, an unknowable interaction shared only between the two of them.

That was the day he’d finally learnt her name, when he’d heard the sound of her mother calling it from inside, finally causing a break in their eye contact as she turned her head to smile at her mother walking out and taking her daughters arm, the pair stepping down the small set of wooden stairs and onto the dirt ground. 

He’d made a point to look away, just as a matter of politeness, yet because he knew what church folk were like, especially with their daughters, and he could only imagine what it might look like if he was caught staring at her like a bobcat stared at jackrabbit. 

-

4:02 AM. 

[uyinq]

scott street ☆ rhett abbott

chapter 1 — anyways, don't be a stranger.

[rhett abbot x reader] [artist! reader] [slow burn] [exes] [angst, fluff, and eventual smut]

❱❱ WORD COUNT﹕ 2,860

❱❱ SUMMARY﹕

Country living was never really your style– You always knew that. You always felt made for bigger things, better people, and concrete streets. You always hated Wabang, Wyoming– the close-knit community, the way people talked, and the fact that there were only a handful of things to do. But most of all, you hated the Abbotts. Especially after you handed your band-aid-covered heart to Rhett in high school, and he stomped all over it, digging his spurs into what you thought he would mend.

You shock everyone in town, including Rhett Abbott when you’re suddenly back in town, almost a decade after falling off the face of the Earth.

❱❱ WARNINGS﹕profanity, death, alcoholism, daddy issues, anxiety, hurt/comfort, smut.

❱❱ NOTES﹕ I’m in my Lewis Pullman era right now. No, this has absolutely no correlation to the actual plot of Outer Range. This is extremely self-indulgent and you can thank Phoebe Bridgers for it. Also, I’m from Appalachia, and I have a warped perspective on the differences between “Southern Country” and “Mountain West Country”. Please excuse me for any inaccuracies.

(divider from uzmacchiato)

★ chapters ﹒﹒ masterlist

The day you left, you didn’t tell anyone where you were going.

You didn’t have anyone worth telling, anyway.

The dirt road kicked up dust as you drove away from the old creamy white house in the middle of nowhere, a sinking feeling settled in your chest as the faded, red barn got smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. All you packed was your clothes and your graduation money. Nothing else. Not even a damn toothbrush.

You floated for what felt like forever, coasting from one small town to the next, all the way to California. You knew the money was going to run out, so you started working at the old dingy motel you were staying in. You felt like a straggler, taking a backseat in your own life as some otherworldly force took the reins. Eventually, it clicked into place. After a year of twiddling your thumbs, waiting for someone to come fix you, you went to college. A Studio Art Degree, you decided– How foolish.

Four years of getting critiqued on meaningless things– That thumb is sideways, her arms are disproportionate, the eyes are too big– things you already knew. Four years of your life that others usually spent partying and acting a fool, you wasted. You did what you were supposed to, and you clung to your bed like it was your lifeline. Then it was over.

At least, the “fun” part was. The debt wasn’t gone, and it probably wouldn’t be for another decade or two. 

First, you worked as an assistant in a museum– Giving tours, making calls, and hosting galleries. Then you tried freelance, and you were dirt poor like every other artist in L.A. with dreams of making it big by posting on Instagram. 

Now you’re a teacher’s assistant at the elementary school closest to your apartment. You love the kids– the way they light up when you compliment them or gasp in awe at their terrible creations. That is what art is about. It’s about expressing your truest, deepest self. Not to please someone else, but to show the world what you have inside of you. 

It was a normal, chaotic day at Hopeland Elementary. Your students are a mess, giggling and squealing as they finger paint. The actual art teacher– Miss Diggs– looks like she's on the verge of a meltdown. 

“Tyson, do not make me call your mother!” You still haven’t got used to her accent, all proper and northern. Something you should've been accustomed to by now. You giggle as Tyson smears red paint on the girl beside him, causing her to gasp and throw her hand up in the air like it's on fire. You stand up from where you’re crouched by another child’s desk, sauntering over to the troublemaker and his victim. They were just 2nd graders, and in all honesty, Tyson probably liked the poor girl with the beads in her braids. You’re about to gently reprimand him when your phone starts to ring on your desk. 

You keep your notifications off for everyone except for three people. Your sister, your brother, and your mom.

You shoot Mrs. Diggs a look, one she knows all too well. When something is wrong or you need a minute, you give it to her. And she gives you the motherly one back that says; I’ve got you.

You pick up your phone, waiting to check the caller ID until you get into the hall. You flip your phone over, heart lurching into your throat at the sight of your sister’s name across the screen.

“Hello?” Your voice bounces off the walls of the empty hall, reverberating in your chest as you await her voice to greet you back in that same gentle twang she’s always had. Her voice is a little wobbly when she responds, your name spoken quietly, reverently. 

“It’s Momma. She’s gone.”

You hadn’t seen trees like this in God knows how long. 

 Thickets of green, greeting you like a friendly face in a crowd of smiling mountains. You could see the forage in the plains, waving at you and welcoming you home as you flew overhead Wyoming.

When you stepped out of the airport, you smelled it. That familiar smell, a mixture of your daddy’s favorite beer and timothy hay. You would’ve been happy about it if Momma were waiting for you at home. But she wasn’t, and she never would be again. 

You didn’t like your rental car. It was a dingy, old Prius that smelled like cleaning supplies and mildew. And you sure didn’t like how it handled the dirt roads, all bouncy and squeaky, even if you drove slow. You groaned as you got out of the car, slamming the flimsy door shut as you caught sight of the mud and pollen clinging to the piece of shit. You didn’t even want to think about how many times you were going to have to wash it. 

The driveway is the same– Rough gravel, barren and grassy in splotches as you head toward the pathway that leads up to the house. The old screen door squeaks, in desperate need of WD-40 as you step into the threshold. 

It smells like her. 

It’s quiet inside, but you catch sight of your sister's shoes by the fireplace.

“Abi?”

She emerges from the kitchen, head peeking around the corner like a meerkat standing on its hind legs. She’s cooking, or at least attempting to, because all you can smell is something burning.

“Hey, chickadee!”

That dumbass nickname makes your stomach flutter as she bounds into the living room, picking you up and hugging you tight like the mother goose she is. You laugh, arms wrapping around her neck as you squeeze.

“Hey, Abigail.”

It goes quiet for a moment. 

Grief has a way of making things awkward, especially when you’re not sure what you’re grieving in particular. 

She pulls away first, hands on your arms as she gives you a once-over.

Abi was always touchy, from the moment you were born, she cradled you and held you like you were her own. At times, it felt like you were. She spent the majority of her teenage years with you.

She didn’t mind, of course.

“You’ve grown up,”  is the second thing she says to you in person in almost a decade. It’s not a bad comment, it's an observant one. One that says; You’ve gotten better. 

“So have you,” You quip back, reaching up to nudge at the absolute rock of an engagement ring on her finger. It’s about damn time Miles put a ring on it. 

“I was going to tell you.” That sentence is always a weird one. Like a promise that’s broken the second it leaves someone's mouth. 

“It’s okay,” You muster up, squeezing her hands as you step back and take her in. She looks older now, the good kind of old. The kind where you have smile lines instead of frown lines. 

There it is again. Silence creeping up on you like a snake coiling up, ready to strike.

She addresses the elephant in the room first.

“There’s not going to be a funeral. We’re gonna let her ashes float down Macawood.”

You chuckle at the mention of the river that runs through your family’s land, shaking your head.

“That's what she wanted?” You ask, not a trace of doubt in your tone. You’re confirming it, although neither of you should care what your mother would’ve wanted. 

“Mhm.”

It should’ve been harder to get settled into your childhood bedroom. Maybe you should’ve stayed up, staring at the pictures and memories that lined the walls and floors. Yet you sank into the twin-sized bed anyway, falling asleep just as hard as you did after a long day at school. 

You thought it would be harder, watching your mother’s ashes scatter as the wind picked up, Abi’s hands wrapped around the container holding her as she gently poured her into the river. For some fucked up reason, you felt a weight come off your shoulders. You watched a few gray flecks touch the water like pollen before dissipating like dust. 

You should’ve taken it harder when Abi told you over dinner that she didn’t want the property, nor did your brother, Mike.

It made sense he didn’t, considering he cut her off in the last few years of her life, and he didn’t even come to scatter her ashes.

But despite everything she put you through, Abi was the one who stuck by her side. She didn’t protect her from the criticism or stray from it herself, but she stayed with her. Held her hand as everything faded away and her heart monitor stopped its steady beeping. 

You nearly spit out your water when she tells you, letting your cup hit the old wooden table. 

“Abi, we don’t have anyone else to watch this land. We can’t just let everything sit here and rot.” She shrugged.

“We can sell it and split it.”

For some reason, that rubbed you the wrong way. Anyone with half a mind knows you don’t sell land when you inherit it. It’s an easy way to make money if you do it right. And your daddy was probably turning in his goddamn grave.

“No.” You say it a bit more sternly than you mean to, shaking your head.

You’re not sure why. You’re the one who up and left and didn’t tell a damn soul where you were going. Not even your mother. You hated this town– everybody in it, too. 

Abi’s just as shocked as you are when you refuse to sell the land almost immediately. 

“I don’t work in the summers. I can stay here from June 'till August,”  You suggest, and Abi chuffs. “What about the other nine months of the year?”

You want to slam your head on the table. You were hoping she would come up with something better than that. 

“Abi, you don’t sell land you already own. Especially in Wyoming. It’s farm land.” She shrugs a second time. 

“I don’t know a thing about farming, chickadee. This is your dad’s land, not mine.” There it is– that gentle reminder. You aren’t full-blooded siblings, you just had the same mom. And at the end of the day, the house in Wabang was your problem now. 

It’s just a trial run. Is the same sentence you’ve repeated a million times in your mind for the past month, trying to convince yourself that you’re not stuck in Wabang again. All you’re doing is staying for the summer. That’s it.

 It hurt a little when you had to get rid of your mom’s things to make room for your own, even though she was the world’s worst hoarder, and nothing you got rid of held any emotional significance. Other than the sheer fact it was her’s. 

It hurt even more when you sat alone in the living room for the first time in forever, staring up at the pictures of your dysfunctional family on the wall. You didn’t know it until you were old enough to think for yourself– how bad it was. How it wasn’t normal when your parents fought like that. How it wasn’t normal when your mother turned simple things like spilling milk into a big deal.

You purse your lips, running through the memories that still like to haunt you, like ghosts with unfinished business in your mind. 

When you moved to Wabang, no one was nice. They were kind and polite, but not nice. It was middle school, and all the boys had emotions taller than themselves. Your hormones were out of whack, and all you wanted to do was make sure no one ever felt the way you felt. Completely and utterly alone. 

The girls whispered behind your back and smiled at your face. The boys whispered at you, all the same. 

They’d say one sweet thing to your face, and cave into peer pressure the second they got around their friends, spewing profanities while they had extensive conversations about your body. 

You remember the first time a boy paid you any mind.

It was the county fair, the fall of your freshman year.

You were standing in line for the swings, giggling with one of the few girls you could stand when she nudged you. She said your name softly, like she was afraid she was about to scare something away.

“That Abbott boy’s got his eye on you.” You laughed her off at first, until she nudged you again.

“Don’t look now–” But you looked anyway. And she was right.

It wasn’t Perry– of course not. He was too old for you. It was Rhett who stared at you, probably 50 feet away from you, waiting in line for the teacup ride that the boys liked to tear up. 

He was surrounded by his friends, but he didn’t even attempt to hide those googly eyes. You giggled at his outfit without meaning to, the way he didn’t quite fit in his jeans yet, his disposition still awkward and boyish. 

You grunt at the memory, shaking it off as you curl up to the pillow you didn’t even realize you were holding.

You had gone years without thinking of him. That dimpled smile, that hair that was always just a little bit too long. You nearly vomit at the mental image of him. 

Then you stuff your face into the pillow and groan again. 

You forgot how simple it was in tiny towns like this.

There’s only a handful of old grocery stores because the old folk hate to break tradition and try anything new like a damn Walmart. No, the folks around here don’t need a Walmart, because they grow and raise their crops and livestock. They could live off the land if they weren’t in desperate need of beer and liver medication. 

You slide a bag of chicken feed off the shelf you’ve been staring at for the past ten minutes, catching it in your arms like you’re cradling a baby. After a little wandering and realizing you’re not going to be able to carry much more, you saunter up to the counter.

“I’ll be damned.” The man behind the counter grins, shaking his head as he gets one good look at you. He says your name, staring at you like you’re an alien.

“I thought you booked it out of here when you turned 18.” You remember him, of course. His name is Dan, and he’s always owned Dan’s Department Store. You chuckle awkwardly, trying to sink into the floor as he makes casual conversation. You tell him things you probably shouldn’t, like how you wandered around for a year before you finally went to college. You certainly don’t miss the way he cringes when you tell him you have a bachelor’s degree in studio art. You expected it, especially from closed-minded folk in Wyoming who don’t realize how integral and important art is. 

The bell rings above the front door, pulling you both out of your 20-minute, extensive conversation about how “making money is more important than following childhood dreams”. You would dwell on that if it weren’t for the man sauntering into the department store like he owns the place.

He tilts his hat up, jutting his thumb toward the section where the two-stroke oil is. 

“You still chargin’ 10 dollars for this shit, or can I finally buy it for a normal price?” A violent bolt of lightning shoots down your spine, crawling down to your toes before it ricochets back up, something buzzing in your brain. 

You knew that voice. That cocky disposition, that smile, those hands–

“Abbott, what did I tell you about trying to negotiate prices with me? You very quickly forget about everything you were supposed to purchase, dropping your head as you zoom past the counter and out the door. Your heart is about to beat out of your chest, your hands are clammy, and your legs are carrying you faster than your mind is. 

You curse as your fingers twitch and shake as you try to crank your car, praying and hoping Dan won’t notice you left your shit sitting on the counter.

You didn’t even pull out of your driveway this fast when you left Wyoming. But here you are, spinning tires as you pull out of the parking lot and press your foot on the gas like you’re on the run. 

You mull it over in your mind a million times when you get home.

What kind of idiot does something like that?

Flees a damn store, leaving their groceries behind just because they spot their high school ex?

A normal person would make polite conversation, ignore the tension, and the things that happened. Because it was all such a long time ago, almost a million years ago.

But to you, it wasn’t. You remember it all like it was yesterday.

But the worst part? Rhett is strikingly attractive now. Mature-looking, even. Like a man. 

So you play the embarrassing moment over and over in your head for hours.

[onlydarylnormanfic]

Norman Reedus x Reader Masterlist:

[Updated 7/6/2017]

I’m Home, Baby

Norman Reedus x Reader | Smut Warning | NSFW |18+ Only

Summary: So I’ve had this thing kicking around in my head for a while, needed to write it. Norman wakes the reader up in the middle of the night, for some loving smut, after being gone for weeks filming a movie. (My first Norman smut, let me know if you like it, constructive feedback welcome!) P.S. Pretty sure I could imagine Norman smut all day long every day… The man is pure love. This was super fun to write and I was nervous to write a Norman smut haha expect way more! ;) Enjoy!

I Need You, Now

Norman Reedus x Reader | Smut Warning | NSFW |18+ Only

Summary: I will say it again this man makes me trash. This is just a little fantasy I had that I needed to write out. Norman and his girlfriend (the reader) reunite at a con, after being apart for weeks. Norman has to have her now, so they race off to the basement to find a place where they can be alone. Smutty Smut ensues. Enjoy!

Jealousy

Norman Reedus x Reader | Norman Reedus Smut | 18+ Only | NSFW

Summary: I had this brain child while writing my other Dom!Norman piece. This one just hammered itself out, no pun intended. lol! Norman is jealous of the reader and her co-worker. He lays down the law. Ends lovey-dovey.

Roleplay

Norman Reedus x Reader | Daryl Dixon x Reader | NSFW | Smut Warning | 18+ Only

Summary: So I had this idea where Norman and the reader have been dating for over a year now and the reader really loves Daryl’s character. She has asked Norman to roleplay Daryl in the bedroom before, but Norman always turns her down. It’s the reader’s birthday and Norman lures her onto the set of Alexandria one night and has a surprise for her. He roleplays Daryl and rough smut, that turns into some lovey dovey Norman smut happens. Sounded so fucking hot! So I had to write it!

Sorry. He’s Busy Right Now

Norman Reedus x Reader | 18+ Only | NSFW |

Summary: Reader meets Norman at a con and things get heated. The reader comes face to face with someone who has been seen with, who the reader thinks is a horrible person, after their encounter. Norman calls her into the shower. ((Part 2 Coming Soon…)) I just, I had to. ;)

[New!] Treat You Right

Norman Reedus x Reader | Norman Reedus Smut | 18+ Only | NSFW

Summary: Norman has had a long, hard week of filming and his girlfriend (the reader) loves him down right, making him forget about all his troubles. Pure smut.

[New!] We’ve Got Time

Norman Reedus x Reader | 18+ Warning | NSFW | Smut Warning

Summary: Norman comes home to the Reader and their 5 year old daughter after a couple weeks of being gone filming. They spend a relaxing night together as a family and Norman and the Reader reunite for some lovey dovey smutty time.