Archive of Our Own

All he can think about when he sees the bookshelf is your words, even if they were spoken on a whim years ago.

“There’s no fucking way you can find a classic in good conditions anymore—not even Joel ‘I can find anything’ Miller is immune to decay and years of nature taking over. They’re all gone, Joel. I just have to accept it. I bet there’s not a single one that hasn’t been wrecked by either people’s ignorance or fucking mold eating every single page.”

He remembered those words as clear as the day’s first rays of light.

Not because of them, precisely. Because of what came after. He had blurted, “Bet what?” out of sheer instinct, only for you to reply with:

“Anything.”

Maybe you were being metaphorical at the time, but Joel took it seriously. He outreached his hand for you to shake. “I’ll take that bet.”

If he never found a book, nothing would change.

If he won, on the other hand. Well—there’s something Joel’s been wanting from you for a long, long time.

That’s why when he enters Bill’s house for the first time, Joel stops dead in his tracks on the corridor leading to the kitchen.

You’d been to the house before with him and Tess.

Just like him, you had stood outside the whole time while Tess and Frank went about their rambles and deals. You, Joel, and Bill were all cut out from the same cloth—death stares etched onto your faces as if you were marble, grumbled conversation that came up here and there between long sips of wine.

Neither you nor Joel had been inside yet.

It’s the third time he visits, first one without you, and he sees it—

Bookshelf.

One of Bill’s doors is open on the way to the kitchen revealing what used to be an office but now looks more like a symbiosis of an atelier and library. It’s — nice, Joel guesses.

It’s not his thing.

Books — those are your thing.

Joel has no idea what connects you to the pages, but he knows it runs deeper than just academic pleasure, or snobbiness (an assumption made by many who met you).

It’s as if whatever elements existed within paper, inked with words that strung together beautiful stories — it moved you.

Joel was entranced by the way you were able to quote several passages.

Few things remained that were worthy of admiration, or interest. He easily placed your small and precious book collection high above on his list.

That, and your ability to bring those stories to life somehow.

“Are you a reader?” Bill’s voice is expected — Joel heard his steps approaching and stopping behind him when he did.

He scanned all the shelves, so he looks back to answer Bill. “Not really. Tess never mentioned who’s the little Librarian between us? Our reader’s absent today.”

“If my, uh… —

If mine… if they brought strangers into our situation… I wouldn’t be happy either.”

“Oh. Well. They seem to listen to you as well as mine listens to me.”

“I hope she feels better soon.” Bill says the words and they sound so real. Spoken freely, not through gritted teeth or accompanied by his usual stiff shoulders.

Joel’s hands rested on his hips. “Yeah.” He hated this part — with Bill and Frank it was harder to not talk about things. He was pretty sure Bill didn’t even like him, just like Joel didn’t like him that much, but they saw each other. Understood one another. “Yeah, me too.”

“The medicine you gave — it helped.” That came out through gritted teeth. Joel held back from smiling at the unspoken admission—you sold me real shit. It’s saving my partner. Thanks. “Frank’s talking about — lavender. Herb garden and all. God.”

Joel snickers and they exchange a look. “Good luck with that.”

“I’ll definitely need it.” Bill’s hands pat his sides, and Joel recognizes his motion before bolting out of a conversation. “Feel free to look at them,” he waves a hand in direction of the shelf before leaving Joel there alone.

He does look.

One by one, Joel checks the titles because if you were here, that’s what you’d do, and “when in doubt, always do what you must”.

He hated that your words stuck to his brain so easily.

They were sticky like honey, which also resembled your voice. Or maybe that was only the way he heard it — Joel enjoyed listening to you talk.

“When in doubt, always do what you must” came after he left behind some supplies in order to help during a run, and you’d gotten mad at him for the first time.

It was then that Joel noticed how fucking tough you were.

Complete the mission. Help when you can. Do what you must.

If he was here already, he might as well read all the titles. Who knew how long he’d last? If he’d be here again, or if you would?

When his eyes land on Frankenstein, Joel knows he hit the jackpot.

That’s when the memory of your bet sparks behind his eyelids, and he’s cursed with the way you smiled that day.

Anything.

There was something Joel wanted, badly.

He cut out his own permission to want anything that strayed from finding Tommy again, getting clues to somehow discover a way to find his brother, get him back, but you planted the seed in his subconscious by simply existing — he was powerless to stop it.

One second, you and Tess walked into his life.

The next, he had on one side a best friend who cursed as much as him and on the other a menace who popped into his subconscious state, giving him dreams for the first time in years.

You two brought back a sense of humanity into his day-to-day life.

In return, Joel tried his best to do good for both of you.

Keep you safe however he could. Slip extra ration cards into your stack so you could more.

Small things like that — things that he later realized were only the seeds for the want that blossomed.

Joel wanted you out of the smuggling business.

He wanted you to be safe.

It was fucking ridiculous.

Your hand never missed the trigger timing — if there was anyone around the neighborhoods he lived more skilled in knives than you, he’d eat his own hand, and you were clever.

Quick, sharp, rational.

Despite all of that, he hated the sight of your back whenever a deal had them going outside.

Every time he saw a pistol or any other weapon in your hands, he wanted to throw it away as hard as he could.

And here he was, facing Frankenstein.

Anything.

Fuck. Joel hated how he hesitated.

If it belonged to anyone else, his hands would’ve already made the book meet the secret parts of his backpack, but he couldn’t do this to contacts so good like Frank and Bill.

He couldn’t fuck up this one.

Shit.

(Maybe he did like the two men, after all. Just a little.)

Joel has no idea why Bill gifts him the book.

One minute they’re sitting alone drinking scotch while Tess and Frank finish up the trade and the next, they’re talking about old hobbies they regretted not paying more attention to. Conversing like two normal people. Like Tess and Frank do, only without all the niceness and excitement.

At one point, Bill asks, “Did you see anything you liked?”

It takes a second for Joel to realize he’s talking about the room and the shelf. Joel shakes his head. “Wasn’t a big fan of readin’.” A lie, he thinks. “Even that’s a stretch. I — probably should’ve done it more now that I think about it.”

Bill’s answer is a hum. “Yeah. Lots of things I wish I should’ve done. Properly. Piano’s one of them.”

Joel eyes the item in the room. He recalls you and Tess talking about how Frank was lucky to know an instrument. “Frank’s good at it, though?”

“He was rustier when he arrived, but yeah — he’s doing good now.”

Joel admires that. Some things are probably talent, he figures. “Practice’s everything. ’s why I feel bad for people whose thing was, like, artsy. Y'know?” He lists you and Frank as examples. “They ain’t got means to do what they really love now.”

That’s when Bill shares that Frank paints. Piano and drawn, painted art — that was nice. Frank probably missed a lot of things.

If what you said was true and artists withered without their art like some plants did without sun or water, then he must be sad nowadays.

The new information sparks up a memory. The abandoned art supply on Canbose with 5th Street — was it possible there were some there?

Joel kept the doubts to himself so as to not spark any hopes of things he’d fail to deliver, but the real surprise is that he and Bill have their first conversation there.

It’s a nice one.

Joel loathes that his brain comes up with the knowing looks both you and Tess would give him and Bill if either of you saw the way the two men can converse so easily once the guns are gone.

Bill’s — he’s okay.

Rough around the edges, sure, but in polished, sturdy ways.

He’s also a little box of Pandora.

The last thing Joel could expect was being called aside by Bill before he leaves with Tess, only to find him hiding behind the door waiting for him with a furtive air in his stance, as if there could be any secrets that they’d keep from theirs.

Bill extends the copy of Frankenstein without meeting Joel’s eyes. “Here.” He all but shoves it into Joel’s hands, and then nods. “It’s the one you kept touching.”

There’s no reason to play bargain or pretend this is a gift he’s too humble to accept.

He does as he’s told, thanks Bill with a long nod, and walks out.

It does beat at his mind on the walk back to the QZ, though—had he rambled about you that much?

It seemed impossible—to be fair, he always managed to keep the conversation away from himself, but surely there were other things besides your name on his tongue. Besides how much you love your books and care for them. Besides how much he’s learned since he met you because of them.

Either way, the book means you lost the bet.

Joel cares for very little since Outbreak day, but this—oh, this he took it to heart. You’d lost, and he intended on collecting his prize.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤTWO DAYS LATER

The smell of your apartment envelops him every time.

Everything’s open.

You keep plants hung in several places on your wall, and they’re all so tall and green. Big, imponent, and your habit of walking through the place and touching one of them, sometimes going as far as plucking a leaf or petal out of them—the air suddenly turned into myrrh, lavender, eucalyptus.

Joel wished he smelled nothing other than here.

“Heard you were feelin’ better,” Joel says as soon as he has eyes on you.

There’s more color on your cheeks. When you smile, Joel sees it reach your eyes even if it remains small in your lips. “Still feel like shit, though.”

Tongue sharp as ever, then.

He chuckles and walks in as you move aside in invitation, gaze checking through the apartment as he takes off his shoes.

Joel always pays attention to everything that surrounds you.

While you ask about the trades you missed, he takes note of the spotless state of everything around him. Stainless windows, shiny floor, a sharp citrus scent lingering even around you.

Stress cleaning — check.

“Did you finish the food I gave ya?”

“Of course,” you answer. Joel’s happy to hear that — you ate very little on the first day you got sick, and he gave you some of his food to make sure you ate.

The two of you take a sit in the kitchen, and as you talk about work, he analyzes you better.

You had your most comfortable clothes on. They came from a box he found not long ago that was your size exactly; the shirt has wet stains on your chest, and your wet hair tells him you felt good enough today for the first time in a while.

Good enough to gather the patience to wash your hair in the sink.

“Don’t mind Inoctus, you know he says that shit about the Fireflies all the time. I ain’t gonna argue with him again,” Joel waves a hand, and then gets to the part he wanted to talk about. “Never mind him, though — did Tess tell you about what Bill and Frank found for us? What Frank fixed?”

“No, not yet.”

Excellent. “We’ve got some good news. Oh — and before I forget. D'you think that art supply on Canbose still has some supplies left?”

“The one that intersects with the 5th?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know. I don’t see why it wouldn’t have,” you shrug your shoulders. “It’s close enough to the QZ for it not be completely raided and I don’t see who would prioritize stealing art supplies in the middle of everything.” It made sense to Joel, and he felt a rare sense of giddiness tingling. “Why?”

He leans back on the chair. “Frank’s a painter.”

“No way.”

Joel grins — you understood him. “Yes, way.”

“Fucking hell. Is there anything he doesn’t do?”

He laughs. “I know. I felt the same way.”

“He plays the piano, he should be obliged by law to stick to that cool thing.”

Joel likes it when you’re feeling a little petty — the scrunch on your nose is adorable. He wants to pinch it between his fingers, even if he never did. “Anyway…” He shares the other updates about the trip to their house without you, then talks about the people who contacted him — the ones that gave him any trouble are your expertise, and Joel loves the set on your brows when you’re listening.

He has no idea how someone who looks so precious can have such a wicked mind.

“She looks so — I don’t know. Not this ingenious. Mean. How the fuck does someone who’s always hummin’ songs under her breath can intimate grown-ass man?”

“You’re the only fucker who thinks she looks like an angel, Joel.”

“Nah, we both know that’s a lie.”

“No, you’re just delusional. If anyone thinks she looks angelic you better bet they’re comparing her to Lucifer.”

Was he? Delusional.

Tess always made him feel like he was faced with a Truth Mirror whenever he opened his big mouth around her.

After a couple of hours, you’ve already cooked some things — with the little help he could offer — for the both of you, taken notes of the people you need to talk to.

Joel realizes that time passes only when you.

Outside of your presence, it’s all a snowball. Stale.

“Ah, shit.” You get up in a rush.

“What?”

“Almost lost the time for my pills again,” you mutter under your breath.

“You really need a watch.” From where he sits at your kitchen table he can see your profile — the roll of your eyes. He huffs in disbelief, ignoring the feeling of his mouth tugging in the corners.

After you take your med, you sit on the couch and find his gaze from across the room. “Clean the table for me?”

Joel never says no to you.

Not for lack of want — fucking god must know how many times he’s craved saying it, enunciating each letter with gusto. No.

It never came out.

He cleans the table thinking about how much he’s delaying it.

The book’s inside his duffel bag that remained next to your door all this time, but it weighs on his back somehow.

He did more than just clean the table as he tried pushing down the little mean jabs his mind took at itself.

You can’t force her to stay outta business.

She ain’t never listened to a soul in her life—who are you to tell her what to do?

Once every while, you would venture into Joel’s personal space and place a finger where his brows pinched together. The first time it happened, the effect had been immediate—Joel was so shocked by the act that his whole face relaxed; not his body, though. His body froze, and he had stood there in a perfect portrayal of a statue.

You do that when he sits on the couch.

Your presence is so damn familiar to him that even lost in his own mind, he finds his way through the maze. He sits by your side, leans back, and drops his head on the couch.

When he feels your finger touching his frown, Joel opens his eyes.

“What’s bothering you?” Your finger leaves, and he misses it.

Joel turns his head to the side. “Nothin’.” He likes the way the color’s back to your cheeks. A week on anti-inflammatory meds made you a little gray, and nothing about you was dull.

“You’re a shit liar,” you say.

He scoffs. “No, I’m not.”

“You really are, though,” you argue, fighting a smile. “And just so you know, your accent gets thicker the harder you try.”

At that, he frowns. “No, it doesn't—” and fuck, he hears it. How the fuck did you notice that? His frown deepens, and you chuckle at him. “You pay attention to the strangest fuckin’ things.” It’s said in the same gruff way he says most things, but there’s enough admiration underneath it that you hear it for what it is.

“And thank god for that — it’s what’s kept me alive. Us alive,” you snort, giving yourself the credit you’re due for once.

In the end, he blurts it out. “I found it.”

“Found what?” you ask, truly confused at the abrupt change.

“Something you told me I couldn’t.”

“That’s… oddly vague,” you reply. “I name a lot of things you can’t find. You seem to think you have superpowers.”

“No powers. Just talent.” He shrugs, and gets up to retrieve the book. “What’s the one thing you told me there was ’no fucking way’ I could find?”

The second it takes for your brain to connect the dots is the time Joel needs to find the copy in his bag.

Joel sees your eyes dropping to it when he turns around. Widening. Freezing that way. Your lips parting only a couple of inches as your jaw slowly drops.

He sits with more satisfaction on your couch than he’s sat anywhere in a long time.

The book falls with a soft thud between your bodies.

All the space he puts between you two is replaced by it —

Mary Shelley , Frankenstein.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” he asks.

When you look up, Joel’s caught off guard.

The moisture in your eyes shines under the light coming from your kitchen. Joel’s throat becomes restricted by an invisible force, and his eyes sting in response to the sight.

“What the fuck, Joel?” your hands pick up the book with a reverence that makes his skin tingle. “Where… how —” both times you start, then stop. “My god.” He just watches. You turn the book around, eyeing every millimeter. “This is real,” you mutter. He’s aware you’re not even talking to him at this point. “Have you—” you look up at him, and he feels special enough, “have you opened it? Are the pages—it’s whole?”

The way you breathe out the word.

A reverence. So sacred.

Joel might as well consider the bet paid if he wasn’t so far gone on what he wants.

Kind of.

“It’s whole,” he confirms.

Joel almost opens up his mouth to make a teasing remark. Ask if you’d like to be left alone with it, maybe. Instead, he lets you examine it to your heart’s will, which takes a while.

He’s always comfortable in the silence with you.

That’s when he started realizing the trouble he was in.

When he came over just to sit at the same table as you. Have dinner in silence while you cleaned your guns. Sometimes, he’d imagine a bottle of scotch would make the two of you end up in whispered conversations under the dim, yellowish lights of your place, but it never happened.

Joel’s too much of a coward to let his guard down with you.

He wouldn’t be able to do what he did with the others — a sweet release in the dark; an impersonal match of bodies, mingled in sweat and joined in more ways than it should seem possible, but never looking each other in the eye.

You looked him straight into his soul when you spoke to him. Every time.

“This means… you won the bet,” you say.

Joel blinks out of his thoughts. “Sure does.”

“So.” You put the book down gently on your lap, then gaze at him, eyes piercing into his. “What d'you want?”

Tough question. Joel felt the tingle that never left his skin covering him from head to toe. His throat constricts around the words — his body starts to heat up. He shakes his head, and is overwhelmed by how the air seems to charge between you both. He licks his lips, and says.

Like a coward, his eyes fall on Frankenstein before he speaks.

“Can’t have what I want.” The naked truth. What’s the point of lying to you, anyway? You’re a shit liar. “So I’ll ask for a close second,” he adds quickly. Something magnetic pulls at him, and he looks up — a mistake. Fucking mistake—you never looked at him this way. Is that red on your cheeks? “I — uh; I want a voucher. A veto power.”

You blink, utterly confused. “What?”

“A veto power over you.” It’s the closest he could think of on his way here. Some kind of power, since Joel has no right to demand anything from you. “On a decision. I—If you said you’re comin’ on a mission, for example. I could say ’no. Veto.’ and that’d be it. No arguments. I want a veto card over you. Just one.”

You stare at him for a few seconds, and Joel can almost see the engines in your brain turning.

Joel sometimes feels you’re more than just yourself. The eyes on your head see far beyond what’s in front of them, and he feels naked quite often when in front of you.

“Just tell me what you want,” you say.

Can’t have what I want, he told you. He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“How would you know?”

“I just do,” he argues.

“Maybe you’re wrong.”

“I’m not!” The storm swirls and lifts him from the couch. Joel turns his back to you, overcome by the reality of it all. “I know I’m not. There isn't—what I want is impossible. There’s no such thing anymore. It ain’t like the books, or finding fucking chocolate or—it ain’t. I wanted you safe. How fuckin’ stupid is that—” he chokes on air, gasping around the words. “There’s no safe anymore.” Softer, and lower, it comes out again. “There’s no safe.”

Most of the time, Joel’s control is kept on a tight leash. His hands have a vicious grip around it because if he loosens it, it’ll run off.

His hands are shaking now. He should turn back to face you, to see if he’s just said too much or fucked it up somehow, but—you get up. He hears the squeaking of the couch and your steps approaching.

Then, as slowly as you approached him when you first met, he feels it:

Your hands slide around his middle. Your palms spread across his back and contour his waist, and you’re hugging him—you hug him from behind, and Joel’s chest expands with the air that your presence brings.

“Joel.” You hug tighter. He can feel your upper body pressed against his back, and his hands come up to rest on top of yours, shaking as they are. He wants to speak up, but you beat him to it. “I thought I was going crazy, Joel.”

Crazy? He is going crazy. You’re wrapped around him and the world is yet to implode; Joel feels a knot in his throat that wasn’t there before. “Why?”

It hits him — the answer.

Before you’re able to say it hits him in the chest, because your hands grip him by the ribcages but not with force; all your fingers need to do is apply gentle pressure on him and Joel feels that you want him to move, so he lets you.

You spin him inside your hold, and Joel goes willingly.

When he’s turned and facing you, the answer is there, all over your face.

Your hands stay on his back, but your eyes are searching on every inch of his face for any sign, for anything to deter you from what you want to do.

Joel sees it. He is delusional.

“I want the impossible too,” you say. It comes out in a soft whisper, and Joel mentally curses all the moments of silence between you two where he felt the air as palpable as you inside his arms right now. When you looked at him, almost through him, and he turned a blind eye to it in fear that it was exactly what he wanted and craved for. “Is it — too much?”

He’s incapable of answering.

His hands come up to your face, and he fits his palm on the set of your jar, where his thumb can touch your cheeks.

You melt to the touch, eyes closing along the way.

All those times you two shared a laugh and a look, and the silence hung in the air as your eyes were unable to leave each other — this. It could’ve been this.

“Tell me to stop and I will,” is all he can say before he dives.

Joel meets you underwater.

The same way you’re drowning in his hands with all of your weight supported on his body, Joel submerges as his mouth meets your kiss.

It’s a waiting game — you were waiting for the moment he’d realize, he thinks.

Joel may be out of touch with reality itself, but some things can pierce through different dimensions.

Raw things never fail to elicit the strongest form of feeling and your desire pulls him under—real, demanding.

Although he remembers being a vocal partner in bed, he has no words or taunting remarks for you—he’d rather kiss.

Your mouth parts so eagerly for him that Joel wants to shut up.

He has you shutting up, moaning in his mouth as his tongue slides on yours. His fingers grip tighter on your hair. Your arms cling to him, then both of them let go to wrap around his shoulders instead, and Joel feels the despair as you climb up higher, as you press your body harder against him.

He understands it. Empathizes, even — he’s feeling it on him the same way.

Your desperate, wet kisses rekindle connections long lost in his brain.

Joel remembers the desperate and insane horniness of youth when hormones mix with inexperience and everything feels new and like a raw, open nerve.

This tastes like those moments.

It’d been so long since Joel was touched and your hands start a mapping of his body that start to get him drunk.

It hits him that it’s you. He’s kissing you, and you’re kissing back with so much force that he has no air, there’s no air in his lungs—

He pulls back, gasping, and feels your nails digging into his scalp. The moan scratches the back of his throat and Joel only notices his eyes are still closed when your forehead touches his and your breath starts mingling with his.

Opening his eyes is a blessing. And a curse, most likely.

Seeing your mouth swollen and puffy makes him greedy.

Then — “Are you stopping?” you ask. Hoarse voice. Breathless. “I didn’t tell you to stop,” you add, whining.

Joel picks you up in one motion, and the laughter that bubbles out of your chest reminds him that you’re light — you’re the ghost that pops up in his dreams shining with the pink hue of sundown and you’re the hope of his mornings, the scent of coffee and pages and herbs that make him feel like this earth could still have a sense of home even if he denies that fact, gritting his teeth at the fact the world still goes on.

He pins you against the nearest wall. One without a shelf, or furniture.

With you pressed against the wall, he has better support. He can trace your thighs with his palm, can get his hands underneath your cotton shorts, your blouse.

“Are you trying to kill me?” you ask him. Your head hits the wall behind you, and Joel looks up to see you watching him as he maps you. You visibly swallow when your gazes meet, and Joel wants to say so fucking much, but nothing comes out at first.

All he wants is to make the pink on your lips become permanent.

He wants to rip every item of clothing on you with his hands, and wants to —

“Joel,” you lean forward, capturing his lips in a kiss and stealing all the images he had of you pinned on your own wooden floor, cheeks pressed against it as he took you from behind.

When your tongue meets his, Joel feels something snapping.

He growls into the kiss, both of his hands groping your asscheeks as he desperately grinds his hips against your body.

This kiss is even better than the first, even if it kills all of his oxygen faster.

Joel never kissed like this. Not this messy, this wet and sloppy mess of need, and dry humping, and swallowing your moans only to have them be echoed back to you when you grind your hips down in the perfect way—

When he pulls back for air this time, Joel grips your head by the hair, making a fistful at your nape.

“This is not just now, is it?” he asks. His own voice sounds like sandpaper and pure lust, and he’s not even beginning.

“No, no,” you shake your head. “I need you, Joel.”

“Fuckin’ hell,” he has more to say, but now he needs you naked. “’m gonna take off your clothes. Then I’m gonna eat your pussy 'cause I’ve thought about it too many fuckin’ times.” Your jaw falls open at him, and Joel smiles despite himself. “Yeah. You gonna let me, baby? Hm?”

Your only answer is to nod desperately, grinding against him as your eyes close.

Joel’s in heaven. “Did I win what I want?” he asks.

“What?”

“My veto,” he pulls you away from the wall and starts carrying you to your bedroom. “I still want it. Can’t have the impossible but I can have a veto.”

You laugh as he kicks your door open. “You want a fucking veto? Joel, all you have to do is hold me by the chin and say 'no’ or 'yes’ and I’d do it. It’s that simple. Always have been. ” You grab his face between your hands and pierce him with those All Seeing Eyes. “I’ll give you your veto, if that’s what you want.” You kiss his lips, sighing softly. “’m sorry I can’t promise you I’ll be safe, but I can promise I’ll try.”

Joel knows he’s about to do something that can’t be taken back when he lies you down.

He nods just so you know he understood, but the knot’s formed again and if he speaks, Joel will cry — the words wouldn’t come out anyway, even if he wants to say them.

Joel’s unsure if they haven’t been burned out of his tongue.

He takes off your clothes one by one. Ironic for someone who wanted them ripped to pieces not a minute ago, but to have you laid in front of him soothes the desperation somehow.

His plans get interrupted, though, because once you’re naked and all of his brain is mushed into nothing but skin skin you you touch touch touch, you stop him from kneeling down at the edge of the bed with a touch and one request, “You too?” your gaze is so open and vulnerable that his hands go to his shirt. “No — lemme. Please.”

Joel does, and you do the same to him, taking his clothes off one by one.

When you drop to his knees in front of him, Joel is powerless.

He’s too stunned to say or do anything but look.

Even his hands that itch to touch only manage to do so when they’re flying for some support so his knees don’t buckle and he falls — you grab his cock by the base with one hand, look up until his eyes are locked on yours, and then licks a wet stripe from his balls to the tip.

Then you do it again, and again, until Joel’s coated in saliva, and you can suck around the tip, swallowing him down in one go.

He grips your hair for life support, cursing under his breath.

Joel’s vocal about how much you’re fucking killing him.

You go at it slowly, which is even more torture, but he gets it. He remembers you talking about not being with a person for the longest time. How it made no difference for you to have the physical or not because the attraction wasn’t there unless there something underneath it — for someone who’s out of practice, you must have the knowledge.

Your tongue runs on the sensitive skin between the dick and his balls, your mouth suctions when it’s taking him down and when you start bobbing your head, using your hand to cover the parts your mouth can’t reach, Joel has to physically pull you back.

“Stop, stop —” his hand on your hair pulls you back, and Joel curses again when you whine at having to let go. “’m gonna fuck you, baby, it’s okay, ’s okay,” he gets you up by the neck, and is kissing you right after.

That’s how he falls in bed with you — with his cock leaking pre-cum, his back already coated in sweat and your mouth tasting like him.

Joel eases the fall with his hand, not wanting to crush you with his weight. He wants to eat you out — Joel wants to bury his face in you, but when he makes a move to go down, your legs clamp around his waist and your head starts shaking.

You pull back from his kiss, “No — later, you can do that later, just — please,” you guide your hand between your bodies to hold him and guide his cock to your entrance. “Waited too long, Joel.”

I need you, Joel.

“Wait, wait — ” it’ll be over too fast if he sees you all the time. Joel has an idea. “A position that’s better for you first. I wanna see you too, but I want you to feel good. Turn around for me.”

“You want me on all fours?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “Just turn around.”

You obey him, and Joel grabs one of your pillows to push under your waist. You rest your cheek on the one under your head, and he positions himself first before crowding your space with his head on the crook of your neck.

He dips his fingers in first, spreading your wetness all over you before lining up.

It’s sinful how good the position is.

He fills you up, bottoming all the way out. Joel’s thick, but not too long, and he knows this angle is as good for you as it is for him. “Feels good?” he asks in your ear.

Your only response is his name.

“Is that a yes?” he pulls all the way out, and slams it back in, wanting to feel the drag. Wanting to feel your walls clamping around him. How you open up to accommodate all of him. “'Cause you feel like — fuckin’ heaven, baby — louder, say it louder —”

“Feels amazing, Joel,” you cry.

He knows it does. Joel hasn’t felt anything remotely close to pleasure in a long time, so this might be too much, he might be in danger of growing an addiction, but he’s past caring.

He drags it out.

Joel wanted to fuck you senseless a while ago, but now all he wants is to stay buried in the tight and warm haven of your cunt until you’re both too spent to move a muscle. “’m gonna stay — all fuckin’ night — inside you, baby — hm, whaddaya think?”

“Yes, please—”

“God, I love — that’s all you can say to me.”

“Don’t stop,” you cry out louder.

“I won’t.” He couldn’t.

He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t.

Joel thrusts into you slow, measured and deep, until the heat in his groin is climbing like your nails digging at his sides. He loses count of how many times he sucks on your shoulders, how many bite marks you must have on your neck, of how many single-worded compliments he spills in your ears as he fucks the words out of you.

When you beg to cum, Joel flips you over and hoists your leg higher so he can go in deeper, and he fucks you the way you’ve been begging him to — crying around his fingers for harder, and faster, Joel, please, please, I’m not gonna break —

He gives it to you like both of you have been dying to receive, and when your legs start shaking around him and his name drops from your lips in a scream, Joel pulls out, coating your stomach in the hot strings of his cum.

He doesn’t collapse on top of you, which is a miracle.

He does lay strategically next to you in order to avoid his own mess until he’s able to feel his legs again.

Your fingers thread his hair during that time.

The spasms of your legs make him smile, and the little hums that leave you without you even realizing make Joel float on his bliss.

When he comes back to himself, he gets up to get a warm towel. He cleans you both, just enough so sleeping is okay. He pulls up the duvet and puts you underneath it before climbing under as well.

When he lays, Joel expects you to turn around;

Instead, you wrap around him in octopus style, and whisper, “Turn around.”

He obeys, and is rewarded by you spooning him.

Joel thinks he might be dreaming.

“Are you gonna be here tomorrow?” you ask after a while.

Your bodies are as tangled as they can be. Your hands caress the hairs on his chest and your breath is on his neck, and still, you are stared he’ll leave.

“D'you want scrambled eggs or you prefer the toast?” he replies.

There’s a kiss on his neck. Another on his shoulder. He grabs one of your hand to pull it to his lips, and kisses it.

“Scrambled.”

“'kay. Where d'you keep your sugar? I can never find it.”

“I’ll show you tomorrow,” you kiss his shoulder, and squeeze his body. “Joel?”

“Yeah, baby?”

He can feel your smile because your lips are on his skin. He’s gonna use that more, he thinks. “I might wake up rubbing myself all over you,” you whisper.

He laughs. “Fine by me.”