#5oh5 things

[5oh5-library]

just a place to store fics for my tbr, it’s getting out of hand 🫣 I will reblog from my main blog and will tag here with #read

main blog here 🪴

#5oh5 things #intro post

[5oh5-notifs]

notifs blog

hi all! I made a notifications blog if you'd like to be notified when I post a fic 🌻🖤 thank you all for the support, it means the absolute world 🫶🏻

#5oh5 things #admin #intro post

[perotovar]

dedicated to everyone, for the @swiftiscruff friendship exchange ♥

sappy message and tags under the cut:

this week snuck up on me and i didn't have any time to make the things i wanted to for specific individuals (and even got this out at the last possible second) so i'm sorry that never happened! hopefully this funny/cute moodboard will suffice <3

y'all, i don't even know where to begin. i love all of you so fucking much and feel so blessed and humbled to consider so many of you my friends.

when i joined this fandom (end of january 2023) i told myself i was just going to make my gifs and stay in my lane. i didn't want to make any friends because i'd been there, done that.

i'm so fucking glad that never came to pass because even if this fandom can be full of drama and toxicity, it's also one of most lovely and supportive groups of people i've ever been a part of.

i can't tell you all how much i love you and thank you for your love and support on my gifs, my fics, god, i never expected that. tbh i thought people were just being nice and humoring me when i started writing but i'm slowly but surely realizing you're all just giant sweeties. seriously, thank you so much.

i tried to find as many people as possible that i consider friends and/or admire a great deal for their creativity/presence in this fandom because you all make my time here beyond worth it <3 if i left anyone out i promise it wasn't on purpose!

i'm so grateful that this silly, talented man brought you guys to me!

-

in no particular order: (sorry it's broken up weird, tumblr sucks lol)

@scenaaario @sp00kymulderr @qveerthe0ry @undercoverpena @kedsandtubesocks

@hellishjoel @chronically-ghosted @gasolinerainbowpuddles @5oh5 @theredviper

@swiftispunk @joelscruff @jksprincess10 @for-a-longlongtime @bonezone44

@mrsmando @freelancearsonist @ozarkthedog @ghotifishreads @futuraa-free

@pedrorascal @userparamore @guiltypleasure-art @psychedelic-ink @pedgito

@survivingandenduring @yourcoolauntie @beelzebeth87 @immarocketman @goodwithcheese

@rhoorl @sin-djarin @ezrasbirdie @haylzcyon @reedrchards

@sweetenerobert @ghostofaboy @toointojoelmiller @theywhowriteandknowthings @covetyou

@nerdieforpedro @agentmarcuspike @missredherring @boliv-jenta @beefrobeefcal

@toxicanonymity @marisferasiop @morallyinept @atticrissfinch @trulybetty

@max--phillips @iamskyereads @grogusmum @tieronecrush @nicolethered

@thetriumphantpanda @radiowallet @wannab-urs @oonajaeadira @fuckyeahdindjarin

@beardedjoel @secretelephanttattoo @schnarfer @joelsgreenflannel @janaispunk

@tomshiddles @djo @trashcora @miguelo-hara

#PPCUGiftExchange2024 #pedropascaledit #ppascaledit #ppascaldaily #pedrohub #pedro pascal #userallisyn #userfanni #useriselin #tusercora #tuserpolly #xuserannie #g:pp #oaks

[macfrog]

san angelo | one shot

what happens when joel miller meets his star-crossed lover?

big love to @mrsmando and @5oh5 for cheering me on with this one, and @bageldaddy for being my eyes, my ears, and - only sometimes - my brain.

pairing: joel miller x fem!reader summary: it's the summer of two thousand eight. after two weeks following his little brother cross-country on the back of a harley, joel follows him through the doors of a dive bar - where fate delivers him to you. warnings: story is inserted into canon, so cordyceps outbreak happens, sarah dies (off-page), joel dissociates, doomed love, lots of mention of fate, alcohol consumption, reader is a smoker, cursing, drunken one-night stand, oral sex, unprotected piv, joel's cock is massive, a lot of angst, a lot of fluff, a lil smut to tie it all together. enjoy! word count: 9.8k

moodboard | main masterlist | playlist [in case you wanna vibe in sad] | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🤍

Palm lines.

It’s the first thing he thinks as soon as she stops moving in his arms. The second her little whimpers cease, the moment her chest stops heaving and her eyes glaze over. Suddenly, Joel’s little girl weighs more than he can bear.

Palm lines. And he has no fucking idea why.

He closes his eyes and there you are. The whir of the ceiling fan, the tinkling of bracelets loose on your wrist. You have sorta earth hands, you told him. Or, well – they could be water, if you look at ‘em this way. I don’t really know. I’m still learning.

You told him that air hands were long, spindly. And Sarah was always a lanky kid – tallest on the soccer team, head and shoulders above the other girls by the third grade. Her hands, he thinks, must be air. They must be.

Her fingers are still twisted around his right now. Lifeless, slippery with the blood still wet and quickly cooling.

Joel cradles her, squeezing so hard that he wonders whether he might be able to fuse their bodies together. Lock them in some white-knuckle grip so that he never has to let go of her – never has to leave this hill covered in dirt and blood.

His palms are ruined; a maroon river carving its way down his heart line, dirt deep in the groove of his life line. Why does he even fucking remember what they’re called?

Why the fuck are you what he’s thinking about, right now?

“Tommy,” he says, opening his eyes again. “We gotta…we gotta get to…”

She’s limp, draped over his thighs as though she’s nothing more than a stretch of crimson curtain. He looks down at her and begs her to come back, begs her to open her eyes and look up at him again.

But the night is passing and she’s still not breathing. Dawn is breaking and Joel’s daughter is dead.

He sucks in a shattered breath. “…to San Angelo, Tommy.”

The younger Miller stuffs his gun into the back of his jeans and paces over, soles coated thick in shit and grass. “I hear you, Joel.”

“You ain’t listenin’ to me, I –”

“I’m listenin’ fine, Joel.” Tommy hooks his hands under his niece’s arms. “Now, help me lift her. We can’t…” his voice strains, fighting the death grip his brother has on the girl, “…we can’t leave her here.”

Joel’s frozen to the spot; sinking further and further into the earth. Staring at his open hands, the stains like rust on his palms. He says to San Angelo again, and Tommy snaps.

“Jesus, Joel, enough! I’ve heard enough goddamn it! I see your hands, now – we gotta fuckin’ bury Sarah.”

Your fate line, your nail tickled, and Joel held his hand steady, It can change, if something big is coming.

Somethin’ big? he asked. A little younger, a lot more naïve. Still a healthy dose of belief in the world, an echo of the god-fearing faith that raised him.

His hand felt so light, cradled in two of yours. He half hoped he’d never have to let go – just lie there with you forever. Your legs tangled with his, the sheets disturbed; the room injected with amber from the streetlights outside.

You nodded. A big shift, or something.

And he scoffed. He actually scoffed, right there and then. Incredulous. The hell kinda big shift is comin’ our way? he asked, laughing.

You just smiled back, shrugging. You were so fucking casual, that whole night. It would’ve unnerved him, if he hadn’t been so swept off by the sparkle in your eye, the glowing cherry of your cigarette.

Guess we just gotta wait ‘n see.

It’s August thirtieth, two thousand eight.

Almost five thousand miles on the back of a Harley, and Joel just wants to go home.

He arches his aching back, palms flat against the crests of his hips, and blinks in the light from the food mart in front of him. Twenty-six, he thinks to himself, only twenty-fuckin’-six.

It’s ninety degrees out. An uncomfortable heat, for a man who feels ten years older than he really is. For a man who hasn’t had a decent shower in almost two weeks. For a man who’s spent the last six hours tailing the brake lights of his little brother’s bike.

The sweat gathers sticky between his shoulder blades, prickles along the nape of his neck. There’s dust spattered down his bare arms and buried in the grooves of his knuckles.

He’s tired. He’s tired, he’s dirty, and goddamn, he wishes he was back home.

He holds a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun, the yellow sky melting to a purple haze. Squinting, he follows the soar of two swallows overhead, looping through the sky, until he’s rubbing the image from his eyes with the back of his wrist.

He’s gotta remember to call Sarah before she goes to bed.

The door opens with the tinkle of a brass bell older and rustier than Joel feels. A swaggering figure splits the glow from the store in two – a figure with a pack of Marlboros in one hand and an already half-empty bottle of water in the other.

Tommy holds them both out to Joel, who swipes the water with a scowl.

“Ain’t killed you yet, brother,” Tommy scoffs, stuffing the cigarettes into his back pocket. He swings a frayed-denim leg over the seat of his Harley.

Joel drains the bottle, panting as he crushes the plastic in one fist. “Damn near tryin’,” he mutters, tossing it in the trash. He runs his tongue across his bottom lip.

“Where are we?” Tommy asks. He glances over his shoulder, staring from the cracked roads to the telephone wires overhead. A Syclone pulls into the lot; a dehydrated squeal as it rolls to a halt.

“San Angelo,” Joel says. “Only a few more hours to go.” He settles on his own bike, pulling his leather jacket over his shoulders. “We passed a Super 8 coming into town, if you feel like restin’ up. Or – we leave now, be home around midnight.”

Tommy chuckles. “What’s the rush? We ain’t gotta be anywhere anytime soon.”

And Joel agrees – for the most part.

His mom is watching Sarah while they’re gone, and he reckons she’s hardly missing him. Too smart for her own good, Joel’s realizing: plotting and scheming her way into staying up past her bedtime, drinking Pepsi at dinner, watching Curtis and Viper – and swearing that her dad lets her do it all, too.

But, still. He misses his kid.

It’s the most they’ve ever been apart – time or distance. The longest he hasn’t had her climbing up his back or hanging off his arm. The least he’s been called Dad since he was eighteen years old.

He just…misses his kid.

He sighs, drumming his fingers on the body of the bike. “Tommy, I gotta get back home to Sarah.”

“Look,” Tommy says, and Joel knows that the argument is lost already, “By the time we got back, she’d be asleep anyways. Let’s leave in the morning – first thing, I swear – and we’ll be home in time for breakfast. Deal?”

They stare at one another, a stand-off in the parking lot. Both waiting for the other to break. The swallows gather on the roof of the store, basking in the weak wash of flickering fluorescents.

“Come on, brother,” Tommy pleads, “It’s one more night.” He lifts his helmet, punching it over his mop of shaggy hair, and kicks the bike to life.

Joel growls to himself, watching it drift over to the side of the road.

He considers heading to the Super 8 alone, grabbing a room only to shower and get some food, then hitting the road and leaving his little brother in the dust. Waiting for him to stumble through the door tomorrow morning – tired, groggy, probably hungover – while Joel, fresh as a daisy, drizzles syrup over Sarah’s pancakes and pours her orange juice.

He’s a pragmatic man. He’s a grown-up. Scares away the ghosts and ghouls and monsters of his daughter’s nightmares. Shushes her back to sleep in the crook of his arm, tiptoes as lightly as he can out of her room so as not to wake her.

Things like God, like the universe, things like horoscopes and laws of attraction…for the most part, Joel can do without them. Has done his whole life.

But then – the glow of indigo overhead, and the mysterious shadows lurking behind the buildings. The birdsong tittering in his ears, the twinkle of the sun in Tommy’s helmet – something distant in the dusty sphere.

Something, someone, winking at him from far away.

Something a little heavier than the breeze nudges at his spine, and Joel’s arms lift – fitting his own helmet over his head. He swings the heel of his boot into his kickstand and revs the bike, Harley roaring as it joins Tommy’s out on the boulevard.

Murphy’s is a small, green bar on the corner of an intersection. All peeled paint lettering and buzzing fluorescents – the y burnt out and pulsing.

Joel doesn’t think Tommy picked it for any reason other than the huge Lone Star mural on the side of the goddamn building, the way he tosses his thumb to it as they park up. A squint smirk on his face, muttering something like ‘s good to be home, big brother, as they hook helmets over handlebars.

Tommy leads Joel inside, their boots tacky on the wooden floor. Walls paneled by aged frames and sun-bleached photographs; air hanging thick with a smell like vinegar. The babble of slurred conversation is pierced by the sharp crack of pool balls breaking.

Metal-plate belt buckles snaked through strained jeans; low eyes which shift to size-up the two strangers. They all turn back to their fingerprinted glasses when Joel and Tommy settle into an empty booth.

It feels hotter in here than it is outside, stuffier. A thick humidity which clings to Joel’s bones, humming like the string lights draped from beams above his head.

Tommy reclines between the creaking leather cushion and the wall. He pokes at a yellowing poster of some Western, hums to himself, and then looks across the table.

Joel’s eyes loop once around the room before they meet his brother’s. “What?” he asks.

“First round is yours, old man.”

“Oh, is it, now?” He cocks an eyebrow. “Thought this was your idea?”

A weedy grin stretches across Tommy’s lips. He needs to fucking shave, Joel thinks. Whiskers poking from around his small mouth like pine needles. “’s my birthday trip,” he reasons.

And can Joel argue with that? Does he have the fucking energy? Will it get him out of here and back to Austin any quicker?

“Goddamn it,” he grumbles. He pushes himself to his feet, heels of his palms against the tacky wood.

He wanders over to the bar, tugging on the front of his tee to unstick it from his damp chest. Slots in beside an ivory cowboy hat with a pair of jeaned legs. The man fixes his bolo tie and watches Joel’s hand as he flags the bartender down.

And then he feels it.

You.

Then he feels you.

First, the weight of you – crashing some into his back. He shunts forward from the suddenness of it, knocking his ribs against the bar, and lifts a hand to brace himself on the ledge.

And then – heat, like an iron. Like every hair and freckle on your skin is branded into his the second you come into contact with him. A feeling like the roll of a wave against his spine, a hand hooked around his forearm when he begins to turn.

“Shit,” you hiss, steadying yourself on the curve of his shoulder. You glance down at your feet, clicking between your black boots. “I’m sorry, that was…that was my bad.”

“’s alright,” Joel says instantly. He holds his arm still until you let go and he sidesteps – though only a little. He watches, dumbstruck, as you rest your elbows on the bar and lean forward. His eyes linger on your back, trailing the crisscross straps wrapped tight over your spine.

You squint up at the menu pinned above shelves of crystal bottles. Your eyes move back and forth across the chalkboard, slowly descending until they’re meeting his in the speckled mirror opposite – a sweet smile growing on your lips.

It runs like whiskey through Joel’s veins: warm and dangerous.

And the way his head spins, the way the world blurs for a moment into one swipe of color around you; the way your cooing laugh echoes between his ears long after he’s heard it –

Joel’s already intoxicated.

He’s still staring when you pull back and motion to the bar. “You can go first, by the way,” you say, waving a hand. “I wasn’t cuttin’ in line. Just trying to read the drinks.”

“I’ll wait,” he replies, remembering how to be polite, how to be charming. Old cogs long out of use jerking to life inside him again. “Can’t read any of ‘em, either, anyways.”

It draws from you that same little laugh, a puff of air from your nostrils. You nod, biting your bottom lip.

He’s quickly forgetting why he’s stood in this room, why he’s in this city. He’d probably forget his own fucking name if you asked him right now what it was.

“’nother drink, darlin’?” a low voice interrupts, and you’re turning away.

Joel’s eyes follow you – a moth chasing something golden and radiant – as you face the wiggle of a snow-white mustache poking from beneath the brim of that ivory cowboy hat.

You shake your head, lifting two fingers with a bill slipped between them. “I’m good, thanks, George. Maybe next round.” You wave to the kid behind the bar – some name that Joel’s too fucking mindless to hear. Too distracted by the glint in your eye, the sparkle of your crescent moon earrings in the light.

If only he knew this feeling. If only he could put a name to it. As familiar as the sun and yet, brand new like dawn. His stomach swirls in a fleet of butterflies – as though he’s fifteen again, bumping elbows with his high school crush.

You nudge him, thumb pointing in the direction of the bartender.

Joel shakes his head. “Ladies first,” he says, heart skipping when you hold his stare.

“Nuh-uh,” you shake your head, “Told you I ain’t jumping in.”

He asks the guy for two beers, barely taking his eyes off you. “Alright,” he leans in, lowering his voice, “Then let me buy you a drink. Make up for gettin’ in your way just then.”

You prop your chin on your knuckles, grinning as you push your twenty around the wooden bar top, dodging pooled rings of alcohol like it’s an arcade game. “I don’t do that,” you say, eyes tracing the slick trail left by the bill.

“Do what?”

“Accept drinks from strange men in bars.”

His tongue presses against the back of his teeth, the taste of humor honey-sweet. “Yeah? ‘n how long have you known…” he nods to the – what is he, sixty? Sixty-five? – year-old on your right, “…George?”

Your gaze lifts, eyes wide. Apparently as impressed by Joel’s confidence as he is himself. “We’re actually in a very serious relationship. Marriage proposal imminent.”

“Damn,” he mutters as the bartender reappears with two Coors, “And here I thought I had half a chance.”

You hum to yourself, studying him. Looking from his jaw across the span of his shoulders, his wide-knuckled hands and then back to his lips. Curious and wary, judging the strange animal stood before you.

And he knows he’s weathered from the weeks on the road, and all the years before that. Dirt under his nails and the light sheen of sun on his forehead. The flecks of gray through his thick, brown beard.

You take a deep breath, eyes twinkling, and tell him, “I’m here with my friend.”

“Ain’t that lucky?” Joel glances at Tommy. “I’m here with my brother.”

You look across to the dirty blond, sat tilting a glass candle in his hand. “He single?”

Joel nods. “Is she?”

You nod.

“Alright. You wanna come sit with us?”

Your smirk answers his question. You take the beers, rings clinking off the glass. “Rum,” you call over your shoulder, wandering off, “I drink rum.”

Joel’s gaze lowers to the sway of your hips. “Rum it is,” he says, turning back to the bar.

“So…a cross-country bike trip, and you wound up in San Angelo?”

You’re on your fourth drink, the first one Joel hasn’t paid for – and he only allowed it because it’s a Diet Coke (and maybe you got to the bar first, held his wrists with one hand so he couldn’t stop you from slapping your own money down).

“Yep,” Joel replies, pinching the lime from his drink and dropping it onto a napkin. “Just passin’ through. Shower, sleep, then head on home.”

“Where’s that, then? Home?”

“Austin.”

“Austin,” you pout, “Nice.”

Joel smirks, licking citrus from his fingertips. “Is it?”

“I’ve never been to Austin,” Brooke chirps, fiddling with the umbrella in her piña colada. She twirls the paper canopy and glances up to Tommy.

He snaps out of his slack-jawed gaze when he realizes what she’s implying. “Oh – yeah, well…” his head wobbles as he stutters, “…you two ever come down that way, we’d be happy to, uh…show ya ‘round, huh, Joel?”

Joel doesn’t reply, staring back at his brother with the same amused expression you are.

You’ve been an inch apart all evening – doused in the dive bar darkness, the shrouded conversations and muffled TV static. The tip of your nose and curve of your shoulders lit only by the luminous signs dotting the walls.

Tommy and Brooke are already deep in conversation again about the best car Tommy ever owned. Joel watches as your eyes flit between the pair, entertained by the way they trip over each other’s sentences. Your cheeks lift when Brooke lays a hand over Tommy’s, and he squeezes her fingers back.

Where did you come from? Joel’s thinking. He takes a swig of his whiskey, feeling your eyes on him. As he lowers his glass, you lift yours. When he turns in his seat towards you, you’re already facing him, back against the wainscotting. He smiles, and so do you.

Every movement feels choreographed, some merry dance only you two know. You’re in your own little world.

Where did you come from, again, and where have you been my entire fucking life?

“So, what about you?” Joel asks instead, swallowing – all warm-bellied and brave. “You grow up here?”

You shake your head, taking another sip. “Nope. Just liked it enough to hang up my coat for a few months. I grew up in Phoenix.”

“You travel a lot?”

“I’ve been around. This is the longest I’ve stayed in one place since I was a kid.”

He thinks of home: of Austin and its silver-snake river, burnt-orange jerseys and the pleated bunting lining Sixth Street. He thinks of late nights on lawn chairs, nursing a beer and shooting the shit with his brother. Keeping their voices lower than the buzz of the cicadas, looking more at the dusky sky than at each other.

“You don’t ever get tired of it?” Joel asks. “Of moving around so much?”

You scoff, breath clouding the inside of your glass. “Three weeks on a motorcycle starting to get to you, huh?”

He breathes a laugh, loose again. The cicadas fade from his ears.

Your head tilts in a shrug. “I don’t know. I guess the universe keeps on surprising me.”

Joel doesn’t do this. At least, he hasn’t done this since he was a teenager – crate of beer under his arm and a chest full of courage. He’s long forgotten the feeling of heat blooming in his cheeks, the twitch of his heart anytime you look at him.

But fuck, if there isn’t something about you. Something in the way you move, the way you look at him. Something in the way you play with your straw, knocking ice cubes around and chewing on the plastic once you’ve drained the glass.

Something – though it’s a little too early and Joel’s a little too tipsy to tell just what. He tries to remember that he’s pragmatic. A grown-up. He chases away the monsters in his daughter’s –

“Oh, shit,” Joel says suddenly, scrambling to pull his cell from his pocket. It’s nine thirty. He was supposed to – “I forgot…”

A miserable tone from his Motorola cuts him short. The screen flashes an empty battery before fading to black. He jams a thumb into the keypad a couple more times, cursing at the winking symbol.

“Someone you gotta call?” you ask.

He meets your eye and winces. “Yeah, I’m…I said I’d call an hour ago.”

“You wanna use mine?” You twist around, fishing in your purse for your own. “We can go outside.”

“No, no, it’s…it’s alright, I’m sure she won’t mind, she –”

You shake your head. “Shut up. Come on, let’s go. I could use some fresh air, anyways. Be back in a minute,” you tell Brooke – who nods and turns straight back to Tommy.

Joel extends his hand to help you out of the booth, then follows you to the door. The cool air tugs every nerve in his body to attention, pin-sharp when he steps out of that lazy heat. Under the emerald glow of the Murphy’s sign, he settles his glass on a window ledge. “Next round’s on me, alright?”

You roll your eyes, pushing the phone against his chest. “Just call, Joel.”

One last apologetic glance, and then he’s dialing. He makes to wander along the curb, the tone already pulsing in his ear, when he notices –

“You ain’t brought a jacket?”

You’re sitting on the ledge, clutching your elbows. Swatting midges from the light you’re bathed in, charms on your bracelets jingling. “Hm?”

He tuts. “A jacket. Here.” He shrugs his own off, sitting it around your frame. It’s warm from the bar and from Joel’s body heat, and you sink into it – letting the dark leather drown you as you rummage through your purse again.

“Nice,” Joel’s eyes narrow, “Fresh air.”

You hum into your hands, flicking your lighter. The cigarette trembles when you murmur, “We all got our skeletons, I guess.”

He turns on his heel when a familiar voice picks up.

“Hey, hey, M–Yeah, sorry it’s late…Yeah, we got held up. My phone died, so I’m using…Is she still–? Can I–? Oh, Sarah. Hi, baby.”

His little girl begins chattering down the line immediately, telling Joel everything she’s been up to since they last spoke this morning.

“…and then, Emily thought I was one of the Armadillos – I don’t even know how, ‘cause they play in red, remember Dad? – but she did, and she slide tackled me so bad that Coach Thomson had to sub in Akari for me so I could ice my ankle. Grandma was kinda mad about it, but she took me to Burger King after to cheer me up, and…”

Joel wanders back and forth, smiling to himself and scuffing the heel of his boot along the concrete – barely able to squeeze more than two words between her chirping. It’s all, Yeah, baby? and Wow, sweetheart; all uhuhs and mhms until she finally quietens, excitement plateauing again.

“Alright, well. You know what time it is, right?”

“Yeah,” Sarah groans. She knows it all too well.

Bedtime.

“…But you didn’t call when you said you would, Daddy, and it’s Saturday, it’s –”

“I know, baby, I know. I’m sorry. Just…somethin’ came up. But I’ll see you tomorrow, right? We’ll be back before you know it.”

“Where’s Uncle Tommy? Can I talk to him?”

Joel turns to face the bar. “He, uh…I’m not with him right now, sweetheart. I’ll tell him you asked after him, though.”

Sarah concedes, and then begins asking questions Joel knows she’s only asking to stay on the line a little longer – to stay awake a little later. But still, he answers each one – humoring her and, at the same time, letting himself listen to her voice just a little more before he has to let her go.

He thinks of scooping her up in the morning; thinks of being slumped on the couch after dinner with her head on his stomach – fast asleep with whatever movie she chose droning on in the background.

Despite the thousands of miles and close to two weeks between them – she makes him feel closer to home. She always does.

When Sarah asks where he is, he glances your way. Clocks your flat expression, the half-burnt cigarette hanging from your fingers.

You flick ash to the ground. Eyes unreadable beneath low brows, a tiny crease between them that Joel’s only just seeing for the first time.

“Uh…” he clears his throat, “…just a little – a little north of you, baby. Home first thing, I promise.”

He tells her he loves her and she says it back, and he tells her to sleep well and she says that back, too. And then he’s hanging up – Alright, see you soon, bye, Sarah, bye-bye, byebyebye – and pressing his thumb into the red button.

He wanders back over to you – ears flat like a guilty dog, though he isn’t quite sure why. He mumbles a quiet thanks as he passes the phone back, then stuffs his hands in his pockets.

You lean back, ankles crossed, studying him. Swirling what’s left of the cigarette in your fingers – the smoke lifting like a winding snake to the dark sky. “So,” you pout, “What are you doing flirting with me, if you got a wife and kid back home?”

His jaw ticks, a hand coming up to scratch his beard. “I don’t have a wife,” he says.

You stare blankly, filter back against your lips. “Okay, then – a girlfriend. Does she know you’re out tonight with us?”

He shakes his head. “No wife, no girlfriend. I don’t have an anything.”

“But you have a kid.”

Joel nods once, tongue in his cheek. “Uhuh.”

And then the penny seems to drop. A small oh; your jaw slack and eyes wide. The cigarette smolders between your fingers. “Fuck,” you whisper, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“No, hey,” Joel steps closer, “You didn’t know. It’s alright.”

He straightens the jacket on your shoulders. When you finally look at each other again, you snort.

“Sorry,” you repeat, shaking your head. “Is she okay? Your daughter – is she…?”

“Sarah,” Joel says. “She’s…she’s fine. Thanks.”

You look down, stubbing your cigarette against the brick. Voice quiet, you ask, “Her mom’s not around anymore?”

Relief settles in his chest: you’re softening to him again.

Joel slots onto the ledge at your side. Shoulder to shoulder. He reaches behind and lifts his drink. “Not since she was a year old.”

Your mouth pulls in a wince. “Jesus. That’s rough.”

He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t have to – you’re not asking him to explain – and he doesn’t want to, either.

You’re not stupid – you’ve seen enough of the world to hear what he’s really saying. The darkest, dustiest corners of it – all the places no one ever wants to look.

You don’t seem disturbed, barely even moved by the reality that…well, shit happens. People leave, families break; a two-car driveway is suddenly taken up by just a pick-up truck and a little pink bike with tassels.

He figures you get it. You don’t need to know how can that be? – you just…know that it can.

“So, uh…” you look up at him again, “…my apartment is, like, five minutes away if you wanna…you know. You can charge your phone, can shower – if it’s bugging you that much.”

Joel’s eyebrows lift. “Oh, really?”

You simper, eyes thin. “Really.”

“Charge my phone ‘n shower?” He stands, palm flat against the wall above your head, and leans in. His face is inches from yours.

You look up, mirroring his expression. “Yes,” your voice curls in a half-truth, “What’s the big deal?”

“What a goddamn line,” Joel says, smirking. “How long you been sittin’ on that one for?”

His blood thrums faster, harder, louder in his veins when you stand up, hands on your hips.

“It’s not a line, I’m serious –”

“I didn’t take you as the type, baby, I really didn’t – but if that’s how you wanna play this, then –”

He feels you before he sees you moving, like he’s stood at that bar all over again. Your hands on his jaw, your chest pressed to his. Your lips – soft as satin, with a tinge of sweet rum and smoke – against his.

Joel barely misses a beat. He closes his eyes and lifts a hand to the back of your head, kissing you back. It’s dizzying, the taste and feel of you so close; the wet of your tongue on his. The little scratches of your nails in his beard, the moans caught in your throat.

Dizzying – and fucking perfect.

You break apart and lean in to each other, catching your breath. Joel’s hands slip beneath the heavy leather of his jacket onto your waist.

“Unless…” you whisper, pulling away from him, “…you don’t want to. In which case, I’ll just…” You twirl back towards the door, batting your eyelashes.

Joel smiles. He catches your wrist and reels you back into his body. “I want to,” he breathes, kissing you again. “I want to.”

“Let’s go.”

You make it to your apartment door, fumbling with your keys – and Joel’s hands are glued to your waist.

You miss the lock over and over as he kisses your neck, grazing the skin with his teeth. Anything to satiate the hunger quickly taking over, the tightening in his jeans.

He pulls you against his hips – rough denim grinding into the curve of your ass. He can smell your flowery perfume, a strange melding of peony and menthol sharp in his nostrils.

It’s the hungriest he’s ever felt, he thinks – a starved animal pinning his prey to her flecked apartment door. He pauses, bottom lip damp against your neck; breathing a liquor-laced laugh over your skin.

You jam the key into the lock. The door finally shunts open and you spill inside, dragging Joel with you.

Your place is dark. Angled strips of streetlight thrown high up the bare walls and across the ceiling, splintered by tilted shades. The spill of a blanket draped over an empty couch; a pair of sneakers left on the rug. Joel’s knees brush by a houseplant guarding the door – heavy leaves which pfft when they sway out of his way.

It’s half-decorated. Temporary. Caught somewhere between home and away. Little fragments pieced together into something the shape of home: a mosaic vase that scatters light across the surface of the coffee table; a beaded curtain pinned around the closet doorway.

Like you’re a little magpie, collecting trinkets of silver and gold until your nest feels like yours. Bags dropped long enough to keep a Monstera plant alive, not to put nails in the wall for the frames propped against the skirting board.

You shrug Joel’s jacket off, dropping it over the back of the couch. When you spin back around to him, he lifts your chin with two fingers and presses his lips to yours. You lead him down the hallway, tumbling into your room.

He follows you over to your bed, collapsing onto a tousled mess of sheets with his hips between yours. The hem of your dress rides up your thighs, bunching around your hips and revealing a flash of pink lace underneath.

The world around him seems to sober up for a second, sharpens into focus. It begins to seep in: the realization that he has you – some girl he met no more than two hours ago in a bar – pinned to your mattress. A slick gathering in your underwear and a weight building in his.

Right now, he should be sinking into squealing bedsprings in a Super 8. Bathing in the flicker of a television set twenty years too old. He should be showered and rested – ready to head home at sunrise, if not sooner.

But then something led him to you, and – well.

There’s no fucking helping him now, is there?

Joel’s fingers hook around your panties. He pulls down, leaving a trail of kisses along your bare leg, until that same pink lace is dripping from your ankle.

His eyes flash up to yours, love-drunk and sparkling. He pushes your knees apart, watching your velvet folds open for him, and – oh, he thinks, staring at the glistening arousal smeared around your cunt. Such a slick little mess for him already.

“Goddamn, darlin’,” he licks his lips, “She’s so pretty.”

You hum, hands lowering. Your fingers separate, spreading your pussy for him. Your middle finger swirls around your clit, dips along your seam. And the n, silky and shining, you lift your hand again and slip your fingers into your mouth.

“Tastes even better than she looks,” you murmur, dappling your fingertip along your bottom lip.

Joel growls. He pushes down on your thighs, ignoring your little yelp, and drags the tip of his tongue through your slit.

“Oh, shit,” you gasp, back arching. Your fingers knot in his hair, twisting and tightening. “Shitshitshit.”

“Mhm,” he hums against you, tongue pushing inside.

Fuck, you’re just so perfect: so soft and warm and fucking dripping for him. He laps at your sweet center, wet already spreading all over his mouth and beard.

A dampness blooms in his boxers. He’s throbbing, fucking aching the longer he goes untouched. He grinds against the mattress, denim rough against his solid erection.

He lifts his chin, panting – satisfied by the way you squirm under the weight of him. “You like that, huh?” he asks, a sodden kiss to your mound. “Fuckin’ love it.”

He spits a thick bead of saliva, watching it dribble down your folds to your ass. His tongue swipes it back up, circling your clit, all slippery and swollen.

“Fuck, Joel,” you moan, tugging on his hair. Your legs spasm, hips lifting.

He loves the sound of his name when you say it. Broken in two, a lilt to it as it rolls from your tongue and down his spine. Like it’s yours as much as it is his, now.

He sucks hard on your clit, his tongue flicking. And he can tell you’re close; can feel your hips starting to lose rhythm, see your back desperately arching higher and higher.

Joel groans, pushing up to hover over you. He cups between your legs, dabbing two thick fingers at your entrance, and pushes in.

Your pussy draws him in knuckle-deep. Your chest lifts, the loose neckline of your dress exposing more and more. You grab your breast, pinching your nipple – a roll of pebbled flesh between your fingertips.

He lowers his lips to your ear – watching as you toy with yourself. “Come on, baby,” he grits his teeth, “Give me one. Let me feel this pretty cunt.”

Your head rolls back into the pillow; a high sob as your orgasm crests. Clamping tight around him; a warm flood down his fingers.

Joel kisses you as you come. You look so pretty, he thinks, with ecstasy behind your eyes and his fingers between your legs.

Christ, he wants to be inside you so badly. Wants to feel your cunt do all this around his cock instead.

The blood rushes between his hips.

His fingers slip in and out, bringing you back around. Joel’s lips are on your neck, murmuring, “Good girl, that’s my girl,” as you resurface.

Your eyes open again – glossy, glazed with the aftershock of your high. “Fuck,” you breathe, playing with the hem of his shirt.

He pulls his fingers out and sucks them clean. Whips the tee over his head in one motion; another kiss tucked under your chin as you peel your dress from your body. He tosses it to the floor.

Still dazed, your body still trembling, you ask, “Do you have a condom?” All dreamy and distant, your hands trailing along his belt.

Joel pauses. Tilts his head, frowning. “I’m on a road trip with my brother, baby – the hell would I bring condoms for?”

You roll your eyes, sighing. It’s the cutest thing Joel thinks he’s ever seen. You thread the belt through the loops of his jeans. “In case you meet a really cool girl at a bar and wanna take her home, maybe?”

He lifts his eyebrows, impressed. He slips his salty tongue over yours again.

You moan at the taste. “It’s just I’m…I’m all out.”

His belt drops to the floor; buckle clinking against hardwood.

“Well, shit,” Joel whispers.

It’s not exactly a scenario he predicted, setting off from Austin. Meeting you wasn’t on the bucket list for the trip. It’s another three, four, probably five things to add to the list of shit he doesn’t do, shouldn’t do, wouldn’t fucking do if it hadn’t been for you.

No, Joel thinks, groaning as you palm the solid shape of him – he didn’t bring a goddamn condom. Jesus, the most he has in his pockets right now is fifteen bucks and a stick of gum.

You unzip his pants, shrugging the denim loose. “We can just do it…without,” you offer.

Joel stares down at you. “You sure?”

You nod, biting your lip. “Just pull out, right?”

“Just pull out…” he echoes. Your hands are cold on his heated skin, but he’s not about to fucking stop you.

You tug his underwear down with his jeans, following the darkening hair from his navel down. Another quiet pull out passes your lips – your voice dissolving when you spot the thick base of his dick.

Joel’s shaft springs free, heavy against the inside of his thigh.

“Holy shit.” You push yourself up on your elbows, eyes flooding black.

His tongue runs along the bottom of his teeth. He thrusts forward into your hand, a glassy drop of precome dribbling from his slit.

Your thumb swipes across his flushed tip, fingers wrapping around his width. You roll his balls in your other palm, massaging and squeezing just the right amount.

“Easy, easy,” Joel whispers. Too much, too soon. He can’t come yet, not until he feels your fluttering cunt around his cock.

Instead, you reach up – snaking an arm around his neck. You pull him back down, his naked body flush against yours, and hike a knee over his hip.

He grinds into you, his cock nudging between your legs. They fall apart for him – pliant and keen, like petals unfolding. He covers himself in your slick, his tip catching below your clit.

“Pl-ease,” you whine, scratching at his shoulders.

Joel nips at your damp neck. “Please, what?” he taunts.

Your breath is hot against his cheek – a stifling request which curls up in the shell of his ear. “F-fuck me.”

And his hips roll into yours.

“Jesus f…” your face buries into his chest, “…you’re…you’re so fucking big, Joel, I can’t –”

He nudges between your walls, groaning into your skin. You’re even tighter around his cock, even cozier. “I know,” he pants, “I know. Take it, baby, know you can take it.”

You stretch around him, opening up the deeper he pushes. “Fuckfuckfuck,” you pant, the thick hair at his base finally brushing against your clit. “Fuck, Joel.”

“Look at me,” he taps your jaw, “Hey. Look at me. Breathe.”

You exhale, hot and shaky across his lips.

“Good, that’s good.” Joel nods. He holds you by the waist, lets you adjust to his size.

He pulls back, your cunt clamping around him. Halfway out, and then in again. Feeling you open up, inch by inch, until he builds a steady rhythm.

“Jesus, baby, she’s so…” he moans, “…she’s so goddamn tight.”

You drape an arm over his shoulders, a hissing pain where your nails dig into his skin. Yelping each time he bottoms out, your leaking cunt wrapped snug around him. “So – goddamn – big,” you whine, a ruined smile on your lips.

He slams his body into yours again, watching the way your tits bounce. Nipples hard, skin tacky and shining with sweat. Your pussy pinches, and he starts to unravel.

Fuck the road trip, Joel thinks, fuck all of it. This is where he should be: in the middle of your bed, burrowed deep between your legs. This is the only place he wants to fucking be, right now.

So he fucks you harder; the headboard hammering against the wall. A fistful of the pillow, his knuckles whitening. He guides his cock when he slips out – a filthy sound as your clutch sucks him back in.

“Fuck,” he growls, gripping your hips so hard he worries he might bruise you. His thrusts become sloppy – quick and desperate.

“So close,” you gasp. You’re squeezing him so tight that he sees stars. “I’m gonna – I’m…”

Perfect, Joel thinks, watching you bloom. You’re so fucking perfect.

He coaxes you through it. Slows enough to feel you come around his cock, your warmth as it gushes all over him. “That’s it, baby, I got you. Shit, you’re gonna make me come.”

He pulls out just in time to coat your stomach; a throaty groan as he comes. He pumps his shaft, covering from your sternum to the plush of your tummy. It dribbles down your waist, spurts between your breasts.

He collapses over you, pressing his forehead to yours. His dick, soaked and softening, smears the ejaculate across your skin.

You giggle, leaving sticky kisses along his beard.

“You okay?” he asks, breathless.

You nod, and his tongue dabs at the inside of your lips. You taste like sex and sweat – sweet and salt.

Joel shifts to the edge of the bed. He feels you follow, your lips featherlight on the curve of his shoulder.

You make to stand – going to clean yourself up, he reckons, your tummy dripping with his semen – and he locks a hand around your bare thigh.

“Stay,” he says, voice low and rough – sex still smoldering. “Let me get you a towel.”

You smile, resting your chin on his shoulder. Your fingers link around the other side of his waist. “I’ll get it. Just relax.”

And for a minute or two, you stay like that. Hooked onto one another, tired eyes closing over, breathing in rhythm. Your cheek on his shoulder, your knee brushing against his tummy.

It’s simple; quiet and still. Joel feels like half a person – the other half tracing her chipped nails along his bare thigh. Eyelashes fluttering, teeth holding back a grin that she thinks might give her away.

Eventually, you move. Shimmy yourself down the mattress, swipe a crinkled tee from the ottoman – and slink off to the bathroom.

Joel lies back against the headboard, body sticky hot. He watches the shadow of your figure stretch across the open door. His eyes drift upwards to the looping ceiling fan – only half as dizzying as the sound of your humming in the next room.

And just when he starts to think he might be fucking missing you, you reappear in the doorway. Leant against the frame, some worn band tee hanging from your shoulders. Arms crossed; smiling back at him.

A rush of words floods to the tip of his tongue. You look beautiful. Your makeup’s smudged, chains of your necklace twisted; your shirt is frayed and splotched with faded stains – and you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on.

He holds his arms out and you prance over.

You crawl over his figure, kissing your way up to his lips, and then turn in his lap. Cradled against his broad chest, your head nuzzling into the dark threads of hair between his pecs. You clasp one of his hands in two of yours.

“Offer’s still there for a shower, if you want it,” you whisper, kissing the pads of his fingers.

Joel tilts his head, mumbling against your temple, “Will you be in there with me?”

You answer something shaped like a tease, just as sharp with wit – but he’s too busy watching your nails trace his open palm. Too distracted by the sweet scent of your skin: a fresh burst of fruit, singed with the edge of tobacco.

“What do you do for work?” you ask.

He makes some sort of sleepy sound – a grunt, a hm? into your skull. “Oh, uh – I’m a contractor,” he says.

Your chin lifts. “That why your palms are all…?” Your thumb strokes light as lace against his worn skin.

“Probably,” Joel admits. He draws shapes on your thigh with his free hand.

“Do you sand the wood with your bare hands, or somethin’?”

Joel scoffs. “Alright, alright. You liked my hands plenty, twenty minutes ago.”

Your cheeks lift, a low hum caught in your throat. You angle your head to let his lips trail along your shoulder, pressing into the hinge of your jaw. A dark nail following the landscape of Joel’s skin – each score and divot, the callused pads at the bottom of each finger.

“You have sorta…earth hands, I think.”

It sits in the air for a few seconds before Joel turns to you. “What?”

“Earth hands. Or, well – I guess they could be water, if you look at ‘em this way.” You open up his hand, fingers stretched. “I don’t really know. I’m still learning.”

He looks down at you. Feels the now-steady pulse of your heart on his sternum. “Learnin’…hands?”

You snort. “Palm reading, Joel.”

His brows draw tight. He licks the inside of his whiskey-stained cheek. “You’re into all that hippie sh…stuff?”

You knock your knuckles against his chest, still staring at his hands. The hills and their valleys, the ravine-like lines; the worn skin and hatch marks.

“Let’s see…Your heart line,” you whisper – more to yourself than Joel, but he’s listening all the same. “It’s pretty deep, which means the relationships you’ve had have been…important. But it’s kinda…it tails off right here, see? It’s broken. So…I guess they didn’t end too good.”

Joel raises an eyebrow – playful, encouraging your timid smile. Keep figuring me out, he thinks, stoking the curious flame behind your eyes. “Alright,” he says, “Now tell me something you didn’t already know about me.”

You gawk, holding his wrist up. “You don’t see that? The way it breaks up? I’m not bullshitting you, Joel, it’s –”

“Naw, I see it,” he nods, squinting a little at his palm, “Just – tell me more. What’s all these other lines mean?”

“Well,” you adjust between his hips, “you got your life line right here. Short, which means –”

“Don’t tell me that part.”

“No,” you roll your eyes, “It just means you’re independent. You never needed much from anyone. And it runs past this mount – these are called mounts – right here. Venus: all to do with love and sexuality.”

Joel holds your open palm next to his, comparing them. He takes less than a second’s look, lines his lips to your ear and says, “Seem like a pretty good match to me.”

You wriggle when he tickles your ribcage, trying to twist out of his grasp. You’re laughing again – the same laugh he’s been hearing all damn night. The same giggle that’s had his stomach somersaulting since he first heard it.

The room seems to light with it, this glow he feels from you – as if you’re the sun. Spent and still half-drunk; lazing with a stranger in the middle of her bed. Tracing the lines and scars on his palm, telling him how logical and grounded he’s supposed to be.

As if the world orbits around you – everything you touch turning to molten gold. And for what feels like the hundredth time tonight, Joel looks at you and wonders: Where the hell did you come from?

You hold your hand against his, folding your fingers perfectly together. The evidence of your night flaking from Joel’s knuckles; sweat still simmering on the nape of his neck.

He hasn’t done this for years. Hasn’t felt this gentle aftermath. It’s usually a rush, a hastened zip and clink of his pants. An awkward dance, plucking clothes from the bedroom floor and pacing back to his truck.

It’s never like this. Talking and laughing, holding and kissing. Questions about his parents and yours; his biggest dream as a kid, or the time you broke your arm falling out of a tree.

He tells you stories about growing up with Tommy; tells you Sarah’s favorite flavor of cake. He tells you about the time they tried to make it for a school bake sale, forgot to turn the oven off, and almost burned the damn kitchen down.

You snicker and tell him that never would’ve happened if you were there.

Yeah, well, Joel smiles, I wish you were.

He notices you’re drifting off, despite your slurred protests and your weak grip on his wrist. He pulls you under the covers, curving his body around yours, praying that the quickening drum of his heartbeat won’t wake you.

His nose nuzzles into the curve of your skull, his hands link in front of your tummy. And he wonders whether his body was made with yours in mind.

He glances out at the sky – light starting to bleed from the horizon – and wills the turn of the sun to slow. Only a little; just let him stay here a little while longer.

Just a little while.

Dawn forces her way in eventually – more unwelcome than ever before.

There’s a throb between his temples which swells to life when the light floods past his pupils. “Jesus Christ,” he grumbles, face turning back into the pillow. He gives you a gentle squeeze and then pushes up from the mattress.

You roll to the middle of the bed, still sound asleep. The sun spills golden all over the valleys and crests of your body. The bedsheets carve pathways up to your hips, dipping at your waist.

Last night, there was something so mystical about you – so otherworldly. Joel felt himself drawn towards you like a compass needle shooting north, the second he felt your weight crash against his spine.

A figure behind a cloud of smoke, like the mountaintops disappearing into a thick mist. And now, blood drained of alcohol, you’re just you.

Your shirt is twisted around your shoulders. Your lips puffy, mumbling to yourself in your doze. Makeup smudged like chalk under your eyes, and still – just as beautiful. Just as radiant as you were ten hours ago.

Joel rubs his eyes, sitting on the edge of the bed. He blinks down at his bare feet, the morning sharpening into focus. As he lifts his phone from the nightstand, the cable drops – hitting the wooden floor with a snap.

He pauses, shoulders hunched. Hears you stir over his shoulder, and turns around.

The earth of your body shifts beneath cotton hills, clouds of sleep clearing from behind your eyes. “Hey,” you whisper, voice pretty and broken.

A little bird in the palm of his hand – that magpie curled up in her nest of gems and trinkets.

“Hey.” He leans down and kisses your cheek. “Sorry, darlin’, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

You wrap your arms around his wrist, tugging. “Are…are you…leaving?”

Joel feels a pang in his chest, and he doesn’t know why. He takes a deep breath. Your scent fills his lungs and steadies his heart. “I…” he sniffs, “…I gotta go home, baby.”

You give a slow and heavy nod. “S-Sarah…”

He strokes your head with his thumb. “Yeah. Shh, go back to sleep. It’s still early.”

He glances at his phone – it’s just after six. He knows Tommy will be waiting for him, parked outside the Super 8 and wondering where the hell Joel is. He knows Sarah will be, too – sat by the living room window, listening for the rumble of their bikes.

And still, he thinks – How do I fucking leave you? Leave this?

He shouldn’t even be entertaining the thought. He has a kid waiting for him back home; soccer practice, packed lunches, homework and bedtime stories. He has work to do, bills to pay, a roof to keep over their heads. It’s all waiting in Austin, two hundred miles away.

As though you can see the question flipping in his mind, you pull him closer. A weak finger in the palm of his hand, drawing circles. Your bleary gaze meets his, and you whisper, “In the next life.”

Joel smiles. Twelve hours ago, he’d have laughed at the idea of it. Now, he’s not so sure. He kisses your knuckles, muttering, “Promise.”

Another wave of sleep washes over you, and you’re gone again.

Joel pushes himself from the bed, reaching for his clothes. His back twinges as he stretches, pulling his T-shirt over his shoulders. He steps into his jeans; pinches his belt between two fingers and lifts it from the floor.

He leans over and tilts your shades the opposite way, dulling your bedroom. He unplugs the charger, neatly winds the cord, and sits it on your nightstand. He fixes his side of the sheets: folds them over the mattress, tucks them in at your back.

With a deep breath, he makes for the door.

His jaw turns, eyes still low. Your dress is in a heap at the foot of the bed; a tube of lip gloss lying next to it. He looks up, following the landscape of sheets – the slope from your ankle to your hip. Your hunched shoulders, your cheek smushed into the pillow.

If he looks too long, he’ll never leave.

The image burns golden into his eyes. He hopes for half a heartbeat that you’ll wake again and pull him back into bed. Kiss him all over, whisper something sharp and sweet in his ear. Touch him and graze him and wrap yourself around him – anchoring him right here and now.

But you don’t.

And Joel slips out of the room.

Jackson stirs to life over his shoulder.

A white lump in the snow-covered valley, the settlement seems so far away now. Tommy sets off up ahead, leading the way to the outpost. The blizzard is picking up – it almost swallows the silhouette of him whole.

Joel had tried to warn him: the weather would be too bad to see five feet in front of them, never mind any infected. But Tommy argued with the same determination that dragged the pair of them into that dive bar thirty years ago, and Joel didn’t have half the energy nor the will to argue back.

He’s thinking about you. He always is.

Your searing gaze over the rim of your glass; the weight of you against his chest. The tickling of your nail on his palm, severing each line and changing him forever. You and your palm lines.

You were just learning to read them. Joel didn’t know a thing about any of it, and he told you so. You took his hand in yours and said, Here. Let me see.

He runs a thumb down his fate line, swaying in time with his horse. And he shakes his head with a little smile – he still remembers which one is fate and which is heart.

He still remembers all of it. He has earth hands. All salt and soil and solid as stone. His earth hands have gotten him this far, right? Twenty-five years and he’s still here. Gray and grown; stiff joints and sewn-up scars.

His head line has channeled more strangers’ blood than Joel can count. Mounts that’ve stopped breath in the throat of any man who crossed him. He doesn’t think you’d recognize his hands anymore, if your fingertips traced over them again. Broken and bruised and bloody.

And he doesn’t think he’d want you to – doesn’t want you to meet the shadow of the man you knew back then. He’d prefer you remember that same brown-eyed, soft-touched stranger with enough charm and naivety to survive anything. No need for bone-breaking fists or bloodstained hands.

Where are you, he wonders?

The answer knots deep in his stomach: the same old rope twisting into the same old shape. A fist of anger, of guilt. Some terrible cocktail of both, spilling poison through his veins.

He’s terrified to wonder what might’ve happened if he had ever made it back there. What he might’ve found in your apartment – what he might not.

Where would you have gone, that day? Would you have fled, or would you have stayed?

You were smart, he knows that much. He saw the cogs of your mind turning right in front of him, standing opposite each other in that bar. Barely thirty seconds in and he could’ve sworn you had him all figured out.

But – oh, Jesus, you were kind. Open and willing to help a stranger with a dead phone and a tired smile. Would that kindness still glow as bright against the flicker of a world on fire?

A lone hawk swoops down before him, shooting straight between the pines. Joel slips his glove back over his freezing hand.

He thinks about you every day. Every fucking day, and it never eases. Never loosens. It keeps him up some nights – the truth he’s too afraid to look square in the face.

You live now in the back of his mind like a little ghost. His little ghost – still floating around that dusty city; the warm light of life and innocence still bright in your eyes.

Tommy glances over his shoulder. He gestures ahead as if to say, Would you take a look at this goddamn storm?

And Yeah, Joel thinks, I’m lookin’, brother.

All he wants is to go home. Jackson, Austin, the bedroom of your apartment in San Angelo. Just let me go back.

He blinks, and the snow melts to cracked asphalt under a lilac sunset. Tommy’s holding handlebars instead of reins. The horses’ hot puffs of breath darken to clouds of smoke, choking from the exhaust pipes of the Harleys.

You’re somewhere on the other side of town, waiting for him in the faint glow of a jukebox. Sipping what’s left of your rum and Coke, fishing a twenty from your purse for the next round.

Just let me go back home.

He tugs on his horse’s reins and pulls off after his brother.

#joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller x reader #the last of us #tlou #tlou fic #joel miller smut #joel miller one shot #san angelo

[morallyinept]

A list of all my favourite JOEL MILLER Fic Recs, with the writers tagged. Includes fics I am currently reading/want to read.

PART 21

Please show some love to the writers by re-blogging and commenting on their work. 🖤

⚠️ Please ensure you check the triggers/warnings etc... on the stories themselves as some of them may not be suitable to your own particular tastes.

Mine - @gasolinerainbowpuddles Monster!Joel

It's Hard - @toxicanonymity StepDad!Joel

Taste Her, Little Dove - @mountainsandmayhem MFF

Mister Miller: A Desperate Measure - @sinful-mind-joyful-thoughts DDNE

The Beef - Joel Miller - @beefrobeefcal

Snap Out Of It - @vivian-pascal Dom!Joel

Rise - @sp00kymulderr

Hypothermia - @morallyinept GN!Reader

Clickbait - @morallyinept

My Protector - @morallyinept GN!Reader

Little Blue Pills - @morallyinept GN!Reader

Full - @morallyinept

Connection - @morallyinept

Cardigan - @always-andromeda

Saviour - @ozarkthedog

Nicest Thing Series - @schnarfer Neighbour!Joel

Not Home - @palioom

Just Peachy, Cry, Baby & Diehard - @gutsby

Ribbon - @aurorawritestoescape

A Glimpse Of Heaven - @ozarkthedog

Play Stupid Games - @strang3lov3

Ruthless & Surrender - @whatsnewalycat DDDNE Stepdad!Joel

Like Real People Do - @mrsmando

Owned & 911 - @milla-frenchy

Soil In The Lines Of Their Palms - @5oh5

Undone - @justagalwhowrites

Oasis - @beardedjoel DBF!Joel

Begin Again - @sweetenerobert GN!Reader

One Bed - @frannyzooey

Mine, All Mine - @thetriumphantpanda

Intermezzo - @maggiemayhemnj

The Harder The Rain, The Sweeter The Sun - @proxima-writes

Should've Stayed Bored - @pedroshotwifey

Bloody Mess Series - @vivian-pascal Vampire!Joel

Red Bred Redemption - @romana-after-dark

Send Out The Morning Birds - @ghotifishreads Featuring Javi Gutierrez

Honey - @bdaycurse DBF!Joel

Save a Horse (Ride A Cowboy) - @yellowharrington

Make A Move On Me - @freelancearsonist

Dr Miller Mini Series - @endlessthxxghts Orthopedic Doctor Joel

Heavy Rain - @lunitawrites

Love At First... Light - @goodwithcheese

San Angelo - @macfrog

My, My, Such A Sweet Surprise - @mermaidgirl30

The Depths We Devour Series - @whxtedreams Gothic Horror Detective!Joel

Ahórcame, Papí - @marisferasiop Featuring Ezra & Frankie Morales MxMxM

#pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal #joel miller x reader #joel miller #pedro pascal characters #joel miller x you #joel miller tlou #jett's fic recs

[punkshort]

Rec List

Part two here

I have been compiling a list of fic recs lately - some of these I have already recommended, and I am sure a lot of these might sound familiar but I wanted to give a little shout out to some incredibly talented and inspirational authors on this website that suck me into their little worlds and make me lose myself. You are all amazing and I am honored to be on this site with you all, writing with you and adding to this incredible fandom.

(This list includes an array of Pedro characters, but most of them are Joel Miller)

Seeking What Is Desirable, Love Me Back - @chloeangelic

sun kicks out, from Eden - @5oh5

a stranger's heart without a home - @morning-star-joy

Pink , Greener Memories of Better Men - @netherfeildren

A Lover's Pinch - @hier--soir

Late Night Texts, Anytime - @undercoverpena

Sex on Fire , Sweet Child 'O Mine - @macfrog

Good to Me, Your Summer Dream - @swiftispunk

Meet Me In The Back - @atticrissfinch

Laws of Attraction, A Burning Desire - @honeyedmiller

I know it when I see it - @bageldaddy

Stay Awake - @toxicanonymity

Unfettered - @the-scandalorian

Lather - @strang3lov3

one thing I'm missing - @joelscruff

I am a nightmare, you are a miracle - @party-hearses

Tell Me a Secret - @katiexpunk

Notes on Tutoring - @honestly-shite

You call and I come running - @chronically-ghosted

Flying to new heights - @fettuccin-e

Elucidate - @ezrasbirdie

Stalemate - @joelscurls

There's so many more but if I kept looking back at my likes, this list would never end, so in all likelihood I will start a new list when inevitably I remember and find more.

#I can't believe this shit is free #rec list #Joel miller #frankie morales #dave york #pedro pascal characters fanfiction

[kiwisbell]

kiwi's fic recs -> volume two!

volume one

hi, lovelies!! i wanted to use this post to shoutout all of the amazing fics i read over the months of november/december - it's been a tough couple months and therefore i wasn't able to read nearly as much as i wanted to, but in any case, these writers deserve all of the admiration and respect for sharing their talents with us. FOR FREE. y'all are fucking incredible

as always, if i list a series i've read recently, i'll be linking the series masterlist for easy access, and most of these fics are 18+ (mdni). please check each fic for individual tags and warnings; not everything is for everyone. so let's go!!

JOEL MILLER

I wanna show you off by @joelscurls -> let me tell you right now: jess is gonna do it every single time -> agora hills babyyyy! -> reader unleashes a monster in joel fr fr

Checkmate by @mandoisapunk -> call more men hunks!!!! i'm a huge advocate for the word hunk!!

Juniper by @softlyspector -> "if you believe it... i will too" and i died!!! sated by @softlyspector -> this is another of my favourite series because it's simply fucking stunning -> as i once said, "every single thing about this fic is like injecting the nectar of the gods straight into my veins"

Fuck Me Like You Mean It by @joelmillers-whore -> the dirty talk in this one made me lose a tooth i swear to fuck -> sleazy!dbf!joel

Meet Me in the Back by @atticrissfinch -> one of my fave fucking series for the pure sleaziness, dirty talk, filth, humour, etc. etc. etc. it's perfection and i love it okay

i found the door by @tinycozycomfort -> copying my comments from my reblog because nothing does this fic justice -> i literally have no jokes left this is genuinely some of the most stirring and beautiful writing i have EVER seen

just a taste by @covetyou -> so cuck!joel nearly destroyed me

honeysuckle by @5oh5 -> tick inspection turned smutty please enjoy from Eden by @5oh5 -> liv is such a stunning, evocative writer and this series has been a remarkable feat; it feels like a warm hug i never want to leave and i haven't even finished it yet

what happens after by @hellishjoel -> such a fun and fresh idea for a story AND done so beautifully!!!

Can't Help Myself by @fettuccin-e -> i've said it before and i'll say it again: queen of corrupted!joel -> joel is down so bad oh my god yes pls

daddy next door by @cavillscurls -> perfection perfection perfection -> mya i'm in love with you (real) -> the depth, the dynamics, the tension, the soft!joel, i'm fucking emo Movement by @cavillscurls -> chapter three of mafia!joel AKA me constantly screaming at mya over how much these two mean to me and why they're perfect for each other and also why meg should be my wife (i can cook meg pls)

autumn air by @swiftispunk -> YSD IS BACK AND WE RIDE AT DAWN -> stellar writing and overall an absolute treat to devour and everything i loved so much about ysd coming back full force good to me by @swiftispunk -> perhaps, dare i say, the hottest smut i've ever seen from hannah's fingertips and maybe the cause for my early death??? snowflakes, a fireplace, and you by @swiftispunk -> perfection in 13k words; i showed up expecting brilliance, got brilliance, and then left crying as an extra lil treat

Evermore by @netherfeildren -> i don't think i'll ever not be blown away by vic's writing but my god, this is incredible -> daddy!joel fucks his way through thanksgiving

Tangled Triumphs by @planet-marz1 -> ridiculously sweet and soft and lovely to read overall, my heart feels whole again

pretty little wife by @beardedjoel -> one of my all-time FAVE joel series -> so sexy and sweet and joel pls let me be your housewife

You like that? by @chloeangelic -> stepcest returns with a vengeance and this time joel gets a dickin

so much wine by @tieronecrush -> sam i'm in your walls for the angst in this fic but jesus you write it so well i can't even be mad and i'm MAD about that -> a beautiful exploration of joel's grief and his living loved ones being forced to cope with the fallout; stunning stunning stunning secret santa by @tieronecrush -> sam i'm in your walls again except this time it's because i need to be locked up for my reactions during this fic -> dbf!joel gets randy during christmas holy fuck

distracted by @psychedelic-ink -> to quote my rb: woodshop teacher mr. miller do you need a dog?? i can bark

baby, it's cold outside by @thetriumphantpanda -> friends to lovers with jackson!joel AND delicious smut that made my eyes melt yup

you're a mean one, mr. miller by @cupofjoel -> this made my heart grow three sizes -> heartwarming, sad, and hopeful all at once, and stunningly written because it's bea, you already know!!

christmas after all by @mrsmando -> mimi gave joel what he deserved and that is happiness and love and healing -> mimi never misses. now repeat it after me!

frosting by @joelsgreys -> vee's daddy dom!joel has bewitched me heart, mind, and pussy -> the dirty talk made me keel over, leaning tower of pisa style

these boots were made for riding by @pedgito -> um boot riding??? the dirty talk?? how can i say no?? holy fuck

FRANKIE MORALES

just married by @ilovepedro -> HUSBAND!FRANKIE -> he stays superior

flying high by @amanitacowboy -> stoner!husband!frankie everybody -> sweet AND filthy AND nefarious devoted husband activities

thinking about.....sub!frankie and bondage (drabble) by @swiftispunk -> jesus fucking take the wheel -> sub!frankie is hannah's motherfucking wheelhouse

object of my affection by @mrsmando -> ding ding!! you hear that?? it's time to sing mimi's praises -> bbf!frankie -> mimi is a master at conveying a narrative in short periods of time and it's always stunning sweet treat: part one & part two by @mrsmando -> these fics altered my brain chemistry, no lie -> frankie being so sweet and so soft and the two of them navigating a relationship together made my heart explode -> also: plus size!reader!! fuck yes!

vis-à-vis by @hier--soir -> yeah it's horny jail for me -> neighbour!frankie doesn't need to keep it in his pants, he needs to keep it in mine

new year's day by @hellishjoel -> frankie's filthy mouth is so special to me

JAVI P

give in to temptation by @joelscurls -> jess's writing is buttery smooth and so enthralling i literally can't help but fall in love -> infidelity but it's hot when it's javi (you're right jess and you should say it)

this mind of mine by @northernbluess -> born from the prompt: "i need to be punished" except it's el punishing me by wielding this prompt like a sword and stabbing me repeatedly

when i'm feeling alone, you remind me of home by @joelsgreys -> vee made me cry with this one i can't lie to y'all -> this was so tender and sweet and soooo fucking perfectly javier, this was an absolute blast to read

EZRA

devour (the entire universe) by @frannyzooey -> you're just going to have to read my reblog for this one because i think my entire brain just lifted out the top of my skull and floated away

MARCUS MORENO

The Dinner by @frannyzooey -> this one was a reread bc kelli never leaves my brain -> daddy kink and marcus yes please and thank you very much -> read this AGES ago on ao3 and was never the same again frankly!

again, i didn't read nearly as much as i wanted to in these past few months, but i really hope there's a fic for you in this list! all of these writers deserve so much love for what they do, so please feel free to check them out.

xoxo kiwi

#kiwisbell's recs #fic recs #joel miller #javier peña #frankie morales #marcus moreno #ezra prospect

[hellowoolf]

on strawberries and masonry: chapter i

series summary: you atone for your sins, now, in a jackson garden, learning to care for soft things and yourself. joel miller is a lethal sort of similar, and misery loves company

OR

you live in jackson and meet joel and you’re both damaged little babies and fall in love (but i’m drawing this shit out🫶🫶)

warnings: angst, ANGST👈🏻👈🏻, reader has a violent past but we don’t get graphic about it yet, knives (at present we only use her for gardening), age gap (reader late 20s/early 30s, joel 50s), mention of masturbation (if i left out any, let me know!)

word count: 3.1k

authors note: i would consider myself a mildly experienced writer but this is my first ever fic! kindness is appreciated but so is constructive criticism. i really hope you enjoy🍓

by the way, a big ol thank you to @macfrog @netherfeildren @5oh5 @swiftispunk @bageldaddy (and others), whose fantastic writing gave me the courage to put this story to paper🫶

series masterlist | masterlist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you don’t remember much about the little fruits, from the time that came before. you were only a child then, 8 when it all crumbled to pieces, and those small sweetnesses aren’t things you’re taught to notice when you’re that young. lemons and airplane engines and the neighbor’s dog; these you remember, what with all the ruckus they made, but berries and peaches were far too soft of creations to make an impression. you suppose to anyone who could see your life in full, it would seem ironic in a tragic sort of way that they were all you cared for now.

you like to ponder these things—torture, really—on your way to the garden in the morning. there’s something about the honesty of jackson air, the clarity of it at daybreak, that make such musings, painful as they are, the only bearable passtime. keeping your hands close to your sides inside your jacket, you let your fingertips brush against the knife stored there. maria had offered you gardening tools, things more fit for the work you did now, but you’d refused; this knife was your father’s once (if you were remembering correctly) and you wouldn’t let it rust over on your nightstand. you like to make use of things, things and people if you’re honest, and trimming plants and flowers and little fruits are no less noble uses for it than what you did before jackson.

the crunch of your boots beneath you whispers up as you trudge along. your house isn’t far from the garden, but ages, it feels, from everything else. you’d gone to the tipsy bison, once, within the first few weeks of moving in, convinced you were young and entitled to normalcy after what they’d collected you from on the outside. the scotch burned your throat in a cliche kind of way, and you suppose you enjoyed that part, but the walk alone in the dark on your way home was enough to keep you from the establishment since. you moved back and forth from your garden, the dining hall, and occasionally tommy’s house when you couldn’t bear the loneliness; these pathways you’d carved out for yourself here are few and stubborn, but you love them because they’re yours. the other young men and women your age in town, most of whom have lived the better part of their lives within these walls, don’t think of you enough to find you as strange as you perhaps are, but their not thinking is a comfort to you. the crunch crunch crunch of your boots on the gravel mumbles in agreement.

“speak of the devil.”

tommy is leaning against the glass of the greenhouse wall with noah when he calls it out to you, grounding you in place. you’d made it all the way to the garden in the time it took for that ugly contemplation, but the both of them are smiling with that back and forth glance only boyishness forgives, and now the morning is real. it’s cold enough that numbness has clawed its way up the bridge of your nose, the frost keeping last night’s snow frozen to the ground. it’s these moments, the arrivals to your garden at dawn, when the day comes to you. you like the both of them, noah and tommy. they make you feel like somebody’s sister. you turn up the ends of your mouth. “all bad things i hope.”

“awful, really,” noah chuckles, tugging on the arm of your jacket to pull you inside with tommy behind you, the both of them still smiling in conspiracy.

you begin to slip your arms out of your coat, laying it carefully against a wall, the wet warmth of the greenhouse rushing you immediately. you’d been heating the inside for a few weeks now, trying to maintain a healthy summer crop output despite the freezing soil, and a few of the sturdier vegetables had steadily been peeking their way up. you plucked a full radish from the dirt last week and nearly wept over it. you look back up at tommy and noah, standing shoulder to shoulder now in the aisle between the planter boxes to block your path forward, humming still with whatever tommy-and-noah-elation they’ve concocted. you tilt your head a little and smile.

“are you gonna make me guess? or can you just tell me?”

they confer with a nod and a jostle side to side, tommy turning back to you. “there’s a strawberry.”

your tongue unsticks from the roof of your mouth as something golden and beautiful unfolds inside of you. “there isn’t,” you counter. noah turns himself sideways so you can walk through the aisle to the end of the left planter box and you rush there (you’re rarely frantic, nowadays, but you allow this sort of thing for your little fruits).

maria had placed you here in the garden as a safeguard. she thought you dangerous (and you were, at least back when you met her), so she put you to work where your hands could do good and be far from people. it helped, you guessed, that the greenhouse is made of glass; she could keep an eye on you this way. and oh, how you’d resisted it, the softness of a gardener’s job. in the end, though, the black and grime of life left as residue on your palms felt like forgiveness, and you’d taken quickly to thinking yourself a botanist.

by the time you arrive at the end of the left planter box, on your knees like a worshiper at a pew, you’re eye level with the little poetry of red and green parting the soil you’d scooped by hand last month. tommy and noah, you feel, are behind you as your shadow casts itself over the soil, and you almost have to pull the thing out just to bear this feeling. there’s a strawberry. and you actually say it out loud, softer than anything but wild, still, and staring at the child of plant and earth you’d nursed to color. noah and tommy drop to your sides, and you notice then that the three of you are crying, and you laugh and laugh over the little thing like madness and sweetness and pride.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the euphoria of your strawberry lasts you well into the late afternoon. tommy and noah had left you to bask in the glory of it to continue with construction on a little post office right off the main road, and you worked the morning with your thumbs in the dirt, slicing browning leaves off the budding plants with as much gentleness as you could muster. you look down at your knife, cradled close in the cup of your palm, to finger out the soil packed through the engraving along the handle. a last name meant nothing anymore, what with your loneliness and the end of the world, but still the slopes of it peer up at you; you watched your father make the engraving, you think, though the actual memory of it is lost to time.

by the time you reach the beets at the end of the right planter box, a commotion has stirred outside. men’s voices ring and rumble from the main road, and the bass of it hums under your knees on the ground. a great bark of tommy reaches you clearly, even tucked away as your greenhouse is, and curiosity consumes you enough to resign from your garden for the day. these days you are quiet, and reserved, sometimes frightening because you like how it feels, but still curious, always curious, and so you curl yourself back into your jacket to join whatever audience has congregated by the front gates.

he is beautiful in a holy sort of way, whoever he is. you come upon tommy wrapped up in a great big stranger, a horse and a young girl behind him, and the slopes of his nose bend the waning sunlight off into a ribbon of a beam. jesus, when was the last time you’d looked at someone this way? tommy pulls back from him, glassy eyed and awestruck, looking around at those who’d crowded the scene almost incredulously, but you stare still at his stranger, who is so broad and so timid and so clearly unused to his own timidness that you can’t pull your eyes away. he meets your gaze for a moment, as he sweeps his own across the crowd, and looks at you with about as much detachment as he does the rest of this spectatorship. but oh god, he is so divinely pretty, and so you can forgive his lack of immediate fascination with you.

tommy begins walking his stranger and his stranger’s small companion through the throng, introducing and shaking hands, and as you watch them slowly shuffle towards you, you are struck with the thought that this is tommy’s brother. as he shifts his face along the axis of his shoulders, taking in the town, you see more and more of tommy in the motion of his stranger’s face. you’re sure of it now, as tommy calls your name and shepherds the man in front of you.

“my brother here’as decided to make a grand entrance!” tommy says, slapping a mittened hand across his back. you shake his stranger’s hand and give him your name, hoping your little smile doesn’t give away how awful it felt for him to look this way.

“joel,” he musters (and it really does seem like it takes a mustering), and gives your hand a firm shake before stuffing them back in his pockets. he is disinterested, surely, but afraid, too. it almost hurts you how clear his prevailing apprehension is, and you nearly make to apologize for forcing him to introduce himself. his eyes squint in the golden light cast over jackson.

“i work in the greenhouse, a few blocks from here on the edge of the settlement,” you explain, eyes drifting between joel and his little shadow, who both joel and tommy have yet to introduce. she looks a little feral, and this endears you immediately to her. “welcome in,” you offer, and you do your best to direct this message to her from around joel’s shoulder. her eyes are so big for a thing so ferocious (and you are certain she is) and they widen further at your acknowledgment of her.

“we won’t be here for long,” joel grumbles out and you straighten back up. he says it like you’ve offended him, and you bristle a little. tommy’s beautiful stranger is very guarded, you decide. regardless, the width of him, from left to right, blocks the mountain range behind him, and the patchy scruff along his jaw makes you die a little death.

“alright, well,” you start to back away then, feeling increasingly overwhelmed by his face and his broadness and this little girl who looks and moves like you used to, “you know where to find me,” and you nod a little to tommy before turning and walking away. you lasted all but five seconds in front of him, relishing in how little you were in his shadow cast upon you and loving whatever creature the girl he brought with him was, but all the same he looked too tired and cautious and vicious that it suffocated you. he wouldn’t be here for long, apparently; you’ll likely never see him again. as you step towards your little house, you figure it was worth the meeting, if for nothing else than a face to keep you company in the dark when you’re a woman and alone, and a real image to pair with the descriptions tommy gave of a brother who loved him once.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

for a while, it seemed you really wouldn’t see joel again. you watched, through your greenhouse walls, the great expanse of him ride out with the girl, and you were left with the comfort of knowing how gorgeous you found him and that you would never have to speak with him again. you warded off your own psychoanalysis of your relief at his faraway-ness in the face of your immediate physical attraction to him, and sunk your fingers again in the soil.

but then he had returned. what with how consoled you felt at his leaving, he almost had to; fate was funny this way. but you figure, still, you needn’t disturb yourself with him. you imagined he’d keep to himself with how unspeaking he was when you first met him, and other than crossing his path every once in a while, leaving tommy’s house or marching himself along somewhere or other, you were right.

you think of him at night, though. in the morning you wake up with the shame and hilarity of it, of this lusting over a man you neither know nor want to know, but past midnight in your bed you let your fingers slip over yourself thinking of how small he’d made you feel. the wanting of him strikes you somewhere between your shoulder blades, and you blame it entirely on how long it had been since you shared your bed with anyone. strictly physical, strictly physical. you’d learned again to care for yourself these years in jackson, and you’d wrought kinship from tommy and noah without realizing it, but in all you attend mostly to flora, and in this you are protected. yes, joel keeps to himself as you surmised he would, but you avoid him, too; to want him in this way, all hands and hips and somewhere within you, is harmless, you determine, so long as he stays tommy’s stranger. he could never be anything or anyone to you.

it’s six weeks or so of joel’s continued disinterest in you, and your insistent avoidance of him (barring the way you touched yourself at night to his face), before a knock at your door past sunset brings you out of bed. people rarely appear at your doorstep, though you imagine it’s noah dropping off seeds found on patrol, or tommy with a similar sort of package, or even ellie, joel’s little creature, who’d spoken all but five words to you about your garden, but all the same materialized rather often there to see the colors of your little fruits. but when maria blinks back at you when you open the door, any semblance of a greeting dies in the back of your throat.

“can i come in?” maria asks, although she’s already leaning her shoulder towards the gap between your body and the doorway. you step aside to let her through. it occurs to you that maria has never visited you in your home before, not in your five years in jackson, and when she turns back to you, back pressed against your kitchen counter, it’s clear she’s just had the same thought. the way she crosses her arms over her chest, the authority of it and the terror, too, beckons you toward her from your place at the threshold.

“is everything okay?” you sigh out as you prop your hip against the adjacent table top. she is inspecting you, but smiles.

“yeah, yeah.” one of you sniffs. you shift your weight. “i came to see what you thought of joel.”

you almost laugh then, really laugh. “i don’t think anything of joel.”

she rolls this answer around behind her teeth. “mhm,” and then this time with finality, “mhm”.

you inspect her, now. “you don’t want him here.” it isn’t a question.

maria hums. “tommy wants him here.”

“that isn’t what i said.”

she purses her lips a moment. “yeah, i know.”

and you’re making the moment torturous for her, you’re certain, because you know why she’s come to you, why she’s standing in your kitchen like the elected leader she is, while something awful, something almost like alarm, leaks from the back of her neck onto your floorboards. you’d come to jackson a wild thing and she’d tamed you, and now you lived as a dirt woman who sunk her dagger into earth and green and life more permanent than humanity. she is proud of this, you think. and joel came as much of the same, with red hands that opened dripping, and maria needs him watched now the same way she watched you through your garden’s glass. you sigh again.

“what do you want me to do, maria? anything i’d say to tommy would be infinitely more effective from you.”

maria nods. “i don’t want you to say anything to tommy. i can live with joel in jackson. but he’s insisting on patrol, and i don’t know who else to put with him.”

your jaw seizes, and the heat of anger spreads itself along your neck and around your ears. you remember when you’d pleaded so kindly, crouching to make yourself smaller, hands collapsed together, begging to be useful, to be put outside, to protect jackson like it was yours. maria was as honest with you then as she is now, and she’d cited your instability (the reality of which is neither here nor there) to keep you off the rounds. you’d told tommy maria envisioned your actions before jackson as far more unforgivable than they were, though you knew that was a lie before you opened your mouth to say it. “patrol?”

she looks so solemnly at you you think you might die right there between your kitchen and the staircase. “yeah. i want you to be his patrol partner. i’m not looking to send him out there with a gun strapped to his back with one of the other gu-”

“and why does it have to be me?” and you’re really angry, now. for your unyielding quiet in this jackson existence you’d sewn together and the little strawberry you’d grown from nothing, still, still, you were at most and at least a violence. “why can’t you assign someone else?”

maria has this answer constructed already, it seems, for how fast she releases it, “because you’ll kill him.”

“noah would, if he had to. and leila. i can think of at least fi-”

“i’m not saying you would kill him. i’m saying you could.”

and suddenly you were again a wasp or spider, poisonous and unthinking, and the weight of the killing you did before jackson, which you had halfway successfully ignored to piece yourself into something good, perched its chin on the crown of your head. your father’s knife, laying up next to your bed after what was now years of tending to vegetables and stalks and leaves, howled with laughter, and it carried down the stairs to you like wind in summer, leadened and screaming and satisfied.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i hope you enjoyed this first part! like i said in my authors note, this is my first time writing a piece like this and certainly my first time posting it, so kindness is much appreciated, as is constructive criticism. part 2 coming (hopefully) soon🍓

update: chapter ii!!

#joel miller fic #joel miller #tlou #the last of us #fem!reader #teehee #jackson!joel #on strawberries and masonry

[chronically-ghosted]

Madame Ghosted invites you to a world of mysticism and magic! Enter through the veil for a night beyond your wildest dreams! the portal between this world and the next will be open for one week: March 31st - April 6th

let's get our freak on at the devil's sabbath for 1000 followers - pick a mystical art! (one at a time please)

augury 🦉 - a powerful omen of things to come. send me this and i’ll share a paragraph from one of my wips and talk a bit about it (feel free to pick a specific wip/on-going series if you'd like)

astrology 💫 - discern your past by studying celestial bodies. send me a pedro boy from either the cute and cuddly prompt list or the smutty list and i'll write a drabble

mediumship 👻 - communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living. mutuals, i love you so much! send me this and i'll tell you which pedro movie i think you're most suited to

palmistry ✋🏼 - divine the future in the palm of your hand. send in a pedro character with a trope/mood and i'll give you three fic recs

numerology ⚖️ - draw meaning from the symbols in your life. ask me anything you want to know - anon or otherwise - or we can play a game! (would you rather, FMK, etc.) (feel free to check out my brand-spankin' new about me page for any inspiration)

sappy thank you note below the cut:

i cannot translate all the gratitude, love, and awe i feel in my heart into words. thank you SO MUCH for every follow, reblog, comment, and follow you've all given me. when i am in a bad place, i come here for friendship, community, and kindness. when i need a laugh, i come here. when i need to get my rocks off, i come here (yeah, that's not a pun). when i need to feel surrounded by some of the greatest people i've ever met, i come here <3

it's been less than a year since i did my 100 follower milestone with a similar mystical theme, so it only seemed right i do it again. and to my surprise, a lot of those at that milestone are still around today. i'll tag some friend-o's below, but truly, thank you so much to all one thousand of you!

@sp00kymulderr @perotovar @gnpwdrnwhiskey @trulybetty @theywhowriteandknowthings @suzdin @kteague @heareball @tvversionperson @bitchwitch1981 @dilf-din @agentjackdaniels @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @whatsnewalycat @tightjeansjavi @hellishjoel @futuraa-free @covetyou @morallyinept @5oh5-library @opallouu @beskarandblasters @luxurychristmaspudding @pedrorascal @janaispunk @burntheedges @ladamedusoif

#1k followers #follower milestone #follower celebration

[janaispunk]

inspired by @the-blind-assassin-12 i joined her march fic madness 2024 challenge, with the goal to read and reblog 63 fics in 31 days.

i've read waaaayyyy more than that, but i'll keep going until march is over and add every new fic to this list later:) i'm also thinking about starting a weekly rec list of fics that i've read, i'll obviously still reblog them individually but i think it would be nice to have them in one place, since things can easily get lost on the dash.

in an attempt to keep this somewhat organized, i'll sort this list by character. i love every fic on here, but i do read some dark shit, so please pay attention to the tags/warnings and decide for yourself if something might not be for you <3

part 2! find part 1 here :)

joel miller

clot by @luxurychristmaspudding

santa/cupid joel lore by @covetyou

first frost & sunrise by @5oh5

sleepy joel drabble by @ghotifishreads

hands on your knees by @northernbluess

dr. miller by @endlessthxxghts

wet nights & heat lightning by @shellshocklove

kiss kiss bang bang by @aurorawritestoescape

sanity is a cozy lie by @noxturnalpascal

snowbound by @joeloverture

breath by breath by @ozarkthedog

single dad joel’s dating life by @sweetercalypso

illicit affairs by @schnarfer

7 am by @milla-frenchy

javier peña

call me javi by @wildemaven

to perish twice by @brandyllyn

ways of seeing by @always-andromeda

que manera de despertar by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin

bittersweet by @wannab-urs

better man by @dancingtotuyo

dave york

kinktober 2022 day 3 by @simpingcowboy

playdate by @daddy-dins-girl

the violence of you by @whataperfectwasteoftime

“get back down here, we’re not done yet” by @jksprincess10

babysitter pwp oneshot by @auteurdelabre

knife by @wannab-urs

love at first…sight by @goodwithcheese

frankie morales

tick by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin

he with the dark curls, you with the watercolor eyes by @hellishjoel

something to prove by @writefightandflightclub

what comes after by @mrsmando

oberyn martell

peaches by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin

marcus pike

playdate by @daddy-dins-girl

lucien flores

gold chain drabble by @ozarkthedog

mutual by @luxurychristmaspudding

i was fixed on your hand of gold by @freelancearsonist

chained by @5oh5

this high of you & me by @kedsandtubesocks

drunk on your summer wine by @joelsgreenflannel

take me higher by @seventeenpins

untouched by @lunitawrites

on the verge of a usual mistake (+ dieter bravo) by @gasolinerainbowpuddles

jack daniels

losin’ you by @wildemaven

southern nights by @secretelephanttattoo

cave in by @javierssunglasses

ezra

in the dark by @frannyzooey

din djarin

a rule of threes by @5oh5

beneath the mask by @saradika

ted garcia

practice makes perfect by @notjustjavierpena

if you read any of these, please remember to show the writers some love! <3

#marchficmadness24 #janas recs #fic recs #joel miller #javier peña #dave york #oberyn martell #frankie morales #marcus pike #lucien flores #jack daniels #din djarin #ted garcia #ezra prospect

[pedrostories]

❄️ PedroStories Secret Santa event 2023 ❄️

Thank you again for participating in PedroStories’ second Secret Santa event! We hope this event gave you some joy this holiday season! 💙

Special shoutout to our pinch hitters: @gasolinerainbowpuddles who jumped in later to help us out and @katiexpunk & @taro-666 for taking on two prompts! 🥰

Additional shoutout for Santa's little helpers who made sure this event stayed on track: @userdjarin, @wannab-urs, @chronically-ghosted, @oogaboogasphincter & @pedrorascal

You can find all the works published by the participants below the cut!

MASTERLIST

* - Mature/Explicit work

VISUAL ART

Joel Miller banners - from amongtlou to tempestuous-lush

Dieter Bravo fanart - from taro-666 to mysterious-moonstruck-musings

FANFICTION

Dieter Bravo

* Tear You Apart - from psychedelic-ink to dark-scape

* The Knight & His Queen - from mysterious-moonstruck-musings to booburry

Run Over By A Reindeer... - from blueeyesatnight to brandyllyn

A Thing for Angels - from miraclesabound to toxicanonymity

Din Djarin

* closure - from javier-pena to quinnnfabrgay-writes

to know the light - from burntheedges to lincolndjarin

* salt water - from 5oh5 to chronically-ghosted

Retrograde - from taro-666 to 5oh5

Ezra

* devour (the entire universe) - from frannyzooey to wannab-urs

* Floating in Space - from 0celesteisthebest0 to julesonrecord

the trembling willows - from sp00kymulderr to djarinmuse

Cross My Heart - from brandyllyn to oonajaeadira

Frankie Morales

Copilot - from frenchiereading to joelmillers-whore

* The Gift is You - from julesonrecord to the-blind-assassin-12

merry christmas, cariño - from joelsflannel to frenchiereading

A Little Christmas Magic - from the-blind-assassin-12 to something-tofightfor

* A love letter to Frankie - from fhatbhabie to prolix-yuy

* Gas, Grass or ASS - from katiexpunk to astroboots

* Routine - from endlessthxxghts to alwaysbethewest

Jack Daniels

* Under Your Skin - from wannab-urs to javier-pena

Stay Close to Me - from alwaysbethewest to iamskyereads

Snakebit - from blueeyesatnight to brandyllyn

Javier Peña

* Under Your Skin - from wannab-urs to javier-pena

* office party - from tieronecrush to flightlessangelwings

* Not So Secret Santa - from lincolndjarin to taro-666

* If We Make It Through December - from lucyeyelesbarrow to tieronecrush

Paperwork - from blueeyesatnight to brandyllyn

Mistletoes in the Moonlight - from 221bshrlocked to undercoverpena

Joel Miller

* it means something - from undercoverpena to joelsflannel

* Joel Miller fanfiction - from tempestuous-lush to sweetercalypso

i've got my love to keep me warm - from thetriumphantpanda to yeollie-plz

* Modern Day Hero - from flightlessangelwings to miraclesabound

* Snow and Mistletoe - from something-tofightfor to burntheedges

The Reason for the Season - from prolix-yuy to psychedelic-ink

Oh, the Wildflowers - from adora-but-ginger to amongtlou

Candlelight - from sweetercalypso to adora-but-ginger

a heart for melting - from joelscurls to thetriumphantpanda

Muffins and Jam - from noisynaia to katiexpunk

* freeze-thaw - from covetyou to oogaboogasphincter

Bookends - from djarinmuse to pascalispretty

Simply Having - from iamskyereads to talaok

* A gentleman - from talaok to lucyeyelesbarrow

* Joel Miller fanfiction - from booburry to fhatbhabie

A Very Miller Christmas - from yeollie-plz to joelscurls

* Nightmare Before Christmas - from katiexpunk to xdaddysprincessxx

* Love Shack - from pascalispretty to sp00kymulderr

* Visions of Sugar Plums - from dark-scape to covetyou

* twin peaks. - from toxicanonymity to endlessthxxghts

* Happily Ever After - from xdaddysprincessxx to frannyzooey

* Cinnamon and Sugar - from gasolinerainbowpuddles to thirtysevenodddogs

* a bowlful of joel-y - from oogaboogasphincter to lisadean

Marcus Moreno

Have Yourself a Moreno Little Christmas - from chronically-ghosted to noisynaia

Marcus Pike

* closure - from javier-pena to quinnnfabrgay-writes

* Procedures to Reach a Common Agreement - from thirtysevenodddogs to 221bshrlocked

Text Me Merry Christmas - from quinnnfabrgay-writes to 0celesteisthebest0

Max Phillips

I'll Leave a Light On For You - from oonajaeadira to artemiseamoon

Pero Tovar

* What the heart wants - from artemiseamoon to blueeyesatnight

* The Cross: The Spirit of the Season - from blueeyesatnight to brandyllyn

dividers by the lovely @saradika-graphics 💙

due to the less than ideal tagging system of tumblr all the participants are tagged in the reblogs

#pedro pascal #christmas #masterlist #fanfiction #frankie morales #jack daniels #oberyn martell #dieter bravo #marcus pike #joel miller #joel miller x reader #din djarin #javier pena x reader #ezra #javier pena #marcus moreno #max phillips #pero tovar #pedrostoriesgift23 #admin post

[morallyinept]

Sometimes, with all the negativity that can overshadow a fandom space, we lose sight of all the really positive, kind things that happen. So many people show kindness everyday, and I want to celebrate that.

So, I've created a place to keep all the lovely, kind things that I've been sent, so I don't lose them on my blog, but also to look at when I need a boost. 🥹

I'll also encourage you to make your own Kind Things masterlist for when you need to be reminded how wonderful you are! 🌷

Spread kindness and love! 🖤

Little thoughtful gifts that made me smile:

Pedro Positivity from @boliv-jenta

A Promise Of A New Adventure With Ezra For Jett - @kedsandtubesocks PPCU Friendship Exchange 2024

Dieter Bravo Gift from @survivingandenduring PPCU Friendship Exchange 2024

Pedro & Sunflower from @duchess-of-chaos

Asks that made me smile, laugh & feel all warm and fuzzy inside:

Flowers from @5oh5

Kindness & Dieter snuggles from @joelsgreenflannel

Laughing At My Fav Pedro Pic from @boliv-jenta

Thinking Of My Frankie from @covetyou

Picking My Own Favourite Fics from Anon

Character Database Thanks from @always-andromeda

Lucien Love from @boliv-jenta

Flowery Pedro from @duchess-of-chaos

Love Ask From @mrsmando

Flowers & Pedro from @yourcoolauntie

Dialogue List Thanks from @pr0ximamidnight

Pedro Fairy from @gasolinerainbowpuddles

Sunflower Pedro from @survivingandenduring

Adrift With You Ask from @undercoverpena

Bodies Series Appreciation from Anon

Happy Pedro Smiles from @survivingandenduring

Stuck With Dieter In An Elevator from @connectioneverywhere

Adrift With You Love from Anon

Appreciation from Anon

Inclusivity Praise from Anon

Gas Station Drive from @kedsandtubesocks

Anyone who is kind enough to make fanart or mood boards of my work has a special place in my heart:

Adrift With You Mood Board by @sawymredfox

A Cup Of Love Mood Board by @rulexofxnines

Frankie & Jude As Sims Characters by @fckyeapedrothots99

Adrift With You Clip by @survivingandenduring

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal fandom #kind things #spread kindness #moots you wanna smooch

[beardedjoel]

for the @swiftiscruff friendship exchange!

here's a moodboard of some of my all time favorite pedro pics - ones that consistently make me laugh, smile, or get h0rny for that old man for you all to enjoy the man that brought us all together!

it’s coming up on around a year when i started getting into fic writing and then finding my way back to tumblr, and sometimes i still can’t believe just how much fun we are all having together over one goofy guy and all his characters! i never would have thought watching an adaptation of my favorite video game last year would have brought me here to so many wonderful people with kind hearts and insane talent!

i have a hard time initiating contact especially in fandom where people sometimes seem to already be doing their thing and you feel like you’ve just arrived, BUT you guys! you all have made me feel so welcome - to everyone who ever reached out to me first bc i was too shy, commented, messaged, ANYTHING i just love and appreciate you so much. not to mention the sense of humor in this community is just…. so. good.

idk if it’s corny to out myself like this but this is such a huge part of my life. i think about my fics so often, i smile at my phone at work when i see a new comment or dm that just brightens my whole day, i look forward to my interactions with you all. and it’s just been such a blast sharing this space with everyone.

i wish i had time to make something for every friend and fic i've loved but life is life-ing and so busy rn - just know i love all of y'all.

here’s to all our friendships, making new ones, and strengthening the ones we have ❤️ thank you han and cat for setting up something so sweet and thoughtful!

tagging some amazing moots and people i'm a big fan of!

@swiftispunk @joelscruff @huffle-punk @jupiter-soups @burntheedges @janaispunk @beskarandblasters @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @dancingtotuyo @wannab-urs @tightjeansjavi @pastelnap @joelsgreys @covetyou @chronically-ghosted @sawymredfox @ilovepedro @joelsgreenflannel @whxtedreams @gasolinerainbowpuddles @pr0ximamidnight @justagalwhowrites @noxturnalpascal @joelsflannel @punkette1026 @toxicanonymity @honeyedmiller @mermaidgirl30 @ezrasbirdie-main @wintrwinchestr @mrsmando @5oh5 @kiwisbell @joelscurls @atticrissfinch @cavillscurls @perotovar @futuraa-free

and so SOOO many more people!!! if you've ever interacted with me in any way or i've read something of yours i've loved etc - I LOVE YOU!

#sappy as fuck on main but 🥺 #PPCUGiftExchange2024