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netherfeildren · 11 months

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FEAR OF GOD : Chapter IX : What should we believe in next?

Series Masterlist ; Moodboard

Pairing: Joel Miller x OFC

Summary: There is no point to which you cannot return — the moment lives on forever.

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Fluff (fucking finally, am I right?); smut; pregnancy kink

A/N: Art is Femme Au Tigre (detail), François Martin-Kavel

Word Count: 8.2K

Read on AO3

Chapter IX: What should we believe in next?

To love someone

is firstly to confess: I’m prepared to be devastated by you.

-Billy-Ray Belcourt, A History of My Brief Body

In many ways, you felt like the forest had swallowed you down its dark maw, and spit you back out a different person altogether – a rebirth of sorts. You’d awoken to a different set of priorities to which, you now knew, you had to dedicate yourself to like nothing you’d ever done before.

There could be no recalcitrance, no doubt, no fear. You realized it was, as ever, always choices, choices, choices that determined the value of your character, the weight of your potential. It had seemed for so long that you’d found yourself unmoored – waiting for something, Joel or your own certainty, your own desires to come to fruition. But you’d not realized, until this very moment, until death had been so close, until you’d almost lost yourself in that overwhelming wilderness, alone with only the possibility of what your future could be, and now, carrying this baby in your arms, another held within you, born of all the love in your heart you could ever hold – you realized your choice had been made a long time ago – in your dedication to survive after Beth. You remember the moment of startling revelation that you’d never considered putting an end to yourself after witnessing such a tragedy, that it, perhaps, would have been less of a struggle after such a trauma. The realization seems to be colored in a different sort of light now, after everything. You can see now that that was your decision, that was your choice. That was your moment of ownership over yourself, of taking your very life, your future in your hands, and choosing to go on. Everything that had come after that was merely a byproduct of that moment of perseverance. Joel, Connie, Jackson, your life here, those were all consequences – the fruit – of that choice. You’d chosen to live. You’d chosen to go on in a world in which there existed the great possibility of being alone for the rest of your life, of dying, of more pain, more hurt, more struggle, and yet you’d done it.

You think of that long past conversation with Connie, I would not like to see your choices taken from you once again, but what he’d failed to realize was that you’d been living in the realm of that past choice already. That the ultimate decision – the one to endure, to survive despite whatever had passed or may come to pass, had already been made. The enlightenment of that certainty, that which you could provide for yourself, to forge your own path, to survive when you needed to, was infinitely comforting in the face of all that you had to look forward to. You realize now, holding such potential for life within you, in your arms, that was what your choice was, to live. Anything that came after that was only what had always been intended, what was inevitable, what would have always happened thereafter, no matter what. A life full of inevitabilities: Beth, you, Joel, a child. The comfort that realization provides now is so profound. You wish, like in so many other moments, that Connie were here to share it with him. The great epiphany of having realized that the place your life had come to had been led here by your own hand, after having felt, for so long, so out of control. There could be no regret after that, only a great appreciation that now you had so much to look forward to; even if, perhaps, the one thing, the one man, you needed might not be part of it. Another choice to be made there. Perhaps the most terrifying of them all.

Courage, above all else, it is courage that is necessary to go on.

You look down at Kate asleep in your arms, her full belly and the gentle sway of the rocking chair pulling her into drowsiness. You run the tip of your finger over the soft peach fuzz of her tiny little brow. “Poor little girl. All alone in the world… But now you have me – you’ll always have me. And soon there’ll be another, another baby,” you tell her, your most precious secret. “There’ll be three of us then. And I don’t know where I’ll get the strength to take care of us all, but I will, I promise. I’ll find it, I’ll pull it out of myself any way I have to. I promise you.” You press a small kiss to the softest rose petal of a cheek you’ve ever felt.

Joel leans against the side of your house – listening to you talk to Kate – promising this most sacred of things as you sit slowly rocking her on your back porch. Another baby, another baby, another baby. The entirety of the face of the world could be alight with fire in this moment, and he doesn’t think he’d feel himself burning. Maybe he already is. His heart, his heart – it’s on fire. Maybe I’ve finally gotten so fucking old this’ll be the thing to kill me. Maybe I’m actually just dying of a goddamn heart attack right now. He clutches his chest. Wants to laugh and cry and scream and kiss the ever loving hell out of you. He wishes, like in so many other moments, that Sarah was here. He wishes he could tell her she’s going to have a little brother or sister, that the two of you could have known each other. He can’t move, can’t get his brain to send a signal to his legs to move. To go to you. And he thinks: this is what real wonder is. This is like nothing else that has ever come before. A baby, a baby, my Birdie’s baby.

He can’t say he’s even surprised really, has just been subconsciously waiting for this. Acting like a goddamn teenager, just discovered sex, never heard of a condom or pulling out, fucking you every chance he got. Jesus. Two babies in his fifties – he’ll never hear the end of it from Ellie. A huff of a laugh escapes, and he feels a tear run down his cheek.

“Can I hold her?” He steps up onto the porch. You startle a tiny bit, jostling the sleeping bundle, looking around yourself as if for an escape, but when you look back into his eyes, it’s almost like there’s an air of resignation in them, as if you’re now realizing there’s no escaping this.

“Of course.” You frown down a little at her as you make the transfer, a soft coo passing your lips to settle her, reassure her, I’ll be right here, don’t be scared. The warm brush of your arms along his chest sends a shivering jolt through him. He hasn’t touched you in too long, what feels like years. He takes the baby gently from your arms and settles in the rocker across from you. The tiny weight in his palms is so small and yet so magnificently significant, heavy in the weight of what she represents. It’s been so many years since he’s held a baby, his own baby, but it feels as natural as breathing. The muscle memory reawakening to remind him to support her head, keep his too-big-hands gentle and soft. He looks back at you, so lovely, always. The most beautiful thing he’s ever set eyes on in his whole life, he’s sure. He wants to go and lay his head in your lap, stay there forever. And now that he knows the secret you’ve been carrying, he’s shocked at himself, that he hadn’t noticed before, so attuned is he to the planes of your face, the slope of your mouth and brow and cheekbone, the color and warmth of your skin, your body. But he sees it now, painted upon you as if you were a canvas for all that’s shared between the two of you, this tiny little secret you’ve both created together. It glows out of the light shining in your eyes, bathes your skin in the most radiant luminescence. But you look tired now too, afraid of him, of what he’s about to say, for he can see you know there’s something he wants to say to you.

“What is it? Tell me,” you breathe, and there it is, always that keen ability you have to read his mind.

“I was afraid,” he confesses.

And yet it is not a confession, for you already know, have always understood him to his very core. “I know.”

“I had a choice to make, a moment to flinch. I chose wrong.” Your gaze is trained on Kate asleep in his arms, and he can see the roll of your throat swallowing. “I should have never turned away from you. I will never turn away from you again.”

You stifle a little gasp, turn away to look out into the dark of the surrounding trees. He can see your eyes shifting back and forth, as if you’re searching for something. Perhaps now’s the appropriate time for him to get on his knees and start begging. He watches your throat work several times, and the tears welling in your eyes tell him you’re trying to swallow your sobs. A bludgeoning would be less painful than watching the look on your face right now.

He can’t voice what he just heard you say, not yet, not yet. He needs this to be about the two of you first, about what he feels for you, about what he needs you to understand about what’s inside of him, what he’s let go of, before he lets anything else interfere in what might happen here. He needs the two of you now to come to each other of your own volition, unburdened by anything else except for what you feel for one another, the necessity of being together because without the other you’d simply die.

“Birdie, look at me. Gimme those gorgeous eyes.”

“I can’t,” you choke out.

“Please, baby. Why not?”

“I don’t want to see what’s not there. I can’t–” He gets up then, comes to kneel before you, the baby still cradled in one arm, he brings his other to grasp your face. “Look at me, Birdie. Listen to me when I tell you that I fucking love you, and I will never ever leave you again.”

“Joel– there’s something–” you cut yourself off.

He grips your chin gently, the rest of his life cradled in both hands, “I am so fucking sorry. And I love you so goddamn much. I can’t say that I’ll never hurt you again, piss you off, that’ll I’ll never make a mistake, do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing,” his voice is guttural, he has to clear his throat several times of the tightness overwhelming it before he can continue, “But I promise I’m gonna do everything in my power to try. To be the man you need, the man Kate and Ellie need. Look at me–” for you’ve closed your eyes now, silent tears streaming down your cheeks, running over his fingers to drip down onto your lap. You blink them open. “You hearin’ me?”

“Yes–” you whisper, “Yes, I hear you.” And then you’re sliding down into his lap, bottom coming to rest on his bent knee so he’s cradling you in one arm and Kate in the other. “I should've never left–” you sob, clutch at his clothes, his hair, drag your nails through the thick of his beard.

“No, baby– no. I should’a never let you go.” He tangles a hand into the back of your hair, bringing your mouth to his, and then finally, finally the taste of you within him again. He licks into your mouth, deep. The hot cave of it, opening so sweetly for him. You moan into him, breathe him in, let your head fall back for him to devour more deeply.

But he pulls back, gives you a moment to breathe. There’s still so much left for the two of you to say. He grips you around the waist and rises to his feet with a grunt, goddamn knees, the both of you clutched within his arms. “Let’s put her to bed.”

The sight of him cradling Kate’s in his strong arms, the little bundle of her, so small, he could hold her entire weight in the palm of his large hand. Watching him set her in the crib you’d set up beside your bed, so, so gently, it has images of the rest of a shared life flashing in your mind. Sending painful cramps of lust through your womb, spears of longing through your heart. He’s so solid and strong. Broad and thick and you know that nothing could ever hurt you when you’re in the circle of his arms. He makes you untouchable by anyone or anything but him.

When he turns to face you you’re already there, pressing your hands and your breasts along the broad, strong planes of his chest. Pulling him out of the bedroom and into the hallway to push him roughly up against the wall and attempt to climb him. “Jesus fuck, Birdie–”

He cradles your jaw in that strong hand he’d just so gently cradled the tiny baby with, and you suck his thumb into your mouth, the groan he lets out at that — it sets you ablaze. “Joel, please, please, fuck me,” you beg. Your voice pitched into a whine. You’ll become inconsolable soon, if he isn’t careful, if he doesn’t hurry. Your cunt, a tight furl of desperate need, you claw at his belt, his shirt. “Please, p–please, I can’t wait anymore, I need it. I don’t care.”

“Birdie, open your fucking eyes,” he gives your head a sharp little shake, you’d pressed your eyes tightly closed to keep the tears at bay, “Look at me. This is it,” he says, “You and me. Do you understand? This is it – us.” Your eyes are huge and wet, unblinking. His grip on your jaw, cheeks smushed, mouth in a pucker, forces your head to nod like a marionette – as if he could force the understanding into you.

“I love you, Birdie. Do you understand me?” And you want to say no, no you don’t understand because how could you ever comprehend something that enormous.

You look down, then, unable to meet his eyes anymore and press the tips of your fingers to his lips as if to stifle his words. How can something you’ve wanted for so long, so desperately, scare you so much now? It’s as if the two of you have switched places – as if he’s transplanted his fear into you. What would you do with the love of a man like this? What does one do once they have the possibility of everything they’ve ever wanted within arms reach? How could your love for him, the intensity of it, intertwine with his in a way that could create a life together? How did one grapple with the notion of casting away their loneliness, their aloneness, when you’d lived with it for so long? And most important of all, what about all you hadn’t told him yet? What would he say then?

So many questions, little bird.

“I��ll give you anything. Anything you want, baby,” he whispers, and you wish he wouldn’t say such things. No – you couldn’t brush up against the idea of your love for each other existing out in the world one moment, only for it to be ripped away from you the next.

His voice is hushed, he says again: “I love you,” and the words slide through your hair like water as he presses you tighter into him. You feel so empty, your cunt clenching desperately around nothing at just the deep, familiar sound of his voice.

This feels, simultaneously, like the final nail in the coffin being ripped away, setting you free, and also, being hammered home, sealing your fate away with an undeniable finality.

And Joel, he’d never been able to say the words easily before. I love you, it is a blessing – a benediction and a gift – to be able to tell the person you love, out loud, how you feel about them. To have them in front of you to do such a simple thing. To have that choice. He’d always felt too laid bare by it – vulnerable. To Sarah, to Ellie, to his brother. He’d always needed to work around it, find another word for it, another action to show them – let me do you this favor, let me bring you this thing I know you love, let me stand guard over you all night so you can rest. It wasn’t ever enough; so, he’d say it now. He’d tell you now, without fear or regret or take backs. Without pushing you away after. He’d tell you, let it settle between the two of you and exist as it would.

You rip yourself from his arms then and turn away abruptly, too much to take in all at once. Pacing away, you can feel him stalking after you, herding you like prey. His fingers ghosting along the trailing tips of your long hair. You go as far as the confines of the house allow you to escape him, and then his hands are gripping your hips, spinning you around to face him and pressing you up and against him. Patience seemingly at an end.

He presses you up against the wall, his hands everywhere, under your breasts to lift the heavy weight of them up and into his face and open mouth, kissing and sucking and biting. He bends his knees to bring his face down closer to your level, sucks whatever skin of yours he can into his mouth, breathes you in, wraps his arms around your waist and squeezes.

You moan at the feel of him, your head tipped back – you should talk, you should talk, you know you have more to say – but your eyes are cast to the ceiling almost in supplication, and he’s everywhere, touching every part of you.

“I love you, and you’re gonna listen to me. I’m gonna say it over and over until you’ve got it in your head. Do anything I gotta do to prove it to you.”

“Promise me you’ll never leave me,” you beg suddenly, “Promise me you’ll be with me always, please.”

“I promise, Birdie.” I promise, I promise, I promise.

He pulls back, presses his brow to yours, it feels feverish and you’re trembling in his arms, needy little fingers carding through his hair to tug his mouth back to yours. “Tell me– lemme hear you say it.” He does not need to specify, you know what it is he wants from you.

A tiny whimper, and then: “I love you too.”

“Fuck–” who would’ve ever thought the words’d have such a direct line to his cock. He moans, deep in his chest and slots your mouths back together, takes your top lip between his own to pepper soft little kisses on your open, panting mouth, sucking and nibbling and licking.

He straightens to his full height, grasps the hinge of your jaw to open your mouth wide for him and thrusts his tongue inside, runs it along the roof of your mouth, behind your teeth. It’s wet and sloppy and you feel like you’re suffocating in each other. His hands roam down to clutch your ass in his hands and hoist you up and into him, your legs wrapping around his waist, he rolls his already hard erection into you. “I’m gonna fuck you now, alright? ‘Nd then we’ll talk some more, but fuck, right now I need inside that gorgeous cunt.”

“I missed you – oh god,” you moan, rolling your hot center along the stiff length of him, “Missed you so mu–much.” He growls the start of your name, his ragged voice turning it into nothing more than an incoherent, wordless snarl before he’s turning on his heel and setting your ass down on the edge of the kitchen table. His hands tangle in your hair, tugging your head back to open you to his savaging, all tongue and teeth, he fucks into your mouth with all the mounted desperation and fear and need of the past few days.

Your hands are at his belt, tearing his clothes open and then your hand is there, wrapping around the hot, hard length of him and he rips his mouth back to stare into your eyes, teeth bared in a snarl. You stare at each other, open mouths panting into each other as you start to jack his cock slowly, up and down, tight little hand squeezing from base to tip, a twist at the sensitive, leaking head.

“Shit, I– I was out of my fucking mind–” and at his words a flash of hot anger burns through him. “You’re never leaving me again. This is it,” he growls.

“Never,” you promise, “Never again.”

He pushes you back onto the surface of the table and pulls your ass to the edge, ripping your leggings and panties over your hips and down your legs. He pushes your sweater up over your naked breasts, wraps his hand around the lush weight of both of them and brings his face to them, licking and sucking as much as he can into his mouth. “Joel, please, please, I need you inside of me,” you’re crying, breathy, high pitched and whining.

“Not yet, not yet. Need to feel you, Birdie. Need to feel you here with me, need to taste you.” He kneels between your spread thighs, hooks one over his shoulder, your other ankle held in his grasp to anchor you wide, pushes to rest your heel on the edge of the table, completely vulnerable and open to him. Your pussy is red and swollen and soaked, slick sliding down your thighs, between your ass onto the table. “Fuck–” he licks the broad, flat of his tongue through the mess of your cunt, drinking your slick down. The taste of you – he’ll never tire of it, never get enough. Your back arches at the feel of his mouth on your aching sex and he takes the swollen bud of your clit gently between his teeth and holds there, you pause, acknowledge that you’re caught, before he sucks hard, and the whining mewl you let out, Jesus Christ, he could come just at the sound of it. He moves back down, presses his tongue inside, fucking in and out of you, can feel the ripple of your muscles, desperate for more.

He moves back up to your clit lapping at it with his tongue as he presses two thick fingers inside to stretch you open, eyes trained on your face the entire time. He can hear you whispering his name over and over again and it washes over him like a litany of forgiveness. He will do anything he needs to, to continue hearing you say his name like that for the rest of his life.

He stands then, fists his aching cock at the thick base and presses the wide head at your little clenching hole. “Gonna give it to you now, baby. No more crying, it’s okay, I’m gonna fuck you now.”

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Joel, Joel, Joel.

He’s pressing in, then, all the way to the end of you. Until his tip is at the mouth of your womb, right where you’re carrying his baby now. He pulls his hips back, the slick suck of your cunt trying to hold on to him, pull him back in deeper, and thrusts in again a little harder, but slow, just as deep, so that you feel the entire length of him, every throbbing ridge. Your eyes are unfocused, wet – lips red and swollen. So, so fucking beautiful. He needs to tell you now. He needs to tell you what he knows. Needs to tell you that he heard. That he’s gonna take care of the three of you. That you and him and Ellie and the babies will all be a family. That you’ll never have to worry or be scared or alone ever again. That there will be no more monsters. He pushes in again, harder, his hands sliding along the slopes and dips of your soft curves, brings one of them to the crown of your head to hold you in place, anchor you against the sharp thrust of his hips.

“How is it that we always end up in this position, huh?” he grunts. “Meant to have a conversation, but instead buried balls deep in your sweet cunt.” He nuzzles into your throat and you tip your head back. You’re beyond conversation, a half laugh, half moan all you can manage. He presses again and again and again against that sensitive spot he owns inside of you, fucks up against it harder.

“I heard you,” he whispers, so soft, into the dark, tender crook of your neck, that place made just for him, not stopping the rhythm of his hips. “I heard what you said to the baby earlier.” You freeze beneath him. Suddenly filled with tense fear and trepidation, and he hates himself for ever behaving in a way that could ever pull such a reaction from you. He promises himself and you and his child within you, that he will never, ever do something again to further that uncertainty. He presses a gentle kiss to the hinge of your jaw, runs his palm over the soft swell of your belly. “Heard you’re carrying a little secret, just for me.”

“Joel–”

“Didn’t think I could ever– would– would ever have– have this again,” presses another soft kiss, grinds his cock deeper.

It is almost possible to canonize each other with the force of this feeling. To give so much to each other – to create life in a dead world– what on earth could ever, ever be as sacred as this?

“You gonna give me a baby, little bird?”

“Y– yes, Joel. Yes – Oh, God– that’s so good,” you moan.

He grips your face roughly: “Tell me again, say it. I have’ta hear you.”

“I love you. I’m gonna give you a baby.”

“Fuck — fuck.” He starts to saw his length in and out of you again, the wet squelch like some lewd song between your bodies. “Again, again.”

“Ungh — I love you, I love you, I love you, Joel.” His cock feels like it gets harder and harder the more you say it. The words sing through his entire body. He grips the sides of the heavy wooden table to keep it from scooting across the floor with the power of his thrusts, and you clutch the front of his shirt to pull yourself onto him deeper.

“Fucking tight, p– perfect,” he grits, forehead pressed into your breasts as he watches the place where his cock impales you. His hips pick up their pace, fuck you harder “I’m gonna take care of us. Gonna love you forever." He starts to feel your muscles pulse and flutter at that, the wet suck of your pussy as you start to come around him, and the tight clutch is so wet, searing, it triggers his own orgasm. He wraps his arms around your waist to arch your back up, off the table and buries his face in your breasts as he starts to fill you with his spend. Your fingers tangle in his hair, press him harder into you until he’s almost drowning in your soft musky scent, come and sweat and him covering your skin everywhere.

“What are we going to do?” The two of you lay in a nest made of the comforter dragged off your bed, your ugly orange throw draped over your naked hips. He’d gotten the fire going, the warm fingers of it licking at your back. Your head’s tucked into the crook of his shoulder, your bare chests pressed together, hot and sweaty. So close and comfortable.

“You’re not to worry about anything,” tiny kiss pressed to your nose, “I’m gonna take care of everything,” another to the arch of your brow, the corner of your mouth, the edge of your jaw.

“Two babies is a lot.” You twirl your fingers through the curls at his nape. You’ll never stop touching him now, for the rest of your life, you plan to keep your hands on his skin.

He ignores that, continues his lecture, “And you’re not going to work so hard anymore – lots of breaks and resting. And you’re not to go forgetting meals anymore either. Three times a day, three square meals. And be sure that I’m gonna keep a close eye on all that.”

“And, and, and,” you mock, “Anything else?”

He gives you a stern frown, “I’ll let you know as I think of ‘em.”

“Actually, I think I’ll do what I want.” You hitch your thigh over his hip so that your wet core is pressed up against his thigh, his come still leaking from you. Even after he’d bent to clean you with his tongue after he’d pulled out earlier.

“You’ll do as I say.” He gives your bottom a gentle swat.

“What are you gonna do? Punish me?”

He nuzzles at your nipple, “No–” gives it a little bite, “You’d like that too much. Won’t give you my cock, that’s what I’ll do. Make you really suffer.”

“What a mean old man you are.”

“You like that too.” He rolls to lean over you, your head cushioned in the crook of his elbow. He gathers your wrists in his hand above your head, runs his nose along the length of your throat, a wet swipe of his tongue over the wing of your collarbone, down to the peak of your breast where he presses a long kiss, then his open mouth dragging over the lines of your ribs, lower still to the soft swell of your belly, where he presses his forehead. No sign of your secret yet, just the shared knowledge between the two of you for now. His tongue dips into your navel and you giggle, try and push him away, but he grips your thigh to keep you in place. He has you caught, snared. His nose journeys back up, skating along the surface of your skin. He nips gently at the meat of your bicep, and then back into your hair again to breathe deep, “Smell so good,” he moans. You can feel his length hardening again against your hip and your answering wetness begins to pool. “So soft–”

Kate’s cry sounds from the bedroom.

He pauses, “I’ll get her, don’t worry.” He presses a soft kiss to your temple and brow and heaves himself up with a rough groan. You watch the long lines of his body uncoil, the messy, silver threaded curls, broad shoulders, thick arms, smattering of hair on his chest that creeps down to his belly, his cock, thick and long, even soft as it is now, still wearing the glossy sheen of your slick. All your insides clench at the sight of him. Lust mixed with the satisfying flavor of possession, and the overwhelming splendor of your love, the knowledge that he’s all yours. That his claim over you is mutual, shared in full. That you love him, you love him, you love him, and he loves you back. That you’re carrying his baby.

Thank God pregnancy’s going to give you an extra excuse to jump his bones even more than usual, you think, with a pleased sigh.

“Stop ogling me,” he grouches, but you know he likes it, likes your eyes on him.

“Never.” You burrow further into your nest of blankets and stare at his ass as he walks away.

Joel and Ellie sit on her porch in the cool evening air after dinner. Nancy makes hooch in her spare time, when she isn’t helping you tend to patients, and they nurse glasses of it together now. It’s strong as shit, and who knew old ladies’d be so good at brewing booze, Ellie laughs

“How’s she doing?”

“Good. Settled now, just a bit tired from all the movin’ around. Overturning a mountain’d be easier than trying to get that woman to get off her feet for ten minutes.” He’d moved you and Kate into his house earlier that week. He had more bedrooms. More space to turn one of the guests into a nursery for the babies.

“She’s unsatisfied with the color of the outside of the house.” Baby, it’s so dreary. It can’t be a curmudgeon lair anymore, it’s gotta be baby friendly and bright. “Too dark and dreary, according to her.” It needs to look happy. “Don’t know where the hell I’m supposed to find enough exterior paint for a whole house in the middle of the damn apocalypse but–” he sighs. And really, when you’d gotten on your knees afterwards to make him agreeable, how was he meant to do anything besides whatever it was you could ever possibly want.

“Real trouble maker you’ve got on your hands there, it seems.”

“Ah, well, what’s three more trouble makers in the grand scheme of things, huh? Dealt with you well enough.”

She freezes, “Three?” The look on her face – oh, he’s in for it now.

“Well…you see– Birdie’s… well, she’s— I’d been meaning to mention it—” he can’t even say the word to her, slow and stuttering and red in the face.

“You knocked her up, didn’t you?!” she shouts. “But h– no – oh, that is so – ewwwwww! That is so– I don’t even– I don’t even wanna think about that!”

“Don’t be immature,” he says, exasperated, “And quit your damn hollerin’.”

“Fuck you, man. That’s disgusting – I can’t think about that shit. Old man and my friend – no way. Let’s talk about something else –” she looks up at the sky, anywhere but him, pretends to whistle, even though she still can’t, “Isn’t the weather nice tonight? Not too cold, huh?”

“You’re a weird kid.”

“You’re a weird kid, you dick.”

“Don’t go gettin’ all over excited now. These things happen–”

“You knocked your girlfriend up in the middle of the apocalypse,” she deadpans.

“Ellie–”

“Oh god–” she’s laughing hysterically now, bent over and clutching her middle, “Oh, god… I am never gonna let you live this down – Dina!” she hollers, “Dina, get the fuck out here! Oh my god, the fuck are you going to do with two babies, Birdie, me and Dina.You’ve officially been overpowered by estrogen.” She cranes her neck back and screams again, “Dina, Joel’s gonna be a baby daddy!” at the top of her goddamn lungs.

“Ellie! What’s the matter with you?” he hushes, looking around the dark road, “Whole damn neighborhood’s gonna hear you.”

She turns back to him, points a mocking finger at him, “You better fuckin’ pray that baby turns out a boy or you’ll never win another argument for the rest of your sorry life, old man.”

He slides into bed with you afterwards, his hand sneaking up the back of his t-shirt you have on to slide against your bare skin.

“How’d it go?” you murmur into his hair, sleepy and warm, wrapping your arms around his broad shoulders.

“Good, Dina made dinner. Me and Ellie sat out on the porch after, had a drink.” The girls had invited the two of you over tonight as a small step, Joel and Ellie’s way of easing back into the normalcy of things, with the benefit of you and Dina serving as buffers for the inevitable awkwardness. You’d been too tired to join them – the fatigue of pregnancy taking a toll on your good graces. “Nancy’s hooch s’fuckin’ strong,” he mumbles into your skin, “Think it got me tipsy or somethin’.”

You huff a laugh, “So, normal…”

“Yeah, normal, s’good.”

“You talked?”

“Yeah, we talked. Told her about the baby” he says with a small smile, softly pushing your hair behind your ear.

“Oh, and what’d she have to say about that?” You sidle up into his chest, running your hands across the strong planes of him.

“Nothing flattering or respectful towards me or for the ears of an infant,” he grouches.

“I’d expect nothing less of her. Call you an old dog?”

He grumbles, “Yeah, yeah, amongst other things. Not so old I couldn’t knock you up though, am I?” Smug bastard.

“Of course not, baby. You know your old-man-charm is what really got me into bed with you in the first place.”

“Shut up, little girl.” He buries his head in the valley of your breasts, nuzzles softly, gives the swell a soft nip. Your breath hitches, extra sensitive now. “And how were you?”

“Tired…achy,” you pout. His hands roam now, squeezing and kneading the soft swells of your curves.

“My poor Birdie.”

“Feel better now though,” you squirm a little, hitch your knee higher up on his side.

“Is that so?”

“Mmm, we missed you.” Your hips roll a little, seeking the relief of his hard length.

“Missed me?” he nuzzles deeper and laves his tongue into your cleavage.

“Missed our daddy,” you whisper into his hair, breathy, whiny. Provoking.

That shocks him into stillness, gotcha. “Jesus,” he says gruffly. His hands reach down to cup your ass, squeezing roughly, rolling his hardening length into the soft apex of your thighs. Pressing down right on your clit and pulling a throaty moan out of you.

“Jesus fucking christ–” he pants and moves to cup you between the legs. “Make me so fuckin’ hard with that mouth.” The molten heat of your core seeps through the thin gusset of your panties, already soaked. “Can’t wait to see you round and swollen with my baby, little bird.” He pulls the neck of your soft, worn t-shirt down bearing your naked breasts to him. “So goddamn pretty…” His big hands mold the heavy weight of them and gently squeezes your tits up and into his open mouth, so sensitive… I know, I know, Birdie. Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle with this soft little cunt. I’ll get you nice and ready for me first.

What a cruel, cruel man.

He reaches down to free his hard cock from the confines of his jeans, pushes them down far enough to free his aching length and heavy balls. He pulls your panties to the side, exposing your aching, wet flesh to the cool air and tucks his cock under the elastic, letting the thick weight of him rest there, over your cunt, the tight stretch of the fabric adding to the pressure. Oh, he’s going to be mean, you can already tell. “Joel, please, no– no teasing– It hurts–”

“I know, I know, don’t worry, I’m gonna give it to you – Don’t worry. Just be a good and patient girl for me, just for a little.” He starts to thrust against your slick pussy, the fat head catching on your clit with every thrust up – stoking the fire in your blood. His hands on your ass direct your movements, but you need more, you need to feel more of his skin. You pull your shirt up over your breasts, and tug his own t-shirt up his chest as well, let your stomachs press together, the shared heat between your skin turning the temperature of your blood up to boiling. “Need to feel you,” you whimper.

“I’m right here, little bird.” His thrusts start to get faster, and he shifts his hips back a little, changing the angle so that the wide tip catches on your sensitive entrance with every thrust, and then up to grind against your clit. “Come for me, baby. Give it to me just like this so I can fuck you after. Need that little cunt nice and soft for me – gotta be gentle with her now it’s filled with my baby.” And God, the mouth on this man.

Your heart is beating so fast, it feels like it’s burning, like it’s going to melt and seep right into his own chest cavity. Everything below your waist starts to tighten and quicken and his cock is soaked with your slick, sliding fast and smooth, the slight catch at your opening and then the surge up to grind the entire length of him against your sex, the restriction of your panties making the squeeze tighter. You grip the thick muscle of his shoulders to leverage yourself better, roll your hips onto him harder, faster. You’re moaning his name, begging him for his cock and everything else he has to give, you want everything. And then you’re coming, the knot in your womb going loose and wet. Your head falls back on your neck, but he grips your jaw to bring your face back to his. “Lemme see those gorgeous eyes, my love, lemme see you come for me.” Your open mouth is panting into his, and he licks into you, tastes behind your teeth. He guides you through it, keeps the steady roll of his thrusts and your ass gripped in his hands bringing you further into him. “Just like that– Yeah, baby, give it to me just like that. So fucking pretty.”

“Feels so– so good,” you stutter.

He grips the base of his cock, your walls still fluttering and pulsing, and starts to press into your still clenching pussy. The wet gush of your orgasm pulls him in with a lewd suck of your walls, and then he’s there, there as deep as anyone’s ever been inside of you, right at his spot, and fucking up into it. His grip on the flesh of your ass is tight and you feel one of his hands sneak back between your legs to slot around where he’s fucking you open. “Goddamn, it does–” he growls, looking down at where his cock disappears into you. “Look at that– milking me like such a good girl. My perfect girl. Gonna give me a baby, my Birdie’s baby, huh?”

“Y– yes, Joel,” your voice is a soft, whimpering mewl. “I’ll give you anything– anything–” You dig your fingernails into the muscle of his back, try to drive your words home, into his skin.

“I know, I know, you’re fucking perfect, fucking wet– Keep going, keep coming around my cock, just like that.” He rolls you over onto your back now, settling deeper between your thighs, and picks up the pace of his hips. Your naked breasts pressed tight against his chest, the hair there rubs against your sensitive, swollen nipples. It feels like he’s everywhere, embedded in every square inch of your skin, invading, conquering. And he has, he conquered you a long time ago.

It is perhaps the greatest thing that’s ever happened to you.

One of his hands cups the crown of your head, keeping you in place, his palm so wide it covers the entire span of your skull, and the other pulls your thigh open for him wider, angling your pelvis so he can ram against the mouth of your womb, and your insides are so sensitive, your orgasm still echoing in your skin, it feels like he has a direct line to the very heart of your pleasure. He speaks to it in whispers and demands, and you roll directly into the throbs of a new orgasm. No reprieve, no moment to gather your skin around you, pull your seams together.

Joel, Joel, Joel.

“Yeah, I can feel it – Gonna soak my cock again, I can feel it–”

“Oh my fucking god,” your moan is broken and guttural, and then it’s there, overtaking you completely, your vision whiting out. Your back arches as deep as possible, somehow letting him in ever further and you feel the pulse of his come, the heat of it, as he starts to fill you.

“Fuck– fucking perfect cunt, take me so well.” He buries his face in your neck, licking and kissing as much skin as he can get his mouth on. The hinge is your jaw feels like it’s come undone, gasping and hiccuping, it’s too much. He feels so heavy inside of you, like your insides, your skin is swollen with him.

“Joel–” you whisper, trembling. He hums, pressing his nose into your hair, he pushes your head back, making room to run the tip of it along the column of your throat, kiss to the soft spot behind your ear, down to your collarbone to suck a blossom into the dip there.

He’s whispering into your skin, perfect girl, perfect pussy, so good, so pretty, let me fuck a baby into you, take me so well always. He pulls out gently, the both of you groaning at the loss, at the sudden gush of your mingled come. You’re soaked, the insides of your thighs, your panties a sodden mess. The lap of his jeans, that he’d not bothered to even take off all the way, soaked in your slick as well. He moves to shuck off his clothes, and then pulls your ruined panties down the smooth slopes of your legs. He kneels between your spread thighs, brings your foot up to his mouth, presses a soft kiss to the arch of it, then further up, his tongue dragging along your calf to your knee, another press of his mouth to the bone there, and then he’s spreading your thighs wide, a smug look of appreciation as he surveys the wet, swollen mess he’s made of you. His thumbs pull your lips apart to take in the sight of his come leaking out of your still clenching hole, a soft swipe of his thumb to your clit that has you gasping and bucking away. “Ah, ah, gotta clean you up, little bird.”

You’re too blissed out to even object, to tell him you’re too sensitive, that you can’t take anymore. His tongue is gentle, slow languorous strokes against your wet flesh. He eats up the mess, cleaning you slowly until another orgasm is right there, pooling low in your pelvis and then surging through you in gentle waves, rolling along the lines of your limbs. There are overwhelmed tears running down your cheeks, and you can see the slow grind of his hips into the mattress, turned on just from this, from the shared taste of you.

He kisses the insides of your thighs, runs his tongue along the crevice between your leg and pelvis, licking up the slick and sweat there, and it should be disgusting, but all it does is make you want to taste every single inch of his skin, as well. Finally, he lays his cheek on the damp inside of your thigh, looks up at you, and the two of you just lay there, holding each other’s gazes, quiet.

There’s a tiny bump to your belly now. The soft little swell existing between the two of you, like the most precious, perfect shared secret. This little kernel of truth that only belongs to the two of you. He’s been so smug about it, strutting around like a damn peacock. You’ve made him promise, Ellie, and Dina by proxy, are the only ones he can tell until you’re a little further along, but the cocky look he gets in his eyes every time he looks at you is practically a blaring sign. Yeah, I knocked her up, she belongs to me. And it’s also made him insatiable, relentless and needy, fucking you every chance he can get. Not that you’re complaining.

Wish I could get you pregnant again already, he’d whispered in your ear as he’d finished inside of you yesterday, bent over the kitchen table, leggings and panties around your ankles.

It is a small sort of miracle to lay here now, like this. Without any sort of distance, after everything else.

The desire for choice was the spark that animated the deepest inquiries of what now existed between you. The force that grounded the two of you together, a need for a path of your own choosing; one so savage, it overcame all other obstacles. Internal, external, human, fungus, past, present. None of those existential inquiries mattered after the choice for one another had been made. Once the helm of fear had been cast away, all that remained thereafter, was only the deepest desire to choose the path that, at the birth of the end of the world, had been stripped of the two of you. The willingness to choose for yourself that which you knew might, could, devastate you, and yet choose it anyway. To accept that a thing could hurt you, maim you, obliterate you, and yet still take its hand. To know that you may not deserve it, but that you would inevitably be hurt – that you would, yourself, inevitably hurt someone who, in turn, did not deserve it either. But that was the price of accepting your monstrousness, of cherishing it, of, at long last, letting it go. After all, to acknowledge a thing was, in many ways, to free yourself of its power over you. Your fear could not lead you, control you, if you were aware of it enough to master it, to take it for what it was, merely a faction of yourself, not the entirety of who you were.

No longer a man made up of fears, no longer a man made up of hurts.

After courage, the possibilities were endless. For courage, above all else, was what was necessary to go on.

Epilogue

Netherfeildren Masterlist

#FoG fic #joel miller #the last of us #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller/reader #joel miller/you #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #joel miller fluff #joel miller imagine #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us fic #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #tlou fic #ellie williams

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