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i-literally-cant-with-this · 1 month

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Hi bb, just a thirst idea for you: Study fucking. Your fave has trouble being "smart" but he is a genius when it comes to pounding that ass after he gets too frustrated during a study session.

Oh, Vi, my sweet. I know you sent this a while ago. But when I read it, my heart wasn't the only thing to clench up 😈! Thank you so much for sending this to me. It was so fun to write!!

A/N ::: Nerd/Bad Boy!Keisuke Baji x F.reader, reader doesn't know he's in Toman until later (or at all, idk), he is NOT playing stupid, math is just really fucking hard!

C/W ::: Mutual pining that's super on the DL, unprotected P->V, Baji surprising us ... so nothing out of the ordinary.

WC ::: Just over 2k.

"Why though?!" Baji yelled a little louder than you thought he needed to. But it was clear he was getting more and more pissed about this. "Why the FUCK does it have to equal the fucking same area as this fucking pellaroraglam?"

You bit the insides of your cheeks and your tongue to keep from laughing at him about his pronunciation of the word 'parallelogram'. "Because that's how the Greeks intended it. Ok? Let's take a 10 minute break and come back to this again, yeah? You're not an idiot, Kei. I think you've just been staring at the book for so long that things are starting to make less and less sense. Does that make sense?" You reached over and took his glasses from his face and brushed your finger up and down the bridge of his nose. "Do you want to go for a walk or get something from the kitchen? Maybe to eat or drink? Make this 10 count because when we get back, we're hittin' it hard again, ok?"

Something about your wording made his cock twitch. But he shoved that thought down almost as quickly as it bubbled up into the forefront of his overworked brain.

"Hittin' it hard again, hah? You're mean, y/n. You're a bully. A learning bully. You're not gonna give in until I understand this shit, are ya?" He stood up from your desk and he gestured for you to follow him to your kitchen.

Your apartment was nothing special. But how you made the space your own was something that Baji always found so sweet and comforting. Of course, he'd never admit that to you. He is, after all, the first division Captain of Toman. Captains don't find things 'sweet.' They find them masculine and bloody. That's what everyone from the outside looking in thought, anyway. Though, no matter how hard he tried to ignore the pull you and your apartment had on him, he always found himself wishing he was back here, with you, in this little bubble of mild contentment you'd created.

He was relaxed when he was with you. Save for right now. But you were trying to help him study for his midterm. Any other time he's been here, he always felt safe. Maybe even small, for lack of a better descriptor, when he is anything but 'small' in any sense of the word.

"You really do have a mean streak in you, you know that?" He teased as you both walked into your kitchen. "But you're right. I need a break from that book. My eyes are crossing and it's starting to give me a headache."

"Do you want a couple of tylenol? I think I have ibuprofen, too. Anything I can do to help you with this, Keisuke. It's my job, after all. Use me however you need to to get this through that stubborn head of yours." You smiled so cute at him that he had a difficult time not telling you what he really wanted to use you for.

"Maybe I'll take you up on that. But first, can I ask you something kinda weird?" He sat down on one of the bar stools at the counter and you followed suit, sitting next to him.

"Of course! Anything, Kei." You rubbed your fingers up and down your forearm, a nervous habit. Even still, you assumed it was a question about the math you were helping him study. "What's up?"

"So, like, I know you're not into me in that way. Right? And that's fine. You've made that very clear. But, like, if you were...into me, I mean, into someone … hypothetically, I mean, what kind of person do you think you would be into? Like, are you more into the nerdy type, or the bad boy type, or, like, the artsy type?"

You didn't really understand where this was going. But you decided to humor him. "Well, I guess I've always been pretty attracted to the bad boy type. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't go for someone who was nerdy, too. It all depends on the person, you know? I have to like them first and foremost. Like, just because I see some bad boy doing bad boy stuff doesn't mean I'll fall to my knees and s-"

Baji choked on his tea, spitting it all over you in the process of trying to control the amount of liquid that was coming out of his mouth.

"Oh fuck! I'm so sorry, y/n! Gahhhd damn it. I am so sorry!" He grabbed the roll of paper towels from the counter by the sink and tore some off to frantically wipe your chest.

"K-Kei! Oh my god! Stop! It's ok! I'm at home, I can easily change my shirt. Don't worry about ... about it. You yell so much. Geez."

You hopped off of the stool and went back to your bedroom to find a shirt to change into. As you did so, Baji felt his stomach turn. He knew he shouldn't have asked you that. It was stupid and immature. But he couldn't help it. He'd had a crush on you for so long that he just needed to know if he had a chance in hell with you or not. But, as he'd guessed, you weren't interested in him that way.

He waited for you to come back to the kitchen before apologizing again. "I really am sorry, y/n. I don't know what came over me. I was just, I dunno, asking for a friend. And then you started to say that if you saw someone doing something that you’d fall to your knees and …" He waved his hand in the air as if to clear what he was going to say away before it’d even had a chance to see the light of day. “And I choked and blew my tea all over you.”

You giggled and shook your head, smiling at him. "It's ok, Kei. You're a little clumsy, but you're still really sweet. I like hanging out - I mean, you know. Helping you study. I enjoy your company, regardless of what we're doing."

"Y/n? I really wanna kih-" He blushed and looked away from you before he thought you saw his face turn a pretty shade of pink.

"You what, Kei?" You leaned around him a little to get his attention. "What do you want, Baji? You can tell me. We're friends."

FRIENDS

"Oh, y-yeah. Of course we're ... friends. Yeah. Well, let's get back to the math, then. C'mon." His heart, smile and morale sank as he headed back to your room with you.

Meanwhile, you were left to wonder what he was going to say. What did he want to 'kih'? Kiss? Oh, no. It couldn't be that. Right? Maybe he just wanted to kick your butt for making fun of his pronunciation earlier ... even though your face was the only thing giving away the fact you were getting quite a bit of entertainment from that. He wouldn't have noticed that. Right?

You followed him back to your bedroom and decided to keep quiet about the whole thing. You couldn't imagine that he would want to kiss you. You were just his tutor. And he was so cool. He had cool friends, girls practically fell at his feet when he walked by them. He couldn't possibly have feelings for you, right?

Oh, but he did. He really did. He was mad for you. He wanted nothing more than to pull you into his lap and kiss you senseless. But that couldn't happen. He couldn't ruin the time you spent together. It was precious to him, even though he knew you saw it as nothing more than a job.

The next hour of your time together was spent studying right from the book. There was no talking, no joking, just Baji finally getting to work. It was a welcome change for you. It meant you could focus on your task at hand and not worry about him trying to distract you with his unfinished sentences.

He was still so frustrated. But he was starting to make progress. He was starting to understand what you were trying to teach him. He just wished he could show you how he felt.

As you helped him work through the last of the 4 problems he had to do, he tried to come up with a way to say it. To tell you how he really felt. He was never good at words. Action was his strength. "I'm not sure about par-parallelograms? Is that how you say it? I'm so fucking sick of that long ass word. It's so stupid. Why couldn't they just say a special type of quadrilateral that has both pairs of opposite sides parallel and equal. That word is like 73 letters long. I hate it. It's so fucking annoying, y/n. Jesus."

You clapped and jumped a little where you stood, your tits bounced and his eyes went right to them. "Yes! Yes, Kei! Good! Good job!" You jumped into his arms and hugged him so tightly, burying your face in his neck, (accidentally) inhaling his scent. "I knew you could ..." you pulled your face back from him and looked into his brown eyes. "I knew you could do it ... Keisuke. Mmm ... Kei-suk-e. You ..." you breathed the words out heavily and found yourself staring at his full lips. That sly smile, his sharp teeth. Pain never looked so appealing.

Your heart stopped in your chest when he threw the math book across the room and it slammed into your wall with a loud thud. Before you had time to process what was happening, his hands were in your hair and his lips were on yours.

You'd been so stupid for someone who taught other people things. So stupid to not see how he felt. And now, here he was, kissing you like he needed you to breathe. You reached up and pulled his long black hair back from his face and returned the kiss with just as much intensity.

"I'm sorry I didn't say anything, y/n. I didn't think you'd want me that way. I'm just a dumbass with no future. You're so smart and pretty and funny and ... and I just can't believe you're actually kissing me back right now."

You shook your head and smiled. "I'm sorry! I didn't realize what was happening, Kei. You're not as good at hiding your feelings as you think. You should have just said something, though. This whole time we've been studying everything together, we could have been ..."

"... fucking like rabbits?" He laughed, but his eyes were serious.

You reached down and unbuttoned his jeans. "You know, it's not nice to talk to your tutor like that. But Baji, you've made a lot of progress tonight. I think you deserve a reward."

He picked you up and laid you down on your bed. "Oh yeah? And what kind of reward do you think I deserve, y/n?"

You reached over to your bedside table and turned on your neon pink LED lights. "The best kind, Kei. You've earned it."

"Fuck, y/n. You are so hot. I can't wait to fuck you so hard you forget everything you've ever taught me. We’ll have to have some more lessons. Is that ok with you?"

You nodded as you pulled your shirt up and over your head. "That sounds like a wonderful idea. We can even work on your pronunciation. You're a bit of a mess with your consonants."

He kissed you again and smiled. "Y/n, oh my god, shut up ... you're the worst." He pulled his pants down and straddled you, his cock rock hard and ready for you. "But you're also the best. I can't wait to make you mine."

"Kei, you're already mine." You reached up and cupped his cheek, pulling him in for another kiss. "Now ... teach me something.”

@darkstarlight82 @katshimizuu @kazutora-kurokawa @southside-otaku @arlerts-angel

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kiwisbell · 2 months

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helen ; chapter two

lure the wolf

Si vis pacem, para bellum. Or, the lie.

series masterlist | my masterlist pairing: joel miller x f!reader tags/warnings: 18+ (MDNI), john wick AU, hitman!joel, husband!joel, established relationship, artist!reader, love as worship (and blasphemy), joel miller has a Reputation, flashbacks, blood + injuries, medical attention, mentions of rape/SA, cars, tommy is the rational brother, joel is an idiot, childhood/religious trauma, criminal underworld, secrecy/lies, betrayal, ANGST, Big Fight, unresolved angst, joel gets shoved a couple times, the typical alcohol/smoking/profanity, i'm deeply sorry overall for what i'm putting you through, dividers by @/saradika word count: ~ 7.1k a/n: i am... sorry. just know that i love you, okay? again, i extend a huge thank-you to @cavillscurls for being my incredible beta and listening to my constant moaning. ilysm honey. also, thank you hugely to moms @tieronecrush & @northernbluess for helping me with *that scene* prev | next

Is this seat taken?

Of all the people crowding the restaurant, Joel noticed you first.

Candlelight drowned the world in burnt orange, and he could very well have been walking into the cathedral he grew up in. A piano player expertly brushed his fingertips across the keys, coaxing Moonlight Sonata’s soft lullaby from the strings. It was fucking warm, his vest tight around his torso, weighed down by the Beretta hidden in the lining. Sweat began to bead at his hairline as he slid easily between tables where guests took their seats, relishing the idle hum of chatter while they lay napkins over their laps and paid attention to proper cutlery etiquette. Some people, he’d noticed, enjoyed having riches to spend.

Joel found a corner, next to one of only two empty tables in the entire restaurant. His eyes did not leave you the entire journey into the quiet darkness.

You, who stood straight-backed and elegant on the small stage, conversing pleasantly with three men in servers’ uniforms. You, whose eyes gleamed when you smiled, in standing defiance of the dim light.

Paintings, Joel realised, were hanging from the wall behind the stage. Dynamic brushstrokes of muted colours depicted naked bodies and desperate embraces. Blushingly erotic for a public event, Joel thought. Still, he stared, his head tilting to the side as he examined the angles of the bodies, the taut muscles, soft skin, hungry hands.

Joel spent too much time watching the dip of your throat and the curve of your collarbones as your turn to speak came and you gesticulated idly, humbly. He was here for a job. He was not here to look at paintings and a pretty girl.

And yet he watched, utterly still. The men you spoke to would compliment you, and you would place a hand to your heart or shoo their words away. A simple, fine golden chain hung around your neck. Joel should have been spending these minutes reaffirming his plan, ensuring his target was still in position. He should have confirmed his suspected exit routes. He should have done his fucking job.

But the smile had struck him, stronger than any punch he’d taken. Your smile crinkled the corners of your eyes.

You simply shone.

You gracefully slid away from the men’s attention and took a seat on the chair that had been placed on the right side of the stage. You were here to complete a live commission for the grand opening, he realised. And Joel, the utter idiot he was, sunk slowly, trancelike, into a seat at the empty table in the corner.

Joel listened to music. Occasionally. When he was in a bright enough mood to let the radio stay on in his car, he kept it tuned to an old country channel. Now, he thought he could see music in the way you painted, your collarbones the careful glide of a bow across the strings of a violin, an achingly sweet song that smothered the noise in his head.

You treated your palette and your brush with astonishing tenderness. Your strokes were deft and drifted expertly across your workspace. Your eyes flickered between the crowd and the canvas, and Joel became your reverent audience.

He had no idea how long he sat there, watching. Every rise and fall of your arm held him to his seat like there were ropes around his ankles. When the emcee stepped onto the stage and brought a microphone to his mouth, Joel watched you lift slowly from your trance. You blinked twice, took a deep breath that shifted the necklace on your throat, and loosed it like a sigh. Then a speech began, and Joel remembered that you were not the only person in the world.

Joel had made a point of studying his targets: not only the man, but the place. The guests. The owner. The blueprints and the staff. He knew them explicitly. He was thorough, and he had contingency plans that surpassed the number of fingers he possessed.

So, of course, he knew your name. He knew that you had been painting since you were a child. He knew that you donated all of the proceeds from your gallery sales to various charities. He knew that your income came from commissions.

But he had never seen your face in person until now. Joel had enough of a brain to acknowledge beauty, though attraction was something different altogether, a beast he had never quite wrangled. He could not have possibly predicted the twisting in his chest or the aggressive twitch in his fingers when you shifted off the stage. He wanted to follow. He wanted you to stay where he could see you, where he knew you would be safe, while he conducted business.

Safe, though, was relative. It meant little. Joel took a moment to gather himself, straightened the dinner fork at his place setting as though he was expecting to dine at all, and waited for his target to show his face.

The last thing he needed was unexpected company. Then, a gentle shadow that smelled of summer rain and daisies eclipsed him, and Joel looked up.

Is this seat taken?

Joel promised himself a number of things.

The problem was that he couldn’t keep a single one.

He had very few contacts in his real phone. Tommy, Cabrera, Maria, Bill. He contacted these people infrequently, some more so than others. He was not fond of texting, and he kept his phone calls short. Now that your name added a noticeable weight to the phone in his pocket, Joel had never been more tempted to stare at his screen all day and night, waiting for a message.

So, the first promise: keep his phone at home while on a job. It wasn’t particularly necessary either way, bringing it along, since he had burners at his safe houses. He left it on his nightstand once before a mission. When he came home, covered in other people’s blood and sometimes his own, he picked up the phone only to find that your latest message had come through an hour previous.

‘I’ve decided. You ever make escargots?’

The night before, you were waiting on a client and Joel was cooking dinner. He put you on speakerphone so he could stir.

“Where’d you learn to cook?”

“Taught myself, really.” He’d frowned, then. “Grew up in an orphanage. They decided what we ate.”

You could have pitied him: That must have been awful. What happened to your parents? I’m so sorry, Joel. No wonder you’re terribly adjusted.

“Where did you go after?” you’d asked him instead.

“Here,” he had told you. “New York. Good place to learn how to cook if you’ve got no money to spend.”

“Smart man. Is that steak I smell?”

He’d laughed. “Close, but no. Risotto.”

“Shit, I’m hungry,” you’d groaned. “I could eat seven steaks. I haven’t eaten all fucking day; my client is late for this meeting and I came straight from the gallery. C’mon, describe it to me more.”

“I’ll make you dinner.”

It had slipped out, a little wobbly, a deer taking its first steps. But Joel had persisted, white-knuckling a wooden spoon and glaring hard at his cell phone. “Anything you’d like. Name it.”

Staring at the text message, smearing the screen with blood, Joel laughed. Alone. To himself. In his quiet, dark home.

‘You want me to make you snails for dinner?’

He had expected to send the message and put his phone face-down with enough time to shower, to cleanse himself of blood. He’d left you waiting so long, after all. But your name appeared, blown-up, on his screen. You were calling.

“Not the whole meal,” you said. You always spoke first, knowing Joel didn’t care for the hellos and goodbyes of phone-call etiquette. “Escargots is an appetiser, Joel.”

Joel smiled, which revealed some sort of painful contusion on his face he hadn’t known about. As he palmed the tender skin around his jaw, he said, “I can do that. And what about dinner?”

“Well, that, you’ll just have to get back to me on,” you said. “Gives me another excuse to talk to you.”

With that, Joel had officially forgone the promise. He wanted to carry your name with him.

He made a second promise, to set boundaries: he would only allow himself to call you once a week.

But you, who knew people better than most, who sat with them for hours as you painted their very souls into colour and light, caught on.

“You call me at exactly eight o’clock every Monday night. You could at least vary it by an hour so I wouldn’t notice.”

Joel hung his head. “Shit,” he grumbled. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Joel, I’m going to say something. I want you to listen to me.”

And he, who obeyed your every command, whose marrow sang the song he’d heard that first night at the restaurant, straightened. “Yeah. I’m listenin’.”

“I just got home from a four-hour showing, and I’m achey, and a little drunk, but if I call you, it’s because I want to call you. If I talk to you, it’s because I want to. Because you’re the best part of my day. So if you want to call me, too, just fucking call me. End my misery, okay?”

He wondered how it would taste to slip his tongue past your parted lips, to feel the burn of your celebratory champagne, the crack of your whip-smart resolve as you moaned softly against him. He thought he might like to make you moan.

You wanted to speak with him. You awaited his calls. You liked him.

As a child, Joel had known God’s wrath as intimately as he had known His love. They were the two sure things in the world, according to the Sisters. They made him memorise Genesis. Joel knew love and evil existed in this world. They had never taught him the in-between, the mundane, the nuances of like.

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “I can do that.”

So, one call a week lasted less than a week, and it wasn’t a fortnight after you first met that you and Joel were speaking every single day. Your voice was in his head, your laugh in his blood. Like dissolved. He began to need.

He knew your routines, your habits. He knew how you took your coffee (milk and two sugars, sweet to his bitter black). He knew you hated pork. He knew which paints you used most, and which palette knives were best for different details. He knew you hated painting trees, but you loved rivers.

In his free time, he would visit bookshops. You loved Wilde and Machen. It only made sense—your paintings were decadent, larger-than-life, sinful. Joel enjoyed philosophy. He liked Coleridge, Keats.

“They would’ve hated one another,” you said one day over breakfast.

“You think? They were pretty fond of all those flowery words.”

“Poetry and philosophy are opposites,” you offered.

“Maybe,” he said, “but maybe not. I think they needed each other.”

You smiled over the rim of your coffee cup. “Maybe you’re right.”

A month after he’d met you, he’d rebound a copy of The Importance of Being Earnest. A month after that, he’d worked up the courage to give it to you.

“Oh my God, Joel…”

“It’s yours,” he said. “I know it’s one of your favourites. It’s stupid, I know, just…”

You beamed at him. “Just… what?”

“Just saw it, and thought of you.”

A dozen other projects were sitting at his makeshift station. Pieces of you already lived in his space.

In these moments, Joel thought, This is what I missed. There was light in you, a light that had been beaten out of him. Some nights, the dark called, and there you were, the fluttering of strings on the Eolian Harp, and he knew he was obsessed before he drove you home that long first night.

Often, the moment lasted only for the little time you could spare: a brief text, a two-minute phone call. When he limped up the stairs to his home and collapsed in the closest chair, usually bloodied or bruised or both, your name was always waiting for him.

One night, two words: ‘Call me?’

He did.

Joel had just come home from a job in Queens. The gangsters hadn’t put up much of a fight themselves, but one of them did know how to drive a car, and he’d taken a hard sideswipe to his whole body, knocking out the headlights with his ribs. He felt, appropriately, like he’d been pulled apart, his bones stretched, muscles hot and sore.

He had made his promise about weekly calls three months ago. Joel figured he must have been out of his mind then, thinking he could go that long without you. He simply could not.

“Missed you.”

Your laugh, delighted and quiet, melted some of his bones until they gently began to slide back in place. “I missed you,” you said. He quickly assessed that you were home, judging from the buzz of silence on the other end of the line. “Tough day?”

His brother Tommy was a mechanic. So, Joel had told you he worked the books. Gave him a decent excuse to be there as often as he was. Didn’t give him an excuse for anything else.

“Tired,” he said easily, “but glad to hear your voice.”

“You sound like you’ve been hit in the ribs,” you said. “Are you sure you’re okay? Did Tommy rough you up?”

Joel wasn’t familiar with lying. He’d never had many reasons to. Violence convinced people a lot easier. The biggest lies he’d ever told had been the nightly sermons, the recitations of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Amazing fucking Grace. He didn’t like the way lying to you sat low and heavy in his chest.

“I’m all right. Just gettin’ old. Took the stairs too fast.”

“Joel.”

He didn’t like the edge to your voice. He was causing you this anguish. Fuck, he hated that thought. He hated that he had no choice but to lie. “Sweetheart, I’m okay.”

Your sigh was soft, resigned. “You promise me?”

“On my life.”

“That’s what I’d like to avoid,” you said with a laugh. “Are you back in New York?”

Joel looked down at the hand on his thigh, flexed his split knuckles. “I’m back.”

“Well, I just got back from a gallery showing,” you said. “And I want to see you.”

Joel listened to his stilted breathing punch out of his lungs in the quiet darkness, clenching his bloodied fists. In his dreams, his head was bowed as if in prayer, but his arms were wound tight around your body. The warm press of your fingers into his skin felt like the lick of a flame. In his dreams, you sighed his name and you called him yours. In his dreams—maybe his one and only dream—he kept you safe more than he put you in danger.

That was where the hopeless dream slipped like smoke through the slits in his eyes. You would always be in danger as long as he was involved in this life.

“I want to see you, too,” said Joel.

Tommy’s day gets infinitely worse the second his brother walks through the door.

“Everyone out,” he snaps, and his guys flee from the garage, letting the door fall with a clang of metal to the concrete. You jump, falling out of step with your husband and hugging your arms to your chest. Tommy narrows his eyes. “What can I do for you both? I was just about to close.”

You open your mouth, but Joel’s already working. “I need a ride.”

“That so?” Tommy cleans the oil from his hands using a once-white rag, now a slick brown, smearing it across his forehead when he wipes the sweat away. “Don’t suppose it has anything to do with the kid who drove in here with your car two hours ago?”

You lower yourself onto the hood of a nearby Porsche 911, dropping the overnight bag from your shoulder and letting it slump on the ground. Tommy watches as you study the ring on your left hand, twirling the bands around your finger.

“Shit,” says Joel, scratching his beard. “And what’d you say to him?”

“I didn’t say nothin’, Joel. I took one look at your car and decked the asshole. He wanted a tune job. Clearly didn’t know whose car he stole.” Tommy tosses the rag onto a table, next to a decanter of bourbon. “What the fuck are you thinking, pissin’ off Cabrera’s kid?”

Joel meets his brother’s eyes, a lethal glint in their brown that Tommy’s never known to mean anything good. “That,” he says darkly, “was Emiliano Cabrera?”

“Yeah, I’m sure his old man ain’t proud to share their name, either,” huffs Tommy. “I’m gonna ask again, Joel: what the fuck did you do?”

“I didn’t do a goddamn thing he didn’t deserve,” says Joel, “and I need a ride.”

Tommy’s fingers curl in at his sides. Sometimes, it’s hard not to punch his brother in the jaw. “Yeah, I heard you the first time. Just know it’s a loan. So don’t fuckin’ scratch my property, Joel, or so help me—”

You stand from the hood of the car and pin Tommy with your gaze, a bit distant, a bit icy. “I need to use your bathroom, Tommy. If that’s okay.”

He feels himself soften a bit at the sight of your trembling hands. “Yeah, sweetheart. ‘Course.”

“I’ll show you,” says Joel, reaching for your arm.

You watch the floor and brush past him. “I can find it.”

Joel’s fingers twitch as you go without another word, his eyes shuttering, and Tommy notices that his knuckles are bloodied.

“Wanna tell me what happened?” he asks once they’re alone.

Joel sits where you did moments ago, reaching for the decanter next to him. He doesn’t pour or drink; he merely angles the glass and watches the fluorescent lights filter through it. “He broke in. I killed his buddies, but he got away.”

Tommy lowers himself onto the edge of the table. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Joel.”

“Yeah.”

“She’s cut.” Tommy turns his head to the doorway where you disappeared. “They do anything else?”

“They would’ve.” Joel slams the decanter back down on the table, and the echo reverberates in the walls. “He tried—”

He does not finish the sentence, but he does not need to.

Tommy rubs his jaw. “You gotta tell her, man.”

“She’s in shock. She went through a lot.” Joel’s eyes drop to the floor, to the bag brimming with your clothes, and his jaw works. “I… can’t tell her. Not right now.”

Tommy is struck, sometimes, by how transparent his brother can be. He’s killed countless men and bled gold like some invulnerable god, and still, he knows nothing about himself. “Fuck, Joel.”

“I have to finish this.” Joel’s voice is the bottom of an empty well. “I need to find him.”

“Don’t,” says Tommy. “Don’t fucking finish it. Take your losses and go back home. You know better than anybody where this goes, and all you’re doing is putting her in more danger.”

Joel shakes his head. “Tommy, if you think I don’t know—”

“No, I don’t think you know. You want to lose the one thing you worked for all those years ago, fine. But don’t expect her to understand.”

His brother’s head snaps up. “And if you told Maria?” he counters. “Would she have given you a kid if she knew everything you’ve done?”

Tommy’s chest stirs up acid. “You’re treadin’ on thin ice, brother.”

“You’re the one who should be careful.” Joel stands abruptly and winces; he’s wounded under that jacket, Tommy realises. Hiding wounds once again. “You punched Manuel Cabrera’s son in the face.”

Tommy sniffs. “Kid’s got a punchable face.”

Joel is silent for a moment. “Yeah, he does.”

You appear around the corner, giving Joel and his crimson-stained shirt a once-over. “Where are we going?” you ask him.

The way Joel jolts up out of his seat on the Porsche’s hood tells Tommy that it’s the first time you’ve spoken to him since the incident. “A hotel,” he says, approaching as slowly as one might a spooked deer. You do not move, but you do not take his outstretched hand, your fingers curled taut around your arms. Joel frowns at his split knuckles. “It’ll be safe there.”

“Okay.” You’re staring hard at a spot on his chest, your voice hollow as if heard from the dark end of a tunnel. “Tommy, I’m sorry to barge in on you like this,” you add.

“Ain’t no trouble, sweetheart. You just… hang in there, hear me?”

“Yeah.” A wobble courses through your bottom lip and Tommy wants to hunt those fuckers down himself. “I’d be happy to paint your nursery sometime, if you’ll still have me.”

“Christ knows I’d be useless at it compared to you.” Tommy roots around in a drawer for a fob and unlocks the doors to the black Porsche. “Let’s get you both out of here.”

Joel claps him on the back. “Thank you, brother.”

Tommy tosses the fob to Joel. You’re already slipping inside the car with your bag tight to your chest. “Don’t get used to it,” he says. “And Joel? For Christ’s sake, think hard before you dive headfirst back into this shitshow.”

Joel squeezes his arm and slides into the driver’s seat, and Tommy watches his brother go.

He doesn’t remember much of the church, the way Joel remembers. He doesn’t remember the prayers or the beatings the way he knows Joel does. Tommy got off with a slap on the wrist, as far as things go; sometimes, he looks into his brother’s eyes and he still sees the fourteen-year-old kid, sharing a dark room lit only by candles and the picture of the praying hands, devising a plan to escape. We’ll get out together, brother. You and me.

He saw that look again tonight. He saw the flare surging up in Joel’s eyes, an incendiary promise.

Tommy doesn’t call his guys back in. Instead, he stalks into his office and makes a call.

The line stops ringing after three trills, and Tommy doesn’t wait for a hello.

“Your son is fucking dead, Cabrera.”

“First, you strike my boy.” A lion’s growl, stirring deep in the chest; he’s probably smoking. “Now, you threaten me, pendejo?”

“You heard me. You fucking heard me.” Tommy licks his teeth. “Do you know what you’ve just started, letting him run around this city like he owns it?”

“I’m the one who owns this city, Mr. Miller,” says Cabrera. “Now, I’d like to know why you punched Emil in the face.”

“Because, sir, he broke into Joel Miller’s house, stole his car, and tried to rape his wife.”

The silence stretches thin, and Tommy can hear thoughtful puffs of smoke burst from Cabrera’s parted lips.

“Oh,” he says at last.

Everyone is staring at him.

The lobby of the Continental Hotel, a flatiron at 1 Wall Street, is understated in its extravagance. The floors are a marble that crackles with the weight of every footfall. There are crystal chandeliers and a too-high ceiling and stained-glass windows depicting the fall of Icarus, Narcissus at the water’s edge, Arachne and Athena. Hubris surrounds you in all colours and shades. And those few milling about the lobby turn their heads to watch your husband approach the front desk.

Despite yourself, you tuck in a little closer. Joel is carrying your duffle; he didn’t bring a change of clothes.

The concierge, whose nameplate reads Charon, lifts his brows. “Mr. Miller,” he says politely. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

Joel nods. “We’d like a room.”

The concierge only eyes you briefly, but it’s enough that you feel adequately scrutinised. “Of course, sir. Single suite?”

“Double,” you cut in. You feel Joel’s eyes on the side of your head, but you persist with as sweet a smile as you can muster. The concierge nods.

“Of course,” he says. “I presume, Mr. Miller, that you are utilising your… guest privileges?”

Joel stiffens next to you. “I’ll tell the Manager myself. Nobody else needs to know.”

“Of course, sir.” Charon hands him the key. Joel reaches into his pocket and places a golden coin on the desk. You feel your brows pull together. It isn’t a currency you’ve ever seen. EX UNITATE VIRES, reads the ridged inscription, surrounded by leaves.

“Is the Doctor in?”

“Twenty-four hours a day, sir.”

“Send him up,” says Joel, stuffing the key in his pocket and fitting his hand on the small of your back.

The concierge’s voice grates down your spine, like feeling the rough underbelly of a shark. “It is a pleasure having you with us again, Mr. Miller.”

You walk just fast enough to escape the weight of his hand on your back. He’s still covered in blood.

“Again, huh?” you say quietly, your chest sluicing down the middle. “How often do you come here?”

“I don’t,” he says. “Not anymore.”

“You know, hotels are where husbands take their other women.”

Joel looks at you sharply. “That’s not funny.”

And you know it isn’t true—you know he isn’t like that—but you’ve been lied to nonetheless. The knife twists anyway.

“Right,” you say, and leave it at that.

There is a man waiting outside your hotel room. He’s squat, old, and seems to have taken on a slight hunch, but he smiles warmly at you. “Pleasure,” he says plainly. “Let’s get started.”

“Her first,” says Joel, turning the key in the lock.

“You sure?” The Doctor eyes him warily. “You’re the one who’s bleeding.”

Joel glowers. “Her first.”

The Doctor just shrugs, taking a laborious seat at the little round table by the window. It’s nearly midnight now, the moonlight filtering in through the closed curtains. Joel flicks on the light, and you blink, taking in the spacious room.

“Jesus,” you utter, mouth agape. There are two queen beds covered in crisp white linens, a bar cart, a kitchenette, an enormous claw-footed tub out in the open, and a bathroom housing a floor-to-ceiling glass shower and a vanity with two sinks. It’s big enough to host a decent gathering, let alone two people. “How much did this cost us, Joel?”

“I’ll explain later,” he says. “Let Doc check you out.”

Numbly, you sit opposite the Doctor, who dons a pair of glasses and gloves and unlatches a small medical kit. “The cut’s superficial,” he says automatically, brushing his thumb over the tender skin just beneath the knife slash. “It’s already scabbed over.”

“She hit her head,” says Joel tersely. You can tell he’s pacing behind you, his fingers on his mouth.

You sigh. “I feel okay,” you tell the Doctor. “Really, I do.”

But he inspects you anyway, shining a light in your eyes and forcing you to follow his finger and asking you mundane questions like What’s four times seven? and Who’s the president? He hands you a clean bill of health, no concussion, and you switch places with a surly-looking Joel.

He’s shed his jacket and laid it on the bed closest to you, so you dig around his pocket and produce another gold coin. Joel lifts his shirt to reveal the gash in his belly from the broken glass. And the Doctor clicks his tongue in reproach but says nothing, dabbing a disinfectant onto the wound and chuckling a little at the way Joel hisses through his teeth.

“Out of practice,” mutters the Doctor. It only makes the knot in your throat pull tighter.

“Is he going to be okay?” you ask. Joel studies you carefully, as if he isn’t quite sure how to understand your question.

“He’ll be fine,” says the Doctor, “if he keeps all movement to a minimum.”

Flipping the coin between your fingers, you can admire the intricate beauty of it. The gold is not tarnished by touch or time; it seems new. Or just unused, if Joel’s been keeping it stored out of sight. The ridges are meticulous, impervious to debasing, and you suspect that’s deliberate. Everything these people do seems deliberate.

Who are these people?

Joel seems to know. He seems to know everything. And he’s kept it all from you.

The Doctor leaves with an extra two coins in his pocket, and you’re sure to thank him as you see him out. The door closed and locked behind you, the air suddenly stifles, and the current grows warm.

You pull at the collar of your shirt and abruptly stop yourself from pulling it over your head. You’re sticky and sweaty and probably covered in someone else’s blood beneath all the fabric clinging to your body. You need a shower. And yet, undressing in front of him—the oldest, most familiar act between the two of you—is the most daunting thing you have ever done.

Joel’s cell phone begins to ring, and you’re spared for the moment.

“I’m going to shower,” you tell him, though he’s already speaking quietly into the phone. You step into the scalding shower, a lump in your throat, and scrub at your skin so hard that it’s raw and abused.

The first time you went on a date with Joel Miller, you had to ask him. He would clam up and go quiet when you teased him a little too far, his cheeks taking on a pink hue. He showed up in a stunning black suit and brought you a single daisy.

By the time you’d known him a year, you had four bouquets.

The hot water borders on agonising. You stand, back straight, facing the flow, letting it fill your tear ducts and your mouth and your nose. You let it drown you, slipping into the deafening quiet that you so easily find as you paint.

Sometimes, he’d sit behind you while you worked, those rare moments you weren’t using him as a model, and he’d watch. There was something voyeuristic in the way he could spy on your work for hours as you painted bodies in their many stages of pleasure.

You watched him kill two men tonight. He’d brought your attacker’s knife to his own throat and spilled his blood like a pig for slaughter. You always thought you knew bodies—but your Joel, your husband, knows them better than you ever thought possible.

You stand in the shower, watching the tiled wall, for longer than you should. But when you dry yourself off and dress, Joel is sitting silently on the edge of the bed with his elbows on his knees. It strikes you suddenly that this is the man you’ve painted a thousand times—often in this very position, when he gets lost in thought—and for a moment, you don’t recognise him.

He’s more severe than before. The lines of his face are jagged, tensed as though in preparation for a blow. You would paint him in shades of red and orange. You would be ruthless in your brushstrokes, and everyone would know the artist had put a sliver of her own fury into him.

He looks up and meets your eyes, and you fold your arms over your chest.

“So,” you begin, “you’re like Bond? Like, a spy?”

Joel stands, crossing the room to meet you. “I don't try to hide,” he says. “Though he didn't really try, either.”

“So, there's people who know your name.”

The pull at the corner of his mouth does not win out. “Yeah. A few.”

You make a sound even you cannot decipher, and Joel’s hands fidget at his sides. The silence descends again.

You look up at him and swallow knives. “Who are you?”

He grits his teeth. “You know the answer to that,” he says imploringly, desperately, reaching to take your hand. You step backward and watch his face crumble. “I’m your husband, baby. You know that.”

White-hot pressure prickles behind your nose. “This is the least you owe me, Joel. Who are you?”

His Adam’s apple bobs. “I…”

A hand, ghosting across his jaw, as if to conjure the words from his throat. His eyes flicker frantically between each of yours.

“You might call it a gun-for-hire,” he tells you. “I was contracted under a man named Manuel Cabrera. This hotel is for others like… like me. People who operate in the Underworld.”

The revelation should not surprise you, but the earth beneath your bare feet fractures in one seismic shift. You think of the daisies. The suits. The gifts and the walks along beaches in Spain and the soft whisper of the breeze against your cheek. You think of sleeping next to him every night, his arm wrapped around your waist because it was the only way he would sleep.

You think of the little he told you about his time in the Marines. The tattoo on his back that reads, FORTIS FORTUNA ADIUVAT. Fortune favours the bold.

You think of a gun hidden in his bedside drawer. You think of a tough childhood he’s only alluded to: an orphanage, a church, the sisters. A cigarette burn behind his ear.

“When did this all start?” Your voice is a feeble thing, afraid of its own shadow. Afraid of what that darkness will breed. “How long have you been… doing this?”

“As long as I can remember.” It’s the reply you want and not at all. Joel is looking down, and you realise he’s staring at your wedding ring. “I got out.”

“When?”

“After I met you.”

When he first kissed you, it was barely a brush of your lips, and then he was taken away. He’d frowned like it was a mistake, and when you stood on your toes to kiss him back, the gash between his brows smoothed over, and his hands cradled your face.

Don’t regret it, you pleaded.

He pressed his mouth to your temple. You are the only choice I don’t regret.

You hate how the memories crowd you now, stifling what’s logical, what’s real. You hate the phantom sensation of his lips on your skin, the bristling of his moustache. You hate the way he holds back from touching you as if it’s something poisonous. You hate his wide-open eyes. As he stands before you now, you would paint him in shades of black.

The pain in your chest yawns open into a cavity. You want to tear out the viscera and stuff it inside.

You gave your heart to him, and he poured oil-slick lies into the clean organ like it was nothing. Like it was all so easy for him.

“You lied to me.”

He swallows. Nods his head. “I know.”

You can’t help but scoff at that. “Fuck you. You have no idea. Two hours ago, I didn’t think you knew how to throw a punch. You killed those men back there, Joel. And everyone in this building knows your name. You don't know.”

And the venom tastes sweet. It tastes powerful and strong and enough to rot what remains inside.

“Was I even real?” you ask. “Was I just a cover story?”

“Don’t,” Joel snaps. “I did everything for you. You don't understand… you couldn’t understand the things I had to do to get out. To be with you. To settle down, give you the life you deserved.”

“Maybe I would understand if you'd told me!” You’re raising your voice, prickling pain behind your eyes, chest sour with an ache you don’t know. “You never even tried. You never even thought to tell me the truth? Your own wife?”

“Civilians can't know about the Underworld,” says Joel, and he looks as though he wants to say more, but you’re shoving him square in the chest—he doesn’t budge; of course he doesn’t fucking budge—and getting louder still.

“Don't patronise me,” you say, burning with vitriol, giving him another hard push. “I gave my life to you, and I’m just a civilian?”

Now he’s getting louder, grasping your arms and pleading with his eyes to make you listen. “I wanted to protect you,” he says, his voice breaking. “I wanted to give you a good life away from all that shit I’ve bled for, killed for. I needed to keep you safe, baby.”

Baby. You’ve always been his—his baby, honey, sweetheart, endlessly closing her eyes to a truth she was too blind, or maybe too unwilling, to see. And although you may resent him for keeping it all from you, you resent yourself, too, for never even guessing that something was wrong.

You feel so goddamn stupid.

“Nine fucking years.” You shove him again only to see him falter slightly on his feet, to see the helpless glimmer of tears that shine, unshed, in his eyes. You hate him for crying, you hate him for being so strong, you hate him for all the touches he’s made you question. “You have lied to me for nine fucking years, you bastard.”

“That ain’t fair—”

“No, shut up! Shut the fuck up and let me talk. You kissed me and fucked me and gave me flowers and gifts and you’ve built it all on one big lie. And you expect me to forgive you because you were trying to protect me? I married you, Joel Miller. I loved you. We made vows to trust one another, to be truthful. Did that mean anything?”

Joel’s lips crack apart like water seeping through stone. “‘Loved’?”

“You’re selfish, Joel,” you spit, your throat raw, the pressure building hot behind your eyes. “You didn't tell me the truth because you didn't want me to run.”

“Would you?” he asks. A sluice has driven hard through the resolve in his face. “Would you have run?”

The fight bleeds out of you, the excess drawn from the skin. “You never gave me that choice, so don't you dare give it to me now.”

Maybe you would run, if given the chance. Maybe you would flee far away from the dangerous man you now know he is. But you wear his rings. You’ve taken him inside you countless times. You’ve given him your soul. There is no maybe.

“You don't get it,” he croaks. “Don't you understand the things I’d do to keep you safe? Don't you understand that I’d kill for you?”

The sob bleeds from your lips. “What if I don't want that?”

Joel shakes his head. “I said no tears,” he says. “No tears, baby, please.”

No tears, he would always say. No tears for me until I’ve earned ‘em.

But it's like weights have been tied to your wrists, and you cannot lift your hands to wipe them away. Why should you have to? Why should you care to listen to him at all?

“No tears?” you shout. “You’ve lied to me all this time and you don’t want me to cry? You want me to just let it go? Fuck you, Joel Miller, and fuck you for giving me your last name, for letting me love you all this time when you knew you were lying to my face.”

Joel steps back like you’ve struck him in the face. The words are dry, blowing slightly on the air, and you must moisten them on your tongue to dissolve the numbness, water saturating a teaspoon of sugar. He does not say a word.

“What are you going to do?” you ask him. The sound of your own voice is foreign to you.

He stands silent before you, as if mulling over a million words he wants to say. Instead, he flexes his fingers, and the scabbed skin of his knuckles cracks open. “Finish it.”

“Why?” you ask. “They could have chosen any house. They chose ours. It was never personal, Joel, until you made it personal.”

You embrace your trembling arms as your adrenaline seeps, bone-deep exhaustion settling in. “I would have gone back to sleep last night,” you tell him. “I would have crawled into bed with you and let it all go away.”

A flicker travels through his eyes: like he’s been lashed in the back. “I can't,” he says. “I can't just… let it all go.”

You laugh, and it’s so hollow, so nothing, that you know a part of you is forever gone.

“I never really knew you, did I?”

He shakes his head, reaching for you only for you to pull back. A dance. “You know me. You do,” he pleads. “Baby, c’mon… you know me.”

Maybe you do. Or, maybe you used to. You knew that his favourite colour was blue. You knew that he liked to bind old books as a hobby, and that you went to used bookshops in your free time to surprise him with new projects. You knew that he was a good cook. You knew that he liked John Keats and old, terrible action movies and Hank Williams. You knew a Joel you may never have known at all.

You cast your eyes down at his knuckles, at the stitched wound in his belly. Red stains the grooves of his palms. Doesn’t he know that you just wanted to go home? “You may be doing the killing, but all of that blood is on my hands. Did you ever think about that? Do you even care?”

“He gave me no choice,” says Joel.

“There is always a choice.”

Joel traces his thumb over your wound, his eyes glimmering. He's beautiful in this light, in the way he looks a little broken from the inside. “He would've hurt you. He would have violated you.”

“What will you do when you get your revenge?” you demand. “What happens then?”

“It’ll be done,” he says desperately. “And we can go home.”

“Home.” You chew up the word and it tastes like glass. “Home is with my husband. I’m looking at you now, and I don't recognise an inch of the man I married.”

Joel chokes, giving up, giving in, his hands on your face, touching his forehead to yours. “Baby, please. You have to understand…”

You cradle his wrists like they’re porcelain, allowing yourself this final silence. “We don't have a home anymore, Joel. We have this hotel room. And right now, I just need to go to bed.”

You pry away his hands and cross the room. It’s colder here, the autumn air a balm to your skin. You begin to untuck the sheets from your bed and catch a glimmer of gold out of the corner of your eye.

Joel doesn’t turn to face you, but you hear his voice like it’s coming from your own chest.

“I love you,” he says. “I've only ever loved you.”

You look down at the golden coin you left on the table. Unity is Strength.

“That's the one lie I still want to believe.”

#fic: helen #kiwisbell's fics #joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #the last of us #tlou fic #joel miller angst #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller au #joel miller fic #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x f!reader #john wick au #pedro pascal

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