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Joel wakes early, curled up against Ezra’s naked back. The other man’s ability to hog the damn bed is impressive–his arm hanging off the side, one long leg stretching to the opposite corner–but the chill in their room has Joel grateful for his closeness. They’d moved from the couch when it became obvious they were too fucking old to manage a night on the furniture, and his knees are still complaining, but there’s a giddy seed of happiness in his chest.
Outside, the fresh snow has gathered in drifts, wind-blown. They’ll need to shovel out at some point, and they’ll probably be called up to clear the town walkways later, but for now, Jackson sleeps under a pristine white blanket.
It’s a good day for pancakes.
Half an hour later, he’s donned his thermals under a pair of flannel-lined jeans and a wool sweater, built up the fire in the woodstove, and picked up their clothes off the living room floor. He’s working on coffee and the pancake batter when there’s a frantic knock at the front door.
Joel goes to open it, finds Ellie shivering on the porch in her pajamas.
“You have a key,” he grouches, ushering her inside. “The hell’s your coat, anyway?”
“Didn’t think I’d need either, you never lock it,” she says, stamping her feet to shake off the snow. She glances into the living room, squints at something. “Dude…I’m not gonna ask why there’s a pair of boxers under the coffee table.”
Oops.
“Good,” Joel says, keeping his back turned so she won’t see him blush. “Then I won’t ask why I found your damn bra in the couch cushions last week.”
“If you had to wear one of those torture devices every day, you’d take it off the first chance you got, too,” she shoots back, then looks over his shoulder at the kitchen. “Ooh, pancakes? Did I miss a birthday or something?”
“Don’t need to have a birthday to have pancakes.”
“Yeah, but usually they’re just for special occasions or Sundays or whatever.”
“Just seemed like a good day for it. Snow day n’ all.”
She peers at him suspiciously. “Huh.”
“What?”
“You’re just unusually chipper for someone who’s gonna have to spend the day shoveling this shit.”
Joel snorts. “Don’t remind me. D’you want pancakes or what?”
“Uh, duh .”
“Then make yourself useful an’ set the table. Think we still have some strawberry preserves left over from the summer in there, too.”
“Yes, sir!” she mock-salutes, heading for the fridge.
The first pancakes are ready to be flipped when he reaches across the counter to grab a spatula. He crosses Ellie’s line of vision as she’s putting butter on a small plate and suddenly she’s grabbing at his hand.
“The heck are you–oh.”
She’s staring, bug-eyed, at the simple gold band on his finger.
“What the–where’d this come from?”
She really does notice everything.
“Uh–yeah, guess we, uh…need to talk about that.”
She blinks up at him incredulously. “Is this what I think it is?”
Joel rubs at the back of his neck. “Well…we kinda–”
“Are you two–did you get engaged?”
“We mighta skipped that part…”
“You got married ?” she half shrieks.
“Uh–”
“And you didn’t tell me ?”
“I–ah shit!” Joel hisses.
Smoke wafts from the pan. He grabs the spatula but the first batch is a lost cause.
“I think what your surrogate father figure is trying to say is, it was a spur-of-the-moment lark, gem. Nothing planned, and certainly nothing we intended to keep from you.”
Ezra has appeared at the kitchen door, leaning against the frame in his sweatpants and a flannel that looks suspiciously like Joel’s. Between Ellie and Ezra, Joel’s wardrobe is slowly being co-opted into a family affair.
Fuckin’ communism.
“What he said,” Joel sighs, flipping the burnt pancakes into the trash and fiddling with the heat before adding fresh batter to the pan.
“Seriously?” she gapes, looking back and forth between them, settling on Ezra. “Oh my god, do I have to call you ‘dad’ now?”
“You don’t even call me dad,” Joel grumbles.
“Dude, shut up, I’m talking to my evil stepmother.”
“Been watchin’ too many Disney movies. Mornin’, by the way,” he say, smiling wryly at Ezra. “She knows, I guess.”
“Dude! Wait, who asked who? Did you get down on one knee?”
“He asked me, but the sentiment was mutual,” Ezra says. “And…no. Not exactly.”
Joel waits for the inevitable joke about his knees cracking, but Ellie is too entranced by this new development to make one. Small favors.
Soon he doles out the pancakes onto three plates and brings them to the table, dropping a kiss at Ezra’s temple before taking his usual seat.
“Huh. Still gross,” Ellie says mildly, prompting a revenge forehead kiss for her, too. She wrinkles her nose and pretends to push him away, but she’s grinning, reaching for the syrup. Like another child Joel adored, she pours the stuff over her pancakes until they’re practically swimming.
“Better not be wastin’ that syrup, kid.”
“You know I won’t,” she huffs, cutting into the stack and taking a giant bite before he can remind her to go easy. Practically eighteen and she’s still a tiny thing who eats like she’s starving. It’s a wonder she hasn’t choked to death.
“Sh’iz so fuckin’ weird,” she says, words muffled by her chewing. “Don’t you have to, like, register with the council or something? Say some vows? What about the cake?”
“Uh, no,” Joel says. “Don’t have to do any a’that.”
“Why the hell would you get married if you don’t even get to have a fucking cake?” she says.
“There used to be certain legal benefits,” Ezra muses. “In this day and age, it’s more a…show of commitment.”
“Right,” Joel mumbles. “Don’t need to be a big deal.”
“Hmm. I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Ezra offers thoughtfully. “It’s a very big deal. Especially when you consider the history, the matrimonial bond for same-sex couples back in the day was a pretty sad state of affairs…and Jackson is the exception to the rule. I don’t recall FEDRA giving out marriage licenses to queer folk.”
“I don’t–I just meant…we don’t need to make a show of anythin’.”
“And what if I wanted a bit of fanfare, hm?” Ezra asks nonchalantly, gesturing with his fork. “The wedding of every little boy’s dreams? Flowers, champagne, a sparkly white dress–”
Ellie giggles. “Dude.”
“I could pull it off,” Ezra smirks.
Joel barely hears any of this. He fumbles for his coffee and tries to clear his throat.
“I–you–you do? I mean, do you?”
Had he fucked this up already? He’d been enchanted, dopey with lovestruck affection and not thinking entirely with his brain when he’d presented the rings. Truly, he hadn’t been thinking much at all, warmed by the fire and the thought of his future husband’s hand in his and then, well, everything had turned very–
“Awwwww-kard,” Ellie says through a mouthful of pancakes, and Joel shoots her a look.
“Kid–”
But Ezra is grinning, watching Joel get more and more flustered. “I’m pullin’ your leg, songbird. No fuss necessary on my account.”
Joel returns to his food, still nursing a seed of discontent when his thoughts are interrupted by slurping, Ellie having tipped up her plate, licking it clean.
“What!?” she says off his look, wiping the back of her mouth with her sleeve. “Told you I wouldn’t waste it.”
“Raised in a goddamn barn,” Joel mutters, looking to Ezra for sympathy, only to find him doing the same thing.
“Waste not, want not,” Ezra chirps, and Joel doesn’t miss the wink he gives Ellie across the table.
They’re already ganging up on him. Christ .
Later, after Ellie has bounced out the door with a promise to help shovel, they’re dressing to go out and brave the snow, pulling on thick coats and gloves.
“Hey,” Joel tries. “I, uh…about the whole, uh, wedding…thing. If you wanted…somethin’ more...I guess I prob’ly shoulda asked, but I wasn’t, uh…”
He rubs at the back of his neck, feeling just as awkward and fumbling as he had the day they first met. Two years together and the man can still turn him into a bumbling idiot. He’s fuckin’ hopeless.
Ezra’s expression softens. “I genuinely had no expectations…ceremonial or otherwise.”
“You sure? ‘Cause we can…if you–”
Ezra shakes his head firmly. “I’m certain. This,” he murmurs, reassuring him with a soft kiss. “This is more than enough.”
~*~
Joel is clearing the walkways in front of the Bison just before lunch when Anders walks by and claps him on the shoulder in passing.
“Congrats, man!”
It takes him several minutes to puzzle out what the hell he’s being congratulated for.
By the end of that day, enough of their neighbors have extended well-wishes that Joel knows Ellie must have talked to someone. Probably Dina, the unofficial Jackson town crier. When there was local news to share–and a couple making it official in their tiny community was exactly the kind of gossip that spread–Ellie and Dina were more efficient than a local news broadcast.
Tommy’s shit-eating grin the next morning at the stables is enough to confirm his suspicions.
“Heard congratulations are in order, big brother.”
“Ellie told you, huh?”
“Yup. But why the hell am I hearin’ about it from your kid and not you?”
Joel shrugs, smiles to himself. “Seem to remember you getting hitched without tellin’ me. Among other things.”
“You ever gonna consider letting me live that down?” Tommy asks cheerfully.
“Don’t reckon so.”
“Well, I’ll be the bigger man and forgive you,” Tommy says. “And I’ll do you one better and warn you; the girls are fixin’ to throw you two a surprise party.”
Joel groans, starts to open his mouth to protest, but Tommy holds up a hand.
“Look, you didn’t hear it from me. But don’t bother tryin’ to fight ‘em on this; Ellie’s invested and Maria’s always lookin’ for an excuse to lighten things up around here. I made ‘em promise to keep it small, but…”
He shrugs as if to say What can you do?
Joel huffs, tightens the strap on the saddle and tugs on the reins to lead Old Beardy out. Tommy follows with Justified, and soon they’re mounted up and riding through the gates.
“Gonna be a helluva week,” Tommy mutters. “Got half the crew off with that flu thing goin’ around. Think I’m on the damn schedule every day ‘til March.”
Joel grunts. “Yeah, me too.”
“Gonna make for a short honeymoon, huh?”
“Jesus Christ,” Joel mutters, urging his horse to pick up the pace amidst Tommy’s delighted laughter.
It’s an uneventful if slow ride, the trail soft and not yet packed down after the storm. They take out a couple of runners from a distance–can barely be called runners, though, forced to shuffle and stumble through drifts, making them easy targets. Tommy’s in a chatty mood, and Joel is content to let him hold up the brunt of the conversation, business as usual. They’re taking lunch after clearing the outpost just outside Wilson when Tommy brings it up again, the serious note in his voice immediately setting Joel on edge.
“Y’know I’m happy for you, right?”
“Uhhh…yeah,” Joel says, opening the logbook.
“Think Sarah woulda got along real nice with y’all.”
The thought doesn’t stir the same hurt it used to, doesn’t bring him to his knees with grief, but his brother’s doing that thing he does with his hands when he wants to say something and doesn’t know how. He frowns.
“Sure…”
“I don’t–uh…I mean, I knew you weren’t…y’know. Glad it’s…glad Ezra’s good. Good for you. Even if he’s not, uh…not who I woulda…I just–”
Joel fixes him with a blank stare. “Spit it out, Tommy.”
His brother rubs at the back of his neck. Joel tenses, waiting for some just-shy-of-homophobic remark, the kind he’s grown all too familiar with over the last couple years.
You don’t look like the type.
Joel Miller? I never would’ve thought.
Although he’d really hoped never to hear it from Tommy, who, until now, had kept silent about his brother’s inclinations. As he damn well should.
But he remembers all too well where they grew up, and old habits are hard to break.
Tommy sighs. “Haven’t seen you this happy since…since Tess, is all.”
Hearing the name jars him, his pen stuttering over the page, marring his signoff. He swallows the sudden lump in his throat, feels the weight of the new ring on his finger acutely. Just like his brother, to poke at a sore spot he didn’t even know he had.
“Yeah,” Joel mutters, slapping the book shut. “Thanks.”
“Sometimes I wonder what she’d make of all this,” Tommy says, chuckling, running a hand through his curls. “Communism. Fuck, she’d think we lost our damn minds.”
It occurs to him, probably two years too late, that Tess was just as much Tommy’s friend as Joel’s. Even if they weren’t exactly on speaking terms by the time Tommy ran off with the Fireflies, the three of them had once been close enough to be called family.
“You ever think about her?” Tommy asks when they’re mounted up and headed back toward town. There’s an edge to his voice that tells Joel he knows he’s treading dangerous ground.
“Not much,” Joel says tightly. Truth be told, it was closer to not at all until today, but like hell he’s going to tell his brother that.
You don't bring up Tess, ever .
Seems like he did a damn good job of taking his own advice, for once.
“Huh,” he says, too lightly. “Well…I think she’d be happy for you, too, big brother.”
Joel grunts and says nothing, stares straight down the path in hopes of ending this conversation right fuckin’ now. It works, and Tommy’s usual chatter dies down to the occasional comment on their surroundings.
But the damage is done and a slow-festering guilt has already begun blooming behind Joel’s ribs at the mention of her name.
It’s a long, cold ride back to Jackson.
~*~
Tommy’s not wrong about the patrol schedule. For the next ten days, they’re on duty from sunup to sundown. Thankfully wintertime means they’re mostly uneventful rides, but he puts in a lot of miles, the kind of days that leave his back achy and his ass and hips sore. Most nights he comes home bone-tired, with just enough energy to eat something and shower before falling into bed.
For his part, Ezra waits up for him to make sure he has a hot meal, teases about becoming a “proper little ménagère, ” and threatens to find a frilly apron at the trading post to complete the look. Meanwhile, Joel just tries not to fall asleep on the couch…and fails most of the time.
All the while, riding the trails with his patrol partners, he has too much time to think.
And for the first time in years, he’s thinking of Tess.
Fifteen years as partners. Two months traveling together before they’d fallen into bed and swore to keep each other’s secrets. It was more than he gave anyone back then, but it had never really been enough.
She asked once. Just once.
And he’d turned away. Got shitfaced. They never talked about it again, but she still came home to their bed every night.
…not to feel the way I felt.
And it wasn’t like she’d asked for much. Certainly nothing as formal as a proposal or a ring or even a promise. Just his heart, shattered as it was, and he couldn’t even manage that.
Then it was too late. Made him promise to save who he could and sacrificed herself for him, for Ellie, for the hope of a future she would never see. She would never know what she’d done for him.
Her memory haunts him, nags at him, makes a home under his skin like a splinter. She’s there, hovering at the edges of his consciousness, a ghost in his peripheral vision. He sees glimpses of her on patrols, in the lurch of a small, slight woman in flannel, infected; in someone’s long, red-auburn hair at the stables; in a rough laugh amongst the crowds at the dining hall.
And then one night, he dreams. The kind of dream he hasn’t had in months, the kind of dream he used to have over and over, but this time it’s Tess instead of Sarah.
Tess, yelling at him to help her, goddammit, there’s gotta be something .
Tess, pulling back her collar to reveal the bite with one already twitching hand.
Tess, twisted and gnarled with infection, caught in a sea of flames.
He wakes sweating and panting with a scream stuck in his throat and her mutilated face burned into the backs of his eyelids.
“Joel? Wha-happened?”
Ezra stirs at his side, voice thick with sleep.
“It’s…it’s nothin’,” he says roughly, still trying to catch his breath. “Go back to sleep.”
Then there’s a hesitant hand on his shoulder, and he lets himself be pulled down and pressed into the cradle of Ezra’s good arm. Soon his breath flutters the hair at his temple, slow and even, but Joel doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night.
~*~
Five years earlier
“Shouldn’t have turned around,” Joel grumbles, hissing as he puts more weight on his bad leg. “We coulda made it.”
Tess looks up at him from under his left arm; he’s been using her as a human crutch for the last quarter mile.
“Sure,” she says drily, grunting as they take another uncoordinated, shuffling step. Behind them, black storm clouds are rolling in faster than they can walk and the wind has already picked up, whipping the first drops of rain hard enough to sting their cheeks. “You wanna get caught in this shit, be my guest, but I’m not gonna get soaked on your account, and you can’t fuckin’ walk.”
“Gonna be late. They won’t let us in.”
“Frank won’t care.”
“Bill will.”
A dry chuckle. “Yeah, well…we both know Bill’s not in charge.”
They’d done the trip from Boston to Lincoln dozens of times without incident, but today, the raiders took them by surprise. It was rare to find a group so ballsy as to fuck with Joel and Tess. Their reputation extended well beyond the walls of the QZ, but apparently these folks hadn’t heard about them, or they were feeling brave, desperate, stupid, or some combination of the three.
All four men were now littering the side of the road about half a mile back, but Joel took a bullet to the calf for the trouble.
“Just a graze,” he’d said tightly, blood pooling sticky and warm in his boot, but Tess took one look at the damage and shook her head in disgust. They were a mile past one of their cache houses, and Lincoln was at least six miles down the road.
“We’ll get to the safehouse, get that bullet out of your leg, wait out the storm,” Tess said in a voice that suggested the decision was final.
It usually was with her.
The safehouse is an old hunting cabin off a logging road. They’d set it up as a cache years ago but hadn’t had much need for it given the proximity to Lincoln. The rain has begun in full force and they’re already soaked by the time Tess confirms the place is clear, Joel sagging against the side of the building to keep watch.
Once they’re safely inside, Joel collapses onto the cabin’s only piece of furniture, a decrepit sofa. Tess is rummaging around in her pack and pulls out the first aid kit– a box of cloths, a flask of alcohol, a needle and thread, a lighter, and a roll of duct tape.
“Pants off, Texas.”
He’s in too much pain for innuendo. Tess unwraps the makeshift bandage, already soaked with blood, and he slides his jeans down with a groan and a muffled curse. Then she unbuttons her short-sleeved button-down, stripping down to her bra.
“What?” she says off his incredulous look. “This is my favorite shirt, not gonna get it all bloody. On your front.”
He obliges, rolling until he’s face down on the couch so Tess can examine his leg.
“Huh,” she says. “Never gonna believe this.”
Joel grunts. “Try me.”
“Went clean through.”
“Lucky me,” he grits his teeth.
“You are,” she says. “Few inches off and we’d be having a very different conversation. Alright, might wanna bite down unless you want every infected in a half-mile radius finding us.”
“I’ll be fine. Just do it.”
The alcohol burns like a motherfucker, but at this point, the pain is barely a blip on his radar, more of the same. The stitches are a different story. He ends up grabbing his belt, doubling it up and sinking his teeth into the sweaty, sticky old leather as Tess finishes sewing up the wounds.
“Not my best work, but it’ll hold until we can get Frank to take a look. Pretty sure Bill still has a stash of antibiotics,” Tess murmurs, digging in her pack for a fresh cloth to wrap it. “Just gonna tie this. We have the oxy–”
“Ain’t tradin’ that for antibiotics.”
Tess huffs. “No, Frank won’t let him trade for those, anyway. But you might want the oxy later. Don’t know how long the storm is going to last and you’re shaking.”
He is; he hadn’t even realized it. He’s trembling and his skin is dewy with sweat.
“Shock,” he mutters. Not the first time he’s been shot, after all.
“Uh-huh. Alright, you can roll over.”
He does, with some difficulty. Outside, rain lashes at the windows, lightning cracks and fills the room with bursts of light. Joel shivers, teeth clattering.
“Shirt off,” she says. “You’re soaked, that’s not helping.”
He tries, but his fingers are shaking too hard to undo the buttons. She pushes his hands gently away and does them herself, urging him up to take the wet flannel off, then unzips his bedroll and tucks it around him. Then she places two white pills in his palm.
“Don’t need ‘em,” he grits out. These are the good pills and he’s thinking of all that profit gone to waste for a stupid fuckin’ graze.
She doesn’t give him the satisfaction of an argument, just wordlessly holds out the flask. The shaking is making his damn leg hurt even worse. He swallows the pills with a mouthful of booze exactly as she knew he would.
The pain slowly ebbs, replaced by a fuzzy, uncaring feeling he recognizes all too well. He’s drifting on that high as time spreads like liquid honey, faintly aware of Tess’ movements about the room–digging under the floorboards to examine their cache, replenishing their ammo, checking the windows and exits, still only half dressed. At some point, she lets her hair down, damp and darkened from the rain, and combs it out with her fingers. A shorter cut would be easier to maintain, less likely to attract unwanted attention, but it’s one of the few vanities she allows herself and he secretly loves it. It always smells like her, soft burnt gold and sweet no matter how many miles they’ve covered.
Eventually, she settles on the floor next to the couch, sipping at the flask with her gun at hand.
“Sleep,” she all but orders, and he does.
When he wakes, it takes his eyes a moment to adjust. It’s night. The sounds of thunder and the roar on the roof overhead tells him it’s still pouring. Tess is silhouetted in the window, the orange glow of a cigarette moving in the dark.
His leg throbs and he can’t hold back a grunt of pain. The drugs have worn off, but he’s not going to take more if he can avoid it. She notices, though, and turns.
“Should get away from the window,” he says. “Someone might see the light.”
A deep inhale. “Not in this shit. Can’t see two feet in front of your face out there. How’s the leg?”
“Fine,” he mutters, trying to sit up, grimacing, hoping she can’t see his expression in the dark.
“Clothes should be dry,” she says, moving to his side, the smell of smoke wafting over him. Another rare indulgence, soothing her overtaxed nerves. She hands him the flask and he accepts it gratefully. Her hand is firm on his shoulder as she eases down to the floor.
“All’s quiet,” she murmurs, stubbing out the cigarette on a piece of foil. She leans her head back against his thigh and his hand finds its way to her hair, rubbing circles into her scalp until she hums.
“I can take watch,” he says roughly. “Let you get some rest.”
“You’re in no shape. We’re fine,” she says, then softens. “Was looking forward to one of Bill’s meals. Heard they found a contact and traded for a share of beef. Real steak.”
“End of the goddamned world and Frank’s still holdin’ dinner parties,” Joel mutters.
His hand drifts lower, callused fingers dragging over the back of her cheek, feels her smirk.
“He offered us a place.”
“Huh? Who?”
“Frank. We’d have our pick of houses within the perimeter. Share the work, share the supplies.”
“...and Bill’s alright with that?”
“I don’t think Bill knows.”
“What, uh…what’d you say?”
She shrugs, a non-answer. The silence grows heavy and he lets it lie. Often he doesn’t need to wait long before Tess takes control of the conversation, anyway, and he’s too stunned to find the words.
“I think Frank is worried about Bill,” she says softly. “What happens…after.”
After.
Frank has been sick for months. They’ve managed to trade for certain medications that help control the symptoms, but there is no cure, no coordinated treatment. The last time they made the hike from the QZ, roughly six months ago, Frank was no longer able to get out of his wheelchair.
“Can’t say I blame him,” she continues, frowning, picking at something on the floor. “There’s strength in numbers.”
Joel grunts, noncommittal. He’d rather have his leg amputated with a rusty hacksaw than live within ten miles of Bill.
“I keep thinking about it,” Tess says. “No more FEDRA, no Fireflies…no getting shafted on trades, hunting these assholes down–”
Joel blinks, wiping his hands over his face, trying to clear his head. This conversation feels like a dream, like it’s not really happening, and he wishes he had a couple more oxy so he could blame the drugs. Tess, the woman who had him break a guy’s fingers for shorting her three cigarettes–one finger for each. The woman who just murdered four people because they made the lethal mistake of shooting first. Tess– his Tess–talking about settling down.
“Can you even imagine?” she sighs.
He grunts again. She turns to look at him but he can’t meet her eyes.
“Aren’t you tired, Joel?”
Tired? Of course he is. His back hurts, his knees hurt, everything fuckin’ hurts. He hasn’t slept a day without booze or pills in years. But the hurt keeps him grounded, keeps him going, keeps him from feeling…everything else.
“So you wanna quit?” he says flatly.
“What is there to quit?” she scoffs. “We were never going to settle in Boston, we said it was temporary–”
“It’s been ten fuckin’ years.”
“Yeah, and we had plans, remember? Get out of the city, away from FEDRA. This could be our chance.”
“That was before. There were more of us. An’ Tommy…”
“Tommy,” she sniffs. “You really think he’s coming back?”
No, he doesn’t. Their once-weekly radio messages are growing further apart as they have less and less to say. The thought sets an aching fire in Joel’s chest and he takes a long swig of the whiskey. It burns the same, but at least it’ll get him drunk enough to forget.
“Look,” she tries again. “We go to Bill and Frank’s, we can retire. I sure as hell wouldn’t mind taking it easy for once. We’ve spent half our lives running, we’re getting too fuckin’ old for this–”
The windows flash, thunder rumbles, and he can see the lines around her eyes in harsh relief. He hates her for bringing this up, hates himself even more for the anger it stirs in him.
“Y’don’t retire from this,” he says. “That ain’t the world we live in.”
Her derision is palpable. “Just what I thought you’d say.”
He shifts on the couch, tries to stretch his busted leg and hisses at the stabbing, lancing pain. “What do you want, Tess? You wanna, what…plant a garden? Grow fuckin’ tomatoes? You can do that just fine in the QZ.”
“No, I–”
“You wanna spend the rest of your life drinkin’ shitty wine over hors d’oeuvres in Frank’s backyard like some post-apocalyptic Martha Stewart?”
He’s being cruel and he knows it, but he can’t seem to shut his mouth. Under any other circumstance she’d probably haul off and punch him and that would be the end of it, but she’s strangely subdued, almost melancholy. It’s unsettling, unnerving, makes his jaw ache from holding it tight, waiting for the strike that won’t come.
“I want to live , Joel,” she snaps. “I want more than this. Shitty fuckin’ apartment, living off rations, in lockup every other week for the dumbest shit. This isn’t a life! It’s fuckin’ purgatory.”
“I can’t do that, Tess,” he spits. “You get…you get what you get with me. I ain’t gonna settle down in some shit suburb an’ play fuckin’ house.”
“Just…fuck it. Fine,” she snaps. “Forget it. You’ve made your point. We stay in Boston.”
He takes another long, unsatisfying drink and silently begs for it to take hold, to take him past the point of caring. They stay like that, quiet and rigid in their anger, until the weight of her head against his thigh is barely there, until he can’t pin his thoughts in place long enough to let them sink their teeth in. He’s drifting and dozing when she nudges him awake.
“Move over,” she mutters, and he does.
She crawls under the blanket and tucks herself against his side. This is how they work–quick to anger, quick to forget. She’s warm and soft against his bare skin and he’s able to momentarily shut out the pain. Not just his leg, but all of it.
Sarah.
Tommy.
Everything they did to get to this point.
She makes it easy to forget.
“You’re right,” she says softly, fingers skimming over his chest. “But…we can’t keep going like this, Texas. One of these days, our luck’s gonna run out.”
Later, she shucks off her jeans and briefs and straddles his hips. Her hair falls around him, featherlight and sweet against his cheeks, forming a curtain as their lips meet. She tastes of liquor and smoke and desperation. Tight and hot, blunt fingernails digging into his pecs as she rides him slowly, grinding down to hit just the right spot, using him. But that’s fine, she’ll get what she needs, what little he can give. A warm body on a cold night, another set of eyes on her six, the brains to his brawn. Two halves unable to make a whole.
Lightning flashes and she hovers over him like an angel, haloed by the light as she comes, and he follows her into the dark.
~*~
Present day
Two weeks after his impromptu proposal, Joel comes home with a spring in his step. He’s exhausted, just about worn down to the marrow, but he’s home for dinner and the patrol schedule has loosened up. He has two whole days off.
He’s going to sleep. He’s going to spend time with his kid. Maybe pick up his guitar for the first time in weeks. And he’s going to spend at least one of those days with Ezra, because it’s been way too fuckin’ long.
There’s music on the record player and the smell of something cooking. He half expects to see a frilly apron, too, but no, it’s just Ezra in an undershirt and dark jeans standing at the stove. Joel stops in the doorway to admire the sight–bare shoulders and biceps, the dark curl of hair at the nape of his neck, the easy confidence in his movements.
“Hey,” he says in greeting, suddenly itching to touch him, to ground himself in the warmth of his body. He moves in and wraps his arms around Ezra’s waist and presses his cheek to his back. Home.
“Exercise caution, songbird, there are hot things afoot,” he says. “And a stew.”
Joel muffles his groan and mutters into the back of Ezra’s neck. “You’re terrible.”
“Terribly charming, I agree. The stew should be moderately edible, if my culinary talents haven’t failed me.”
But Joel finds he isn’t much interested in the food. The sight of all that bare skin has him wanting.
“Supper can wait,” Joel murmurs, drawing his hands across Ezra’s stomach, his hip, swaying a little. “S’go to bed.”
“As much as I would love to indulge, I’m afraid we have social obligations,” Ezra sighs.
Joel pulls back, frowning. “No.”
“We’re due at the Bison in an hour.”
“Shit,” Joel grumbles. “This what I think it is?”
“I’m afraid so,” he says, turning around. “And it would be in poor taste to miss our own party. Go clean up so we can eat.”
“Thinkin’ I’m about to have a bad case of the shits,” Joel mutters, but he turns away and heads for the stairs. Poor taste aside, he has no desire to face Ellie’s wrath…let alone Maria’s.
Later, showered and dressed in one of his nicer flannels, he finds Ezra still in the kitchen doling out bowls of stew, a clean, pressed button-down shirt over his undershirt. The empty sleeve has been carefully tailored to Ezra’s form, no hastily tied knot or cut-off sleeve, and the color makes his dark eyes look even darker.
Joel swallows past the lump in his throat.
“Seems a bit unfair for you to look this good when I can’t do a damn thing about it,” he says, voice low.
“Flattery will get you everywhere, but we’re still going to the party. Eat.”
He does, and the stew is more than edible, but he can’t eat much. He’s distracted and restless, finds himself irrationally jealous of Ezra’s spoon.
“Don’t forget to pretend to be surprised,” Ezra says, adjusting Joel’s collar at the door. “And try to enjoy yourself, hmm? I’ll make it up to you.”
“Fine,” he grumbles. “But you smash cake in my face at any point, you lose your other arm.”
~*~
To Ellie’s credit, it’s nothing fancy. Sure, they’ve turned the fairy lights on at the Bison and there’s a cake on the bar, but they kept it small–which, in Jackson, means only a quarter of the town. God knows they’ve earned the right to enjoy themselves and Joel doesn’t mind being half the excuse, even if it means blushing his way through a few awkward toasts.
He remembers his first wedding, not much bigger or more extravagant than this one. At least this time Tommy isn’t 15 years old and drunk as a skunk, vomiting in the ladies’ room because the men’s room at the Elks Lodge was out of order. His new bride had been vomiting in the ladies’ room, too–for a different reason.
This is definitely an improvement. In fact, he’s almost enjoying himself when Ellie sidles up to him, looking far too pleased with herself.
“How’s life with the ol’ ball n’ chain?”
Joel sips his beer. “The hell d’you come up with this shit?”
“Dina’s got us watching old episodes of Cheers ,” she says, wrinkling her nose. Then she grins, gesturing to the room. “So, whaddya think? Not bad for a reception, huh?”
“Not bad,” he admits, hugging her to his side, relishing the way she hangs on for a second longer than usual. “Thanks, kid. But no more surprise parties or you’re grounded ‘til you’re 30.”
“Better not get married again, then.”
“Don’t intend to,” he murmurs, watching Ezra talking to someone across the room. He can’t see her face, but her hair shines under the lights and she laughs at something Ezra has said, and in a flash of painful nostalgia he can only see Tess.
She’d never asked for anything like this. Probably would have laughed in his face if he’d proposed, not that he’d ever been inclined to. But there had been a time when she’d suggested something more permanent. Something more defined. Something much like the home he shares with Ezra. And he’d turned away, unable to think he deserved to be happy after a lifetime of brutality.
When Tess died, he’d told Ellie not to talk about her, and then he’d locked her memory away with Sarah’s. But Sarah had come back to him, with time and patience and Ellie’s influence.
Tess hadn’t. And somehow, in the scant three years since her passing, he’d managed to keep her tucked away, secreted at the back of his mind in that dark, lonely place. Nothing but a shoddy stone cairn somewhere in Western Massachusetts to show for it. But something in him has reawakened, Ezra bringing it out in him, and now–
“Joel?”
Ellie is looking up at him with concern. He blinks, squints, and the woman turns so he can see her profile–not Tess, not even close. Her hair is too short, her laugh too modest, her nose too long.
But he can’t convince his damn heart.
“I’m–uh, I just–gimme a minute,” he whispers hoarsely.
He doesn't even realize it’s happening until the panic is on top of him, until he tries to take a breath and his ribs feel bound in iron. Abandoning Ellie, he makes it to the door, slips outside without his jacket, the cold air hitting his lungs like a bomb.
He leans against the wall in the alley, willing his lungs to inflate. They do, just not as fast or as fully as he’d like. Jesus, he hasn’t had one this bad in months. Not since before Ellie and he–
A hand between his shoulder blades, a familiar voice at his shoulder.
“Breathe, love.”
“Shit,” Joel croaks, half startled, half relieved.
“Our young prodigy sent me,” Ezra murmurs. “Said you looked like you’d seen a ghost.”
Joel can’t find the breath to answer, so he just nods.
“Should I be concerned?” Ezra is peering at him. “Are you chasing spirits, songbird?”
“Think they’re chasin’ me,” he rasps.
Ezra nods, draping Joel’s coat over his shoulders before his hand resumes its careful path up and down his spine.
“You know,” he says casually. “Normally one gets cold feet before they’ve exchanged rings.”
A laugh bubbles up from Joel’s throat–more a barking cough under the circumstances–but something in his chest relents.
“It ain’t that,” he mutters when he’s caught his breath. “Jus’...too much goin’ on in there.”
“Should we perhaps take our leave?”
“God yes,” Joel breathes. “Please.”
“Come,” Ezra says, threading his arm through Joel’s. “The merriment is for their sake. I doubt we’ll be missed.”
Joel isn’t so sure about that, but he lets Ezra lead him without protest, still trying to calm his heart. It’s a short walk and soon they’re standing on the porch at Ezra’s old house. He lets them in with the key Cee keeps under the mat.
“I suspect they won’t think to look for us here,” Ezra says. They shrug off their jackets and hang them in the hall, leave their boots at the door, and Joel feels a powerful sense of déja vu walking into Ezra’s office. The room is sparse now, most of the record collection having been moved to their shared house. There’s a plant in the corner on the pedestal where the record player used to be and a few books line the shelves. It’s less inhabited, less personal, but his memory fills in the blanks.
“I’m going to investigate the coffee situation,” Ezra says, leaving Joel with a pat on the shoulder.
Joel sinks into the loveseat across from Ezra’s usual chair. He hears him moving around in the kitchen down the hall, the sounds of water running. His head still feels fuzzy, but at least he can fuckin’ breathe. He closes his eyes, sags into the cushions.
Ezra comes back with two mugs and sets them on the coffee table, then moves to take his seat across the room before stopping himself. He glances back at Joel, smiles faintly. Not the only one having déja vu, apparently.
“Apologies. Old habits,” he murmurs, taking the seat next to Joel instead. “Drink.”
Joel does, relishing the warmth of the coffee despite the wood-like taste of the chicory. Ezra is watching him intently, his expression carefully neutral.
“It ain’t–it’s nothin’ bad,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady. “It’s, uh…all this has me thinkin’ about someone I knew…before.”
Ezra frowns. “Your…wife?”
Joel shakes his head, realizing with a further pang of remorse; he’s never talked about her, never even said her name aloud. “That was before…Before. Tess was my…business partner. Back in Boston, we uh…we were…”
“Attached?” Ezra offers.
Joel snorts. “Yeah. Yeah, we were…together. More or less.”
Ezra leans back into the cushions, takes a long sip from his mug. Joel searches his face for jealousy or anger, any kind of sign he should stop. But Ezra has the almost infuriating ability to detach, and his expression gives nothing away.
“Ain’t a big story,” Joel mutters. “We worked well together. Survived a hell of a lot. It was kinda…kinda an unspoken thing. Happened without us meanin’ it to, I think. Spend fifteen years with a person…you get to know ‘em. We shared everything–the best and worst, I always had a partner through it. Guess it was kinda inevitable, but…but she, uh…”
“You loved her,” Ezra prompts softly. Joel looks down, realizes he’s taken his hand.
“Yeah,” he rasps. “But I couldn’t…I couldn’t. She was bit ‘fore we came out here. She saved my ass one more time, then she was gone. Told me to take the kid and…and make it up to her.”
“Which…you did.”
Joel nods, throat going tight at the thought. He’d saved Ellie, Ellie had saved him. He thought he’d done his duty to Tess, but now he’s not so sure. The ring on his finger feels heavy again, like a broken promise.
“I guess all this…just catchin’ up to me,” he murmurs. “Didn’t even say goodbye. All happened so fast. And then…then I had Ellie to think of. And Tess died…not knowin’ I…how I…”
He trails off, unable to continue. He closes his eyes and all he can see is Tess standing in the warm evening light of the State House, telling him to save who he can save.
“Lately…I keep thinkin’ I see her,” he rasps, swiping at his eyes. “Around town, on patrol…she woulda got along real nice here. Made a good life for herself. But she never got a chance.”
Ezra brings his arm up to cradle the back of Joel’s neck, guides him gently down against his shoulder so he can bury his nose in the crook of his neck, the earthy scent of his shaving lotion a distant comfort. He wraps his arms around his waist.
“She knew,” he murmurs against his ear.
Joel shakes his head, clutches at the fabric of Ezra’s shirt, presses his face more firmly into his collar.
“She did,” he insists, gentle but firm. “And I know this because I know how you love, I have been…the recipient of said attentions, and I’m certain that even in your somewhat emotionally repressed state–”
Joel shudders, a dry laugh through his tears. Somewhat emotionally repressed couldn’t begin to describe how closed off he’d been. But then, Tess had her own demons, her own hard, impossible shell. They were as bad for each other as they were good, so many times they were the salt in each others’ wounds. But over time she had warmed, loosened, become more pliant. Somewhere along the line, she’d forgiven herself, while he continued to wear his self-hatred like armor.
Ezra pulls back, looking at him curiously.
“Y’don’t know, Ez, you don’t–I wasn’t…like this,” he says thickly. “Was barely alive.”
“But you are now. What she saw in you was worthy, so you live for her.”
“Sometimes I think…I don’t…don’t deserve to.”
“Whether any of us is deserving is beside the point,” he says gently. “You’re here, so you live for the ones who couldn’t.”
Joel huffs softly and Ezra leans in, presses a long kiss to the furrow between his brows, resting forehead to forehead, sharing breath. There’s an ache in his chest with her name on it clamoring for attention, a grief mixed with shame and hope and all the leftover love that had nowhere to go until now. A rough thing worn smooth over time.
Wasn’t time that did it , he thinks dully.
When their mouths meet, it’s hard and frantic and needy, pent up desire and sadness, a need to prove something. It’s been too long and there’s been too much and he needs to forget, so he lets Ezra ease him back, knee between Joel’s thighs, both of them sliding down into the cushions.
“Aren’t we getting a bit…far in years…to be doing this kind of thing on the couch?” Ezra murmurs between kisses, lowering himself onto Joel with a groan.
“Weren’t complainin’…last time,” he grits out, just as Ezra’s tongue traces the seam of his lips, delves deeper, stealing both his ability to speak and his last coherent thought.
“Touché.”
Ezra’s hand fumbles between them, untucking his shirt. Joel growls into his mouth as his husband finds warm flesh, takes the meat of his lower lip between his teeth and tugs gently, then soothes the bite with his tongue. It’s all desperation, a hiss as Joel rakes the shirt up Ezra’s back, rewarded with the warm expanse of bare skin.
They’ve barely managed to find a rhythm before the front door opens and Cee’s voice rings out in the hall.
“Hello?”
“Shit,” Ezra hisses as they scramble apart. “Just us, birdie,” he calls, jumping up with a blush of pink across his cheeks. He’s smoothing his hair back, subtly trying to adjust himself. Joel bites back a chuckle. Hasn’t been caught out like this since he was a goddamned teenager necking in his dad’s pickup.
He hastily tucks his shirt back in and follows Ezra into the hall where Cee is unwinding her scarf, hanging it alongside their coats.
“Saw the light,” she says, nodding toward the office, looking back and forth between them. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No, no,” Ezra says, sounding as out of breath as Joel feels. “We simply required a moment of respite from the festivities.”
“Yeah, I get that,” she says with a wry smile. “Don’t worry, I think Ellie’s telling everyone you two left to…y’know. Honeymoon.”
“Christ,” Joel mutters, ducking his head, warmth creeping up the back of his neck. Thankfully Ezra is quick to change the subject.
“And where is your gentleman friend this evening?”
She rolls her eyes. “‘Gentleman friend?’ Really?”
“Your…lover?” Ezra tries, grimacing even as he says it.
“Gross, please don’t ever say that again,” she shudders. “ Luke is on the wall tonight, but he sends his congratulations.”
“Aha. Well, I suppose if you’re in for the night, we should take our—”
“Actually,” she says, drawing out the word. “I skipped dinner at the caf…and I have everything for grilled cheese…”
Joel recognizes her doe-eyed expression. He’s seen it on his own kid often enough when she’s asking after something, but Ezra doesn’t seem to take the hint.
“Oh,” he frowns. “We wouldn’t want to intrude on your dinner.”
“No, I mean–you make the best grilled cheese. Plus maybe I wanted to, y’know, spend time with you?”
Ezra shoots him a look. “Oh, I–I, uh–I’m not certain we’re exactly–”
“I could eat,” Joel cuts in, reassuring him with a nod, relieved to have the focus off his shoulders for the time being.
“Well, then…save the butter for your bread, birdie,” Ezra grins. “We’d be delighted to keep you company and share a meal. Let’s introduce my husband to a…family tradition of sorts.”
Which is how Joel ends up at the kitchen table watching Ezra and Cee working together at the counter. They banter and trade gentle barbs side by side, and Joel finds himself relaxing into it, happy for the distraction.
“When we first moved to Jackson, I couldn’t sleep,” Cee explains, scraping butter from a brick and dropping it into a pan to melt. “Had a lot of bad dreams. Ez was usually awake, too, so we’d meet up in the kitchen.”
“Cee neglects to mention that we were also half starved at the time. Access to a full pantry was an extravagance neither of us could have imagined…I suppose it’s no small wonder we sought solace in sustenance.”
It’s easy to see how the two made it together; they work as a team in the kitchen just as they must have worked together to survive outside the walls. But something about watching him with Cee tugs at Joel’s heart. Ezra has always been comfortable in his own skin, but with Cee he’s even softer, even more himself.
“Didn’t have much in the way of culinary experience between the two of us,” Ezra says, frowning in concentration while cutting thin slices from a small wheel of cheese. Cee begins peeling a clove of garlic. “But we had plenty of time on our hands to learn–isn’t that right, birdie?”
“Yep. Can you believe I’d never even had this stuff before?” Cee asks, looking over her shoulder and holding up the peeled clove, and Joel shakes his head. “I had no idea what I was missing. Anyway. Ez here got really good at making cheese sandwiches and that kinda became our thing. Bad dream? Grilled cheese. Rough day? Grilled cheese.”
“Sometimes it seemed that was the only thing I could get you to eat with any regularity,” Ezra says.
“Yeah, well…some days were bad ,” she says, wrinkling her nose.
“But…it got better.” Ezra looks over at her, and Joel can hear the uncertainty in his voice. It’s a question as much as a statement.
“Yeah,” she says, smiling. “Yeah, it did.”
Joel thinks of his early days in Jackson, Ellie’s nightmares, the gun under his mattress. The constant fear he was failing her. How they picked up the pieces and turned them into routines, rituals, things to get them through the hard days. Built something from two patched-together lives. Found their people.
Movie nights or grilled cheese sandwiches, they figured it out.
“This is cool,” Cee says to Ezra as they bring the food to the table. “I almost miss having you around here. Almost,” she teases.
“I’m sure it’s much–”
“Quieter?” Cee offers with a smirk, and Joel has to hide his own with a cough.
“I was going to say ‘less lively’ but fair enough,” Ezra mutters, then softens. “I’ll make dinner for you anytime, birdie. Just say the word.”
The food is good, but the company is better. Ezra and Cee carry the conversation while they eat and Joel lets them reminisce, contributing the occasional nod or grunt of agreement. If Cee thinks he’s quieter than usual, if she notices his eyes are still a little red, she’s kind enough not to mention it. More than anything, he wishes Tess could be here, wishes she could have had this, too.
At one point, Ezra takes his hand under the table, sensing his need for an anchor. He answers his questioning look with a squeeze, soaks in the sound of Cee’s bubbling laughter and the adoration in Ezra’s eyes, decides there might be something to Ezra’s words after all.
He may not deserve it, but he has it all the same. Shame to let it go to waste.
It’s late by the time they take their leave, bundling up at the door.
“Thanks for the sandwiches,” Cee says. “And for, y’know, not forgetting about me now that you’re all domesticated and shit.”
“I could never,” Ezra says, enfolding her in a tight, one-armed hug, offers his usual departing words of wisdom. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, birdie.”
“What, like get hitched?” she says drily.
Joel urges him out the door before that can fully sink in, has Ezra stopping in his tracks and turning around.
“Wait–”
“Relax, Ez,” Joel mutters.
“Did you–she said–”
“Uh-huh, I heard what she said.”
“But–”
“C’mon,” he says, tugging at his hand. “S’too fuckin’ cold out here.”
Ezra relents with a soft grumble, one last worried glance over his shoulder. Joel bites his lip on a smile. That girl sure knows how to push his buttons.
“Thank you for…indulging me,” Ezra says after covering some ground in silence. “I confess I…I don’t think I realized how much I missed our time together. It was just Cee and I for so long…”
“She still needs you,” Joel says, nudging him lightly before taking his hand. “An’ I don’t mind sharin’.”
The night is bitter cold and the wind forces them to hurry toward home. Ellie, loud and slightly drunk, if Joel had to guess, is just turning onto Rancher Street as they get there.
“Dudes! You missed a great party.”
She stumbles a little, giggles, and Joel reaches out to steady her.
“You owe me, fuckers. I covered for you. Even saved you some cake before the rest of the vultures got to it,” she says, just this side of slurring as she hands him a bundle of waxed cloth. “It’s super fucking good.”
“Uh-huh,” Joel says. “How much did you have to drink, kid?”
“Only three! Or wait…four, maybe? I dunno, Cat says m’a lightweight, whatever that means.”
“Three what? Fifths?” Joel asks incredulously.
“Just beer,” she wrinkles her nose. "Maria wouldn’t let me have the hard stuff even though I told her I can take it, that bi–”
“Gonna stop you right there,” Joel says, shooting Ezra a look over her head. Now it’s his turn to smother a laugh. “Remind me to thank her tomorrow.”
Ellie grunts and inserts herself between them, looping one arm through each of theirs for the short walk to the end of the street. She leans a little heavy on Joel’s arm, plunks her cheek on his shoulder. She’s running on beer and cake and probably not much else as they make it to the house.
“I’ll be right in, just, uh…gotta get this one settled,” he says to Ezra, handing him the cake.
“Hydrate, young prodigy,” Ezra advises her, and Ellie sticks out her tongue, follows it with a raspberry.
Joel walks Ellie into the garage room and she plops down on her bed with a grunt. Joel goes to the little standalone sink, fills a cup with water. By the time he places the cup on her nightstand, she’s already curled up on her side.
“C’mon, kid. Can’t sleep with your damn boots on.”
“Can too.”
Joel sighs and unlaces her boots, gently tugging until they come loose. She giggles, tries to help, only ends up kicking him in the arm, which makes her laugh harder.
“Wanna watch those space wars movies. Y’know, those ones with the robots? Are-too somethin’ and see-pee-oh.”
He cocks his head. “Y’mean Star Wars?”
“Yes! And the brother who kisses his sister,” she says, then laughs like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. “Pew-pew, motherfuckers.”
“You’re full of it tonight,” he sighs, pulling the crumpled blankets out from under her and over her shoulders before kneeling by her side. “Think you need a bucket?”
“Nah,” she yawns. “M’fine.”
“Alright. Drink the water. I’ll check on ya in a bit.”
Before he can stand, her arm wiggles out from under the blanket and wraps around his shoulders, pulls him down into an awkward hug that melts him. He closes his eyes, holds her tight, drops a kiss in her hair.
“You’re goin’ soft, old man,” she mutters, but she’s still holding on.
“Uh-huh,” he says, throat tight. “Love you.”
When she finally pulls back, she smirks up at him with all the confidence of Han Solo.
“I know.”
~*~
Inside, Joel shucks off his coat to the sound of Ezra rummaging through the kitchen drawer. He’s unwrapped the cake Ellie saved, now slightly squished and sitting on the counter.
“Has our girl found the answers at the bottom of a bottle?”
“Found an attitude, more like. She’ll be fine, just needs to sleep it off. Still hungry?” Joel asks, nodding toward the cake.
“Ah. Thought I’d see what all the fuss is about,” Ezra says, bringing out a knife and aiming to cut a slice.
“Ain’t we supposed to do that together?”
Ezra’s grin is a slow, sweet spread thick as buttercream. “I thought you’d never ask.”
They share the knife and cut into the cake, Joel’s hand warm over Ezra’s. It’s an impressive dessert by Jackson standards. Real frosting–god knows where they found icing sugar–and the center has a layer of strawberry jam. Joel isn’t much for sweets, but he takes a bite when Ezra offers. It makes his teeth ache.
“I know you said no cake smashing, but–”
Before he can duck away, Ezra has swiped a fingertip of jam and smeared it lightly across Joel’s cheek. His eyes flash with mirth as he leans in, meaning to lick up the mess he’s made with the tip of his tongue.
It snaps the band of tension that’s been simmering all night.
Joel turns his head before Ezra can finish his cleanup and crashes their mouths together in an inelegant kiss. His hands find the collar of his fancy shirt and holds him, walks him back until he’s crowded against the counter and licks into him, tastes the remnants of vanilla sugar on his tongue. He only stops when Ezra yelps, having almost knocked the remaining cake off the counter in an effort to brace himself.
“Shit, sorry,” Joel pants, half laughing, half delirious with it, suddenly lighter than he’s felt all week.
Ezra grins, tongue darting out to wet kiss-swollen lips before cupping his cheek, leaning in to nip at him. “I suppose I did say I’d make it up to you. You’ve always been a touch…impatient.”
“ I’m impatient?” Joel growls, pressing his thigh tighter to the growing hardness between Ezra’s legs to emphasize the point. There’s still strawberry jam drying sticky on his cheek. He doesn’t care. “Finish your damn cake, Ez. Let’s go to bed.”
~*~
So they do, curled up naked under the quilt. There’s the hint of something more, something wanted, limbs entwined and hands exploring as they share slow, lazy kisses. What started as a fire mellowed somewhere between downstairs and the bedroom, and the pull of sleep is strong, exhaustion settling heavy around Joel’s shoulders. The mind is ready but the body is unwilling.
“Sorry,” he sighs into Ezra’s neck when it’s clear they’re not getting anywhere.
“No rush,” Ezra murmurs, stretching out with Joel’s head on his shoulder. “There’s time.”
They stay like that for a while, Joel drifting on the verge of sleep while Ezra strokes his hair. He finds himself thinking of Tess again, of all the moments they missed because they were too busy scraping by. How this was all she’d asked of him, and he’d turned her away because he couldn’t imagine deserving such a life.
“Songbird?” Ezra’s voice is a low rumble in his chest, and Joel tightens his grip, nuzzles closer.
“Mmm?”
“The other morning over breakfast…when you asked me if I wanted…something more…”
Joel’s stomach sinks. “Yeah.”
Ezra hesitates and the silence only serves to tighten the knot in Joel’s chest. He feels the jumpy thrum of Ezra’s heartbeat against his cheek, waiting for him to deliver the letdown. Finally, he speaks, his voice low and rich and close to Joel’s ear, a whispered confession.
“I have never…had this. Men with my proclivities didn’t have a dearth of options before, and that became even less likely after…well. The life of a raider does not endeavor itself to…romantic entanglements. Not to say I’m inexperienced, but in matters of the heart I am woefully naive.”
In the dark, Joel can barely make out Ezra’s features, feels the tips of his fingers carding absently through his hair, skimming the shell of his ear, warming the back of his neck.
“Which is to say…I’ve known my share of lovers, certainly…but not…love.”
It takes a moment in Joel’s near-sleep-addled state to fully grasp his meaning. “Oh…”
Ezra tips his chin up, almost prideful. “I had long ago come to the conclusion that I wasn’t worthy of…something like this. I’d made my peace with that. You spoke of not being…deserving…and I know all too well what that’s like.”
His voice dips low, tugs at the meat of Joel’s heart.
“I don’t tell you this for pity’s sake,” Ezra continues. “Just to ensure you understand that I…this is…more than I could have hoped for, songbird. I don’t take this commitment lightly.”
Times like this, Joel wishes he was better with words. As it is, all he can manage is to grasp Ezra’s hand and hold on, press a kiss to his knuckles.
“I know,” he whispers. He’d been so caught up with his ghosts, he hadn’t stopped to consider Ezra might have some of his own.
Later, he’ll put on his sweatpants and boots and wrap himself in a robe and go outside to check on Ellie, peer in through the frosted glass pane to find her where he left her, curled in bed and sleeping soundly. But for now, he’s content to stay like this, wrapped in his husband’s embrace, sheltered from the cold.
Maybe they didn’t have to do it alone.
~*~
Joel wakes to a huff of breath against his shoulder, Ezra wrapped around him like a second blanket. He’s nuzzling at the base of his neck, tickling the hairs there, peppering his upper back with kisses.
“Songbird,” he hums, tightening his arm low around Joel’s hips, nipping at the muscle along the ridge of his shoulder, clearly hoping to finish what they started last night. In the light of day, with a good night’s sleep behind him and no plans for the morning, that looks all the more likely.
“M’awake,” Joel grunts, turning over, doesn’t even have time to open his eyes before their mouths meet, hungry and wanting. Ezra’s soft moan resonates between them, hips hitching slightly, already hard and pressed tight to Joel’s thigh. It’ll take a little longer for Joel to get there, but not by much.
“Do you remember when I first…had you in this bed?” Ezra asks, pulling back, panting slightly.
Joel swallows hard, nods, still dizzy from the kiss and blinking sleep from his eyes.
“How I took you apart on my tongue? Hmm?”
Ezra on his knees at the edge of the bed, Joel’s torso bared and his jeans around his ankles, in too much of a rush to fully undress, glow of the golden hour slanting through the window. The memory sparks a pang of longing so strong it physically aches, sends a groan rippling up from Joel’s throat and a pulse of heat through his gut.
The body is more than willing this morning.
“I remember thinking to myself…that I had never witnessed a sunset more beautiful…had never experienced the majesty of a billion stars in the bliss of night, or watched the arc of a dove across the morning sky…than when you reached the apex of your enjoyment.”
Joel can’t speak, can’t breathe, fixed in place by Ezra’s dark eyes and his husked voice as his fingers trace the hollow at Joel’s throat. Their noses touch, the last words felt as a featherlight brush against his lips as much as heard.
“And I thought…in my haze of pleasure…that I want to be the reason you look like that. I want to watch you come apart every damn day for the rest of forever. And I will be there to put you back together again.”
Anything Joel might have thought to say, inadequate as it would have been, is quickly swallowed by Ezra’s kiss. His tongue skirts the pout of his lower lip and then they’re sinking into each other, a consummation of Ezra’s unexpected vows.
“Jesus,” Joel breathes when they pull apart. “You stay awake all night comin’ up with that?”
Ezra arches an eyebrow, eyes shining. “Did it work?”
With an agility that surprises even himself, Joel growls deep in his chest and rolls Ezra under him, pinning his willing form with his weight. His mouth finds the hinge of Ezra’s jaw, the freckle behind his ear, the ridge of his collarbone. The want is back, that old friend, and he gives into it, lets it lead him.
Down, teasing the ridge of a pebbled nipple with his teeth, down, lapping at the hollow of his breastbone, down, dipping his tongue into the soft circle of his navel and swirling, eliciting a stifled gasp, stomach twitching.
“You know I’m ticklish, cher ,” Ezra huffs, and Joel grins, does it again just to make him squirm before soothing the overstimulation with a gentle, firm bite to the softness at the base of his stomach.
He drags his scruff along his Adonis belt, teasing him with the heat of his breath, the slick muscle of his tongue lapping, sucking a mark into the curve at his hip. He admires the flush on his skin where he’s bruised him, the red scratches his beard has left behind, revels in the lightly painful tug of Ezra’s fingers in his hair, urging him on.
When he finally takes him in, the familiar taste and weight of him on his tongue is almost as delicious as the sound Ezra makes. It’s a whimper, a breath of equal relief and anticipation, soothing the ache while stoking the fire. It’s a heady rush, that first taste, the salt-tang of him, an invitation to see how much pleasure he can wring from his body.
Joel looks up, finds Ezra watching him intently, hungrily, head cocked to one side, chest flushed and heaving. He has to admit, the view ain’t half bad, stokes the heat roiling in his belly, and he grinds down into the mattress to find some relief. He takes him deeper, traces the ridges and veins with his tongue on the way back up, revels in the broken sounds he draws from Ezra’s lips.
“Songbird–your mouth, divinity itself could–could not–ohhh–”
He cuts himself off with a moan as Joel’s tongue circles and flutters, as his free hand grips him at the base and begins a firm stroke to help things along.
When Ezra’s hand pulls away, seeking purchase in the tangled mess of their bedding, Joel grabs for it instead, reaches up to lace their fingers, resting them on Ezra’s stomach and lightly holding him down. The intimacy is almost too much.
“Oh, oh love, you–I’m–”
Joel pulls off, still stroking, teasing. “You gonna come?”
Another throaty whimper, back arching into it. It doesn’t take long, they’ve been dancing around this for hours. He watches as Ezra comes apart in his hand with a choked gasp, spilling over his knuckles and onto the wiry curls at the base of his stomach, a breathed oh oh yes oh , and the power is a heady, giddy rush.
Every damn day for the rest of forever, indeed.
He crawls up the bed and settles on his side, allowing himself a moment of smug self-satisfaction. He’ll never match Ezra’s eloquence or even his energy, but he can manage this. Have him blissed out and shuddering in his arms, gazing up at him from under dark lashes, rendered monosyllabic. Has him curling into him, lips pressed to Joel’s throat and mumbling in French, legs tangled, arm cinched around his waist. He can hold him through the come-down. Can love him the way he deserves.
There’s quiet in the aftermath, Ezra nuzzling tenderly at Joel’s throat. His voice is all grit when he speaks.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”
“Yeah, yeah,” Joel smirks, absently rubbing the back of Ezra’s neck. “Like you needed a reason to talk.”
“You love it,” Ezra whispers, peppering small kisses across the ridge of Joel’s jaw.
“Hmm. Reckon I do.”
Ezra’s ministrations at his throat become more urgent, the graze of teeth and lips and tongue. Joel’s cock kicks against his stomach as Ezra sucks at his collarbone hard enough to leave a mark. His hand slips between them and then he’s teasing with his fingers, stroking him without pressure, cupping and petting him until he’s aching. Joel watches, drowsy with lust, as Ezra gathers his own slick spill in his palm before wrapping it around Joel’s cock to mingle with his precome, easing his movements considerably. The sight is enough to make him shudder. He thinks he hears Ezra murmur something over the rush of blood in his ears, something that sounds suspiciously like waste not, want not , and Joel thinks there’s still plenty of want to go around.
“Fuuuuck,” he breathes into Ezra’s neck, and it’s a syrupy hot slide into the tight wet clutch of his fist.
Joel lets himself sink into it, lets the tension coiling in his gut unfurl and bloom as Ezra strokes him. He fumbles for something to hold, hand finds the meat of Ezra’s ass, the back of a thigh, hears a low chuckle in his ear as he gasps and pulls him close. Soon he’s panting into the warm crevice of Ezra’s throat, unable to form more than hollow sounds of pleasure and want as Ezra works him through it.
“Like that?” he murmurs, the words like velvet, and Joel can barely manage a nod. Somehow his lips find Ezra’s and it’s a long, broken moan into his mouth as he feels the band at the base of his groin tightening, tightening, ready to snap. There’s only the sound of his own heavy breathing and the slick slide of Ezra’s hand on him and then he’s pulsing, throbbing, falling apart with a cry.
They’re tender and warm in the afterglow, taking advantage of a rare quiet morning to laze in bed while the sun rises, but Joel finds himself distracted, that nagging doubt creeping in to fill the space created by their lovemaking.
“Tell me about her,” Ezra murmurs, sensing his disquiet. “Tess.”
He hesitates.
“You sure?”
Ezra kisses him softly. “Memory poses no threat to my affections, songbird.”
It should be awkward, Joel thinks, but the words come easily. She’s been at the forefront of his mind for so many days, it’s a relief to lay it all out.
And when he’s told him as much as he can remember, and the sun is much higher in the sky, Ezra strokes his cheek with his thumb and offers a simple truth.
“I have her to thank for your being here.”
And he does, Joel supposes.
For giving him one last kick in the ass.
For insisting he carry her hope for a cure, a future, and a life beyond the QZ.
For giving him a daughter.
For giving him a second chance.
He cups Ezra’s face in his hands, kisses him soundly, and silently promises he won’t let it go to waste.