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swiftispunk · 1 year

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come back, be here | joel miller x f!reader

an in my hometown story | series music inspo

pairing: neighbour!dbf!joel miller x fem!afab!actor(ish)!reader (+ platonic!tommy and platonic!sarah)

summary: pre-outbreak/tlou. joel reckons with life in austin after you return to LA. very much set in 2002 bc it’s fun. mostly joel POV.

slight canon divergence (sarah’s mom is vaguely in the picture)

word count: 4k

rating: 18+ (minors dni)

warnings etc: smut, imo there is fluff here, angst, 10 year age gap, phone sex, dirty talk, masturbation (m+f), alcohol use, mentions of food, gratuitous time hops, payphones. NO USE OF Y/N.

A/N: you guys: write domestic bliss! give them a happy ending! romantic reunion! me: *steve rogers voice* no i don't think i will long distance relationships are hard ya'll, especially undefined ones (sorry) this is a part of the IMH universe but if you wanted some depressing phone sex with pre-outbreak!joel, you could absolutely enjoy this as a standalone.

playlist standouts for this chapter are come back, be here - taylor swift and hey jane - spiritualized

Stumbled through the long goodbye One last kiss, then catch your flight Right when I was just about to fall I told myself, don't get attached But in my mind, I play it back Spinning faster than the plane that took you...

Joel tries not to call every day.

He knows you need your space, your time to thrive and work and live the life you chose, so far from home.

Well, his home, not yours. Not anymore.

It’s usually every other day, more than that if you call with news. Not that there’s much of that; the play you'd been "starring in" had closed to the tune of some less-than-stellar reviews, you’d landed a couple regional commercials, and finally found yourself an agent that at least seemed to have your best interests at heart.

You'd called Joel to share every one of those moments with him. He’s the first person you call any time there’s something in your life worth sharing, it’s just that those instances are exceptionally rare, to say the least.

So Joel calls you mostly. In the evenings, if he’s not working late, midday if he has an hour for lunch. Once, after midnight when he’d awoken from a particularly vivid dream - one involving you in the dress you’d worn at your going-away party - he’d called you, and you’d whispered sweet nothings into the phone while Joel’d stroked himself desperately under the sheets in the desolate confines of his bedroom walls, the two of you getting off together in hushed whispers, miles apart.

That was four months ago - and it had only happened the one time - but Joel clings to the memory like moss on a damp wall.

“Are you touchin’ yourself too?” he breathed into the phone held firmly against his ear, his fingers already wrapped around his cock, hard and leaking over his knuckles, leftover from the oh-my-god-why?-I’m-thirty-fucking-five-years-old wet dream he’d been shaken awake by.

“Yes,” you whispered back, velvet soft, sending Joel's imagination running wild at what you might have looked like, hand between your thighs, the phone tucked inside the delicate crook of your neck and pressed hotly to your ear.

“Good girl,” he hummed and he listened as you fought to contain a moan, probably fearful of one your roommates overhearing.

“Are you…are you hard for me, Joel?”

You sounded so unsure to Joel's ears, which was fair. You hadn't exactly established what the two of you were or would be after that crucial Christmas visit. So a salacious phone call in the middle of the night to tell you how he was "dreamin' about that pretty mouth of yours" probably (rightfully) caught you off guard.

Still, just the sound of your voice, playing along so willingly, had Joel groaning softly, the gravelly noise a hollow thing through the speaker of the shitty cell phone you'd been coerced into buying ("everyone here just has one, I guess").

“So fuckin’ hard for you, sweetheart. Wish you were here to feel it.”

“W-what would you do if I was?”

Fuck.

Joel picked up the pace of his strokes as he considered that, his voice growing ragged as he worked to answer your question.

“Wanna get my hands on that pussy, baby. You all wet for me?”

You whimpered breathlessly and hummed a quiet, “Mhmm."

“How many fingers you got inside you?” he asked, focusing his grip towards the base of his cock, pausing his strokes and trying in vain perhaps to draw things out a bit, at least until he could hear your hushed response. He needed to know, needed to picture you playing with yourself on other end of the line, something that could help him feel like you were here with him, for real.

“J-just one.”

Joel threw his head back, squeezing his cock tighter and resuming his steady strokes at the image of you with a finger in your cunt, biting his lip hard when he thought of the way it would coat with your juices, how much he'd love to suck the sweet slick clean off your soaked digit.

You made him feel so fucking filthy. You made him feel like a man. He needed you here, damnit.

“Put another one.”

He wasn't sure at first if you obeyed, but then you both moaned quietly in unison, Joel pulling at his cock as you presumably added another finger. Joel could hear your breath catching in your throat, a delicious sound that made him wonder if you were curling your fingers inside yourself, like he'd have done if he were there.

"How's that feel?" he asked, voice strained.

"Mmmm, s'good, Joel," you sighed. The sound of you uttering his name in that contented, breathy hue had Joel losing his rhythm a bit - his motions now a fevered, frantic thing, too rushed. "Wish it was you, though."

You had no idea how much he wished the same thing.

"Me too, baby, me too, wanna get my mouth on you so bad." Breathless, crazed-sounding, he meant it. "Wanna taste you again."

A soft whine from you cut through the wire, making Joel's dick twitch in his palm, as he continued to pump himself with that same determined vigour.

"Remember the first time I sucked your dick?" you asked then and Joel's mouth fell open involuntarily, his hand once again freezing on his cock because he would have fucking come right then and there just at the thought of it.

It's exactly what he'd been dreaming about before he'd called you. You on your knees with your pretty dress under you, his forearms braced on the dresser he'd helped build, the way you'd looked so needy for it, like he'd been giving you the sweetest gift in the world. The way you'd looked up from under your lashes when you'd swirled your tongue around the tip.

"Think about it all the time, sweetheart," he managed to grunt softly. Truthfully.

He could never forget it.

Not that it could ever compare, but on the phone with you that night, conjuring up the memory, he flicked his thumb over the tip of his leaking cock, as though he could ever recreate the feeling of your tongue on him.

"Me too."

Joel's hips bucked up into his hand at that, another phantom memory playing at the edges of his mind - the one of you bouncing on his cock last Christmas, your shuddering form coming around him, his big hands on your back as he'd held you flush against him when you did, so he could properly feel all of it. All of you.

"You gettin' close, darlin'? Playin' with your clit?" Joel breathed into the phone, feeling his own release creeping up on him again as the reverie flashed behind his eyelids, clenched tightly shut with concentration. Trying to make sure you got there first.

"Fuck - yes," you hissed and your choked little gasps made the muscles in his guts tighten, right on the edge as the movements of his hand grew sloppier still.

But it wasn't enough. You were being so quiet.

"Let me hear you come, baby, just a little," he begged, voice wrecked, cock rigid and angry in his fist. “Let me hear those pretty sounds you make.”

It's what he missed the most, the desperate whines that had fallen from your lips when he'd had his mouth on you the last time; the prettiest, sexiest noises he'd ever heard.

Roommates be damned, if Joel was begging you for something, you were never going to deny him.

He listened as your breathing stuttered, picturing your fingers rubbing furious circles over your clit, until you let a high-pitched moan slip from you as you came.

That was all Joel needed to coax out his own climax, hot seed spilling over his knuckles - his last thought of you, bent over before him on a twin bed, that very first time.

That's his favourite call - or at least, it's the one that makes him the least miserable.

Of course, there'd also been the call that had come on New Year's Eve; he likes that one too. You'd made a point to call two hours early - your time, just to catch him right at midnight - his time.

"Happy New Year, Joel!" you'd screamed into the receiver, his face splitting into a genuine smile as he'd held the phone away from his face at the piercing sound of your voice hitting his ear drum.

"Happy New Year, sweetheart," he'd replied, heart bursting at the warmth in your tone, how thoughtful you'd been to consider the time difference. How you'd remembered him. "Bit early for you though, innit?"

"You better not be kissing anyone," you'd slurred, ignoring his question, already drunk - out somewhere, from what Joel could surmise.

"Not a chance," he'd assured you. He'd glanced over at Sarah, making sure she was still passed out on the couch beside him before going on,

"I'd kiss you if you were here, though."

He'd said it softly, so as not to wake her. Meanwhile, Dick Clark had quietly shined on the TV, casting blue and white light across Joel's dark living room as the big ball had touched down in Times Square.

"Me too," you'd said, and Joel could hear the truth in your voice. His chest had throbbed in time with the distant boom of fireworks outside his window, each one like a bomb going off in his gut. If you were home you'd hear them too, but through the phone, there's just Joel.

"Here's to a good year," Joel'd said, not an ounce of hope in the declaration, toasting to no one with the beer in his hand.

You'd just sighed, long and anguished.

'Cause in the beginning, in the days following that Christmas visit, there had been lots of days you'd called with tears in your voice, sobbing into the phone about long working hours, or some new rift with your roommates or - the calls he'd selfishly longed for - how much you missed him.

"I'm trying so hard, Joel," you'd cry, while he'd fight to stay composed, just listening patiently and offering comfort where he could.

"I know, baby, I know."

"Maybe I should just give up."

Yeah, you should. Come home. Be here.

"No, you can't, sweetheart," he'd say instead. "You just gotta keep goin'."

"I miss you so much," you'd sigh in that bleak, cracked, longing way, shattering Joel's heart into jagged shards every damn time.

"I miss you too, baby." Please come back. It's not too late.

Those calls don't come so much anymore, as you'd thrown yourself into your work, and time had pulled you further and further from the memory of your last visit to Austin.

Time.

Joel feels frozen in it, while it just keeps moving ahead for you.

The days he doesn’t call are boring and long, repetitive and lonely save for the time he gets with Sarah. He works the same jobs, eats the same food, drinks the same coffee. Feels the same anxious pang when you don’t call first and it has to be him, again.

Sometimes he’ll go by your dad’s, but that’s less often now, ever since he and Tommy had finished up the renovations in the attic.

God, the attic job. That had proven to be an exceptionally awkward thing, considering it had come hot on the heels of the Inevitable Talk with your father. A talk that Joel had been expecting, but which had still turned out to be painfully uncomfortable nonetheless.

Although not necessarily what he’d imagined.

Your dad had shown up at his side door after dropping you at the airport. He hadn’t seemed angry, so Joel had led him in the door and offered him a beer, which your dad had accepted with a reverent, “Yeah.”

Yeah, Joel too.

Joel’d stared at the wood on the kitchen table, and like he couldn’t help himself, broke the silence before your dad could.

“How’d, uh - how’d she seem?”

Your dad’d sighed, taking a long sip of beer.

“Sad,” he’d said.

“Look - ”

But Joel’d been cut off by Sarah coming in the front door then, home right on time from soccer practice. Her eyes had widened as she’d assessed the scene, who Joel had been sitting across from.

“I’m…just gonna be in my room,” she’d muttered awkwardly.

“There’s mac and cheese on the stove," Joel'd told her.

Wasting no time, she'd snatched the entire pot off the hob and slinked quickly out of the room, shooting Joel this knowing glance on the way that seemed to say, good luck - sorry. And also - we'll talk later.

Your dad’s eyes had followed her out of the kitchen as she’d went.

“She’s a good kid,” he’d said.

“Yeah, she is."

"S'funny a thing, havin' kids..." your dad'd started.

Christ, here it comes.

"You wanna protect 'em," he'd continued, tone level but still managing to fill Joel with a healthy sense of dread. "But you also gotta trust 'em. And respect 'em enough to respect their decisions."

A beat.

"Even the wrong ones."

Joel'd cleared his throat, shifting in his seat uneasily.

"That what I am?" he'd asked. "The wrong decision?"

Your dad had shook his head.

"I wasn't talkin' about you."

That had Joel finally looking up from the table to stare at the man in confusion. What had he been suggesting then?

"She shouldn't be out there in California," your dad'd said with another shake of his head and a sip of his beer.

That had taken Joel aback momentarily.

"You don't think she can do it?" Joel'd asked, brows furrowing.

"No, she probably could. If she actually wanted to."

Joel'd just stared back at him, that same dumbfounded look on his face.

"She's determined," your dad had grumbled. "Too proud. She decided she wanted to go out there and do this and now she thinks she can't back out. I'm not sayin' she's not good. I'm just sayin' I don't think it's where her heart's at."

"So where's it at then?" Joel'd asked.

Your dad had just given Joel this knowing look.

You know where it is, dumbass.

"Right," Joel'd replied, around another mouthful of beer. Then, for the first time since he'd met your dad, Joel'd turned on his very best let-me-date-your-daughter Texan manners.

"Listen, sir, I wasn't tryna complicate anything here," he'd said. "The whole thing just - it got away from me."

That was something of an understatement.

"She said you tried to be responsible. What's'at mean?"

Joel'd taken another sip of beer, smiling in spite of himself at the thought of you trying to protect him.

"Guess it means I always knew where this was gonna go," Joel'd postulated. "She didn't wanna overthink things."

Joel'd bristled at the memory - "We don't have to overthink any of this, Joel" - so many months ago now, your arms wrapped around him from behind, face pressed into his back. Course, by then it had already been too late, Joel having already envisioned a whole new life for you after that first kiss on the deck - one where you never left, one where you stayed here with him, slotting into his life with ease. A cursed vision, one he'd known would never be.

How could he not have overthought things? Joel, unlike you, lived in the real world.

"That was your first mistake, buddy," your dad'd said with a shake of his head.

Didn't Joel know it. He'd nodded his agreement.

"You know somethin', Joel? I actually think you'd be real good for her. You're a good man - stable. And you got a lotta love for your kid."

Joel had waited for the inevitable "but" and your dad hadn't disappointed -

"But you gotta give her space now. If she wants to come back, she will. You understand?"

Yeah, he gets it.

Doesn't mean he's gonna listen.

So he doesn’t cross the street much these days.

He would lie and say he’s just been too busy with Sarah or Tommy or work but you’d know the truth if he ever bothered to tell you.

He doesn’t go because it hurts. He doesn’t go because the driveway’s where he kissed you and your bedroom’s where his initials are carved into the dresser and the back deck’s where the whole damned ordeal began.

The more time passes, the less he wants to think about any of it.

But then there's the call that comes today.

The droning of the buzz saw drowns out the sound of the phone ringing. It also drowns out Tommy's booming voice, calling Joel's name over and over.

"Joel!" he yells again, this time with a firm hand on Joel's shoulder where he works over the plywood, which finally gets the older Miller's attention.

"What?" Joel shouts back, glancing cautiously over his shoulder, voice rising over the metallic hum of the saw. But Tommy is giving him the signal to shut the thing off, phone in hand - which is what ultimately ends up holding Joel's attention.

He clicks off the saw, removing his protective goggles and repeating himself, quieter now - "What?"

"Phone's for you," Tommy says with a lop-sided grin. Easy enough to guess who's calling then.

"She called the damn work site?" Joel asks, surprised you'd managed to track them down. They're working a job up in Georgetown, some wealthy suburbanite paying big money for easy work.

Tommy just shrugs.

Joel snatches the phone from his brother and holds it up to his ear, with a gruff, "Hello?" before tuning into the crackling sound of music playing and glass clattering and voices chattering and you, loudly talking into the other end -

"Joel!" you say - almost shout. "Are you there, can you hear me? I'm at a payphone, the stupid cell phone died!"

He steps away from the work site, trying - on his end at least - to quiet some of the background noise.

"Yeah, yeah I can hear ya fine, are you okay?"

The midday calls are rare and your voice sounds so frantic - he can't help it; worry's the first place his mind goes.

"I got a job, Joel! I got an arc!" you say excitedly then, voice just barely rising over the clamorous bedlam behind you.

"You got a what, now?" Joel asks, sticking a finger in his one ear to hear you better.

"A three-episode arc on a TV show! Oh - shit - one sec - "

Some rustling on the other end as you disappear momentarily, and then a murmured, "Thanks" that sounds like you but far away, and then you're back with a, "You still there?"

Joel furrows his brows, trying to make sense of it all.

"Where're ya at right now?"

"I'm out celebrating!" you shriek. "Didn't you hear what I said?"

Not really, but -

"I - yeah I heard, three episodes, that's - that's amazing, sweetheart."

Then there's another voice cutting through the wire - male, drunk.

"Eyyyyy! Let me buy you a drink, baby girl! This is HUGE!"

Joel hears your responding giggle, along with the sound of fabric brushing against fabric (an embrace) and glass tapping glass (cheers).

"I'll be right there!" you tell the faceless voice.

"Whoz'at?" Joel grumbles, his grip on the phone tightening as he bites back the stupid, hot, festering jealousy suddenly brewing in his belly.

"Nobody - well, Adam - he works with my agent, they're throwing this like, brunch party thing for me."

Weird, because you've never mentioned him to Joel before.

She's not yours, idiot, he tells himself.

"Nice," is the best response he can come up with.

"Well, anyway, I just wanted you to be the first to know," you say then - your voice oozing devotion - but not enough to quell the twisted knife of envy digging bitterly in Joel's core.

"Seems like Adam already knew."

God-fucking-damnit.

Why'd he say that? Does he seriously think he's entitled to every morsel of information in your life? Over some kid you work with and that he doesn't even fucking know?

Apparently, yeah.

You're quiet for a moment and Joel would've wondered if the payphone had run out of minutes if not for the noisy bar din still echoing through the receiver.

"I meant the first person back home," you amend, and Joel kicks himself when he hears the tinge of hurt in your tone.

Joel clears his throat, instantly ashamed of the senseless reaction.

"Well, I - I'm glad you did, sweetheart," he says, trying his damndest to soften the edge in his voice.

"Okay - um, shit - it's asking me for more quarters, I'm all out. Can I call you tomorrow?"

"You can call me any time you want, darlin'."

"Bye, Joel."

"Bye - "

He's cut off as the line disconnects, out of time.

Sleep evades Joel that night.

Three episodes on a TV show. What would that mean? How long would that steal you from him? How many more months till you came home again?

He morosely ponders the thought with his head in his hands, hunched over where he sits on the edge of his bed, fingers dragging over the skin of his face as though he could scrape away the memory of the phone call like a pesky scab.

"Dad?"

Sarah's voices comes softly through his bedroom door, shaking him hastily out of his dreary reverie.

"You still up?" she asks, letting herself in the open door.

Joel shakes his head disapprovingly, offering her a soft smile.

"I should be askin' you that."

Should being the operative word. He should be attending to his daughter, not moping uselessly after you.

Instead, as ever, it's Sarah who's looking out for him, joining him on the edge of the bed and leaning into his side.

"You okay?" she asks, head on Joel's shoulder.

"Yeah," Joel mumbles, voice thick.

Keep it together, he tells himself. Sarah doesn't need to see you cry.

"Yeah, m'alright," he says, sounding anything but.

"Wow, well, I'm convinced," Sarah quips, wrapping her little arms around his waist and Joel can hear her rolling her eyes. "I know you talked to her today, she called here first; I told her where you guys were."

He should've known it was her who'd put you in touch with him. And man, the kid's too insightful for her own good. He's not sure where she gets that from, 'cause he doesn't think it's from him.

"I know it's sucky right now," she continues soothingly. "But it's gonna get better."

Joel clears his throat at the simple sentiment, trying to believe it.

"You think so?" he says, emotion coating his tone as he squeezes her in a little tighter against him.

"Yeah, I do," she responds, sitting up and away from him then. "Or, just a thought...you could be all romantic and actually go see her."

Joel's shaking his head before she can finish speaking - as if he hadn't already considered that dozens of times.

"And leave you here all alone? Come on."

They share a smirk but then Sarah shrugs.

"Just sayin'. I think you should do it."

His smile shifts to something more placating, willing her to understand how much more complicated things were than that.

"It's late, you should go to bed."

"Okay, but only if you do too."

"Deal."

He's dreaming again.

Of you, of course.

But it's not like the other times; you're not on your knees in front of him or sitting on his cock or bent over the twin bed under a canopy of glow-in-the-dark stars.

No, this time, you're locked in a tight embrace on the side of the interstate, as though you'd met him halfway somewhere at a lonely truck stop, hands interlocked behind his neck, while his grip your waist tightly. He's breathing in your scent, committing it to memory because he knows he'll have to leave again soon - always losing you, always saying goodbye.

Except...no. This time, there's something new. Dread is replaced by a sense of permanence as the truck stop melts away and there you both are again, safe in your driveway, bodies still entwined but never breaking. No incessant honking forcing you apart, no one-way flight waiting to take you away.

It doesn't have to end.

He jolts awake, the stand-up fan beside his bed cooling his clammy skin and making him shiver involuntarily.

Fuck it, he decides then.

He grabs the phone off the nightstand and makes a call.

Please be awake, please be awake, please be awake -

"'Lo?" Tommy's voice comes through the other end, gooey with sleep and laced with mild concern. Joel checks the time on his alarm clock - 2 a.m.

"Tommy, do I ask you for anything, ever?"

"Uh...no?"

Stupid, stupid, stupid, this is the stupidest thing you've ever fucking done -

"Can you watch Sarah for a few days?"

"Uh...why?"

"I'm goin' to California."

You took a call then you ran all day That clock goin' 110 I never said I'd get you back again Said "I ain't got time to make no mistakes" "Ain't got time to waste my brakes"

END.

in my hometown taglist -

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#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x y/n #joel miller smut #joel miller angst #pre outbreak joel miller #dbf!joel #tlou fanfic #pedro pascal character fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction #in my hometown #joel miller drabble #joel doesn't think sarah got her insightful nature from him but we know better #our do boy be noticing things

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