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marisferasiop · 8 months

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Transplant

Chapters: 2/3 up

Also on ao3 (part 2 now up on ao3!)

Rating: Explicit MINORS DNI- Clicking "read more" implies your consent!

Warnings: canon-typical gore, canon-typical violence, smut, p in v (unprotected, wrap your tool) no creampies, oral, hand jobs, money shots (we don't want apocalypse babies) mention of abortion (in passing- reader is a doctor), tremendous fluff ahead, some angst (re: Joel's insecurities), Ezra is his own warning, Joel is not bi in this but Ezra is (not rly acted upon but mentioned), poly dynamics and conversations, Ellie moving out, Cee and Ellie will be together by the end. Did I mention smut; literally the opening scene is smut.

Summary: You are a resident and the only trained doctor in Jackson. You're bubbly and sweet, outgoing and friendly--- and also in an unlabeled "situationship" with the town scrooge, Joel Miller. He won't say you're together, but he'll scare anyone else off.

When Tommy drags back a half- dead man and girl from a patrol, you dutifully patch them up and help them settle into their new slotted house- across Rancher Street from yours and Joel's houses. Ellie and Cee get in like a bonfire, and when Joel sees how often you talk to your newest patient, his insecurities make him draw up and away from you.

As you slowly give up on him and start something with Ezra, Joel's pining turns to frustration. Tommy convinces him to see if you'd be interested in being a throuple. Surprisingly, you and Ezra are both open to the idea.

But can Joel's insecurities and possessiveness withstand such an arrangement? Or will the blow of another loss be what finally breaks him?

Word count: about 10k (for part one of 3)

Author notes: Eyooooo I'm back on my bullshit with a new addition. This has been on ao3 for about a week. Please like and reblog to spread the wealth! Unlike ao3 this is not an archive and views depend on your interaction! (So does my continued writing!)

Part One:

Joel has got you absolutely wrung dry.

You’re bent over your kitchen island, toes barely brushing the floor and thighs shaking from the aftershocks of your third ( fourth ?) orgasm since he’d shouldered his way through your door nearly an hour ago. Every time you gasp, he snaps his hips harder up into you.

Never fully satisfied with a fuck-and-duck, Joel had strode in, picked you up, kissed you senseless while he shoved your jeans down, smeared you face down across the countertop, and ate you from behind so thoroughly you weren't sure you could even take his cock from how tight he had your pussy clenched around his tongue and fingers.

But he had slipped into you easily, your drooling slick helping his fat girth stretch you wide despite the contractions of your most recent orgasm. He pounds into you now, with you pinioned efficiently under his breadth with a hand fisted in your hair at your nape and him holding your wrist in place behind your back to your opposite hip with the other. His soft grunts and murmured praise make your spine arch. Your hips are already bruising from the counter edge, and you bite your lip at the mental image of seeing that erotic evidence later.

You push your free hand beyond the ledge of the worktop and swirl your fingers over your engorged, oversensitive clit, propelling you quickly into another orgasm- though this one is not as strong. Your body is absolutely exhausted from his diligent overworking.

“ Almost - honey , just –” he grunts rhythmically with the slap of his hips, and pulls out to spill across your ass just as abruptly as he’d dove in. He drapes down over your back, catching his breath with his mouth fastened on your shoulder. You reach up and wind your fingers in his hair, keeping him bowed over you, warm and close, catching your breath. Barely a minute passes before he pulls back and is moving slowly away to the bathroom under the stairs to fetch a damp cloth.

He wipes at the mess between your legs and on your lower back, and you think of him planting a firm hand there earlier to guide you out of the Tipsy Bison after catching a guy just winding down from that day’s supply scouting trip having the audacity to flirt (poorly) with you.

Joel won't say he's yours , or you’re his , but he’ll sure as hell scare off any competition. You’d bring it up if it was bothersome; in reality you sort of like the unleashed, broad, imposing dominance of him, paired with the open availability for sex that he’s left largely up to you. Like an ongoing, wildly overprotective booty call.

The thought makes you huff a quiet laugh into your forearm.

Most of Jackson is still wide-eyed and wary of him. Rumors of how he and Ellie made it back to Jackson are rife with hyperbole- making the nearing-sixty older man out to be some sort of superhuman mass murderer.

You’re just sure that even if he is, he did what he had to to protect his little girl.

Even more rumors abound about how the town’s resident scrooge managed to stake a(n unsubstantiated) claim on the town’s most level- headed and sun-shiney bachelorette- the commune’s only actual doctor.

Joel is tossing the soiled rag in the sink and helping you back to your feet on wobbly legs when there's a pounding at your door.

“Come on, Sunny! We got an injured guy back from patrol!” you hear Brendan, the head of the wall patrol yelling from the porch.

“ Shit ,” you yank your clothes back up in a hurry. You blink up at Joel, pulled too fast from bliss into action. “Sounds like I'll be at the clinic late.”

Joel nods and shoves his boots on, intending to take the back door and cut through the back yard to his house next door. “See ya tomorrow, then, hon,” he murmurs. He drops a kiss to your cheek and shuts the door behind him, locking the knob.

You grab your heavy coat and shrug it on to beat the swirls of snow outside before rushing out and meeting Brendan on the street.

“What happened?”

“Patrol brought in a girl and her dad, he’s unconscious, feverish, and bleeding real bad. Both are hypothermic. Tested negative of course, both of ‘em, but I'm not real sure the guy’s gonna make it.” You are both hurrying across town back to your clinic as fast as the frigid air icing down your throat will let you.

“Animal, infected, or raiders?”

“I think they broke off a slaver ring,” Brendan says quietly, leaning in as you rush up the porch. “That, or some raiders had them for a while . He’s -- I don't know what to make of the arm injury, it’s fucked . But he’s been stabbed in the chest, and Sam said she thinks he’s got frostbite.”

“ Fuck ,” you growl, and wrench open the door to your clinic and rush to the back. Immediately, five heads turn to you and sigh in relief. Sam, your nurse, has an unconscious man hooked up to IV and is covering his freezing body with the weighted damp- heat warming pads from the steamer. You can tell from the port in his throat that she couldn't find a vein in his arms, he’s that cold and dehydrated.

“Everyone out but the girl and whoever found them,” you quip to the group, and three people file out. The girl is on a chair, shivering violently but already has a cup of something steaming cupped in both hands and is still in somewhat damp, bloody clothes, though her wet shoes and socks are on the floor by the space heater. Her face and hands are smeared with dried blood, but from a glance you can tell it’s probably her dad’s. Tommy is standing by her, still and waiting on your opinion. He drapes a blanket across her shoulders and looks to you.

You pull gloves on and check the man’s pulse- it’s weak but there. He’s absolutely frigid to the touch. The fingers on his right hand are completely purplish- black, but the whole arm is a loss anyway. Sam has already pulled off his soaking wet clothes; jeans, socks, and boots, and a damp contrast coat lays crumpled on the pile, arms still laced through with a flannel in the same condition. A wet trail of blood is leaking from the pile and you squint at it; it’s red- fresh . The man himself is in naught but his rank briefs and is positively covered in heating packs and blankets to get his temp back up.

You look directly at Tommy and shake your head once. He clenches his jaw and nods, turning to the girl. “We need details , hon. Anything you can give us that will help. Was this people, or a group of infected? Raiders? Or slavers? A trap? A- a bear ?” He asks, kneeling on one knee by her and speaking softly. The girl is practically catatonic, a feral glint the only light in her eyes. Her clothes and hair are matted down with blood as well, but doesn't appear injured, nothing more than superficially anyway. After a minute, she speaks:

“We were at a- a slave camp. Some raiders had taken over our QZ and turned it into a slave camp, a year or two ago after the bombings,” she says woodenly, staring at the man- who Brendan had told you was her father.

You see no resemblance, but then Joel has none to Ellie. That doesn't mean there's no bond. These days, bonds are often thicker than blood.

“We made a plan, snuck out with a guy who told us he was a coyote- like a smuggler, but for people? - but he just led us to a cabin outside the walls where they take people trying to escape. It was a trap.” Her eyes flick up to Tommy and then back to you.

“They were going to hurt me, and he said to take it out on him instead. So they did that,” she nods to the man’s mangled arm. “And I shot both of them when they were distracted. The second guy, I missed the first shot and he stabbed–” she breaks off, biting her lip, staring at the chest wound. “But I got him , and then we ran.”

“ Jesus ,” Tommy breathes. You grimace and plunge a dose of morphine into the guy’s shoulder. He doesn't even stir. You watch his face, swollen and mottled and bloodied up as it is. He’s got a laceration up into his hairline as well, both eyes blackened and you suspect a broken nose, a split lip and old, dried blood coming out of one ear. You grit your teeth and turn back to the girl.

“How long has it been?” You ask, peeling the flannel he’s wearing off his mutilated arm. The wound is the entire circumference of his arm, like they were literally trying to hack it off slowly, with small tools. They stopped at bone, but you can see scrapings on the white. It wasn't for lack of trying.

“We’ve been running from the cabin for three days. I dont- I don't know how long we were there. At first we had a horse but it spooked and ran off when we came across some wolves, and they chased it instead of us. Crossed the Wyoming border, I think, yesterday. He didn't make it very far. I made a - a draggy– thing . Sled? Dragged him for a little bit. But we haven't had food, or anything, since the horse bolted with our packs. So I couldn't go any longer, and put us down in an old shed that was falling down, but it had a roof. And then he found us,” she glances up at Tommy again, curling into herself a bit.

You nod and turn to Sam. “Get him to the OR and prep for an amputation, and push antibiotics. I'll be right there.” Sam nods and pushes the gurney down the hall, disappearing behind the double doors. You turn back to Tommy and speak quietly.

“How many resources am I using on this guy? I’m gonna have to anesthetize to amputate, use blood packs, antibiotics, and pain meds, that's just to hopefully stabilize him.”

Tommy nods. “Do it. We need more hands. Even with one, he’ll be helpful. And we can train her up in somethin’. Cookin’ or sewing. Hell, she shot two guys, she might be good on patrols or runs, eventually.”

You nod and glance at the girl. “Can you find her a place for the night? Feed her something easy- broth, toast, a warm bath, not hot; she might develop some frostbite. Drink at least two cups of water, and sleep .” He nods and steps back, gesturing for the girl to get up. You call out before they leave:

“Last thing hon- what’s your dad’s name?”

She turns back, looking haunted, and swallows hard, staring at the swinging doors where he was taken. She doesn't correct you. “Ezra.”

________________

“Ezra? Eeeezra , wake up sugar. Come on! That’s it, almost. Little more. Come to me, you’re safe. No- no , don’t. Stay down. Eyes open, sweetheart, come on.”

A soft, soothing voice is luring him toward the light, but an oppressive force keeps Ezra from actually cracking his eyes open. When he tries, light blinds his swollen lids and makes them ache. He groans and waves at whoever is talking, trying to get them to leave him be.

“Sam, dim the lights a bit,” he hears the voice call out, and finally blinks an eye open. His entire body is sore but also feels weighed down and stuffed with cotton. Morphine , some lizard part of his brain supplies.

What the fuck? Where am I?

He tries to lift his right arm and nothing happens. A sharp pain lances through him and then is softened by whatever’s in his bloodstream, funneling into the itchy, ice- cold spot on the side of his neck. He struggles to sit again and feels hands pushing him back.

“Ezra, Ezra ! Stay down, you're safe. We got your girl, she’s okay. You're both safe. You’re hurt, though. Real bad. I need you to stay still. Can you lay back for me and let me see your eyes?” The sweet voice is back, and feels like silk dragging against his jagged senses. Ezra swallows against a bone-dry throat and makes a gritty sound- not words. “Here’s some water- a straw-” you prod the seam of his mouth with something squishy- rubber , he thinks, and frowns.

It is indeed water, a rubbery medical tube cut down into a straw poking out of it, and he struggles not to suck it all down before you’re already drawing away and telling him your name. “Not too fast, you’ll vomit it up. I’m the doctor here in Jackson. Your girl was found dragging you on a sled by our patrolmen, you tested negative for cordyceps so they brought you in. You’re hypothermic, and have a lot of injuries.”

“Cee?” He asks, raspy and uncoordinated. He finally fixes an eye on you, unable to open the other one, and you give him a small smile. “ Soleil ,” he says, and you huff a gentle laugh.

“Is Cee the girl? Your daughter?”

“Where she?” He asks, frowning. The action hurts his whole face, so he stops.

“She’s getting a hot meal and a shower, and hopefully some sleep. She’s okay, she’s not hurt. Just hungry and exhausted and scared. Can I prop you up just a little? Let me know if you get nauseous.” You lift the gurney on one side and prop him up maybe forty degrees when he nods. Ezra blinks around the room, watching it swirl in slow motion. There’s a bag of blood and a bag of IV fluid hanging off a rack above him, and you beside him, and another woman at the corner of the room. The aforementioned Sam , he guesses.

“I need to check your pupils. Gonna flash a light, can you follow my finger?” You cautiously rule out a concussion, though given the state of him, that’s a small comfort. “Ezra- can you remember what happened?”

He blinks at you and glances at the cup of water on the side table. You let him have another drink and take it away again. He feels nauseous. He swallows down the flood of saliva in his mouth and threads his brow together. “Slavers… took over our QZ in Bozeman ‘bout two years ago. I took Cee in when her father was killed. We worked together in the mines, he pissed off the pay clerk one day too many. She and I were running, trying to escape, and they trapped us. Those miscreants were gonna- gonna use her. Rape her. Talked about pullin’ her guts out so she couldn't get pregnant and putting her in the free use ring til she dropped. For the audacity of just tryna escape their manufactured hell. And I couldn't have that, so I told them to do what they would to me. And she- got ‘em. Somehow. Dragged me out half dead. Told her to leave me an’ run, but she wouldn't. Been… a few days, I think?”

“She said three days since you left the cabin. I've given you an antibiotic, painkillers. You just got out of surgery. Do you remember what they did to your arm?”

Ezra slits his one open eye at you and shifts, finally looking down at it. The still shock of his reaction worries you almost as much as the rest of his injuries did.

“I have to admit, I expected that.” he swallows against another roll of bile and drops his head back. “I am feeling nauseous now, soleil .”

You nod and drop him back, bringing a sick tray over in case he vomits. “I’m gonna give you another dose of pain meds and I need you to sleep , Ezra. I’ll stay here,” you tell Sam, nodding to the repurposed sofa along the wall while you push another dose into his IV port. “I’ll send one of the patrol guys over if I need a hand. Go get some sleep,” you tell her. “We can shift off tomorrow?”

“I’ll send Joel over for the night,” she says, and disappears before you can tell her no . You growl under your breath and turn back to your man on the gurney.

“You… don' like this Joel character?” Ezra says, his voice getting low and gritty again as the drugs start to pull him under. You give him a wry smile and scoff.

“It’s not that- he’s a worrier . He’ll sit out there on the porch all night with his rifle and freeze his ass off, and then I'll have two six foot tall, two hundred- fifty pound hypothermic, handome idiots to care for,” you tease, dragging a chuckle and a stilted, pained grin out of your patient.

Ezra huffs in mock offense at you. “I’d need a week of good meals to tip the scales like that anymore, chérie. Especially with the loss of– oh? Maybe eight, ten pounds’ worth of utility?” He glances back down at the tightly wrapped bundle of his amputation and sighs. “Any jobs in this town for a one- armed fella?”

“That is not what you need to be focused on right now,” you chastise. “Give yourself a few weeks. I sure we can find you something to do. We have a couple disabled folks here, you know. They pull their weight, too. It’ll be okay,” you tell him, covering him with two blankets and checking the heater in the room.

You give him your name again when he keeps calling you soleil and chérie , but it doesn't take. He must be delirious considering everything wrong with him right now. You settle back on the bench to wait for Joel to show. “If you wake up, yell at me. Do not try and get up by yourself,” you say, and Ezra nods, already mostly asleep. He finally drifts off a couple seconds later, and you tuck the blankets up closer around his neck, blocking the winter chill and still working to reheat his body. Less than five minutes later, you hear the thunk of the door shutting and move out of the recovery room into the hall.

Only one person in Jackson holds the bell when he walks in. A leftover habit of sneaking places, you assume.

“ Sunny ?” He calls, just before you push open the swinging door to the back.

“Hey,” you say, feeling awkward. “I told Sam not to get you.”

“Why?” Joel asks, frowning. You see that he feels abruptly wrong-footed and keep talking.

“I don't need a guard? I told Sam to go home, I'd call her if I need her. Guy has to sleep it off, he’s quite literally half dead.” You shake your head with a shudder. “Tommy took off with the girl; I don’t know where he put her for the night. She was ok though. Only about Ellie’s age. They broke from a slaver hold .”

Joel’s eyes drop wide and flick back toward the room you'd just come out of. “ Shit .”

“Yeah,” you scoff. “Anyway- go home. Get some sleep. Aren't you on night rounds starting this week?”

“Yeah,” he parrots back, scuffing his boot on the tile. “Don’t mind stayin’ though.”

“You can , of course. But I don't see why you’d sit here all night while I sleep when you can sleep in your own bed, not worry Ellie when she wakes up and you're gone. I’ll be back there if you decide to stay and need something.” You jerk your head back toward the hall and go back, hearing the front door shut behind you.

_______________

You wake up to someone calling your name urgently but not very loudly, and blink your eyes open. You’re confused at first as to why you're on the couch in the clinic until you remember.

Ezra is panting on the gurney, teeth gritted and trying to swallow his pained groans.

“ Shit ,” you jump up and hurry over. His entire body is tense and you can see that he’s making a concerted effort to not hold onto his surgical wound.

“ Please ,” he wheezes, and you realize the time- the morphine you have him would have worn off within the past hour.

“Shit, I'm sorry. Should’a yelled , I told you to. Hang on,” you prep a syringe and feed it into his IV port. Over the next minute, you watch as he slowly unclenches and relaxes a bit, still breathing hard, which you're sure is putting strain on his chest wound.

“Ezra, breathe with me. You gotta slow down- you're hurting the injury to your diaphragm.” His face looks worse today, you note, but the swelling is going down even if the bruising and scabbing is setting in worse. At least it looks like a face today instead of a pile of minced meat. One dark eye focuses on you and he tries to match your breathing; taking deeper, slower breaths that eventually even out. “There we go. Want a drink?”

“Yes, please,” he says, and you refill the bedside cup with cold water and plop the straw in it. He drinks half and pulls a face, dropping back to the mattress. “This nausea. Sucks almost as much– as the injuries,” he grits out, and you smile empathetically.

“You allergic to anything?”

“Nah,” he shakes his head, watching you rifle through a drawer and come back with a nausea tablet in a single-serve sachet.

“Put this under your tongue. I’ll go make some broth. You need something on your stomach,” you explain and drop the tablet under his tongue. He makes a face as the acrid “berry” taste, and you can’t help but chuckle. “Yeah, I hate them, too. I’ll be right back,” you dip out and pad across the hall to the little kitchen. You drop a bouillon cube into a cup and fill it with hot water from the kettle and bring it back, stirring until the cube is dissolved.

“Almost daylight. I expect your girl’s gonna come tearing through here soon, demanding to see you. Anything specific I should say, if you're asleep?” You tip the broth into him slowly and he swallows it with a grateful hum.

“Prepare her for the amputation, I suppose. Not much else to say, is there? I suppose we’ll be directed to living quarters once I'm released from your care, chérie?”

You nod. “Yeah, I'm sure Maria and Tommy are already prepping a place for you two. Depends on where they put her last night.”

“ Cee ,” Ezra says, drinking the last of the soup. “Her name is Cee.”

“ Cee , then. I’ll keep an eye out for her. You go back to sleep.”

Ezra blinks his one working eye at you and lays his head back again, sighing deep. “Thank you, soleil ,” he says, quietly, and you nod.

“No problem. I mean it,” you say when he scowls. “You had a hard time up til now, sounds like. But Jackson is safe. Actually safe. You’ll see,” you smile at him, and he nods off with that final image behind his eyes.

Expecting the girl to show now that it’s daylight, you silently open the door and think about sitting in the waiting room out front. When you step thru the swinging door that divides the comfortable waiting space and the sterility of the clinic rooms, Joel startles awake from his slump along a row of chairs and reaches for the butt of a rifle that isn't there. You stop and blink at him, genuinely surprised.

“Thought you went home?”

He clears his throat and stands up, knees and back cracking as he stretches and straightens. “ Nnngmph . I started to. Then I decided not to.”

“Alright. You ok? Need some ice, old man?” You tease, noticing his wince when he stretches. He scowls at you but there's a smile tugging at his mouth.

“ No . You worry ‘bout your – patient. I’m fine.”

“Technically anyone in Jackson is my patient, as the only doctor,” you say slyly. “Can't get past my perfect bedside manner that easily, Miller.”

“Hmmmph,” Joel comments, wrapping you in a warm hug as he yawns hugely. “I think I experience your bedside manner often enough, sweetheart. But I can’t complain,” he taunts, and you pinch his side, making him chuckle.

The sound of shoes pounding up the porch outside makes you straighten away from Joel’s embrace to glance out the window behind his breadth. “Ah, she’s here.”

Cee bursts through the door with Marnie, the older kids’ teacher, on her heels, calling her back.

“Where is he?” Cee pants, wrenching away from Marnie’s hand when the older woman reaches for her arm.

“Good morning, Cee. Marnie, it’s okay. I expected her this morning.” You turn to Cee, but she’s frowning mightily at Joel, looking him up and down suspiciously. He lifts a brow at her through that permanent frown that everyone except Ellie sees, no longer intimidated by teen girls since re-obtaining one of his own. He scowls back at her, unimpressed, and she flicks her eyes to you.

“Did he make it?” The steadiness in her voice is only betrayed by her lower lip trembling. You nod and lead her back. Marnie throws her hands up with a huff and leaves, stomping off down the snowy porch.

“They plant you with her last night?” You ask, leading Cee through the back. She rolls her eyes and nods.

“Kind of a bitch, isn't she?” You snort and nod at her remark.

“She’s certainly a character. She handles the teens for a reason, though. Strict as hell, doesn't take their shit.” You open the last door and notice that Joel is hovering at the entrance to the hall.

“Gonna go check on Ellie,” he says, eyes tripping over Cee when you both look back at him.

You speak up; “Okay. Tell her I said hi. And tell your brother he's a twat for sending a new kid to stay with Marnie of all people! She’d have gotten a better welcome staying with you and Ellie. Get some actual sleep before your patrol!” He nods, waving a disparaging hand over his shoulder as he walks out. You turn back to Cee.

“I had to remove his injured arm, so expect that. He’s stable, I have him on antibiotics and a blood pack to fight the infection that started up from his wounds. He’s knocked out on pain meds right now. Okay? Any questions?”

Cee shakes her head and tips her brow at the door. “Let's go.”

You open the door and lead her in, watching as she stands at the foot of the gurney and stares at Ezra. She roves over his pulpy face, the missing arm and bandages, the line of red that has managed to seep through the dressing on his chest. You move to replace it, letting her take him in. Eventually she sits, and does end up asking you a few questions. She pets the tuft of blonde at his temple and watches you move around the space. You let them be quiet and alone for a while, listening to Ezra’s wheezing breaths as he sleeps off the meds and you clear up some old-school paperwork files of your various patients at the front desk.

As the day waxes and wanes, you get a man from patrol in for a sprained ankle from landing wrong off his horse onto an icy patch, and one woman in for a pregnancy checkup. The midwife Janet and her trainee Silvia are assisting with a birth on the other side of town, so you check the woman’s vitals and, when everything clears, tell her to come back in a couple days to see Janet properly.

Cee calls you from the hall, urgently, a few times. Once, Ezra is pale and shaking, trying to struggle to a sit and he’s burning up. You cover him in cool wraps and lay an ice pack on his forehead and stomach, bringing his temp down fast. You up the dose of antibiotics and hope for the best, without much to tell you what exactly is ailing him from the inside. Blood samples only go so far with just a microscope to test on.

The second time, he complains about the catheter and asks to get up and use the toilet. You send Cee out to the waiting room and remove it, assisting him in getting up and aiming at the bowl with his off hand, which he blushes at but forces himself to remember you are a medical professional . He needs to get up and walk anyway, and you're glad he feels up to it. You let her back in when he’s back in bed and tell her to call you if he asks to get up again.

Tommy shows up in the late afternoon, telling you and Cee that they’ve set up one of the houses on your street, which makes sense- yours is the one filling with new folks now. It's one of the last empty stretches. “House 407,” he hands Cee the keys and glances at Ezra in the bed. Sam chimes in the door, ready to take over for the night, and you’re grateful.

“I’ll show you the house, if you want?” You offer, expecting the girl to turn it down. She stares at Ezra for a long moment and nods.

“Can I come back, after checking it out?”

You nod, smiling. “Let me tell Sam what’s up and we can go.”

“How long have you been here?” Cee asks, plodding through the snow with you.

“Ah, about two years? Not long. Before me they had an old nurse, and she passed about eight months ago now. I was a medic for FEDRA; defected when they started bombing the rebelling QZs about eight years ago. I hopped around for a while, stayed in the wild with a small group for a year. They got killed when we ran afoul of a gas station filled with clickers. Came here in the winter, like you two. Sucks ,” you chuckle, stuffing your hands in your pockets.

“Who’s in charge? Like, is there a caste system?” She asks, looking around at the houses. They're all leftover suburban developments, what would have been solidly middle class Before; nothing terribly classist, but some are decidedly larger or fancier than others on some streets. They all have water and electricity and keep the infected out, and that’s what matters anymore. You say as much, and Cee nods.

“Maria and her husband, Tommy - the guy who found you- they sort of run everything. But it’s a commune - the point is we all have a say, we all share food, essentials, and medicine, and barter goods or skills. We all pull weight, rotate patrols and jobs. Some of us are more specialized, like me, being the doc. But I still have patrol duty, same as anyone.”

“What do you do when you're not saving people or setting twisted ankles or on patrol?”

You pause briefly, thinking of Joel. You huff and shrug. “I like to read.”

“Do you have books here!?”

You chuckle, getting the feel of the young teen quickly. She’s hardy, but still a kid . She reminds you a bit of Ellie, though maybe not as feral. “We have a library, yes. And you’ll go to school when you're both well enough. I expect Ezra can go home in a few days, if he's got someone there to help him take care of some things.”

“Like getting around and cleaning it and stuff?”

“Yeah, and getting used to losing his dominant hand. He might struggle to do a lot of things at first. He’ll feel like his arm is there, sometimes, and reach for things, so he might drop stuff or get frustrated easily. Don't take it personally,” you lean in and stage-whisper, and she nods sagely.

You direct her to turn left on Rancher Street and up a pathway toward number 407.

Your own house is across the street and down two, beside the fenced-off graveyard, which you point out to her.

“My neighbor, Joel, that big grumpy guy who was at the clinic earlier? He's got a girl about your age. Ellie. She’s– well maybe about seventeen now? Ish? How old are you?”

“I’ll be seventeen next month,” she says, glancing across at the houses where you pointed.

You nod and squint at her as she keys into the house and peers around in the dark. “We got electricity, hon,” you remind her gently and snap the lights on and her mouth drops open.

“All this is just ours? We don't have to share?”

“Not a bit. It’s yours. If it's like the rest of the houses in this neighborhood, it's got three rooms and two bathrooms- one in the hall upstairs, between the two smaller rooms, and one in the big bedroom. Tommy and Maria will have fitted you out with clothes, beds and blankets, TP, probably tampons or a cup, soap... Check the rooms and see, I'll wait.”

Cee stops with a foot above a tread and glances back at you. She looks hesitantly up at the yawning darkness at the top of the stairs. “I can come up, if you don't want to go alone?” When she nods, you follow.

She ducks into both of the smaller rooms and investigates the bathroom, which indeed has a stack of toilet paper and a diva cup and instructions on the counter with a bar of soap and a little pot of natural deodorant. “Aw, you got green !” You say, and grin when she frowns at you.

“We make the soap here, in one of the shops. The green one smells best,” you hand it to her and she sniffs it, smiling.

“I don't remember the last time we had soap. Or a hot bath. Ezra’s gonna flip .” She sets the bar down and goes into the larger of the two small bedrooms, sitting on the bed to bounce it. You smile at her exploring the room all over from the hall.

“Wanna see if they put clothes in here for your dad?”

“It’s just Ezra. He and my father dug in the mines but they hated one another. He took me in a couple years ago when the clerk and his goons killed my dad at the mine’s pay table. He had tried to barter his ration chit for more. Ezra knew if he didn't squirrel me away they’d put me in the free use ring with the other orphan girls. I’m sure he thought I'd be useful to him, at least at first.”

You blink at her deadpan and incredibly dark explanation and clear your throat. “ Ezra , then. They probably left a change of clothes for him. Can’t send him home in the snow in his civvies.”

“Do you care to check? I’d actually really like a shower and to change,” she grimaces down at her bloody clothes that Marnie appears to have simply dried and given back to her. Never one for going the extra mile, dear Marnie.

“Sure thing,” you say, and go out across the hall to check.

Sure enough, whoever had stocked the house had left a stack of three flannels, three tee shirts, a canvas and wool-lined contrast coat, a neat pyramid of socks and boxers, two pair of jeans, sleep clothes, and a set of re-soled boots on the bed. The bathroom in the big bedroom has another stack of matching toiletries. You pile up enough to make an outfit and take it downstairs, and wait on the little sofa.

Cee stirs you awake as she plummets down the stairs, eyes wide. You startle, unaware that you had nodded off. “Oh. I thought you’d left,” she says, and visibly steels herself. “Thank you for staying,” she says almost shyly.

“It's okay kid. I know you're not settled. It’s still overwhelming. It’ll take some adjusting. Where are you sleeping tonight?”

She pauses, glancing back up the darkened stairs and then out the window. “Can I stay at the clinic?”

You shrug. “Just tell Sam to let you have the sofa, she can use another bed. Yell at her if Ezra needs something.”

“Okay!” She agrees and shoves her boots back on. You hand her the bag of Ezra’s clothes and tell her the way back.

“Just follow the road to the end and turn left at the street sign. Clinic’s on the right, three doors from the end. Tell Sam I said you could stay til Ezra is released.” You nod at her and she bites her lip.

“Thank you.”

You nod again. “You're welcome , Cee. Go on, I'll see you tomorrow.”

You watch Cee lock up and plod across the road and down til she is out of sight, and go across to your own house. As you stomp the snow off your boots on the porch, Joel opens his door and leans on the frame.

“Jeez, girl. You just gettin’ home?”

“Yeah, just showed the girl their house and sent her back off to stay with her dad. I need to sleep for like, a week ,” you scoff, kicking your boots off into the tray by the door. “You ain't gone on patrol yet?”

Joel hums and looks you up and down, assessing. His deep seated need to care for and simultaneous desire to not care at all is a trait you find both adorable and grating. “Traded this week off; that Tyler kid wants to be home with his wife during the day. She had their kid this mornin’.”

“Ah, right. You wanting to sleep over?” You ask, and he gives you a half smile.

“You just said you needed sleep,” he teases, shooting you that tilted smirk. “Go on,” he waves at you batting your lashes playfully in answer, and you go inside giggling, leaving the door unlocked.

A moment later, probably after leaving Ellie a note on his whereabouts, Joel stomps through the door and leaves his snow-packed boots in the tray with yours after you give him an unimpressed brow at the puddles forming on your floor.

“We just sleepin’ or am I putting you to sleep?” he asks, shucking his coat.

“I’m taking a shower and going to sleep. If you facilitate either of those ends, that’s fine,” you shrug, smiling, already moving to the bathroom under the stairs.

Joel ends up eating your pussy in the shower til you shake apart, then ruts between your soapy thighs until he splashes come on the wall. After rinsing you down, he washes your hair and puts you to bed, spooning up tight behind you to keep the warmth in while you sleep.

The last thought you have before drifting off is that the soft swell of his belly, padded out over the last year or so with a more comfortable life and actual meals in Jackson, is perfectly fitted to the small of your back, and the feeling might just be your favorite part about relaxing anywhere with him.

_______________

You wake up before dawn sprawled across his wide chest, listening to his heavy, even breaths. It would be nice to wake up every day, just like this. But you know if you suggest it, he’ll put you back at arm’s length. So you take what you can get.

You fall back asleep quickly, and wake a few hours later to Joel sitting on the edge of the bed, putting his socks on. The room is much brighter; definitely proper morning now. You stretch and yawn, brushing your fingertips along his hip, and he turns.

“Mornin’, sunshine. You headed back to the clinic?”

“Hmm,” you sigh, stretching. “Soon, yeah. Eat somethin’ and head over, let Sam go home.”

Joel nods and leans down, kisses you on your forehead, then your mouth. “I’ll see you later, then.”

You nod, and he goes. You listen for the door to close downstairs and sigh, stretching a kink out of your shoulder. You wonder idly after Cee, if Ezra made it another night, and decide to eat your toast with sunbutter on your walk across town.

When you get in, you're surprised and pleased to see Cee walking around the waiting area with a dressed and mussed Ezra, his arm slung across her shoulders for support.

“There’s my favorite patient,” you grin, praising his progress. You send Sam home and settle in to wait for anyone to come by. When you finally drop into the rolling chair behind the counter, Cee has sat him down in a wheelchair and parked him nearby. “How you feeling today?”

“I am upright and alive, soleil , neither of which is what I expected to be two days ago. I have already thanked Cee for her part in that, now I must thank you .” he squints one pretty dark eye, the other still puffy and swollen nearly shut, in an approximation of a smile and you can’t help smiling back.

“I told you no problem . You’re welcome . Leave it be,” you sigh, dragging out his chart. Sam had left notes for the overnight, and you verify them with him, mostly to test his memory. He is able to corroborate most of them, though he peers over at Cee twice when he can’t recall a detail.

After making sure he was settled again, Cee had gone back to their home and managed a nap, but a couple hours later he’s up and moving around again, under your watchful eye, and she's coming back up the walkway now. You wonder if she’ll go to the mess hall and bring back lunch. Biting your lip, you decide to try.

“Up for something more than broth today?” You ask Ezra, and he perks up.

“If my doctor says I am able , then I am eager for any rations, soleil .”

You give him a wide grin and a wink. “I can do better than rations , pretty boy. One sec.” he laughs as you hear Cee jingle into the waiting area and you call out to catch her before she takes her coat off.

“Cee! Would you mind getting us all some lunch, hon? Mess hall is across the road, there. Big building.”

She goes, somewhat shy but determined, and brings back wrapped sandwiches and containers of a thick, creamy soup, and herbal tea. Ezra’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head at the spread.

“My word. You are certain I didn't die?”

You snort, your teeth buried in your sandwich, and shake your head. “Nope. I know the food’s overwhelming at first. ‘specially coming from the road or the QZs.”

You advise him to eat slowly to make sure he can keep it down, and he struggles not to swallow it all whole, working to savor every bite. Having to scoop with his left hand slows him down a good bit. You match his pace, which he notices only after several minutes of waffling with the spoon.

“What are you reading there, soleil ?” He asks later, sleepy and full and on a fresh round of painkillers (though you're already weaning him off, he seems to have a low pain threshold).

You hum and turn your three- inch- thick paperback to face him. “Just a historical fiction I picked up. We have a little library, but if you don't give everything a chance, you’ll read through everything too fast,” you scoff. “I prefer the ribald romances and fantasy books, personally, but these are sometimes real gems.”

Ezra snorts and squints at the book. “ Parade’s End, ” he murmurs and frowns. “What’s it about?”

“One’s duty to society and family versus personal preference, really. It’s set during the first world war. The main character is an aristo in a loveless marriage because he and his wife constantly miscommunicate in an attempt to one-up the other. He falls in love with a young suffragette but won't let himself be with her. His wife has a few affairs and his name is sullied in high society by her jilted lover bouncing his check at the bank, so he goes to war to avoid her and the situation. When he comes home he realizes that he is trying to remain old fashioned in a world that is already changed, and living like that only serves to make him unhappy, so he decides to separate from his wife, but he won’t divorce her because of their son. He sends her to live at his family estate in wealth, but makes sure she is unhappy with it. And he lives happily in sin with his suffragette.”

Ezra grins at your summary and lolls his head back on the pillows. “Read some to me? I will probably fall asleep. But I'd appreciate it, chérie . I haven't been able to indulge in a tale in a very long time.”

You scoot the chair closer and prop your feet on the support racking under his gurney, and read in a measured, soothing voice, glancing up every so often to see your patient getting more and more sleepy. Finally, he nods off, and you watch him for a few moments. Cee is snoozing hard on the little couch, and otherwise the room is quiet aside from the susurrus of the space heater whirring, keeping out the freezing temps outside. You go back to your book, one ear trained for the door to jingle.

Three days later, at dusk, Joel appears on your porch to walk you to the clinic and Ellie to her friend Dina’s before he goes on patrol for the night shift. Ellie is by his side, rattling excitedly about a comic one of her school mates had let her read during free time that day. “And she has the last one too ! I’ll get the whole arc and don’t have to make it up myself!”

You catch him through your door’s glass pane as you put your coat on, watching her with that soft half smile on his face, and it makes your own appear.

Early the next morning, Ezra is ready to be sent home; he’s finally weaned fully off the morphine and onto regular pain management for the healing wound on his arm. His diaphragm sounds good, and you had removed the drainage ports in his stump overnight so he could sleep it off and you could monitor it closely until morning. You are putting on your coat, trading off shifts with Sam who just arrived, and giving Cee detailed instructions on how to care for him and the surgery site, what to do if common issues arise, and strict orders for no weight lifting and lots of water and rest.

Ellie’s on your clinic porch when you open the door and usher Ezra and Cee out into the cold. She stuffs her notebook back in her bag, jumps up, and waits by the stairs while you close up and finish talking to them.

“Hey Ellie,” you greet with a grin. Her and Cee eye one another speculatively and she comes to your other side, ready to walk you home. “This is Cee, and Ezra. They came in last week,” you introduce them. “Ellie is Joel’s kid,” you tell them, leaving it at that. You know Ezra and Cee are in a similar situation.

Ellie takes your elbow and you keep pace with Cee and Ezra, walking across as a clump to get dinner at the mess hall before taking them to their house. Cee and Ellie trade small, stilted words across the table, mostly opening up after they find out one another's explosive imagination and love for reading sci-fi.

You grin conspiratorially at Ezra over bowls of soup and he watches them with a fond smile, happy to see Cee coming out of her shell with another kid.

When you leave the mess hall, Ellie and Cee are still animatedly chatting, discovering a mutual love for a space series they had both read bits and pieces of. If one has a knowledge gap, the other can usually fill it, and together they piecemeal the series.

Ezra walks close to you, minding his footing with his precarious balance in the packed and somewhat slippery snow. “I am glad there are kids her age here. In the– hmm. Where we came from, most of her peers were sold off to the mines, or the girls were being abused. About the only useful thing her asshole daddy did was keep her from that. She hasn't had much peer interaction in a few years.”

You hum and nod. “Ellie’s warmed up a good bit. She’s probably a good one for Cee to latch onto, honestly. Her and her old man were just about feral when they got here.”

“ Feral ?” Ezra chuffs, carefully skirting a sheet of ice. You take his elbow and lead on.

“Hmm. Like a couple of cats being brought inside and shown love for the first time,” you grin. “They’d been on the road a long time, coming from Boston mostly on foot. Lots of trouble, being exposed like that. They didn't take kindly to a lot of intervention at first, but I think they came around well enough in the end. Joel’s doing well, Ellie's making friends. Giving folks safety and time makes them come around, usually.”

“Joel. He's come by, yes? The name is familiar, though I admit I haven't been terribly lucid in the last week.”

“Yeah, he was there the first night. I’m their neighbor; you’re actually across the street from us. You’ll see soon, we’re almost there.” (You don't say the rest- that you and Joel have been fucking and sleeping over and kissing and having weekly dinners with Ellie for nearly a year, but if anyone lays ownership he backs away, closes off, and it takes weeks for him to lower his hackles and come back around).

“He’s real handy, used to be a contractor, Before. If you need something done on the house, I suggest coming across and asking there first,” you add, nodding at your house and Joel's. You point them out, the brown of his and your own, next door. “Or his brother, Tommy. That's the guy that found you and Cee on patrol.”

Ezra makes an affirmative grunt and squints at the houses. “We are being watched , soleil ,” he chuckles, and you glance over to see a figure in the early morning fog, thrown into shadow by the light coming through the window behind him. Joel is back from his shift and is standing on his porch, watching you and Ellie walk the newcomers to their house.

“He’s a little overprotective,” you roll your eyes and nod.

“You and Cee are there,” you point across and angle the both of you toward the deep green two-story where the girls are leading.

Ezra’s mouth hangs open while he takes it in, just as baffled and overwhelmed as Cee was a few days ago. “This is all ours? Or do we share with another family?”

You smile, remembering Cee’s similar words a few days ago. “No, it’s yours and hers. We haven't had to start sharing homes yet; and we still have a whole road of empties, and most of Rancher Street is still empty, save for our occupied lots and the graves, so hopefully it will be a while . And hopefully if we’re that big, by then we can build more.”

Cee unlocks the door and you all file in. The girls keep talking and you watch Ezra poke around the space while you wait on Ellie. Eventually, you cock an eyebrow at her and she drops her chin.

“Uh, anyway. I’m across in the brown house if you want to read any of what I have. Just tell Joel you’re looking for me- he looks way meaner than he is. Promise,” she laughs, winking at you. You nod at Cee in agreement and she breaks into a smile. “I’m turning the garage into my room, so hopefully by the time the weather’s warm you can just come back there.”

“Okay.”

“And come get me next door to them if you need help with anything or are having complications. Otherwise I'm mostly at the clinic. If I don't see you in two days for a checkup, I'll come find you,” you level a finger at Ezra and he chuckles weakly.

“I am not in the habit of spurning women, soleil . I’ll see you then.”

You and Ellie leave, shutting the door firmly behind you, and she knocks her shoulder into yours.

“They’re both fuckin’ cute ,” she says slyly, and breaks into giggles when you roll your eyes at her.

“Don't you like Dina ?” you fake a retch and she bends to throw a handful of snow at your head.

“Fuck you dude! She’s banging that stupid boy anyway. Gonna end up in your clinic soon, I'm sure. Idiots. I backed off.”

“ Eew . Was he there last night?” You ask, side-eyeing her slumped shoulders.

“Ugh. Yeah.”

Ah , you think. Bingo . “ That's why you were there so early, making out like Joel sent you to walk me home. You were escaping ,” you poke her in the ribs and she breaks into a grin again, laughing.

“Yeah, I was. Sucks being the third wheel.”

“I agree,” you sigh, stopping at the gate to Joel’s yard. He is still on the porch and watches Ellie walk up. He asks her something quietly, then snaps his gaze back to you. He nods at her and she disappears into the house with a little wave. He comes down the stairs to the gate and frowns at the green house across the way.

“Got your patient settled in?”

You hum, not glancing back. He’s thrumming with some sort of energy- jealousy or territorial puffing- up, your gut says, and you make a concerted effort not to ask or frown back. “Yep, I think he’s made it past the worst of it. Ellie liked Cee a lot, seems like she might have a new friend. That’s always good. The new ones tend to struggle- you two know that as well as anyone else here.”

“She said you had to cut that guy’s arm off?”

You squint up at him and scowl. “I'm not discussing a patient with the likes of you, Miller. But you’ll see soon enough he is indeed missing an arm, and he wasn't when Tommy dragged him in.”

Joel blinks down at you, his frown deepening, before he realizes you're teasing him and it softens again.

“Jesus, girl.” He wraps a wide hand around the back of your neck and guides you to your door, boots scuffing in the crunchy snow.

“Somethin’ happen today?” You ask, unlocking your door. You kick your boots off but he stands on the welcome mat, dripping. Not staying, then. Maybe .

“Nah, just. One of the assholes on patrol said he looked like me.”

You scoff and shake your head. “Maybe severely malnourished and ten or more years younger, sure. Maybe in a different life, even. He’s your height and has dark hair and eyes, built like an upside-down pyramid. No doubt with some square meals he’ll be a brick shithouse like you,” you chuckle. “That's about it. He's from Louisiana, though. Your dad go ‘cross the border and start sowin’ seed in Cajun country when you were a kid?” You giggle, blocking a wide palm when he goes to grab you.

“You stayin’ for breakfast? I've had a soup on all night. could go get your kid.”

“Nah, I cooked. She’s prob’ly over there eatin’ more than her half,” Joel grimaces, looking at the wall like he can see through it into his house, into Ellie’s mind.

Your smile doesn't quite meet your eyes. It's like reopening the scarred wound in his side.

“Alright.”

Joel seems to take it as dismissal (or he was looking for a way to leave, even though he’s the one who came over), and dips his chin at you before ducking back outside and around the picket fence to his own house. You rub your eyes with the heels of your hands and sigh.

Shower, food, bed. Check on your patients. Repeat.

You shuck your coat and beanie and go upstairs, eager to strip off and eat and crash. Bed sounds incredible, even without your preferred space heater of a… Friend . The good news is, with Ezra finally discharged, no one has to sit on- call at the clinic overnight. If someone needs you, they’ll come knocking.

You shower, dress in warm lounge clothes, eat your soup, box the rest for the week’s meals, and crash face-first into your bed within an hour of getting home.

_______________

Joel had already been home when you and Ellie went past, leading the newcomers to their allotted house. You had your elbow looped in the guy’s, Ellie and the girl were ahead, grinning and talking animatedly about something- probably a book, if he knew Ellie at all.

You had a serene smile on your face when looking at him , answering a question and carefully minding the paths in the snow for your patient, and Joel’s heart had clenched up tight. Some ugly part of him walled up, seeing both of you happy and at ease, with himself nowhere in the frame. He pressed his molars together and drew himself up, turning away so he didn't have to watch as you followed them inside their new home and shut the door.

Ellie had carefully and methodically (with all the untrained, blunt force of a hapless teenager) sanded down all the fractured edges he had over their trek across the country and back, and his increasing terror at the loss of control over himself or his situation was only doubling- down the closer he got to you . You’re another person to look out for, who would happily tie their fate to his own; your pain, his pain. Your happiness; his. Ellie has already pulled away from him, sensing his aversion to talking about Colorado and possibly seeing straight through his ocean of lies surrounding the trip, of their abrupt exit.

He isn't sure his heart can take another breach.

He stands in the doorway, his back to you and Ellie in Ezra’s house, and thinks about drawing back from you. Putting the walls up that you’ve come to expect every so often. But then he thinks of the disappointment he will see in your face when he does, and it hurts just as bad as the jealousy does. He tries to make himself not care, but he’s only fooling himself.

He doesn't even know if you like this new guy.

You could just actually be caring for a newly-disabled patient.

You could just pity the guy.

He’ll wait. But he’s not sleeping the day away in your bed. It's the weekend and Ellie is out of school and working on her latest project, moving into the garage and away from him. He’ll nap on the sofa in case she needs him to haul or build or fix something, and train his good ear on her while he tries to rest.

Overnight rounds were a bitch on his joints and back. He’d much rather lay in bed with you and leave Ellie to her own devices; not much trouble she could get in, in Jackson. But that somehow feels like crossing a line, so he stays back and away from it.

He’d rather pull back before you can have the chance.

He’s not sure his heart can take another failure.

-----------------------------🍄-------------------------

Link to part 2

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marisferasiop · 4 months

Text

Interloper

a Transplant short

Ao3 link

Summary: when a new citizen of Jackson gets a little too aggressive when you turn him down (and a little too rough with Ezra, who comes to intervene) Joel ensures that he thoroughly understands the consequences.

Word count: about 4k

Warnings: canon- typical violence, jealous/overprotective Joel, boys kissing, slight internalized homophobia (or fear of it, at least), blow jobs, breathplay if you squint

Rating: explicit! Minors DNI

Note: set 1 year after Transplant. If you haven't, I suggest that you read it first so you're not lost! Also I forgot who made these dividers but I did rb them as asked when I saved a few 😭

Tags: taking a step outside my comfort zone and tagging those I thought would like based on previous interactions/feedback (if I tagged you mistakenly OR didn't tag you I'm sorry!) @for-a-longlongtime @wannab-urs @morallyinept @ezrasbirdie @luxurychristmaspudding @timelordfreya @chronically-ghosted I never tag ppl I'm freaking out a little at the idea of being p e r c i e v e d, sorry.

He had woken up in such a good mood, too.

Joel had stirred in the witching hour that morning to the feel of your cool, little hand curving over his ribs as you slid back into bed behind him.

“Hmm?” He’d grunted, tipping his head up toward the ceiling to look back. You had sighed back at him as you tucked your knees behind his, smothering your face between his shoulder blades.

“Had to pee.”

Under his chin, Ezra had stretched and turned into him, soft breath tickling his throat, and Joel had drifted back off.

When he’d been awoken flat on his back sometime later, the sun up and searing through your windows, it was to find you and Ezra each straddling one of his knees, sucking his dick in tandem.

He’d nearly come at the sight.

“Oh, Jesus fuck,” he’d quietly groaned, spreading his knees a little, reaching down to palm your heads. You had glanced up at him and grinned around your mouthful of him. When you popped off, you ran your hand up and over his spit-slicked length, making his hips twitch up into your grip. Under your wrist, Ezra had tucked his face and was coaxing Joel's balls down, laving at the wrinkled skin of his sac, sucking a ball into his hot mouth as it descended. "Agh!"

“Ooooh, Joel’s awake, baby,” you’d crooned at Ezra, giving another kitten lick to Joel’s weeping head. His thighs jumped under your palms.

Ezra had his cheek smushed into Joel's thigh and was staring at your hand greedily, his mouth wet and still stretched around a testicle, waiting. He pulled away, letting Joel's balls slide out of his lips and drop with a wet slap. Joel hissed and flinched. Ezra picked his head up and swiped his tongue over your knuckles, following them up to Joel’s cockhead and between your salty lips, licking his taste off your tongue.

“We’re wondering who sucks your dick better, Knuckles,” Ezra said up to Joel serenely, cupping his balls. Joel groaned, absolutely stricken dumb. He had never been woken up with head before, and you two were gonna absolutely ruin him.

Part of him wanted that. A big part. One that grew daily, now, the longer he was with you both.

You stroked his cock tightly in your little fist and leaned it over to fit the tip in Ezra's waiting mouth. Ezra sucked half of him down greedily, pressing himself hard to take the rest.

Instantly, Joel's hand had tightened in his hair. [Ezra likes Joel being rougher with him than he is with you. He recognizes that the man has to let all that aggression out somewhere, even if it’s really repackaged desperation]. He hummed around the fat cock in his throat as those fingers twisted tighter in his hair and Joel rocked his hips at the vibration, buried himself deeper. The sting of his scalp and the squeeze of his tonsils, the burning of his lungs, feels like success to Ezra, who has spent the last year diligently working his way under the curmudgeon’s skin.

Just as Joel was about to come, his balls up tight and his cock pulsing on Ezra's tongue, the younger man had pulled off and kissed his weeping tip, passing him back to you.

Joel wanted to jump up and shake the man, throw him under himself and make him swallow every thrust until he choked on his cum, but your gentle touch on the inside of his thigh gave him pause. The marked difference of your soft, sweet sucks to Ezra's deeper, stronger pulls on him was giving him whiplash. He settled immediately under you, caught between Ezra's teeth on his thigh and your urgent nursing on his tender head.

You’d both teased Joel for ages like that, trading him back and forth with a firm squeeze to his base every time he got too close. Eventually, he erupted on your faces, painting your lolling tongue and the scarred bridge of Ezra's nose and scrappy mustache with ropes of his cum.

After, he’d let you crawl up and lay on him for deep, indulgent kisses. He traced his fingertips down your spine, feeling you bloom under his touch. He gripped your cheeks and held you open while Ezra fucked you hard from behind. He eventually relinquished your hip into Ezra's hand only to move to assist better. He got onto his creaking knees and wound one unforgiving fist into your hair and used the other to allow his calloused fingers to strum your clit til you shook apart for them.

When Ezra pulled out of you to finish himself off, Joel had moved behind him. He pinned the man back to his broader chest with one hand wrapped snugly around his throat and the other around his cock.

"Lay back for us, honey," Joel told you softly, and you were flushed and eager to comply, rolling bonelessly to your back. You cupped your breasts together and played with them for their gaze.

Joel stripped off Ezra rough and fast, still pinned into position, til he shot his load all over your heaving tits where you lay beneath their spread thighs, watching them with lust- blown pupils.

Joel had gone outside to work on your rotting porch with a smile and some pep in his step some time later, grateful and happy.

Now, play time was over and he was far from amused. He’d been having such a nice, domestic off day and you and Ellie were dragging him out to socialize.

The inhumanity.

He knew grumbling would get him nowhere, so he simply remained surly and quiet about it. Until a thought struck, anyway.

“I don't see why’n the fuck you gotta run the bar. Or do rounds, like ever? Y’all are still in school. They even let you drink?” Joel grouses to Ellie, stomping through the crisp snow beside you from the house to the Tipsy Bison.

“If I'm old enough to take patrols, I'm old enough to run the bar for a couple hours,” Ellie says sardonically.

“And drink,” You say quietly, rolling your eyes at Joel’s continued grumping. She huffs a laugh.

“Everyone does rounds, now and then, Joel. Even me. So, even Ellie. And it’s only a couple hours. You can sit with us and Cee for that long and pretend not to be such a Grinch,” you elbow him.

He harrumphs, squeezing your hand where it’s stuffed inside his coat pocket with his own, and takes Ellie's teasing in stride. She’s mimicking his grumpy stomping behind them, her arm linked with Cee's.

“Knock it off,” he says with no heat. She rolls her eyes so hard she nearly falls into a snowbank, making Cee and Ezra giggle.

“Come on, old man. Get a drink, chill out. Watch your hot girlfriend while she dances with your pretty boyfriend. I have faith in your wallflower abilities,” she claps a hand to her chest dramatically, eyes closed, and takes a loosely-packed snowball to the face for her acting skills.

Still spitting out bits of grass and pine needles, Ellie holds the door and sticks her tongue out at a smug Joel as he passes by. Cee is the last to enter and picks a blade of grass out of Ellie's hair before dropping a kiss on her icy nose. “Let’s see if you can get me wasted,” Cee leans in and whispers, straightening and biting her lips when Ezra glances over his shoulder at her with a lofted brow.

“You coulda done that at home with some 'shine and had a far better time alone, rather than here in this sausage- fest tryna get drunk on watered-down shots,” he quietly conspires, and they dissolve into appalled giggles. “There's a three- drink- max anyway.”

Inside, Joel accepts a tumbler of whiskey from Ellie and follows you and Ezra to a tall, round table with four stools. The bar is already humming, mostly patrolmen who are fresh off the wall shift stopping in to de-fuse and socialize before going home. He casts a glance around the room, recognizing most faces now after a few years in Jackson, and takes the stool beside Ezra, both facing the bar.

You’ve shucked your heavy coat and are sitting pretty across from him in a tight top and what you had called a skater skirt with dark leggings and your trusty boots to keep your legs warm in the dead of winter. (If you had noticed the way Joel had sandwiched you between him and Ezra on the walk here like a guard dog, you hadn't commented on it).

Right now he wants to put your jacket back on your pretty little shoulders. Or his own flannel. As soon as you’d hung it on the back of your chair, you had eyes on you.

Ezra drops his hand on Joel’s lap under the table and strikes up conversation with you girls, asking about Cee’s final weeks of school and the hideously strict teacher, Marnie, who has both of them and seems to have it out for her. Cee is still training at the clinic, and is now training with you in surgery. Ellie is still at the stables. She’s been moved on to farrier training now that the last foaling is done, and is taking well to it, she explains in Ellie’s absence.

You and Ezra and Cee dissolve into idle talk about the clinic, allowing Joel to zone out a bit under the pressure of the hand curved over his leg, those lissome fingertips scratching idly at the inner thigh seam of his jeans, just above his knee- nothing impertinent- and keep his eyes on the milling crowd. You hook your foot behind his calf and when he snaps his gaze to you, he forces his shoulders to drop an inch at your goading smile.

You ask him to dance and he gives you a flat look. At your pout, he turns his look on Ezra, who simply squeezes his knee and gets up. “Come on, soleil. Let’s let Knuckles guard the table. I’ll lure you back into bed with my two left feet.”

Joel is helpless not to smile in the wake of your delighted laughter. He watches Ezra lead you and Cee to the parquet. His unit, everyone he cares about most is right here, in this room, it’s okay. He just doesn't like the press of bodies after half a lifetime in the overflow of the QZs, followed by the absence of trustworthy folks on the road.

He fingers his glass idly and enjoys watching you, how Ezra doesn't let you stray too far from his reach and how you grin wide and enjoy yourself, moving to the music and giggling with Cee. He catches Ellie stealing glances of her, between serving drinks, and hides his smile behind his glass.

The door blows open with a blast of frozen air and Tommy steps in with a handful of men crisped at the edges with snow, fresh off a day- long scouting run. He claps Joel on the shoulder with an easy, tired grin before leading the group to the bar for their drinks. Joel narrows his eyes at the men; he doesn't recognize half of them. Odd, he thinks, since he’s one of the patrol heads.

Tommy thanks Ellie with a playful wink and brings his beer back, dragging a stool over to squeeze in among the others.

“What did you do on your off day, brother?” He asks, drawing Joel away from his thoughts.

Joel shrugs and glances at his partners on the dancefloor. “Slept in. Cleaned the house. Helped Sunny replace those rotten boards on her porch. Got dragged out here,” he complains lightly, knocking back the last of his drink.

Tommy scoffs and draws a panting Ezra, who has abandoned the girls for a break, into conversation next. His eyes stick to the way Ezra’s hand steals back over Joel’s thigh under the table as he slides into his stool, but he says nothing and doesn't react, though Joel notices the glance and stiffens slightly at first. Tommy just takes a swig of his beer and keeps talking.

While the chatterbox catches his breath and spins a yarn about crossing paths with a mountain lion on their last foraging trip before the snow hit, and his anticipation of the next one when the snow melts, Joel scoops up both their empties and goes to the bar.

It’s crowded, and Ellie and the other lady, Rachel, are busy pouring for the scout team that just came in. You and Cee squeeze in beside him. He catches your eye quickly, of course he does, and you lean over with a salacious grin, stealing the bottle from Ellie's grasp as she’s about to pour in his cup. “What can I get you, handsome?”

“Two more. Pretty thing like you shouldn't walk home alone. When’re you off?” He flirts back with a warmed chest, looking down at your easy smile. He leans an elbow on the wood surface as you snort and watch Ellie pretend to gag and grab the bottle back.

“You guys are gross. Go away,” she mimes a dramatic hurl and you can’t stifle a giggle.

“In an hour or so, big guy. You can walk me home. But don’t let my boyfriend find out,” you nod at Ezra, who is watching your exchange with a bemused smile. Joel smirks and scoops up the glasses.

“I think I can handle him, sweetheart,” he winks at you and goes back to the table, leaving you to wait on your drink with Cee.

He’s drawn into Tommy’s story of the scouting trip today, listening to how he was training some new folks and how they’d taken the west pass through the mountain to check the dam for any issues after a power outage the day before. They’d found a lone infected wandering about, and managed to bring home three deer for the mess hall. Joel is in the midst of fantasizing about a nice venison steak when he hears your annoyed voice cut through the susurrus of the bar.

“Yeah, I don't think so, bud.”

Joel snaps his eyes to you, feeling Ezra’s hand curl back around his knee as if to keep him pinned to the stool.

You are watching one of the scout troupe closely, one who has decided to lean over you at the bar so he can leer at you better.

“Aw, come on, little lady. You’re all dressed for attention, ain’t you?” the guy drawls, making the acne-riddled guy next to him snort into his beer. “I’ll give you some.”

Joel’s hand curls around his glass hard enough to shatter it.

Idiot #1’s spotty friend elbows him and leans in. “You gotta watch out man. That guide today said the town doctor is taken. That's you right, miss?”

“That’s me, but a no should be good enough reason to lay off.” You roll your eyes and shift to turn away and continue having fun with Cee, but the first guy won’t let up. He just gets louder.

Joel's fist tightens on the table. He knows you can handle this. You can. It's the principle of it. You shouldn't have to.

“Ooooh, yeah? You’re the one with that old, mean fella, right? And the one- armed guy? At the garden center,” he laughs with a snide grin. “They share you or somethin’?”

“Hey, she’s not interested, dude. Either quiet down or leave,” Ellie intones, her voice hard. “Either way, you're cut off.”

Ezra presses down on Joel’s leg when he feels the muscle tense. He slides his palm up over Joel’s nape, leans in, and murmurs: “If you go over there and do what you’re wantin’ to do, Sunny or Cee is gonna end up havin’ to patch them up at the clinic. Let me talk to ‘em.”

Joel clenches his jaw but stays in his seat as Ezra gets up. The younger man grasps his shoulder and slides close behind him, between the wall and the stool. “If they decide to ignore my words and get physical, you’re obviously welcome to come have a tussle. But let’s take it outside if so, yeah?”

“He touches any of you–”

“Joel.” Tommy calls his attention. “You’ll take it outside.”

The muscle rolls in Joel’s jaw but he nods.

Ezra squeezes his shoulder again and drifts over to the bar, keeping his eyes on you. Unfortunately, he arrives a moment too late. In the second it takes Ezra to pause and talk to Joel, the guy has already stepped too close again and crowded you against the bar, his hand aiming for the hem of your short little skirt. He manages to get his other hand around your wrist before you yank it back.

"Hey!" You and Cee both exclaim. Cee quickly pulls you out of his reach.

“Hey! Back off,” Ellie grits. She's already slipping out from behind the bar to step between you and him before Joel can even react. He starts to stand and Tommy grabs his arm.

“Let Ezra try,” he says, and Joel growls under his breath.

You slip out of the man’s reach and your jaw tightens. “I said no, dude. Fuck off. Last warning.”

“Oh, and what are you gonna do about it? You and two girls? Town doc doesn't exactly scream fighter, princess. I bet your guard dogs do it for you. Speaking of, I don’t see ‘em? Or are you just the town slut, and two of your regulars are what you’re calling boyfriends?”

Ellie looks mutinous, but before she can cock her arm back to deck him, Ezra grips the guy’s collar and hauls him sharply backward several feet before he realizes what’s happening, giving you room to make an escape. The man crashes to the floor, caught off guard.

“Excuse me, partner. I suggest you turn your attention to me and have a civil discussion, and level your temperament, before you find yourself with a broken jaw, flying outside to bleed in the snow.”

The acne-riddled guy locks eyes on him first, noting Ezra's missing arm. Recognition sparks in his face. “Oh shit. Uh, Ray?”

“Ray?” Ezra sneers. He glances at you, clocking your burning cheeks. It makes his gut roil. You’re more furious (and now embarrassed) than anything, now standing between Joel’s knees. Ezra watches him assess you, his hands and words gentle (probably for the last time tonight) as they cup your chin. He swipes his thumbs over your burning cheeks and folds you into his chest. Ezra can tell that Joel very much would rather be pounding this guy’s face in than simply holding you, but he's waiting for his cue.

Ray has straightened up from where Ezra had dragged him to the floor, spitting curses, and turned to face Ezra. His friend has disappeared backward into the crowd to avoid the pending fight. Hell, half the bar has quieted down to watch.

“Imagine having a nemesis called Ray, soleil.” He winks at you and you grit your teeth against a weak smile at the joke. “Now, mister, I can tell you’re new here in Jackson. I'm inclined to ask you again to apologize for your boorish behavior toward our doctor, Sunny, and change your attitude. She gave you a final warning, and I will not ask again.”

“Oh, are you one of her mutts, then? Girl can spread ‘em for the elderly and disabled but not anyone else?”

“You need to make your way outside, Ray, before it's ensured that you end up with one functional arm, too,” Ezra says.

“I ain't scared of you, or her old man. And I sure as shit ain't scared of some slut who thinks she's too good for anyone.”

The glint in Ezra’s gaze snuffs out as his gaze darkens. “I suggest you find your manners immediately, Ray. You’ll find your way out of this town just as quickly as you entered it, if you don’t learn to manage that temper and hold that tongue. Perhaps even wrapped in a sheet, six feet under.”

“What are you gonna do, huh? Talk me to death, bitch?” Ray comes around and sizes him up, looming an inch or so above Ezra as he stands far too close.

To his credit, and much to do with his rough life before Jackson, Ezra doesn't so much as blink. You feel Joel's fingers tighten around your hips in anticipation. Ezra can feel the violent rage vibrating in the air a few feet behind him from Joel and smirks a little.

He’s got nothing to be scared of, unlike this idiot. He narrows his eyes.

“You are not understandin’ me, Ray. You will apologize to my girl. And then I think you ought to go home and get a good night’s sleep. You found some audacity and anger on the scouting ride today, and harassing the only doctor in town in front of her family and half your own crew ain't the way to go. She could be all that stands between your life and death, and much sooner than you anticipate. You’re showin’ your ass right now, when it’s long past time to turn tail. And besides, I'm not the dog you gotta watch out for.”

“I don't give a shit who she is. I am not apologizing to some snooty whore or her broken, pathetic little cuck boy toy.” He shoves Ezra hard in the chest.

There is an uncanny, absolute silence that happens before a bomb goes off. In the vacuum of noise, for that split second, all anyone can hear through the whole bar is the scrape of a stool across the floorboards.

All Joel can hear is your gasp and his own ringing ears.

Ezra grabs Ray’s collar as he falls, twisting so that he plants a knee on the asshole’s gut when they land. Before Ray can scramble to his knees and ready for another blow, Joel’s already on him.

“Outside!” Tommy commands.

Folks on the street see the pub’s swinging doors fly open and slap the walls as Ray sails clean out of it. He lands a good few yards into the walkway, crashing hard over a wrought- iron table and chairs before collapsing to the snowy ground in a heap. Before he can even scramble to his knees, Joel is on him, flipping him over, and a fist is crashing down on his face.

Joel feels the crunch of cartilage under his knuckles and grips Ray’s collar in his other fist. He shakes the man, straddling him with one knee in the snow and his other boot planted firmly on the other side.

“You touch anyone who's mine ever again; you so much as look at any of ‘em outside of the clinic, and your goddamned head is the only thing comin’ back from patrol next time. I'll stick you on a pike on the Wall. You understand me?” Joel seethes and shakes Ray again, rattling his brain, watching the blood pour out from his split nose and eyebrow, and finally hears the wet gurgle of his frantic yes.

"You say it. Ellie, Sunny, Ezra, Cee. Off limits."

"Off- fuck! They're off limits!"

Ray claws at the meaty hand still fisted in his shirt collar as Joel straightens his spine and turns back to you and Ezra, now watching from the doorway of the bar.

“Which hand he touch you with?” Joel asks you both, his voice raw as gravel and eyes dark with rage.

You shake your head, a tiny frown between your brows betraying your confusion at the question. Ezra flicks his eyes down at the man and sees his ineffectual grappling with Joel’s grip. Ray had used both hands, both when trying to grab you and when shoving him, but Ezra knows Joel enough by now to know what's coming next.

He also knows intimately what it’s like in this world with a limb missing.

“His right,” he says, feeling only a little vindictive. His frustration has not quite tipped over into murderous rage, unlike Joel, who is reigning his in.

Joel huffs an angry, foggy breath and turns back.

“Ray,” he spits with venom. “You’re gonna take your lousy ass home, and splint this your damn self. Same as you would have done before you came here.”

“Wha–AAAAAAH!” Ray screams as Joel takes his hand between his own and swiftly breaks his wrist.

Joel lets Ray flop back into the snow, cradling his hand, and leans in close. “You ain't gonna act like a rabid animal inside these walls. Because I will not hesitate to put you down like one. You hear me?”

“Fuck– yes! Get off me!” Ray yells, nearly pissing himself with the need to get away, his bootheels scraping the snow down to muddy slush beneath them.

Ray flops over onto his belly, army crawls forward out from under Joel with his broken wrist pinned to his chest, and scrambles up and off into the night.

Disgusted, Joel gets up and slaps the snow off his knee. He scoops up a handful of the fresh stuff off a nearby table and presses it to his bruised knuckles.

“How long you got left on your shift?” Joel deadpans at Ellie, a dismissive move to the scene that just took place. People are already drifting back inside, with the action over.

“Uhhh, it’s like an hour til close,” she answers. He nods and waves them back inside with an annoyed look that says let’s get this over with. Cee smothers a smile and turns back into the bar, herding the handful of onlookers who are still lingering away from the doorway. You and Ezra stay on the porch while the girls go inside.

Joel comes up and stands on the step in front of you, flexing his fingers before he hangs them down by his side, curling and twitching anxiously. He flicks his eyes all over you and the muscle in his jaw rolls once.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” you confirm, shrugging. “Some grabby asshole isn't enough to scare me. Not here. Ezra?” you hold out your palm and wiggle your fingers expectantly. Joel drops his hand in yours with a fond eye roll, feigning annoyance at your inspecting.

You both look at him and he nods. “I’m okay, soleil. Are you, Knuckles?”

Joel blinks at him and glances at you. You arch a brow at him. “I’m– he shouldn’t have touched either a’you,” he frowns, defensive, ignoring what you asked.

“No, he shouldn't have. That wasn't the question.”

Joel shakes his head. “I’m fine.”

You and Ezra share a glance and you top an eye roll with an arched eyebrow before disappearing inside, which makes Joel frown deeper.

"What?” He snaps at Ezra.

Ezra smirks at him and shakes his head. “She wants me to take you home.”

“We ain't leavin’ the girls here. Not after that,” Joel says flatly.

“I know. But we can wait out here a little bit, let her think I was successful. In luring you home with my wiles, of course. Not with making you see that they’re okay, even without us. If you hadn’t ‘a stepped in, one of our girls would have gutted him. Ellie was certainly ready to,” Ezra huffs, knocking his shoulder against Joel’s.

“Your wiles, hm?” Joel chucks his knuckles under Ezra’s scruffy chin, offering that little half smile before seeming to realize they are outside on the main thoroughfare, in plain sight. He stuffs his fists in his jacket pockets and frowns again, making Ezra chuckle.

“Speakin’ of the damned things- my wiles, that is– who won this morning? I mean, aside from you, who clearly benefited most from our friendly little competition.”

“Jesus,” Joel huffs, shaking his head. Ezra can see the shocked smile curling under the edges of his mustache and in the wrinkles by his eyes. “Sunny.”

“Oh, come now. I’m certain that I am the one who couldn't talk for an hour afterward with a raw throat from all your bucking. There's an alley just there, if you need a reminder.” he gives Joel a shove and the other man snorts.

“I was celebrating finally finding a way to make you shut up.”

“Only if I won, knuckles. Or if I'm next,” Ezra tries to give him a serious glare and dissolves into giggles at Joel’s wide-eyed, surprised, mooncalf look. He laughs harder when Joel shakes his head at him with a scowl.

He lets Joel shove him playfully into a lean against the part of the wall cast in shadow by the doorway loght. He lowers his voice, mindful of the open road and other milling members of the commune enjoying the evening just a few yards away. “Hmmm. I’m chiseling my way through that tough exterior, old man. What’re you gonna do to me when I do?”

Joel flicks his eyes over Ezra’s face, seeing that same goading, happy serenity he saw this morning, framed between his own thighs. He leans in, too close for mere friendship now. Ezra doesn't move, as if afraid to spook him. Joel doesn't think he will.

Not anymore.

Ellie cracked his carefully- bricked- up heart open, and you carved out a space for yourself easily after that. He knows Ezra's right there, ready, pickaxe in hand. His name was on the list tonight that he gave Ray, same as the girls'.

He lets his forward momentum knock him into Ezra, who cautiously steals a swift kiss. Joel lets it linger for a long second. When they pull apart, he finds Ezra's eyes glinting in the dark, honing in on his prey. It sends a shiver up his spine, different from the sort he used to feel, before Jackson. Before Ellie.

“I dunno,” Joel answers truthfully, instead of denying it will happen.

He knows it will.