Orange Slices (Joel Miller x f!reader)

Chapter Five

The next morning, you wake up to a throbbing pain in your head. Wincing at the brightness of the room, you cover your eyes with one of your hands, slowly spreading your fingers apart to ease in the morning light. An unsettling pain sits stationary just behind your eyes, causing a dull sensation of pain to shoot through your head every time you blink. You pull the covers over your head, not wanting to get up for the day, just wanting to continue basking in the warmth that you're experiencing under the blanket. Your eyes shoot open, fuck, I fell asleep in here, you begin to panic. The realization is sobering, pulling you out of your half-asleep state in an instant. Suddenly the floorboards start to creak under the weight of footsteps, you pull the covers back and prop yourself up with your forearms. Joel is glaring at you from the opposite side of the bed as he buttons up a dark blue shirt. As soon as you make eye contact, he shifts his gaze to the window off to the side, and you notice his jaw tensing up.

You sit up fully and swing your legs over the side of the bed, letting them hang there for a few seconds, trying to go over the details to figure out how exactly you ended up here. Turning your head to the side and placing your hand at the base of your neck, you pretend to massage it as you watch Joel in your peripheral vision. He's now standing at the bottom corner, just opposite of you, folding up his flannel from yesterday and placing it neatly at the bottom of his bag. He begins separating the items he has in his bag into various piles before putting them back in their respective places, occasionally looking up at you, never letting his gaze linger longer than half a second. There's an awkwardness that hangs in the air.

You finally slide off the edge of the bed, pulling firmly on the torn hem of your shirt before kneeling down and lacing up your boots. The hinges on the door squeak when Joel opens it, grumbling something incoherent as he leaves, the door slams with a loud thud when he pulls it shut. The sudden sound makes you jump, your heart beating just as fast as it had been last night. Fully allowing yourself to collapse to the ground, you lean up against the old bed frame, tilting your head back until it rests on the smooth wooden edge. The room feels like it's spinning, and your head becomes overwhelmed with a fuzzy, dizzy sensation. Visions of Joel pinning you up against the door, you struggling under the pressure of his arm, trying to push him away from you as he leans in closer to you. The intense smell of alcohol comes back to you. After that, there is nothing. You begin thinking about how the pressure of his forearm felt against your throat, how you tried making a sound, but nothing would come out. The memories become more vivid as you continue to recall the night: the stillness in the air, the cold intensity of his eyes as he peered down at you, the heat of his breath. Thinking about it makes your stomach twist and turn.

The snapping of the front door brings you out of your thoughts and back to reality, Joel begins to urgently call out Tommy's name. You begin rubbing your temples with your first two fingers, trying to soothe the ache in your head that has only gotten worse. Letting out a small groan, you let your heavy eyes close completely. After joining Joel at his request, you don't remember drinking that much, at least not enough for you to completely disregard the events of last night. However, it had been a long time since you drank, let alone on a nearly empty stomach, and whatever was in that second bottle was a hell of a lot stronger than the first drink. With that in mind, you weren't necessarily surprised by the effects it ended up having on you.

Joel returns from looking for Tommy, letting the door snap close just as he did when he left, his footsteps making the floorboard creak again. Rolling your eyes, you pull yourself up to your feet and drag them to the door. As you put your hand on the doorknob, you look back at the bed before taking a deep breath. You let your hand linger for just a short moment before hesitantly opening it, you desperately hope Joel isn't thinking what you think he is.

As you approach the main living space from the bedroom, Joel is standing at the far end of the table facing you, in his hand is a small piece of paper. You survey the room quickly, noticing Tommy is, in fact, not inside. Joel's eyes are darting back and forth across the different parts of the paper, before looking up at you and letting the paper fall out of his hand back onto the table, he has a grim look on his face. Stupid son of a bitch goin' out on his own with a hurt leg, he mumbles to himself as he walks towards the front door. His foot barely misses the empty bottle that is lying on its side just behind the couch. Again, he's out the door, you watch him as he sidesteps the three steps at the base of the porch, following him until he disappears out of view. You slowly walk over to the table, picking up the bottle on your way over and running your thumb in circles around the smooth lip. You place the bottle just to the side of the note before tilting it back and reading the label, 42% Alcohol, a big huff of air shoots out from between your lips. Now turning your attention to the note, it reads: