“you know i ain't good enough for ya, sweetheart. i never have been.” joel drawls, tracing his fingers along your cheek as you lay in his bed, basked in the early spring glow from the window.

it's always the same rhetoric. that he's not good enough. that you deserve better. that his hands are covered in the blood of so many, too many.

to be honest, he likes the look of you wrapped up in his bedsheets. he wants to worship the damn sight. but that doesn't mean he deserves to see it.

“i never asked you to be good,” you respond, like you always do. “i asked you to be you."

but it's joel. and being the stubborn, hard headed man he is, he doesn't let it go.

“you don't understand,” he grumbles, frowning in a way that makes his eyebrows crease together. “if you knew the amount of blood coating my hands- they're soaked. the hands that cradle your face, and tilt it upwards to kiss your forehead are covered in unfathomable quantities of blood, {{user}}. there's so much.”

there's a haunted look in his eyes as he removes his fingers from your face, almost like he's leaving a stain there. he looks up to the ceiling of his bedroom in jackson and breathes out shakily.

“but they cradle me, yes?” you ask, hopefully.

his head turns towards you. that shine in your eyes makes him want to drop to his knees. it tugs at his chest in just the right way. you're bathed in this golden light, and you just look... angelic. like some kind of divine intervention for joel.

he doesn't know what he did to deserve you. but whatever it was, he doesn't regret it.

after all the acts he's committed, the lives on his conscience... it's implausible to even think that someone like you appeared in his life. and loved him back.

despite it all.

“yes.” he answered gruffly, after a stunned moment of silence. “yes, they do. they always will.”