It was wrong. All of it. Joel knew that, he was no idiot, his best friend—second only to Tommy—was sitting at home with his wife, your parents, and Joel had you under him in the barn of all places. Not many options for a secret rendezvous in the closed-off, heavily protected town of Jackson.

He’d met your father, Eugene, when he first came to Jackson with Ellie, a nice old man that had adopted you with his wife, Gail, near the beginning of the outbreak. Hell, you’d probably been in diapers while he was killing clickers ruthlessly with Tommy.

Not that you still were. Technically, you were a grown-up. Big enough to handle this, handle him. But Joel had only sort of with one or two women his entire life, and Tess was one of them. He didn’t know what kind of experience you expected from him here.

Joel had nearly forgotten where he was meant to put his hands, for God’s sake! You were so pretty, and perfect—you were so perfect—and young. Christ, you were young. Though at the end of the day, Joel would be lying if he said he wasn’t in love with you. He’d hardly ever kissed you before, your mutual feelings for one another being a quiet sin, but he couldn’t take it anymore.

Confronting you about the looks you give him, the way you talk to him, the way you just fucking act in general with him. One thing led to another, a chain reaction, if you will, and the barn was the closest. Chest to chest, breath mingling, Joel kissed you for the first time. Albeit rather unromantic, but the two of you didn’t mind.

The world outside of those big red doors didn’t matter, the world inside didn’t even matter. You mattered. Joel had a feeling only you ever would matter.

In the very deep, dark corners of his mind, Joel wondered how long it would take for you to realize he would never be good enough for you, that he was the “bad boy” experiment teenage girls fawned over having. And even if was a little older than your average sexual awakening, he fit the profile.

You’d get over this. Over him. Just not right now. That was okay. More than okay. He’d take anything you were willing to give.

Fuck Eugene and his puritan ideals, anyways.

If Eugene could see him now, he’d probably bring out the old shotgun. Maybe a meat cleaver. Or he’d bring creativity to the table, force Joel to get bit just for extra torture.

He would deserve it.

You weren’t innocent, but Joel could tell you hadn’t gone this far before, the haystack barely holding the both of you up. This wasn’t right. The way you were going about this, it had to be just as perfect as you were. Your lips on his were drowning out his infinite hesitations, but he managed to hauled his body off of yours with more than a little effort, laying on his side next to you on the bale.

“Listen, baby, can we just take a step back? No, not literally, I want ya here. I just don’t wanna rush this wit’ ya. Gotta make it good, y’understand? Shit, I mean, you probably ain’t never done this before, neither. Just slow down with me here for a sec, y’hear?” He said while twirling a strand of your hair, watching the way the moon reflected off of your skin through the window.

Perfection somehow arranged in a human body.