CYOA Page 69
Sep. 14th, 2013 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lumy12You don't get in bed with Zack for fear of actually falling asleep yourself, but he's cool with you sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed. Basically, he just wants the reassurance that you're there -- and you've only promised to stay until he falls asleep. You do hear a couple of odd noises that you're pretty sure weren't made by Joel, so maybe the kid does have a point in getting a little creeped out.
In spite of the fact that you're sitting on the hard floor, you do actually nod off. When you awaken with a start, you realize that Zack is asleep and your job here is done. You creep ever so slowly away from the bed, wincing when the door squeaks as you inch it shut... but Zack doesn't wake up. You close the door very carefully, then relax and walk normally down the hall to the stairs; you don't want to startle Joel (that sometimes ends badly).
You've left the flashlight with Zack, though, in case he wakes up and has to pee or something. ...Although, really, couldn't he just aim it out the window? Or even piss in the corner -- not like you'll ever be in this house again -- but you weren't brought up to just pee indiscriminately wherever you are, and you know Jackson kids are accustomed to toilets. Besides, going outside is kind of like... giving back to nature. -Well, out the window, then! Whatever -- you're just that much of a gentleman, as Joel would say, to leave him the light and suffer the dark yourself. It's not hard to navigate the stairs with a handrail, but once you're down there, you wish the moon and stars would help you out and provide just a little bit more light.
Fuck the moon and stars -- what about Joel? He has the other flashlight! "Joel?" you whisper tentatively.
He doesn't answer you. He must already be asleep, because his hearing is really fucking exceptional. When you stop and listen, you do hear the faint sound of sleep-breathing coming from the kitchen/dining area. Conveniently forgetting that you've dozed a bit yourself already, you're a little disappointed that he's not lying there, restless, thinking about you, arms aching for you so much that it prevents him from sleeping...
You stumble across the room and into the room where Joel's sleeping. "Joel, it's me," you whisper as you make your way to the bed. "It's just me..." You're not trying to wake him up -- no, really! -- you just would rather he didn't pull a gun on you (you deposit yours on the floor). The audible breathing ceases. "Joel," you breathe as you run a hand over his body to figure out what is lying where. "It's me..."
He was on his side, facing away from you, but he rolls toward you and snakes an arm around you. "What're you doin' down here?"
"You didn't really expect me to sleep upstairs, did you?" you purr in his... well, neck, but you shift up to his ear...
"Yes, I did. -I do."
"Well, I don't," you giggle-whisper, flicking your tongue over his earlobe playfully. You feel a little silly doing stuff like that sometimes, but you know how it feels when Joel does it to you, so...
Joel sighs quietly. "We can't."
"Zack's asleep," you inform him.
"He'll wake up. Eventually. An' see you... here."
"I'll get up first."
"What if you don't?"
"I will. I'll wake up early and go upstairs like I was there all night." You nuzzle his cheek.
He turns and gives you a quick kiss. "You should go now. Go on."
You try to kiss him for real, but he turns away. "Fiiiiine," you sigh melodramatically. "If you really hate me so much, I'll go away." You roll away from him. ...slowly. He doesn't stop you. You sit up. Also rather slowly. He doesn't say a word. Is he fucking going back to sleep?
You're irritated now. And... again, a little hurt, to be honest. He's not even acting like he'll miss you. You're not crying... but you sniffle (artificially) a little, and take a breath that's sort of... quivery. If you heard someone make those sounds, you might think they were crying... or trying not to cry...
"Ellie."
You pause. "Yeah?" you say shakily.
"C'mere."
It worked! You snuggle back up to his side, and he squeezes you.
"You understand, don'tcha? Why we can't... sleep like this."
"I told you! I'll leave before he gets up!"
"Keep your voice down," he warns, even though that was barely more than a whisper.
"His door is closed, you know."
"Still. You have no way of knowin' if he's gonna sleep through the night... or when he's gonna wake up."
"Well, then... I got scared and had to come sleep with you. That will totally work because he got scared and wanted me to sleep with him!"
"He did?"
"Yep. So he'll get it. It'll make him feel better about being scared himself." You wriggle up to Joel's ear again and add, "See? You're doing a good thing if you let me sleep here."
"I am?"
You're delighted to feel him shiver as you breathe in his ear. "You're boosting a little boy's self esteem."
Joel turns and kisses you then -- or tries to, but it's kind of hard because he's grinning so much. You can tell he's suppressing a laugh, and you giggle a little yourself. "That's a good one. That's... damn. So I'm practically a saint now... for sharin' my bed with a teenage girl."
"Totally!" you answer happily. I made him laugh! Man, you feel like you have him now!
But it's only partially true: he doesn't kick you out of bed and send you upstairs, but he's only willing to exchange a few good night kisses before getting down to business (the business of sleeping, that is). And if Zack discovers you, the story is you had a nightmare and got too freaked out to go back to sleep so you had to sneak into Joel's bed. You can sell that. Hell, it's not like it hasn't happened before!
When you wake up, the sky has barely started to lighten... like the sun is lounging in bed thinking about getting up, but not ready to quite yet. Like me, you think sleepily... except you wish Joel was with you, and he's not. ...Why is he not? You don't feel like getting up to hunt him down. You just wish really hard that he would come back.
You hear the back door open behind you... my wish came true! ... and you should probably be reaching for your gun, but since it's most likely just Joel, you don't bother. Besides, you know Joel locked the door when you guys came inside last night. "Joel! Come back here!" you stage-whisper.
Sure enough, Joel comes over and sits on the edge of the bed. You can sort of reach his arm... you get un-lazy enough to sit up a little and give it a decent tug. Joel chuckles. "Can I take my shoes off first?"
You're all smiles. "I guess I can let you do that..." Oh good -- he's not going to lecture you for assuming it was him coming inside. That would be dumb, because it was him, but it's not necessarily beyond the realm of Joel Lecture territory. "What were you doing outside?"
"Lookin' around."
"Uh-huh. Emptying your bladder?"
"That, too."
"So is the house about to be invaded by infected? Hunters? ...ants?"
"Nope. We're good on all counts. Now if you'll keep your voice down..." To your delight, he crawls back into bed with you, under the blanket and everything -- and you can tell he did something else out there!
"You brushed your teeth!" you say accusingly before kissing him -- chastely. Because now you're not on even turf.
"Actually, no. Mouthwash only. And you're fine," he assures you as he draws you into a deeper kiss. Morning kisses can be a little gross, to be honest, but he truly doesn't seem bothered, so you've learned to be more chill about it. He pulls back a little. "Do I need to go eat a strawberry now? 'Cause I don' know if we've got any left."
You giggle (quietly). "Did I give you a complex or something? You keep... going there." After playfully declaring once that minty-fresh breath is great and all but a little too sterile for your taste, Joel asked you what you would prefer he taste like, and you said strawberries. Mostly because it's what popped into your head (although you do have a very nice memory of feeding each other strawberries... and delivering more kisses than berries!).
"Just tryin' to keep my girl happy."
"You do -- every time you call me your girl," you say with a stupid-big grin on your face, because you really do love that. You hug him as tight as you can, pulling him on top of you to, among other reasons, give you a better angle for maximum squeezing.
Joel adjusts the blanket for some reason. You're both fully clothed and you know he's not cold. He catches your puzzled look and answers your unspoken question. "I don' know... it looks less bad if we're covered up? But we really shouldn't be doin' this."
"Mmhmm." You try to kiss him.
"I'm serious."
Yet he's still on top of you. "We'll hear that door if it opens... we'll hear him on the staircase!" True, Joel didn't hear you on the staircase last night... but he was asleep!
"Maybe... you know, light wakes people up," he warns. "Once the sun's up, we're done."
Not like you're even doing anything... except wrapping yourself completely around him. And kissing a little. The problem is, the sun is just about up already. "Okay... so you're a two-minute man, huh?"
Ohhh the look on his face! You can't help it -- you start laughing, and Joel has to clamp a hand over your mouth. He's amused too, you can tell, but he's mastered the art of being quietly amused. "Ssssshhhhh!" And you see that he's listening... for Zack's door, probably.
You can't really whisper through his hand, so he lets you pull it away from your mouth to speak. "I'll shut up if you kiss me," you breathe.
He does, but only briefly. "What do you know about two-minute men?"
"I know a lot about lots of things," you say coyly. The standard reply whenever Joel thinks you're more innocent than you are (it happens fairly often). "But I mean it -- you better make sure my mouth is occupied or I'll--"
And Joel finally decides to make the most of those two(ish?) minutes by kissing you deeply... even grinding against you... you wonder if he's a little turned on by the thought of getting caught. You kind of are! No -- that would be bad, you remind yourself. Having clothes on definitely seems to make him more comfortable, too. Because God forbid his dick should accidentally poke through his underwear and touch some part of you (and forget about being naked! That's in the "someday" category).
You think he's getting hard, but there are too many fucking layers of clothing between you to know for sure what's going on down there. Yeah, he's at least a little bit... You squeeze his ass... and he doesn't seem to mind. But when you try to slide your hand down inside--
"None of that, now," Joel chastises you.
But he's still kissing you, and he didn't move your hand away, so...
"Ellie," he moans into your neck, making you giggle softly.
The hand isn't getting too far anyway. "How do you even sleep with your belt on? It's bad enough we have to sleep in our jeans..." Your fingers mosey on over to the front. If he would lift up just a little... "Or did you just put that on when you went out? I didn't feel it last night."
"Can't have my pants fallin' down while we're makin' a quick getaway," he says lightly, which... you suppose means he slept with it on? (Never mind that his 'quick getaway' prep is completely unnecessary; an army of hunters and/or infected is not going to suddenly descend on the house -- and it would have to be an army to make you flee like that!) He's tickling your neck with his whiskers... then your ear...
Fuck, that feels good! Patches of sunlight creep onto the floor... but maybe Joel hasn't noticed. You still don't hear anything from Zack's direction anyway. You wedge your hand in Joel's jeans, just over his hip, and start sliding it over...
Joel nonchalantly pulls it out and pins it over your head, then calmly resumes the awesome kissing/tickling thing. Without saying a word.
It's hard to stifle the giggles! "Oh, you finally decided to do something about my naughty hand, huh?"
He kisses over to your smiling lips. "I did ask you nicely first."
"Um, technically, you didn't. But I do have another hand..."
Before hand #2 can even dream of misbehaving, Joel pins that one, too.
"I wasn't gonna do anything," you lie, trying to look innocent. You half-ass an attempt to break free; you love this little game. "Shit. Now I can't move! Oh no, what am I going to do?"
Joel keeps giving you teasing little kisses, pulling back when you push for more. "You're completely at my mercy."
You gasp in mock horror. "Ohhhh not that! Please, not that! I swear I'll be good..."
Joel chuckles. "I don't think so. Bein' good ain't in your nature."
"I'll... I'll do anything you want!"
Joel smiles -- and fuck, you do so love it when he gives you that smile! "Dangerous words..."
"Anything!" you repeat. It's true -- he just won't let you do stuff!
"I'm good with this," he murmurs into your lips before finally giving you the kind of kiss you really want. The kind that makes you dizzy... that somehow zips down your spine and all the way to your toes...
You forget about the sunlight now, too. And about listening for Zack. You should have seen out of the corner of your eye--
But it's Joel who somehow senses that you're not alone. He tenses up, turns his head...
And then you turn and see--
If it's Zack, turn to page 132.
If it's NOT Zack, turn to page 135.
Carlos
Date: 2021-01-25 03:40 am (UTC)Re: Carlos
Date: 2021-01-25 04:38 am (UTC)RE: Re: Carlos
Date: 2021-01-27 06:06 am (UTC)