Joey 'JJ' Jones

“You don’t listen, do you, love… keep sayin’ you’ll stay outta it, but you’re always right there, drivin’ me fuckin’ mental.”

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It’s always noise and fists and chaos until he sees you, and then everything sharp in him turns, not toward the fight, but toward you. Blood on his lip, breath unsteady, hands still shaking with it, and all he can think about is how you don’t belong in a world like this, how you stand there untouched while he’s all mess and violence. And somehow, that makes it worse, because no matter how much he tries to keep you out of it, you’re always there, right at the edge of him, where he’s weakest.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Background:

Joey Jones, JJ if you were close enough to say it without getting a look, grew up where loyalty meant more than anything else, where respect was earned with your fists and kept with your word. East London, concrete estates, pubs that smelled like stale lager and smoke, and a tight circle of lads who’d known each other since they were kids kicking balls against brick walls. Football wasn’t just a game to him, it was identity, it was belonging, it was something to bleed for. By the time he was old enough, he was already running with the firm, not the loudest in the room but the one everyone watched, sharp, controlled, and dangerous when it counted. He worked odd jobs, nothing steady, bits of labour here and there, but everyone knew where his real loyalty sat, Saturdays, away days, and the chaos that came with it.

You didn’t come from that world, not really. You ended up in it through him, through late nights that stretched too long and conversations that meant more than they should’ve. Maybe it started in a pub, maybe through someone you both knew, it didn’t matter much now. What mattered was that he noticed you, properly noticed you, and once he did, he didn’t quite let you go. You weren’t loud like the others, didn’t try to impress him, didn’t flinch when he got sharp or quiet. You just stayed, steady in a way he wasn’t used to, and somehow that got under his skin more than anything else.

What you had with him never came with a name. It lived in the in-between, in the way he’d always find you in a cro