The Last Of Us Fanfic - Tumblr Posts

SO MUCH TO LOSE MASTERLIST - ONGOING

So Much to Lose - ONGOING

For readers 18+ only please!

summary:

Newly settled into Jackson city and forced to go on patrols with the miserable Joel Miller sets off a chain of events and encounters that have you questioning everything, including your own heart.note: Featuring Dark!Joel

story trailer

note: the gal in this is just a stand in, because the Reader is YOU in it.

Chapter 1 : Patrols

Chapter 2: The Doe

Chapter 3: You Make the Rules, Remember?

Chapter 4: Early Riser

Chapter 5: You still want this?

Chapter 6: Trapped Inside

Chapter 7: Spoiled

Chapter 8: Shoulder to Shoulder

Chapter 9: Repairs

Chapter 10: Rancher Street

Chapter 11: Snow

Chapter 12: Town Meeting

Chapter 13: Family Dinner

Chapter 14: Coffee Flavored Kisses

Chapter 15: Going Quiet

Chapter 16 : Will you tell me?

Chapter 17 : Pockets of Beauty - coming January 2025

Chapter 18: Useless

Chapter 19: Footprints in the snow

Chapter 20 - Looking Forward

Chapter 21 - Epilogue

EXTRAS

"Chapter 7 Joel" by @loveIvyxxx

Story MoodBoard by @angelbabysblog

Joel Miller Moodboard by @angelbabysblog

SMTL meme

Decisions, Decisions

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Notes - If this is ooc or some things are wrong I’m sorry! I literally know nothing about tlou other than what I’ve seen from episode one.

Prompt - ‘Sometimes you make the wrong decision and that leads you to the right decision.’

The thing about the end of the world is that nobody expected it. Sure it was a thing everyone knew would happen one day, one of the many, indisputable facts of life, but nobody ever thought it would happen to them. When people pictured the end of the world it was usually a wave of fire and panic before nothing, everyone expected nothingness at the end of the world.

So when the world did end on some random day in September people didn’t realise it for what it was, not yet. There was no end worlding bang, no thing in the sky falling down to destroy everything.

There was panic though, God was there panic. Every person was consumed by that panic, that fear of what was happening, so consumed that they couldn’t think past it, couldn’t think about whether there was a future after this.

It was the end of the damned world and yet the world stayed standing.

There was fire, a lot of fire, cities, houses, cars and planes went up in flames, smoke spreading fast and thick until people struggled to breathe through it. There was screaming too, people lay on the ground screaming as the dead bit into them, people screamed as they ran from the dead who moved too quick, people screamed as the military raised their weapons and shot them just because they had been ordered to.

The world stayed standing but everything else ended.

Communications had long since stopped working, if you were alone when it happened then you were alone for good…at least for a while. If you were one of the lucky ones you kept yourself safe until you could get taken in by the official quarantine zones. If you weren’t lucky then the dead would make quick but painful work of you.

Those were the two kinds of people nowadays, the lucky and the unlucky, the dead and the survivors.

Then there was you.

You weren’t lucky, you weren’t a survivor. When the world ended you had panicked along with everyone else. You were alone in Texas, it hadn’t even been a month since you moved out there for some job you had sworn was going to change your life.

You had no idea how you survived as long as you had, months into the outbreak or whatever this thing was, you were tired. The panic still existed, it consumed your every waking minute, you paused before turning a corner, held your breath at a creak in the house. You were trying to make your way to one of the safety points the government had set up, the ones closest to you all filled and your feet ached as every car you passed failed to work.

You were tired. Tired of fighting, tired of being scared, tired of being alone, you were tired of being tired.

So when you left a house you had spent the night in and heard a noise to your right you knew you had a split second to make your decision. Did you want to die? No, of course you didn’t, the answer came to you straight away but then so did the next question; did you want to live?

The answer didn’t come to you so clearly this time. You didn’t want to die but what was there to live for anymore. This was the world now, no hope, no cures, nothing. Why would anyone want to live in this world? It wasn’t living anymore, it was surviving one day just to survive the next.

And that was your answer wasn’t it, there was nothing to live for so why were you still fighting?

You saw it coming for you out of the corner of your eyes before you scrunched them shut, bracing yourself for the pain and hoped it would be quick. You felt its hand grab you before it went limp and fell to the floor and you let out a shuddering breath as your eyes flew open and down to the ground before turning to look around.

You weren’t lucky, you weren’t a survivor; you were something else. You were saved, saved by a man who looked as tired as you were, saved by a man who look like he was carrying a hefty weight on his shoulders, a man who scowled and shook his head as he snapped at you, asking what the hell you were thinking.

As he stepped closer to you your mind began running at a mile a minute. The main thing you felt was relief, thankful this man had made a decision for you, thankful he hadn’t left your fate up to you.

When he was close enough you didn’t even think, you couldn’t think properly, instead you threw your arms around him and hugged yourself to his chest. The man let out a small huff as he went tense in your arms before he sighed and wrapped your shaking figure in his arms.

“You’re ok.” He told you, his voice was gruff as he spoke and you couldn’t stop the sob that left you, one of the man’s hands lifting to cup the back of your head.

It had been so long since you had spoken to another person, you didn’t know who to trust these days but months of isolation were bound to make you just a little bit desperate for human contact.

“Sorry,” you said as you pulled away, voice croaky from not speaking for so long. “Sorry, I um, thank you.”

“You’re alright.” He told you again before his eyes ran over you, checking for something before his frown deepened. “Where’s your weapon?”

They were already dead, kept moving by whatever virus or parasite had infected them but still…it had never sat right with you to kill them. So you didn’t. It had been months since the world ended and you hadn’t killed a single one of them.

You weren’t a survivor, you weren’t lucky. You were careful and you calculated every single move you made.

You were tired.

“I don’t have a weapon.” You watched his frown deepen even more if it were possible.

“You don’t have a- how the hell have you stayed alive?” He asked you and you couldn’t do more than shrug at him. “You were ready to let that thing get you.”

It wasn’t a question, he had witnessed it himself and you weren’t going to correct him. Both of you knew you were grateful for his intervention.

Joel got it, he really did. Some days it took all his energy to not put a bullet in his own head or be done with it and let the dead have at him. The months since Sarah had been killed, had died in his arms, had been the worst of his life. He got you being ready to leave it all behind because most days he was right there with you.

And Joel looked at you and saw himself. He saw the tiredness, the bone deep exhaustion, he saw the hurt and the brokenness that felt like it would never mend. He saw himself in you but he also saw you, he saw the way you didn’t carry a weapon, he had watched a moment that was probably your most vulnerable and he had watched the relief in your features as you fell against him.

It didn’t take him much longer to make his decision.

“C’mon we gotta make the most of the daylight.” Joel said after a few moments of silence and began moving before you could even register his words.

In the span of five minutes you were making two life altering choices, you regretted you first decision but you had a feeling you were making the right decision this time and trailed after Joel as he led the way and for the first time in months it felt easier to breath as you made your way through the city, watching as Joel lay a protective arm in front of you, pushing you behind him, as he dealt with the dead.

__________

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What Follows

a/n can (likely) see myself making a part 2 of this, it’s like 4:30 AM and i cannot make that decision rn,, so if you think that’s a good idea or are interest,, lmk, public opinion could make or break my decision once i’m better rested

Summary: If you had to think about the coincidences that brought you to this, you’d realize that it was inevitable. Domino pieces falling into place. Or, to put it simply, it’s the end of the world and yet your biggest concern is your teeny tiny...terrible, life ruining crush. 

*cough* sharing bed trope, and some other stuff 

also i’ve never played the game i’ve only watched the show but i have some context of the game (i’ve watched some videos),, but timeline wise,, location wise, it’s pretty general as i’m just going with what fits for my intended story line like i do with most fics :)) it’s mainly set in a sort of safe house 

warnings: potential timeline errors, mentions of age gap that’s pretty vague, allusions to anxiety and canon angsty-ness

----

Memories of before are tricky. Most of them hybrids, odd mix-matches of true experiences and snippets of other things. Stories from an uneasy rotation of people, bits and pieces from books and magazines and other odds and ends. A collage that makes up an easily swayed perception of the world before. 

But you know this one is real. You know it is because it’s so mundane there’s no way someone gave it to you. It’s a quick glimpse, a brief flicker of you in a pair of roller skates with those thick, plastic stoppers attached to the front. The memory isn’t of what they felt like, or how many laps you did up and down your block. All you remember is the stinging. The soft skin of your knee scraped raw by the sidewalk. The particularness of that kind of pain. 

That’s what the realization feels like. Knowing that there’s a chance that you might feel something for Joel outside of general gratitude for the unofficial way Ellie and him took you in is speeding down a street just to collapse with no warning against unforgiving concrete.

His fingers brush around broken skin with a delicateness that turns you rigid. These are the same hands that beat a man within an inch of his life the first time he met you. It’s a juxtaposition that twists your nerves tight around your stomach.

It’s quiet now. More so than usual because Ellie’s asleep. If you had to come to your realization at all, you should have done it during the day. With Joel at a safe distance and Ellie awake to distract from the fact that you’ve been staring at his hand in total silence for minutes now. A violently out of character mistake, which is why you’re not surprised when his voice breaks the nothingness with a question: “You alright?” 

You sit up a little straighter. “Yeah.” It comes out flat and distant. “Yeah,” you affirm, a little more here, “Just thinking.” 

Ugh. Not nearly deflective or subtle enough. It’s the kind of cop out answer that worked in the beginning, before there was any form of attachment. Back then, you thought you’d only be around them for a few days. Until the swelling in your ankle went down enough to let you walk efficiently again. It was the least they could do then, after you jumped in to save Ellie when Joel and her were briefly separated. 

Joel’s mouth pulls into a shadow of a frown in the low light. A pang of guilt strikes you in the chest with no warning. Slipping back to that for no real reason goes a step beyond unfair; it’s mean. “I remembered something from before.” Joel says nothing, but his eyes refocus on you in a way that feels attentive. “Nothing big or interesting, just remembered these roller skates from when I was a kid. The one time I went out without knee pads I fell and scraped my knee.” 

His hand shifts away from your current injury--a long, yet shallow cut up your foreleg. Joel’s fingertips ghost up the skin, there and not at the same time. He settles his palm near your knee. “Is that how this happened?” There’s a hint of something in his voice, a touch of gentleness that makes you feel like he might be teasing you, at least a little. 

That kind of humor is new. Well, not new new anymore, but new enough to still sometimes slip past your perception or take you completely by surprise. Joel’s transition from constantly distant and standoffish to who he is now was equal parts slow as it was all at once. Weeks of tiptoeing, of hesitant flashes of a softer side until it became more and more there. It’s still not the side of him that’s most common, but considering the place where the two of you started from, the difference feels like miles from the sad starting point. 

You blink, tilting your head downwards to focus on the skin next to his thumb. A scar that’s little more than a blemish. The kind of mark that’s a result of picking at a scab again and again. “That’s nothing.” It’s such a small thing and Joel pointed it out so quickly. Like he knows your skin better than you do. Dwelling on that thought isn’t an option, so you recover with a question, “How’d you even see that?” 

Joel raises his eyebrows as if your surprise is something worth being amused by. “When you get used to seeing, it’s easy.” 

Of course it’s that. Considering how Joel is, how he always scouts out areas before letting us settle, it makes sense that he’d notice that. It’d be weirder if he didn’t. You press your foot into the ground, letting the feel of the dirt compacting itself beneath your shoe hold you in place. You’re almost embarrassed that you’ve never noticed the mark on your knee enough to fully register it. “I’ll let you check the rest of me for scars later then.” 

What. Did. You. Just. Say. What. 

Your entire body becomes as stiff as the trunk you’re leaning against. There are a lot of things you don’t know about attraction and dating, but you’re not so dense you can’t tell that that’s the worst line you’ve ever heard. 

Staring at the ground forever feels like the only safe option left, but it’s extremely unviable. After a few seconds, not knowing starts to feel as bad as knowing so you force yourself to look up enough to see him. He’s staring at you, mouth morphing into a subtle smile. He lets out a breathy scoff that’s supposed to cover a laugh, but you know better by now than to fall for that. 

“I didn’t say that.” With a sigh, you let your eyes shut. “I mean--I said it as in the words did come out of my mouth--but not like--y’know.” 

Joel laughs again, this time more openly. It’s deep and full and makes the burning of your humiliation worth all of it. “I know?” 

Squinting your eyes open, you take in his smugness. It’s different and oddly warm. And unfortunately, not unattractive. “You’re not funny.” Indignation makes you want to pull your leg back, and you should. You know you should. If there was any concern about the cut on your leg, Joel wouldn’t be joking. But he relaxes his hand, fingers splaying against your skin. “So what’s the verdict: Keeping the leg or cutting my losses?” 

Joel lets out another breath-laugh. This time it’s shorter. “And I’m the unfunny one?” Yeah, that’s the kind of response that guarantees your safety. The kind of comment he’d only ever make if everything is truly fine. “You’re okay.” 

“Just like I told you--” 

He ignores the comment with an expert’s ease. “Tomorrow I’ll go out, get some penicillin.” 

“Shit.” You frown, turning your leg out slightly to get a better look. This is easily one of the most embarrassing injuries of your life. Not inflicted by the monsters that infest your world or a corrupt person. The only thing you’re a victim of is not paying enough attention while panicking and not noticing a jagged rock.  It’s nothing life changing, nothing worthy of this much attention or discussion. “It’s infected?” 

Joel’s hand relaxes against your lower knee. It’s more of an implication of pressure than an actual change, but your body reacts to it all the same. You ease. “It was a muddy rock.” He pauses, like he’s running through his words. “Better safe.” 

Oh. Preventative antibiotics. A kind thought, but it feels unrealistic. “If nothing’s wrong, I don’t think we should risk it.” You blink, eyes struggling to focus on anything other than the hand still on your knee. If Joel feels awkward about it, he gives no indication. Which means it must be normal. Joel’s too him to do anything not normal when it comes to touch. “You’re hurt. More hurt than me, who’s just an idiot.” 

“’M fine.” Tell that to the flash of purple you saw when Joel’s shirt briefly rode up this morning. It had only been that way for a second, but that was all it took for you to realize that Joel’s bruising is larger than the size of your hand. You wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he has a cracked rib. 

You must let your disbelief show because the corner of his mouth turn upwards. Not quite a smile, but it’s close enough. “Tell that to your probably cracked rib.” 

 “I’m fine,” he repeats, and when you don’t ease, he tacts on something fatal, “Don’t pout.”

The joke is nothing original. Back in the ‘early’ days of your friendship, when things were rockier and less known, Joel had pointed out your expressiveness. He claimed it made it too easy to figure out more or less what you were thinking. It hadn’t been an insult, but it bothered you more than it should have. Which is a fact that Joel used to prove his hypothesis correct, because he then immediately told you that there was no point in pouting about it. 

Joel only says it in good humor. You know that, but that doesn’t mean you like it. It all goes back to the same thing. An implication that you’re transparent. You hate it. 

Transparency is for the naive, for those who haven’t experienced enough to be hardened. It makes you feel like a child, and maybe that’s intentional. Maybe it’s Joel’s equivalent to patting you on the head and telling you to cheer up, kiddo.

You’ve never understood the way the implication manages to snag itself beneath your skin, but now that you’re examining it under the lens of your new realization, it’s too much. There’s a good chance he sees you like another kid to look after. 

 “I’m not pouting.” A bad kind of heat rises up your chest. Instinctually, you angle your leg a little closer to yourself. It’s not a full retreat, but Joel’s fingers shift to secure their hold on you. 

It’s enough to shock you into stilling. If Joel’s prolonged contact was unexpected, him instinctually fighting to keep it is absolutely unbelievable. He’s not squeezing or forcing you to stay in place, but the gesture is enough to feel like he’s asking you to. “Need to wrap it.” 

Another thing you consider over treating a cut of this size. The only thing startling about it is its length. “It’s not that deep.” 

“Let me wrap it.” His voice comes out with a gruff annoyance that’s become increasingly familiar. It makes everything sound like some kind of version of don’t give me shit. 

You fight down a grin. “Admit your rib’s cracked.”

Joel presses his lips together, lines etching themselves into his skin. “Do you always have to argue?” 

Pausing, you pretend to have to think about it. “We all need hobbies.” You give yourself permission to look at him. Really look at him. “When you argue your eyebrows draw together and this line appears between them.” 

He laughs once, this time a little more openly. It’s still a little breathy and maybe even a little reluctant, but it feels good. Like sunlight saturating a room during the dead of winter. “I’m old.” 

Another reminder of that. You fight against the way it twists at your insides. “I’ve met older.” 

“Grandparents don’t count.” 

It’s all so weird and ridiculous, so you do the only thing you can think to. You laugh. “I wasn’t thinking about my grandparents.” 

It’s meant to be a joke that echoes his own, only it’s not quite that. Not with the way your voice softens and your eyes focus on his.

His fingers take their time parting from your skin. A slow drag that feels dangerously close to intentional. You’re practically holding your breath until he stands. “I’ll grab something for your leg.” 

There’s another thing left to point out. Something hanging in between the two of you. The fact that you’re perfectly capable of bandaging it yourself. That there’s a good chance you’d be better at it. “Okay.” 

----

When there is no sun and sleep pulls you under only to push you back out, time feels fickle. You don’t know how long it’s been since you all agreed to go to bed. 

Things feel different now that you’re all temporarily established in some safe house. Joel’s connection to it is vague to you. He mentioned his brother at some point, though you think details were used intentionally sparingly. It doesn’t feel cagey to you like it used to. Now it just feels like he’s holding off until it’s time to tell you everything.

 Maybe he’s waiting for it to come up naturally on some night where there’s nothing but time or maybe he’s waiting for it to feel right. You’re okay with either and any option. His past is his. You know he gives you what he can bare to and it’s only a matter of time until you hear the rest. 

You sit up, resting your back against the wall that your mattress is pressed against. Despite the dark, the outline of your roommate is easy to see. You’re not sure how it happened, the division of space that led to you and Joel in the same room and Ellie sleeping on her own. 

It’s only been a few nights and you’ve yet to regret going along with it. Ellie deserves the little privacy life can offer her considering the way you and Joel watch the poor girl. And, in all honestly, you’ve never been particularly fond of long hours alone in the dark. Especially since you joined Joel and Ellie on their mission. You’ve gotten more used to being around people than ever and that’s made being alone more noticeable than ever.

Sometimes when you can’t sleep your mind goes there. After. The inevitable separation. It makes your chest hurt and forces memories of what you’ve already lost to the surface. That makes it even harder to sleep, so sometimes you just settle for watching. You’d feel weirder about it if the dark of night didn’t make it little more than a step above staring off into space. 

Bending your knees, you adjust your position on the mattress, letting thin blankets fall away. It’s cold; the bite of it is welcomed.

Everyone’s temporary. You’ve learned that already. It’s burned into you the way that normal memories should be. 

This is stupid. All of it. Maybe Joel’s right to see you as a child. One bad dream shouldn’t have this much power of you. Quietly, you squeeze your arms around your legs. It’s the same position you were in when it happened. When you lost her. 

You don’t realize that you’re breathing heavier than you should be until you hear Joel’s mattress adjust as he moves from his side to his back. Shit. He never gets enough sleep. Guilt and embarrassment swell in you, but it’s not enough to subdue the impending panic. 

“You awake?” It’s mumbled through a voice that’s heavy with sleep.

A part of you wants to stay quiet, but that’d be wrong. You already woke him up, the last thing you need to do is stress him out. “Yeah,” you manage, “I’m up.” Your voice comes out so hollow you barely recognize it. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I--I’m gonna--” You don’t know what the end of the sentence is supposed to be. Something that implies that you’re stepping out and that everything’s fine. “Go back to sleep.” 

There’s a moment of nothing and a small part of you thinks maybe Joel’s listened for once. Your hope is shattered at the sound of rustling sheets. “C’mere.” 

It’s said so faintly you can imagine that it’s a figment of your imagination. Likely a mumbled slur that he won’t even remember in the morning. A sleep idled grunt of acknowledgement that just so happened to sound like a word. You know it’s nothing. You know you heard him incorrectly, but you can’t relax. Not yet. You hold yourself there, breath caught in your lungs as a prolonged beat passes. 

Joel breaks the silence by moving off of his side and on to his back. His arm stretches forward, pulling his blanket to the side. Are you crazy or is that...some kind of invitation? “I’m not going back to bed until you come here.” 

There’s still sleep in his voice, but he’s already managed to snap back into seriousness. A subdued authority. Your body moves on its own accord. You sit up fully, place your feet on the ground, and stand. Walking is a little harder but the distance is short. 

You stand in front of his mattress, smaller than you’ve ever been. Joel’s never fully relaxed. He’s close to it now, and you wonder if you’ll be around long enough to be able to see it. The question leaves you too cold, too antsy. Before you know what you’re doing, you’re sitting at the edge of his mattress. “’M here,” you whisper, “And I’m fine.” 

A touch at your lower arm nearly makes you jump. It’s just Joel. “You’re shaky.” He sits up so quickly you can barely register it. The back of his palm presses itself against your neck before he reaches for your temple. His fingers feel like ice but you can’t bring yourself to move away.  “You’re not warm--” 

“No fever.” It leaves you too quietly. “I--I’m fine.” Joel’s hand leaves your forehead and settles against your back. “Just realized some shit.” His fingers drag down your spine and trace their way back to their original resting place. Again and again, a pattern that makes it easy to breathe. “I’ve been around for awhile, with you and Els. Longer than I thought I’d be. Longer than...” Longer than I’ve been with anyone since I lost her. “Just longer.”

His touch nearly falters. “Mhm.” 

“And it’s been nice. Really nice.” Your nails softly scratch the inside of your wrist. “And I don’t want to get to that part where something fucked up happens.” Your breath catches itself in your throat. “I know that the fucked up part is normally my fault. Historically, at least, but--” You cut yourself off with a shaky breath, hating yourself for being this pathetic. “I just really don’t want to get there. To the fucked up part that leads to the leaving part.”

Getting things out in the open is supposed to make things feel better. It’s supposed to make things lighter. That’s what people always say. This isn’t that. There’s no epiphany, no healing. It leaves you and it stays that way. Gone.

Hollowness is worse. It’s too revealing. You should leave, mumble a vague comment about dreams and sleepy thoughts before crawling back to your own jumble of cushioning and jumbled blanket or at the very least apologize for waking him over nothing. 

You do neither. For a minute there’s only the silence and the cold and the safe assurance of Joel tracing patterns against your back. “There’s not going to be a fucked up part.” Joel destroys the silence. “Not a fucked up part that leads to leaving.” 

“You don’t know--” Your cut off is jarring, but it’s better than letting him hear what you were going to say. You don’t know me. Don’t know the kinds of things that happen around me. “That.”

Joel’s hand retreats and your world feels less stable. “There won’t be.” His tone is harsher than before, a tone that leaves no room for argument from the universe let alone you. He shifts, pushing most of himself to one side. “Just lay down.” The lowness of his voice is too assured to be considered understanding. It hints at impatience but undoes a knot in your stomach regardless. “Try to get some sleep.” 

You nod your head slowly, the motion overly deliberate despite the fact that he likely can’t see it. There’s nothing else to be said, so you stretch back, placing your legs onto his mattress and carefully easing yourself onto your back.

Now that you’re under the same blanket as him, the thinness of it is hard to ignore. When the three of you divided the bedding supplies found in some closet, Joel had picked last. You asked if he ever felt like trading, but he insisted that he was warm enough and that if he ever wasn’t, he could always use his jacket for extra layering. 

The realization that he’s likely been freezing without complaint takes a second to sink in. He likes his walls up and to play detached, but then takes the worst of the blankets without complaint. It’s so stupidly close to being a martyr that you nearly laugh. It’s so him in the worst way, the kind of way he’d never acknowledge. 

You’re debating whether or not the additional warmth of your blanket would be worth potentially disturbing his sleep again. If you did that, maybe in the morning you could pretend to get the two blankets mixed up. You think you could get used to being this cold if he’d let you. 

“You know what you remind me of.”

His voice is so unexpected you nearly jump out of your skin. With your mind focusing on other things, it was easier to pretend that there was nothing unusual about this. 

Blood rushing to your face, you adjust so that you’re more on your side. Facing him. "I thought you wanted me to go to sleep.” 

Joel sighs and you can practically feel his lungs filling and deflating. “I didn’t think tonight would be the night you started listening to me.” 

At least he’s learning. “First time for everything.” The words feel different once they’re out in the air. It’s meant to be a passing comment, not what the darkness morphs it into. 

It’s the second time a realization has come at a terrible time in the last few days. You know that you’ve been lying in his bed, but now you’re feeling the fact. Feeling the little space between you and the dip in the mattress’s fabric where he’s resting. It’d be easy to extend your arm. Dangerously easy. 

You feel his head tilt, angling himself even closer to you. “Do you want to know or not?” 

It takes a second for your mind to cement a connection. “What I remind you of?” You hum once, several jokes that’d make this easier coming to mind instantly. “I have a few guesses.” It’s too dark to make out the details of his expression, but you can feel his halfhearted glare. “Okay, tell me.” 

“There was this story from before. Way before.” You’re patient as he takes his time thinking through what he wants to say. You don’t mind the wait, not when he’s close enough that his casualness is tangible enough to be contagious. “About a kid that saw this white rabbit. She chased the thing down a hole and it took her into this other world, and there were some other things, but she kept chasing that rabbit.”

You would have laugh if he had spoken any less seriously. It’s always been clear that you two aren’t exactly the same age, and some references that are about before the outbreak feel either vague or completely disconnected from you, but not everything. “I know I’m younger than you, but I know about Alice in Wonderland.” 

“Excuse me.” The two words are dripping in sarcasm; you beam. “After you didn’t know that--” 

“I knew you were going to say that.” You don’t get one reference one time and now he feels the need to explain everything. “It was one time.” 

“Even Ellie got it.” 

“I was tired.” He raises his eyebrows at that, a gesture of disbelief. You huff once, sitting up a little to shove his shoulder. “I was.” He lets out a sound that’s a little too smug. You move your hand, but before you can push at his arm, his fingers find their way around your wrist. When you try to tug your arm back, his resistance surprises you. “Asshole.” 

His hand leaves goosebumps crawling up your arm as he adjusts his hold on you. “You’re the one that shoved me.” Like he’s not the one that instigated it. “And you interrupted me.” 

“Fine.” You lay back down. Joel doesn’t let go of your arm and you make no move to get it back. His hands are so cold you find it hard not to worry. Hypothermia’s a thing. “Continue. Alice in Wonderland.” 

“The rabbit,” he says, “You’re a lot like that.” 

You play around with the thought, scraping together the details you remember about the white rabbit. It’s been awhile since you’ve watched the Disney movie version, and even longer since you’ve heard the actual story. Alice got into some trouble with the queen of hearts and her card deck guards. Every time she wasn’t supposed to be somewhere it was because of that rabbit, wasn’t that the gist of it? She just kept chasing and chasing it. 

“So who am I leading astray?” 

“No.” He says it so quickly, the silence that follows is unexpected. You accept it. You’ll wait. “You’re...you’re followable.” Oh. The cold makes no difference to the uncontrollable warmth that rushes to your face. 

He feels tenser, his touch on your arm a little more hesitant. The meaning of that from Joel isn’t lost on you."You are, too.” 

Joel’s fingers brush up your arm. “Not the way you are.” 

You like the way he is, like that he’s the kind of person that can be moody and standoffish for days and still take the thinnest blanket. “I disagree.” 

“That’s not new.” 

“I think it’s good we don’t agree.” He waits for you to continue with little reaction, but you know he’s listening. “I can follow you, you can follow me. Makes it easier.”

He hums once, “Sounds like walking in circles.” 

Rolling your eyes, you finally let your attention fall to his hand. “You’re so cold.” 

Joel mistakes it for a complaint instead of the show of concern it’s meant to be. His hand moves off you so quickly you barely have a chance to reach for him. He doesn’t resist, not even when you squeeze his one hand between both of yours. You’re careful, gentle as you let your fingers move up and down his skin. When he doesn’t complain, you do something a better rested you would have never done. You let your touch wander further, first to his wrist and then down to his forearm. He’s no warmer there. 

“Shit, Joel.” you start pressing your hands against his forearm, your need to make his skin feel like it’s at a stable temperature overriding your survival instincts. “You’re freezing.” You sit up, taking his arm with you. “Are you sick?” 

“Sick’s hot.” 

“Tell that to someone with early stage hypothermia.” You scoot back, preparing to move over to grab your blanket. “I’ll get my blanket.” 

He squeezes your arm. “I’m fine.” You’re seconds away from protest, but Joel stops you. “Just stay put.” 

You’re about to insist. It’ll take less than a minute and make things a lot better. The urgency in his hold makes it impossible. Makes the thought of doing anything that doesn’t involve holding on just as intensely outside of the realm of possibility. “Okay.” 

If he’s surprised at how quickly you give in, he doesn’t show it, he just lets you lay down again. You’re not sure if you can prove it, but it feels like he’s closer than before. “How are you not cold?” 

You almost tell him you do feel cold, he’s just that much colder, but then think he might use that as a reason to move away from you. He’d never understand that you’d rather be cold than know he’s freezing. Or maybe the problem is he’d get it too much, that he’d feel the same way. 

“I run a little warm.” You brush your fingers down his arms again. It’s nice in a way you don’t get. “Except my feet.” 

He tilts his head. “Your feet?” 

You stretch your legs until your feet find his. “They’re cold.” 

Joel lets out a disgruntled sound, moving closer to let his legs cover your feet. “Rabbit.” 

The giggle that comes out would be embarrassing if that had been any less funny. Your forehead pushes forward, dropping against his shoulder. “Please don’t let that stick.” 

“They burrow.” You grin against his skin, deciding that you really like this version of him. A little lighter, a little more candid. “You’re a little jittery, too.” 

“Shut up.” He’s not wrong, which only makes you resent him a little more. “‘M not.” 

There’s no fight in your reaction so you have no idea how Joel finds a way to take it as a challenge. He must have, though, because you can think of no other explanation for the way he stills. No other motive for the way you can feel his eyes focusing on you or the slow way he moves his hand down your arm.

You will your body to stay still, to not react. It doesn’t listen. You shiver. 

Maybe you are a fucking rabbit. 

The only thing worse than this reaction is the thought of Joel being right. So you force your lips to part even though you have no idea what to say. “Think we should go to sleep.” Your voice feels awkward, shallow. “...Get a few hours before Els wakes up.” 

He’s almost smiling, “She takes up a lot of energy.” 

“Yeah,” you agree with an even more open fondness, “Told her I’d teach her how to shoot arrows and french braid hair.” You smile at the thought. It’s good to have someone to teach, to pass something onto. “Feels like summer camp.” 

You’re expecting a similar type of joke, or maybe a snarky comment about archery over actual shooting. Instead, his hand settles a little more comfortably against your arm. “You’re good with her.” 

“She’s easy to be good with.” It’s true. Beneath the smart ass jokes and swear rate that could make a sailor uncomfortable, Ellie’s just a kid, and a good one, too.

Joel’s one to talk about people that are good with Ellie. When you first met, you genuinely thought they were father and daughter until Joel explained to you what they were doing. “It’s more than that.”

His approval means a lot when it comes to this. “You’re even better with her.” 

Ellie’s another factor all together. There’s no way it wouldn’t feel weird for her to know that in the other room, you and Joel are sharing a mattress, holding onto each other because of the cold. 

It’s not like you’re doing anything wrong, it just feels odd when considering her. Like this is some kind of game of house. The realization that you think you might like Joel is still pretty new and something that’s ruined a lot of things. Every time it floats to the front of your mind, everything starts feeling off. 

You don’t want to taint this or to overthink. You want to let it all soak in. The two of you sharing a mattress and a too thin blanket. His leg is still resting over your feet and your hands are still on his arm. You’re a slowly tangling web of limbs and you don’t think you’d have it any other way as you drift towards unconsciousness. 

hello! I was hoping for a Joel miller imagine where the reader gets hit on in a bar when she’s dating Joel and he sees this and confronts the guy and hits him because he’s aggressive and is all protective over the reader!

I love your writing and this would be amazing thank you xx

A/n first joel request,, slay

update: watched the new episode, bill and frank, still crying 

i feel like this gives post outbreak joel a little more bc of the physical protectiveness,, but i can't remember if there's much/any descriptions of like literal bars in the QZ,, i've only watched the show and i don't remember seeing details,, like ik there's alc/pills available, but actual bars??

idk it's possible i've missed it or forgot bc i have terrible memory

so enjoy my 'makeshift' bar concept as i try my best to deviate from canon as much as possible

not to shamelessly self promo,, but if you like this fic i have another joel fic with what i feel like is a more developed version of this dynamic (bc it’s longer and more internal monologue centered) here and i’m making a part 2 for it so if you like these vibes and want something similar, it’s there, it exists :) 

----

You're staring again, and trying your hardest to convince yourself that you're not. It's more than pointless, it's bordering on ridiculous.

Joel Miller is not some fleeting crush that’d fit somebody in grade school better than it’d fit you. Not anymore. You know what you are. You've had a talk. The kind of talk that you didn't think existed anymore in this world.

It wasn't exactly the rom-com 'what are we', but after a man Joel was dealing with got a little too friendly, it led to an argument. One you didn't fully understand, especially since Tess practically lived by his side.

Don't pretend, you might come off as all innocent, but you're too smart to be that naive. Men like that only have one intention.

And that had rightfully infuriated you, because after weeks of lingering touches that could be justified with a few words but never were and all the goddamn looks, he had no right to lecture you about another man's intentions with you. His intentions don't matter because that has no affect on me and who I am. Why the fuck does it even matter?

Why does it matter? It had been this subtle scoff of a response that made you take a step back. That made your back brush against the wall of his apartment. Because I don't want other men like that lookin' at you, let alone speaking to you.

The world stopped spinning on its axis and all the air preparing to leave your lungs was trapped with no where to go. Too many implications. 'Other men like that', the inclusion of himself in men that had those intentions. Maybe even more importantly, the implication that he’s some sort of exception.

 Even more deafening, your response: Well maybe I wouldn't speak to them if you didn't entertain ev--

The rest of your sentence, whatever it would have been, was lost to his mouth on yours. A snapping of tension that took its time fizzling down to something less consuming. Something that allowed you both to talk enough to make it clear that Joel was yours and you were his.

It wasn't a magical snapping into place like it might have been in a world without the outbreak. In some ways, it added a new layer of hesitance, and in other ways it propelled you forward. There are growing pains with anything new, and the whole relationship thing is definitely new to you. Especially in this world.

If only you could get past staring. Maybe after Joel secures the whiskey-bourbon-hybrid whatever they're passing as alcohol these days from a less than trustworthy trading contact, you'll get buzzed enough to graduate to handholding, or at the very least, you'll be able to do something besides sit there.

You're starting to feel insane. How is making out easier than the small things? Maybe the setting is more at fault here than you. In the outside world, any form of attachment could easily be twisted into weakness. It’s likely best that you keep some distance from Joel here, especially with the way other men keep looking over at the two of you. 

It’s not like you’re never awkward about the little things when confined safely between the walls of Joel’s place, that’s slowly but surely starting to feel like it’s at least partially yours, as well. But the way you get in public is something else entirely. It’s probably for the best. There are already too many eyes on you. 

Like the guy with red hair that glints oddly in the yellow light of the stranger’s building. He’s swaying slightly, a dark looking glass in his hand that he’s yet to release in the entire time you’ve been here. Every time one of his friends leaves him, his gaze returns to yours. 

Your skin crawls each time, but you keep your expression as stoic as possible. Joel’s getting better at trusting you, better at letting you serve as a sort of backup in the way that Tess usually would. You know that if it came down to it, the man that keeps looking at you wouldn’t be an actual issue, and you know Tess wouldn’t let it get to her. 

Ugh. Another thing you want to get yourself to stop doing. Comparison. It’s ugly and so insignificant. Tess didn’t exactly welcome you with open arms when you first showed up, but you get that. And eventually she warmed a little. You think she’d still trade you for a few ration cards, but she doesn’t hate you. She’s, at the very least, no longer skeptical of you. The other day you caught her hiding a smile over a joke you made.

But it’s hard not to compare. They were the closest thing either of them had to a support system for years before you showed up, and you know that they’ve been together casually. Always casual. Joel stressed that part, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy thing to know, especially now. 

You bury the thoughts the way you often do and turn your attention back to Joel. Back to staring. At least you’re consistent.

A man peaks out of the closet that seems to be the source of all the alcohol. He gestures vaguely in your direction. “That’s us,” Joel says, voice flat, “Wait here, I’ll be back.” 

Nodding as if to dismiss your own thoughts, you beg your mind to not create imaginary problems by reading into him telling you to stay. He’s walking a few feet away to get some boxes, it’s not the rejection insecurity is making it out to be. “I’ll hold down the fort, keep away trouble.” 

Joel blinks, turning his head in your direction briefly. The corner of his mouth turns up slightly, which is more of a reaction than he likes to give when in these kinds of places. He shifts his hand casually, his fingers brushing against yours briefly as he stands. The gesture is small but immediately dislodges the lump in your chest. 

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” It’s little more than a whisper, but there’s something hidden beneath the roughness of his tone. A pinch of lighthearted humor that’s only visible to you. 

It eases you even further. Joel turns away, moving behind the long table serving as a sort of bar counter. You tap your fingers against the surface without much thought, taking a second to absorb the easiness of it all. It’s rare that getting anything require so little. You don’t think anything’s ever come as easy as sitting on an uncomfortable bar stool. 

“So...” You blink, posture straightening as your eyes flit to the source of the sound. “Guard dog finally left you alone, princess?” 

Okay. Ew. Of course it’s the guy that’s been staring you down since you first sat down. You have to fight to not let your nose wrinkle. There’s no good in reacting, in escalating the situation. “Not a guard dog.” 

You hope that it’ll be enough to show that you’re not interested. “Aw, not feelin’ too friendly, baby.” Ew. You’re torn between cussing him out or actually punching him. Neither is an actual option. Places like these are a minefield and you refuse to be the one to set off a series of explosions. “Maybe you’ll cheer up after a drink, could get you one.” 

Turning your head, you take a breath before replying. “I have enough friends.” The stranger is clearly apart of a group. You don’t know if you could call them all friends, you’re not sure there’s enough casual trust in the world left for genuine friend groups. But they’re at least acquaintances, or work associates, or maybe they met here, equally inebriated enough to accept each other. It doesn’t matter, the point is they were chatting up a storm before he decided to wander over here and bother you. “And it looks like you do, too.” 

“Fine,” he relents too quickly, “Let’s not be friends, then.” His hand shoots forward, landing firmly--and disgustingly--on your waist. “Let’s be something else.” 

You’re unsure if you’re more repulsed by his hand on you or how terrible that line was. Your own hand clasps his, pushing and pulling in an attempt to create a space. He’s relentless, even when your nails start clawing at him. “If you want to keep your hand, I suggest getting off of me.” 

He blinks at your threat and then grins, flashing a smile that’s missing teeth. And then he laughs. A cold chuckle that makes its way beneath your skin. “God, I like them feisty.” 

Shoving your fingers under his, you manage to pry him off of you. Your foot moves, heels smashing into his toes as subtly as possible. “And I like them when they know how to fuck off.” 

His smile broadens, a cynical undertone to the look that makes it worse than before. “Oh, darling,” his hand finds your arm, tugging you forward, “You’re gonna pay for that.” 

“Pay for what?” Relief washes through you before you’ve even fully registered the familiar, even timber of Joel’s voice. He’s speaking in a lower tone than usual, an icy rage that you can feel in your bones and it’s not even directed at you. “Touching what’s not yours, ‘cause you’re the only one doing that.” 

There’s probably something you should say. A subtle warning to not go beyond scaring off the man that is clearly incapable of respecting a woman’s autonomy outside of another man’s claim over her. To not take it too far because it’s not worth it. Because you have it under control. Relatively.

Instead, you’re silent as the man releases you. He takes his time assessing Joel. The stranger is physically smaller and Joel does have that edge that only comes from someone that’s lost enough to be dangerous to anyone threatening what’s left. 

The man holds his hands up in defense, his glass sitting precariously between his thumb and pointer finger. “Easy, man.” You don’t even have to look at Joel to know that that was the wrong thing to say. “I didn’t mean any harm, if you set the price right, I’d be--” 

The rest of the proposition is taken care of by Joel’s fist connecting with the man’s jaw. You hear the audible crack before your mind can make the connection between Joel’s quick movement and the man’s silence. 

Holy shit. Joel didn’t just throw a punch, he threw a punch meant to shatter bone. He barely glances at you, and you’re too focused on the fact that Joel’s standing there, completely fine like he didn’t exert enough force to knock over a grown man. You blink as Joel extends the arm he’s been using to hold the small case. 

You’re too shocked to do more than take the box. The implication of why he’d hand you the box while still standing there doesn’t settle until Joel’s throwing another punch. Each hit is more committed than the last, even when the stranger’s knees give in and he collapses. 

Yeah, there’s definitely something you should say. Now. Like right now. You’d never ask him to hit anybody once, let alone do whatever he’s doing now. But words like ‘stop’ and ‘okay, think he gets it’ all jam themselves so far down your throat, you wouldn’t be able to pry them out with a wrench. 

All you can do is watch. It’s the kind of morbid fascination that reminds you of what it felt like to drive a little slower when passing a car wreck. You’re rooted in place by a realization that’s always been there at the back of your mind, an implied awareness. Joel’s more than just prone to violence when he needs to be. He’s angry. 

It should scare you. Terrify you. Your stillness should be some byproduct of that. But it’s not. Joe’s not a danger to you, he’s a danger for you. 

It’s a level of protectiveness you never thought you’d experience. Your chest feels warm. You hope you’re not messed up enough to consider this some grand display of love. However, there’s a vulnerability in the violence you can’t deny. You’re in a public place, the kind of morally questionable people that are far from above exploiting vulnerability. And yet here he is, announcing an undeniable attachment. 

Joel finishes, chest heaving and hands still curled into fists. The low light makes the thin layer of sweat on his skin seem like he’s practically glowing. His knuckles are already evidently split and swirling in distinct shades of blue and red. You’re mesmerized. 

“You can’t do that shit here.” 

That’s it. The only reprimand. In the world of before, he would have gotten the cops called on him. He would have gone to jail. 

Joel looks up, mumbles something under his breath that sounds suspiciously close to fuck off. He then looks at you, gestures with a tilt of his head for you to follow, and walks forward. 

You try not to think of what it must look like when you follow, quickening your steps to get closer to him after you’re out of focus. When you reach the door, Joel pulls it open with one hand and reaches for your fingers with the other. 

----

The way your eyebrows draw together when you’re examining an injury is different than the way they pull together for anything else. It’s too focused to be concerned and too concerned to be focused. 

Joel could stare at that expression for longer than he’d ever admit to. He could concentrate on that little line above your forehead and forget about everything else. “I’m fine,” he mutters, knowing that there’s no real point. You’ll do what you’re going to do when it comes to these kinds of things.

You nod absentmindedly, another small sign that you’re not as here as you normally odd. “It’d be awfully sad if you died of something as small as non-fungal infection.” 

He swallows, minding that look behind your eye. Things are still normal, you’ve yet to show any sign of rejection. He kept your fingers locked practically the entire way here and you let him. Never pulled away. 

It’s not like he needs to apologize. Joel did nothing wrong. He even gave you a minute to handle the situation, but the man was relentless. The kind of asshole that takes advantage of a world with little order to prey on women. Joel would do it again. And again. And again. There are no regrets there.

You’re not naive. You know what you signed up for when you accepted him. He’s never hid that from you. That doesn’t change the fact that you’ve always had a pension for forgiveness, a pinch of empathy the world hasn’t managed to snuff. 

“You’re dramatic, anyone ever tell you that?” 

A touch of a smile pulls on the corner of your mouth. “Hm. Think I’ve heard that once or twice from this one guy. Dark hair, dark eyes, cute, but not really my type.” 

Joel smiles, a partial laugh escaping him. “Really?” 

Turning over his hand with a gentleness he still finds difficult to understand, you press a quick kiss to his palm. You move back into your previous position so quickly it almost feels bashful. “I think you know the answer.” You flip his hand so that his knuckles face you again and go back to cleaning them. “You know, you didn’t have to...I wouldn’t have ever asked you to do that.” 

Joel can’t help his partial smile at that. Like there was ever any doubt. “I know,” he manages, “You’re not that.” 

It takes a second for you to understand what he’s implying. That you’re not like him. Yes, you get mad and you have nothing against putting people in their place, but you don’t like hurting people. Your lips part awkwardly, like you want to say he’s not that either, but you can’t. He just proved it to the both of you. 

“Nothing wrong with being like that,” you say, all too casual, “So don’t say it like it’s this big thing.” There is no end to the level of understanding you offer him. He doesn’t deserve it, he never will. “And you’re not like that in the way you mean. That asshole was, you’re not.” 

Joel lets out a low breath. Of course, even this you’d find a way to reframe. “You’d think so.” 

“I’m right.” It’s a quick reply, and the exact kind of response he expected. “You’re not a shitty person just because you beat up some guy or any of the reasons you’re thinking. New world, new morals. Accept it.” 

Your lips pull together into what’s almost a pout in your determination. Always so sure when it comes to him. “Mhm,” he breathes, watching your surprise at his compliancy. You know something’s coming, but not what. Your awareness does little to help you when Joel twists your hand in his pushes you back against the couch. “And what about you?” 

He hasn’t grabbed your hands yet, but you stay still, eyes trained on him. “I am a lot meaner than you think I am.” 

He tilts his head down to hide his amused expression. Your version of mean is fighting back. “You want to prove it?”

Purpose

“This is the fic I talked about here

Summary: Episode 3 was too beautiful for me not to write a fic where bill’s letter makes joel think about reader 

anyways this isn’t an exact recreation of the episode,, it’s more about location and the vibes of the episode

----

The words won’t stop echoing in his head. Again and again, a round of bullets bouncing around in his mind, desperate for a target to pierce. Bill’s letter was written in anything but malice, yet it still manages to pry into Joel, get under his skin the way nothing has in a long time. 

Purpose. Saving, taking care of who’s worth it. The mention of Tess. The way his mind keeps floating to you. 

He shouldn’t. You haven’t been around long enough to even scratch at the surface of what Bill and Frank had. He knows that, but his mind won’t stop weaving the sentiment in Bill’s words to all the bits of you he knows. The tempo of them matches the sound of your laugh, the emotion behind them tethers itself to the tugging feeling that lingers in his chest whenever you tilt your head and look at him with those eyes when pitching something he’d instinctually say ‘no’ to.

It’s never a form of manipulation, either. It’s always teasing, always pushing in good humor, always innocent. You never take advantage, never try to. He doesn’t even think you know that you have that specific look. One person worth saving. 

There’s a soft creaking of floorboards. Joel turns his head instinctually, body stiffening in an instinctual preparation for the worst. Oh. His eyes find you and his stance instinctually eases. “Guys.” You’re more excited than you want to seem, completely unaware of the thoughts in his head. “They have hot water.” 

Ellie recovers faster than he can. For a brief second, Joel feels a pang of something oddly close to jealousy at her ability to interact casually. “No, shit--really?” 

“Really,” you confirm, “Does anyone want the first shower or can I steal it?” 

Turning her head, Ellie briefly looks like she’s considering asking for it instead, but then her eyes flit back to Joel. He’s staring, a little more out of it than she’s yet to see him. There’s something bordering on awkward in the way that he’s watching you. 

Oh. The realization finally hits Ellie. A hot shower would be amazing, but putting it off for a little will definitely be worth this. “I’m okay with that.”

You nod in her direction with a quick mumble of appreciation before turning your eyes to focus on Joel. You’re not doing the plead-y thing. His thoughts swell. Of course you’re just waiting patiently for an answer, genuinely willing to give up the first shower spot that you could have just taken. 

“Joel?” 

Shit. He hasn’t responded. “Ye--” It’s a small sound that’s not quite a word that Joel quickly disguises by clearing his throat. “Yeah, go ahead.” 

Ellie’s eyes are burningly obvious. Even if you didn’t notice, Joel’s never hearing the end of it from that kid. 

You lean against the doorway. “You good?” 

“Fine,” now he’s replying too quickly, “Just--Bill said a lot more to me than he ever has.” Great. His second mistake. The last thing he needed to do was hint at emotion, the one thing guaranteed to sway you away from the promise of a hot shower. “If you ask me about my feelings you’re losing your first shower spot and I’ll run the sink until it’s icy.” 

You cross your arms in front of your chest. “You wouldn’t, Miller.” 

“Try me.” 

He can feel your eyes burn through him, can sense the way you see through his shit. You don’t push, you just straighten your stance, “Fine, you’ll only have that threat until I’m out of that shower.” 

Joel keeps his expression flat. “Plenty of time for me to think of a new one.” 

“Looking forward to it.” 

 When you disappear out of his line of sight, his breathing improves and worsens all at once. Joel curses the ridiculousness of it. Sure, there were certain thoughts when he was around you before the letter, but this is something else. Something he needs to get over fast.

He lets his eyes drop towards Ellie and he takes her grin as the gut punch it is. “I’ve never seen you shy--it’s cute.” 

“Don’t.” 

She doesn’t even have the decency to pretend to be influenced by the gruffness of his voice. “Don’t what?” 

The false innocence in Ellie’s tone isn’t worth engaging with. Joel glares, turning to leave the room before anything else can be said. 

----

Leave it to the end of the world to teach someone how to appreciate the little things. A lifetime of warm showers with a guarantee of water that could hold the temperature long enough for someone to really feel clean and Joel doesn’t think he’s ever understood the world of good a shower could do someone until now. 

You had been diligent, worried about taking up the time and heated water from anyone else, but when you stepped out of the bathroom, hair still wet, Joel practically forgot how to look you in the eye. It’s not that the shower changed you completely, though clean and safe is a good look on you, it’s that it made things feel normal. The kind of normal that would take nothing to slip into and turn to habit.

He had practically ducked out of the room when Ellie told him to go ahead since he so clearly needs a shower more than she does. It felt like the beginning of some kind of scheme, but there was nothing he could say with you in the room. So what if Ellie makes a comment or two? That doesn’t mean she knows anything. It’s not like Joel...he doesn’t. He can’t. Not with you. 

As he showers, he thinks of not thinking. Focuses on dislodging those thoughts from his mind. The echo of Bill’s words hold firm as they merge with memories of you. 

What makes a person worth taking care of so completely? Does the worthiness come from kindness or personal attachment or some natural, intrinsic quality? 

It doesn’t matter. No matter how many times he runs through all the potential categories, Joel knows who always fits it. 

“Well, don’t you look pretty.” Ellie’s voice snaps him out of that train of thought. Before Joel can reply, she turns, “Don’t you think so?” 

You blink, Joel briefly debates locking Ellie in some other room until it’s time to go. You take your time glancing over at him. “Yeah.” It’s been too long since things that mattered in the past have come up for him. He isn’t used to being overly aware of his appearance. The strangeness of it is daunting. “Joel’s the prettiest.” 

A cop out enough answer. It’s an easy way to appease Ellie and keep from turning something casual into something weird. Joel mentally scolds himself for being surprised. What else could he have expected? That you’d immediately jump to describe your opinions on his appearance? 

There’s no way that would have been a particularly good thing. He may not be as aware of his appearance as he was before the world changed, but he knows that he’s both older than you and made up of tattered edges more akin to shards than anything else. 

Ellie starts to approach the doorway. “I’m gonna take a shower.” Maybe that will help Joel regain control of whatever ill timed spiral this is. Removing Ellie’s comments and sideways glances definitely won’t make things worse. “For at least 30 minutes.”

It’s said with a deliberate slowness and Joel can feel heat settle in his face. “Just go.”

She holds her hands up in mock defense before turning and finally leaving. Joel frowns at the realization that his mental tension doesn’t immediately vanish with her. 

You turn casually, “That was weird.” 

“She’s a kid,” he mumbles, “Kids are weird.” 

There’s not that much space between the two of you. A casual distance that could be destroyed by a few steps. It’s an impulse that burrows itself deep beneath his skin. Joel straightens to avoid giving into the need to be closer. 

“Yeah.” It’s a breath, casual and flat. Joel finds himself unexplainably grated by the sound. He’s not the kind of person that dwells on others. Especially not in this way. “You know what’d be fun?” 

Joel swallows at the easy transition. You walk past him and towards the wooden table top. He isn’t sure what your goal is until your fingers bend around a neck of a bottle of wine. There’s something particular about the way the corner of your mouth tugs upwards. Mischievous. 

“I-” He clears his throat again. “I’ve gotta drive.” You say nothing, but that touch of an almost pout and the goddamn head tilt. “We need to stay alert.” 

You let out a sigh, turning the bottle in your hand. “You’re going to get out-of-it drunk off of one glass of wine?” 

He can’t afford anything right now. “You might.”

“You’ve never seen me drink.” 

So much indignation. Joel fights against a grin. You’ve spent most of your adult life in a post-outbreak world. There likely hasn’t been much opportunity for you to build your tolerance. And at this point, he feels like he knows you, and nothing about your personality or general being indicates that you’d be able to handle your alcohol. 

Sure, he doesn’t think you’ll genuinely be drunk after one glass, but he also doesn’t believe you’ll stick to that. A light buzz here wouldn’t be the worst thing, but it’d be inefficient. An additional distraction that Joel is doing his best to keep from.

Joel sighs at the accusatory way you raise your eyebrows. “I can still tell.” 

You roll your eyes. “I should go through with it just because you said that.” He watches you set down the bottle.

The lack of protest hits him harder than it should. It was a small thing to ask for and there was such a genuineness in the way you introduced it. You know what’d be fun? Even your defense was framed innocently. You’ve never seen me drink. Like the whole idea was more about the two of you than the actual drinking. Like you’re friends more than you are just friendly. 

Once again, his mind latches back onto the letter. An element he doesn’t need in the air right now. “Y/n.”

“I said we didn’t have t--” Joel grabs the bottle and takes a quick sip before you can finish your sentence. The immediate half-laugh-half-scoff that follows makes it all worth it. “Classy.” 

He does all he can to keep from smiling, but he isn’t sure he’s fully successful. “Always have been.” 

It’s the stupid kind of joke that you and Ellie would have exchanged a look over. You two would have picked it a part, pointing out the evident laziness of it. Instead of that, you laugh again before pushing away from the counter. He’s still as you walk towards him. 

The entire thing is casual until your eyes meet his. Joel’s body instinctually locks into place. It’s a form of defense, of keeping this moment from shattering. Your hand moves forward slowly--or maybe you’re moving normally and everything just feels slow when you’re focusing on him like that--until it finds the bottle. The tip of your fingers brush against the back of his palm. 

For a second, that’s all that exists. All that matters. You squeeze the bottle and Joel lets you take it. “You know it’s hard to measure a single glass without the actual glass.” 

You set the bottle down and turn your attention towards finding any type of cup. Joel keeps quiet as you find the set of long stemmed wine glasses. You set out two of them and fill them each a little less than halfway. A reasonable amount. A controllable amount. 

Turning back to face him, you hand him a glass. 

“One glass.” 

Nodding once, you pick up your own. “One.” Extending your glass with no warning, you quickly clink them together. A soft cheers. 

----

About three glasses later. 

“...That doesn’t,” laughter, “make--make sense.” 

There’s no slurring, but the small giggles pressed sporadically throughout the single sentence cues Joel in on something he should have taken into consideration about two glasses ago. You’re tipsy. Not drunk or fully out of it, but buzzed in some sense of the word. Buzzed enough to not even pretend to follow on his comment that hadn’t really meant anything. 

Joel sighs, forcing a bit of annoyance into the sound. “Maybe not to you.” 

You pout without reservation. “That’s rude.” 

Reaching around him without any tact, you try to find the bottle. “That’s enough.” 

Joel can deal with how you are now, but any further could be risky. It’s not like the three of you are settling in this house. His hand finds its way to your wrist as you try to squirm back. It takes you less than a minute to still. Joel doesn’t pull away. A second longer. Just to be sure. 

He returns your hand to his side gently, easing you back into place by your wrist. “I’m not drunk.” 

There’s no argument in your voice, no protest or anything that gives any indication of your flat observation. The certainty in your voice settles against Joel’s skin like a second layer. It doesn’t feel like it’s coming from the same person that just couldn’t get through a sentence without being interrupted by a fit of laughter. 

Joel’s chin tilts downwards in a barely there nod that he trusts you to pick up on. “Never said you were.” The realization that he hasn’t let you go yet hits him with no warning. His pointer finger and thumb are still grasping your wrist. It’d be so easy to turn over your hand and let your palms meet. “We should keep it that way.” 

“I trust you.” You breath out the words reluctantly, like you’re annoyed by the truth of it. The casualness of your voice has to prove that you don’t mean anything by it. Smiling almost, you breeze past what you just said. “This is fun. I haven’t gotten wine buzzed sin--” The cut off is jarring, but Joel knows better than to push. “Awhile. Since Ruth.” 

A name that has only ever slipped out from time to time. Joel’s picked up on enough pieces to know that it’s sore subject. “You don’t have to.” 

“I know.” Your eyes feel distant, you’re going somewhere else now. “Ruth was like a grandmother to me. Sweetest old lady, tough as nails, too.” You laugh again, the sound sharply bittersweet. “She didn’t like being handled or taken care of, but she was getting a little older and she--she was developing some kind of early memory issue. One day we got into this warehouse and it was full of wine. So we drank and then...” Eyes practically glazing over, you angle your chin downwards. You wipe at your face with the back of your palm. “I don’t know how I didn’t know. She had been talking about not wanting to live in a world where she couldn’t remember her children or-or take care of herself, and she’d been struggling a little more.” Joel swallows once as you pause. “She waited until I fell asleep. Left a note saying she’d never be a burden.”  

Joel relaxes the fingers wrapped around your wrist and turns his palm outwards. You meet him half way, interlocking your fingers with his. It surprises him more than it should. 

There haven’t been many times in which Joel actively reflected and wished that he could be different in some way. It’s his ability to remain detached and distant from emotions that have allowed him to last. But if he were some other version of himself, he’d be able to say something insightful or sympathetic or maybe even kind. 

But he’s not, so after the second, the only thing he can manage to say is, “Sounds like the kind of person you’d care about.” 

It feels like a wrong reaction, and maybe it would have been for someone else, but you give no indication of being upset. You let out a sad kind of laugh. “You know, now that you mention it you do kind of fill the grumpy, old lady void in my life.” 

The implication of your joke should sting more than it does considering the mess of his train of thought today, but it tugs at something in him instead. “Funny.” 

“Just like Ruth would have said.” 

He sighs, too aware that his expression doesn’t project the right kind of annoyance. You’re smiling again, though, like you’re pressing your lips together to keep from laughing. It’s a reset, knowing that you’re feeling better and that in some way it’s because of him. 

It clicks then. Settles like the world after a storm. Joel understands. It’d be easy to build a life out of protecting someone. He sees how it’s the kind of purpose that can burn away the frayed edges of someone that seems to be made of them. 

“Y/n.” His throat feels dryer than he remembers it being. There’s an uncertainty in where to go next, but you feel the shift the same way he does. Joel sees it in the soft nod of your head. “Y’know what Bill said in his letter?” His eyes flit away from you, “’About purpose and...” 

You were exploring the home when Ellie read the letter, but you had picked it up and read about half of it before Joel took it back. It was a bit petty, but you didn’t press. It’s his business more than yours.

What you had read had gotten to you and you didn’t even know Bill and Frank. It must have Joel, even if he refuses to let it be obvious. “I know it must have been hard to hear, but it--what I did read sounded like a better way to live than most did even before.” The response fits you. Of course you’d see it. “Sorry, that was--that was probably overstepping. They were your...” You hesitate, unsure if friend or associate would be more fitting. “You knew them and--” 

“No,” he breathes, “You’re right.” Joel takes a moment to just look at you, to take in what it feels like to be standing somewhere safe, holding your hand. “It does sound like a good way to be.”

Joel doesn’t know what to take from your reaction. The way your eyes widen just enough to be noticeable. You didn’t expect that level of candor from him, especially not about something so close to feel-y. “You think it’s unrealistic?” 

Your question comes out almost hesitant. It’s the kind of thing you would have never asked if it hadn’t been for the wine. The way you clamp your mouth shut after speaking is evidence enough. 

There’s so much he could say to that, but nothing feels like it’d fit. “Not for you.” 

You smile again but it doesn’t reach your eyes. “It isn’t for you, either.” Eyes briefly dropping, you tact on an almost shy, “If you wanted it. I know you’re...” Tilting your head in that one way that always gets under his skin, you settle on, “Most comfortable with what you know.”

Joel presses his lips together before correcting his expression into something more neutral. The sensation that he’s teetering on something twists at the air in his lungs. “You sayin’ I’m set in my ways?” 

Your amusement feels genuine again, free from whatever had been eroding at it before. His words are another step forward, an attempt at meeting you in the middle. “It’s not a bad thing.” When Joel raises his eyebrows, you let out a sigh. “You’ve said worse about me.”

He fights down a grin. “Doesn’t sound like me.” 

“Yeah, you’re a damn sweetheart.”

This time Joel lets himself react in the form of what’s almost a laugh. “That’s more like it.” Your eyes soften and there’s a warmth there that Joel doesn’t know how to hold onto. It melts at a part of him he didn’t think existed. It’s dangerous, more risky than the wine. “Do you think you’d--you want that?” 

You blink and Joel can find no way to blame you for your hesitance. The question was blurted out so haphazardly, so unlike what it is and now it’s looming over the both of you. 

Your mind is racing in a way you can’t justify. It’s not the question, but the way it came out of Joel, coated in a layer of hesitance that practically felt nervous in a way that doesn’t suit him. “Yeah.” The single syllable is so low it almost feels like a secret. “I--I think I do.” It’s surprising to you. “You said it yourself--it’s a good way to be. I’m sure for some people, it’d even be peaceful.” 

Joel’s jaw briefly locks at that last part. “And if it’s someone that can’t give you that last part?” 

The hollowness of the question startles you out of your initial reaction. The words alone would have been fine if they felt less raw. Your mind can’t wrap around them this way. “I uh--I’d probably be the unpeaceful one.” You don’t think you can describe it in a way that anyone would understand. “Caring about anyone that openly and trusting them to do the same...I don’t think I’d be a natural at that.” 

You don’t want to dwell on your words or the honesty of them, so you move on the only way you can think to: “What about you?” 

He should have known that you’d ask. He should have thought through some kind of response that wouldn’t leave him exposed. Then again, maybe that was the point of leading you here. Bill and Frank were here one day and now they’re not. 

“Y/n...” You’re silent, waiting patiently for the end of his sentence. There’s so much to say that none of it can come out. It traps itself in his throat. Too much about the day he first met you, the first time he heard you laugh, the first night when Ellie fell asleep with her head on your shoulder, the fact that knowing you’re okay could fix practically anything. “I don’t know why I’m still here and I’m not too sure Bill was right about me, but I...” The words jam in on themselves and Joel takes it as an opportunity to drag his thumbs across your knuckles like this might be his last chance to do so. “I think you might be part of it.”

The lack of immediate response twists at his stomach. Joel moves to take his hand back and at the last second you snap back into reality. You squeeze his hand, pulling him back towards you. “Joel...” You’re watching him so intently Joel needs to do something. He steps forward. “Are you--are you saying--” 

Sometimes action comes more naturally than words. Joel knows that, knows the familiarity of jumping into something when there’s nothing left. He moves his hand up your arm and settles it on your shoulder. His other hand brushes against your cheek. He pauses long enough to give you a chance to protest. You don’t. 

Closing the distance between you is a snap of everything into place. He can’t remember the last time something felt so natural. You melt into him, fitting into place like you’ve always been there. 

You’re warm enough to melt through all of his reservations. Joel places a hand on your side, pulling you even closer. It could be an eternity or it could only be a few seconds. You start pulling back first, Joel chases after you, grazing his teeth against your bottom lip.

You move back only enough to breathe, but you can’t bring yourself to let go of him. “Joel.” You want to tell him you get it now and that you agree. That you’d come back to this again and again. That he’s your purpose. “It’s you.” 

It’s the only thing you can say, but that’s okay. You trust him to understand.

----

Taglist: @ciniluv

Hi, I'm kind of picky of FF in general, smut especially, but your "Pulling away" is just beyond perfect. Do you maybe have time and the enthusiasm to write something like that again? Not sure what other characters you'd write for (out of your master list) but another Joel would be great anyway. Thank you for your work!

A/n ahh thank you!! the feedback i've gotten on "Pulling Away" has been unbelievable,, and i very rarely usually write smut without being prompted to lol, i feel like it's too obvious that i'm a virgin who has had very few sexual experiences, even less if you don't count the ones i didn't fully consent to,, but that's neither here nor there, i'm doing better now i promise :)

also ik my masterlist is super limited compared to who i actually write for lol,, updating it is my absolute enemy but i'm working on it 😭

also the build up in this fic is criminal!! that's my bad!

Summary: You, Ellie, and Joel have recently decided to permanently settle in Jackson. The promise of stability seems to lead to boundaries adjusting during a sleepless night after Joel appears in your bedroom.

smut warning, 18 plus !!

----

It's existed in him as undeniably and permanently as the lines etched into the slightly calloused skin of the back of his palm. Control is something that Joel Miller knows, something he clings to the same way he keeps a gun in his hand when he needs to.

Control is what keeps him from reacting when your arm moves too carelessly and your elbow manages to push against his ribs. The side that you know is more yellow-purple than the soft tan it should be. If you weren't lying next to him, you would have assumed that the shift of your arm had no affect on him. But you're pressed closer to him than you've ever been, so you can feel the shift despite his intentions. It's subtle. A pinch in his breathing and a brief wave of tension in his spine.

"Sorry," your blurt out is instinctual, and you're not sure if it might be making things worse. You've never been this close to him and it burns so much you can practically feel it melting the thin ice holding the two of you above water.

Burns in a good way. A way that you've only ever felt through brief flutters that have come up more and more recently. Lingering touches patching up injuries, reassuring squeezes of hands that are always brief and never mentioned, the press of Joel's knee against yours as you sat at that table in Jackson, overwhelmed by the presence of so many strangers.

And now this. You, Joel, and Ellie had been given a place to stay. You used to dream about your own bed. A safe roof over your head and a clean blanket keeping you warm. Finally getting it left you restless. Being away from Joel and Ellie felt unnatural even if they were in the same building as you. There are so many strangers here, and even though they have no reason to strike you down, it's still weird.

You couldn't help the obsessive thoughts. It felt oddly compulsive, the urge to wrap the two of them up in warm blankets and bubble wrap and just watch them be okay. It's weird, but what can you say, Ellie and Joel are your people.

And then Joel wandered in after some talk with his brother. It had surprised you, considering the way he had avoided you earlier, but you'd never complain about having him close.

You're still not sure how it happened. How Joel started asking you about how you were settling and telling you that Ellie was just fine. He had gone in to check up on her and then lingered until she fell asleep. The thought of that domestic moment made your heart swell and you found yourself relaxing.

Somehow Joel ended up taking some of your covers. There's a draft, it's winter. You forced yourself to not focus on that in any other context. Refused to give it any other meaning. And then he moved closer, eventually laid his head on your pillow. You almost convinced yourself it was just a way to be a little comfortable while keeping up conversation. But then the talk eventually faded and you had to move to let him fit and you ended up like this. Safe and fragile.

This stray from what's normal is okay tonight. Everything is still weird, you three like awkward, feral cats compared to the people of Jackson.

"You're fine," he breathes, voice rough with sleep.

His acceptance is easy but it does nothing to make you less aware of your position. You're more on top of him than you need to be and your mind is suddenly scrambling, trying to remember every injury you've ever seen him receive.

Untangling yourself from the gentle cocoon you've created is an ache in your chest, but the thought of hurting him is worse. You move your leg close to the edge of the bed and start the careful process of retracting your arm.

Joel shifts with a slight sigh, his own hand following your own. He snags your wrist, pulling you back into place. "You're fine." Joel repeats his earlier words, so half thought out and mumbled together you think they might even be sleep idled.

"Careful," you try, fighting against the blood rushing to your face. "I don't want to hurt you."

Joel's hand moves down your forearm with a slowness that almost feels deliberate. You have to press your lips together to keep from exhaling too sharply. He turns his head and even in the dark you can feel the focus of his gaze.

He swallows once, lips parting for a moment before he speaks, "Hurts more the other way." It's vulnerable and not, undercut by something that feels so factual you briefly have to think about whether or not that's physically possible. "It's good pressure."

Your eyebrows draw together at the realization that he's not entirely joking. The audacity. He's always referencing his age and the soreness that's going to have to catch him at one point or another but now there's not a single concern for his joints or potential hip damage. You've always had a feeling that at least a part of that rant has to be bullshit, or at least some kind of exaggeration.

You scoff but make no move to pull away as Joel settles. "I don't believe you." Normally you wouldn't state anything so transparently. Any flash of softness is glass and barely tangible. Trying to grasp it by speaking about in the open makes it vanish. Like waking too suddenly from an incomplete dream. But you don't feel at risk, something about the dark and the warmth and his hand on your forearm. "You're so full of shit--what happened to old man knees and arthritis and hip joint iss-"

"You're making up those last two."

There's silence for a brief moment and then laughter. A stupid burst of giggles that has you forgetting the little bit of normal left. Your forehead briefly falls down, your face pressing against his shoulder as you try to keep it down. He laughs with you after a second, a reluctant, almost annoyed display of amusement.

You're still recovering, breathing a little heavier than usual and coming back enough to realize that this level of closeness may be pushing it. You lift your head just as Joel's hand finds a place between your shoulders. First a fist and then his fingers patiently relaxing. You don't think you've ever been this still in your life.

"I can't keep track of all your old man ailments," it's a whisper that's more against his skin than not.

He lets out a breath, "You needed me to help you onto a horse today."

You halfheartedly glare even though you're too pressed into him for him to be able to see you. "I could do it by myself now." Likely a lie, considering it had only taken a second with Joel's help and the concept of casual horse riding still feels foreign. "I just hadn't ridden one before."

His hand shifts up your back, an unbelieving hum escaping him. Has Joel always been this warm? And somehow both so evidently sturdy but still comfortable? Safe? You don't know what possesses you, maybe it's the urge to not feel so divided from him in any way, but you turn head slightly to make it easier to speak: "You're not actually that old."

He pauses at that, fingertips freezing against the fabric of your pajama shirt. "Older than you."

You let out a sigh, feeling like there's a hint of something else tucked into his words that you're too tired to explore. "So?" He lets out another flat breath, a sound you don't quite understand but makes you want to compensate, "You can get old, though, when it's your time."

He shifts in a way that feels like a combination of stifling a laugh and a display of a touch of reluctant curiosity. "You givin' me permission?"

"Not like that," you shake your head against his arm, "I just--I don't know--I think it'd be good if you got to be old with arthritis and bad hip joints and whatever else happens. It'd mean you were still alive."

You don't realize what you're saying until the words slip out. The blankness of your statement is too honest and you blame the fact that you're actually starting to feel like you could benefit from the sleep you've been putting off. It's instinctual to turn into him in a vain attempt to get closer even though you're already hanging onto him in a way that feels ridiculous. Your fingers curl in to him a little more, clutching at the surprisingly soft fabric of his shirt.

It's a subtle change, but you're not surprised that Joel notices. You are, however, not expecting him to understand. The hand on your back draws up even further, pushing you against him more firmly. Maybe Joel did have a point. Good pressure.

"Don't go thinkin' about it."

For once, you want to listen to him without putting up a fight just to see that line between his forehead reappear. But you can't. It's not that easy. Even here, as safe as it's ever going to get, there's still a chance of loss. And even if the world was perfect and Joel could guarantee that there would never be a dangerous patrol or anything threatening him again, there are still other things that worry you. There's no reason for you all to stay together.

When your only response is to halfheartedly nod so that he can feel the motion, Joel lets out a partial sigh. The movement of his chest is more noticeable than the sound. His hand travels down the expanse of your back, something you only recognize because of the warmth his touch leaves in its wake. You're only half there until his fingers brush against a small expanse of exposed skin where your sleep shirt had ridden up. Nothing insanely suggestive, nothing that should be considered too intimate. It's likely an accident, too. It's too dark for it to be intentional.

Knowing this is not enough to keep your body from tensing. Joel's fingers move upwards with no warning, slipping between the only layer dividing you. The cotton of the T-shirt is trapping him and the heat of his touch as his hand settles on your hip.

"You here?" His question is low, like he's trying to compensate for the hint of worry leaching into his tone. "With me?" The second part of the question is an afterthought, said so quickly and earnestly it feels like an impulse.

You're melting, and you don't mind it all. In fact, you're starting to think you might prefer it. "For now, at least."

It's half joke, half something else. A punch that some cynical, over worrying part of your brain needs to throw. You hope he won't see past the shell of humor, but feel the uphill battle in his silence. In the eventual drag of his thumb across the curve of your hip. The gesture is a contradiction in itself--small and cautious yet so natural. What should feel foreign is so familiar it coats it all in a layer of intimacy that's difficult to just sit with.

An odd sense of almost panic that makes it impossible to think settles in you. Something in you feels like it's burning, a slow fire that's patiently spreading. You don't know if you want him closer or farther or something in between.

The mix of unknown emotions is enough to distract you from your derailing train of thought. Maybe that's the point. Some strategy on Joel's end to force a mental reset. If it is, it's working. You wouldn't say you're breathing any better or more calmly, you're just more aware of the way air enters your lungs and filters right back out. The world seems to be reduced to that. Just your breathing. And Joel.

The little of him you can make out in the dark and the feel of him everywhere without him feeling close enough. He's steady, secure in his firmness like he's some immovable force. Joel is also starting to feel like a natural heater, radiating just enough warmth to make everything comfortable.

What is wrong with you today? These thoughts might be more dangerous than the other ones. They're definitely close to being more overwhelming. All of this has to be in your head, the result of all the feelings you've been attempting quell all day culminating and a touch of something else. The thoughts about Joel that you've been fighting against since you first met him finally winning.

Every time you've forced yourself to stare at your hands after the edge of Joel's shirt rode up as he reached for something or moved a certain way. Every stray thought that rooted itself in your mind like an invasive species while you patched him up after a rough day. Every painfully overwhelming moment where you let yourself get distracted by his hands for reasons you could never justify. Those same hands are on you right now.

Okay--you need to get it together. Stop playing at something that's definitely all in your head. Your eyes drift up, searching for Joel's expression in an attempt to convince yourself to be normal. To remind yourself what's at risk if you don't get what you've been begging yourself not to let be actual romantic feelings in check.

He's already looking at you, eyes focused and jaw so tense you can tell from your position. Joel presses his lips together. The hand that's on you shifts upwards. Nothing drastic, but the heat of his pinky is now melting into the skin above your ribs.

You have to bite your tongue to keep from letting a shaky breath escape you. It's too much and nowhere near enough. It's another contradiction that throws you through a loop. You need him closer and the desire twists at you even further. There's a level of hesitant care in all levels of him. In his touch, in the way he's watching you. Like he just can't help it.

It's so overwhelming you have to do something. So you do the only thing you can think of. You reach out to him. Your hand finds his upper forearm.

The motion seems to shift things. Joel lets out a breath, but it's not the easygoing sound it was earlier. It's strained. "Y'should get some sleep."

You're not all that tired anymore, but his tone and your own confusion makes you want to listen. At least he hasn't done anything to imply that he's leaving.

A part of you wants to leave it at what it is. There's no reason to risk his presence by pushing. You don't know what that last moment was about, but Joel's earlier gruffness from today seems to be coming back. "You okay?" The question feels awkward hanging there on its own. "You've been moody."

The hand still under your shirt adjusts with him. "Moody?"

"Mhm." His fingers ghost up your spine, making it twice as hard to organize your thoughts. "More earlier than now, when..." God, you can barely remember with the way he's tracing patterns onto your skin. "When we were with that group?"

Joel's lips briefly pull into a frown. "I know that Jackson people are a little different than us, but trusting them all so soon--" He cuts himself off briefly. "Just don't think it's a good idea for you to accept it all so--"

He pauses as you shift against him as you move to sit up. Joel watches the separation with sharp caution. He doesn't ease until you settle again, your chin resting against his stomach. "Seriously?" It's a lighthearted enough disagreement. "I'm not overly trusting anything. I feel like a crazy person half the time because I feel like I should be staring down anyone that talks to Ellie or you for a second too long."

The confession eases Joel much more than it should. It's proof that he's been searching for...proof that he's needed. That you're still here. Still his and Ellie's above anything else.

But it's been an unsure couple of days. You're good with people, likable in a natural way. You know how to make people feel easy. It's not your fault that you're the natural communicator in the trio, and it's a good thing that at least one of you is inclined towards that sort of thing. It's just been harder than he thought, to watch people always talk to you, even if it's just a way of communicating something to all three of you. Especially when you smile or laugh as another way to ease them.

It's even worse when it happens to be other men. You don't see it, the way their eyes linger or their tendency to lean in just a little too close. Don't know the way your polite smiles and words draw them in. There isn't exactly a plethora of new women appearing daily, so your novelty is only an amplifier to all your good traits.

Tommy's been giving him shit about it. How long did you have to close the deal on that when you were her only option?

It was an almost brotherly form of teasing, but it still rubbed Joel the wrong way because of how true it is. He can't justify the bitter, protective vile that leaves his chest feeling too tight when he sees how well you fit. How easy it'd be for you to end up with one of the guys from here, closer to your age and a lifetime less of baggage.

Joel hates the breathlessness of it, hates that he has time to think about these kinds of things now. The resentment is too much, bubbles up and comes out in the form of something mean, "Doesn't always look that way."

It's not an overly done insult, and somehow that's worth. Joel's faint accusation is personal and it lands the way he knew it would. You sit up so quickly, Joel can't even try to stop you. "What the fuck does that mean?"

The bed is small, clearly meant for one. Sitting up didn't exactly accomplish what Joel has to assume was your goal--to create distance. You're still tangled together, only it's different now. You're practically sitting on his lap. His mind, which should be focusing on the fact that he's upset you, that he's pushing you in the exact direction he doesn't want you to go in, can only think of your sleep shorts.

Maria promised to get you some pajama pants as soon as some came in, but that hasn't happened yet. Winter makes clothing a little scarce, so you've been managing in a pair of elastic shorts. Thin, elastic shorts.

"Just that it looks like you've been getting comfortable. Trusting others, spending time with Ben."

Your lips pull into a firm pout. "I'm not going out of my way to trust shit. Yeah, I talk to a lot of people, but that's just because I rather that than have them talk to you or Ellie first. It--it feels safer that way."

There's such a genuineness in that, Joel almost feels bad, almost feels the need to back step. But your indignation at the implication that you're trying to leave is too alleviating. Until you try to crawl towards the edge of the bed. Away from him.

Joel props himself up on his elbow and reaches for you. His hand finding your forearm feels like giving something up. A silent, too raw plea for you not to go. He knows it isn't quite that in so many words, but you understand. You always do in your talent for feeling the way he bends for you when he can.

For a moment, that's it. Just his hand on your arm, still perched on the edge of the bed, still flighty. One move and you might be gone. It'd be so easy.

Joel's never really considered himself a pissing on his territory type of person or one to be found of dependents, but he'd be lying if he didn't say Jackson didn't worry him. He's not an idiot, he knows he's been rough to travel with and that he's taken time to get to here, but you've always stayed close. Some of that must have been influenced by survival.

Not that Joel wants you to stick around because you have no other choice. He'd never use that against you, it's just something that he wonders about from time to time. A fear that this might be how he finds out that's the only reason the two of you have been together for so long.

He's been thinking about loss more lately. After the decision he made, after what almost happened to Ellie. Losing Sarah left him stagnant for 20 years and some days that grief still flares up and makes breathing feel impossible. It's a wound that will never fully heal, and maybe that's for the best. Hurt means not forgetting, but Joel knows he doesn't have anymore of that left in him.

What if he did just fuck everything up? Not just for him, but for Ellie as well. He sees the way she looks at you, like you're everything. He's peered into your mornings together, the world that is your little routine and your inside jokes. If he messed all of that up because he only knows how to be an asshole when any type of feeling comes up...

Joel knows action better than he knows words. Caring is easier an action, and so is apology. His hand releases your forearm, trailing down your arm and settling on your exposed thigh. When you don't push him away or try to move, Joel feels like he can fully inhale again.

"You know my priorities, right?" Your voice sounds more hesitant than before. Nervous. "It's you and Ellie. It's been you and Ellie and nothing's going to change that. It doesn't matter if we're here for two more days or two more decades."

A pinch of guilt rises in his chest. Normally that level of promise would make him feel the need to cut all ties. Safer that way. But Joel doesn't want to hold you at arm's length, not right now. Carefully, his hand moves forward, closer to your inner thigh than knee.

He should say something. Admit to his own insecurity or apologize. "I know," is all that comes out, even though it doesn't really matter, you have every right to walk away. Your eyes still soften, though, like he managed to come close to saying what you needed to hear. "I shouldn't have said that."

His hand moves up even further and this time you have to react, your breath catching itself on your throat. The noise fucking gets to him. Gets to him in a way nothing has in a minute.

"You're kind of an asshole, sometimes," it's breathed out in a way that feels like you're accepting his apology, "And it's only going to get worse as you settle into your old age."

There it is. The joke was forced through the uneven timbre of your breathing, but it's there. All you, all forgiveness in the way the corner of your mouth turns upwards.

Joel's thumb drags across the soft skin of your inner thigh, "So now I'm already there?"

You blink, unsure on how to react to anything with his hand tenderly working the skin of your inner thigh. Everything in you is only capable of focusing on the feeling, of chasing it. "Getting there." Joel's thumb and pointer finger briefly pinch at your skin in a way that has to be intentional, right? His touch is approaching the end of your shorts.

The closer he gets, the worse the distance feels. Your face feels like it's burning at the thought. This is Joel, not some random guy that things could be casual with. Or maybe he could be casual, but you--god, you're getting ahead of yourself. This isn't--it--

"Too old?" Joel stretches forward, sitting up a little more. "You lookin' for younger like Ben?"

There's something odd in his tone. A flat attempt at humor that misses because it's too straightforward. Ben. Again. This is the second time his name's come up tonight. Why? And that's not even the strangest part. His assumption is what sticks out the most.

"I'm not..." Fuck, his hands are killing you. "I'm not looking. Not actively and if I..." Okay, it's officially too much, he's turning you into a transparent puddle. His hand pauses and pulls back down, settling on your knee. Firmly. Unbudging in a silent demand to continue.

He traces circles onto your knee with his thumb. "You can say it," he encourages in a way that feels like he's patronizing you.

The words feel like too much. Some lines might have been crossed today, but nothing life changing. You two could still dismiss the whole thing, crawl beneath thin sheets, fall asleep, and wake up the next morning like nothing ever happened. But his hands on your thigh and the needy ache you're not sure you fully understand it left you with. And what it felt like to have him closer.

Joel's sitting up fully now, waiting. "If I was looking, it wouldn't be at Ben, it'd be..." His hand calmly trails back to its previous spot on your leg with each of your words. Fuck, you're struggling to think again. "At you."

At that, his fingers push upwards, touching directly between your legs. "Really?" He's quick to create a steady rhythm, pulsing his pointer and middle finger at a speed that makes it impossible to breath. Your eyes screw shut so tightly you see stars. "You're so wet, can feel it through those shorts of yours."

The way Joel's voice catches on itself makes a weak sound slip out. You'd be embarrassed by it if he gave you the chance to be, but before you can even think twice about it, Joel's free hand finds the back of his head. His fingers tangle into your hair and he pulls you forward so harshly you try to gasp. The sound doesn't make it out, Joel's mouth is on yours before it has a chance.

He holds you against him as he takes his time pulling on your bottom lip with his teeth and letting his tongue glide over the bites. Your mouth opens for him instinctually, asking for more.

Joel's taking his time and moving at a speed that has him everywhere all at once as his fingers continue to work you through the fabric that divides you. He releases you with no warning, the hand at the back of your head finding a new place right beneath your chin. His fingers pause, forcing out an instinctual whine.

He's panting near your ear in a way that makes you miss his touch even more. "So this is all for me, sweetheart?" His eyes flit from your face back down to your lips.

Even though the question is dripping with roughness, there still manages to be a hint of something else there. Something genuine. It doesn't matter, though, because all you have the willpower to do is nod. Joel turns his head, pressing a kiss to your temple that's so close to tender it leaves you spinning. He trails the barely there kisses down to your ear before whispering, "Then prove it."

The word's send a jolt through you. "Prove it?"

Joel tugs you closer, you listen clambering back to where you were before trying to leave. Joel rests his back against the wall and makes a point of extending one leg. You don't fully get it until he's helping you ease onto his thigh. The material of his sweats is nowhere near enough.

"Joel--"

"Sh," he hums, soothingly as he runs a hand up and down your back, "It's okay, sweetheart." The hand that's still on your hip squeezes firmly. "I've got you, y'know that." He helps pull you forward on his thigh and the pressure after so long without nothing hits you harder than you thought it would. "There you go," you push down harder, faster, "Just like that."

The longer you go, the more Joel encourages you, whispering sweet nothings and words of encouragement as the knot in your stomach continues to grow until your body feels it. You're seizing up, body ready to throw itself off of a ledge. Your thigh squeezes around his leg, which must be how Joel knows you're close, because before you can find release, his hand is leaving your back and moving onto your arm. In one, fluid motion that should be impossible, he flips you two.

Your back is on the mattress and Joel's above you, pinning you in place with his body. You can feel him, all of him, hard and struggling between the layers that divide you.

Your lips part, but you don't know what to say. You're still reeling from your stolen orgasm, and you're not sure if you want to curse him out for it or simply ask why and how. Bad back your ass the way he just turned the two of you over with no real effort.

Before a single sound can come out of you, Joel folds the edge of the T-shirt you sleep in, exposing your stomach. A fluttery kiss to newly exposed skin. Again and again until he has to push up even more of your shirt to continue. "This," his voice comes out lower, harder as he tugs at the fabric, "Off."

You sit up just enough to help him tug the shirt off as quickly as possible. The desperation makes it harder than it ever should be to take off a shirt, but the offensive piece of fabric eventually finds its way to the floor.

The bareness you feel is startling, even in this level of darkness. Joel doesn't give you a chance to let your mind wander or insecurity take root. His mouth is exploring the newly exposed skin immediately. It's a rabid mix of love bites and placating the irritated marks with soft passes of his tongue and genuine, devoted kisses.

It's then that you realize there's a reason he's taking his time. He's definitely hard, you can feel him pressing against your thigh, but that doesn't matter to him. He's taking his time because he can. Because he's enjoying it, getting off on having you writhing and desperate under him.

"Joel," your voice is so small it feels like it belongs to someone else.

He pauses, lifting his head just enough that the scruff of his facial hair scratches comfortingly against your skin. A reminder that he's still him. "Yeah, sweetheart?"

You carefully lift a hand, making sure your movements are easy to follow in the dark. Joel lets your fingers settle in his hair. "Need more-need you."

"I know, sweetheart." His voice is low and soft, impossible to not trust. "You can wait a little longer." His teeth drag against your skin again. "Can't you, baby?"

Fuck, he could ask you anything like that and you'd have to say yes. "Mm."

He takes it as the answer it's supposed to be. Joel goes back to it until his fingers finally snag around the elastic band of your shorts. In one swift motion, he tugs it and your underwear away, leaving you fully exposed. He gives no warning before moving his mouth to your thighs, slowly moving up until the only thing left is your center.

With no warning, Joel licks through your folds. You practically cry out. "I know, sweetheart," he mumbles, barely looking up, "You can take it."

After that, he picks up the pace. Just as you think you're going to get used to the overwhelming pleasure, Joel moves his hand down your waist to use his thumb against your clit. Fuck. You're panting, whining, begging.

Joel groans. "You're close, I can feel you." His fingers replace his mouth, "You gonna come?" Another whine, like your body has forgotten how to make any other sound. "Yeah?" He's picking up the pace, pushing his fingers into you in a way that hits you somewhere deep. "Come on my fingers, sweetheart, I've got you."

His pace reaches its peak and his thumb works at your clit until you're finally pushed over the edge. Joel reaches you before you can scream, muffling the sound of your orgasm by pressing his lips to yours.

You can taste yourself on his tongue as he works you through your high. Joel knows when to stop, when the pleasure comes close to bordering on painful, he moves his hand back up your waist and focuses on just kissing you.

After a few minutes, you regain control of your thoughts. The urge to pull him closer takes over once again. Without thinking, you're tugging at the hem of his shirt. You almost think twice about it, but decide that it's only fair. He's touched so much of you and seen even more. All while fully clothed.

You're not as good or tactful about it as he is, likely due to the gap in your experience, but Joel picks up on what you want. He pulls away cautiously, eyebrows furrowing together like he's debating before finally giving in.

He discards his shirt just as carelessly as he got rid of his own. Joel tries to reconnect the two of you together again before you can take full note of him. It's a tactic you find the strength to beat, turning your head just enough to indicate that you're pausing.

Joel allows that, stills against with no protest. The silent promise that it's your pace is comforting. You let your eyes rake over his chest in what you hope is subtle, but really doubt actually comes off that way. You can feel him tense under your gaze. You stretch out a hand carefully, touching him because you can. Your attention focuses on the details that you can make out despite the limited light. A few marks of varying sizes are visible across his skin.

Scars. You wonder how many of them there are and the stories behind each. What it'd feel like to touch and learn each of them until they're as familiar as the lines of your palms. Your hand drifts down, faintly touching a particularly long mark.

Joel's hand moves, catching your wrist before you can make it any further. You frown up at him. "I want--"

"I--" He cuts himself off, unsure on how to explain it. You deserve to know what a war it will be to get him to open up, but he doesn't want that to change things. "Not yet, okay?" He squeezes your hand in his. "I'm not an easy person to care about, to get close to, but I--I can try to--"

"I disagree." He frowns at being cut off, but lets you continue. "And you don't have to worry about forcing anything right now, whatever you have to give, that's what I want."

That's all it takes. Joel crashes his mouth to yours, holding you there for much longer than before. He shifts away just enough to be able to pull down his pants. He strokes himself briefly before lining himself up with your entrance.

Joel enters you with no warning, easing himself in until your hips are pressed together. You're a mess despite his soothing words. He pulls back and pushes back, again and again until all you're seeing is white, blinding pleasure. "Fuck!"

"You're squeezin' me so good, sweetheart," his groans are hot and heavy against the shell of your ear. "Oh, sweetheart," he's losing his tact, his movements becoming more and more desperate. "You gonna come with me?"

You nod, eyes screwing shut as Joel picks up the pace until you're a mess again. He clamps a hand over your mouth as your second orgasm hits you fast and hard. It takes all of Joel's strength to pull out before finishing.

He lets himself relax against you after, a mess of sweaty limbs as you both recover. After a minute, Joel sits up. "You leaving?"

Joel brushes back your hair out of your face gently. "No, sweetheart, just need to get something to clean you up, okay?" You're about to protest again, but Joel beats you to it, "You don't want to sleep like this." When your only reaction is to pout up to him and cling to his arm, Joel leans down and finds a shirt to offer you. "Ellie's an early riser that never learned how to knock. You want to deal with this in the morning while pretending you're not?"

That's a point that sticks. You could probably explain Joel being in here early in the morning or he could climb out of your bed at first sunlight to keep this from being weird for Ellie...but your current state? Yeah, that's undeniable. "Come back?"

Joel squeezes your hand, taking a moment to watch your small expression fondly. "Promise."

ㅤㅤㅤ✦ 𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐓

ㅤㅤjoel miller x f!reader

genre: angst, hurt comfort, minors dni

word count: 5k

summary: You, both a member of David's group and one of his former victims, are already contemplating escape when Ellie arrives at the resort. Seeking Ellie, you decide to take advantage of the unexpected opportunity to run. But before you can find Ellie, you cross paths with Joel instead.

warnings: age gap, virgin!reader, mentions of past grooming attempt, mentions of cannibalism, past rape attempt, PTSD, blood, canon typical violence, no smut for now, spoilers for s01 e08

a/n: this was previously named let me follow this is also new for me because I've never written virgin!reader before (mostly because i didn't have the best experience with that) but i felt like it was fitting with the story and where i wanna take it in the future.

Revelation 13:3-4 "One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, 'Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?'"

The wind blows cold. You, a girl who has lost everything, sit on your knees on the ice. Your family has been long gone. Your hope dwindles, hanging only by a simple thread. You don't know how long you've been crying. Your hands, young yet covered in the warmth of blood. The scent of pine reaches your nose, and you sniff involuntarily, just like you did before you lost everything. Before the world ended. You hear the sound of men approaching you, and you wish they would just kill you. Sixteen and already you wish for the sweet mercy of death.

“Now what do we have here?” A man speaks, his tone is humorful. Melodic. Your mind and body already slipping and reaching towards the warmth of it. “You poor young thing. Where’s your family, girl?”

When you finally look up from your hands you see a man on a horse. Typical for this day and age. Near him hovers four others. All of them looking weathered and older than you. Your eyes move back to the one that seems in charge. He has strawberry blond hair and a thin beard of the same color. His eyes narrow slightly. They pop under the cold blue sky and the frozen lake. You don’t know what to say. How to answer this man who is an obvious threat. 

He hops off the horse, and you attempt to move away but your legs are frozen in place, your heart beating loudly against your ribcage. He kneels next to you. Observing. You swallow, fear coating your tongue with the taste of bile. His eyes soften when he takes in the sight of you. Bruised and wounded. Your eyes squeeze shut as he reaches out and pushes a loose strand of hair only for the wind to bring it back. 

“No need to be afraid, child. We’re a peaceful group and there are more like us if you want to join.” 

“J–Join?” your teeth chatter, your lips hurting as you speak. There’s a bit of light filling the cracks of the iron cage of your heart. Hope. You realize it to be. Hope that you found someone to help you. To look after you in this infected world. He must’ve seen it in your expression because his soft smile grows, eyes glimmering with mirth. 

“So afraid,” he hums. “But we’ll change that soon enough. You’ve been brought here for a reason. And I think I know what your purpose is in our small clan.” 

He swiftly stands, leaving you dumbfounded and still upon the freezing ice. Your mouth gapes, your body buzzing with a newfound need to stay alive. 

“What’s your name?” you ask. He throws an old coat over your shoulders. Not his own. But one he had extra on his horse. Probably taken from someone else who was more unfortunate than you. 

“David,” he answers gently, as if he’s scared you’ll run away. Before you reach out, he grabs your hand and lifts you. You nearly fall, only prevented thanks to the strong arm that wraps around your waist. He’s warm. Much warmer than you expected. “Lovely to have you with us.” 

The men near him don’t seem to share the same sentiment but you smile all the same. 

You don’t want to think for a while. Maybe not even for a millennia. If possible. 

10 YEARS LATER

Whispers of death surround you. The names of the fallen circling you and squeezing your heart tight. Suffocated. That’s how you feel. Helpless. Trapped. Consumed. Faint murmurs fill the hall room. The cold that seeps through the wood, the same wood that was intended for summer and not winter, worries everyone, including you. But at the same time, you think this is what you all deserve. An icy grave. Freezing to death and surrendering to the cold. 

You were never meant to feel warmth. You know that better now. 

The chair creaks next to you and when your eyes shift to the side. You see James taking a seat. A sudden rage fills you. An indescribable rage. It disappears as soon as it appears like it always does. He turns to you and gives you a curt nod. You don’t nod back. He might think he’s looking after you but he’s not. All he’s done is turn the other cheek to a faith that is spewed by a liar. A deceiver. A disgusting man that makes your stomach turn—

The aforementioned man finally stands and clears his throat. Loudly. But not loud enough to overpower Hannah’s cries. She sniffles. Rubs her eyes roughly. Her mother wraps an arm around her and starts whispering words of comfort. You have no idea what that comfort would be since it was her father that had died. You remember the day you lost your parents. You felt utterly defeated at the time. Hopeless. Swallowed by darkness. Your eyes rubbed raw and stinging from crying and crying and crying—

David opens the bible and reads. His glasses are perched innocently above his nose. His voice, despite the rasp of time, still carries that melodic lilt. You don’t listen. Refuse to. 

“And I saw a new heaven and a new Earth. For the first heaven and the first Earth were passed away. . .”

You close your eyes with a stuttered breath. Your body is thrumming. Your legs shaking and heart pounding. These are the most painful times for you. The times where you have to listen to him and pretend to be moved by God’s will. You hate hearing his voice. The same voice that told you you were his. The same voice that commanded you to strip for him completely when it was only your arm that was wounded. 

Your pulse quickens. Your cheeks grow warm. 

You can’t breathe. You can’t breathe. 

It happened years ago but it doesn’t matter. No matter the passage of time it still feels like it happened yesterday. His touch on your cheek. The way his blue eyes ate you up as he stalked around you, pretending to be worried while he was just taking in the sight of your body. A soft touch here and a soft touch there. Knuckles following the curve of your spine. Palms feeling the weight of your behind. The memory makes you sick. The way he was marinating you for something unspeakable. 

He enjoyed when you flinched. Enjoyed the way you whimpered and curled away. He laughed and did nothing else. He wrapped a bandage around your arm while you remained stark naked. Then he left. Leaving it to James to come to the room, telling you to get dressed while averting his eyes. 

You jerk, eyes going wide as a sharp cry echoes within the thin walls. 

“. . . And I heard a great voice out of heaven say, ‘Behold… the tabernacle of God is with men. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes—’”

He’s trying hard to ignore it. You can tell by the way his lips twitch ever so slightly, his nostrils flaring with annoyance when another cry is heard. 

He stops. 

And your heart stops along with it. 

You’re still afraid even when his anger isn’t directed at you. Cold beads of sweat make you feel clammy and gross. You want to hide. And even though you blame him, you want to move closer to James, hoping that whatever it is that’s going to happen, he can shield you from it. 

David turns his gaze towards Hannah and Joyce, Hannah’s mother, and lets out a sigh as if it pains him to see someone so distraught. 

“I’ve read this passage too many times,” He walks towards Hannah, his brows slightly furrowed and eyes full of rue. He places the book on the table and removes his glasses, placing it above it. You’re surprised when he kneels but your stomach twists as he places a hand above Hannah’s knee. She’s unaware, her bottom lip trembling. “Do you remember what comes next?”

She shakes her head. 

“‘And God will wipe away all tears from their eyes… ‘that there will be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither will there be any more pain… for the former things are passed away.’” 

Your eyes move to the crowd. Everyone holding on to one another, eyes red and wet. Hannah takes a sharp inhale, your gaze promptly landing back to the scene. 

“Do you know what that means?” She nods and when she does, David grips her shoulder. “Good.” 

He exchanges a glance with the mother and stands up, a groan dropping from his lips as he does so. You feel a momentary satisfaction at his discomfort. 

“When can we bury him?” 

The question surprises everyone, including David who doesn’t show it. The only oddity is him looking at James, a gaze so quick and short that if you hadn’t been sitting next to James you would’ve missed it. “The ground is too cold to dig. We’ll bury your father in the spring.”

Hannah seems content with the answer for now. The sermon is over when David opens the doors. His eyes linger on you as you get up, slow and groggy. Despite her recent loss, you find Hannah to be lucky. At least she had someone to protect her for a good while, her body free of being viewed as an object that belonged to someone else. 

You don’t look at either James or David as you leave. Not that it mattered. They were too busy talking amongst each other.  

You wipe the snow that catches over your eyelashes with the back of a gloved hand. Everyone had a job to do and yours today was to chop wood in the freezing weather. You hate the feeling of shivering and sweating at the same time. It’s a disgusting feeling. But you were the youngest of the group—and had fallen out of favor with David, which meant that he didn’t try to get into your good graces by giving you the stay-by-the-fire duties. Not that you missed it. You’d rather freeze to death than give any part of yourself to him. 

Your feet drag over the snow. Your biceps ache with the added weight of the firewood within your arms. Breathing from your mouth, your eyes are drawn to one of the sheds. That place always gives you the creeps. It’s always locked. The windows dusty and blocked by cabinets from the inside so no one could see. You never thought of asking what the hell was in there, no one else did either. Everyone just wanted to survive. A herd of sheep following the blood-stained mouth of their leader. Not that they knew he had a blood-stained mouth. That information was only reserved for his victims and James. 

A log slips from the top and you loudly groan towards the sky. You need to leave this hell hole. You don’t know when. But you have to. 

Just as you lean down you sense someone coming towards you at full speed. Jumping, you move back only to see James huffing and puffing with a small package in his hand. You raise a brow. “Weren’t you supposed to be hunting?” you ask, picking up the log. “What the hell are you doing here running like a maniac? ‘Scared the shit out of me.” 

“David is at gunpoint.” Good. “And the crazy girl demanded some medicine. Hopefully, I can sneak up on her.” 

You scoff, “A girl? Since when does David follow any kind of demand?” 

“It’s complicated.” He looks uncomfortable, you must’ve struck a nerve with that. “She’s with the man that killed Alec.”

“You’re taking medicine to her? Actual medicine.” 

“David said. . .” 

You raise a hand and shoo him away, “Just go. I don’t care.” 

Watching him leave, your brows knit tightly together. This had to be a joke, they found the girl and by proxy, the man who killed Alec and. . . David is helping the girl? You don’t necessarily care for revenge— but the fact that he’s actively wanting to show just how kind he is to this girl is suspicion-worthy. He likes what he sees and pulls a curtain over his true colors to obtain it. You know word of this will come out soon. You’re positive that James told at least one person when he went in to get the medicine. It would spread like wildfire. 

And most of the people here, starving and cold with no warmth left in their chests are hungry for the heat of revenge. 

Just like you had predicted rumors were spiraling. 

You’re sitting someplace unnoticeable and near the windows. Snow hits the glass like heavy rain. The clear panels freezing over, you visibly shudder. Your decades-old jacket isn’t enough anymore to keep you warm. 

Your head turns with another whisper coming nearby. Something about a girl being with the man who killed Alec. Your eyes shift to Hannah and her mother sitting in the middle, the young girl seemed furious, her eyes hardened but still carried a juvenile chubbiness in her cheeks. The look doesn’t suit her. It looks like a drop of blood on top of snow. No one is touching their food. Steaming bowls of meat sitting on top of weathered tables. You’re not hungry so you push it away. You’re hoping with every fiber in your body that they haven’t found the girl. You wouldn't wish David on even your worst enemy.

The doors open with a loud, bone-chilling creak. You jump at the sound. Soft flakes of snow hurry inside, melting as soon as the light touches them. James holds the door open for David and the latter, with great effort, drags a large stag inside. The entire room stops breathing, their eyes glued to the scene, their minds full of questions. 

The door closes. Suddenly you feel trapped and suffocated. 

“Big one,” David says, looking towards the tables with a crooked smile. Not even one person is talking now. Just deafening silence. James moves away quickly, his eyes find yours, and takes a seat next to you. You’re not sure why he hovers around you. Maybe in some sick way, he thinks you’re friends? 

David sighs loudly, bringing your attention back to him. “If you’ve heard a rumor… yes, we found a girl who was with the man who took Alec from us. When the sun rises, I’ll lead a group out to pick up her trail. Won’t be hard to find in the snow. We’ll follow it to wherever they’re hiding… and we’ll bring that man to justice.”

“You should kill him. You should kill both of them.”

David’s head snaps towards the vengeful voice. Your blood freezes, a tingle settling at the base of your neck, your skin grows taut over your muscles. You’re afraid. And your fear only grows when David stalks towards the girl, a faint smile on his lips, he removes his gloves. One by one. His movements slow, unrushed. He stands in front of Hannah, briefly stares down at her—

You flinch at the sound. The loudest smack and thud you’ve ever heard. Your eyes widen, heart beating in your throat as your eyes remain glued to Hannah who’s scrambling on the floor. David seems unbothered by it. Like he hadn’t just backhanded a young girl. The mom stands, murmurs getting louder, without thinking you attempt to get up too, thinking of all the ways you can kill the man. 

But James—fucking James—he stops you with a hand on your knee. You give him a disgusted look and he quickly pulls his hand away. But the damage was done. You settle back, the chair groaning underneath you. 

You watch as David halts the mother with a single hand, gently gesturing her to sit back down. She does—she does and it drives you insane. It’s surreal almost. There’s a loud hum in your ears as David kneels next to Hannah, her eyes looking anywhere but him. Scared, she takes David’s offered hand. You feel sick. Your stomach churns, bile rising to your throat. He helps her up and sits her down. He’s still on his knees, his eyes soft. 

Disgusting. 

“I know you think you don’t have a father anymore. But the truth is, Hannah, you will always have a father. And you will show him respect when he’s speaking.”

Tension rises with his words. You can tell from the brief glances that happen behind David’s back. However, it’s not enough. No one does anything. They just sit and wait as Hannah’s mother brings David a bowl of food. They begin to eat, the rest follows. 

Spoons clink. Wind blows. Birds caw.  

You look down at the meat, clutching the fork in your hand. You can’t. Something disturbs you. James also lingers before he takes the first bite. Something in his eyes makes you rather starve than taste. 

You look back at Hannah. Her bottom lip is trembling, her cheek red. 

She eats. 

“Where is she?” 

David’s eyes glimmer with amusement, his teeth showing as he smiles. You’re out in the open. Snow falling all around you. Your chest squeezes. You can barely breathe, yet your chest continues to rise and fall. 

“Is my little lamb jealous?” Heat simmers under your skin. How fucking dare he? “Head back. This doesn’t concern you.” 

“Like hell, it doesn’t,” you snap. His eyes narrow and for a brief moment, your mind flashes images of him tying you to the bed whenever you swore. A nasty shiver crawls up your spine. “Let her go.” 

“And why would I do that?” he shakes his head. “Do you want to know why I never touched you again? I got bored. I knew I could have you whenever and wherever I wanted. The fire in your eyes died. You had no fight left in you.” he chuckles. You’re trembling now, your legs feeling weak underneath you. “And I enjoyed seeing the fear in your eyes whenever I entered the room. . . wondering. . . thinking about when I would finally make you my own.”  

You don’t know what to say. The snowfall picks up in pace. Hurling, dancing around you both. A sign of a storm. The cold kisses your cheeks. David grins and extends his arms towards the sky, you take a step back. 

“I finally found myself a pet that’s fun to play with. Someone that won’t be so easily broken.” 

Broken. Broken. Broken. 

That’s what you are, isn’t it? Broken. Alone. Unwanted. 

You have to get to the girl and get the hell out of here. 

You lift your chin, “You’re sick.” 

Bad move. His nostrils flare with anger as he grips your chin and forcefully brings you closer to his face. As someone who went on and on about you being too submissive for his liking, he sure as hell seems to hate that you’re defying him. 

“Don’t you dare talk back to me,” he spits, squeezing your jaw until your lips part with a whimper. “I'm the one who saved you and spared you. I’m a good man but never forget that you belong to me.” Without hesitation, he cups you between your legs. You stiffen at the touch, fear chills your skin, feeling little pins needling into your muscles. “You’re mine to break and when I do, you'll love it. And you'll finally be a woman.” 

He doesn’t linger. Leaving you, he disappears between the cabins. You collapse to the snow, shaking, trembling and tears flooding your eyes. You fist at the snow, your fingers becoming numb as it melts between your fingers. You were a fool to think that you were safe. You genuinely thought that after so long he’d let you do your own thing within the community. But no. He still had his eyes on the “prize”.

You want to run into the forest but you can’t. Your eyes fall to the ground where his footsteps are perfectly visible. Now you know where the girl is. 

The door that is always locked is open. 

Your brows knit together as you observe the old wood swaying back and forth due to the wind. Your skin is icy cold. Coming closer you see that the lock had been broken, shattered. You see a spray of blood on the snow and that entices you to take a step forward into the dark cabin. You know you shouldn’t be taking any detours. Your backpack is secured tightly against your back filled with essentials and some sentimental items you gathered during the years. You should go. But you’re curious. You have to know what’s been in this shed for all these years. 

You sigh. Curiosity killed the cat. 

“But satisfaction brought it back,” you murmur. 

You pull out your gun, your finger on the trigger as you explore. It seems pretty standard. Some items, lots of dust—

Two large hands shove you roughly against the wall. You choke, all the air leaving your lungs as your gun is knocked out of your hand. Momentarily you’re pulled away and slammed back against the wall again, this time the back of your head thudding against the wood. You groan in pain. Your body screaming at you to run and hide. 

“Where is she?” you hear a man hiss through gritted teeth. “Where the fuck is she?” 

You’re slammed once more, tears prick the corner of your eyes and you barely manage to raise your hands. 

When you finally manage to open your eyes, panting heavily, you see a disheveled man. At first glance, he doesn’t make you feel that you’re in danger—which is an ironic feeling considering the throbbing at the back of your head is his doing. Lines run across his face, his eyes full of worry and anger. You immediately know who he is. There was only one girl after all. 

“You’re—” you swallow. “You’re him.” 

His hand tightens around your throat and a gun is hastily pressed against your forehead, “Tell me where she is or I’m shootin’ you.” 

“I’m actually trying to find her myself,” you answer, which by the looks of it was the wrong this to say. “I—I wanted to help her. Free her. David. . . the man that took her—he’s a monster.” 

His eyes narrow, “You from this community?” 

“He took me in when I was sixteen,” you explain. “I had no choice but to join.” 

“And why should I trust you?” 

“Because I know exactly where she is,” you bite the inside of your cheek. “And I know that you’re hurt. I can help.” 

“Then what?” 

You shake your head, not understanding. He clarifies. “You help me and then what? What’s the catch?” 

Your eyes blur with tears. You’re just so fucking tired. 

“I just want to leave.” 

Something about the way you whisper must’ve wake something in him because he lets you go. He lights the flashlight. “I ain’t in the business of takin’ in strays.” 

What? “What?” 

“Just leave. I don’t need your help.” 

“You—You don’t understand!” Just as he turns you jump towards him, fisting the back of his jacket, the fabric isn’t soft enough for you to get a good grip on him so you grab his shoulder instead. “He’s a monster! Everyone fucking underestimates him—he’ll—he’ll—!”

He stills. Rushed steps coming to a halt. You think he’s going to shove you off, push you away but he’s glued. With the fear of silence, you pull back and step to the side. He’s still not acknowledging you. His hard gaze glued to where the flashlight is illuminating. You follow the light speckled with dust. Horror curling in your stomach like a hook. 

There are three of them. Three bodies hanging like animals being prepared to cut into pieces. 

“Oh god—” 

You bring your hands to your head, your heart ramming into your chest, you shake your head. “No, no, no, no—” You take a step back. The man rips his gaze away from the bodies, away from what it implies. You take another step back and another. You’re shaking, your eyes glued to the floor. He—David—he fed you people. 

Fucking people. People that you knew.

Finally, the scent hits you. The smell of flesh and blood. 

You scream. 

The man is on you in an instant, you tumble to the ground and he goes down with you willingly. “Shit—no no no. Shut the hell up— shut the hell up.”

The knot that forms in your throat is large and uncomfortable. You bawl your eyes out, hiccuping against his chest. He takes you into his arms and you can’t be bothered to think of the why of his actions. His biceps tighten around you. You’re still shouting, still thrashing around, crying—he presses you further into his chest, muffling your sounds. You vaguely hear him shushing you, telling you it’s gonna be alright. Lies. He’s telling you lies. 

You start to quiet down and only then do you begin to make sense of his words. He’s murmuring bits of his life. Of what he’s seen. You finally learn the name of the girl: Ellie. The thick baritone of his voice is like a melody. It soothes you. Maybe not fully. But it helps calm your raging heart. You breathe. He smells like wood and snow. 

“Thank you,” you manage to whisper, pulling away. “Please let me help you.” 

“Yeah—Yeah, you can help.” He guides you to your feet in a way that your back is turned to the bodies. Just the thought of what's behind you makes your lungs cave in. 

“What’s your name?” you ask, desperate for any kind of distraction. 

“Joel.” 

“Alright, Joel,” you head towards the door. “Let’s go.” 

She escaped. 

You can’t help but be impressed at the sight of an empty cell. But the pride for a girl you haven’t officially met dies in your throat when you see who’s against the wall, covered in blood. 

“You knew him?” Joel asks, his tone lacking any kind of grief. A question asked more so as a courtesy than actual worry. 

You stare at him. His blue eyes now lifeless, lips parted. It almost looks like he’s sitting, just taking a rest on the cold floor. It would be easy to make you believe that if it wasn’t for the cleaver sticking out of his neck. 

“No,” you answer dryly. Yet, you still walk to the dead man and gently close his eyes. You warned him this would happen. Joel doesn’t ask any more questions. He doesn’t have to. “We need to find her before David gets to her.” 

Joel immediately rushes out, you following him close by. You feel utterly useless. You have no idea where Ellie might’ve run off to. It doesn’t help that some part of your brain is still occupied with James. You hated him in a way but still, he was there. You’ve known him nearly your entire life. It felt off to be the one to close his eyes. 

The storm had stopped. The sun reflecting from the snow irritating your eyes. Joel seems to be getting irritated with every step. Desperate. 

He’s the one that sees her first. 

Ellie staggers out the large building currently being engulfed in flames. Her walk is uncoordinated, her steps uneven as she breathes in the icy air. Before you can warn Joel not to startle her, he’s already running, grabbing her by the shoulders. Your heart shatters into a million tiny pieces when you hear her screams and shouts. 

“It’s me,” Joel says, cradling her face with both hands. She hits his chest with sideway fists, he holds her more firmly. “It’s me.” 

You see it in her face, the exact moment she realizes. You see blood splattered across her face, her expression hurts you. It’s the same expression you’ve seen on yourself for years. 

“Hey… look. It’s me… It’s me. It’s okay.”

She mumbles, “He—” Before Ellie can complete the sentence she wraps her thin arms around Joel, the man hugs her tight. Your heart shatters then. The damns you were so adamant on keeping locked being teared down by people you barely know. 

You cry. Salty tears just bursting out of your eyes. There’s no slow build, no single tear and then the rest. It just all comes down flooding. Your shoulders sag, your fingertips numb. 

“It’s okay. It’s okay, baby girl. I got you.”

You sniff and look up to the sky. Fuck. It’s so hard to stop when it begins. You see grey smoke rising into the crisp air. He’s dead. You don’t need to see the body to know that he is. 

Your eyes drop to the two survivors embracing infront of you. That girl saved your life while you were trying to save hers. You were too late. Both of you were. She looked the beast in the eye and slayed it. Freeing you. 

They part and Joel quickly wraps his jacket around her tiny trembling shoulders. You’re empty. What now? That was his question. You don’t know. Do you go back? Do you explain to the people who David manipulated just how horrendous he really was? Would they believe you? 

Your eyes are drawn to a flicker of movement. Joel is looking straight at you. Ellie still unaware of your presence and you can’t blame her. 

You’re lost. 

But then his eyes soften with something akin to understanding and he gestures you to follow. 

Like a lamb to a stream, you do. 

She's not sure how it's come down to this - the two of them standing in the long abandoned drugstore, guns aimed at each other, both seconds away from being the one to pull the trigger. But the sound just outside the door has her hesitating. Infected, more than she'd like to deal with on her own from the sound of it. And she knows he can hear it too. She can see his eyes darting between her and the door. If she wasn't worried he'd pull the trigger on instinct, she might consider making her move while he's trying to assess the growing problem out front. But she wants to live to see tomorrow. And something tells her he feels the same.

Her voice is low, a mumble just loud enough for him to hear but not enough to attract much attention from what's on the other side of the old glass. "Look, either you kill me now and deal with those fuckers outside by your lonesome. Or we deal with it together and live to kill each other a day. So what's it gonna be?"

Her eyes track his every micro expression. The way his jaw clenches, practically able to hear him grinding his teeth. His finger's still on the trigger but there seems to be a hesitancy towards her that wasn't there a minute ago. Nostrils flare as he breathes out a long, frustrated breath before the quick jerk of a nod. "Fine. But just remember if you change your mind and shoot me, better make sure it's a good one. If it's not, I'll find you and kill you with my bare hands."

"Back at ya, big guy," is all she says in response, swinging her aim towards the door that's started to rattle when he does and braces herself for what's to come.

ARSONIST'S LULLABYE | a canon-divergent fanfic based on HBO's The Last of Us. Coming soon...

TITLE: Arsonist's Lullabye FANDOM: HBO's The Last of Us RATING: Mature (for violence and strong language) SHIP: Perry/OFC TAGGING: canon divergent, enemies to lovers, post apocalypse, canon-typical violence, more to come SUMMARY: Allison never wanted to come through Kansas City. Perry never wanted to have an outsider shooting his men. And neither of them wanted to rely on each other to survive. But you don't tend to get what you want when living twenty years after the collapse of polite society.

CHAPTER ONE

If it had been up to Allison, they never would have set foot in Kansas City. Something about the city had set her on edge even from a distance. She’d seen what happened when a QZ fell. She’d experienced the immediate effects and seen the aftershocks. And none of it had ever been any good. But the group had established early on that this was a democracy, not a dictatorship. And when they’d blown a tire half a mile outside the city and been forced out of the van that had been held together with duct tape and desperation for a hundred miles too long, she had been outvoted. The prospect of reaching some kind of shelter before nightfall was a greater possibility than whatever negatives she threw into the conversation. So she’d bit her tongue and took the lead as they started the trek into the city. 

READ ON AO3

reader taglist: @deadbranch @callsign-bee

"You are damaged and broken and unhinged. But so are shooting stars and comets." - Nikita Gill

happy birthday, baby girl - pretend

Ellie has never had a birthday. Joel can fix that.

Series masterlist | Read on AO3 | In progress

Rating: Teen Series tags: The Last of Us, The Last of Us (HBO), Joel and Ellie, Ellie Williams, Joel Miller, birthdays, swearing, fluffy fluff, canon-compliant Words: 2.5k

“May 15th.”

Joel looks up from his place at the kitchen table, his latest project spread across the work surface. It looks like a lamp. “What?”

“You said I could pick a birthday, so I did. It’s May 15th.”

He considers this, then nods. “Alright then.”

Later, she walks into the kitchen and sees the date circled in red pen on the calendar, already two weeks gone by, Joel’s printing in block letters.

ELLIE B-DAY

And that was that.

She turned 15 on May 15th, the day she and Joel walked back into Jackson and started a new life. A clean slate, Joel said at the time, although that’s proving easier said than done. Ellie’s slate seems to be written in permanent ink.

Jackson is weird. They’re assigned to the same house as before and given a few weeks to settle in and “acclimate”, which just means a lot of sitting around. Or in Joel’s case, fixing things. He stomps around the house frowning at squeaky hinges and tinkering with pipes and she rasps The Contractor under her breath whenever he’s in earshot.

Jackson Joel is different from regular Joel. Jackson Joel says things like “mind your manners” and “eat your vegetables first” and glares daggers when she swears in front of people. Jackson Joel walks around the house in socks and sweatpants and a t-shirt. Jackson Joel doesn’t carry a rifle or even his hunting knife.

Jackson Joel is a stranger, but he’s the only stranger Ellie knows, so she guesses she’s stuck with him.

Their new life feels like pretend, like when she was a little and the kids in FEDRA school played Soldiers and Fireflies in the rec yard. She’d get so into it, her imagination so carried away with whatever part she was playing that when she inevitably got captured or shot, her heart would be pounding in her throat.

Now she pretends she belongs in Jackson. She pretends she lives in this strange house with Joel and pretends they’re a family. She pretends Joel actually cares about her (not my daughter sure as hell ain’t your dad) and that she’s not just some freak kid (cargo) he’s been saddled with. She pretends it’s fine that the Fireflies couldn’t make a cure. She pretends Joel isn’t lying to her about whatever happened at the hospital when she was asleep. 

She pretends it’s normal for a 14-year-old (no it’s 15 now, even your stupid birthday is just a random day you made up, it’s all pretend) 15-year-old to crawl into bed with her pretend dad when the bad dreams won’t stop. She pretends it’s normal to wake up screaming every night.

But the thing about pretend is that none of it is real, and she’s still waiting for the game to be called off.

Like everything else in her life, it can’t possibly last.

That first night, she’d stood in the middle of her pretend room smelling of lavender soap and wearing new pajamas that were not hers. I’m right across the hall if you need me, he’d said, but the ten-foot gap between their closed doors might as well have been a thousand miles.

She went to bed, tucked her knife under her pillow, stared at the ceiling of her pretend bedroom in her pretend house, and listened to…nothing. There was no Joel breathing at her side, no crackling campfire, no crickets chirping or spring frogs croaking–nothing but her too-loud thoughts and a racing pulse in her ears.

Finally, when her heart threatened to beat out of her ribs and her palms were sweaty and her skin practically burned with the quiet, she’d padded into the hallway with her blanket and pillow clutched to her chest. Joel was already standing outside his room in his T-shirt and sweats (it’s so weird, where was his leather jacket and jeans and flannel and boots, how was he supposed to protect them wearing fucking socks) looking as lost and tired as she felt.

“I can’t–“ she began.

“Are you–“ he began.

They’d stared at each other in the dim light, neither knowing what the next step should be.

Finally, she’d huffed a sigh and stomped past him into his bedroom. She tossed her pillow on the unrumpled side of his bed and climbed in, pointedly facing away from him. She stayed like that for a minute or two, waiting for him to grumble at her, to send her back to her room. Eventually, she’d heard the creak of the hardwood behind her and felt the bed shift and jostle slightly as he got in.

“Wake me up if I snore,” is all he’d said.

She didn’t sleep for shit that night, and she’s pretty sure he didn’t, either…but at least it wasn’t so fucking quiet.

And the days pass, and it’s all so fucking weird, and still, they pretend.

Two weeks later, she wakes gasping for breath, clawing her way back from a cold, burning shack in Colorado, shivering and sweating through her nightshirt. Joel is there. She sleeps curled up against his back, so all he has to do is roll over and wrap one strong arm around her, the movement so natural and practiced that most of the time he barely wakes up.

“S’alright. You’re safe now. You’re in Jackson. You’re with me.”

It’s the same words whispered in the same way to her temple every time, like a mantra or a prayer. It may be pretend, but it works. She settles back to sleep with her head tucked under his chin, nose pressed to his chest.

Later she wakes again, not from a dream this time, but because the other side of the bed is cold.

Joel is gone.

Her heart clogs her throat and she throws the quilt off her body and scrambles out of bed.

Faint light from the stairwell. She creeps down the stairs, knife clutched in her hand. What if someone broke in? What if they got Joel? Jackson was supposed to be safe, but what if–

But it’s just Joel, standing in the kitchen holding a spatula. He looks up when she wanders over.

“Hey, kiddo–what’re you doin’ up?”

She squints and rubs at her eyes, a flash of anger nipping at the heels of relief.

Why did you leave me?

“Why is it so dark?” is all she can think to say, throat tight.

“It’s three-thirty,” he says, glancing at the clock on the wall. “Couldn’t sleep. Thought maybe I’d work on the house, but I didn’t want to wake you, so I uh…”

He looks down at the counter in front of him. A big mixing bowl surrounded by boxes and tins and cracked eggshells, all of it covered with a dusting of flour.

Playing pretend, she thinks blearily.

“So…you thought you’d cook?”

“It’s baking, actually, but…yeah.”

“What are you making?”

“Cake…I hope,” he says, gesturing to an open cookbook off to the side.

“Have you done that before?”

“Nah…but can’t be that hard. Just eggs, flour, sugar–we don’t have sugar, but we have honey and syrup, and then the flour is, uh…oat somethin’, I think…”

He looks at the book again, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You can just swap things around like that?”

“Uh…think we’re gonna find out.”

She comes over to peer into the bowl, wrinkling her nose.

“Looks like diarrhea.”

“Yeah, well, hopefully it don’t taste like it,” he mutters, kneeling to open the corner cabinet, peering inside, looking for something.

Feeling brave, Ellie sticks her finger in the gooey mixture and gives it a sniff; it might look like shit, but it smells good. She takes a tentative lick.

“Not bad,” she says. 

Joel looks up from his perch on the floor. “Hey, don’t–don’t eat that–s’got raw egg in it. It’ll make you sick.”

“Dude, we’ve been eating twenty-year-old canned stew for, like, weeks.”

He opens his mouth to protest, but then thinks better of it, shaking his head and going back to the cupboard.

“Was tryin’ to find a pan in here,” he says. He has to reach deep into the back corner until the upper half of his body practically disappears into its depths, grumbling something about shoddy kitchen cabinetry over the clang of pots and pans that haven’t seen daylight in two decades. Eventually, he emerges holding a dusty silver pan in the shape of a donut.

“Think this is a bundt pan,” he says, taking it to the sink and washing it out. “But it’ll have to do.”

“Now what?” she asks, feeling more awake. 

“We…pour the batter into the pan,” he says, reading directly from the book.

“Can I?”

“Sure,” he shrugs, wiping his hands on a towel. “Have at it.”

She tips the mixing bowl into the pan, spilling a little in the process. It oozes onto the counter.

“Now what? We put it in the oven?”

“Uh…yep.”

She slides the pan into the hot oven, carefully pushing it to the middle of the rack, then closes the door. Joel turns the little kitchen timer and it starts clicking away the seconds. It reminds her of a tiny, tomato-shaped bomb.

“Did you do stuff like this before?” she says, sliding onto one of the stools at the counter, watching as Joel grabs a towel and begins wiping up the spilled batter and flour. She tries to picture him in his shoddy apartment kitchen in the QZ wearing one of those stupid aprons that says “Kiss the cook”, tries to imagine him and Tess in that dark, sad little corner of Boston whipping up a batch of muffins or cookies, the two of them acting all domestic and shit. The image is so weird, so out of place and wrong and not-Joel, she blushes.

“Uh…no. Not really. Used to buy cakes, usually. The grocery stores sold ‘em, all pre-frosted and decorated and the like. Fancy…flowers n’ shit.”

“So…no diarrhea cakes?”

He huffs a soft laugh. “No.”

“What about Sarah? Did she like to bake?”

“Mmm, yeah, I guess she did. She’d make cookies with the neighbors sometimes. But she liked the grocery store cakes fine, too,” he says. “Always insisted we get a cake for my birthday. Don’t care much for sweets, but…was more about the tradition, I s’pose.”

His eyes have gone soft the way they always do when he talks about her, his voice rough around the edges. He sighs, clearing his throat.

“It’s gonna be a while. Why don’t you go on back to bed, kiddo?”

“Don’t want to,” she yawns. “I’m invested now. Gotta know how this weird cake thing ends.”

He gives her a tired smirk. “How ‘bout a movie, then?”

Soon she’s curled up on the couch with Armageddon in the VCR. Joel tucks an afghan around her, leaves her with a pat on the head. From anyone else, the gesture would be patronizing, but from Joel, it’s nice. Comforting.

“I’ll be in the kitchen.”

She drifts in that half-space between wakefulness and sleep while the movie plays, something Joel picked out about asteroids and meteors and oil drilling. She pretends she lives in a house where she watches movies and bakes cakes with her pretend dad at 3 a.m.

When the timer’s mechanical ding sounds, she scrubs at her eyes and pauses the movie. She follows the scents of warm vanilla and honey to find Joel dozing at the kitchen table, arms folded with his chin tucked to his chest.

“Hey dude, your diarrhea cake’s gonna burn.”

He rouses and blinks at her, eyes widening as he fumbles for the hot pads on the counter and moves to open the oven. A fragrant heat wafts out as he takes out the pan. Ellie isn’t sure what the cake is supposed to look like, but it smells amazing.

“Now we gotta make the icin’.”

“The icin’,” Ellie says, mimicking his drawl. “Gotta make the icin’.”

He side-eyes her, then goes back to frowning at his cookbook. 

“I reckon we don’t have any ‘icin’ sugar’, whatever the hell that is…but…we got syrup.”

Joel puts a generous dollop of syrup into a clean bowl and Ellie pours in some cream and a splash of vanilla extract at his instruction. She sticks her finger in and tastes it, pronounces it good enough. Joel doesn’t scold her this time, even hands her the spoon to lick clean when he’s done.

“Moment of truth,” he mutters to himself as he turns the pan over on a plate and pulls it up to release the cake. No luck. Grimacing, he smacks the thing a few times, runs a knife around the edges and upturns it again. The cake finally comes out, but the top half stays firmly stuck inside the pan.

“Guess I was s’posed to flour that,” he sighs.

The result is a raggedy donut-shaped ring. It looks like a mess, but Ellie digs out a chunk of the cake’s stuck top and pops it into her mouth. It’s sweet and fluffy and warm, way better than a twenty-year-old chocolate bar.

“Dude…that’s fucking awesome.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh-huh. Not bad for diarrhea cake.”

With that, she digs out another crumbly-soft piece from the pan and stuffs it into her mouth.

“Hold on now, still gotta add the icin’.”

They drizzle the sticky-sweet icing over the ragged bottom half of the cake. Ellie sneaks another fingerful or two from the bowl and Joel pretends not to notice. Then they stand back to examine their work.

“Well, it ain’t gonna win any prizes, but…”

“Can we eat it already?”

“Sure, kid.”

He opens a drawer and finds two forks, giving one to her. But just as she’s about to dig in, he puts up a hand.

“Hold up. We should do this proper.”

He goes to the mantle in the living room and returns with a candlestick. The base fits neatly in the center hole of the cake like it was meant to be there. Joel lights a match and sets it to the wick, and the faint smell of the burning candle makes Ellie think of a campfire under the stars, sheep ranches on the moon.

“Make a wish,” he murmurs, shaking out the match.

She arches an eyebrow in a silent question.

“It’s, uh, a birthday thing,” he says. He’s getting better at hiding that “sad little orphan girl doesn’t know what a birthday is” look, at least. “You make a wish before you blow out the candle.”

“Then…I wish for infinite wishes,” she grins.

Joel chuckles. “It don’t work like that. Gotta keep it to yourself or it won’t come true.”

“That sounds like bullshit.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “Yeah, it does, come to think of it. But that’s how it’s done, anyway.”

She watches the candle flicker, the white wax dripping down.

“You wish, too,” she says, suddenly self-conscious.

“Alright. On three?”

“On three,” she agrees. “One…two…three!”

He doesn’t even try to blow out the candle. He’s too busy watching her, that same soft look in his eyes. The flame flickers out with one strong breath, and she wishes to keep pretending for a little longer.

Think my heart grew a few sizes reading this.

You write from the perspective of a teenager so well! There’s so much going on in her head, and a day like that would be so much to handle.

The last time she got in trouble, he’d pulled the, “I’m not mad, I just know you’re smarter than that,” card and that had felt worse than any punishment.

Giggled out loud imagining Joel pulling the “I’m not mad I’m just disappointed” card. Poor Ellie, being in the receiving end of one of those is the worst!

She wonders if there was anyone in the waiting room for her, if there was even a waiting room at all. Probably not, on both counts.

Oh sweet Ellie 😭❤️

Those hands had been broken and bloodied for her, they’d killed for her, but they were made for this.

This took my breath away. So wonderful of Ellie to see and see just a small glimpse into his world with Sarah.

I love how many people look out for them both. the teachers looking out for Ellie, the community asking about the baby, and getting sent home early from the stables. You can just feel how both surrounded with so much love ❤️❤️

happy birthday, baby girl - birth day

Ellie has never had a birthday. Joel can fix that.

Rating: Teen Chapter tags: The Last of Us, The Last of Us (HBO), Joel and Ellie, Ellie Williams, Joel Miller, birthdays, swearing, canon-compliant, angst, mentions of childbirth and babies

Notes: A bunch of birthday one-shots loosely based on this headcanon. This might be a five-times/one-time fic in disguise, it hasn't decided yet.

Ellie comes out of sleep to the sounds of a house waking up.

Knocking. The crackle of oil in a skillet. A door opening, footsteps downstairs. Murmurs, low voices, Joel’s and…someone else.

She squints at the clock on her nightstand; 6:35 . Her alarm hasn’t even gone off yet. Grumbling, she pulls the blanket back over her head to try to shut out the noise and almost manages it…but then she hears the telltale tread of boots on the stairs and a light knock before her bedroom door creaks open.

“Mornin’, kiddo.”

She turns over and glares at Joel, haloed by the hallway light. He hesitates at the threshold; he always does. This room has a history for them, ugly pink stripes and all. Sometimes Ellie likes that it still makes him uncomfortable after all these weeks in Jackson, worries at it like a canker sore with her tongue.

“C’mon, man. It’s too early.”

“I know. But that was Tommy downstairs–looks like Maria’s havin’ the baby.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah, that’s ‘bout what he said,” he mutters.

“So like…right now?” she asks, sitting up and pulling the comforter to her chin.

“Not quite. She’s in labor.”

“How does that…work?”

He blinks and gapes, that same stunned look she saw in the rearview mirror when she asked about Bill’s dirty magazines. “How…uh, they didn’t, uh, cover that in–”

“Gross, dude. No, I mean how does that work here ? Is Maria at the clinic, or…?”

“Oh, right,” he breathes, shoulders sagging. “No, she’s at home, there’s a, uh, midwife, I think. Won’t bring the doctor in unless things go bad.”

There’s a sinking, twisting feeling in her stomach at that. She’d known Maria was pregnant, of course, and she knew how babies were born. FEDRA school was shit, but every kid with a uterus started hormone shots when they hit puberty, and they made them watch that one awful childbirth video every year as an extra deterrent. Until now, with Joel standing in the door and talking about things going bad, she hadn’t connected the dots.

“But…things look good, right?”

“Oh, it’s…yeah, kiddo, everything’s gonna be fine,” Joel says, his voice registering a bit too high to be believable. “Tommy said everything’s fine, Maria’s good, baby’s fine…nothin’ to worry about. It’s…gonna be…everything’s gonna be…fine.”

That’s way too many “fines” for things to actually be fine. He follows this abysmal performance with a smile that’s so thin it’s practically transparent. Maybe she’s imagining it, but she thinks she can see his eye twitch. Sometimes she wonders if he knows he’s a bad liar or if he’s really fucking clueless.

“Look, I know I said we’d go camping tomorrow, but I gotta change plans,” he continues. “Tommy needs someone to cover his patrol shifts, ‘least for this week.”

“Oh,” her face falls before she can rearrange her expression into something neutral. “Alright.”

“I’m sorry, kiddo, I just…he needs us right now.”

“I get it,” she shrugs.

“Promise I’ll make it up to ya once they have his rotations covered, alright?”

She shrugs again, swallows hard. This is so much to process and she’s just barely woken up.

“I gotta go, gotta get the horses ready,” he says. “I’ll leave breakfast. You good to get yourself to school?”

“You mean like I do every day?”

“Right,” he nods. “Okay. Should be home for dinner–”

“Whatever,” she says flatly.

“I–”

“Dude, I’m fine,” she groans, throwing herself back into the bed and yanking the covers over her head. “Go.”

He lingers for a moment, then sighs. “Have a good day, kiddo.”

“Bye.”

She waits until she hears the screen door slam and Joel's boots on the porch steps before tossing off the blanket in a huff. There’s no way she’s getting back to sleep now. Stupid Joel and this stupid family and their stupid baby–

No, no, she takes that back, bile rising hot and thick in the back of her throat. No, the baby needs to be okay, Maria needs to be okay, they’ve lost too much already. Her disappointment over the camping trip wilts and withers in the face of a worst-case scenario. All she can hear are Joel’s paper-thin assurances– fine, fine, fine .

She lingers in bed long after her alarm has gone off, throwing on her jeans and a shirt in a rush. Downstairs, she pointedly ignores the plate of scrambled eggs and toast and sliced apples Joel left on the stove, suppressing a gag at the smell of fresh coffee in the air. Her appetite is fickle at the best of times and this is definitely not the best of times. She shoves her feet into her shoes without bothering to tie the laces and grabs her backpack from the hook by the door.

The other Miller house is surprisingly calm as she steps onto the porch. She half expected to hear Maria’s cries of pain echoing across the street, but the place is quiet, nothing to suggest this is anything but an ordinary day.

She drags her feet all the way to school, earning a look from Mrs. Abraham when she creeps into class just after the first bell, and the next two hours pass in an agonizing crawl. Every time she looks at the clock at the front of the classroom, the minute hand seems to taunt her, barely moving at all. Twice she puts her head down on her desk just to feel the press of the cool wood against her forehead, twice she gets a light poke on the shoulder and a frown from the teacher in warning. While Mrs. Abraham drones on about quadratic equations, all she can think about is Joel’s pathetic attempt to reassure her this morning– everything’s gonna work out fine , yeah, right.

Dina makes it worse by cornering her in the hall between second and third period.

“I heard someone’s gonna have a new cousin soon.”

A cousin.

Ellie doesn’t respond, pretending to look for something at the back of her locker. Dina isn’t so bad…usually. She’s one of the few who’s made an effort despite Ellie’s clear attempts to blow her off. But right now, the last thing she needs is her chirpy, Polly Positive bullshit.

“So d’you think she’ll have the baby today, or–”

“How the hell should I know?” Ellie snaps, slamming her locker door. “I’m stuck here, same as you.”

“Jeez, what’s your problem?”

Ellie doesn’t answer, just brushes past her and makes for the bathroom as the third period bell rings. Fuck it, she’ll skip. Mr. Henderson manages to make science boring as shit, anyway.

Once the halls have cleared out, she sneaks out the back of the school and escapes into the yard, trekking past the school garden and the little kids’ playground toward the greenhouses. The raspberry bushes are thick this time of year, mostly picked over, but they make a good place to hide. She crawls between the rows and plants herself toward the back, out of sight of the gardeners working in the greenhouses and the fields on the other side. Her stomach growls and she plucks a few of the forgotten, overripe berries from the lowest branches, letting them burst with tart sweetness on her tongue. The juice stains her fingers a bloody red, dampening her appetite as quickly as it came.

She pulls out one of her comics and tries to read, but the story is too familiar to hold her attention. While Dr. Daniela Star is preparing to take on the threat posed by a strange alien lifeform, her mind keeps drifting back to Maria, to hormone shots, then to Dina’s words.

A new baby cousin.

“Cousin” implies Tommy is her uncle and Maria is her aunt, which means Joel is her…well, what the fuck does Dina know, anyway?

She shoves her comic back into her bag and flops onto her back in the dirt, wincing at the brightness of the summer sky. Her shoulders are sticky with sweat and she scratches at her scar over her sleeve. She wonders what Joel is doing. He only started patrol shifts a couple weeks ago, but every time he leaves, a hollow knot of worry takes up residence behind her breastbone.

She wishes desperately for her old Walkman, that she could put on some headphones and crank up the volume to drown out her thoughts. Instead, she watches a bumblebee dip and buzz among the raspberry branches, finally alighting on a leaf. She digs her fingers into the soil to feel the cool earth and takes a deep breath the way Joel showed her–in for four, hold for four, out for four. The knot loosens a tiny fraction.

When she can't listen to her mind run in circles any longer, she heads to the cafeteria for lunch, blending in with the line of kids coming from school. It’s her favorite today, grilled cheese and tomato soup and carrot sticks, but one bite of the sandwich sends her stupid stomach roiling. She chokes it down with a glass of water and a spoonful of soup, but spends the rest of her lunch break picking her food into tiny pieces that she can’t eat. She pockets the carrots for Shimmer and leaves before anyone notices.

She fully intends to skip the rest of the school day and hide in the hayloft or the greenhouse until her shift at the stables, but no such luck. She’s passing the school when she hears a familiar voice call her name.

“Ellie Williams.”

Mrs. Abraham is standing at the edge of the schoolyard, beckoning her over with one crooked finger.

“Fuuuuuuck,” Ellie groans, but she turns around and trudges back.

“A little bird told me you weren’t here for third period. You were missed.”

Ellie scowls. “Was it Dina?”

“Actually, it was Mr. Henderson,” she says, cocking an eyebrow and biting back a smirk. “He said there was, and I quote, ‘a distinct lack of foul language’ during the lecture on climate systems. Like I said, you were missed.”

Ellie bites her lip, thinking fast. “Joel said he needed me for something after lunch.”

“Your dad is on patrol today,” she says wryly. “I know this because so is my wife. No one has radioed.”

Fucking fuck.

“Yeah, but he told Tommy and–“

“And I know your uncle and aunt are otherwise occupied,” she continues. “I heard all about it from Dr. Tsu at lunch. Very exciting, you’re going to have a new family member soon.”

“I guess,” Ellie mutters.

“Tell you what,” she says. “I won’t tell your dad that you skipped class if you go straight to Mr. Henderson and pick up your make-up work after school–”

“Fine.”

“ And you have to promise not to skip the rest of the day. Deal?”

The question in her tone is meant to make it seem like a choice, but Ellie knows better. If she tries to cut class again, Joel will hear about it. He probably wouldn’t even care that much, but he’d be annoyed at having to deal with her teachers. The last time she got in trouble, he’d pulled the, “I’m not mad, I just know you’re smarter than that,” card and that had felt worse than any punishment.

Ellie stares at the ground and gives Mrs. Abraham a tight nod, digging her nails into her palms.

“Good. Now, let’s get you back where you’re meant to be.”

Ellie rolls her eyes and stomps into school, back to her next class. Dina gives her a what the hell look when she takes her seat in a huff, but at least she keeps her big mouth shut.

The rest of the day drags on in a monotonous slog. Her knee won’t stop bouncing, eraser end of the pencil tapping frantically on her notebook until stupid Michael Sumner at the next desk glares at her. She flips him the bird with one nail-bitten finger.

She watches the classroom door, hoping for Joel’s broad, flannel-clad frame to appear and dismiss her early. Then she decides that would probably mean bad news, so she switches to willing him not to appear. But what if she’s wishing for him not to show up and something bad happens? She was kind of a shit to him this morning, even though it’s not his fault he had to cancel their camping trip. Sure, he said patrols were usually uneventful and “downright borin’ on the best days,” but with her luck, today will be the not-boring kind.

Fuck. What if the last thing she ever said to him is “bye”?

By the time the last bell rings, she’s ready to crawl out of her skin. She throws herself down the hall, doesn’t bother to pick up her science homework. She slams through the double doors and outside into the warm sun, desperate to get away.

At least she has stable duty to look forward to. As soon as she enters the barn, the familiar scents of fresh hay and leather polish calm her a little. She slings her backpack down in the corner and goes straight to Shimmer’s stall.

“Hey, girl,” she whispers. “You all alone today?”

“She’s been waitin’ for ya.”

Bryce, the stable manager, speaks up from his desk in the little office. He’s a wiry old man with white hair and kind eyes who likes to joke that he’s sharper than the average breadstick, which makes no fucking sense, but Ellie gets the impression it’s not supposed to.

She smiles a little and strokes Shimmer’s velvety soft nose. “She’s getting so big.”

“Uh-huh. Don’t get too comfy in there, young miss. Need ya to muck out number three ‘fore the patrols get back.”

Ellie does, shoveling out the stall and laying fresh shavings down, cleaning and filling the water and feed troughs. When that’s done, she takes her break and spends more time with Shimmer, brushing her down and sneaking her the carrots from her pocket when Bryce isn’t looking.

Her shift is supposed to end at four, but she lingers to finish mucking out one more stall and clean the spare tack. Joel promised to meet her after, but that was before he went out on patrol. His group isn’t back yet, anyway. When the work is no longer enough to keep her worries at bay, she approaches Bryce in the office.

“Hey…any word from the group that went out this morning?”

“Nothin’ on the radio, young miss. Should be back soon, though. No news is good news.”

That’s a fucking lie, she thinks dully, going back to spread fresh shavings in the last stall. No news could mean Joel is lying dead in a ditch somewhere. No news could mean Tommy is a widower or a childless father or both. No news is bullshit.

Finally, she can’t come up with any more excuses to hang around and Bryce shoos her away, tells her to go home and wash up and get dinner. “Too damn skinny to be working so hard,” he says, and she bites her tongue on a few choice “cuss words”, as Joel calls them, because she likes the stables and she likes the horses and she even likes Bryce when he’s not being a dick.

She walks slowly down Rancher Street, dreading the unknown expanse of time until Joel gets home. It’s still daylight, but their house looms like a dark, empty shadow.

Just then, Tommy steps onto the porch at the house across the street. He’s wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a plain white t-shirt, his normally shiny curls flat and mussed, feet bare. Ellie stops short, barely recognizing the man without his denim and cowboy boots.

He doesn’t notice her at first, just kind of stares off into space, and her stomach clenches. Her feet begin moving toward him without her permission, and Tommy finally comes to when he sees her at the curb.

“Hey, Ellie girl.”

She opens her mouth, meaning to greet him, but what comes out is a rush of questions.

“Where’s Maria? Is the baby here? Is it–”

He holds up a hand, eyes tired but calm. “Baby’s not here yet, but everythin’s fine,” he says evenly.

“Oh. Shouldn’t you be, like, up there?”

He sighs and takes a seat on the top step, tips his head to the spot next to him. Tommy is familiar now, even safe, but she still sits a couple steps down, keeping some space between them.

“Just takin’ a breather,” he sighs. “Maria’s orders. Says things are probably gettin’ real interestin’ soon and I need a clear head.”

Ellie glances up at the house. “Is Maria okay? Is it…bad?”

“Oh, a little labor pain ain’t nothin’ for that woman. Don’t gotta worry about her, sweetheart,” he chuckles. “This is the easy part, everythin’ that comes after…that’s where the real fun is.”

Somehow his reassurances land right where she needs them, some of the day’s fear untwining itself from her ribs. She takes a deep breath, that hollowed-out spot soothed a little by the fresh air and the company.

“No Joel yet, huh?” he asks as if reading her mind.

She shakes her head.

He nods thoughtfully. “S’just a normal run. No news is–“

“Ugh, don’t say it,” she groans. “I know, I get it, he’s fine.”

“Okay, then,” he sighs, looking out over their street, content to sit quietly.

But her worry grows in the silence, so soon she peers up at him. “Were you there when Sarah was born?”

“Oh…yeah, yeah, I was. In the waitin’ room ‘til all hours. She kept us waitin’ awhile. Always did things on her own time like that, right from the get-go,” he smiles.

He gets the same soft look in his eyes that Joel does when he talks about Sarah, the look that makes her heart clench. She wonders if there was anyone in the waiting room for her, if there was even a waiting room at all. Probably not, on both counts.

“I was the first one to hold her…after her mama and daddy, of course. Weren’t much older than you are now,” he says, still smiling, though there’s a slight tremble in his chin now. “Felt pretty special, though. She was so small. Joel was hoverin’ over my shoulder the whole time, all puffed up like a damn peacock.”

She tries to picture Joel with a baby and can’t do it. She’s seen his hands broken and scarred and bloody, can’t imagine them holding something so fragile, so pristine. He’s gentle with her, of course, but she’s the furthest thing from pure.

“That girl had us both wrapped around her little finger from day one,” Tommy murmurs, then nudges her shoulder with his knee. “Not unlike another kid I know.”

She stares at her hands, all ragged cuticles and chewed fingernails. Then footsteps at the door, the midwife’s voice calling from inside. “Tommy? She’s asking for you.”

“You alright on your own?” he frowns, visibly torn. “Your old man should be back any minute–”

“I’m fine,” she says quickly, wiping her palms on her jeans and standing up. “Good luck, I guess.”

He gives her a tired wink. “Here goes nothin’.”

She makes her way down the little walk, resigned to returning to the empty house across the street, when she sees a familiar figure turn the corner at the end of the cul-de-sac. Relief spurs her forward until she’s practically running at him, colliding with Joel in the middle of the road.

“Whoa…easy, kid.”

She buries her face in his chest, traitorous eyes welling with tears. She presses into him harder, wraps her arms around his waist and melts even more when she feels one big, rough paw come up to cradle the back of her head.

“Everythin’ alright?” he asks carefully.

“S’fine,” she mutters, still clinging to him like a barnacle. “Baby’s not here yet.”

“Ah. Well, takes time, I guess.”

She sniffs. “Tommy said things’re good, though.”

“Glad to hear it,” he says, murmuring low into her hair. “Sure you’re okay, kiddo?”

“Uh-huh,” she mumbles, throat tight. If she tries to say more she’ll start bawling, so she holds on tight and waits for her heart to settle. When she finally pulls back, he’s watching her with concern, but he doesn’t ask questions and he doesn’t mention the tears now drying on the front of his shirt, thank fuck.

“How was patrol?” 

“Nothin’ special. That Jesse kid got his horse caught up on an old perimeter fence, took a while to get ‘im loose. How was school?”

She shrugs, wipes at her eyes. “Stupid. As usual.”

That earns her a smirk.

“Why don’t we go back to the house and get cleaned up ‘fore dinner?” he wrinkles his nose. “You smell like a horse.”

“You smell like an asshole,” she fires back, but her smile betrays her. That hollow under her breastbone is full. The scary things always feel lighter when she’s with him.

“Takes one to know one, you little punk,” he mutters, giving her ponytail a gentle tug as they walk back to their house.

After showers, they head to the caf to get dinner. It’s busy tonight, the dining hall aromatic with the smells of garlic and fresh-baked bread and thrumming with friendly chatter. Ellie’s stomach gives a loud growl as they wait in the serving line, and she eats her fill of vegetable soup and goes back for more, dipping her buttered oat bread in her bowl so it soaks up the last of the broth.

“Slow down,” Joel chides as she’s slurping up her second bowl of soup.

“But m’starving,” she mutters, mouth full of bread.

“If y’ate your damn breakfast–”

She blinks up at him, shoving another giant hunk of bread in her mouth.

“Yeah, don’t think I didn’t notice,” he sighs.

“Wasn’t hungry then,” she counters. “M’hungry now.”

Several people approach them while they’re eating to ask about the new baby, to ask how Maria and Tommy are faring, and to send their well-wishes. More than once, Ellie has to stop shoveling bread and soup into her mouth to tell them what she knows.

There’s custard for dessert with fresh whipped cream, and when she finally puts down her spoon, her jeans feel snug and she thinks she could fall asleep right here in the middle of the caf, with Joel at her side and a full stomach and the buzz of conversation around them. She leans into him and lets her eyes close, comforted by the familiar softness of his t-shirt against her cheek. She must have drifted off, because soon Joel is nudging her awake.

“Hey, sleepyhead. Time to go home.”

Home.

Joel grabs extra food from the kitchen before they leave, a jar of vegetable soup and packets of baked chicken and warm crusty bread for Tommy and Maria. They walk back to Rancher Street with the food in a tote, prepared to leave it on the porch, but Tommy sees them coming and meets them outside, a little breathless.

“Y’all wanna come meet the new kid in town?”

She feels Joel tense at her side and the day’s nerves resettle like a heavy stone alongside the food in her stomach.

“You have a niece, big brother,” he says, clapping Joel on the back and pulling him into a fierce hug. Ellie has to look away because the mushy stuff makes the sinking feeling worse. Then Joel’s hand is on her shoulder, squeezing like he needs something to hold onto.

“C’mon.”

They’re ushered upstairs and into the bedroom, lit by the glow of a single lamp. Maria is sitting up in bed holding the new baby, tired but smiling.

“It’s a girl?” Ellie asks, unable to stop herself from leaning over the bed to peer at the swaddled bundle. 

“A girl,” Maria confirms, carefully angling the baby so Ellie can see her face, all scrunched up, poking out from the soft yellow blanket. “She’s had a hard day, but she’s eight pounds of pure spitfire.”

“Just like her mama,” Tommy preens. “You wanna hold her?”

It takes a moment for Ellie to realize he’s talking to her.

She hesitates until Joel gently nudges her forward. “Go ahead, kiddo.”

She’d held babies at the orphanage, but never one so new. She’s nervous as Tommy places the baby in her arms.

“Hold her head, just like that; neck’s a li’l floppy.”

She does, cradling her with one hand on her bottom and the other supporting her neck. The solid weight and warmth of her against her chest is soothing. The baby seems to melt into her, settling with a stretch and a sigh under Ellie’s chin.

“What’s her name?” she whispers, absently stroking the back of her head the way Joel sometimes does with her.

“Isabel,” Maria says. “Isabel Sofia.”

“Hi, Isabel,” she whispers against the girl’s curly brown head. “I’m Ellie.”

“S’your cousin, baby girl,” Tommy says, touching Isabel’s back, and the word falls around Ellie’s shoulders like a shirt that doesn’t quite fit. The baby gives a tiny, sleepy grunt, and a new feeling swells and burns bright as a comet in Ellie’s chest.

Joel leans in the door frame, arms folded, expression unreadable in the low light. He hasn’t said much, just a few murmured words to Maria asking how she’s feeling, offering to help while she’s recovering. All the while he’s watching Ellie and the baby with wan hesitation. She looks over at him, grinning.

“She’s all wrinkly…just like Uncle Joel.”

Tommy doesn’t even try to suppress a snort of laughter. Even Maria is hiding a smile behind her hand.

“Yeah, laugh it up,” Joel grumbles. “You see how you look when that one’s fifteen an’ turnin’ your hair gray with her sass.”

“Dude, you were old waaaay before you met me. Like a fuckin’ dinosaur.”

“At least half these grays have your name on ‘em, kid.”

“Bullshit,” she says easily, but she’s already lost interest, too busy examining the little hand that has escaped the swaddling blanket. “Whoa. She’s so tiny. Joel, come see!”

“I saw, kiddo. She’s, uh…she’s real pretty.”

“Gets that from her mama too,” Tommy says, and Maria rolls her eyes.

“Thomas Miller, save your flattery for when I’m not wearing a goddamn diaper.”

“Never looked more beautiful, baby.”

“Your parents are gross,” Ellie whispers to Isabel; the baby sleeps on, unconcerned.

When the conversation wanes, she looks up to find Joel still eyeing them. 

“You gonna hold her or what?” she asks.

He winces, and for a moment, she thinks he’s going to say no. Then he ducks his head in a nod.

“Alright. Give her here.”

He scoops up the baby with practiced ease and tucks her against his chest. There’s no awkward fumbling, none of his former hesitance. He sways on his feet, looking down at the little girl, whispering something Ellie can’t make out. He smiles then, a sad but inescapable thing, and she feels that stone in her stomach grow and grow, all their earlier light-hearted teasing forgotten.

She watches his hands, big enough to span the baby’s back, rubbing in slow circles, and she realizes she was wrong. Those hands had been broken and bloodied for her, they’d killed for her, but they were made for this.

When the grown-ups start talking about Maria’s maternity plans and patrol schedules and how the council will get by for a few weeks without her, she slips out of the room and goes downstairs.

She wants to run. She wants to curl up on the couch and sleep. She wants Joel to hold her like he did earlier, palm to the back of her head so she can hide from the world.

It’s too much; the phantom weight of the baby on her chest and the comet within, your cousin , the smile on Joel’s face even as he looked like he wanted to cry. Isabel was barely two hours old and she’d already embedded herself in their family, slotted into place like a missing puzzle piece. It’s not jealousy–it’s not–but the thought of Joel’s hands on the little girl’s back fills her with a yearning she doesn’t have words for.

She finds herself standing at the mantle.

Sarah, 7/20/89 - 9/27/03

Kevin, 4/3/00 - 9/29/03

Without thinking, Ellie grabs a match from the box on the hearth and lights it, touching the head to Sarah’s candle, then to Kevin’s before blowing it out and tossing the blackened remnant in the fireplace. She watches the twin flames flicker and burn like the candle on her birthday cake. It is a birthday, after all. They should be part of it, too.

Then, a shining reflection out of the corner of her eye. She turns toward it, watches as the polished glass of the picture frame reflects the dancing fire.

She’s been over every inch of this room; every weekly family dinner with the Millers ends with Maria and Tommy on the couch and Joel in the chair and Ellie browsing the bookshelves while they talk. She’s cataloged every memento and salvaged family photo because there are so few.

But she’s never seen this one before. She definitely would have remembered it.

It’s Joel–a young Joel, no gray in his hair, fewer wrinkles around his eyes, god she almost doesn’t recognize him he’s so fucking light . His hip is cocked, a grin so bright it’s blinding, one arm slung around a young girl’s shoulders. She’s making a goofy face, throwing a peace sign, braces flashing in the sun, soccer ball at her feet.

There’s no doubt who she’s looking at. The love in Joel’s expression gives it away.

Sarah.

She gets it now; the pain on his face, the hesitation. Sarah would have looked a lot like the little girl upstairs.

Joel’s familiar steps on the stairs, the warmth of him at her back.

“Oh.” It’s less a word and more a sharp, punched-out breath.

She hunches a little, looking up at him over her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I just…it was right there, I didn’t–“

“S’alright,” he murmurs, resting a hand on the nape of her neck in reassurance. “I just…wasn’t expectin’ it is all. You didn’t do nothin’ wrong.”

“That’s her, isn’t it?” she whispers.

He takes the photo from her hands, examining it. “Yeah. That’s…that’s Sarah. Soccer tournament in ‘02, think it was.”

“Where did it come from?”

“Tommy went back to Austin a couple years ago, I guess. Found it at the old house. Said there wasn’t much left, but this one was in a drawer or somethin’. Showed it to me when we got here, but I told him…told him to keep it. Couldn’t…didn’t think I could, uh…have her around,” he whispers thickly, brow furrowed.

A sad smile pulls at the corner of his mouth as he hands the picture back. “S’a good one, though. We can put it up at the house if you want. Think I’d…think I could be alright with that…now.”

He notices the candles on the mantle then. “You, uh…you light these?”

“Seemed like the thing to do.”

“Yeah,” he breathes. “It’s…that’s good.”

She shrugs, staring at the photo again, studying it like an archaeologist looking for meaning in the rubble.

“I’d never seen her before,” she says carefully, chewing at her lower lip. “She doesn’t look like you.”

“Yeah…got that a lot,” he chuckles. “Got her mama’s looks and my attitude. An’ let me tell you, arguin’ with a miniature version of yourself all day ain’t as fun as it sounds.”

She pictures a pocket-sized Joel with a chipmunk voice yelling up at her and almost cracks a smile.

“Was a lot like you that way,” he continues. “Too smart for her own damn good and no filter on that mouth.”

He nudges her, quietly letting her know he’s teasing.

“She was all mine, though,” he murmurs. “Through an’ through.”

Mine .

The word sends another pang of longing through her, so strong she shudders. He must pick up on it, because he squeezes her shoulder gently, shaking it a little.

“Hey. That goes for you, too.”

She doesn’t have a response for that. She’s been reduced to the weight of the frame in her hand, the lump in her throat, the comet in her chest, the stone in her stomach.

She goes easily when he puts an arm around her and pulls her into his side, warm and safe and slotted into place like a missing puzzle piece, a mirror image of the photo she holds in her hand.

This fic is my Roman Empire, and if you aren't reading it yet, you should start now.

Many thanks for all the patience yall have shown me as I’ve taken my sweet time with this chapter.

That being said :

I think this is the chapter most of yall have been hankering for. So. Enjoy!

WIP Title Ask Meme

Prompt: Make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Thanks for the tag, @adhdprincess!

(these are all TLOU fics)

Definitely Happening:

Scars

AbelCode

Support Group (not the final name)

Ghosts

Maybe Happening:

A Dungeon Master’s Guide to Trauma

Orange Juice

Turnaround

September (not the final name)

Criminal (not the final name)

Tagging: @mildredellie @captainredspade @wordspinning @logan178 @freetobeyouandmichi-me and anyone else who wants! (Sorry if I tagged you and you already did one, I tried not to tag anyone who already went but I probably failed lol)

Edit: So it seams like I yes! Alright then, I’ll actually post it tmrw instead of today!

Edit Edit: Okay actually today lol. New chapter out now!

Buckle up, folks, ‘cause shit goes down🔥🔪🩸

Chapter 6: Bones out on Saturday!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/56435545

SKIN PART 2 OUT NOW GO READ IT

I’m struggling with writing Scars rn, so someone send me a non-smut request for a gen TLOU fic and I’ll try to make at least one happen❤️❤️

(I have a billion other WIPs rn but for some reason I want a new one lol)

I’ll be real with you guys, I’ve been having trouble writing recently, and just some cool quick stories will help me tons! Please send some TLOU fic suggestions and I’ll write a bit for some of them!!

(Also, check out the person who inspired me to do this, and who has written some incredible snips of stories: @lauronk someone who’s writing I can only dream of being half as good as)

I wish you would write a fic where...

Send me an anymous (or not) summary of the fic you wish I would write. (maybe I will write a tidbit)